May Day, and the Disappearing Bags
Finally. To the bank, the supermarket, and soon to my broker's office. To make it to my broker, I need to take the bus. But first, with a few extra minutes, I head into the cafe across from the bus stop for breakfast. Something fast, granola and yogurt. At the bus stop is a young woman who appears familiar to me. When the bus comes to collect us, I put my bike on the front rack. I turn to grab the bag I took off of my back rack. It's gone. After a second of wondering if I'm simply dreaming, and the driver watching my confusion, for some reason I look inside the bus on the floor. It was carried there by the young woman. I tank her in English. In Spanish, she replies, "You're welcome." That's disappearing bag number one. I step out at work and cross the street to my broker's office. The office manager is there and tells me she was gone when I came by last week because she had pneumonia. She tries to put my check into a scanner which 1) doesn't scan because it's gotten wrinkled after a week in my wallet, and 2) it jams her scanner also because it's gotten too wrinkled after a week in my wallet. (Did I mention this already?) I will have to bring her a "fresh" check tomorrow, as well as return to the bank because I forgot to get more quarters for the bus. Urban living: don't leave home without it. I stay an extra hour at work, one of those days. I grab a fast dinner at the Thai place a few doors down before I cross the street to the bakery for a small desert. No one is in here. I yell in Spanish, because no one who should be here speaks Spanish, "Hey white people, where's my cake." A groovy high school kid emerges. I take off one bag around my shoulders to reach my wallet in the bag underneath. Urban living... (Did I mention this already?) The bag I take off is a replacement for another which wore out, which I left and forgot in here once before. Back at the bus stop, I reach for mt camera in the same bag as my wallet, to snap a shot of the guy with a long white beard on the bus bench. A few raindrops are falling, and he's holding his jacket over his head as he reads his phone. Again, for a second, I wonder why I don't have to pull this bag out from under the other one around my shoulders. Until I realize that it never made it back onto my shoulders. It's still at the bakery. This time, I know I'm not dreaming. I wish I were. That's disappearing bag number two. I have perhaps two minutes to run back to the bakery, which fortunately is only yards away. I don't take the time to secure the bag, which disappeared this morning, to my back rack. I hold it as I ride. It has my bike lock inside, as it does when I take my bike on the bus. It's heavy and makes my front rim jerk when it moves left or right. Inside the bakery again, the same employee (who also found yet something else I left behind earlier this year) hasn't failed to find this one. I make it there and back. And I still get my shot of the guy. It's gonna be a long month.
Tuesday. My coworker has decided that I am to be at work every Thursday, as well as Fridays, an hour early. This means that, to get to both the bank again and my broker's office, I again require the services of the transit system. At the bank the branch manager is behind the teller window. I try to ask in Spanish for "forty twenty-five centses." She laughs and replies, "That is so wrong." The direct way she speaks, I can tell right away how smart she is, thoroughly in command. Her beautiful nails are a tap tapping her keyboard. On the way home from work yesterday, I stopped at the supermarket across the street from this bank, so I don't need to take the time this morning. I was headed there, climbing the bridge back over the train tracks and highway by the early evening. Coasting down is an oncoming electric scooter. It's pulling some kind of small, improvised flatbed trailer covered in black plastic. A homeless guy is at the handlebars. Tuesday morning, I'm on the opposite side of the same bridge, climbing toward the same crest from the other direction. I have the electric sign to cross the off ramp. I do so in front of a semi driver who is busy looking the direction opposite my own, watching for a break in the oncoming traffic. It's all very complicated. That's life in the big city. I'm right in front of him when he lets off his brakes, just as he spots me and hit them again. After the bank, I make the bus to work. I get to my broker's office before I grab another salad at the bakery. I'm in there with four white-haired customers sitting down. Three of them are at the same table, speaking in hushed tones and responding with muffled laughter. The one who is balding says out loud, "They don't tell jokes like that anymore. Those are some good ones." The following morning, I get a late start to be an hour early. Again I leave the house without breakfast, and I grab the train in an attempt to save time. I'm off the train and pedaling towards ta residential street, which shadows a boulevard between the one I live on and the one I work on. I'm looking for...yes. A Subway. I can get a salad before work.
