What a way to end the season at the waterpark. I pay a visit to the town of Golden with the sister in the morning. It turns into one hot Labor Day. Back home, I apply sunscreen and head down the sidewalk along my boulevard for lunch along the way to the waterpark. I exit onto the street to avoid someone shuffling along the sidewalk. Further along, an Uber bicycle and a couple of electric scooters block the entire sidewalk. Again I exit onto the street and attempt to reenter the sidewalk, where there is just a bit of a rise. The rise turns out to be too high for me to take at an angle. I go down on by right side, complete with my head hitting the concrete. ...that's why I wear a helmet. The elbow and ankle are scraped, as well at my hip. My shoulder is sore. But nothing appears to be broken. I get up slowly, expecting something to be broken. After lunch, I stop into the supermarket for some bandages and antibiotic ointment. Then I ride to the waterpark for the last swim. The wounds appear less deep than the one I received on Memorial Day weekend of last year. I'm guessing that I'm safe to swim. We shall see how I feel when I wake up tomorrow. Not only am I lucky I didn't break anything, I'm lucky I wasn't effing run over. When I get home, I get the call shortly before 9 PM. Can I work open to close tomorrow? I don't take any pain medicine. I try to sleep. My shoulder hurts too much. Perhaps I get a couple of hours at the most. Another ride to work in the dark. I'm sure I will be too tired to swim afterward. During parts of the day, I dose off in a chair for a few minutes. Then less than an hour before close, I fall asleep for a half hour. In fact, I'm too tired to ride all the way home. I end up working a little past close anyway. I'm across the street at a stop for my bus home. The sun is about to disappear behind a large cloud. Meanwhile, I'm trying to fit my body into a limited area of shade from the back of the bus bench. Please go behind the cloud. Please. Overnight, I'm able to get to sleep at last. I get a good 7 hours. I'm up and out the door to the distant rec center for a swim before work. Then I go blasting down the crosstown trail to work. Got more sleep overnight Wednesday. But with a decent sleep overnight, I'm still catching up.
"...nothing is better than being...outside...seeing different neighborhoods." "It's the parents with the kids, the risk-adverse and the cautiously optimistic about biking in the city." "We have been taught...that bike commuting is biking to work..." - Washington Park Profile, 9/1/2024
There's all the pieces and parts you want for healthy society. Can we bring them together...? Some artists, they're lone wolves, they want to work alone. Totally respect it - that's just not our vibe. ...headliners get...money and other people are painting for free." ...large communities of Ethiopian, Eritrean and Nepalese descent... "You can't really talk about art in this neighborhood unless you're talking about: We're do you come from? Who do you represent? Who do you feel like you speak for?" - Westword 9/5-11/2024 -
Friday. I wake up too early. I try to go back to sleep but I can't. It's seven hours after I went to bed, but I don't think I slept the last hour and a half. I get up groggy, but by the time I leave the house I feel better. I wonder how long I will feel fine until I feel like falling down. I have an email which claims I have a prescription to refill. It turns out to be something I can get over the counter. I ask the pharmacist if she can cancel it. She suggests not picking it up. I ask her if this will make it go away forever. She shakes her head yes. I tell her that we shall put this suggestion to the test. She lets me know that real prescription will be ready tomorrow. Then I swing by the bank for more ones for the bus. Saturday. Can it be? I've caught up on my sleep? The usual stop for my bus to work is closed for "construction". None appears to be going on. It isn't due to reopen for another week. There's a route I take home from the train station where a bus from work drops me off. I do this route in reverse this morning. It takes me half the time to get there as it does my usual stop for this bus. The bus arrives and I step aboard. Behind me steps a young guy in a black hoodie and groovy sunglasses. For the second year in a row, the transit system has been letting passengers under a certain age ride for free. This guy tells the driver he's "Eighteen. I forgot my ID." I laugh out loud. Sunday. On the schedule today is lunch, a workout at the rec center, and a swim in the outdoor pool at the distant rec center. I've had a fine sleep. The weather is effing perfect. Blue sky with a cool breeze. I head for the same trail I take to work, down the long street which hooks up with it. I pass a church, inside which I can hear singing. As I approach the trail, a couple of cyclists are on the street. Out on the trail are a line of cyclists in Lycra. Riding in groups. The weekends this month have been popular with more cyclists than I've seen all summer. After lunch and the workout, and meeting a couple of young women in the hot tub who are speaking Farsi, I ask the lady behind the desk at the gym if I can peek at a map of the greater metro area on her computer. I spy one route to the distant rec center...from this rec center. I end up going past the sister's place along the way. I hook up with the trail there and turn off of it earlier than I have before, in search of a route which avoids a steep and long incline. I don't avoid the incline, but I do spy what I think is a neighborhood behind a fence along an isolated road. I enter a parking lot and follow a gravel patch to a drainage ditch. I pick up my bike and straddle the ditch. Now I'm on the lawn between a couple of residential homes. A few steps, and I'm on a residential street. I follow it to the distant rec center.
