July 2020, Dirty Hands, Clean Money,. Don't Sprinkle The Bike, and Now You See A Handful Of Campers - Now You Don't

     I don't remember when,  I began to see a couple of big RVs parked along one street from mine, on the way to where I now work since having been called back to work in early May.  Every several days, both of these appear t have been move to a different spot along the street next to a big empty lot.  They both appear to b broken down.  The roof of one has bicycle rims or frames.  I suspect that they are occupied by homeless.  Wednesday is the 1st.  The mornings feel as though they are in the 50s F.  The afternoons feels as if they are near 100.  I'm in line at the rec center, before I head of to work.  My bike is locked up at the bike rack, which is on the edge of grass between the sidewalk and the building.  Two groundskeeper trucks and four guys are here to test the in ground sprinkler system.  On go the sprinklers over the grass...and on my bike.  When I get inside the re center, I mention this to the woman behind the desk.  She gives me a number to call, and tell someone "not to sprinkle" my bike.  After the day is done, I'm out of work and have just crossed the boulevard.  I'm a short way down the road and turn into the old money neighborhood on the way to the trailhead.  Halfway down the street I see a tiny girl in a blue and white striped bathing suit, with a navy bow on the back.  She stops me to ask me where I'm going.  I tell her I'm going home.  She wants to know the name of myself, my mom, and my dad.  Before I answer, she wants to know if I'm going to see my mom.  She's quick with questions.  I tell her my mom has passed away.  She comes close to me.  She has shoulder-length blonde hair.  She asks me if someone murdered her.  No, I say, she got old.  She asks me if my mom is going on an adventure.  I answer that she just stayed home.  She shows me that the tar used to seal cracks in the asphalt on the street is soft.  She then waves me along, telling me to go help her.  Before I go, she lets me know that she killed me a monster, demonstrating how she stepped on it.  She says also killed a bug.

     "To engage an unknown experience with bravery, we need to have a specific relationship established within ourselves.  The relationship is one that includes self-love, feeling safe being yourself, trusting yourself, and self-security."
     "...we make the choice to...what we need to do to feel the feeling - its energy - instead of stuffing it down or acting it out.  The practice of self-love allows us to respond instead of react."  - Colorado Parent, 7/2020

     The City of Denver worried a group of protesters was forming an autonomous zone on Wednesday.  ...like Seattle...  Dozens of protesters set up tents and a food station that they said was intended to serve those experiencing in the south end of Civic Center Park.  They planned to stay the night as part of an "occupy" protest.  ...Denver Park Rangers and Police began a dialogue this afternoon...  ...after midnight...more tents had appeared.  Police say they used mace and batons...  The city said...to prevent the park from being taken over.  ...posts on the Afro Liberation's Instagram story [police say calls] the site a Denver Autonomous Zone...  - 9NEWS, 7/3/2020

     …"a store's windows...broken to prevent, a protestor's facial bones from being broken or eye being permanently damaged...is more than a fair trade.  If a building must be graffitied to prevent the suppression of free speech, that is a fair trade.  The threat to physical safety and free speech outweighs the threat to property."  - Life On Capitol Hill, 7/2020

     ...I express my deep appreciation...for the...way you've...weather the storm...  ...big challenges [such as] the race and social injustice protests in downtown Denver...  Local business owners are our friends and neighbors...  Regarding the protests, as an elected official, I...ask, "How can I share this power with my constituents?"  ...bring...accountability back to our government..  ...a deep dive into policies...  ...a proposed charter change amendment that would give the city council approval of the mayor's cabinet members...  Every day of the protests, I've engaged with constituents and the Denver Police Department...  I've also spoken with the press...
     "If it's not a (public) school, it will not hold as much value to the community.  Before it closed, everyone's kids from the...neighborhood went to that school.  ...we won't know who is supporting the community and its students."
     "Schools serve as a center for activity and energy of a neighborhood."  ...options to serve the community [include] closing the gap on the demand for early childhood education[, also a neighborhood] only blocks away...is a childcare desert.  "To take a public asset out of the community seems risky."  - Washington Park Profile, 7/2020

     I ran for council the first time because I felt like my peer group wasn't represented.  I thought we needed a thirtysomething to bring that voice of what an hourly worker is experiencing - that view of what Summit County is.  - Colorado Summit, Summer/Fall 2020

     Saturday is the 4th.  I expected to get less than enough sleep, being surrounded by neighbors on all sides launching fireworks.  I didn't expect never to get to sleep.  A little after 12:30 AM, they have been going for 3 1/2 hours.  I go out to see what the aftermath of a fireworks orgy looks like.  The house next to my townhome complex usually has it's small front yard full of pickup trucks.  There is a small space between the trucks where I see some three guys in caps sitting in lawn chairs.  They have some kind of spotlight they sit next to.  By 2 AM, the last of the stragglers have stopped.  I realize I didn't check the mail.  I go back out in my parking lot.  The trio is still out there.  The extended collection of residents who live in this house have always appeared to be Latino.  In the past, I saw some of them wearing the purple shirts of the workers who clean up the downtown pedestrian mall.  This evening, I hear English.  Either these are visitors or Caucasian poachers.  It's another odd summer in the Rockies.  Overnights are 50s-60s F.  Days feel like 100.  It's cool out with a full moon.  In the morning, I'm leaving to pick up some photos across town and then go swimming.  All this in spite of the fact that I haven't slept since I woke up yesterday morning.  Around 9:30 AM it's 92 degrees F but it feels like 100.  I turn toward the neighbor's place to have a look at how much leftover firework debris all the noise produced.  Last night sounded as if mortars and machine guns were going off.  There's much less evidence of the war movie soundtrack noise than I would have expected.  When I am coming back through the neighborhood across the boulevard, I will see multiple sites of home fireworks shows from the previous evening.  This morning, there is a young Caucasian guy sitting in silence, on the front step which is hidden behind a yard full of pickup trucks.  It's standing room only.  When I return late in the afternoon, an inflatable swimming pool will be positioned in an available spot between the home and one of the trucks.  I will spot a different Caucasian guy, who appears as if he's the Marlboro Man in a short-sleeved stylish buttoned down shirt, leaning on one of the trucks.  The pickup with a suspension almost twice the height of the others has lettered facing out on its rear window, "Dirty Hands, Clean Money."  The owner forgot, "Non-stop Fireworks."
     Oh, it's nice to have a working back rim, along with brakes.  Last week (or was it two?) during my first workout after seven weeks, I believe I stressed m right knee.  It's a bit weak pedaling as it first was climbing stairs, and I will notice it getting in and out of the pool.  I'm across town once again.  I grab my photos, and then I have the task of finding my way south to the waterpark.  I must negotiate my way around an interstate, and find the safest route across busy avenues and away from busy boulevards.  I swear, some of these streets I've been over before.  Too many companies I've worked for, too many far flung locations, too many odd hours of the day and night.  I hardly feel as though it's the least bit unusual to be without sleep.  I pass a church where I vaguely remember a bazaar.  I think I was in a 7-Eleven just recently, which I cruise past.  I'm rolling along an apartment complex.  One guy is carrying a box as he tells another resident, "I'm moving.  I'm so over this place."  This summer, I've seen neighborhoods with US flags draped from roof overhangs.  Around a corner, across the last avenue and down a residential street.  I'm making my way past crowded bungalows.  On the west side is a home with a flagpole.  It has, below its own US flag, blue and white "Trump America" flag.  Directly across the street is another bungalow.  On its flagpole is a single Colorado rainbow flag.  It's in front of this home where a pickup with a huge suspension is parked.
     At long last, after an hour and 37 minute ride from the only camera store in the metro area which processes black and white film, I arrive at the avenue with the waterpark.  I left one extra large water bottle home, and only have my canteen, which I empty before the final push to my destination.  I sit under a tree and wave visitors ahead of me in line.  When the park opens I join the line.  I step out of line to snap a photo of a growing thunderstorm.  It's something of a tradition to attempt to swim and make it home before a suspected downpour.  Unless it's so hot, you prefer to take a rain shower...such as today.  I rejoin the line a second time.  A mom behind me doesn't like this.  She asks me if I am with the people ahead of me.  I reply, "Sure."  She then asks her son if I'm his dad.  I don't know what she's worried about.  We all have reservations and will get inside.  Otherwise, it's nice to be here on a day when I'm not necessarily rushing to swim and get home.  One kid joins me in line at my favorite slide into the deep end of the regular pool.  It's called the "drop slide."  He's small and enjoys doing cannonballs down the slide.  There's a curvy woman in a tiny bright red bikini.  Among the families swimming in the shallow end, a guy in a black T-shirt stands up and talks to a younger woman.  He's talking about the activity schedule at some summer physical fitness program, about budgeting a household.  I never see him move from his spot.  I uncharacteristically spend the majority of the allotted two-hour reservation here before heading home.  The storm didn't move in until now.  It appears as if the visitors on the final time slot are the ones who will be cheated out of any sun today.  'Tis a typical summer day on the bike trail.  Everyone and their grandmother is out riding in packs.  It must be hot indeed.  The river along the trail home is almost bone dry, more so that I ever remember seeing it.
     On Monday, I'm at work when the general manager comes in.  I mention my sleepless night on the 4th.  He tells me he's never seen so many home fireworks displays.  His own family spent $500.  When I get home, in the mail is a notice from services rendered by the urologist.  The notice comes before the bill, letting me know how much the bill will be.  Rather than the estimate my insurance company gave me, around $1,200, the notice informs me that my part of the bill will be $1.45.  That's one dollar and forty-five cents.  There's a message on the voicemail of my landline.  It's from one of the four guys soaking my bike with the rec center in ground sprinkler system.  He apologized, but said he noticed me looking at him.  (As he looked at me, and I looked at him...)  He said he was surprised I "didn't jump up" and say something.  That must be because, instead of jumping up, I make a phone call.  Still, I'm impressed that he called.  On Tuesday, the owner came into my store.  This Thursday, my store is expanding hours.  I will be moving to an afternoon shift.  Wednesday.  I'm on the way home after work and hungry.  I detour to a supermarket off a highway between work and home.  I've been here once in a while, since I've gone back to work at our location south of Denver.  There's always one homeless guy hanging around outside.  I grab some hot wings and take the short ride to a park.  The park is along the way from the supermarket to one entrance for the bike trail home.  There's one collection of metal picnic tables under a metal roof.  A couple of women are seated at one table.  From their discussion, one goes on about her living situation.  The other could perhaps be her case worker, as the other has a laptop.  After the first leaves, the other remains to speak on the phone.  The park also has another set of metal picnic tables, these partially covered and enclosed by brick on a couple of sides.  This is where the homeless in this park hang out, or hide.  I see one asleep in a hammock which is attached and hung up.  Another, with long grey hair, is spinning some kind of string like a lasso.  As I much my wings, I watch a mom walk in the park with her two daughters.  One is a toddler, who lags behind because her heel has come out of her shoe, until Mom fixes it.  I watch as this trio of separate classes all simultaneously occupy the same municipal green space.
     Thursday.  In my ever-changing schedule, I have today off.  I will end up being gone all day.  This morning, I'm headed for a workout and a swim at the waterpark, followed by a stop at the particular supermarket with my low fat cheese.  From there, I will head home to drop off the perishable items, swimsuit, and towel, and douse my perspiring head with the hose from the kitchen sink before I head back down the street to the bank followed by some more groceries I need from a less expansive supermarket.  A long day, but I believe a fruitful one.  I won't have to do all this stuff on Sunday, when I will have cooking to do for the coming week.  I'm out on the trail as it's closing in on 10:30 AM.  I'm rolling past a woman sitting on a gravel patch, in the shade of a trash can.  She's dressed as any other suburban grandma might be; Capris, tank top, and ball cap all in pastel colors.  Her bicycle lay on the gravel next to her.  A stolen shopping cart is parked next to the trash can.  The cart is piled as high as it can be.  As I roll past her, she looks up at me.  She's missing her two front upper teeth.  I arrive at the rec center just in time to realize that, I remembered almost everything.  I forgot a second water bottle on this week of record temperatures (and evenings remaining in the 60s F.), but that bottle will end up coming in handy along my second supermarket journey.  The important thing I forgot are the sneakers, because I ain't supposed to workout in sandals at any gym.  Fortunately for me, no one mentions anything to be about it.  Nice guys that they are.
     I get to the waterpark a little after noon, and a good hour before my "reservation."  I decide to sit under a shady tree in the huge park right next door, and I write this.  I've been riding through this park, most recently for two solid months, until three years ago for almost a couple of years.  This is the first time I've stopped to sit under one if its trees.  A creek enters one end and flows through its considerable length.  Families may picnic, play in the creek, sunbathe, throw the frisbee.  Last week I saw one guy shoveling sand into a dam (?).  A mom arrives with her young son as a young girl they appear to know approaches them.  The kids begin chasing each other.  "Can't catch me!"  "Can too!"  "No too!"  Inside the waterpark, I head for the men's locker room.  It smells like Clorox, just cleaned.  I notice a door I never have before.  There's a janitorial closet between the men's and women's locker room.  Unfortunately, each side has a separate door.  I notice that both doors are open, and it becomes obvious that one may see through all the way to the other locker room.  great design.  I notify a park employee.  After a fine swim, I complete the aforementioned trip for the rest of the afternoon.  When I have groceries in hand, including dinner, I briefly stop to eat at a bus shelter in front of the store.  A guy comes down the sidewalk.  When he passes me, he says, "Jeez!  The heat!"  I can't remember if he says it's outrageous, abominable, or abhorrent.  Then he tells me to have a great day.  No wonder he's hot.  He's in long pants and a long-sleeved shirt.  He carries a backpack and a full cloth bag.  he spends a few minutes pacing in and out of the bus shelter, looking as if for a bus, swinging his arms.  Then he crosses the avenue.