...supporting a person through...court proceedings to finding a full-time job to...medical care. ...consistently showing up at homeless encampments...to have difficult conversations...clean socks or toothbrushes, without an ulterior motive. "...to get a job...to change your mindset. ...to talk about...things you might not have shared for years." ...barriers...like outstanding warrants, addiction, housing, ID's, a social security card, a birth certificate... ...unhoused individuals [in Colorado] the true number could be as high as 134,197... - Washington Park Profile, 5/2024
[At schools in my zip code may be found] "drugs every day, guns...from elementary school on up. ...a melting pot of...Bloods, Crips... The Surenos...hung out on the main floor...other gangs...the basement and the second floor. ...we never diverted to quick money, we never diverted to violence."[Unlike] a private day school in south Denver that at the time charged $25,000 for annual tuition... [Kids of the owner of the city football team] "went there, district attorney's kids, judges." Fewer than 10 percent of its students were Hispanic... "It was almost like I was representing [the zip code where I live as a community to work there.] It was an honor to them..." [But at the private school, kids on the baseball team couldn't be there to play all the summer games] because they summered at Cape Cod or Aspen or were going on a ten-state tour with their favorite band. "I could never do anything with the...players out of season because of their lifestyle." - Westword, 5/2-8/2024
Your Highness... Our outpost armies were made to age precipitately by a process I do not understand, becoming blinded and enfeebled in a few moments of our ordinary time. Survivors carrying this message to you are colonizers who rescued most of our seed stocks and selected frozen embryos... I myself, of course, cannot participate in the resettlement of our people. If I am captured, it is what I deserve. I will do what I must. I feel your eye upon me. - From Ruinations Fires, by Dava Sobel, OMNI Magazine, 3/1983
Socialists would fight for forests and rivers, while environmentalists would support a...distribution of...wealth. ...drawing support from disenfranchised youth and senior citizens alike. ...the Green movement might spread around the world. - OMNI Magazine, 4/1983
..."solidarity economy...a...just and sustainable economy...people...over...growth." Indigenous approaches...cooperatives, community land trusts, credit unions, peer lending, mutual aid...barter..." - Quaker Action, Spring 2024
Saturday. The foliage is beginning to blossom with significant visibility. I awake without setting my alarm, and I get plenty of sleep. I make a run for the bus. At work, a customer comes in, who manages a local waste treatment plant. He mentions to me that his department partnered with the city this morning, to go out along the river and pick up trash. Ha! These are the volunteers whom I saw last Sunday. He said he was with 100 people this morning, and they picked up 150 bags of trash. Sunday evening, I retire to the sounds of honking and cheering upon my boulevard. I awake to the sound of gale force winds. I spent early yesterday afternoon downtown at the Cinco de Mayo festival with my lady. At one point, a gale force wind came up. But Monday morning, the wind is in full swing. This morning, I'm working open to close. I'm out the door in the dark. At a curb of the long street a block from my own, the falling apart pickup sits. Down by the right front wheel is a hand illuminated by a small light. Around a couple of corners, I turn uphill past a Caucasian guy out running in the wind with his dog. The dog has a lit up green collar. At the crest of the hill I turn down a long incline. The wind attempts to knock me over before it changes direction. The dawn is breaking as I enter the trail. I pass a homeless guy on a bench, next to his full shopping cart. Off the trail. A tail wind now helps push me up the bridge over the highway and train. Across a busy boulevard, I turn up a residential street. I pass a pickup truck with its lights on but its engine off. Someone appears to be asleep in the driver's seat. Then I turn down another street and I'm at a stop for my bus to work. Soon I'm across the street from my store at a bakery for breakfast. A young, tattooed twentysomething baker wanders out from the back, on a short break. She's strikingly relaxed compared with the young, focused, passive/aggressive parents from the neighborhood, who frequent the doughnut shop across the street. During the day I come down with a cold, and when I get home I take a Sudafed. I catch up on my sleep and awake the next morning. I get up, use the bathroom, and I'm picking out a shirt for work when the phone rings. It's as if my coworker knows exactly what I'm doing. 'I can be there by 8 AM,' I tell her. I won't be going to the bank, or the supermarket before work. Again, I'm back at a stop for my bus to work, when I discover I've somehow lost all my quarters.
