The 1st is a Sunday. It's a cool morning and a warm day. The past couple of days I've turned the fan on in the house during the afternoon. It's been some time since I did a serious grocery run. I've been doing piecemeal grocery stops from work. I'm at the bus stop on my corner this morning, for the first time since I can't remember when. Behind the bus bench is the wall of a big Vietnamese grocery. Between the wall and the big sidewalk are small landscaping stones. Sitting behind me are a pair of homeless women, both in hoodies and both sitting on the concrete. One has a small grill on the stones. The other has skin baked brown by the sun. Next to them is a door in the wall. An employee comes out and one of the women says, "Hi." The employee does not answer. Through the intersection comes a thin middle-aged guy pushing a wheelchair. In the chair is a third woman in a hoodie. This one is missing her left leg. The same woman greets her with the same, "Hi." She asks the woman what she's been up to. "Oh, another day, another dollar," she replies. When I come back past this stop in the afternoon, a lone homeless guy will be sitting on the very same patch of concrete. A big black suitcase at his side. I first return with groceries, then head out to the rec center where I workout. Followed by a dip in the hot tub. Then return to this corner. For dinner, I cross the boulevard to the Mexican place. I walk in to blaring Mexican music. It's so loud, it sounds live. It turns out to be recorded. I quickly realize that a smattering of patrons is there for the music. It's the new owner tryin' to make a dollar.
But society comes creeping up. The later [of Jules Verne's] novels clog with satanic cities. ...brave scientists show signs of deterioration, eccentricity...Verne's great land of the future, America...develops negative aspects...expansionism takes over, the machine mentality triumphs. - Aldiss
Tuesday. After work, I'm not long upon the trail home from work. This first trail has many a place of tall weeds. At one such place is a homeless guy with a shopping cart piled high with stuff. Assorted other stuff is scattered around a space he has stamped out upon the ground. He has a yellow umbrella, and the angle of the sun at 5 PM is making it glow bright. It's open and inverted. He's examining it, I'm sure in an attempt to revert it back to normal. Down this trail to a connecting trail, down that trail and off of it, up a steep hill and down again and up the next. I turn toward my boulevard, preparing to make another downhill turn. On the corner is a woman wearing a blanket. She stands next to a guy with a man bun, on a bicycle with a child carrier hitched to the back. Ten will get you twenty, they ain't no kid in the carrier. The lady asks me if I have an air pump. I do not. But there is a gas station withing walking distance in either of a couple of directions. Wednesday. Down the trail to work. At the old VFW parking lot, the spray-painted school bus is back. After work, my route home takes me on a detour off the trail, down streets which get me closer to home faster. Even if they do mean more hills. I follow a street straight uphill and then down again before I turn down a residential street toward my boulevard. I pass between a couple of homeless trailers, each parked across from the other along opposite curbs. Standing next to one trailer is a bald guy in a grey buttoned up shirt. It's buttoned all the way up with no tie. For a few seconds, I don't recognize what language he speaks until I realize it's barely English. A young woman stands across from him at her trailer. She replies to him with, "What?" I continue down the street toward the sun ready to disappear behind clouds on the horizon. There's a huge oncoming homeless RV slowly bouncing its way down the street. We pas each other as a grey-haired -guy stares at me though the open driver's side window. The ride home is not quite finished. I turn down one last steep hill before the momentum takes me right back up again. After navigating rush hour traffic on the residential-race-track streets of my extended neighborhood, I turn down the long street a block from my own. -I roll past the pop-up trailer, the guy again out at his hibachi. I cross my boulevard where the long street continues a for a few yards. At the bend in the street this early evening, I see a camper parked behind a police cruiser with its light on. They both are next to perhaps a hundred square foot or more-square sectioned off with police tape. A guy in a yellow reflective vest happens along. he tells me in Spanish that someone was shot there 3 times in the chest. This happened 3 hours ago. Many police showed up. There's a station just down the street and around the corner. he mentions something about a couple of Venezuelans. He also mentions something about a brother.
