...GraceFull Community Cafe...founded...to provide accessible meals and a gathering space. "...food ministry..." ...the GraceFull Foundation, a nonprofit... ...for those who may not normally...afford to go out to eat... "...somebody...on disability...unemployed...unhoused...low-income, living in a motel." ...GraceFull Foundation lobbies... ...cafe and foundation received grants... "...everyone...supports us...volunteers, city government...law enforcement." - Littleton Independent, 1/25/2024
Thursday is the 1st. Yesterday, I found myself coming down the street next to an open field, in the dark. Gone is the small camper. It's been replaced by a pickup truck with the bed piled with junk. Hitched to the back is a trailer. The following morning, I'm going in only an hour early instead of five. The pickup and trailer have vanished into thin scrap metal. There is a different shiny silver trailer in its place. It has a bumper sticker which reads, "keep on truckin'" and a "for sale" sign with a phone number. At the other end of the curb, the small camper is back. Saturday. The sister takes me to work. But first, we celebrate her birthday at the breakfast place across from work. It's raining. When I get to work, it turns to snow. Heavy, wet snow. It collects. After work, I decide I want to see how it is to ride in. Okay, what I learned was that riding in is was a mistake. But...that's exercise I would not otherwise have had. I head for the train station. It takes me an hour and a half instead of forty minutes on clear streets. The trin comes in jig time and whips me to a waiting bus home. Sitting up front when I step on board are four guys who all sound drunk. They're exchanging rambling nonsense with each other. As I write this on a notepad, the one next to me asks, "What ya writin' Emo?" When I get home, I throw the bike inside and head out to the bus stop on the corner. I'm going to get some grocery shopping done. But first, I stop at a deathburger for dinner. A couple of homeless guys come inside. One runs interference at the counter, ordering a milk shake. The pair have already dug all the way to the bottom of all the trash cans. The other guy pulls out an empty cup from the trash. He rinses it with water from the soda fountain before filling it up.
Monday. It's a quarter to six in the morning. I'm sitting at a bus stop across town from where I live. This stop is on the same boulevard as the one where I catch a bus straight to work. But it's further north of the stop I ride to. I'm not yet comfortable riding the streets or the trail. Whatever ice is left will slow me down and I know the transit system will get me to work much faster. I'm covering for my coworker's vacation, so I'm working open to close until a week from this Wednesday. In the shadow of the ticking clock, I need to be somewhere at a certain time. Across icy roads. This early in the morning, the train doesn't run nearly as often. So I take a bus directly to the boulevard with a bus straight to work. The crosstown bus first stops at my usual train station, and I ask the driver when she will reach the boulevard with my connecting bus. She doesn't know, which is odd. I mention that I think she will get me to the boulevard faster than the train. She's unsure of this as well. When I get to the boulevard, I believe I have just missed the first bus, which is fine. But I have an hour wait in the cold and dark. I stare into oncoming headlights, sunglasses on to cut the glare, watching for the bus. It's a carnival of headlights, taillights, and changing streetlights.at an intersection. I watch a young woman come across the intersection, just in time for the bus to arrive. At work, I see a headline on the internet. Two days ago, as I was grocery shopping, a teenager shot and killed a grandfather on the bus I came down on. They had argued about the grandfather moving his leg. I keep thinking that the gun must have loud in that bus. My ride home from work is a snap compared to two days ago. Tuesday evening, I get home and check in to see if I have to report for jury duty. This time I'm released.
Thursday. I'm only getting six and a half hours of sleep since Monday's full night's rest, and it's slowly mounting up in my brain. Today is the halfway mark toward the end of my seven days of open to close. I'm too tired to ride the entire way to work and I elect to take the bus. I pull up to the stop, where another passenger waits on the bench. He's a derelict direct from central casting. Long grey hair. Knit cap. As soon as he spots me, he says out loud, "She was diagnosed with cancer. Boom, she was dead. Oh, I thought you were someone else." I'm not someone else. I decide not to engage this guy, here on this bench, at 5 :30 in the morning. "What kind of bike is that?" he wants to know. "I shrug, "I don't know," I reply. He's a bike guy? I've been asked this before. I've been told by someone else that one of my bikes, the one from Walmart which was $99 brand new, is a "great bike". At some other spot on some other street. He says, "That's a nice bike." We're sitting in the dark. The main bike I ride to work is bottom of the line at a paltry $600 when it was new. Not including the back rack and extra tire protection. Speaking of Walmart, this guy has a cloth bag from Walmart, full of I don't know what. Sky blue with a bright yellow sun with rays. I don't tell him what a nice bag it is. Since last year, I've been spotting homeless everywhere with at least one of these damned bags in hand. These Walmart bags have taken the place of homeless campers. He stands up and walks to the trash can next to the bench. he stares at it in the dark. He gives it a soft kick. He looks up the boulevard before he says, "Halfway there..." He asks me what time the bus comes. I shrug and claim that I don't know. It should be here any minute. He says he thought it would have been here by now. I haven't seen him pull out a phone. The bus soon arrives and collects us. As I'm putting my 'nice bike' on the front rack, he must be asking the driver to tell him when we get to his stop. He takes a seat and goes quiet. This bus makes good time along this stretch of its route. It would appear his stop is a supermarket at a busy intersection. The driver lets him know, to which the guy replies, "We're at the supermarket?" He slowly steps off the bus. If the supermarket opens at 6 AM, he has a brief wait.