What will it take to make machines that really think...? How big are they, these human webs if information and belief? - OMNI Magazine, 4/1983
The Disappearing Purchases
Wednesday I don't have to be at work until my regular shift. Noon. What? Not 11 or 10 or 9 or 8 or open? Noon. I get my bathtub cleaned. I oil my bike chin and get air in my tires. I hit the bank for the quarters. I hit the supermarket for a pile of groceries which I plan to take to work. This includes more cold medicine. It also includes more razors for home. I get to work early and I cross the street to a card store. I purchase something for my lady, for Mother's Day. I get her a hat with "Mom" on it, and I get her a card with sparkles around the outside. After work, I get home to find that I can't find the medicine, the razors, or the card. First, I call my bank in an attempt to dispute the charge for the medicine, which I paid for separately. I'm told over the phone that this will take seven days. When I check my mail, I get a letter informing me of a shoe which I have been waiting a long time to drop. My Medicaid has been cancelled. I decide to "celebrate" by having dinner behind my place at a Vietnamese restaurant. One young employee, after I'm finished, tells me to be careful on by bike. I ask her how she knows I ride a bike. She sees me ride past the restaurant on my way home. She's even seen me way down the street on my way to work. To quote Bob Wiley, "I am local now." If I'm local, I'm convinced my coworker is psychic. Tuesday, she appeared to know as soon as I got out of bed. Thursday, I wake up early and I decide to get up. Before I do, again I hear the phone ringing. Can I open for her? I could, but I have a few things I want to do before work. I tell her I will be there if she can cover for just the first hour. She's good with that. Before I leave, I find the razors in my bag. But I know I've somehow lost the medicine. Though I won't get to the bank, to withdraw some of the money I've made working for her, because I am too busy continuing to work for her. Yet again, I'm out the door headed to a stop for my bus to work. I turn onto the long street a block from my own. The falling apart pickup truck is back. Both the pickup and the '80s camper have moved to the other side of the street. For the first time, I see who lives in it. 'Tis a young couple, thirtysomethings? They are standing outside. The guy is adjusting the black plastic trash bag covering the driver's side window. Both are dressed head to toe in black.
Friday. I don't need to be at work until only an hour early. My life is an ongoing ironic syntax. I hit the bank down the street from my place before they open. I race to a deathburger and back for breakfast to go. I withdraw from the bank and head for a stop for my bus to work. I don't recall riding to work once this week. I have my lady's Mother's Day gift and card, boxed and ready to go. For $30, I'm having it mailed to her address which is within walking distance from my own. The Post Office clerk tells me I'm a good person. What a week. I should interject that I worked Monday all day. Tuesday and Tuesday almost all day, coming in a little more than an hour after we open. And Saturday, I stayed more than 3 hours after close. When I get home, I check my mail. I have a letter from the state Medicaid office, dated May 4th. This letter tells me that I don't have to do anything to be reenrolled in my current Medicaid plan. Saturday at work starts busy right out of the gate. I stay more than three hours after we close. At least my cold is gone. Sunday was supposed to be sunny and in the 70s F. for Mother's Day. It's pouring rain. Great for my flowers. I won't be riding to the gym. In my high-tech raincoat and umbrella, I grab a bus down the street to a transfer station. I step inside a shelter where a homeless couple huddle on a tiny bench. He's in a jacket and she has a soaked crocheted blanket around her. They get up and leave and I move over to their bench, the side where the floor isn't flooded. Before the bus pulls up, a rare clap of thunder rolls across the grey sky. Behind the shelter is a high school sports field. A soccer game is going on. When the thunder shows up, whistles go off. The bus arrives and I step aboard. This one has a couple of families. I sit next to a child in a furry animal hat. I smile at her. She's shy. The bus turns down a street I don't expect. Am I on the wrong bus? You sure are dummy. The good news is that this bus goes to a train, which goes to the very station which the correct bus would have taken me. In fact, this way may even be faster. I hear some kids in the back, who get out and go running around the train station. They eventually make it up a long set of steps to the platform. The youngest doesn't even have a coat, but only a sleeveless jersey. I can see my breath out here. He holds the door of a train for the others. Looks like they're headed downtown. I'm waiting for a train in the opposite direction. A couple of lanky young guys come along with a single ten speed. When our train arrives, they have trouble taking the bike inside. This is because they enter through the narrower passenger entrance, instead of the bike entrance at either end of each car.
It's just a couple stops from here to my station, and a short walk to the bar and grill I like to hit before the gym. Not only to I take the wrong bus, but I forget that it's Mothers' Day. Families and moms wait for a table. The host is a short guy in a loud sportscaster jacket. He tells me he will have a table open when it "times out" shortly. The place is loud and business is hoppin' on this rainy damned day. My table is in a corner of the covered outdoor patio. Water seeps onto the floor from the lawn just outside. I have corned beef and hash with eggs, and the inexpensive dish arrives with pulled beef and potatoes. It's effing delicious. I hit the gym. I'm in the outdoor hot tub when the rain has stopped. Then I'm back at the train station where I grab a bus back to my boulevard. I hit my supermarket for a few items. At last they have their flowers out for sale. I pick up a couple for two more pots I have in my garden. When I get home, again I have a much easier time planting them in damp soil. I do dishes and mix some previously boiled pasta with some previously boiled chicken, and some pesto sauce. I hit the Vietnamese place behind my townhome for dinner. When I come out, the rain has started again. I get back home and I get the call. It's back to open to close tomorrow. I'm out the door the following morning just before 5 AM. In mid-May, at this hour the dawn is already breaking. At the gas station across the street from me, a handful of homeless are gathered at the entrance. They all have various bicycles parked all together at the front. It sounds as if they are speaking Spanish. This morning I am yet again headed for a bus to work. Tuesday morning, I don't have to be at work until noon. Whenever I wake up lately from an open to close fog, it's having had a great sleep. I've been sleeping well this entire month. The temps are ever so slowly easing toward their summer levels. I step outside and peek over my fence from the top step of my back patio. The young homeless guy who stands in front of the apartment building across the street, he's standing with his cane on the sidewalk. he's looking toward the corner. Later this evening, he will he laying on the steps in front of the building. This is the first day of the year when I ride to work in shorts and a sleeveless shirt. The temps won't last through the week. But this morning, I'm leaving my parking lot as another homeless guy appears to have just woken up. He carries his bedroll down the sidewalk across the street.