Thursday. Staring down the end of another week, the first week of October. Upon the long street a block from my own, the pop-up trailer is gone. So is the hibachi which was out on the sidewalk next to it. The trailer had what some homeless dwellings have, which are random discarded pieces of canvass, and are actually banners. This trailer had a banner, perhaps covering up some damage near the roof. It had a message in Spanish and an image of a young family. Then I'm down and around, and up again and down a long hill to the block along the open field. The homeless car with the smashed passenger door is also gone. Some 10 1/2 hours later, and I'm back home when I get the call. My coworker wants me to work her shift tomorrow. This is why I am out the door Friday at 4:30 AM. I tell you, this vida loca. I got straight to bed and had a pretty good sleep. Yesterday, the small car on the block along the open field was gone. This very early morning, It's right back where it was. Minutes later, I'm out on the trail. The beaver launches itself out of the weeds right where it did last time. I wonder if it's defending its family. An hour later and I'm turning onto the connecting trail to work in the dark. I pass a ghostly figure at the end of a bridge. A little more than 24 hours later and I elect to head for the bus stop to work's doorstep. Sometime during the past month, I swapped out the lone sheet on my bed during the summer, for a thin blanket. Last night, I put on the bottom sheet and comforter. Saturday morning I wake up in time to hear my furnace come on for the first time this season. It's 39 degrees F. when I check the computer. I got the filter in the furnace just in time, and the comforter is clean. Other firsts are putting on the lined riding pants, my standard pants out on the trail during the winter, as well as my balaclava. I'm back out the door to work. The little car has returned this morning to the block next to the open field. Then I'm headed crosstown. I arrive at the bus stop, which more often than not I have to myself. This is the first bus on a Saturday, and there are four or five other passengers waiting here. One of them also has a bike, so I hope the bike rack is empty. I move over to a trash can to toss a piece of paper. Only then do I notice a third bike on the grass. Did I not see it before? Or did someone else just arrive with it? The bus pulls up and the guy with the third bike looks at me as if he's the odd man out. I place mine on the last spot on the rack. The driver lets him inside with his. Alls well that ends well.
When I leave work at 3 PM, I'm back in shorts. Unbelievable. On the way home, on the connecting trail home, I detour where a steel frame barrier blocks the way through both sides of an underpass. Someone keeps moving both barriers. I think it's other cyclists. How they insist upon "calling out" their "passes", but their dedication to following construction rules? Not so much. I like the detour because it gets me crosstown faster. Along one street I'm at the crest of a big hill. On the opposite sidewalk is a woman sitting cross legged. She's yelling at a guy on my side of the street. "Yeah, good! Can't wait!" She's holding up what appears to be a piece of white cardboard sealed in plastic. I can't see what's written on the front as she appears to be pointing it his direction. "You came into my house!" she yells at him. "You came into my house!" She stands and raises both middle fingers over her head. For his part, the guy is standing on the sidewalk and appears to be on his phone calling the police. Next to him is a folding table full of what appear to be shop tools. They are laid out as if in a garage sale. Wheels off of an SUV lean against the table. Along the curb is an SUV with no wheels. Down by the wheel wells is another guy. I ride the steep hill down to a major avenue. An unmarked police car turns the corner uphill. Just across the avenue, I make the first left into my extended neighborhood. The sun is behind an oncoming cyclist down the street. When I pass him, I can see a child carrier trailer hitched to the back of his bike. He has no helmet over his man bun. In the carrier is...another adult. I've never seen this before. He has a wound on his face, and also no helmet. Riding behind them is a woman on her own bike. No helmet.
"...male community leadership." ...male relationships...men struggle with, especially later in life. "...it's just guys and you can talk about the guy stuff." ...breaking away from...individualism mindset... "...a couple of brief discussions and then a bro hug..." - Washington Park Profile, 10/2023
The community in Highlands Ranch and the surrounding area tend to have more wealth than others... "...stigma and pride...especially in our community." ...kids won't ask for help if they have their name down..." - colorado parent, 10/2023
A strong sense of community can be one of your best security assets. Neighbors can alert you or the authorities if they notice anything suspicious. - Greenwood Village newsletter, 10/2023
Sunday. It's another breakfast with the sister, and workout while she swims in a therapy pool. Then we are off to pick up lunch and some groceries for a friend of hers. Her friend is recovering from an operation. Lunch is for the three of us. Her friend claims that we met briefly once. I don't remember. But she is an interesting friend of the sister. This friend lost her husband to cancer, I think it was last year. He wasn't much for doctors. It's another sad story of one of my sister's friends. The husband worked for the State Department., providing security for the families of visiting dignitaries. They and their family also lived in places such as Botswana and Israel. She has stories of visits from the likes of the Shah of Iran. His twelve-year-old son launched a fireworks-rocket which landed upon a residential roof and caught it on fire. He also threw a bicycle into a swimming pool. She lives in a kind of a retirement village. It's not far from the sister. Since she moved (last year?), we both have been discovering parts of the metro area we never frequented. Our new rec center is one place, next to a train station I passed through years ago on my way to work. Her friend's village is another. It's close to the infamous Columbine High School. A decade ago I paid a visit to the memorial. We have lunch out on her porch on a perfect afternoon with a cloudless blue sky. It's deliriously serene. Apart from her recollections of life abroad, she talks about life here in the village. She lives in one of the single detached homes next to a lake. The corporation which runs the place hires crews to come and clean each for a limited determined time. This means that the cleaning is inadequate. The sister looks through a multi-page list of events which the shuttle takes residents to and from. She notices that, if a resident signs up for an event and can't make it, it's a $10 dollar fine for each event. She used to teach at a community college, which is where the sister met her. But she was babysitting for her son, who lived in a house with a lot of stairs. She did a lot of running up and down stairs, and later was diagnosed with some kind of a mini stroke. It has impaired her ability to completely organize what she wants to say, which has put an end to her teaching. The entire afternoon has left me pondering how the hand life deals you gets shuffled.
