Saturday. I get a ride to work from the sister. It's my turn to buy breakfast. This morning I have no bike with me. I have no bag full of stuff which I take back and forth to work with me. I have a cloth bag, which I'm sure no one got me, but rather I must have picked up at one of the Body, Mind, Spirit Festivals. Inside the bag are a pair of dress pants, a buttoned-down shirt, and a tie. I couldn't tell you where in my home I put any tie clasps. I suddenly realize, I can use a skirt clip. Here in the store are a collection of these clips, returned to us by customers, still on the hangers they bring back to us. The clips hold garments such as skirts onto hangers, garments which can't otherwise be hung. I won't be riding home today. I'm a ride from a lady who I'm dating. We are expected at the wedding of my boss. To get there, I spent an hour and a half last night drawing a map from a source online. When we actually get out among the hills and mesas, the phone reception is spotty and I don't trust it to get us there, where neither of us have ever been. It's a beautiful summer afternoon, and being inside a moving vehicle among the highways between the cities brings back memories of being on vacation, where I haven't been for some fifteen years. I chose country roads and smaller highways, as my lady does not prefer the interstate. But my map turns out to be inadequate, as we end up on a road which not on the map. We did cross a bridge over the interstate. We have no choice but to take it. I know where it goes, and I have a good idea how to get to the wedding from there. We make it just as the ceremony as beginning. It's a nice afternoon. She takes photos of myself and the two of us around a pond where the ceremony was. I spot a waitress from the place where I have breakfast before work. I introduce her to my lady. She tells me that she is the wife of the attorney of my boss. I make more introductions of my lady to people from work, including my boss.
The following day is a tight schedule. I get a call in the morning from my coworker. There's no emergency this time. She simply wants a four-day weekend. I will be working for her tomorrow...which means I must be in bed by 8 PM. I do laundry and grocery shopping, which I didn't have a chance to do yesterday. Then I want to hit the gym and the waterpark. Both this month and the next, the transit system is suspending any fare. I wonder if the system has its new policy of keeping transients off its trains and buses, and out of its stations, because they can no longer bust them for being without any fare. I head for the pool first. I ride out to a boulevard and follow it there, looking for anyplace to grab lunch. I end up at an Italian place I've never heard of. From there I ride to the waterpark for a swim, and it's a short ride from there to the gym. Afterward, I hop on a train which drops me at a station from which I ride crosstown. I'm back in my old neighborhood. I stop into the big deal shopping mall, here in the big deal neighborhood. I have some Greek fast food. I missed the annual Greek Festival out this way this year, but it was rained out the day I would have gone anyway. Here in the mall, the fashionable patrons still entertain. Just outside this Greek place is a middle-aged guy with dreadlocks. He has a teenaged helper and the pair are cleaning sneakers while customers wait. Or that's the plan. The teenager makes a pitch to a passing family, "Your sneakers will look golden." "They already look golden," replies a daughter. Here in the mall, I notice that the yogurt place is under new ownership. A pair of sisters from Turkey have been replaced by some shlub. It's hot outside as I peruse the art fest. Then I ride home, stopping along the way to chat with an old friend and former coworker. She lives down the street from where I do, and is out on her porch. We discuss the white neighborhood residents replacing the Hispanic ones. I make it home before eight.