     "In an effort to reclaim our spaces, our communities, and our history, I have made it my duty to work to regain the essence of Denver Colorado's historically black neighborhood."  ...the "Five Points" that was...the "Harlem of the West"...long before two artists coined the RiNo name...  Today, Five Points has become "perhaps the model of gentrification across the nation."  - Westword, 7/9-15/2020

     ...with a disgruntled Muslim element on the right and...Communist underground on the left, there remained...poles of attraction...  "...there was really no idea of where the country should go after independence...a struggle for spoils rather than...new directions and goals.  The [political] parties simply became little oligarchies..."  [Some in the Army] would have done away with all parties [for] at least a quasi-permanent Army rule...  ...despite Suharto's...constant disavowal of...a military dictatorship...military men...were still intent on carefully consolidating their own positions.  If, after the Vietnam War was finally ended, there would be a "third force" in Asia, and if, as many hoped, such a force would be...nonaligned and essentially Socialist...Indonesia would...be...more important than...Vietnam, where events were likely to be indecisive for some time to come.  ...specific projects that could generate self-help and improve employment...the more would be the position of the modernists - the economic experts and those looking...to...more meaning than mystique...  [Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew] said that the [Vietnam] war was being fought 'to decide that Vietnam shall not be repeated."...in Southeast Asia...  The war...enabled Singapore and other nations [make money selling goods and services to South Vietnam.]  ...President Johnson [called him] a...brilliant political leader...of new Asia.  - Shaplen