I stop for breakfast at a deathburger before I hit the bank. I'm inside at one window as an elderly Vietnamese lady is at the next one. I hear her ask to "withdraw eight thousand dollars." The teller asks, "Eight thousand dollars?" She heard her correctly. The teller steps in back and returns carrying some kind of special machine to complete the transaction. I do the ride all the down to work, stopping at a supermarket closer there to pick up items for work and home. It's a good thing that I'm grabbing these spare free mornings to do so. Wednesday. Last week I called the state healthcare exchange. After speaking with a couple of agents, I speak to one who agrees that I need to be sure of what is going on with Medicaid. Medicaid sent me a letter telling me that the decision has been made to terminate my benefits. Right after this letter arrived, I received another letter, from the office of the plan for which I was using Medicaid. Confused yet? This other letter is to tell me that I don't need to do anything to reenroll in the plan. So, I will still have Medicaid? Meanwhile, because I called the state health care exchange, I'm getting voicemails on my land line at home. The messages are only elevator music. Wednesday morning, I'm home before work, only because I don't have to work open to close. I get a call from someone who sells me an inexpensive plan with no deductible. She also explains that I can still sign up with my old health plan, but I won't have Medicaid to pay for it. I will be paying for it myself. She doesn't explain that no deductible means that I will be paying for any major services myself, as opposed to other plans with deductibles. The other plans pick up the cost after I pay the deductible. I've heard of deductibles. I don't understand this until I get a call Wednesday evening. The call in the evening is from someone who explains that the first plan leaves me on the hook for all major medical services. He sets me up with a telephone appointment for Thursday morning. Thursday, I will be home in the morning. I take a rare day off. The sister wants me to attend a funeral with her.
Land That is Away from People
...a nonprofit that supports encampments. ...has opened and operated four encampments so far... ...build...and keep it hidden as long as possible... "We can't bring in volunteers, because then they say, 'Oh, we helped out here,' and then we get swept the next day." ...to stick to city property and "land that is away from people, that's not in a neighborhood. Fire safety is...huge...so we make sure there's no vegetation...close by." ...tailors meals to the tastes of Venezuelans, who have a tough time finding food they like in Denver. "...people bring [them] something and they don't recognize it...they will not eat it. They won't eat burritos or tacos...nothing spicy. They're like the Norwegians of South America..." - Westword, 5/9-15/2024
"I was influenced," she says, "by a series of service jobs that made me consider the existence of mechanical entities." ...explaining that even inanimate objects can have a spiritual nature. ...ceremonial significance. ...high tech in its primitive mythical stage. - OMNI Magazine, 4/1983
When I get home after work Wednesday, the recycle truck had already come by in the morning. The last can sitting out at the curb when I come coasting into my parking lot is my own can. It's been released from being kidnapped. Bin napped? I return it to my back patio. Thursday. I'm expecting a call from a broker for the state health insurance exchange at &:30 AM. He calls to reschedule for 9. Someone else calls after 9 to tell me the broker had a family emergency, and can I reschedule for later today. I suggest 5 PM. The sister picks me up for the funeral service, and after she takes me to lunch at a favorite place of hers on the west side of town. It's some kind of "power lunch" place for high rollers. We sit at a table next to a couple of guys in suits. The one does all the talking about how much money he makes for his company, and how he "cleans up" his customers "debts." Our waitress is a beautiful blonde with a chain around her neck with a pendant, which is the number "444". I inquire about it. She replies that she feels as if the number 4 "protects" her. She also mentions returning to her "journaling" and her getting back to hiking during the warmer weather. When I get home, I finally find what I believe is the phone number online which I have been looking for. I dial it and select a prompt to have a health care exchange broker return my call straight away. One does. This is the broker I've been looking for. She hooks me up with the best insurance, including dental, which I believe I have ever had next to Medicaid. Not only that, but the broker's job is to find the client the best deal in the marketplace. That deal is with the network and the doctors I discovered under Medicaid, and which I believe are the best I've ever had. The roulette wheel has finally stopped on my number. I write a check for my binder payments, each to my new health care plan and to my dental insurance company. It's the same dental insurer to which I mailed a $600 check the day before I was able to discover I had Medicaid for the previous six effing months. When I last had insurance, brokers from the exchange recommended I look outside the exchange for any dental insurance. Which I did. The annual premium was as stated. Which I why I dreaded losing Medicaid. But today, the exchange is offering myself a subsidy for this same dental insurer. A big one. I send off the pair of binder payments. I didn't expect my being dropped from Medicaid could ever have gone smoothly at all, much less this smoothly. I grab dinner at the Vietnamese place behind my complex. When I return home, I get a call from someone who sounds as if he's keeping an eye on the authenticity of the health plans I'm being offered over the phone. I suddenly get the sense that this is his job. Something else I have to figure out myself. And yet I consider myself lucky to have happened to have an afternoon off to stumble into my not at all typical good insurance fortune. At the end of the day, this day, I have the impression that the entire affair could not have gone better. Any landing one may walk away from...