Monday morning. I'm up at 4 AM. Out by back patio door, I see across the street in the dark. Someone is walking down the sidewalk with some kind of light. It's as bright as a single headlight in a car. The day goes past quickly. On the 4th I'm on my way back to the sporting goods supercenter. It's time to have a reckoning with the sad job the place did on my brakes. I leave the house without any breakfast. I have a single front brake which barely works, and I'm headed downhill steeply as I make my way out of my neighborhood and toward a train station. I'm after a train to the trail around downtown, and straight to the supercenter. Preparing to cross a busy intersection, I lose a sandal before it's back on. It's not long before I'm at the supercenter's front door, where I try in vain to avoid the endless parade of patrons who attempt to hold the door for me. Just when I think the coast is clear, I make a break for the door. A pair of giggling guys behind me insist on holding it for me. The three of us have it until I manage to steer my bike inside. I will later see them aimlessly wander in and out of the bike shop. I mention to a guy behind the counter that my brakes are fucked up. He takes my bike back and puts it up on the rack. He's tightening and readjusting both brakes when I spot the tech who did the work this other guy is redoing. He's assisting a dad with his little daughter's flat tire. After that, he's telling another customer about "muscle memory" and cycling. The two employees are both her together, but nothing is said about the one redoing the other's work. The other guy has found other issues with my bike. I believe that it's so old, that certain parts are finally wearing out. It's time for a new chain. Both the cassette and rear hub are loose, perhaps missing a bearing or two. The crank shaft is loose, and the pedals are about to fall apart. Perhaps it will be another $150 worth of work. This little bike has taken me many places on the weekend, and I elect to keep it going. It's slated to be done on the 13th. The guy asks me to pick out a pair of pedals from another spot in the supercenter and bring them to him. I find the spot and choose a pedal on display. It takes two employees to figure out where a pair of them are in stock. It turns out that the sign next to the one I want has the wrong brand name and price. I watch neither of them replace it with the proper price. The plan now is to hike back to the train. Past the downtown confluence of two rivers, in which people and dogs are splashing. Past the park across from a high rise, in which twentysomethings are playing volleyball. Up over the steps across the train tracks. I run in to a Whole Foods for some take out buffet to eat on the train. The train whips me back to my boulevard. I'm at a stop for a bus home, on a corner notorious for its street inhabitants. A gaggle of drunks sit along a curb next to a patch of grass, at one end of a gas station-turned-liquor store. A big sign reads, "no loitering". One guy pipes up. "I'm going to tell you something more amazing than anything else." He mentions something about Jesus, that he can solve any problem, or he can perform some miracle. "You ever heard of anything more amazing than that?" Another guy replies, "Bullshit!" There's a massive dark cloud moving in front of the sun. My bus pulls up and a guy steps off. He tells me he likes my Spandex shorts. He doesn't mention anything about cycling, but tells me he had some in the 1980s.
I get home and take another bike out. I'm headed for the waterpark. I ride to the train which takes me three stops south. From there, it's a short ride to the pool. There's a long park below the waterpark, where kids splash in a creek. Residents are setting up tents and grills for the fireworks display. Police are on hand with ATVs. After my swim, it's back to the train and home again. I have a date with my lady. We have a lovely Independence Day dinner at our favorite Mexican place down the street. After our date, she's off to work her overnight shift. I'm off to spend the night at the sister's place. I get out of my neighborhood every 4th of July. The place is an overnight fireworks festival. In the morning, the sister tells me that there were a couple of thunderstorms overnight. I slept right through them. She takes me to breakfast, where I mention to her the new stated transit system policy. She was a lawyer for decades, and points out that the transit system is exposing itself to accusations (and perhaps cases) of profiling. I ride home to drop off some toiletries before heading to the waterpark. It's overcast and again chilly, but I decide to do a swim anyway. It will be chilly through the next couple of days. When I get home, there's a message from my coworker. Can I come in early? I must collect myself if Iam to make the bus to work's doorstep. I'm not upset about not swimming on a crummy swimming day. My lady's daughter posts on Facebook that she's "sick of this shit." She's referring to the weather. Yeah, I get it. But when it get's hot, it won't be so cool overnight. The heat is forecast for next week. On the way home, I stop at one supermarket and pick up some items. I want to get shopping done before Sunday. There's another outdoor festival on the schedule. The following morning, I'm approaching the intersection of the two trails which I take to work. Here is a shelter with a table and benches. It's a popular spot for homeless, and a guy is here now. His assorted stuff is scattered about. As the sun rises, it casts his shadow on what appears to be a rain fly strung up between two poles of the shelter. I would stop to take a shot, but I would be right next to him. And he would wonder what I was doing. After work, I'm on the way to the waterpark just as clouds have rolled in front of the sun. Before I get there, it's raining and thundering. I nix the pool and move on to the gym. After my workout, I exit to blue skies. It's too late to make it back there, and they've probably shut down for the day. It's a 'tired of this shit' kind of afternoon.
"No horn..."