I'm on the way home Tuesday. I'm coming down the new trail along the long street a block from my own. When it was being constructed (last year?) I noticed what appeared to be something like lecterns on a single pole, all made out of metal. There are at least one next to each block-length of trail. This month, each stand has displayed what appears to be a different page from an illustrated children's book. There's a homeless camper parked at the curb. Yards away, off in the weeds, it a blue and yellow tent. A bicycle is parked next to it. Along the way to the intersection with my boulevard is a bench. A couple of young homeless guys occupy it. It's twilight now, and I have no lights on. I don't see traffic coming down the one-way street and I proceed to the handicapped crossing in the median. I hear a whistle as a guy on a BMX comes from the other direction, the wrong way down the street. He has no lights either. And no helmet. I stop at the crossing to let him pass me. He says something in Spanish. Forty-nine hours later, I'm right back here where the trail meets my boulevard. I get across. Coming down the opposite sidewalk is a little guy with a long grey beard. His arms are twisted around his torso, and he walks bent over to his right side. He has on a long-sleeved Confederate flag shirt. By the end of the week, we have gone from shorts weather to full on balaclava, lined riding pants, and knit gloves weather. That's okay. I like a decisive change like this. Friday after work, I decide to put away the sandals. I'm thinking about bring the shorts home from work. On the way home, I've just turned onto the connecting trail along the river. There are three stations set up which appear to be giving away candy. Each is occupied by one or two people. One has a banner which mentions the name of a local high school. Today is Friday the 13th. Beyond that, I don't know the significance of the stations. Along the way, I pass two or three long groups of cyclists, both adults and children of varying ages. Between these riders, I pass a homeless woman on a bike with a bike trailer hitched on back. The trailer is full of what appear to be clothes. She has no helmet on. I don't know if she stops for any candy along the trail behind me. When I get home and go out for dinner, it's the first evening I put on my winter coat.
More than 5,000 studies have been published since 1930, yet...evidence of psychic phenomena is flimsy at best. [Evidence] might seem to be evident in one experiment but absent from the next. ...current research and precise new technology may soon lead...to...what psi is...where it comes from...to cook a batch of psi in [a] lab time and again. ...scientific parapsychology's grandfather...biologist Joseph B. Rhine...was to become director of Duke University's parapsychology department in the Fifties [and] started out investigating mediums. [In a computer game, a spaceship is invisible on the screen. Only the computer knows where it is. So] you must guess where the ship will come up next. It helps if the player has ESP. ...one in four odds [is] expected by chance. [One researcher claims a possible] link between alpha brainwave activity and psi. He suspects that forehead muscle tension...impedes psychic perception. ...psi...ought to ripple through heart rate, fingertip temperature, even stomach activity. "...monitoring equipment might inhibit psi altogether." [One researcher] brings a philosophy degree to her work... ...she barely earns enough money to get by. [The research is done here in this] middle-sized city...with a campus in its belly. ...a confluence of redneck/Klan types and pockets of...hippies. [Here,] parapsychologists are likely to seem like mystics of weirdos. [The financially struggling researcher] at the foundation's switchboard [often takes calls from] UFO cultists and prophets who insist that the End of the World is being hastened by "people talking too much." - OMNI Magazine, 7/1982
[The deceased spoke through the medium.] "Now he said to tell you that the last person who comes here for you...calls himself, what is it, ecclesiastical...panhandler." ...was my [deceased son] bringing all these people forward[?] "Begging bishop, wouldn't it be?" Allen chipped in. This time I felt Allen...was leading too strongly. It's difficult...to restrain yourself from responding to the medium's voice [as if] in any other conversation...filling in information...to test the process... It impressed me...information...I know to be...accurate and...related by "association of ideas"...of conversation I...had initiated. It could have been pulled out of my unconscious by ESP... Several times material had come through...most uncomfortable...close to matters I didn't want made public. ...more was said than I would have preferred...though I was glad to have the purported information. It did strike me as...remarkable...the sensitivity...demonstrated... ...I...noted pauses and...a groping for words which would be appropriate. - Pike
...I didn't want to play [professional football] anymore. ...couldn't get the mental side of me to...do it anymore. It...seemed...very primitive... ...technique...teaches...developing process goals instead of outcome goals. ...they can control process, they can't control outcome. "This guy can help me be a better dentist! This guy can help me be a better CEO!" - Mile High Sports, 8/2023
