Self inflicted wounds

Hey, did you hear the one about the Florida woman who stabbed herself in her stomach three times because she could no longer tolerate living in Trump's country?

Whatever could have given her such ideas?

The Smoking Gun. Comments over there are unsympathetic.

Actually comments everywhere are completely unsympathetic.

You know what? This is an oddly harsh and delicate time in which we live.

I notice this while walking the city at large.

This year's crop of panhandlers are different from previous years.

Within the span of one block I encounter a tall thin young woman nicely dressed approaching, "cute dog."

     "Thanks ... hey, do you have a second?"

She unburdens a highly developed sob story of woe and destruction involving lending her car, the car being wrecked, charges made for hit and run, counter charges against a friend who borrowed the car, being evicted, refusal to live on the street, unavailability of shelter because of the dog, and a request for cash for a hotel room. She is young, gorgeous, athletic, healthy and energetic. Pleasant to speak to. Yet on a single remark about her dog she asks me for money. Enough money for a hotel room.

Then no hundred steps further the punch in nose of acrid skunk marijuana. A man on the sidewalk beside an elaborate setup of tent and sleeping bag and shopping cart, padded ground covering and stretched tarp with various plastic grocery bags, no wait, two more people blended into the scene. They are passing a pipe. They are smoking pot right in front of everyone who passes by.

"Hi."

No response. No panhandling. They're stoned.

And I mean stoned.

The marijuana today is nothing to mess around with. It is dane ger us.

The next day the whole setup is gone.

And on the other hand, delightfully, the youngsters are zipping around on electric scooters. Suddenly they're everywhere all at once.

And when they're done, they just leave the scooters right there on the sidewalk. So now, suddenly, there are literally thousands of scooters all over the place.

Perhaps they ran out of power.

"Hey. Where do you get these scooters?"

     "Oh, you just pick one up on the sidewalk and ride it."

"Then what?"

     "Then you leave it wherever you go."

"But how do they get recharged?"

     "They have GPS. Someone comes along and charges them. Usually at night."

But I see them in groups of three and four, ping ping ping ping, four youngsters at once zip by right past the panhandlers.

Similarly, bicycle racks all over the place with thick sturdy bright red bicycles that you can rent. I never rented one but a lot of people use these. The racks are fitted with a solar panels for some reason I haven't made out. I don't think the bicycles are powered. Maybe it's for the machine that process the card transactions.

God,  I love living in a liberal city. You never know what they're going to try next. They keep surprising me each year. And from my point of view, it's all lovely. The little binky cars that you could easily tip over are funny if not actually dangerous, the bicycles, the scooters, the shuttles and streetcars and trains, the civic lagniappes, the services, they're all lovely in their attempt.

All this invites a type of non-contributing citizen especially in summer with a view to relax and partake without giving and yet that is handled sensitively and sensibly too. I don't know what happened to the three guys who set up the tent powwow on the sidewalk. I trust they weren't just swept up and tossed into jail.

I noticed a news item about a tent city that suddenly appeared set up along the bank of the Platte scheduled to be cleaned up by police.

And then gazing down into Cherry Creek, a gorgeous bike path sunken well below street level, I imagined my pet dog frolicking in and out of the water and noticed junk strewn along the edges where my imaginary dog would be. So now that must be cleaned up as well.

I get back and my hallway is being painted.

The walls were not marked, but the new paint looks great.

The workers were speaking their secret language.

So I interjected in their secret language. It was an easy one. Spanish.

"¿Estás pintando un segundo abrigo?"

See, that's textbook right there. There is nothing colloquial about the locution. I don't even know if that's how they say it. I don't know if that's the right kind of coat. It's clearly English to Spanish. It aches of a white person speaking. But I don't care.

This is the second time this happened today. Earlier I told a woman, "Have a nice day." She removed her earplugs and indicated for me to repeat what I said. "I said, 'have a nice day.'" She shrugged, pointed to her ear and mouth and shook her head, "no" the exact same as deaf people do indicating she doesn't speak English. "Tiene un día buena." I don't even know if that's right. Maybe I should have said, "bien" not 'buena." Maybe the "tiene" is wrong kind of "you have." I get mixed up all the time. At any rate I sound exactly like a dope, but I don't care, my word choice and sentence structure suck but my pronunciation is excellent. She smiled and nodded affirmatively. Apparently the way that I speak is amusing. But I simply don't care. This is English country, you're the one who's a weirdo.

     "Si. This is the second coat." Notice the switch? He determined our shared general language is better for us than my strained secret language. Thereafter the chatter is English.

The trim looks like slop. There is goofball wall paint color all over the trim. Like children painted the walls. "Do you paint the trim?"

     "Yes. We come back later and paint all the trim."

"That's a big job. I never did a job this big. It looks daunting. Do you paint the doors too?"

     "Yes. We paint all the doors. But the office must notify you because the doors have to be kept open to paint it and dry."

"Oh."

I tend to be hyper critical of liberals but I must acknowledge the fun their political and civic intensity brings to my city.