Sunday. The sister has discovered a new rec center with an indoor pool. The pool has a kind of lazy river. But it has powerful jets which makes it a unique swimming experience. It has a hot tub and a therapy pool, as well as a few lap lanes. It's perfect for her rehabilitation. After her swim, she's off to take a nap. I'm off to hit the waterpark and then the outdoor festival. It's a much better swimming day. I ride to a train which I take downtown. It's the fastest way to the fest, which is just east of downtown, in my old neighborhood. I'm passing through downtown along a handy bike lane, and I exit the lane and head toward a bike lane which runs straight east out of downtown. I'm slowly rolling along the sidewalk, on one of my standby bikes. It has hydraulic brakes, and they aren't as tight as cables. I need to press down harder and earlier to come to a complete stop. When I do, they make a long squeak. A young guy hears this and asks me, "Is that your brakes or is that a horn?" I reply, "No horn..." I hit the festival and purchase something for my lady. I hit the pizza place for dinner. On the way home, I come up the street of a former coworker. She's out on her porch. Her youngest begins college this Autumn. We discuss, among other things, the Caucasians moving into the neighborhood. She tells me in Spanish that the Hispanic residents can no longer afford their homes. I assume she refers to the property taxes. They are decamping. She tells me she sees the most new Caucasians in the park right next to her home. It's a big park with a pond and a path around it. Her next door neighbor is now a Caucasian thirtysomething. He's cutting his front lawn with a rider mower. I ask her if he ever speaks to her. She replies that her husband and speak English, and they talk to him. To her, he just says "Hi."
Monday. yesterday was...fun. Not miserable, not chilly. It was fun. Thanks to moving my workout and shopping out of my Sunday, if I hadn't hit the fest, I would have had time to hit a city swimming pool as well as the waterpark. At the pool, I can actually get some swimming done. This morning, I'm sitting under the shade of a tree. I'm sitting on the grass, next to a stop for the bus to work's doorstep. Last night, I had no call from my coworker. I had no voicemail from her when I awoke this morning. I got a call shortly before 9 AM, when I was contemplating hitting the waterpark. Can I come in a couple of hours early? I can. I get ready to leave, and I leave later than I would have liked. So I put the literal pedal again to the metal. After hitting the bank, I may have set a new personal record for getting to the stop. Tuesday. Again I stay late after work, this time merely an hour. I jump on the bus to the train, to a couple of stations away. I ride toward home and am just a couple of corners away from the long street a block from my own. I watch a Caucasian couple walking down the sidewalk, toward the park next to my friend's home. I follow them toward my own home. Another Caucasian couple is walking out of the park with a dog. There's one Vietnamese guy on a bicycle, Hispanics practicing a dance and others playing soccer, and an entire Caucasian girls sports team. They can't be from the high school just down my boulevard. This entire team is Caucasian girls. But they're using this park. My friend was right. It's an odd feeling simply being among other Caucasians in the neighborhood where I live. It's as if I've travelled into some kind of other time. I want to tell my friend. I get to the far end of the park and there she is with her husband. I mention to her that she's correct.
...the postwar housing boom, a land rush that changed the face almost as radically as the settling of the frontier. The new communities bore no resemblance to...upper-class bedroom suburbs... [These new] suburbanites...were mostly working stiffs... Now...they had a leg up on life...with low-interest loans... ...modest people with modest means... - Means of Escape, by P. Caputo, 1991, 2002
Wednesday. I need more of an item I can't find at my usual grocer. After work, I turn off of the trail home and into a big shopping center. At a super Target I find the item. I also take a look at the bike merch for a new seat cushion for the bicycle. They have none. I then head to Chilis across the lot for dinner. They have some flat screen TVs, none of which are showing Wimbledon. From there I get back on my bike. I do not slip and land on my knee, as I did a month and a half ago. Thursday morning. Today and tomorrow, my coworker would like me to come in a couple of hours early. Yesterday, I made it to the waterpark before work. 'Twas a fine swim. But before I left for the pool, I saw clouds in front of the sun. I decided not to take the time to put on sunscreen. During the ride there, and the entire time I swam as well as the ride to work, the sun was out. After I was safely indoors, of course, the clouds rolled in and stayed there. Sunscreen is a roll of the dice in Colorado. This morning, I do have time to put on sunscreen. I head out toward a cafe next to a stop for the bus to work. I pass the other golf course just onto the trail to work. One kid holding a golf club looks right at me just a few feet away. A slew of cyclists with 10-speeds and racing gear ride past. Two of them have neon yellow helmets. This cafe does have Wimbledon on all three of its flat screens. A pair of young women are battling it out at the end of the first set. Both are making errors. One almost hands match point to her opponent. with her own serve. Last time I was here, the men were on TV. One half of a gay couple mentioned one of the players to someone who was on the phone with him.