During the pandemic, eligible Medicaid recipients were "locked-in"...meaning...to get into the program...no action was necessary to maintain coverage. Now, renewal requires county and client action. - Littleton Independent, 5/9/2024
Friday. Jesus what a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky and a cool breeze. This is where the temps will be until the heat makes it appearance. Cool mornings and gorgeous days. The trees are making their way toward full bloom. One week from tomorrow is Memorial Day weekend. ...and opening day at the waterpark. And I am determined not to skin my knee beforehand, as I did last year. It's a familiar dichotomy. On the one hand, next weekend has snuck up and surprised me. On the other, I'm not surprised that time has gone past like a rocket. Last September was unusually warm. A rec center I frequented with the sister s few years past, out the opposite direction from work, stayed open through most of that month. But every year, riding to and from work along the trail, I pass the waterpark. And I count the months until it's the end of May. And we're down to days, practically hours. My original plan today is to cover myself in sunscreen before riding all the way to work. Before 8:30 AM, I get the call. My coworker forgot that her grandson was having a celebration for his last day of school this year. There's goes my plan. I tell her I can be at work by 10. She decides that this will have to do. At work, we get busy enough that I stay 3 hours past close. I ride home, get to bed, and get up after a fine sleep. I make the decision to put most of my cold weather gear in the wash. Again, I ditch the bus and I ride all the way to work. I leave in long pants, sandals, shirt and windbreaker. Once I hook up with the trail, I take off the pants and jacket, and shirt. I do the rest of ride in the cool air in my bike shorts. When I get to work, I suspect that I don't have time to throw my bike in the store. I ride straight to a bakery across the street for breakfast. Owners and dogs are out on the trail. Dads and kids are out and about in the shopping center. At an outdoor table in front of the bakery is a dad and three young sons. One of the sons says what more than one child has said when I ride past without a shirt. "He's naked. He's naked." I park the bike, put on the shirt, and enter the bakery. The Jesus guy is at a table with someone who's name appears to be Tom. Though I am seated just inches away from the pair, and the bakery is relatively quiet this morning, I can only hear some of what these barely audible humans say. The conversation is as follows.
Jesus Guy (JG): "...stop thinking. ...being pushed by God. You can do things when you're pushed... So, uh, when prompted like that...something he wants done." (He looks in his bible for a quote.) "'...too painful to recognize their faith.' Intentionally being kept from seeing. The way I feel about this stuff... Yes!" (He raises his fists above his head.)
TOM: "Throw a monkey wrench in that process by speaking up."
JG: "That's what our words are supposed to do." TOM: "It's a process that's bigger than me."
JG: "Luckily! TOM: "And our job is..." JG: "And what God is prompting you to do is be prayerful."
TOM: "The thing about my parents, sooner or later, their time will be up here. I hope they'll be okay."
JG: "So, God has a plan." TOM: "Yes."
JG: "And I am absolutely sure that God had wanted prayers for that family. Hopefully He got it."
TOM: "These are good works we walk in." JG: "...doesn't make mistakes. ...insignificant."
TOM: "...tragic and meaningless. I talk about her a bit. ...using them doing that. A different mind space. ...this transition...503c..." JG: "Again, it's his will." TOM: "A business model."
JG: "You never know what God's plan is. TOM: "God's preparing me for this...foundation..."
JG: "He pushes you to him." TOM: "Hold onto your hat." (They both laugh.)