     Friday.  I'm on the way to work, just off the trail, and climbing a hill through a sleepy residential neighborhood.  Open space and horse trail lay just beyond back yards.  I'm pedaling past a couple of women in a driveway.  Both strike me as around 40 years of age.  One is telling the other about her basement.  It's full of her husband's filing cabinets.  Could he be a lawyer?  I don't stick around to find out.  I have a hill to climb.  Today, another employee who works at this store has been called back to work.  She is the mother of the wife, of the cousin of the guy I worked with at our downtown store.  The guy who had misadventures I would hear about, sometimes directly from him, sometimes from his side of a phone conversation with furniture outlets and phone companies and city agencies.  The guy who lives with his cousin and cousin's wife, who admitted to petty crimes and to plans to "hustle" in the park downtown during his furlough.  The guy who has alluded to gang connections and had his homeless friends stick their heads in the store to say hi.  His cousin's wife's mom works the morning shift, and I now come in at noon, shortly before when I see her this morning.  I ask her how the cousin of her son-in-law is doing.  She laments his drinking and complains that he's living "the unemployment life."  I ask her if the morning schedule works for her.  She replies that it's fine as she isn't "on an ankle monitor now."  I wasn't aware she had any criminal convictions.  I mention that she forgot to turn on the electric "open" sign.  She laughs and replies that she "must have been high" before letting me know that she's just kidding.  It sounds as if she expects me to know that one of her sons was incarcerated when she announces that she has "some good news."  He's been released to a halfway house.  He originally had a six-year sentence, for what she doesn't say.  Though she mentions that he will soon begin his anger-management classes.  After work, I'm pulling into my townhome parking lot.  A guy who I don't recognize is shuffling toward the back of the complex.  He wears no shoes or socks, but he strikes me as a resident.  I go inside, change, and come back out to water the flowers.  I can hear this guy arguing with a female resident toward the back of the complex.  I hear him say something about her making noise.  Is he kidding?  He has nothing to say about the fireworks overnight on the 4th?  On Saturday, I'm making my way down the trail again to work.  I'm rolling past a dog park as a guy comes along from the parking lot for the park.  He's on his Bluetooth, talking to someone about the stupidity of those who refuse to wear masks, "as a matter or rights."  When I get to work, I decide to run over to Trader Joe's to grab a couple or oranges for my iced tea.  When I'm in there, it doesn't occur to me that every other shopper has white hair.  As I come out, I hear an employee at the door telling a young woman, "There's ten more minutes for the senior shopping hour."  I then see a line of people, all six feet apart, beginning to form.  No one stopped me from joining the senor shoppers...do I look that old?
     Sunday.  I woke up shortly after 1 AM.  I don't know how cool it is outside, but as I don't have central air conditioning, it's hot inside.  I get up and get some iced tea.  I rinse down my head with cold water and attempt to wash the perspiration out of my eyes.  I turn on a fan until 2 AM and then go back to sleep.  I awake some four hours later with a full night's sleep.  No, this will not be another July 5th.  Around noon, I head out for the short ride to the supermarket, for a handful of items.  I'm just across the street.  On the corner is a red stolen shopping cart.  Yards away, a guy is pushing an identical shopping cart down the street.  In the cart is a flat screen TV.  I turn down the street to the supermarket.  The short ride is a vision of the occasional vehicle with a smashed front end, of flags displayed outside of homes, and of curbs filled with parked trucks and cars.  Somebody has come to pay a visit to someone around here, on this sleepy and hot Sunday smack in the middle of the summer. It's a family kind of neighborhood.  The streets are for hot shots racers.  I watch a young kid on his little BMX bike come out from hiding, behind a huge pickup, just in time to spot another huge pickup coming down the street.  I pass the third identical shopping cart before I pass a car with a red heart balloon tied to the driver side mirror.  Music comes from inside the home where the vehicle is parked.  A birthday party?  Then, looking through the window behind the driver, I can see the opposite window appears as if someone put their fist through it.  The rest of the entire window is shattered.
     Tuesday.  I ride most of the way home with just a few rain drops falling.  Toward the end of the trail, the drops begin slowly picking up.  I park under a tree and decide to put my poncho on.  I approach the trailhead as the drops pick up quickly.  The drops turn into a downpour.  Just before the trailhead, two middle-aged guys and a kid come from an intersecting branch of the trail.  One guy is running and the other two are on bikes.  The guy on the bike is telling the kid to "Hurry.  Go.  Go.  Go"  I cross the busy thoroughfare from the trail to the street.  I turn up a long hill as the downpour turns into waves of rain.  Water floods the gutter on my side of the street.  Toward the top of the hill, the rain lets up.  I turn up a residential street.  On the ground in a spent yellow shotgun shell.  The following morning, I come into work.  I mention to my coworker that I got caught in the rain the day before.  Her jaw drops.  "It rained yesterday?" she asks.  A few hours later, a salesman pulls up in a big van.  He's going into each store in the shopping center.  He comes inside to say he's from Kentucky.  He has no mask on.  He demonstrates an all purpose cleaning solution.  It cleans a spot on the floor pretty well.  It must have something such as Xylol as an active ingredient.  In art school, we cleaned our serigraph screens with Xylol, which came in metal gallon cans, and is toxic.  I decline his offer to purchase a collection of his cleaning solution bottles.  I'm living these days on $25 per week.  He's off to the next store.
     Saturday.  Perhaps beginning last week, I've seen what appears to be individuals panning for gold in the Platte River.  The river has been visibly low all month.  This morning, as I cross a bridge over the river, I spot an angler in waders down below.  This morning, everyone and their grandmother is out on the trail.  Runners and cyclists must sneak around one end of a homeless tent sticking out on the trail.  Further along, they must do the same with a snake crossing the trail.  Am I comparing the homeless to snakes?  Yes.  (Just kidding.)  On the way home in the afternoon, I'm stopped at the trailhead exit on the way home, just across a bridge over the river.  A young homeless guy on a bike is coming down a dirt path off the trail, along this side of the river.  He nonchalantly says, "I'm sorry sir, this is private property.  I'm going to have to ask you to leave.  So...go kick rocks."  He laughs.  He's homeless...and uninterested in, to quote Woody Allen, planet Earth.  I'm across the bridge, and across the highway, and around the corner and halfway up a hill. Coming down a street (which I take the opposite direction on the way to work) is a middle-aged homeless guy.  He's dressed all in black, is on a black bike, and tows an attached black dolly.  His long hair is up in several homeless man buns.
     Sunday.  The heat keeps me up and I get a half a night's sleep.  In the early afternoon, I decide to get lunch at a deathburger just down the street.  I lock up my bike just before a young guy and his friend show up on their own bikes.  This guy speaks with a voice which suggests he occupies a unique place on the mental health spectrum.  He comes in behind me.  An employee asks him to put on a mask.  He asks for one.  They have them for sale for a dollar.  After he orders, he goes to the window and knocks on it.  His friend, who is outside, takes this as his cue to come inside.  His friend goes into the men's room.  The kiosks are shut down.  On one kiosk, the text is displayed upside down.  I order and take a seat.  There are chairs in the lobby which are not up on the tables.  Even though I get my food in a to go bag, there are no sign sat the entrance or inside informing customers that the dining room is closed.  I'm eating in a booth next to a window.  I'm taking a look at the guy's bike parked outside.  It has extra-long handlebars, and it appears he must have taken his seat inside with him, as it's not on his bike.  Though I don't see him with it.  Only one of his grips has a brake lever, and I don't see any brake cables anywhere on his bike.  I can see his rear brakes are unclamped, as when the rear rim needs to be removed.  He's ordered and has his food and his mask, and he sits a couple of booths behind me.  I'm almost done with my meal before an employee comes out to tell me that the dining room is in fact not open.  As I collect my last bit of food, the employee tells the same thing to the guy behind me.  He informs the employee that he's waiting for his friend.  It's an odd fake lunch, with a guy who has an odd voice.  Back home, I sit down and feel as if I will pass out from lack of sleep.  The following morning, I will awake as if out of a mental fog.  Later on this afternoon, I get dinner at the new Mexican place across the street.  It's where the old Mexican place was.  I like the new menu.  The waitress sounds as if she's bilingual.  I inquire about using English.  She prefers Spanish.  I ask about the previous establishment here, where I've been eating for the past 13 years.  She attempts to pronounce "Google" in English, suggesting they moved.  Downtown this afternoon, in the park between the state capitol and the legislature, was the 6th annual Back the Blue rally.  It was in an outdoor theatre at one end of the park.  I heard about it on the radio yesterday.  I would later hear on the radio that it was started six years ago in response to the impression by some, that former Attorney General Eric Holder decided he disliked the police.  I would later see some footage of the rally taken from a phone and posted online.  I think I've sorted out the various mutations of the US flag I've seen carried by various marchers.  The black and white US flag with the single blue stripe is "pro-police."  The all black and white US flag represents "resistance," against the current president and his policies, I think.  As for all the standard US flags I've seen displayed outside all the homes I ride past to and from work, I will see this week one of those flags at a home with a yard sign.  The sign is a list of what the residents' support, from science to human rights.  I will also see a US flag outside the home, along with a young couple who appear to be hipsters.
     Monday, I'm off to the gym before work.  I'm off the bike trail and on a tiny median, waiting for the light to cross a highway.  I've pressed the button when another cyclist comes onto the same tiny median.  She asks me to push the button.  I tell her I already did, and she appears not to hear me.  We cross at the light.  She reaches the next corner and crosses the intersection on a red light.  I conclude that she never pushes the button for the crosswalk herself.  I'm sure she's avoiding any unnecessary contact during this pandemic.  Tuesday.  Out on the trail to work.  Just past what I used to refer to as golf course #2, I come out from an underpass and past a VFW hall.  There appears to be two RV campers parked here, one behind the other.  Behind these is a car packed with clothes.  between the last camper and the car, attached to a hitch on the camper, is a flatbed trailer.  It's full of black plastic full garbage bags.  I'm convinced that these are occupied by homeless.  Later on, I'm out of work and rolling through a residential neighborhood just across the boulevard.  I will take a route home off of much of the trail this late afternoon, and again, all along the way I will see flag after US flag displayed outside of homes.  From big flags to tiny ones.  On this street within sight of my store, I stop in front of one home with a big US flag hanging vertically from the gutter.  It's in front of the porch, and behind it sits a woman in a chair.  All I can see of her are her legs behind this flag.  Before I can pull out my camera, a cool breeze blows the flag up.  It was a beautiful ride to work this morning, as the 60 degree overnight low made its way toward the heat of the day.  As I make my way through the ritzy neighborhood, on a short trip along the horse trail, I exit this trail and turn up a street toward a couple of city blocks of middle-class homes.  It's a dreamy, cool and breezy early evening ride under broken clouds.  It's one of those rides home when you can feel the summer and summers past in the air.  The end of a summer day, when it's cooled off, when you have someone you love in your arms.  The kind of late afternoon you soak up.  I pass more than one beautiful young mom in her driveway.  I pass one home, not the first I've seen with a flagpole in the yard.  This one has a US flag above a yellow Don't Tread On Me flag.  A guy with a long black beard takes his small daughter into his pickup truck.  Several tires sit in the bed.  Further down the street I suddenly smell French bread.  I reach a crosstown street which takes me through a small neighborhood park.  Just beyond, I enter a short trail on the to rejoin the main one home.  I comment out loud that I can't believe no one is in my way at this part of my ride.  Usually at this spot, there's a confluence of bicycle and pedestrian traffic.  I've spoken too soon.  From the trail hidden behind some trees emerges a grey-bearded guy leading a line of some four or so other riders, all on ten speeds.  I first hear his voice, "Right turn!"  I then make a left in front of them as he tells one of the others simply, "Signal."  Another cyclist signals with his arm for a right turn.  Dream over, I'm awake again.  Right after they pass me, I'm through a short tunnel when I hear more voices..  At the other end is a homeless couple.  They're off the trail, on the grass, sitting with their bikes.  I hook back up with the trail, and soon I roll past the campers again.
     Wednesday.  I'm just on the trail.  Ahead, I spot a cyclist who made a U-turn and is parked in the oncoming lane.  When I pass him, he's stopped on his bike, having a smoke.  He's a middle-aged guy with no helmet, looks like he hasn't shaved in some days, and is dressed all in black.  A few yards down, I look across the river and watch a guy on the opposite bank.  He's halfway down the slope from the road toward the water, and he's walking his bike along this incline through trees and weeds.  His skin is as brown from the sun as his hoodie and shorts.  This week, I received in the mail both two statements and one bill,  all from the specialist i saw last month.  My total bill will not be $1.45, as a previous single statement suggested.  Hey, I never know what my health insurance company is going to do.  The specialist and the lab want a total of two grand.  I pay the specialist with my savings.  The other twelve hundred I don't have.  After a call I make on Monday to the lab, I find out that they will knock off 25% if I pay on time.  This I could do with the help of my next paycheck, which I was going to bank anyway.  Which also means I had other plans for the money.  Such as save it.  I may also be able to borrow the rest.  Otherwise, the lab does have payment plans.  When I get to the gym on Wednesday, I'm told by the employee behind the desk that I have four visits left on my membership card.  This is the same employee who used the words "sprinkle the bike" in reference to a test of the rec center in ground sprinkler system.  I ask her how much to refill the card.  She tells me that the rec center is waiting for the governor to decide whether or not he wants to again shut down most businesses in the state.  I haven't seen or heard anything about this, online or from anyone else.  After work, I'm crossing the last bridge over the river, along the trail home after work.  I'm at one end behind a poor guy on a bike.  In one arm, he's attempting to hold either a cooler or an ottoman.

     Our summer season might be shorter than what lower-elevation cycling meccas...but as with many aspects of high-country living, what matters is quality...of hours spent in the saddle.  ...swooping layout as well as the mesmerizing aspen forest through which it swoops...
     ...August 18, 2019...summit of 14,265-foot Quandry Peak...a quartet of local eighth graders led by some of their fathers...are talking about throwing back flips off cornices.  "We should skin this and ski this winter."  ..two mountain bikers come bouncing down...at 12,900 feet, barely holding on.  "Yeah, we ran out of nice trail!"  "I don't think anyone actually likes hiking up.  But that's why you do it, right?  To say you did it?"
     "We're absolutely a white-collar company in a blue-collar world."  ...you can go from shopping for luxury furniture to eating a grass-fed burger via an open doorway.  The array of services under one roof would be rare in Manhattan...  - Colorado Summit, Summer/Fall 2020

     ...530 acres of paradise...it was the lure of this land that captured their imagination.  ...the richness of the landscape and wildlife exudes a powerful spiritual  connection and brings a healing solace to the soul.  One could not ask for a more compelling environment...  "...the guest house - about 2,200 square feet..."  - Vail Valley Magazine, Summer 2020

     ...during the global pandemic.  Many people are experiencing vivid dreams; powerful old emotions resurfacing for healing; odd physical sensations...
     Many Americans choose to travel in recreational vehicles (RVs)...  "It's about getting our of that social norm of always knowing what the next day is going to be like...  ....a little bit of the unknown, the unexpected."  Cleaning out portable toilets and taking showers at truck stops can be challenging...  "The world actually isn't a scary place at all."  "Maybe that means working less and living more frugally, so you see a rise in minimalism..."  - natural awakenings, 6/2020