Friday. Since Tuesday I've been waking up too early. I'm in the fog, too tired to ride all the way to work. I feel like a walking corpse. I'm headed crosstown for the stop, for the bus to work. I'm climbing up the bridge over the highway and train. At the crest is an off ramp from the highway. A young guy is pushing a shopping cart, piled high, up the ramp from the homeless camp at the underpass below. Over the crest, at the bottom of the bridge is someone else with a rolling suitcase with a handle. In between the pair, I smell burning plastic. I assume that someone below is burning plastic bags as the only available fuel source. The following morning, a light snow falls which will continue all day. Thanks to highs well above freezing, the previous snow had almost all melted, so there shouldn't be any ice underneath the new dusting on the ground. I get a kick out of something. I feel as though I slept better last night and I'm out of the fog. It's just that I always appear to get the urge to do the full ride to work on days when it's snowing. It's a smooth ride all the way, with the day having broken on the last leg. And it's a beautiful morning to ride. A small fox crosses the trail. The next morning, the clouds are gone. The streets are clear. But the sister does not like to drive even upon the least amount of ice, and her street may not be so clear. So, again our Sunday routine is interrupted. I'm off to the gym myself. I leave the house without breakfast or the bike, as I plan on doing grocery shopping on the way back. I approach my corner as a bus goes past, but another is not far behind. The benefits of living close to downtown. I sit next to a woman with a single crutch. Across from us is a guy with a walker. He's wearing grey camouflage pants. She and he are both wearing rubber boots, for whatever snow is still on the ground. Next to the guy is an "extra space area" with her collapsible shopping cart. Inside, among other items such as a backpack covered in silver sequins, is what appears to be a small battery-operated lawn torch. Seated behind the cart is a guy with tattoos on his forehead and neck. He gave me a look of trepidation when I stepped aboard.
The bus is down the street at the transfer station in no time, and my connecting bus to the gym is there. I was going to go into a deathburger next to the station, but I decide to hop on the bus, which leaves right away. (Last Sunday, we sat here for half an hour.) On this bus is someone else with their own look of trepidation. I awoke this morning feeling better rested indeed. The corpse has risen. The sky is a clear blue and the sun is out. Instead of lunch with the deathburger crackheads, I'm off the connecting bus and at an Irish Pub along the short walk to the gym. I'm surrounded by families with mixed drinks on marble tabletops. I order a crab and shrimp omelet with hollandaise sauce and gouda, with a thick slice of marbled rye. The host has a backwards cap from Walgreens instead of a cloth bag, and there's one guy at a monitor cashing out every customer's tickets. He's in a sweater one might find at a ski lodge. He moves quickly but with an odd exaggeration. His elbows are out at ninety degrees when he hits the touchscreen, and he steps with a gait which appears slightly off balance. I watch him ask a question of one party at their table. He moves with quick jerks which almost make him appear to be high. Then I notice that his right hand is deformed. I eat and run. I hit the gym. It's something of a slog back to the train station. I'm still worn out from this past week. The bus arrives just as I drag myself to the gate. It whips me back to my boulevard, where I hike to the supermarket. I pick up a few things and head out to the stop for a bus home, one bag full of groceries and my gym bag. I sit and watch hot rod kids cruising down their favorite avenue. Teenage guys behind the wheel and their girlfriends in the passenger seat who could pass for twelve years old. Monday morning I'm back to waking up too early. By Tuesday, I'm so tired, I think it's still Wednesday. I'm so tired that I feel as if I want to fall asleep as I'm getting ready for work. This is supposed to be the last day. Again I make the crosstown ride to a stop for a bus to work. I barely have time to grab another pair of shoes to wear at work, as the old ones are wearing out. I will get there in time only for the bus which will drop me of two minutes before we open. Along the way, it's shortly after 6 AM and the green flag has dropped on rush hour. Drivers begin attempting to kill me at the crest of the bridge over the highway and train. A driver in a van doesn't check my direction as he exits the off ramp, and makes a right on red at a break in traffic. I don't get run over here. At the bottom of the other side of this bridge, I stop for a bus coming out of the train station. We play stop and go with each other at the entrance to the busy avenue before he lets me go. Across a busy intersection and down a residential street. I approach a bike lane through a private university campus. It parallels a drive, out of which appears a garbage truck. As I'm turning onto the bike lane on the far side o the truck, it begins to turn toward me right on my rear rim.