Monday. The outdoor pool at the distant rec center is open. But I have a real prescription this time to pick up at the pharmacy. Also, I get the call this morning. Can I come in 2 hours early? I wait in line behind a guy with his whatever support dog. It lays on the floor, taking its own space in line. When he gets to a window, he's told that his payment method, or his primary care physician, or something is out of network. The woman behind the window mentions his account being from an entirely different hospital chain. I wonder why he attempted to get a prescription here? He's out. The dog's out. I'm out. I backtrack a couple of streets to hook up with a route to the train station, and my bus to work. The route takes me to the interstate, where I turn along a street with shops and cafes. On the sidewalk, I first navigate past a woman with a stroller for two kids. Then, I make my way around a dog sitting next to a table at an outdoor cafe. It's owner is a young woman in a tank top and a bandana around her head. This route gets me to my bus in no time. The bus comes and collects me. The driver is slow. He somehow prints my transfer slowly. A couple of young women onboard pull the cord, to ring the bell for the very first stop out of the station. He isn't going to stop until the pair yell, "We have a stop!" At work, we close two hours before I have to hit the hay. I have to open tomorrow. I ride to a train back to my side of town. I wait as the sun goes down. A train arrives going the opposite direction. A train pulling boxcars arrives along the far tracks, and comes to a stop. A train comes our direction, but doesn't stop. It's "out of service". Another train arrives going the opposite direction. Finally, ours shows up late. A couple of other cyclists with their own bikes are on the car I step into. They each are in an "extra space area". One sounds like a homeless guy, going on and on to the female. We pull up to her stop and she almost doesn't get up and out the door in time. A couple of stations later and I'm off. I'm around a corner and running through an underpass. Yards ahead is a dark figure silhouetted against the streetlights of the highway intersection through the other side. He's dead center of the path before he sees me and moves to one side. When my headlamp hits him, I see a bald guy with a long white beard. His hands are crossed behind his back. Father Time? I get home a half hour after I would have, had I done the entire ride.
Thursday. With the change of the seasons, and the end of the insanity in my daily schedule, I've decided (once again) to get serious about my diet. I haven't had time to pick up more diet soda for work, or get a new bike helmet. I end up taking a 12-pack to work from home, and replacing it with another I pick up on the way home after work. In the morning, I stop by my neighborhood bank branch to order more checks. I like doing this with people I trust, as I do the tellers at this branch. I'm at my bank at 10 after 7 AM. A couple of employees arrive and open the bank, go inside, and lock the door behind them. I don't have time to wait. I've been called into work an hour early. So I head for the train station for my bus to work. At the station, I'm there a few minutes early. But the bus pulls up right away. When I step aboard, the driver doesn't wait until the scheduled departure time. She takes off as soon as I sit down. This same driver will do the same thing 24 hours later, when I again get called into work early. This morning, however, traffic is held up at my usual stop for this bus. There is indeed some kind of construction going on here. I end up staying at work late enough to catch the bus. This one I don't take to the train station, but to a crosstown bus, which drops me off right in front of my neighborhood supermarket. I first head across the avenue to the department store, for a new bike helmet. Then I'm back across the street to load up on groceries for my back-to-the-diet plan. I don't recall the last time I bought this much food at once. I've been eating almost every meal out. I pack the food into two extra bags, both of which go over my shoulders. Friday, I'm back at the bank on the way back to the train station. I ask one of the tellers I saw yesterday about their locking the door ten minutes after they were supposed to open. She tells me that traffic was backed up so bad on the interstate, they couldn't make it until then.