Sunday. I had a date with my lady this morning. She wanted to go to church. Her latest random place she wants to go to. I don't recall a Catholic Church I've ever been inside. I went to the website of the one she was planning on taking me to. They're closed on Sunday. I mentioned it to her and she has another lined up. Ain't no shortage of Catholic churches in our neighborhood. Catholic churches, liquor stores, and car washes. Makes me wonder who it is exactly who has inherited my street on the earth. She sent me a message that she has a headache this morning. We're rescheduled for next Sunday. God willing. I decide instead to head for the gym. When I stuck my head out the door at 6 AM, it felt as if it was winter kind of temperatures. I leave the house at a quarter to noon. After half a week of long pants weather and the first days when my furnace has come on, I can't believe it's shorts weather again. This summer simply refuses to die. It is another beautiful day. I ride down to the stop for the bus to the rec center. The bus is there, and outside are the driver and a lone passenger. She is going on in a loud voice about how she was at work and a coworker began verbally berating her. The coworker attempted to stab her. "I don't even know her. Why did she attack me?" The three of us, along with another passenger, climb aboard the bus. "I hope they send her back to her country. She's from Nigeria. I'm from Nigeria." She has no accent. She was fired. I'm going to try to find another job. I was suspended for pulling out my little knife. I've been there seven years. I never had a problem with nobody." She claims the coworker had white powder all over her fane. "This girl will probably just double back and blow the place up." Before we depart, the driver takes a passenger seat and tells her a story about Biden, Obama, DR. Fauci, and how the Corona virus was designed for humans. When he starts the engine, it's suddenly much quieter. We roll out past golden trees with their leaves turning. I decamp just before the end of the line, at a deathburger where I grab lunch. I run through my workout with plenty of time for the hot tub. There's not a cloud in the sky. There's a view of the foothills from the tub. I plan to bring my lady here at her first opportunity.
I take off shortly before the hot tub shuts down at 2:30 PM. I roll back to the train station where my bus home awaits. At the very next stop, in front of the deathburger where I had lunch, is a homeless guy. Grizzled face, winter jacket, knit cap. He's digging through a trash can when the driver opens the door. The guy asks the driver to wait for a couple of minutes because his lady friend is purchasing cigarettes, from a gas station in front of the deathburger. The driver asks him, "Who's coming?" His answer to this is, "Ten dollars." The driver asks him if he needs "service." He means a shuttle from the transit system, available for seniors, disabled, or drivers who otherwise have no access to a regular bus route. The guy does not reply. The driver closes the door. The bus drops me back in my neighborhood, just across the street from another deathburger. I stop in for a small dessert. Outside, next door at a shoe store which has long been closed down, is a homeless guy. He's in a winter jacket, knit cap, and sunglasses. He's facing traffic and talking to himself. Inside is another homeless guy, who appears younger than me. He waits for a burger, holding some dollars in a gnarled claw of a hand. I get my dessert and sit next to a dividing wall with a flat screen TV mounted up high. On a network channel is a bull riding competition. The bumper music between the live event and the commercial has words which include, "...saddle up saddle up." Apparently, bull riding competition takes place these days between teams from individual states and cities. the event comes complete with team scores. On my ride home, I already feel the temperature creeping downward. I stop by my lady's house to see how she's feeling. Nobody home but her dog. I head home and work on this blog. I elect for the Vietnamese restaurant behind my place for dinner. While I'm in there, I watch the place fill up on an early Sunday evening. The flat screens on the walls have the same network channel as the deathburger. At this hour is some kind of chef competition program. There are a lot of university types in here. I spot someone (finally, in a definitive college) University of Colorado hoodie. One table of 12 which comes in is an odd-looking group. They are plain and unkempt and young. Something ideological going on here. At another large table are an extended family who appear as if the way be South American. And there are some Vietnamese here. It's a curious mix. I'm on my way out when I spot four twenty or thirtysomethings in the parking lot. One is a lady who's rocking a winter 1980s look. On her arm is a guy who appears as if he stepped right out of 1970. He has hair down to his shoulders and a big moustache. In this neighborhood he looks completely ridiculous.
