Somewhat Sobering
Monday. We've passed the summer solstice by a good couple of weeks, the Fourth holiday is behind us, I guess we're ramping up to the heat of summer in order to smack against September 22nd, the first day of fall, which means.... Well, which means it's July after the Fourth and there's a month to fill by doing, well, something interesting before the rains come (not that the rains come anymore). I say interesting rather than productive, as interesting is what you're after now that you're retired. Productive would be nice, save the nation and all that, but keeping my wheels on the tracks requires interesting and that's what we're after.
Interesting doesn't require money, doesn't require clever, doesn't require a conscience. It requires becoming absorbed into a believable fantasy or reality, the doing of which keeps you fat, happy and oblivious to the world, something I've been good at in the past. Or I've been good at believing I'm good at, kidding myself with one diversion or another and making do for months and years in denial. Interesting denial.
I take it we are not exactly certain what we want to do with ourselves this day, this week, this life?
We are in good fettle, but we are spinning our wheels a bit at the moment, looking out our window at the sunny morning outside. A walk would be nice. A walk is something I'm thinking about. Whether that means I take a walk or not, where I might take a walk or not is not really decided. Someplace new. Someplace else, but not so far someplace else as to require packing.
Later. Something a little different. A bus downtown, BART to Rockridge, a walk to the big Safeway and the pet store to buy Frontline for Ms. Emmy. She's gone through of her last 30 day dose and I figure it's summer, let's keep her protected. A walk back toward the BART station getting on a passing bus I haven't been on before only to discover high school was letting out and at the next stop fifty high school students got on board. OK, something a little different. Another bus home, the day getting much warmer in the sun, still a cool enough breeze off the water. Well, what I'm calling a cool breeze, wherever it was coming from.
A little different in the sense I haven't taken this particular route before. I have this bus pass. Why not just get on a bus and see where it takes me? Get on another bus. It isn't going to take me so far as to get outside my bus pass area and, if it does, they take money as I remember in the outlying districts, just as they do here. One little incident. Heading out a guy in his late forties, early to mid fifties got on the bus with a can in a paper sack in his hand, pretty obviously on the way to drunk before noon, and started arguing with the driver because she called him on being fifty cents short. He was clearly just short of three sheets to the wind and the bus driver, a large woman, finally let him on board, but without giving him a transfer.
Getting off, though, he wanted a transfer and began arguing, raising his voice and saying the bus wasn't going anywhere unless she gave him a transfer; sure, call the police, he didn't care. There were a number of young mothers with children around him at the front of the bus, one getting up and obviously moving her young son to the back in case this got out of control. A two of the women yelled at the guy don't be an idiot, there were young children watching this, but although he thought for a moment, this didn't seem to phase him. His eyes weren't right, but they weren't, you know, too far gone to believe this would go any further (except you never know). I'm not sure who the old fart was who joined in the shouting (I'm too wise for that, right?), but one of the women came up with an additional quarter and that did the deal for the driver. Still, how many years now riding this bus and this is the first somewhat sobering instance?
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