Thursday and Friday I go in a couple of hours early. No chance to swim. Was it Friday? I take the train home. The conductor comes over the speaker. 'Stay off any train to the central station downtown. The trains are so full, conductors are not allowing any other passengers onboard.' It turned out Taylor Swift was in town, and a ball game was underway. I will encounter one such train on Sunday afternoon. The sister picks me up Sunday morning for another breakfast and trip to her new favorite rec center. She asks me where my bike is and why I'm not bringing it along. I tell her it's in the shop. She tells me that if I want her to take me there, I will be paying for breakfast. She assumes that it's ready to be picked up without me telling her so. She also is not aware that I have five bikes when she asks me if I have more than one bike. I've discusses my different bicycles with her before, apparently to no avail. I tell her that she has the option of dropping me at the nearest train station. This means I don't have to pay for breakfast. But locating the train station is some kind of ordeal for her. This from someone who claims to have been excited about discovering new neighborhoods around her now year-old new home. I haven't been to this train station in almost a decade. It whips me to a station where I transfer to another line, bound for the central hub downtown. This next train is standing room only. I always get a kick out of these trains, as someone who rides it when most everyone else does not. I assume another ball game is going on. Lots of jerseys for the city baseball team on the train. I'm standing on a step in front of a door on the train car. I ain't supposed to be here, but if the train conductor does see me, I hear no message over the loudspeaker about it. This train must be heavy with people, because it moves slower than usual. Along the way, I watch out the window as a security contractor patrols the other side of the train tracks. For homeless? We all pile out at the big deal transit hub. I head over to a nearby Whole Foods for a buffet lunch. I sit at a table which turns out to be right next to an exit. Customers keep saying "Excuse me" as they pass me to go outside. After I eat I look for a men's room, which turns out to be up an elevator. Inside this elevator are not numbered floors, but floors with acronyms. I can decipher none of them. The elevator goes to a parking garage, where someone gets on and punches a code into a keypad to make the elevator move. The high rise above the natural grocery must be residential. I ask him where the men's room is and he hits a button. Suddenly the door opens onto the floor where the rest rooms are. Apparently, around this elevator, it's who you know. The rest rooms, it turns out, require a code provided by scanning a hash tag. I don't have a phone with internet access. I'm glad I don't live at Whole Foods. I decide to sit at a table and floss my teeth. A security guard comes up the steps from the ground floor to unlock the men's room door for someone whom I assume also does not have a phone with access to the internet. Or perhaps has no phone at all. But simply has a bladder. The same security guard rousts a homeless at another table. I decide to piss after I make the hike in the heat to the sporting goods supercenter. Three things. 1} It's not the longest hike. 2) It's finally 40 to 50 degrees F. warmer than this same time last month. 3) Being downtown appears to be about navigating large corporate stores.
At the supercenter, a tech brings out my bike. I suggest that we readjust the rear rim so that it sits true in the frame. And the rear brakes are still sticking way out on one side. I have to explain to the tech that my left heel kicks it when I ride. After consulting with someone else, he tells me he will have to charge me for a brake adjustment. I ask him why, if the brakes were adjusted when I brought it in for new brake pads, and they were maladjusted when I came to pick the bike up last time, why I am having to pay for another adjustment? Or the original adjustment? He decides on his own not to charge me for the adjustment. As a result, my bill is a third of what I was told originally. He also tightens the brakes exponentially I wonder if the lesson here is, the fucked-up brake job gets the grease. You keep the grease, I'll take the discount. I don't live here either, although it feels as if I do. I always thank everyone here for their work. Again, the tech who did the maladjustment is here today. I don't know if he is privy to any of this. I head out on a particular trail, through my old neighborhood and out to a swimming pool I used to frequent a good couple of decades ago. Just out of the supercenter I must pause more than once to readjust the rear rim and tighten the quick release hub. Two decades ago is when I began riding my bike to work, down the last section of the trail I'm on now. I remember back then saving the good parts of broken lor worn out assemblies on previous bikes, such as quick release hubs. While still downtown, I stop into another supermarket for a couple of items I forgot at the one in my own neighborhood. I would sometimes hit this supermarket when I worked downtown. Where I renter the trail after the supermarket, there's a woman in a blue bikini top sitting on the river bank. She's shaving her head.