     Friday.  On the trail to and from this week, I've so far seen a couple of different men outside the pair of campers parked in front of the VFW.  One is a skinny guy.  Yesterday, on the way home, a Caucasian woman who looked like any housewife was outside the door of one of one of the campers.  This morning, the skinny guy is at the back of the flatbed.  The trailer is not full of trash bags.  It has a big black plastic tarp over its contents.  The tarp is up now, and the skinny guy is unloading a moped.  The rest of the flatbed appears to have assorted furniture and items such a sink.   Down the trail, onto the next and all the way to this trail's end, I exit next to a corral, where a horse lives.  This morning, three kids are petting the horse from the other side of a fence.  behind them is a young woman in a shirt with "instructor" on the back.  In the late afternoon.  After work, I head across the boulevard and down the street to a horse trail.  It runs behind some large residential homes.  The back yards make these houses reminiscent of large manors.  As I roll along the trail, I spot the grey-haired lord of one such manor at a patio table.  Is he reading a book?  I'm soon along the first trail, cruising through one of a series of parks.  Families are out late in the afternoon.  Sitting not far off the trail, under a tree, is a woman who may be forty.  She's in bare feet, a tube top and overall shorts.  She has sunglasses and has her hair up.  She could be a housewife but sits alone.  And as I approach, she looks directly at me.  She's not smiling., she's sending me a serious signal.  Her body is poised.  She's clearly in command of her corner of this park.  Who is this woman some may refer to as a cougar?  I don't recall the last time I saw a woman sending out such a clear signal.  I look away and back again, and I give her a smile.  She's looking right at me with her whole body.  Does she live in one of the homes just across the creek along the bike trail?  I imagine stopping and strolling over.  Sitting next to her. as she places her arm around mine.  I take off her sunglasses.  I undo her hair which she shakes free.  This makes me smile.  I give her a kiss.  But, you don't want to hear about any of  my imaginary musings.  I have just turned off one trail onto another.  Down a gravel path comes a young teenaged girl on her bike.  She sports orange racing rims.  We both are fighting a mild headwind, but at least it's a cool one.  I give her a few bike lengths between us as I shadow her up the trail.  She spends a lot of time off her seat as she cranks her pedals.  She must not have any gears but she's cranking it up every hill which comes along.  Occasionally, she moves off the concrete and on again.  We swing past the pair of homeless campers.  The car parked behind them has a smashed front corner.  There is yet a different guy here.  He's sitting in a wheelchair working on the moped the skinny guy took down this morning.  I follow the girl through another underpass.  She moves to the center of the trail as a pair of neon Lycra-clad cyclists attempt to pass her.  We approach the point where I disembark the trail.  She continues north toward downtown.  I wonder how far she's going.
     Saturday is one of the busiest mornings I can remember on this trail.  Lines of cyclists all in a row.  A line of teenaged girls, another line of middle-aged cyclists.  Just before I enter the trail, I turn down a block with a stretch next to an open patch of field.  Parked here is yet another broken down RV.  I found a third place the homeless are living out of campers.  Sunday.  I have another date with the waterpark.  But first, the budget this fortnight permits me one breakfast at the place along the way to the supermarket.  I read in a neighborhood newspaper that a couple of other municipalities have opened pools this month.  My waterpark's last day this season is the 8th of next month.  Perhaps I can swim elsewhere after that.  From there, it's off to hook up with the bike trail.  I'm coming down a street to the side of the river opposite the trail.  I turn toward an intersection from which i will cross a bridge to the other bank, and enter the trail.  I notice on this side of the river, a fourth location of yet another homeless camper.  Just under the bridge, I'm along side the twin homeless campers, flatbed full of appliances under the black plastic tarp, and car filled with clothes.  Two completely different guys are out back behind the campers.  One is in shorts, has no shirt, and has a pair of black earbuds around his neck.  He's heavyset and pale, in his thirties.  The other guy is on a bike.  Out on the trail are more multiple cyclists riding in a line.  The sky doesn't look threatening, and it appears I will have a fair swim.  When I get to the waterpark, I discover I paid for a swim yesterday by mistake.  They let me swim today anyway, nice guys that they are.  It poured yesterday.  There are always good-looking moms here.  One comes in the water with her two young teenaged kids.  She has dark brown eyes and freckles.  It begins to drizzle, but no matter.  Everyone is having fun.  I head out after an hour and a half, and I wait a bit for a small shower to cease.  When it lets up, I exit the parking lot into the park, where picnic goers have all crowded under a big tent.  I'm on the way home when I realize that I can stop into a super Target along the way for the odd vegetable item.  I also realize that this being the same trail home from work, I can do this on any trip home.  I detour for some mushrooms before I roll over to a Chilis in this shopping center.  It's open.  I decide I have enough in my budget for the old crispers salad plate.  This must be the first Chilis I've been into in a year.  I have a chance to read a book I always bring along but never open.  It's just like not so old times.  Then it's time to head home.

     [The] Senior Aquatics Facility Supervisor [for the municipality where I workout and swim] said the...waterpark opened June 19 at a capacity of 150 people in a session [but] jumped to 250 by July.  - Denver Herald, 7/23/2020

     Monday.  I'm coming down the last hill before I turn onto the trail.  Struggling up this hill is a battered old Toyota hatchback.  Tied to the rack on its roof appears to be a thin mattress.  Halfway to the top, it slowly turns into the entrance for the park on this side of the river, and meanders its way along the drive.  This has homeless written all over it.  Down a long stretch of trail, the river is on one side and industrial plants across the street.  Out on this particular trail, the elderly sit on benches and homeless sit in the grass.  This morning, three colorfully dressed seniors all share a bench cut out of a big log.  Just past them, a middle-aged guy sits cross-legged on the grass, having a smoke.  I'm down this trail, onto the connecting trail and off again, onto the horse trail and into the last residential neighborhood before I get to work.  In front of his home is a lanky guy with shaggy gray hair.  I suspect he sees me come this way to work, as he's the first person I can remember who has ever waved at me.  Some seven hours later, I'm on the way home past the twin campers.  The flatbed appears to have been emptied and turned into a tent.  The woman I refer to as the mom is outside.  On the side of the trail, opposite the lot with the campers, is a playground.  Cyclists, moms and kids hang out there while the camper people do their own thing.  Just before I pass the campers, on the same trail home along the same stretch.  Coming down the road next to the trail is a homeless couple on bicycles.  The guy is shirtless and pulling a metal wagon.  Inside the wagon is what appears to be a carpet steamer.
     Wednesday. Regardless of what I was told by a woman behind the desk at the rec center, the Governor has not shut down the state.  I was dubious.  I'm just out of work, along the short trip on the horse trail.  I turn down the short, yards-long exit for the horse trail.  Entering the trail is a couple waling their dog.  The guy is middle-aged.  He looks like a homeowner-type.  He stops in front of me and complains that I didn't go the other way around him, before he says something about they both are taking up the entire entrance to the trail.  We are stopped next to a home made backyard Black Yard Matters sign.  I can think of many reasons he's having a bad day; furloughed from work due to the virus, can't make mortgage bills, utility bills, insurance bills. He strikes me as someone who prefers to be in control.  I hear him tell the lady he can't do his "job effectively."  They continue on their way, she holding the dog leash and he speaking and gesturing.  I've been working down here on a regular basis, from April 2015 to August 2017, and again since early May of this year.  I don't remember meeting anyone like him around these parts, and I must say he's not representative of the residents here.  I make it past the couple and their dog and turn up the street, rather than head toward the bike trail.  I'm going to pick up a weekly newspaper and some chicken wings for dinner.  With both in hand, I make my way back to the bike trail.  I approach the bridge, across which I will reconnect with the trail.  At this end of the bridge is a skinny homeless guy trying to start a moped...which is not supposed to be on the bike and pedestrian trail.  Across the bridge and up ahead, I decide to stop and eat at the plaza next to the playground, and across from the parking lot with the twin homeless campers.  There are a couple of new vehicles in the same lot, both packed with stuff.  One has it's doors open.  A middle-aged woman hands a banana to a different homeless guy who rides up on his own moped.  Behind the campers, on the ground is a guy working on a bicycle.  Another woman is with him.  Over with the banana woman, yet another guy is walking along with a cane.  I sit and eat, and watch this scene as cyclist after cyclist goes past on the trail.  I wonder what the guy on the entrance to the horse trail would think of the camper guys?  A young woman behind me is with a dog on the small plaza.  I finish eating and I roll over to ask her if she has any idea who the campers people are.  She has no idea.  She comes here to train dogs.  I think it's interesting that young women who train dogs, cyclists, and moms at the playground all coexists here with these characters out of some kind of short story.  "Maybe because of the Corona virus," the young woman suggests as a reason for the camper guys being here.  I'm not sure I follow her, but this afternoon, this is the least of my problems on my effort to make my way home.  Again this early evening, lines of cyclists are out riding in formation.  Shortly after, I'm off the trail at last.  Down the street and around the corner, two homeless guys on bikes appear to be headed the direction of the campers.
     Thursday morning.  The camper on the way to the trailhead, on a residential street along an empty field on the way to work, is gone this morning.  Just on the trail, a homeless guy on a bike comes from the direction of the campers.  Down the trail past the lot with the campers, the two vehicles with the banana lady and the guy with the cane are gone.  A newer VW Bug is now behind the campers.  Some kind of pad is on top of the Bug.  An older woman slowly comes along the trail, past this site.  She has an odd gait, with both her knees turned inward.  After work, in the early evening, I'm coming back past the campers.  One of them is gone.  So is the VW Bug.  Another vehicle, and a pickup truck hauling a horse trailer have replaced it.  A driver sits in the pickup, his arm out the window, the engine running.  He appears to be bored from waiting for something.  The hood is up on the engine of the remaining camper, and someone is under it, working on the engine.  Back up the trail, where I passed one homeless cyclist this morning, a couple of homeless guys on bikes roll past toward the camper.  Friday is the last day of the month.  I'm on the way to work.  Again, in the morning, the single camper parked along the street next to the empty field is gone.  Shortly thereafter, I'm out on the trail and cruising past the parking lot with the twin campers.  This morning, campers, flatbed, vehicles stuffed with...stuff, and all other traces appear to be gone.  On the way home after work, I'm rolling past the parking lot of the former twin campers.  A small pile of junk is neatly piled into a corner of a parking space.  This junk includes the front suspension of a vehicle.  Off under a tree next o the trail is a popular spot for individual homeless.  A guy sits there this late afternoon with a dog on a leash.  Next to the trash pile is the vehicle of the banana woman and the guy with a cane.  It's in a different parking space this afternoon.  The driver's side door is open.  All the space inside this vehicle is still filled, with the exception of the driver's seat.  A middle-aged woman is asleep on the seat, reclining upon whatever is piled upon the passenger seat.  Down the trail, a young guy carries a bedroll toward the lot.  And this month drives away like a sleepy homeless caravan; flatbed, mopeds, bananas and all.