Noisy Pickleball and Bullshit Vegetables
Saturday. After work, I head for another library used book sale. It's just a 30-minute bike ride the opposite direction from work. I leave the old money neighborhoods behind and roll through what feels as if it's farmland. I have but an hour and I spend it all looking through titles. It takes me right up until closing to look through everything I want to. Some weird skinny elderly stooped over guy with colorful suspenders approaches me. He says something I can't hear. I end up behind him in line at the register and snap a shot of him. The books go in a bag over my shoulder, and I cross the busy street to grab a big salad at Panera. I will eat half of it at the train station I'm headed for, and finish the rest at work tomorrow. This train station is on a more opulent side of town. The Technology Center, or Tech Canter. I'm climbing a hill on a sidewalk through manicured bright green grass. The lawn is in front of what I assume is a private club. A teenaged kid asks me to throw his pickleball back over the chain link fence surrounding the tennis court. I tell him I have a train to catch. Tomorrow, I will end up telling someone behind the desk at a rec center that I hate pickleball. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I eat half my salad during the half hour I wait for the train. It takes me right back to the station I rode to this morning, and I retrace my route home. The following morning, the sister picks me up for breakfast. She drops me at the rec center, where said guy behind the desk asks me if I'm there for pickleball. He asks why I hate it. "Is it the noise?" he wants to know. I tell him that the tennis courts at a park in my neighborhood stood empty until white people began moving in. Now the courts are full of pickle ballers. After my workout, I'm in the hot tub with a trio of guys. One is telling the others how he's building a home up in the mountains. "It's gonna have a greenhouse for vegetables and all that bullshit." He says it's already in the upper 20s F. overnight up there. After the hot tub, I ride to the bar and grill, where I get another salad and save half of that one. I skip chocolate therapy and ride to an art festival across the street from where I work. I peruse the tents and their works. Toward the end, one middle-aged artist tells me he's been watching me looking at the art "very intensely." He asks if I paint. I tell him I used to. I stop into the bakery across the boulevard from work for a cold drink before I catch the bus up the street. The same bus I take from work to the same train station. Only I decide to ride to the camera shop. I cross the boulevard at an impossible corner and ride straight east. It takes me to a sidewalk along a supermarket and into a parking lot, and across the very next busy boulevard to the camera shop. I run in and grab my prints before I ride to a nearby train station. I catch a crosstown bus which goes all the way to the distant rec center. Or it did until the schedule changed. Which I discover at this moment. The next bus, which does go all the way out there, comes in a half hour. I decide to ride the rest of the way. I make it to the street where the rec center is, just as this next bus catches up with me. I do the last swim on the day this outdoor pool is open. Even though it's only three feet deep. The sky is now very ominously overcast. The water temp is posted on a white board, 72 degrees F. It's cold when I get in, but I quickly adjust. During some laps I taste chlorine. The only other swimmer is a woman who climbs out. Another woman takes her place. In fifteen minutes or so, a wind picks up. Suddenly, the surface has ripples. A noodle is being blown into the pool. I hear thunder. I glance at the lifeguard who gets on a walkie talkie. I decide to call it a season and climb out. Raindrops appear. Inside, I change and exit through the front. A light rain is falling. I ride through it until it stops along the way home.