One of the places I would pass every day to and from work called itself a "historic park." It was, if I recall correctly, an authentic homestead here in the state. I don't know from how long ago. There was a small house, and a teepee. Major holidays were celebrated here, mostly for the benefit of children. For the adults, a local acoustic music festival was held here every summer. Early this afternoon, it's now some kind of outdoor immersive psychedelic sculpture garden. Neon green flowers and neon yellow chessboard knights are a part of the spread-out Alice in Wonderland scene. The heat is particularly prevalent. So long in coming, it's finally here. I make it to the pool and have a lovely swim. There's room here for the public to actually swim. There's no drop slide preventing them from entering the deep end. The crowd is much more mellow, lees anxious, and have fewer tattoos. After my swim I elect to retrace my old route to work. The shopping center still lives as do a store or two. There's an eatery called Stoner Pizza. I don't want to know. The sandwich shop I used to come to with my mom for lunch, when we would grocery shop at the supermarket here, is gone. As is the small store I worked and managed most of the 5 years I put in here. It was a slow store, and I used to play with a child of the owners of a Chinese restaurant a couple of doors down. I came back here one summer, when I was working not far away, a decade after I was let go from the company which owned this store. That company, once three times the size it is now, is currently the size of the one for which i work today. And the old company is up for sale. The summer I came back here, I stopped into the Chinese place. The young girl was going to college downtown, studying business. I was told she remembered me. Back then, she used to visit all the shops on the end where my store was. She went into a flower shop next door to me, into a hair salon on the other side of the Chinese place. The flower shop is empty. The salon is gone. The Chinese place is now a Mediterranean restaurant. I head toward my old boulevard and ride it for a stretch. Some long-time places are still there. I stop in to an IHOP across from my camera shop for dinner, and then ride home from there.
Monday I hit the waterpark before work. Tuesday I waste too much time and don't get the chance. But I do swing past the clinic down the street from my home and put in a prescription. The following morning, I am determined to make it to the waterpark before work. I hit the clinic to pick up the prescription, and then I put the literal pedal to the metal. I've been guessing when the sun will be out. I think I was able to get sunscreen on Monday, but I know I didn't get it on yesterday or today. This morning, it appeared that a big cloud was rolling in. But when I got to the pool Sunday and the waterpark today, the clouds had burned off and the sun was out. I haven't been out in the sun long enough to burn. Sunday I only missed getting sunscreen on my back. Sunscreen is good for three hours, and I'm out on the bike during the weekends all day. All this week I've left the house without breakfast, grabbing it on the way. My late starts have come from the fact that I've been sleeping so well. The heat of the day doesn't last overnight. But these are my madcap days this week. The sister was busy last Sunday and will be busy for the next two Sundays. No doubt she is taking a break from the stress of what little duties are involved with my spending the morning with her. With no commitment to the morning with her, I will have the chance to get back to my old pool, and perhaps even hit the waterpark the same day. This coming Saturday, she's taking me to work and I'm buying her breakfast. Good thing Friday is payday. What can go wrong, especially as we came up with a strategy to attack her consternation at not grabbing a table at the busy breakfast place in my shopping center. Even at 8AM. The secret plan is...to get there at 7:30. Sunday is an art fest in a big park. The park is close to a new store my boss just purchased. Perhaps I can swing by and check it out.