Monday. Another late start. I'm out the door toward a stop for the bus straight to work. I turn onto the trail for a fraction of a mile toward the bridge over the interstate and the train tracks. Just as I do, I'm approaching a homeless couple coming my way. behind the guy is a young lady in fashionable sunglasses. She's pushing a baby stroller. It's covered with a small blanket, but I can't imagine she has a child she's pushing behind this guy. He could have been the antagonist in a slasher film. No eyebrows or visible hair under his cap. He's heaving forward a bicycle. Heaving because, hitched by a pole to the back is a stolen shopping cart, piled high with stuff. He's in the correct lane with his bike, but the cart swings over into mine. The lady behind him says something to him, as his head is down. He moves in front of the cart and I weave between him, her, and another oncoming cyclist. Perhaps there are two opposite poles on the spectrum of folk out on the trail. Perhaps not exactly opposite. I'm on the way home from work as someone at one pole breezes past me. He says two words to me. "Everything OK?" I'm parked just off the trail. I'm putting my head and taillamps on, along with a shirt. The weather continues to be nice this week. Anyone stopped on the trail with a bike will be asked this question by the occasional Caucasian. All it requires is that a cyclist is dismounted. I see plenty of dismounted homeless cyclists, and never seen a one of them asked if they're OK. My answer satisfies him. Tuesday I work all day. I'm in bed at 8:30 and wake up shortly before 4. I feel as if I've had sleep, but I feel that I'm immediately stepping from last night into this morning. I enter the trail and pass the spot where the beaver likes to jump out of the weeds. No beaver. I wonder where the beaver is on the spectrum of trail=dwellers. Along the first trail, it's as if the same handful of cyclists go past all at the same respective spots. In the distance I see yet another headlamp. This one is still. I climb a hill to discover it's a homeless cyclist. Homeless not because he's searching through a pouch on the bike frame. Homeless for a single reason. I startle him and he gives me the standard homeless line to any stranger. "Who's that?" through an underpass and I'm onto a connecting trail. When I exit this trail, I stop to take off the hood on my windbreaker. I'm looking up at the stars and watch a satellite slowly makes its way toward the east.
...the last out-of-towner...had a habit of talking shit about Denver's restaurant scene. We did...El Taco de Mexico for breakfast, dinner at Annette, and a final meal at A%. He admitted that he was wrong... Prices are still rising, and service fees are more common than ever. But...the metro area has gotten a slew of new dumpling options...the croissant cube...the jambon beurre...zero waste mantra... - Westword Food & Drink 2023
...the micro-communities [the new] Mayor...and the city have planned for [the] homeless...four are currently being built... [One is on a corner where I've seen, a couple or years ago or so, homeless encampments on two separate lots. One lot is abandoned, and across the street from a Dennys, where I've seen homeless tents, pickup truck bed camper shells, and campers all in the parking lot. Jugglers frequent the corner there, and I've even seen them juggle next to homeless flying signs.] ...a juggler who performs nearby for passing motorists nearly every day, says that construction began on October 18... - Westword, 10/26-11/1/2023
Wednesday. Wow. After an early rise yesterday, I've had a full night's sleep. Although, it feels as if I hit the hay last night and a second later awoke this morning. Midmorning I head a few shorts blocks down my boulevard, to a check-up with my doctor. She doesn't yell at me about my weight, or about drinking diet soda. She even suggests it's better than drinking sugar. For the first time in my eight years with a doctor, my cholesterol is slightly elevated. It has nothing to do with my diet. My doctor tells me...it's my age. The bad news is, I can't get any younger. I do get another prescription. She wants to draw blood to make sure my liver is nominal. First I get what she tells me is expected to be an annual vaccination for COVID. After this and the blood draw, I'm in line at the clinic pharmacy. Filling prescriptions in the back are a handful of employees, including a young Vietnamese lady who is beyond gorgeous. Here along a Vietnamese stretch of my boulevard, I assume that so is she. Her profile is visible in her long Spandex pants. I mention to the lady filling my prescriptions that I noticed her discreetly. She replies that lines of men crane their necks and bend over backwards to get the best look at her. The lady confesses she herself hasn't been here long, and isn't sure if the young lady is Vietnamese. I had not planned on being here this long, rather I planned on stopping at a supermarket on the way to work. I put together a plan B. I will instead ride to the stop for a bus straight to work. I'm out at the corner of my clinic, and I am again tricked into boarding a bus which has just arrived. As usual, I don't look at the route, and it makes a turn right after I get aboard. I jump out and board the correct one which follows just after. Again I jump out and to the ride crosstown to the bus stop, grabbing lunch at the cafe across the street. My doctor told me to drink plenty of water. Someday, when I have the time... After work, I get home and run across the street to the Chinese place for dinner. A group of young Spanish-speaking guys have been hanging out there for the past couple of weeks or so. This evening, I spot one of them with a squeegee. Now I get it, they're cleaning windows to make a dollar.