Monday I get the call. Can I come in two hours early. It's back to the train station to catch the bus. We're slammed at work. I need the extra two hours, plus the extra hour later we're open than the rest of the week, just to finish everything which comes in. I stay late enough to catch a bus home. Tuesday. I don't have to be at work early today. I swing by the bank for more ones, for the bus. Along the way there, I pass the house where the homeless woman danced with her pants falling down. Where a guy watering his bushes with a pitcher welcomed me to the "American Whore". I hear his voice up on the porch. I turn to see a couple of guys there. After the bank, I get to work and cross the street to the bakery. I have a brownie for lunch. I grab more bananas for work, at a grocery in this shopping center. A gray-haired guy is waiting for his sandwich. Someone at the counter got his name wrong, but he suspects the sandwich is his. Instead of asking what kind of sandwich it is, he asks, "What's the nature of the sandwich?" At work, my coworker calls to ask if I can come in four hours early tomorrow. So...as soon as we close, I run across the street and order a salad at the bakery for dinner. I run from there back to the grocery and grab more milk for work. I run back to the bakery and grab another loaf of bread for work. I run these back across the street to work before I again run across the street back to the bakery. I eat my salad before I head out to the bus stop. I catch the bus up the street and ride home from there. One of my neighbors walks a dog which growls at everyone. This evening, he loses his grip and the dog comes after me. He grabs it before it reaches me. he apologizes and shakes my hand. Wow. This is more than I've ever had from any of the dog owners out on the bike trail. Wednesday. My coworker has asked me to come in four hours early today. I arrive an hour before I'm due at work. I head across the street for breakfast. This means I'm here just when we open. I can see across the street. It's a little after 7 AM. The open sign isn't on. But instead of rush over there, I go and eat breakfast. Before I left the house, I checked the voicemail on my landline. I have two. One is reminding me of a dental appointment I have today. ...which I completely forgot about when I lustily agreed to accept the four extra hours my coworker threw at me.
The second voicemail was from the dentist, telling me that my appointment had to be cancelled. A hygienist is not available today. So I'm off the hook. Yesterday after work, I did what I always do. I checked my mailbox. Or I tried to. My key won't go into the lock. This morning, I ride down to my neighborhood post office. I don't remember the last time I was here. I'm told it may take some time to fix or replace the lock. It's unclear if I will be charged. And I'm going to collect my mail at this post office. But I'm required to bring in a copy of the deed to my home, to prove I live there. I have tomorrow off, for a doctor's appointment. Then I ride to the clinic down the street from where I live. I reschedule my dental appointment. The lady behind the desk tells me that they called me a third time, to tell me they found someone to clean my teeth. Outside, I'm unlocking my bike as another cyclist is doing the same. This other cyclist asks me if I know of a bike shop close by. I hear a man's voice, but I can see inside she/her v neck halter. She/her has breasts. She/her shows me she/her has a flat front tire. I mention the sporting goods supercenter downtown. She/her replies that she/her has only five dollars and ain't goin' all that way. She/her mentions another bike shop she/her says is within a mile. I decide to take the bus to work. I want to stop into the diner across the street from my usual stop for the bus. I'm parking my bike along a narrow walkway between the wall and a railing along the street. An elderly couple is approaching along this walkway. The guy is using a walker. I step out of their way, and I grab a notebook from a pouch on my handlebars before I enter the diner. The wife is holding the door for her husband. I enter behind them and I spot a new local free magazine at a small newspaper stand. The wife asks me if they are to wait to be seated. I tell them to sit anywhere. As soon as I do, a waitress tells them the same thing. I follow them inside and I glance at a clock on the wall. It's just about time for the bus to show up. I head over to the bus stop. Sunday. It began raining overnight. This morning, it's a steady, light rain. My sister alerted me to the rain yesterday. Today is the first day of autumn, and the first day when the high is out of the upper 70s. Last Sunday was the final day to swim outdoors, so I only have the gym to go to today. I will take the bus, unless the rain lets up.
I'm Finally Racist
Yesterday at work, I opened the door for a guy pushing a walker. He had a swollen left leg, the pant leg of which was pulled up a few inches so he could show his leg was swollen. The first thing he told me was that someone "smashed into my walker, and one of the wheels is busted." He went into a story about moving here from Michigan. He claimed he worked at a casino up in the mountains. That he fell and injured his leg. That his boss told him to stay home and recover. That his leg has blood clots. That he isn't homeless, that he has kids 5,7, and 9 years old, that a woman gave him $20 and he's counting on God to direct him to good people who will help him out. (...with cash.) He talks nonstop. He says that skin color doesn't matter to him. His own skin is black. He says he gets $600/month in food stamps. He tells me his age, which is 4 years younger than myself. He says his landlord is trying to put him out because he can't afford his $200 rent. That anyone found a place to rent for $200/month is the least believable part of this story. He told his landlord that he thinks he can do $100 because "that's fair." An interesting attitude from a tenant, more of which is about to be revealed. He offers for me to meet his kids and landlord, I presume so I know his story is on the up and up, though he never explains as much. He's "in pain, but I'm out here taking it like a man." He's in sweatpants and a stained sweatshirt. I look at this guy, who I don't expect to get out on a bicycle, open an investment account, or get a gym membership. In my new tax bracket, I suppose that I'm paying for his health care and groceries. I offer to call 911, so perhaps they can hook him up with social services. Now, he's dissatisfied that I've wasted his time as I've listened to his story, "shaking your head in agreement as if you're interested." This reaction makes this encounter all worthwhile. He tells me I'm racist. It's the first time in my life anyone has said this to me. Though, just last week, a customer came in and told me she saw the funniest "movie" by a socially conservative pundit named Matt Walsh. His film is titled Am I A Racist? I haven't seen it, but I've seen him online speak a few sentences. Walsh strikes me as the least funny guy I ever seen, with a face frozen into expressionlessness. I'm not convinced he's ever smiled at anything. Someone should instead make of film with this guy in my store. I open the door for him and he returns into the ether from which he emerged. He makes his way along the line of shops and tries his story on a mom exiting a minivan with her son. How do I respond? I take it like a man...