JG: "Hey, that's one of the big drivers to him. A business that I think will expand...preparing us."
TOM: "Abraham." JG: "Yep. ...here temporarily. But to a place that feels like home. This feels temporary. Okay, here we go." (JG whistles.)
TOM: "I've done a little bit before. Texas radio stations there. 'The Republic of Texas.'"
JG: "The only sovereign nation in the United States. It's an interesting place."
TOM: "If that ever happened, I would probably move down there." (JG laughs.)
Sunday. I wake up too early and can't get back to sleep. I do dishes, water the flowers, and finish the laundry I didn't do last night. I ride to the rec center down the trail. I mistakenly turn off a few yards before I should. To get to the connecting trail to the gym, I take a ramp, at the bottom of which is a patch of gravel. My tires slip and I take a slow-motion tumble. I scrape my toe. I instantly have a flashback to last Memorial Day weekend. I don't believe this will keep me away from opening day at the waterpark. Before my workout, I hit my favorite bar and grill for lunch. The same host finds me a table. For the second Sunday he comes through for me. The clock is ticking if I want to eat and get my workout in before a brief soak in the hot tub. The place is loud as usual, including a couple of guys at the table next to me. The one doing the talking is mansplaining something to someone named Veronica. After my loud lunch, I carefully make my way with my bike along the old town sidewalk full of pedestrians, to a little shop called "Chocolate Therapy". Inside, I'm in line behind a middle-aged couple. The clock is ticking on the time I have to finish my workout and make it to the hot tub before the rec center shuts down for the day. The guy is telling the clerk how his doctor wants him to stay away from caffeine for three weeks, so he orders decaf coffee. The wife appears to be some kind of medical professional, and tells him she's surprised he's following his doctor's orders. I'd like to strangle them into unconsciousness and pay for my candy, and get the hell out of here. I make it to the gym and get crank through my workout with just enough time to enjoy the last 15 minutes the hot tub is open. From the gym, I ride home. After dinner, I get the call. Can I work tomorrow? Of course. Monday goes past in a flash. I wake up with plenty of time to ride to work. Monday night I get a good sleep. I plan to put on the sunscreen I'm supposed to have been wearing on sunny days and ride to work. The next morning I get the call to come in early. These mornings are still chilly. The chill had better blow out in 4 days. The pools open then. At work, my coworker asks me to work all day Friday. Today, I stay three hours past close with late drop offs. The ride home is chilly. I'm glad I brought my windbreaker and ling pants. I mean it, these cool temps need to scram. When I ride home this late, there's a train waiting on tracks near the spot where I exit the trail for home. Tracks I have to cross. So far, the train hasn't blocked the street I must cross. I make it home, I fall into bed, and I'm up in the morning. I get another call to come in early. This requires the bus again. Right before I leave for work, I hear a nondescript bang outside in the near distance. I flip a light switch in my basement. The power in my home is off. I leave for work, and when I return home some twelve hours later, it's back on. I have the usual trio of emails from the power company. The first tells me that my neighborhood has had a power outage, the second is an estimate for when it will return, and the last is a notification that it's back on.
Thursday. By some odd twist of fate, I'm not expected at work until noon today. Outside, at a corner of my intersection, is the young homeless guy with a staff. This morning, I get sunscreen on for once. The sun is out and I ride the trail all the way. Where the connecting trail ends, I dismount and climb a steep hill. I do it in bare feet and no shirt. A car comes up behind me. It slows to a stop next to me and I already know what to expect. A kindly grandmother asks me if I need help, or even a ride. I ask her if I can put my bike in her back seat. She says her walker is back there. I suggest she keep the walker and I keep the bike. At work, my coworkers asks me to work for her tomorrow. On the trail home, I'm coming along the river. I climb out of an underpass and reach the top where a homeless bicycle lays in the weeds. It has a makeshift trailer hitched to the rear. Right here, a group of some 30 people of varying ages comes walking down the trail. They are speaking Spanish. Friday. I'm out the door at 4 AM. Once again, I have my balaclava on, along with my windbreaker and long pants. No matter how long my shift, it passes these days in a flash. I detour on the way home to a pizza place for a slice. There's a new guy behind the counter. I'm not sure he understands any English. I ask for a diet Pepsi. He's never heard the word "diet". He tells me they have none, as he stands next to one in the case. He resorts to gesturing with his hand until he hits the diet. Another customer comes in to ask if they have pizza by the slice. I just ordered one, which the guy had less difficulty with. He tells this customer that they have cheese pizza. I just ordered peperoni and sausage. The customer goes next door to Dairy Queen. The entire time, an elderly woman has been waiting for her own order to go. When its ready, she asks the guy for ranch dressing. He hasn't heard of this either and, you guessed it, tells her they don't have any. She replies that she's purchased it here before, and suggests he ask his boss. I hear him say, "Boss, ranch dressing?" When I look up again, the lady is gone. I don't know if she got her dressing.