June 2020: "You're A Syrup Deviationist.," And "Speaking Of Gender"

     America would struggle to absorb the convulsive changes of...the 1960s.  ...strange and sacred...minds touch God...  As the decade expired...the demands on the human psyche [became] more severe.  Meanwhile, the outcasts from America - and its domestic overseas wars...grew more damaged.  They carried with them a hot and reckless lust for salvation...  - Talbot

     "There will be no more desert.  There will be no more sand.  Everything will be fertile.  Irrigation will make everything bloom.  There will be trees on every hill.  The sky will be full of planes.  The sea will be full of ships."  ...I thought, "He's...Moses and George Washington..."  "We'll have towns and villages filled with flowers and trees...Taking people from the fifteenth century and teaching them to work.  ...people have no idea what a bathroom is for...how to use knives and forks, and teaching them how to live.  We are having a revolution..."  - Witness, by R. Gruber, 2007

     ...in the Muslim communities...the devout or "santri" elements [differed from] the "abangon," or nominal Muslims, who were more responsive to the pragmatic political appeals of the [Communists.  Both Muslim factions] came up against the older spiritual challenge of [the] mysticism [of the land.]  ...a sense of tolerance...to live together in usual harmony had for years maintained a surprisingly effective way of life.  ...there had been enough land for everyone.  ...the government condoned...new class stresses...  - Shaplen

     In late May, Colorado allowed food-service establishments to open for indoor and outdoor dine-in services with...social distancing...up to 50% of the posted occupancy [unless the establishment doesn't prepare food.]  - Life On Capitol Hill, 6/2020

     Other activists have accused...the week-old We Are Love Denver [WALD] of trying to slow the momentum toward structural reform with its calls for unity and peace...and of diluting the messages...  ...Neil Yarbrough [was] emerging as somewhat of a de facto leader for the shifting masses [protesting in Denver's downtown streets].  ...he ended up marching arm in arm with [the] Denver Police Chief...  Today, he's the face of [WALD].  Elizabeth Epps...who founded the Colorado Freedom Fund, started questioning the group...  The next day, Epps tweeted her resignation from the DPD Use of Force Committee...that monitors police.  "We me last Thursday with Chief Pazen.  Hours later, you gassed me.  You shot my back and legs up - from behind.  Plenty of Black folks will shuck & jive for ya, it just can't be me anymore," she wrote.  ...Yarbrough mediated a virtual town hall with Pazen.  That night's protests ended...with swaying phone lights...  ...an activist...started a Twitter thread criticizing [one speaker] who said that "all lives matter" [and] a "concert"-like display of phone light swaying...  ...around [WALD, she] grew increasingly uncomfortable with its emphasis of peace, love, and unity.  "...that is already the foundation," she says.  ...white people...pushing that message..."to gaslight people into making them think they are making change is so terrifying, because then they go home and they are like, "We did it.  That's really how you diffuse a movement."  [During one downtown march, she joined a separate march alongside WALD.  Her march split off, when Yarbrough began] running after them to try to unite the crowd.  [He was] shouting, only to be drowned out of "Let her speak!" as [she] attempted to talk.  Yarbrough says he was...trying to keep everyone...in a unified march...  [At a June 6 WALD-hosted protest, one mom spoke to the crowd,] and acknowledged  the mistake of working with the mayor and the police.  She then finished with with a loud "Fuck Mayor Hancock.  Fuck the racist-ass police!"  - Westword, 6/11-17/2020

     ...a dozen metro-area law enforcement agencies, each bringing their own equipment, tactics and use-of-force regulations.  ...injuries to protesters..."loss of vision, fractured bones...ruptured testicles."
     ...community activists...have pressed...for more than a decade to remove sworn officers from campus because of the higher rate at which students of color are referred to law enforcement.  …"situations where students needed to go to jail"...the officer...from the former Montbello High School in 2012..."was there to mentor them through that process."  [One] teenaged son was repeatedly searched by police who found nothing.  [Another] 10-year-old son, who has attention deficit disorder, ended up in court after contact with police at school.  The court dismissed his case..  - Denver Herald, 6/18/2020