Wednesday's mad ride to the waterpark takes me along a new kind of route. My rides home along the trail have included a brief detour around a closed underpass. It's given me the option to ride home over streets instead., cutting down my crosstown travel from the trail. I take this route in reverse this morning, and arrive at the waterpark a mere five minutes later than the ride would have taken me from the closest train station. I'm locking up my bike when i watch four generations of female relative approach from the parking lot. A young mom holds her toddler by the hand, followed by the mom's own mother and grandmother. Each of the latter pair has a lit cigarette in hand. They hang back as the young mom looks quizzically at them. One of the pair yells, "[There's] no smoking [beyond where we are now]!" I have a lovely ten-minute swim. A half-hour after the park opens, there's no huge line and stillroom to swim in the pool. A lifeguard on the pool deck asks me if I would be so kind as to lift a bottle she's dropped onto the water, and hand it back to her. It's just across the rope in the deep end. I tease her that swimmers are not allowed in the deep end. She give me special permission, and I complete the task. I tell her not to say that I never do anything for the waterpark.
"For about a month, the Denver Communists have...a campaign against this cafe...shrouded as a charity organization." "Our purpose behind this coffee shop is...jobs for homeless people... ...sober living to mental health counseling...financial sustainability...and stuff like that. ...we...transition them into a trade or something like that...a career path and that kind of thing. Haircuts, food, clothing - all that stuff." - Westword,7/13-19/2023
...in 1999. I joined the Army and served... Readjusting to civilian life...my dad died, the house got sold, and I wound up homeless. I hated mankind. I wanted to die. But I'm too proud to do it. The things I saw when I was homeless, I didn't fight for that. I wanted world peace. You're fighting other homeless people, the police, even yourself. - Englewood City Magazine & Activity Guide, Fall 23
Sunday is another day of liberation from the sister's world. I have breakfast at home for what seems to be the first time in a couple of weeks. Then I head for the waterpark. I do so fully covered in sunscreen. Along the way, I swing down the block with the open field. The homeless truck is gone. At the waterpark I have a decent swim. I head for a restaurant for lunch, a place I usually hit up for dinners after work. Along the way there, I come up behind a guy running slowly down the trail. Ahead of him are a couple of small boys, one on a razor scooter and one on a little bike. I pass the guy and am closing on the two boys, who are crisscrossing the trail in front of me. I don't recognize this trio until I hear the guy yell at the kids. "PICK A SIDE!" he yells. "Jesus you guys have heads like rocks." Earlier this summer, I came upon this same trio when the guy was yelling the same thing at them. The restaurant is the place where walking inside is as if I've stepped back into the 1980s. At one end are a pair of obese parents with three kids. The mom is in a T-shirt which reads, "Mom life is the best life." After lunch, it's not a long ride to the rec center. I whip through my workout and hop back on the train to my usual station. I have a long crosstown ride to a pool I used to swim at a couple of decades ago. Back when I lived on that side of town. I had a wonderful swim there last Sunday. But this afternoon is hot. The heat doesn't stop me, and I have my two-liter water bottle with me. But my hands are actually hot inside my fingerless gloves. And I'm feeling the drain on my energy. I make it to the pool, and it's another fine swim. But now I'm headed for an outdoor art fest. The park isn't far from here. And a big cloud moves in front of the sun. I just may have found my second wind. I ride back toward my old boulevard over streets I haven't been on in years. Along the way a few rain sprinkles come down. When I reach the park, the fest has begun packing up. But I still see some interesting art. It's something of a psychedelic little fest. The park is down the street from a place where a couple of friends used to live a good 20 years ago, along with a Greek restaurant.we used to frequent. The friends are long gone, and the restaurant is under new ownership as of five years ago. The food is still great. The young couples outside the window remind me of the couple who lived here at the time, young and bohemian.