The rain lets up by mid-morning. I'm off on my bike to the gym. I' wearing my balaclava for the first time this season. Out on the trail along the river, I swing past the steep sidewalk up to a big shopping center. To come down here to the trail, all ya gotta do is coast all the way. I watch a homeless cyclist. Instead of a helmet, He has a hat with a wide brim, something from the 1970s. It sits on top of his shaggy grey hair. He's coming down from the parking lot, over a steep embankment of grass. His wet brakes squeak as he cautiously descends. I first head for my bar and grill. The outdoor bar is closed on this chilly post drizzle morning. The wait inside is 45 minutes to an hour. I find an alternative for lunch at a brewery. It's a limited menu; perfect for a diet. I sit a couple of tables away from four people having some kind of staff meeting. I grab some chocolate therapy before the gym. After my workout, I discover that the hot tub is broken. No doubt the work of those infernal racists. I ride to a supermarket and grab more diet sodas and a local newspaper, and I ride to work to drop off the sodas. ...and discover that I forgot to turn off a piece of equipment yesterday. I run across the street and take advantage of the opportunity to grab a salad for some future meal. The sun has come out and the temps have come up. I ride home in shorts and no shirt. I'm back on my side of town, climbing a steep hill on the way home. A camper passes me, and I suspect it's homeless. I follow it around a corner I wouldn't otherwise take, and I discover a less busy residential street. I like this. I don't spot it before I turn onto the long street a block from my own. Glancing down toward the next street, there it is moving down a busy avenue,
It's Tuesday. I'm on my way to work in the dark. None of this simply ride to the bus stuff. I'm doin' the whole ride. I've just turned onto the connecting trail and I'm approaching the very first underpass. On this side of the underpass is a steep embankment opposite the creek. There's a low cement wall, above which the embankment goes almost straight up. Worn through the weeds is a dirt path from the wall to a sidewalk along a highway just above the underpass. It's a shortcut from the trail to the sidewalk above. Just yards behind me is a level dirt path to a street, again just yards from the sidewalk. This path here requires a cyclist to carry a bicycle either down or, worse, straight up. It's a climb across dirt which isn't stable, far to steep to push a bike up or roll it down. Directly ahead of me in the dark is a homeless guy holding a tricycle, with the front rim in the air and balancing the trike on the two rear ones. He puts the front rim down on top of the wall. I'm convinced he's going to attempt to get this trike up this path. As I pass him, he gives me the universal homeless greeting. "How's it goin'?" Wednesday. For the second time only in recent memory, I sleep until 7 AM. This is something I just don't do. Friday morning, I will get up after perhaps only 4 or 5 hours of sleep. The overnights may be cool, but the days warm up incredibly fast. Thursday will he 90 degrees F. I'm enjoying the balmy commute out on the bike. This month, I spotted a homeless guy around my extended neighborhood. I wonder if he's the same guy with an acoustic guitar. I vaguely recall he also has an electric one. The guy I've seen more recently has a sizeable bike "trailer". It's appears to be some kind of wagon with a cylindrical dome over it, the shape of an old, covered wagon. Written on it is "I love music." In spite of my middle of the night rise from bed, I get a late start and head toward the train station for my bus to work. The first one which runs during the week. Even at 5 AM, it's still in the low 60s F. I can almost ride in my bike shorts. To get there, I head cross town first through my extended neighborhood. In the absence of streetlights, I roll past driveways in the dark. Suddenly, there's another cyclist ready to come out of one of them. I now must keep an eye out for bikes pulling out.