Thursday. All week I have been attempting to swing past the supermarket on the way to work. I need more sodas for work. Now, I also need vegetable oil and shampoo. I'm headed for the train in a play to knock as much time as I can off my trip. I swing onto the block next to the open field. The tiny homeless car is gone. In its place is an RV, parked behind a brand-new delivery van with two bicycles mounted on a rack in back. The RV and bike, and this spot, all suggest homeless vehicles. But these do not appear the slightest bit broken down. 'I'm on and off the trail, and making my way along a short sidewalk to the bridge over the interstate. Stopped in the handicapped ramp off the sidewalk is a guy in jeans, a plaid shirt, and a cap. I make my way around him as I hear him speak Spanish into his phone. Over the bridge, into the station below, the train come right away, two stop along and I'm off again, down the same route to the waterpark. Off the trail and up a long hill to the supermarket. I lock my bike up at a stand. In the back of one corner is an electric scooter. I'm in and out, and I'm unlocking my bike from the stand. I have to reshuffle everything into a couple of bags. I've taken off my windbreaker and pants. I have the small pack I usually carry the long 12 pack of soda cans in. And I have a big bottle of vegetable oil and a small one of shampoo. I've pulled my bike out and it's straddling the length of the bike rack. The guy with the scooter comes out. To get back into the corner where it's parked, he has to squeeze between my bike and around another bike locked up. I swing my bike out of the way. It's a short ride to work, and after work, it's another waning late afternoon of shorts weather. The high was 81 degrees F. Snow is forecast in a week. The other shoe is coming down. After work, I'm almost home, coming down the long street a block from my own. There's a tiny hatchback. parked along the curb. From the 1990? I've never seen any vehicle more broken down. One window is completely gone. One wheel is turned under at a 45-degree angle. Thick metal wire mesh is spread between the interior and the windows inside.
While at work in the afternoon, I heard emergency vehicle sirens, but was too busy to look out the window. When I did, I saw one set of emergency light across the street, in the shopping center. When I get to work on Friday, one of our new customers tells the story of taking video footage of what happened there. A pair of women shoplifted from one of the department stores. The police arrived in time to grab one when she was getting into her car. She broke free, started her car...and drove over the other woman, killing her. This is the customer's story. Later, a police detective came in to ask if we had any of our own video footage of the shopping center from any cameras we may have. He tells us that someone posted video footage online of the homicide. I suppose I know who that was. Work is getting busy as the Autumn marches on. I don't have time to check my messages. When I get home, I have one from my lady. My presence is requested at a "Halloween parade" downtown. I've never heard of one. I am to be home by 5 PM for her to pick me up. The following afternoon, I must leave work behind if I am to make it home in time. In the half hour I have at home, I manage to get laundry done and a bit of cooking for the coming week. She sends me a message; she has a costume. I throw something together. Her costume is, as usual, a dress from some other century. And, as usual, she looks gorgeous. She's short enough that the dresses are always too long. This one she has to hold up with one hand as she walks. And with these dresses, the sleeves interfere with her shifting gears. She's unclear on this parade. The streets where it takes place are clear enough. It's really just outside of downtown, along the city's main drag, for only nine short blocks. We plan on watching from a block at one end of tit. It's a block I've been past I can't begin to count how many times, during various trips for various reasons. She doesn't like me to tell her "north" or "south". She prefers left or right. I suggest we find a quiet side street to park. Though they are all full of traffic from parade-goers, I spot a place on a corner. She does an expert parallel parking job. She tells me that spectators have the option of participating, but we end up staying in one spot. The first vehicle out on the parade route is a pickup truck which does not appear to realize that there is a parade going on. One police cruiser and two police motorcycles chase after it. Then a pair of teenaged kids find a spot on the street right in front of us. They spend the parade collecting high fives from the all the performers who pass by. One troupe in the parade even sets up a temporary pickle ball net, and the pair join the two competing teams. Vehicles and trailers parade past for the next two hours. They represent a variety of dance troupes, volunteer organizations, and city institutions. A trio of middle-aged folks come along side us. There are a pair of women who speak what sounds as if it's an Eastern European language to each other. The third is a guy with an American accent. They have three or four children with them, all dressed up. I ask the one closest to me if one child, dressed in black, is supposed to be Darth Vader. One of the other kids is a storm trooper. She tells me he is supposed to be Jim Morrison. I reply that he looks more like Roman Polanski. After the parade, I convince my lady that the deathburger on the corner will be packed with parade-goers. We walk to her car and make out exit back to our neighborhood. We have dinner at a Chinese restaurant behind my place. We both have been there together once before, but she does not remember. She loves it. "Tonight we sin," she tells me, "and tomorrow we go to church."