The Return of the Jesus Guy
It's after work and again I am dead tired. I don't even bother with the trail as I'm looking for a deathburger from which to grab dinner. I attempt to go north to a main avenue to find one, and I end up at the boulevard I crossed before sunrise this morning. I pass a bus stop at a entrance to a train station I passed, also this morning. Municipal police are clearing out homeless debris n and around the bus shelter. A pair of police cruisers are parked. I find a deathburger, and I ride home. I've stumbled in the door and the phone rings. I get the call. Something is wrong with my coworker's plane. Can I open again tomorrow? Then it's tomorrow morning. I'm climbing the same bridge before sunrise. Along the way, I spot an oncoming cyclist just in time. On any sidewalk or bridge, I ride as if there are two lanes. He's in my lane. Perhaps he wants to stay out of the road hazards, which tend to accumulate in the downhill "lane". I move into his lane...so he can pass in mine. He says something I don't hear. He's wearing no helmet. The following late afternoon, it's after work. I awoke in the morning with my first decent night's sleep this week. I'm grabbing dinner at the bakery across the street from work. I'm sitting next to the Jesus guy. He's back here with another much younger man. They are discussing the latter's experience sharing the "word" with someone younger still. This is yet another interpretation of a perceived divinely inspired interaction with an actual fellow human, as related by someone to the Jesus guy. Much younger guy speaks of a "kid" who contacts him to say, "You know what just happened to me?" I'm convinced that the significance of this, whatever the details, is in the mutual interpretation of a context of divine intervention. The Jesus guy appears to be here to acknowledge these stories. "How many times did Jesus have to do that?" he replies. They discuss temptation. This bakery is hardly a noisy place. I'm sitting right next to this pair, and I can barely hear either one of them. Are they intentionally keeping their voices as quiet as possible. If this is their idea of being as bold as a lion, it's very passive/aggressive. The Jesus guy goes on, "But not by the example of..." (Inaudible.) "What a great example. Can I wrap this up here?" At first, I think he's asking the younger guy if he can wrap up some leftovers. But he and his male friends never come in here to purchase anything. He means 'wrap this up' with a prayer. The pair join hands. The sexual innuendo was lost before it ever arrived. "Thank you for guiding us," says the Jesus guy, I presume as the 'elder' 'leading in prayer'. "Giving your son. Using his example. Using his name. We're so thankful." The flavor of this prayer is tepid. Perhaps these dudes are Lutheran. The prayer finished, the Jesus guy gives his customary advice. "So, you're doing... (Inaudible.) You're passing on... (Inaudible.)" God damn it, you need a fucking hearing aid to make these guys out. "Keep it up," the Jesus guy continues, "That's the whole point of what you've been doing the past year. You're equipped." They stand up, they hug. "See you in a couple weeks," says Jesus guy, "I have to make a stop again." The Jesus guy doesn't mean driving to another bakery. He means he's going to the men's room.