I wake up too early Saturday and ride to work with 5 hours sleep. I check Facebook at work. This morning is the first chance I get in a couple of days. I had posted my lady's photo on my page this week, and I posted that she was running a race in Boulder the following day. She replied that I don't know what I'm talking about. And that the race is on Memorial Day. And I discovered that she has unfriended myself and blocked me on Messenger. This is the first time she has blocked me on Messenger. She's had her account hacked before and had to re-friend me on her new account. I'm clueless as to why this made her so angry. But somehow, I'm not surprised that I've done yet something else that she doesn't like. Such as wearing sandals when we go out, or carrying the small bag with my wallet in a pouch with a strap around my shoulder. Because my wallet is too big to fit in any pocket. This post of mine which is supportive of her is the last thing I would expect to make her upset. Others may consider her behavior bizarre. It's entirely possible that I shall never hear from her ever again. A crazy prospect. I plan to send her a card, telling her I hope this is not the case. Yet, as odd as it would appear to be having known someone for 12 years, still anything is possible. This is simply who she is. Overnight I get a much better sleep. Sunday is a big day. I plan to hit the waterpark for the season's first swim. I discovered that my new rec center is no further than the one I would frequent near the waterpark. That's my next stop. I plan to go out on the bike I ride to and from work, and to lastly take it to the bike shop downtown. The brakes need adjusting. And if it needs a tune up, so be it. Perhaps I shall swing past a supermarket for some grocery items. It's an ambitious day. I take an hour applying sunscreen before I leave the house. I decide to take the train along the way to make up some time. A big cloud has moved in front of the sun. It's not as big as the usual summer death cloud, stretching from horizon to horizon. And it's cool enough that I put on a light jacket. I arrive at the train station to wait for the train. A familiar homeless cyclist enters the platform, pulling the bare frame of a child carrier hitched to the back of his bike. He's gone as soon as he arrives. The train appears and collects me. At the next station, I see a homeless guy through the window. He carries a stolen "no parking" sign. On the back of the sign is printed, "anything helps, God bless."
I'm out at the next station. By the time I get to the waterpark, the sun has come out. The sunscreen was not in vain. I grab my first lunch of the season here at the snack bar. The water is regulated, warmed up for the cool wind. When I get out, the wind is freezing. I gotta get to the gym and I do the short ride for the first time there from here. Workout done, I do a soak in the hot tub. When I leave, the temperature is warm enough now to put away the jacket. I ride back to the waterpark for another swim. Again, I have to get downtown before the bike shop closes. I ride back to the train which whips me downtown. I get out and grab dinner at a deathburger. It's a short ride to the bike shop from here. It's inside a sporting goods supercenter, at the confluence of two rivers, called Confluence Park. It's popular with local condo residents and homeless. Along the downtown trail there, I swing around a homeless guy asleep in the opposite lane. Shortly thereafter is another one asleep on his back. He's in some kind of plastic matching hoodie and pants, and he has no shoes or socks. He looks like some kind of barefoot astronaut. I'm in and out of the bike shop. I wanted to grab some new bike shorts, but someone replies to my question that they are open tomorrow. I ride a train home along one of the rivers. Along the way, I pass a homeless guy walking in my lane. He's pretending to shoot a rifle and a machine gun at the opposite bank. Tomorrow I am picking up lunch for the sister, who has just had her last joint replacement. Perhaps I can return to the supercenter and then get to the supermarket. It's Memorial Day 2024. Five-thirty PM. I'm sitting on the concrete of perhaps the city's tiniest train platform, just south of downtown. I used to frequent these parts when I worked downtown, some five years ago. Of the ten or so passengers waiting for the next train is a young guy writing on the very same ground, just a few yards down. He's just stood up, next to his lighter and Ziploc bag at his feet. I had to make my way around him to get to where a door for bikes will be, when the train pulls up. I left the house this morning to pick up lunch for the sister, who is recovering from her last joint replacement. We sat and ate on her front porch. She's no longer on Facebook and I mentioned my lady's unfriending me. I also mentioned my post about her race and her surgery. "It's the surgery!" she told me. "That's what she doesn't like!" I never, ever would have guessed. On the way to the waterpark, I stop into a drug store and pick up a card for my lady. I don't stay long at the waterpark as a collection of kids are tossing a football the length of the pool. I head to the train downtown, where I get back to the sporting goods supercenter. I pick up new bike shorts and a regular pair of shorts, while I have money to do so. It's a big sale today, and as I stand in the huge line, I pull out a book I have been neglecting. The ride to the pool was on the cool side, but it's warmed up. I don't believe that it will be long before it's warm all day long. I'm thirsty after all this travelling and run next door to a coffee shop for an iced tea. Then, on the way home, I hit a downtown supermarket for some groceries, for both home and work. I even unexpectedly find some mineral-based sunscreen. I head for home, which takes me back to the train platform, where I am about to board the train. I look inside one door, a bike is already at the end of this car. I look in the next. It has even less room, full to the end with fans returning from a baseball game. I climb into the first car, squeezing between the cyclist and the rest of the passengers. It's standing room only. At the next stop, yet another cyclist with a bike squeezes in as well. We all pile out at the station after this one, where I catch a bus home.
