More Dark but with Crocus! in Everyday Ramblings

This was yesterday in the rain at Kes and Most Honorable’s place about an hour south of here. I took this just outside their backdoor standing in a dry patch under an overhang but this is the view from their lovely remodeled kitchen.

They are ahead of us about a week on the flower clock. We are moving into a few days of hard freeze so there is much fretting going on about what is already blooming.

Most Honorable came up and got me in the morning and that was so luxurious. I don’t spend much time at all in cars anymore, which must seem odd to most of you who don’t get through a day without yours.

On Friday after work I took the bus to the grocery and it was crowded but eventually I was able to sit down and I was watching a man maybe in his 50’s with some sort of cognitive disabilities sitting in one of the front side seats holding a medium sized black dog to his chest. The dog had a gray muzzle and big ears and big brown eyes and was watching everything intently. The man was stroking the dog with great tenderness.

As I was managing to maneuver my way off the bus I was listening to him on a cell phone loudly telling someone he would be there shortly and I thought how good it is that he has someone who wants to know where he is and when he will get where he is going. So many folks don’t.

When I got off the bus coming home at the train station I walked by an encampment of tents that I have taken photos of before and there were maybe 8 people around the tents, a dog, about 6 cobbled together bicycles from stolen parts.

There was another man off to my left near a stairway but in full view taking a piss. Another man passed me, and apprehending my existence, shook his head and said the other man had no shame, which actually made me notice the man relieving himself in public. I hadn’t seen him before.

It was dry by that point and I was planning on walking home but it was twilight and the whole scene made me uneasy, these people hardened by the difficulty of their lives creating a community to support each other and to acquire what they need to survive. And a light rail train was coming around the corner so I hopped on.

I do not like the light rail trains and do not feel safe on them either but it was a choice of options there and I took the right one. The trip to the other end of downtown was uneventful, noisy, but uneventful and I got home without incident. One of the things that I think is happening in these tents is people having sex to acquire drugs. I actually saw two people having sex in a tent at 9AM in the morning as I was walking to a work meeting a coupe of weeks back.

As I was coming into my neighborhood yesterday I saw a woman moving cautiously along a Department of Transportation fence and then a bit later disappearing behind it into a tent.

It is going to freeze tonight, and for the next two nights. We may get snow. The city powers that be were crowing a few weeks ago about how no one has died of exposure on our streets this year unlike last year.

Oh and speaking of crowing, I heard a scrub jay in the morning, these big raucous blue birds that hang out here in a tree outside my patio waiting for a peanut, make a very distinctive vocalization similar to one I often hear from crows as they are sharing the news at the end of the day getting settled into their roosts. I wonder if they are talking to each other now, the jays and the crows, (they are related) making an alliance and perhaps planning a disruptive liberation of a food source.

It is always darkest before the first glimmer of light and this is a rough patch with bad weather before spring finally is able to settle in.

I had a lovely visit with my family, both human and feline and am ever so much enjoying the return of Prosebox and the time off work.

Last updated February 18, 2018