Overnight there was a dusting of snow. Once again, the days I ride all the way to work, there's fresh snow. The afternoon is a grey sky threatening some kind of precipitation. A couple of times, the sun attempts to come out. As the approach of closing time, it appears to be the tiniest of snowflakes, or a mist of rain. To quote Colonel Kurtz, it's "neither." It's effing ice. It's an ice storm, or more accurately, freezing fog. I ride to the train station on streets I shouldn't be on. The train deposits me at my station, where there is no bus to meet me. It's only a twenty-minute ride home from here. At the intersection of a freeway, I put down my legs on the cement. It's coated in ice. I don't understand how I can stay upright on this. I do just fine down the avenue and where I turn to climb one of the steepest hills on my journey. I dismount at the bottom and I can barely stand on the icy street. My feet slip on the hill for a handful of yards. At the top, I'm back on the bike as I go down a stretch of residential street. I'm turning onto the long street a block from my own. I brake slightly into a turn, and my front tire briefly slides.as it loses traction. I'm right there, on the line between traction and insanity. Not enough to toss me on my ass. I ride down a new trail along the street. I exit the trail over a ramp with bumps like cleats, to provide traction for wheelchairs. The ice-covered bumps try to throw me off but I recover. I ride up the next block to my own street and onto a sidewalk. i decide to dismount before I traverse some snow. The sidewalk is so slippery, I can hardly stand. I dismounted just in time. I walk the last few yards home from here. I can't imagine I will be riding to work tomorrow. Overnight the freezing rain turned to snow. There's not much snow, but if underneath is ice, I'm not riding anywhere. I examine the transit system schedule online. On a Saturday, the trip to work takes two to three times longer, because of the layovers between bus and train. I head down my street to a corner for a crosstown bus. A few flakes drift silently down. In fact, at a quarter to six AM, I don't remember my neighborhood being so damned quiet. I watch all the way down my street until I spot my bus. It scoops me up and transports me to the train. I wasn't expecting a train for another twenty minutes at least. Yet one is here. This one drops me at the station with a gate for my bus to work. But I have a good hour before it gets here. It's a short walk to a coffee shop where I can hang out until my last connecting bus comes along. The shop staff are all coeds in crocheted hats. I listen to them discuss Beyonce. At a counter with a seat is a homeless guy, explaining the faults of society to another guy. At a quarter after 7, I decide I had better get my butt out to the stop across the street. The bus comes, drops me at work, and the day goes quickly. I wasn't expecting that, by 3 PM, the streets are completely clear. I could ride home with no problem if I had my bike.
Sunday night. I've just gone to bed when I get the call. Can I work for my coworker tomorrow? It's back to bed. Wake up too early. Do some dishes. Make lunch. Out the door, back on the bike I had to get off before I got home two days ago. It's go go go. Get to the bus stop just in time, on the bus and off at work. Throw the bike inside and cross the boulevard to the breakfast place. At one table are a couple of middle-aged guys. One is in sweats and chains. He appears as if he could have come straight from the Bronx. The other appears to weigh at least 300 lbs. They are discussing computers. Old computers. "Hit enter, enter..." As I'm leaving, two more guys are sitting at the table. These guys are older, with long beards. It's some kind of computer nerd club. With pancakes. During my workday, I go to the opposite end of the strip of shops, to the doughnut shop. because I forget that they are closed on Monday. I do this every Monday. I do a 180 and instead head for the gas station next door. On the way, I watch a car whip off the boulevard as they all do. It stops at the doughnut shop, as they all do. I watch the driver get out and look in the window. That's right, they ain't open today. One of the vehicles at the gas station is a truck with the bed outfitted with special equipment. It has Georgia plates and "OSMOTE" on the driver side door. Inside are three guys in Carhartt gear. One appears to be the crew chief. He's paying for his items when he asks the Pakistani clerk, "So, coffee is free today?" One of the crew, with tattoos on his neck, laughs. I will be back in here 24 hours later when a skinny young homeless guy comes in to ask if they have a restroom. Back at work, the same vehicle is still parked at the doughnut shop. The shop is still closed. On Thursday, the token weirdo inside the gas station is a tall guy with hair down to his waist. He has body odor. After work I take a horse trail to try and get around at least one huge hill on the detour off the trail home. If I follow this route to a spot where I used detour off the trail, it will take me to a street corner I passed this morning on the way to work. This corner is under so much construction, it was closed. So I shadow one highway going east and west, looking for a sidewalk which will take me under a highway going north and south. I end up following a sidewalk along the first highway, until the sidewalk turns into a dirt path. Then I am facing no sidewalk or dirt path, and the option of entering one highway or taking an on ramp for the other. No, neither is an option. It's just that, it's been some time since I've been in such a crazy spot on my bike. I take the shortest way back to said intersection under construction. It's no longer under construction.