She invited me to church last weekend, but as she tells me she got COVID. She does not tell me why she wants to go to church with her, for the first time in the decade we've known each other. I don't remember the last time I was inside a church. She gives me directions to a church within walking distance. On my way there through our neighborhood, I don't remember the last time I walked anywhere around here. Along the way there, there's more than one dog in a fenced yard who appears to want to kill me. In another yard is a middle-aged woman with a big fire going in a makeshift pit. Her cat stands at the opposite end of the small yard, sunning itself. I get to a corner where a homeless guy is pushing a bicycle with a child-carrier hitched to the back. Another block or two and I think I see my lady walking to church. I yell her name and the woman looks my way, before ignoring me. I will later see her in a pew, it's not my lady. A couple blocks along and I cross an intersection with a homeless guy straining to push a bicycle with a trailer hitched to the back. She will later tell me over an early two-hour lunch about taking her kids to this church, and how her oldest son was confirmed here. She says he was an "alter helper." She means alter boy. This church used to provide coffee and doughnuts after mass, and would sell breakfast sandwiches. It would provide donations to the homeless. Those days appear to be long gone. I arrive shortly before the mass and don't see her waiting for me outside. I step inside. There are twenty or so people in the pews. She's rather unmistakable and I don't see her inside either. I sit on a stone bench just outside the entrance. Mass is beginning. I pull out my phone when she comes running up. It's been so long since she was here that she forgot exactly where it is. We go in and find a seat. She pulls down a knee rest and knees to cross herself. She will spend the entire mass looking through a book from the back of the pew in front of us, trying to find this morning's homily. There are a couple of priests. One is bent over a walker. Most of the mass is given by a younger priest. He appears to have a white beard and an orange toupee, which comes to a point on hi forehead. Toward the end, he makes a plea for volunteers to form a choir, and to teach classes. Right after the mass, he's outside, signing some kind of cards the children are giving him. He jokes about giving out his autograph. Over the early lunch, she talks about her kids. From here she's going to help her daughter close on a house. We make plans to get together in the next couple of weeks, until which she is busy working. Her birthday is next month. This whirlwind weekend is hardly over for myself either. I decide to head down to the rec center and grocery shop. And in between, I elect to swing by work from the gym, which isn't a long ride. I want to clean up the work I left there. Which is funny, because after I get home, I get the call. My coworker wants me to work her shift tomorrow. I get to work from the gym just about 24 hours after I left the previous afternoon. When I left yesterday, there was a fat guy in a black T-shirt, shorts and sunglasses sitting on the concrete wall between our lot and a gas station next door. As I was locking up, he had moved to the bench right outside our door. Now, he's back on the concrete wall. Exact same outfit and sunglasses. Over the next week, I will see him here, walking back and forth between the direction of the gas station and our strip of shops. With the exception of a black hoodie, exact same outfit and sunglasses. I'm only here for about a half hour before I ride back to my neighborhood supermarket. I don't need much, but I can't find another product which I can never find here. Today it's parmesan cheese. I finally ask a guy at customer service. It turns out to be gone from the shelf, but he offers to check in back. I tell him not to worry about it. I make my way toward the checkout when he comes running up behind me, with parmesan cheese in hand.
Before I know it, it's Thursday. I swing onto the block next to an open field. There's no small homeless car. There's no big RV. There's a small camper here now. After work, it's a grey late afternoon. and chilly. I've been riding this week in my windbreaker and long pants. I've also been staying a half hour or an hour late after work, finishing up. I'm out at the bus stop across the street. I feel moisture in the air. Among the traffic stopped at the light is a van with "Lawn Doctor" on the side. It's pulling a flat-bed trailer with a couple of lawn mowers on it. I'm sure they are gas powered...because one of the mower's engines is still running. Today at work, the old coworker again asked me to work her shift for her tomorrow. I'm already scheduled to work her shift for her this coming Monday. With a four-day weekend, her work week itself appears more like a weekend. After work I stay late again, and again I'm at the bus stop across the street. The bus comes to collect me and eventually slows to a crawl along the boulevard. There's some kind of event up ahead at the private university. I'm debating whether I would have made better time if I had simply headed out on the bike toward the trail. But make it to the station we do. I ride back to my neighborhood from there, where I pass a time and temperature sign. I still think I made better time on the transit system. The following morning, I glance at Facebook as I'm getting dressed. I read a post from a group who all lived in the town where I graduated high school. Someone mentions the small town appearing run down since the last six years. The residents have begun to notice the homeless. My mom rented a house with a pedestrian path behind it. Residents are now afraid to walk the path. This month, my high school class held its 40th reunion. which I didn't attend. I didn't read on the reunion's page anyone mention the town as being in a bad state. I'm out the door and coming down the long incline between 4:30 and 5 AM. I don't remember the last time I heard and saw, way behind me, an ambulance approaching. It turns before it gets close.