     In the mornings during my new schedule, I enter the bike trail through a park, one entrance of which was closed to traffic.  Last week, the gates opened.  I also made my daily pilgrimage to the yogurt place a few doors down from work.  They've reopened for inside dining.  This afternoon, I'm on the way home along the bike trail.  It parallels a long stretch behind the waterpark, high up on a hill, and across a creek the trail follows.  Along much of this stretch of trail, and a long embankment down to the creek, are some tracks for a small train.  In the summer, the train takes kids for a ride on a long loop around this open land, beginning and ending at a small petting zoo.  The zoo and train are not yet quite open.  The creek and broad grassy stretch are a kind of picnic area, where visitors spend summer days playing in the creek and in this park.  They've been out in the warmer weather for a couple of weeks now.  It's a popular place for summer holidays.  I pass a grandma and her granddaughter with attempting to lift a child's jeep over the tracks.  It one which a kid can sit in and drive.  It's pink and has "Barbie" on the hood, and looks like a CJ-7.  I turn around and ask the grandma if I can help.  She's overjoyed.  We get it up to the bike trail.  I ask if her granddaughter rode it over the tracks.  She says they carried it over them, and the granddaughter rode it all the way down the hill.  The granddaughter responds to me as follows.  "What's your name?"  Mark.  "Hi Mark.  I'm Jenny."  She jumps in her jeep faster than one of the hotshots on my boulevard.  She hits the electric gas before hitting the brakes in a short skid.  She checks something behind her, and then tells me, "It's a Barbie Jeep."  I tell her I wish I had one when I was her age.  Her grandma asks her to let me safely get ahead before she takes off.
     Tuesday.  Today is my younger brother's birthday.  Hey, whaddya call a sugar-free deconstructionist?  Well, before I open the store, I head over to Starbuck's in the shopping center.  My god, is this the 4th week I'm back at work?  This Starbuck's is getting to know my beverage by now.  This morning, the barista motions me inside.  She says she has a story for me.  I've never heard this from a barista.  Her story is that Starbucks is discontinuing it's low-sugar mocha product.  No more skinny hot chocolate.  It ain't selling.  I understand business decisions.  These are times of a mass specter of socialism, from the appearance of a collapse of a national class system, with an inclusion of the middle- and upper- class among the ranks applying for unemployment insurance.  Despite such collective apparitions, speaking either literally or politically, I can't pretend not to be a capitalist.  I work for and support businesses.  I ask this barista if Starbucks thinks I'm a weirdo.  She replies, "You're a syrup deviationist."  I've been given a roster of declarative statements over my years of making the trek to work.  There was a lanky drunk who went by Richard Spotted Bird.  One morning before 5 AM a decade or so ago, at a bus stop on a busy corner, he asked me for a cigarette.  I gave him my sworn and standard reply that I don't smoke.  He declared, "E're'body smokes, man.  E're'body smokes."  His knees were bent and arms extended.  I've been threatened by a kid, on the sidewalk across the boulevard from my home, threatening to have me shot.  But I've never encountered a brilliant Starbucks Barista.  I tell her my story of searching downtown Starbucks shops for a skinny hot chocolate during the shut down.  One shop was closed.  One inside a supermarket had none, but recommended the a third shop across a thoroughfare.  This Starbucks had it's walk-up window closed and was only accepting either mobile orders or drive-up orders.  She tells me that the last day for my beverage is the 7th.  She offers me their leftover low-sugar mocha mix.  When work is done, I emerge onto my front porch.  Across the tiny courtyard are four older teenaged guys, hanging out on the steps of another condo unit.  As I'm unlocking my door, they appear to be discussing drug use.  They are still there when I come outside to water my flowers.  They lower their voices and begin talking about someone's attempted murder charge.  They then begin talking about how to get, by bus, to the home of one of them.  One says to the other about going to his house, "Why would I want to go over there, with your mom, and all that drama?"  When I'm back inside, I look out the window.  A teenaged girl walks up and joins them on the porch where they sit.
     Wednesday.  Yesterday, I swung by the bike shop on the way home.  Again, I forgot they're closed on Tuesdays.  I'm back again this afternoon.  My brake came in, but they ordered a brake for the front, not the back.  No matter.  The tech convinces me that any leak could be a brake pad issue instead.  He takes a spin on the bike with the brake leak.  He cleans the pads and tops off another low brake fluid reservoir.  I inquire about any trouble my other bike, which I dropped off here last week, may be giving him.  He thinks it may be done by Friday, and the money I paid for the brake he offers to put toward credit toward work on the two bikes.  And he thinks he's got a crankshaft which will fit my other bike.  I'm more impressed than the last time I was here.  The following day I have off.  The owner wants to shortly extend our reduced hours, and then give us another day off in the week.  After my annual physical, my primary care physician lets me know that my blood pressure is higher than it should be.  It's "fine for someone in their 70s."  Too bad I'm not in my 70s.  And my PSA (a pancreatic "marker" for possible cancer)  level is higher than it should be.  This could be a possible side effect of one of my prescribed medications, which my doctor decides to immediately discontinue.  After drama with the referral person at my doctor's office, I've found a specialist who will take my insurance.  (At my last appointment I had told my doctor that I called the specialist of whom she was notified, who she was told takes my insurance.  This specialist told me they did not take my insurance.  She gave them a call herself while I was with her in her office.  They clarify that they accept insurance from my company, but not my particular plan.  She plans to instruct the referral person back toward the drawing board, and if I don't hear from this person in a week, I am to call this office.  I don't hear from this person.  I decide to do my own search online, and I find the city's big kahuna of this particular specialty, urology.  I call them to discover that they do indeed accept the plan I singed up to in my insurance company.  I call my doctor's office to ask them if it's okay that I found a specialist myself.  The front desk informs me that their records show, the referral person found this same specialist four days ago, and claims that I was notified.  I then explain all this to my primary care physician on the swingin' sockin' Patient Portal.)
     So, Thursday I'm off to my appointment with this urologist.  Four years ago, I had my first prostate exam, after which I was told I had a good prostate.  This was the doctor who first prescribed the medication which my current doctor has discontinued.  The urologist gives me my second prostate exam.  My prostate is a little tough.  He wants to do a biopsy.  But an hour or two before this upcoming biopsy, I have to give myself an enema.  My first enema.  I'm handed the bottle and told to follow the instructions.  I'm outta there and off to see my friend at his restaurant downtown, to explain why he hasn't seen me in nearly a month.  My own manager is a friend of his, and already brought him up to speed.  The restaurant is open for inside dining again.  Then it's off to pick up my photos from the camera shop.  Even though I didn't get the call I'm supposed to get when they are ready.  And...my tall photogenic hippie goddess is there.  She's in a beautiful summer dress.  She's a vision.  The following morning.  I'm back on the trail to work.  It's the same time, and I'm at the same spot where I saw the line of Polo shirt 20-year-olds.  This morning, they are running along the parallel trail on the other side of the river.  A guy in front is calling cadence.
     Saturday.  I'm at work when the sister calls.  The greater metro area is under a severe thunderstorm watch or warning.  I can't remember which she said.  I must pay more attention when she calls me.  Mid-afternoon, I'm out of the store with a dark horizon.  I'm through the ritzy neighborhood, onto the trail, and making the turn onto the connecting trail when the gale force wind comes out of nowhere.  I'm just about where the 20 Polo shirt guys were lined up.  The rain follows this afternoon's gusts and I decide that I won't make the underpass, to put on my poncho.  So I hit the brakes and shelter behind a fir tree along the trail.  My poncho is on just as the downpour blows in.  It's a squall for sure as I careen past sheltering cyclists inside the underpass.  It slowly subsides as I make my way up the trail, past what I used to refer to as golf course number one.  Branches are all over the place.  Then I'm along what always feels like the longest stretch of this trail.  It's a long, slow curve around a bend in the river.  I pass a large major branch which lay freshly broken among the weeds.  Toward a bridge across, three homeless and one bicycle come out of the trees along the bank.  It appears they were attempting to shelter from the rain.  The one with the bike smiles at me lethargically.  Then I'm off the trail, around a corner and headed up a long hill on a residential street.  I climb past one home where the family is buttressing a wooden fence which has blown down.  A couple blocks along, a basketball hoop on a pole, attached to a base on wheels, has blown over and lay vertical.  In the street is a pile of larger branches stretching across the street.  Another block up is someone with a chainsaw cutting broken branches from his tree.
     Sunday.  I have lunch at the place I usually do on the way to the supermarket.  Or I did before I shut down my extemporaneous expenditures.  It's newly reopened for dining.  There's a tall, thin, cute lady behind the register.  Her two young kids come to work with her.  Her husband is the cook, and I've seen him before, but find out today that he's the owner.  I think they're gonna make it.  This is a special place.  The place across the street from where I live, the Mexican place, it's special as well.  But they closed shortly after they went to take out only.  Now, there's a real estate lock box on the door.  Monday, I am informed that Tuesdays will be my regular extra day off during the week, as well as Sundays when we are closed.  On Tuesday, I'm on a search for one of my low-fat cheese products.  I stop at a couple of supermarkets to no avail.  So it's off to my friend's restaurant for lunch, which is open for business.  I get in before the lunch crowd.  The seating is limited for now, but their old lunch crowd is coming back.  Then I stop in to see my coworker at my former store.  She says the hijinx from the avenue is getting worse.  And it appears to involve the store's bathroom.  Some street dwelling guy walked into her store.  He had no mask and no shirt, and she observed that he was high.  He was headed straight for the bathroom when she stopped him in his tracks.  Turned away from our bathroom, he left blowing her kisses.  Our store there has a customer who routinely comes in and drops off a pair of pants when he picks up another pair.  He takes the finished pair into our bathroom and stays in there for a half hour.  My coworker is used to this routine.  But she had to leave early one day, and this customer was still in there.  Another employee arrived from another store and had been told he was in there, but he never came out.  She called the general manager.  He arrived and asked the customer what he was doing in there.  "Washing my ass," was his reply.
     Tuesday.  I'm on the way home over a section of street I don't usually ride.  I notice, for the first time, a house possibly from the 1970s.  It's split level with a flat roof.  The exterior and backyard fence are adorned with assorted junk: a hubcap, a plastic owl with a US flag, a skeleton in a tree.  It's safe for now, here in this neighborhood across my boulevard.  I wonder if it will end up "scraped" for a clean new condominium, or shall it survive in the shadow of such a shiny new home?  The following morning, I step outside my door.  I need to hustle to make it to work on time.  I can hear who I believe is my neighbor's teenaged son, the kid who was hanging out on his porch the other day with his "crew."  If it's him, he's inside and yelling, and sounds as if he's on the verge of tears.  I don't hear anyone else, but it's almost as if he's addressing a question asked by someone.  Perhaps one of his parents.  I met his mom when I moved in.  She at least used to counsel parolees of some such.  I see her once every few years.  She was once an officer of our HOA, which we organized ourselves when our previous management company abandoned us.  There were rumors of kickbacks.  Her husband I think I've seen twice in my 13 years in this complex.  He's a handyman, or does nothing.  I'm not sure.  They both have 3 kids, who I would see more often when they appeared to be in elementary and middle school.  Eventually, I didn't see them anymore.  I would see the youngest, the daughter, once in a blue moon.  I just saw her this afternoon.  All of the sudden, one of the two older sons has shown up once again, and he has a posse in tow.  His porch is their crib.  And they strike me as street kid wannabes, hanging out in the parking lot.  They aren't loud at all, and they don't stick around long.  I don't know where they disappear to, where they come from, or exactly who they all are.  This morning, I can hear the son behind his door.  He's yelling about his worries over the threat of physical violence, I presume from someone else out on the street.  I'm off, out on the street.  After work, I'm on my way home.  I'm coming up my avenue when a Caucasian guy with a blonde buzz cut and a blue tie-dyed T-shirt bursts into view, cruising on his ten-speed down the center of the street.  I watch him in my mirror after he whizzes past.  I can see his shirt until he disappears from sight.
     When I get home, I have a voicemail message from the bike shop.  The crankcase on the bike I dropped off had been improperly installed at the factory.  The bike is toast.  When I ask them to remove the rims and back rack, and dispose of the frame, they say they can saw it in half.  I give them the okay.The owner I work for has identified a brake fluid leak on my bike.  This afternoon, after work, I head back to the bike shop to pick up the back rack from my sawed-in-half bike.  I thought he wanted to give a tune-up to the bike I ride to work, but he sez it's fine.  So I know what I must do.  Saturday, I will take my last remaining extra bike in to the shop.  It needs a new back rim and new brake pads.  Or so I think.  If the pads are fine, then the brakes are no good.  This may end up being another wash out.  But if not, I may have this other bike ready to go by the weekend after this one.  Because that will be the first weekend that both the waterpark will be open for the season.  And the first weekend my old gym, where I went when I was working down this way, will also be open.  Everything appears to be opening this coming Monday, along with all branches of my bank.  I will end up taking my main bike back here this week, to have them do the tune-up they acted like they were interested in doing.  The tech tells me the bike is fine for now.  So I can use the credit I have here, from the new brake I ordered and they decided I didn't need, to get my other remaining bike serviced.  I mention this to the owner where I work, who lets me know he has a friend who owns a shop, and can order for me the parts to fix my brake fluid leak the bike shop claims they can't.  I won't need my credit at the shop to do so.
     I arrive home Thursday after work to find my neighbor's street kid wanna be blazing on his porch.  He then goes inside.  Friday.  Sometime this week, I was over at the gas station across the street from where I live.  One aisle has a section of yellow vests, worn by workers on construction sites and on busy streets.  At the new Vietnamese grocery going up on my corner, construction workers are showing up.  The ones on the sidewalk, the ones pulling up in their pickups, all have their yellow vests on.  Surely, this is a triumph of small business (the station is a franchise), if not an example of supply and demand.  Today is a full month now that I am back at work.  I've been leaving 3 or 4 hours earlier, and the morning light during the approaching equinox is beautiful as the last half of my ride takes me through a series of connected parks and open space.  It's closing in on 8 AM when I turn the corner onto the final sleepy residential street to work. I hear a meek "Hi."  It almost sounds like a squirrel.  I search over my shoulder the windows of a two-story home.  One of the windows is cracked open.  A young girl is waving at me.  Saturday.  I'm riding my only remaining other bike to work.  I hope this will the last time I will be on it without any brakes.  Some nine hours from now, when I roll it into the bike shop, I will learn the extent of the wear on this crazy thing.  All I am aware of this morning, apart from an absence of brakes, is the rear rim has a couple of bends.  As I roll down the bike path, I pass pairs of guys on their ten-speeds, dressed identically.  One pair of middle-aged male Caucasian cyclists whiz past.  One guy is telling the other his vacation in Canada.  Further along the trail comes another pair.  One of these mentions to the other his plans to do a ride in Vail.
     After work, I'm on the way to the bike shop, with my remaining other bike, which has troubles which I am to discover when I arrive.  I don't even notice the problem.  Along the way there from work, I'm coming down a street where the homes have an American flag, a rainbow flag, a Latino family out on the porch, and...  Behind small fir trees in front of a tiny house, I see her.  She's young, she's in a black lace dress, and her long hair is black.  Do I see dark lipstick?  All against her pale complexion.  It's a real life goth!  Damn, it's been four decades.  I turn down an alley, behind some homes from the middle of the previous century.  They are surrounded by brand new towering condominium complexes.  It feels as though the older homes' days are numbered.  Then, I arrive at the bike shop.  A limited number of people are allowed inside at one time.  A young woman in a short bob comes outside to take my bike inside.  She tells me there's no charge to have it looked at.  I'm expecting the worst, that I will be told this bike is unfit to even stand around, and that it should be overhauled and then thrown away.  I watch through the window as a tech put it's up on a rack to have a look.  He comes out and lets me inside.  It's what I thought, new brake pads and a new back rim.  Also it needs a new chain.  My bike is going to live!  Then he drops the bombshell.  Speaking of my rear rim...I've been riding this thing with FOUR BROKEN SPOKES.  I'll let that sink n.  How I didn't notice this...well, if anyone doesn't have time to so much as notice broken spokes on his bike, it's me.  I've dodged a bullet once again.  Here's the best part.  My in store credit will pay for the whole thing.  Yes, I have to walk from here to the train station, carrying two wheels from the sawed bike.  Along with what I'm taking home from work.  But the bike shop just mad my day.  It will be ready on the 27th.