...opened Pretty Neat...last November. "'Man, this neighborhood really needed something like this.'" ...a well-worn dive...that's not where you're going to get a well-made Negroni. And...you don't...want it in a trendy spot...$20 for a cocktail. ...upscale enough to warrant a date-night stop. "My landlords could have tripled the rent and gone with a big national company, and they didn't. They are stewards of the street. Some of the really cool, charming things have left..." ...friends would ask what its "thing' was going to be..."It doesn't have to be a thing... ...in these nice spaces, people expect there to be a shtick. ...find a space and put you inside...so you can spit out your grand achievement." "...that neighborhood spot to go for someone who has to go to work tomorrow." - Westword, 5/23-29/2024
Tuesday. The tornado which was Memorial Day weekend has blown through. The deathburger where I stopped for lunch, both yesterday and the day before, is across from a downtown college campus. It's along a block popular with homeless. It's next to a big gas station and store. Yesterday, sitting against the wall of the store facing the campus, were a line of homeless. They were all sitting on the ground, right next to each other. Standing in front of them and facing them was a tall woman in a dress. Was she a case worker? This morning I get the call. Can I be at work 2 hours early? I won't be going swimming this morning. Or tomorrow when I will be working open to close. Or Thursday, when I will be going into work a hour early. I'm on the way in my new bike shorts when I realize that they are too big. I have time merely to catch the bus to work, and I'm coming down a residential street headed toward a private university. I pass a church with a big lawn. It's a popular spot with homeless. This morning, it's occupied by a guy kneeling and arranging a blanket. His shopping cart is parked on the sidewalk in front of him. It's piled high with stuff, and on top is a pet carrier. Today I end up staying an hour and a half after close, and catching the last bus home. Instead of enjoying a mid0spring's evening ride home with temps around 80 degrees F. The bus gets me home for an early bedtime, and I get a fine night's sleep before I get up with time to do the ride all the way back to work. At 4:30 AM, the dawn is already breaking. On this morning at this hour, I still need long pants and my windbreaker. I ride down a long street, all the way to a highway where I turn a corner. It's a hop skip and a jump to the bike trail. Ahead of me is a middle-aged guy in a hoodie and pants. He has a plastic bag in his hand. He doesn't strike me as homeless, but rather an elderly guy, probably coming back from a gas station to an apartment across the bridge. I meet him as he's right in the way of the entrance to the trail, and I make my way around him. A short ride from here is a patch of grass under a tree. Someone is under a blanket on the grass. After work, I ride past this same spot. There are now four guys here. Three are each working on a bicycle. One has a makeshift workbench. The following morning, I will again come past here. A single guy now works on a tricycle here.
I stay another hour after we close. I detour to a supermarket on the way home, for a weekly newspaper and monthly magazine, both local. I cross the parking lot to a Dairy Queen, to grab a small Blizzard. Out from of the shop is one homeless guy on the ground, and another in a wheelchair. A municipal police officer stands next to the pair. He greets passers-by with, "Good evening." He gives this greeting to a guy walking by with a bag on his shoulders. The handle is around his forehead. Instead of greeting the officer, he says hello to the guy in the wheelchair, and gives him a fist bump. When I get home, before I go to bed, I see flashes through the drapes across the door to my back patio. I take a peek outside. There's lightning in clouds which have rolled in. In the morning, there's no rain. But the temps are hovering just above 50 degrees F. I saw a sign at the waterpark on Sunday, declaring that they won't open if the forecast is under 65 degrees. I don't have to be today until noon. But I won't be doing any swimming. Indeed, when I ride past on the way to work, the par ain't open. Before I get there, I ride past the spot where some guys were working on their bicycles. They're gone this morning, along with any trace of their presence. The sun will eventually come out. And the forecast for the beginning of next month is for temps in the low 80s F.