The following morning, the moisture begins as simple dampness on the concrete. By the time I leave it's turned to light flakes. The first snow of the season has arrived. Overnight tonight, the flakes will grow and accumulate. A week after I was riding in the afternoon with shorts and no shirt, I put long underwear on under my lined riding pants. It's time for long sleeves under the hoodie, under a raincoat which is warmer than my windbreaker. And the raincoat is waterproof. Dress socks under the wool socks, under the snow boots. Just in case the snow gets serious. It turns out to be a fine choice. I'm toasty but not too warm. The current forecast has the middle of the coming week with a high of 65 degrees F. Saturdays, we open a couple of hours later than during the week. I'm turning onto the block next to the open field sometime between 6 and 7 AM. The camper is gone. I ride year-round, and I get a kick out of what happens to the long chains of cyclists riding in tandem, all in Lycra shirts. The all vanish from when the temperature drops. There are some intrepid riders out here in the autumn and winter. But today, I see not a single other cyclist or electric scooter passenger, or rollerblader. It's light and wet snow, and my bike does what it always does both on the way to work and home again. The high gear gets stuck in second. On the way home, even the low gears get stuck. My right brake is sticky. I will get the bike inside the shop for six hours, and it will be as good as new when I leave. ...before it begins to do the same thing in the falling snow on the way home. At work, a guy in winter gear comes in, a thin, young guy. He wants to use the store phone to call an Uber. It sounds as if he knew the guy, says, "You're eating dinner?" (It's 2:30 PM.) He asks him to meet way up the boulevard. He thanks me and hands me back the phone. I watch him go stand next to the bench outside, where a bundled-up woman is sitting. I watch them cross the boulevard and take a seat on the bus bench.
Sunday. I had a wonderful sleep. I won't see the sister until at least another weekend. I spend the morning catching up on this neglected blog. I've been working full days and staying late at work. The snow is piling up on my back terrace. I'm considering taking the transit system to the gym and leaving the bike at home. Until I go upstairs for a bath (It's so nice even on my only day off to have time for something other than a rushed shower.) and look out a window. The street is relatively clear. That's it. I'm heading out on the bike. There's no ice on the streets now. But I'm headed to work tomorrow in the dark. That's how we play the game. I spend the morning catching up on this blog and leave the house at 1 PM. The rec center with the hot tub closes in 2 hours. My usual rec center is open until 5 PM. I head for the train for the latter. The streets ain't bad at all. We'll see what freezes tomorrow, when I am scheduled to open at work, and I'm out the door at 4:40 AM. I ride toward the train station, but I first make a short detour to a deathburger for lunch. I pull into the parking lot where a couple of police cruisers are parked. An ambulance is pulling out. A pair of officers are telling a woman to have a good day and the three depart. Inside is a homeless guy sitting in a lounge chair, talking to himself. When I order, I wave my hand over the credit card machine, as I do everywhere, waiting for the transaction to complete. The woman behind the counter laughs at me. "Magic?" she asks. I eat and make the short ride to the station. I'm on the platform with a homeless couple on a bench, and another homeless guy closer to where I wait for the train. He's rifling through a duffel bag and changing a sweater. On the concrete next to him is a plastic jar of peanut butter. The train arrives and I'm on, and off a couple of stops later. On the platform where I disembark are a group of Indian or Pakistani students. I'm guessing that they watched my train pull up, because they watch it pull away with confused expressions. I wouldn't expect they would do so had they just disembarked. I ride down a ramp to the sidewalk. At the bottom of some stairs is the peanut butter guy. Again, he's rifling through his duffel bag and changing into something else. I'm inside the rec center when I see the sun briefly come out. When I come out, it's back to the overcast sky and handful of floating flakes.
Monday. The computer sez it's 16 degrees F. The sun set last night under clear skies. I choose to ride in sneakers instead of snow boots. Even with the wool socks over the dress socks, my toes begin to get cold out on the connecting trail to work. The trail is plowed. I have breakfast across the street from work, where I glance at a woman who is dressed as a lesbian university professor. For some reason, she pays my bill without telling me. I've never seen her before. Perhaps she thinks I'm homeless. Eventually, I'm at work watching the sun come up. The wind is blowing clumps of snow from tree branches. They fall onto the busy boulevard with a trail of powder. Tomorrow is Halloween. Today will be a slow day, but will pass quickly.