Friday I have to be at work an hour early. When I do get to work, I tell my coworker that I can't come in early on Wednesday or Friday of next week. That's fine. But she needs me to work for her on Monday. I'm glad we got that straightened out. Friday. If I leave the house without breakfast, I can have breakfast at the diner across the avenue from a stop for my bus to work. I leave late enough that I don't expect to make the next bus. I should have plenty of time for breakfast at the diner. I'm climbing the steep bridge over the highway and train. Coming down the other way is a guy with long grey hair and no helmet. He moves toward me and sounds almost as if he's asking me for change. I'm soon in front of the diner, when I notice passengers at the bus stop. I can still somehow make it, which I decide to do instead, while I have a green light through the intersection. I must have been hauling ass without even thinking about it. Right behind me is my bus. On Saturday, I ride to the train which I take to a station before my usual one. I get out and ride to my neighborhood supermarket. I pick up some flowers which appear to be half dead. I have with me a tiny vase which I purchased at a hardware store across the street from work. I was expecting to buy a single rose from the supermarket, but they have none. It's a week and a half after Valentine's Day. I ride home with the flowers on life support. I put water int the thin vase with a few grains of Miracle Gro. I trim the flower stems to fit them all into this thin vase. In the morning they have returned to life. At 1 PM, my lady shows up and we go down to a diner near my sister's place for our Valentine's Day celebration. She tells me the coffee is very good. Afterward, we have a short walk in a park in our neighborhood before she must go to work. During the walk, my shoes fall apart.
...in the hustle and bustle of adulthood, getting outdoors may have become less of a priority... ...have extra layers for warmth or rain protection. Use sunscreen... Have a flashlight... Be on the lookout for wildlife...
...Littleton City Council...continued their...conversation... Liam Stwart, 13, was killed...riding his bike to school in October. "We want things done right." ...a study session late last year... ...council members...moving faster... ...as early as spring and early summer... ...discussed the increase in cost... ...more crosswalks, more speed limit signs, separated bike lanes for the first time [in the municipality of Littleton.] bicyclists need to be "hypervigilant... ...let us not let...bikers totally off the hook." [Replied another council member,] "The driver of vehicles capable of manslaughter after milliseconds of negligence share a greater responsibility to be vigilant." ...decisions...informed by data. - Littleton Independent, week of 2/15/2024
I believe it started sometime this month. We've been having days in the 60s F. As if they are neon-colored dandelions, other cyclists have been popping up along the trail. I was on the way home Saturday before my date. I was on the trail along the river when I heard a couple of guys behind me. A pair of cyclists pass me. They are dressed head to toe in black Lycra. One tells the other, "Yeah, I've had some nice days (to ride.)" Early in the last week of the month, I spot the homeless camper from the early 1980s parked along the long incline toward a corner with an open field. On Wednesday I head up the street to a local resource center. The United Way has a free tax help program, with volunteers from Americorps. When I step inside, I notice a ceramic bowl of small toothpaste tubes on a designer table. Curious talismans for those seekers of resources. I sign in, and one of the written questions asks what kind of car I drive. I take a seat and someone looks at everyone but myself, and motions for them to come back to where the tax help is. I join them, and ask the person who did the motioning if I am included in her brood. She affirms this. The volunteer who does my taxes is new to a consolidated investment annual statement. He asks for help from a woman who's older than these volunteers, who appear as if they are just kids. Instead of their Americorps cargo pants and combat boots, she's in a blazer. Her hairdo would make an odd combination with boots anyhow. She strikes me as quite the task master as she quickly points to an app on the screen of the kid's laptop. He's almost enraptured with relief at this assistance, and my tax preparation goes forward with ease. I had been alerted by my investment advisor to the expectation of a sizable refund due to capital losses this year. I call him my wizard, and the vision he conjured has proven accurate. Though I owe the federal government $31, the state of Colorado will be sending me a refund of over $1,100. Last year, I got a few hundred, but it's been some time since I've seen a refund such as the one for 2023.
Thursday is the last day of the month. It's leap year. I get the call. Can I come in an hour early. My new plan is to leave without breakfast, ride to the stop for a bus to work, and grab breakfast at the diner across the avenue from the stop. Along the way, I spot the homeless camper from the early 1980s. It's moved around the corner to the curb next to an open field. With my taxes out of the way, I feel as though I'm going to turn around, and Memorial Day will be staring me in the face. Before then, I'm told a cold front is on the way. This could mean a lot more snow. But a week from this Sunday is Daylight Savings Time. A week later, St. Patrick's Day. And two weeks after that, Easter. I have one dentist appointment tomorrow and another this month. My homeowner's insurance annual premium is due April 1st. Cylinders are firing. Shoes will be dropping. One pair of mine disintegrated, I'm told by our cobbler due to dry rot, and I just purchased another. It's the familiar pace of go go go.
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