     Sunday.  For the first time in the past few years, I'm without a bike I like to ride on the weekend.  I'm back out on the bus to the supermarket for a few items.  It's been a little over a year since my mom passed away, and since I've been shopping for two people, and have had to take the bus to go grocery shopping.  I've found a supermarket along the way to and from work, the particular franchise which carries my favorite low-fat cheese.  This morning, I stop at my usual breakfast place before grocery shopping.  The owner comes out and sits down while I'm eating.  He mentions his concerns about a coming collapse of the economy.  We both relate to working in the service industry.  He's saving money on paying a dishwasher by using recyclable cups, plates, and plasticware.  Later in the evening, I make my online "reservation" with my old gym, between home and where I now work.  The following morning, I arrive at the rec center to make sure my membership is up to date for my workout reservation tomorrow.  I'm led inside to see an overweight woman behind the desk.  Every time she gets up, it appears almost as an uncomfortable effort for her.  She wants to see something with my address.  I show her my license.  She appears thrown by the fact that I'm not a resident of this county.  I ride "across the long miles" as Stephen King wrote about the vision of Randall Flag.  She checks her computer and discovers I made my workout reservation for the wrong area of the rec center.  I ask if my membership is current.  Sit down and stand up again.  My questions, they heckle her.  I haven't renewed my membership since August of 2017, and I still have visits left on my card.  Well done, good and faithful servant.  I will make you master over comfortable seats.
     Tuesday.  I arrive for my first reservation to workout, my first workout since March.  There are three senior guys outside the place, shooting the breeze.  One is on a bench, waiting for someone to come out and let him know it's time for his own reservation.  I'm on a bench across form him.  His two pals have just come out after their successful reservations.  One of his pals is in a T-shirt with a US flag and "These colors don't run, they reload" on the back.  The pair head for their respective vehicles.  The one on the bench yells at them.  "Even though I have a purple heart, I need a handicapped card to park in the space."  A guy in his thirties goes inside.  He has a buzz cut and a twelve-inch goatee.  The following day, I swing by a supermarket after work.  I need a few things I ran out of.  At the U-Scan, I'm trying to find the button for vegetables which usually have no barcodes.  The computer doesn't like my code.  A clerk comes over to help.  "Are you trying to put in your number for your store discount card?"  No, I want the vegetable code button.  "Well, you've chosen the button to put in the number for your discount card."  He immediately finds a barcode on the lettuce and scans it."  I didn't know the lettuce had a barcode.  "Well, now you know.  Did I solve all your problems?"  When your the humble student of an all knowing grocery clerk, who can argue?  The latest on the water park: the new target date is this Saturday.  They are working it just like the rec center, both under the administration of the city.  Beginning at 6 AM tomorrow morning, nonresidents may make a reservation for one of three 2-hour sessions at the park.  The last one is 4-6 PM.  This is perfect for the days I get out of work at 3 PM; Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday.  Now that's a button I want to push.
     Thursday.  I'm cruising down a long stretch of bike trail on the way to work.  'Twas yesterday when I thought I noticed the sky had a familiar sheen of interstate forest fire smoke.  On this morning, it's cold ride which does not warm up along the way.  The sun is climbing through the trees along the bank, between the river and the trail, throwing orange light on the concrete.  At one bend in the long curve, a couple of homeless middle-aged guys are siting in the grass, opposite the side of the trail with the trees.  Both appear to have bikes with them, laid out as well.  One of the guys, his face an even brown from the sun, is in a woman's halter top.  He has no teeth, and he either has long hair in a tight red perm, or he's wearing a wig.  He's primping his do in a hand mirror.  I'm over a bridge and through an underpass, pedaling along what I refer to as golf course #1.  I'm passed by a pair of the obligatory Caucasian guys in cycling shirts, and on ten speeds.  One is telling the other about the movie Men In Black.  Past a roundabout, where the trail intersects a golf cart trail for the course, I exit the trail into the course parking lot.  I'm on my way to the gym.  Guys in shorts are out on a putting green, underneath a blood red sun climbing into the chilly air.  I'm onto the sidewalk and through the highway intersection, and but a few minutes later at the gym.  After my workout, I exit to find someone on a bench who is dressed as if she's comfortably installed high up in parks and rec administration for this municipality.  She's playing video games on her pone.  I take this opportunity to inquire about this year's season passes to the waterpark, managed by the same department as this rec center.  In a trio of words; nope, nope, nope.
     It rains overnight and is cloudy most of Friday.  The river along the bike trail was noticeably dry in spots.  As of today, it's got water again.  It's a river which, across the county line which includes downtown, has had some construction work a few years ago.  Since then, it's been a summertime destination for kayakers and assorted swimmers with "floatation devices."  Approaching 7 AM this morning, there are no guys in shorts and Polo shirts running along to anyone calling cadence.  There are perhaps as many as ten guys, all in black wetsuits (In a river?  Gimme a break.), standing along the ledge of a graded drop.  Each has either a surf or a boogie board under one arm.  One is trying to surf the wave created as the water drops over this manufactured incline.  Someone yell out, "Don't believe the hype!"  The hype that this river is now a commodity?  I'm passed by a couple of guys on bikes, perhaps in their sixties.  Up ahead, I then pass them where they are stopped, where I turn off one trail onto another.  There is one in particular who for some reason strikes me as not entirely comfortable being out on a bike.  Shortly after I go past, the pair passes me again.  As I am approaching the trailhead for this route, they have at some point turned around and are coming back the other way.  Either they are just out for a spin, or they've gone the wrong way.
     Saturday  I'm on the way to work, pedaling around the same bend along the south Platte River where I spotted the surfers.  Indeed, they are back at the very same small downslope.  One is surfing away.  Written in colored chalk, on the concrete of the kayak dock, is the explanation.  It reads, "International Surfing Day."  When I arrive at work, I do a quick Google search.  The third Saturday every June is indeed I.S.D..  Cowabunga.  The third Saturday of this month, today, is also the first day of Summer.  The waterpark opened yesterday.  At work today, I also give them a call.  The phone is answered by someone who is coughing and sounds sick.  I mention that I don't have a printer to give me a physical copy of my ticket.  It's confirmed that I can get in without it.  As a matter of fact, in line at the park after work, the employee checking bags and tickets must have recognized me.  He checked my bag but didn't ask to see my ticket.  These guys are good.  I'm early along with a handful of us who reserved the 4 to 6 PM slot.  The employees have been busy cleaning everything they can.  One circle of lifeguards are sitting in a circle.  They begin singing and playing some kind of game, and if they're around a campfire.  Then, the pumps are turned on which move the water over the giant mushroom and shoot out over a lagoon and fill a high bucket until it dumps into the pool.  The gate opens, and  get my swim.  I get my ride on the drop slide.  Then I am away toward home.  I decide to take the train while fares are suspended.  I've decided the safest way to the train station is along a side street to a bike lane.  On a residential street among this industrial district, a middle-aged guy is standing toward the curb.  He's waving at me.  I don't stop but listen to his ask if their is a bike trail "this way?"  he points south.  I direct him west of here.  He extends his thanks.  Again this morning, I rode to work through a cooler morning.  I thought the sun appeared a little orange through what I presume is fire smoke up in the sky.  By the afternoon when I left work, it had warmed up, perhaps to the forecast of 82 degrees F.  Tomorrow I have yet another swimming reservation at the water park.  I didn't see my friends among the pirate decorations which greet me around a tree inside the entrance.  These are a couple of shrunken pirate heads.  I may ask about them tomorrow.
     The train drops me off at a station where I can take a path through an underpass and across a highway intersection.  At this intersection, I arrive where a small group is surrounding a guy with a helmet sitting with his back against the light pole.  I assume the parked scooter is his.  A small SUV "hybrid" is parked close behind a pickup truck.  There was obviously an accident here.  As  wait for the light, a fire truck arrives.  I have to maneuver around the fire truck when I get a green light, when I cross through the intersection.  I get out of there just before an ambulance arrives.  I decide to take the bike trail north to a gas station where I pick up a quick dinner.  And my new soda substitute, a bottle of unsweetened tea.  I carry sweetener to add whenever I'm in transit.  Outside is a homeless guy with a sign.  It declares that he's native, he's broke, and he "could use a dollar or two."  When I come out, he's conversing with another cyclist, who gives him a water bottle. The homeless guy is telling him about his daughter, in her thirties, who's currently locked up.  I take my dinner to a nearby park on the way home.  I sit at a cement table, not far from a couple on the grass.  The lady is giving the inaudible guy an earful.  She tells him he doesn't back her up, and rattles off a litany of examples, of statements extended family members have made to her and to others about her.  I watch two different guys, with both long white hair and bicycles, roll up the hill along the park.  I follow them for the short ride home from here.  I arrive to see one of my neighbors with her SUV in the parking lot.  A guy with a tow truck has one of the enormous wheels off.  I speak to her in Spanish.  She's having her brakes worked on.  We talk about being called back to work.  She asks, and I tell her work I work at a lavadora en seco.  She pulls a big beautiful Turkish rug out of the back of a truck parked behind the SUV.  It has bright reds and blues.  The back seat of the truck is packed from floor to ceiling.  She asks me how much to clean.  I do the math.  $192.  It isn't dirty, it looks gorgeous.  She puts it back in the truck.
     Sunday.  The morning is filled with cooking for the coming week.  I won't have time this week to get to the gym as many times as I would like.  I do another workout with the cinderblocks before I run out the door.  I need to grab more low fat cheese which I can only get from one supermarket franchise.  Along the way, I approach the of ramp of an interstate.  A car has stopped at a green light.  It's motioning traffic to go around it.  From the corner comes one of two homeless, who appear to know the driver.  He reaches through a window and takes a thermos from the back seat.  I stop across the avenue for a quick lunch at a breakfast place which has reopened.  My waitress is familiar.  She's very polite, but she's slow.  Her eyebrows are finished by being drawn in wide lines, and her hair is fair and pale, almost grey.  She has it put up on her head, and it gives her youthful face the odd image of a grandmother.  Outside on the curb are a homeless couple.  The lady is perhaps 40 years old.  She's in a black summer dress and platform sandals.  Her hair is also put up, and for a few details otherwise appears almost professional.  There are some tattoos on one calf.  She's flying a sign which reads, "Hungry artist."  (Not yet starving, I assume.)  She also has a blue hula hoop.  The guy is in a baseball jersey and a ball cap, which he's written all over and the front end of the bill is turned up.   Across the street is a big asphalt lot.  It has a handful of homeless tents.  In the center of the lot is what appears to be all the trash.  It's collected into a big pile around a shopping cart.  Once I collect my cheese, the plan is to get it back home before I must turn around to make my waterpark reservation this afternoon.  After I've eaten, gone to the grocery just under a bridge and back, I come back past the lot.  Between it and the avenue is a bus stop.  The trash can next to bus stop is overflowing with more trash.  Soon, I'm home, the cheese is in the fridge, and I'm back out the door and shortly at the train station.  Not that I would otherwise be late riding all the way, but I'm on the bike I take to work and back.  The good one.  And I prefer to save the miles which I put on it just for that.  And the transit system continues to be free of charge, for the moment.  In fact, a sandwich sign at the station announces that, on July 1st, fares will resume.  I arrive just as a train does, and I jump on it.  A transit system security officer asks both of us solitary passengers if he may have our attention.  He repeats what the sign said.  Then he repeats it again.  Though it may appear the transit authority is using media from another century, posted signs and word of mouth, I believe that we are lucky to get any announcement at all.  Caveat emptor.
     Since about the middle of this month, nearby neighbors have been randomly launching fireworks, it seems, when twilight falls.  Sunday evening, this appears to go on and on.  I hit the hay around 9 PM these days.  My attempt to get to sleep was a journey in and out of semi-consciousness.  This was an audio-induced illusion of mortar fire along with the occasional rattling of my window from the bass end of a vehicle sound system.  Monday was a bit of an effort to stay awake.  After work, I'm rolling back home along the bike trail.  It's an afternoon when I'm being passed by an unusual number of oncoming cyclists.  They are all the usual bright and colorfully adorned riders.  Somewhere in the middle of this, at a point along the trail I don't quite remember, wanders out of the trees along the trail a solitary figure.  He is perhaps in his thirties.  He's in a black full length duster coat, camouflaged shorts, and a buttoned down shirt.  He himself and his gear all have the same thin pall of a shade of grey.  His expression is that of detached bewilderment, perhaps as if he isn't altogether sure what he is walking out into.  He makes his way to the other side of the trail.  I arrive home to discover that I have no power.  I momentarily wonder if I neglected to pay the bill.  I make a call on my mobile phone to report the outage.  After some trouble locating my account, I'm told that the outage was reported at 5:14 PM, and the estimated conclusion of the repair is 8 PM.  By 9 PM, I have no power and I hit the hay.  During the night, I look up to see my clock radio flashing "12:00."  When I get up Tuesday morning, I have the power restored and I've had a full night's sleep.   I turn on the computer, and only then see the emails from the power company.  'The new estimated time for the conclusion of the repair is 10:30 PM.  I don't read the email informing me when it was actually restored.  I have to eat.  I have to get a shower.  I have to give myself my first enema before I go to have my prostate biopsied.  With the land line working, I listen to a voicemail from the urologist, informing me that my prescription for antibiotics has not yet arrived at my pharmacy.  Two weeks ago, I was told by the urologist's office that I didn't need an antibiotic prescription, as the office would give me an antibiotic injection the day of the biopsy.
     This morning, I call the urologist and speak with someone who tells me he knows nothing about an injection, and that the urologist's office attempted to contact me.  Yes, I did get a voicemail, which specified nothing at all much less anything about picking any prescription which the office ordered from my pharmacy for me to pick up.  In fact, I called the office back to inquire about the reason for the voicemail, and again was told nothing about any prescription.  I hang up and am called back by someone else from the urologist's office, who again tells me that she knows nothing about any prescription.  I inform her that I just spoke with someone who doesn't know anything about any injection.  I ask her if I should take this institutional mystery to the urologist himself.  It's a moment when I have arrived on the same page with someone.  When I arrive at the urologist's office an hour later, I go to get the injection.  The medical worker with the syringe asks me, "So, you didn't get the prescription in time?"  I tell her the byzantine story about the conflicting factions of urologist office employees.  Her response is, "Well, looks like you're getting a shot then."  I am later told by the biopsy assistant that the injection or the prescription is at my discretion.  She informs me that she will mention the apparent confusion to her supervisor.  I'm beginning to wonder if this is an indicator of my behavior as a syrup deviationist?  She has me in and out with my injection so fast, the next morning I get up to find that, I never realized she put a Band Aid over the spot where I was injected.
     There is a waiting room for the individual little parts of today's visit.  I had blood drawn for a prostate study in one location of the urology center.  I had my shot in a separate location.  My biopsy in yet another.  I had arrived early for the blood work, and was standing six feet from the desk.  A security guard asked me who I was waiting for, and alerted me he was going off to find an employee.  Before another employee came out, an 87-year-old patient slowly arrived with someone else.  The other guy asked the octogenarian if he would like to have a seat.  He answered, "Where are you going to sit, on that plant?"  His pal didn't laugh.  He appeared to dismiss any attempt by the other at humor as he read aloud to the guy a page of information, and asked him some questions.  His tone was, 'I'm here to patiently read you whatever is printed on this sheet of paper, with aloof attention toward your comprehension.'  He begins with a fact about the Corona virus.  Then he asked the patient if he was born in March of 1933.  The patient sat there giving single-word affirmative answers.  After my blood draw and shot, I was in the waiting room for my biopsy.  After I was called back for the procedure by the assistant, she told me that the wait was for the antibiotics to take effect.  In the waiting room, I watched the occasional patient, all of varying ages, all wander in and out with the same trepidation.  Almost like the homeless coming out of the trees along the bike trail.
     The urologist and his assistant tell me to take it easy the rest of the day.  While the bike which I ride on weekends is in the shop, I travel by transit system while it's still free.  I decide to have lunch at my favorite place down the street, after which I head crosstown to get yogurt along the way to where I used to work downtown.  This morning was 54 degrees F when I woke up.  This afternoon, it's burning hot.  My way of taking it easy appears to be walking six blocks to my friend's restaurant, where I cool off and have some iced tea.  I make connections back home in jig time.  The Chinese place across the street is closed now on Tuesdays.  In the early evening, I head behind my townhome complex to the Vietnamese place.  It's open now for dining in, but I grab takeout.  I look across the boulevard to see if the Mexican place is open.  It's...changed hands.  A new sign now adorns the space above the door.