"...to consider...what gives our identity meaning was not from a place of choice, so what would it mean to wrestle with our cultural identity? ...to each find our own truth in how we want to relate to our culture...in real time? ...uplifting...archetypes...also acknowledging whose shoulders I stand on." - Westword, 9/26-10/2/2024
Excuse Me Too
I'm on my way home from work Saturday. I'm back on my own corner, in front of a Vietnamese grocery. At a corner next to the grocery's parking lot is the purple wagon guy. He is in fact strumming of his guitars along to a device plays music. I wake up Sunday feeling caught up on my sleep from the previous two days. Yesterday was busy enough at work that I stayed a half hour late and just made a bus home. This morning I'm out the door to the rec center. It's a beautiful day. I'm across my boulevard and on the long street a block from my own. One of a pair of homeless campers, which are here off and on, is still here. Another homeless vehicle is parked in front of it, packed with stuff from the back up to the front seat. Someone inside starts the engine as I roll past. I turn down the long street which hooks up with the trail much further than the closest trailhead. I'm in my bike shorts and no shirt, just a few blocks from home when I come upon a church, named Victory Outreach. A couple of young guys are standing next to the curb. In black suits and holding welcoming signs, they're both underneath a tarp. As I pass, they greet me. I reply with a peace sign and say, "Victory." They thank me. I' down a hill and up another. Across a busy avenue, down the same street, up another hill and down a long one. A short hop to the trail. Lotta cyclists out on the trail, lotta Lycra. Cyclists trying to get some last-minute Indian summer riding in? I approach the connecting trail to work. Across what's left of the river, a baseball game is going on in a field. Just beyond, I can see garbage trucks lined up and parked at the dump. Just past the connecting trail, I park and take a seat under the shade of a tree trailside. I'm on something of a blind curb as I write this down. One cyclist goes past. When he spots me, he says, "Uh." A pair of young cyclists emerge from the opposite way. They stop mid-conversation as first one says, "Excuse me." Followed by the other who says, "Excuse me too." I watch a fisherman wading in the river. Across the river is a parallel trail. I hear someone yelling. A middle-aged couple come cycling along. The guy is complaining to his wife about someone who doesn't appear to care that "a couple of hundred people cross the border!" It's a bit of a longer haul from the connecting trail. I turn off the trail and am soon in ye old towne southernly suburb of Denver, and my bar and grill. It's a decidedly warmer Sunday today, and the bar is open. This means I get to eat lunch here. I stop in for some chocolate therapy before I hit the rec center. I can't figure out why my paycheck was so big when I took a day off, unless I'm actually saving money my returning to a diet. I have the money to take advantage of a sale on more punches for the rec center. The hot tub is still under repair. After my workout, I have a nice swim in an indoor heated therapy pool. I ride to a nearby supermarket for some groceries, which I then transport to work. I stop into the bakery for a snack and then ride home.
When I get home Sunday, I get the call. Can I work all day tomorrow? I get the call with plenty of time to get to bed for a decent night's sleep. In the very early morning, indeed I've had a fine sleep. I even have time to put together a salad for lunch. It almost feels warm enough to ride in shorts, but I leave the house in long pants and a windbreaker. Out on my corner, in front of the Vietnamese grocery, the homeless purple wagon guy has moved to the entrance. Under the streetlight, a trio of other people stand next to him on the concrete. He will be here when I get back home some fourteen hours later. I turn down a long street to a distant trailhead. I come to a stop at a stop sign, along with a vehicle. I cross the avenue. The vehicle just sits there. I'm some distance when I still see its headlights in my rearview. I reach the trailhead, from where the connecting trail isn't far. At the end of this trail, I stop at a table and bench and take off the windbreaker, pants, and shirt. I climb a steep hill to a horse trail. I get going when I hear voices in the dark. I see just in time three or four elderly people standing in the dark in the middle of the trail. I swing around them and on to work, where eleven hours go past in no time.