Sunday evening I get a call from the old coworker. Can I work her shift on Monday? Monday I work open to close. The following day I get caught upon my sleep and stay 2 1/2 hours after close. Wednesday, I'm rushing out the door to get a swim in before work. On top of that, I forgot to turn on the burner for my eggs before I hit the shower, so I need to grab breakfast along the way. Before I get beyond my parking lot, a thin, young barefoot woman is slowly making her way across the asphalt. She's coming into the lot from the sidewalk. I can't tell if she has any pants on, and she's holding her blouse closed with her fist. Her head is down until she looks up to give me the expression of a knowing smile. Kind of, 'Peace be unto you, though I have no pants.' I do what anyone else would do. I go on my way. I glance back in the direction of my parking lot. She's walking tightrope style along the edge of my concrete courtyard. Soon I'm around the corner and on the long street a block from my own. Along the entire side with empty lots and tall weeds. A lone guy in his sixties has a hand-held wand with a prong on the end, which is able to grab trash with a squeeze of the handle. He's picking up what appears to be individual pieces of trash. First I've seen anyone do this in my 16 years in this neighborhood. He's in his sixties, wearing hiking shorts, hiking boots, and a tie-dyed vest over his shirt I'm around and up and down and around. I'm on the trail and off the trail, and over the interstate and straight ahead to a deathburger. Inside, a lone guy is seated at a table. Wearing a hat with a short brim, he sounds as if he's on the phone with his psychologist. I order, eat, and pedal back to the train. I'm on the train, off the train, at the pool, and then off to work. After work I ride home and again detour off the trail where it's closed. I end up riding to a Mexican restaurant where I sometimes go before grocery shopping, and my favorite place to take my lady. I'm eating dinner as I glance out the window across the street. Exiting a pizza place is a guy with no shirt and a winter coat on.
This week I get plenty of swims in before work. On Thursday morning I forget to turn the burner on for my breakfast before I get in the shower. When I come out, I have no time to cook it then. Now, not only am I in a rush to get in a swim before work, but I also need to grab breakfast as well. The frying pan with breakfast goes into the fridge. I'm out into my parking lot and not even onto the sidewalk when I spot a thin, young woman. She's coming into my parking lot from the sidewalk. She's barefoot, and stepping gingerly across the asphalt. I don't notice her wearing any pants, and she's holding her blouse closed with a fist. Yet she does not appear to be in distress. Her head is down until she raises it to give me a smile. I turn onto the sidewalk and glance back to see her walking the edge of a cement curb as if it's a tightrope. I make it to a deathburger, where a customer at a table wears a hat with a brim. And he appears to be on his phone with his psychologist. I eat and then pedal back the train just across the boulevard. I get my swim before work. The following morning, I'm expected to be at work an hour early. There is no one in my parking lot this morning, with or without pants. My schedule today works out that I ride to the cafe across from the stop for the bus to work. I have another breakfast here. One of their 3 flat screen TVs faces my table. I haven't watched TV in a few years, and I don't recall the last network morning show I saw. I believe I'm watching ABC's morning show. It's 10 AM Mountain Standard Time. The cameras are outside and pointed at a stage with someone named Kelly Rapp behind the mic. Her performance is followed by an informercial, during which the informercial is interrupted by local weather, instead of local news being interrupted by a commercial.
The following morning, I'm up early enough to ride all the way to work, and still have plenty of time for breakfast. The days lately have been in the 90s F, if not the 100s. But overnight has been cool. I'm out of the house by 6 AM, and it's nice and cool. The few folks outside are in long sleeves and pants. It's a quiet early morning out here as the dawn is soon to break. At either of the two golf courses I pass on the way to work, there are no golfers in shorts and Polo shirts. No golf carts or motorized golf bags on wheels. On the connecting trail, I'm coming alongside the long park below the waterpark. I navigate around a guy in an orange vest. Right after him is a guy with a permed mullet, black T-shirt and black shorts, walking his dog. The third moving person is dragging a fully unzipped sleeping bag, as long as it can be, by one end across the trail and onto the grass. Sunday. I hit the waterpark and the nearby rec center. I then jump back on the train to my usual station, then take another crosstown ride. This one is not back to the old pool I used to go to. Not today. I have film to drop off. I also have grocery shopping leftover to do this afternoon. The camera place is on my old boulevard. I follow it a short ways to a supermarket. The store is in a strip mall down the street from where I used to live. The mall still has a location for a company where I used to work, though I never worked here. The center also had a Radio Shack I would frequent a couple of decades or so past, and this is where the camera store used to be. There is an entire wing of this center which is now empty shop after empty shop. Inside the supermarket, I have trouble locating a couple items I am able to always find, in the location of this same chain back in my neighborhood. I wonder about this strip mall, and if its days are numbered.