Baseball, Prostate Biopsy, Hot Dogs, No Brakes, Apple Pie, A Loose Crown...and Chevrolet!
     Tuesday I have my biopsy.  Wednesday I assume my brake fluid reservoir on my handlebars is low.  After work, I swing by the bike shop on the way home.  It ain't the fluid.  After telling me there's still life I my brake pads the last time I was here, I suppose the tech decided to look at the pads on the front brakes.  It ain't a fluid issue.  And the pads aren't worn,,,they're gone.  As in used up.  Luckily, he has new pads, and at a reasonable price.  I ride home with actual front brakes.  Then Thursday rolls around.  I'm rolling down the trail, past the kayak launch on the south bend of the river.  I pass a young couple, each carrying a surfboard.  More surfers in wetsuits are at the water incline.  Not long after I get to work, I decide I'm extra hungry.  I grab an omelet in the shopping center, with melted swiss cheese.  I'm eating it at work, shortly after we open.  Chewing the cheese, off comes my new crown.  Time to call my dentist.  Yes they can get me in this afternoon.  After work, I head up the boulevard, stopping to put on my rain poncho.  Thunder and drops turns into some rain.  I don't remember coming this way before, but I'm able to sneak off onto a side street the rest of the way.  At the dentist, I sit in the waiting room for over an hour.  I had called earlier to ask what it would cost to recement a crown.  A cool $120.  Well, that's what the receptionist quoted.  The same one who, after an hour, told me they would have a room ready for me in a couple minutes.  What's two more minutes?  I was called back without anyone collecting any money, and sent on my way with nothing more than a wave.  What a week.  On Friday, the urologist calls.  No cancer has been found in the samples of my prostate.  I will see him in six months.
     Saturday.  Around 8 AM, I'm headed down the connecting trail to work.  I'm approaching a short bridge over the creek.  The bike trail this morning is full of both colorful cyclists and dog owners with their dogs.  At the other end of the bridge from myself, a kid on his BMX bike screeches to a halt.  Two of his friends whiz by on their own BMX bikes before he takes off after them.  The trio just came down a steep hill, at the top of which approaches a couple with their pair of dogs.  Standing on a steep embankment coming down from a residential neighborhood, surrounded by foliage, it a homeless guy.  His skin and clothes are the same pall of grey/brown.  A mask is around his neck, not over his nose and mouth.  He's missing teeth in his open mouth, and he stares dead ahead.  I cruise past him and sneak a peek at his face.  He looks up in surprise.  Sunday.  I need a handful of items from the supermarket down the street.  My weekend bike is still in the shop.  In fact, I call the shop before I leave.  Someone answers, who tells me he came in early just to complete my bike.  So I'm on the bus down the street.  The corner where I disembark is a high school.  President Obama spoke there some ten years ago.  Catty corner, just past a gas station, was a small diner.  It had the mission of employing students from across the street.  It wasn't a bad old place, simple, with wood paneling and chairs from another decade.  A kind of throwback to a time in which much of this neighborhood still lives.  I walk past it on the way to grocery shop.  It does not appear to have stayed open for take out service.  Their sign over the entrance is gone.  I peek inside through mirrored glass.  I don't any chairs or tables left.  I collect my food items and head over to the bus stop.  A tall skinny Caucasian guy slowly comes down the sidewalk.  He carries a guitar, a bag and a folded table.  He sets up his table and puts out what appear to be CDs, I assume of him performing.  He begins playing a song by Led Zeppelin, I can't remember which one.  My bus comes along and soon I'm home with my stash.  A couple of hours later, the phone rings, and it's the bike shop.  It's ready to go.  I have a couple of hours before it closes.  I think I can make it.  I jump on a bus to the train, which whips me to a station from which it's a 15-minute walk.
     I walk in, and the same short young woman immediately asks me if I need help.  Before I can tell her I'm picking up a bike...she asks me if I'm picking up a bike.  As soon as I confirm this, she asks if I need anything else.  "Feel free to browse."  I like her.  She's committed.  Power, baby.  It turns out that my store credit didn't cover it.  It's an extra $94.  But I think they're still giving me a break.  While the tech who hooked me up is checking me out, I can hear her with a female customer who is looking for a new seat.  The young says something about a comfortable seat, "Speaking of gender, this is designed to fit you."  Then I'm outside putting helmet on head and bike lock on the back rack.  The young woman runs out a few minutes after I paid my bill.  She asks me, "Are you done?"  I answer, "Yeah."  She gives me an "Okay," and thumbs up.  I'd better be done, kid, I don't have any fucking money left.  But...I got a second working bike.  Thanks to these guys.  And speaking of gender, that ain't bad.  Now, I need to run into another supermarket, the only one which carries my low-fat cheese.  The package I had turned bad when the power went out.  I head out, do a multi-street loop, run into a fast food place to ask if it's the opposite way, and heading that way end up going past the bike shop again.  Not far from there, I run in and grab the cheese before I hit the bike trail for home.  I usually check my emails in the evening, to clear them out at the end of the day.  I don't know if I'm doing it backwards.  If so, this is the least of my problems.  One is from an email chat room for my townhome's residents which I forgot I joined.  It's from the property management company my townhome's HOA uses.  I attempt to open an account to take a look at the thread.  The system alerts me, "You already have a username and password."  Only two messaged have been posted since we began using this company.  The first was six years ago, from a previous HOA president who I would later find out, was the subject of a petition from all the other residents to have her removed from her position.  As is so often the case, I didn't find this out until after she had moved out.  The new message appears to be from a couple of residents I've never heard of.  There are not (yet) that many Caucasians who live here, but they have names which sound white.  The single sentence message is a question.  'Does anyone else hear the fireworks going off through the night?'  Before I hit the hay this evening, I step outside to scan the sky (speaking of white) for bombs bursting in air.  There are at least three locations from which it sounds, and one directly behind the complex I can see, fireworks are being launched toward the fire smoke-colored half moon.
     Monday night, the firework mortar crew gives the neighborhood a break.  Perhaps they kept even themselves up too late.  They say that war is hell.  If fireworks aren't war, they're just hell.  Tuesday rings in the end of the month.  I take the route to work with a stop at the supermarket.  I'm extra hungry this morning, and I grab an inexpensive snack.  I'm out of the store and unlocking the bike when a lady comes out.  She asks me if I like my bike helmet.  She tells me she bought one just like it.  It's the first question I've ever had specifically about my bike helmet.  Some seven hours later, I'm through the old money neighborhood and on the horse trail which connects to another neighborhood.  Neighborhood residents enjoy running, walking pets, cycling here.  I'm approaching from behind what appears at first to be a guy with 3 dogs.  He's having trouble holding the leashes of two.  Seconds later, I'm passing this guy.  He in fact has, each on a leash, a dog...and a couple of mountain goats.  Complete with long horns.  A neon yellow sign warns about coyotes.  I don't see any mention of zoo animals.  An hour and a half later and I'm at the corner across from my home.  I already knew the Mexican restaurant on this very lot had changed names.  But I thought perhaps the new owner(s) would keep the distinctive furniture.  Hand-carved and brightly painted and glazed scenes of Mexico on the backs of booth benches.  As I glance over my shoulder, waiting for the green light, I see one of these very benches being loaded onto a delivery truck.  It's followed by a still life painting I've seen hanging ever since I first stepped in there 13 years ago.  Perhaps as early as April of 2007, Tacos and Salsas has been a staple, one of the haunts where I would eat and read.  I don't know if it's a casualty of the virus.  Here's a toast, and a candle.  Thanks for taking care of me amigos.  Tierra y libertad.