| Running Around in the Morning |
[Aug. 23rd, 2005|09:46 am] |
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| | I Get Nervous - Lost Sounds | ] |
My morning routine always ends with a dash to my little white 1987 Chevy Nova. (Yes, that's what I drive. If you haven't heard, it costs about $500,000 a week just to rent a ghetto studio in this part of the country.) Then it's a quick drive to the subway. (BART.)
I always try to leave around 6:30 AM, which usually gives me 10 to 15 minutes to spare when I finally park at the BART (subway) station. I can time my progress, usually by seeing where one particular runner is on Monterey street, a long and curving street that I drive down on my way to the station. Depending on where she is on her run, I can gauge how much time is left. She's a middle aged women, who always wears the same thing: White t-shirt, blue running shorts, a baseball hat, and a sweatshirt tied around her waist. She is always accompanied by a mild looking German shepard, who always looks like he's tired of running.
She is so timely that I know that if she's way up the street, I know I'd better hustle, but if she's down closer to Hopkins street, then I have some time. I just wonder why she bothers to always bring that sweatshirt with her, if she always ends up tying it around her waist. But she's not my only runnning clock...
Virtually everytime I go out to my car, I see an elderly man jogging down the street. He is also like clockwork, always jogging by at the exact same time. He's tall and thin and always has the same type of sweatsuit on, though in a different color everyday. (He must own a lot of them!) If he's just down the street, heading towards me, then I'm a little early, but if he's up the street, I'm a little late. The thing about him is that he has a small paper sign on him, dangling from a string around his neck. It looks like a large index card, and it has a lot of writing on it.
This man is quite old, and I'm guessing that the card is instructions for what to do if you happen to find him collapsed on the street. Or perhaps he forgets where he lives, and might need someone to tell him? I don't know. It looks very odd, but amusing.
Maybe some day I'll ask him what the card is for as he jogs by. Maybe not. People in my neighborhood aren't very friendly.
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Shit, maybe he escapes from the Alzheimer's ward every morning. Or just once, many years ago, and they're still looking for him?
Hmmm! Maybe I should ask around. He does look a bit on the wacky side.
Should I try taking a picture of him? Or would that be too risky?
What's he going to do, chase you down? :P
I am reminded of something Homer Simpson once said to Bart: "Don't mess with the dead boy. They have eerie powers!"
I think the same goes for scary looking old people, especially the ones with signs around their necks :O :)
Maybe it is medical info?
That's what I'm assuming.
I always see that weird blonde woman running up San Pablo and then up Solano. Have you seen her? She runs with tight fists and opens her jaw all weird with each step.
I usually run on Ohlone pathway to Home Depot or that path that runs from Marin to Richmond Marina.
I think I have seen her before! My drive s a bit south of Solano, so I haven't seen her lately.
There's also some blind man who's wandering the streets of Solano and Marin on a few occasions when I've driven through at 2 or 3 AM. (I'm an insomniac, and usually do my laundry at the all-night Albany wash at 1 or 2 AM.)
When am I going to see you a'bouncin' down the street on a jog? I am quite familiar with Ohlone path.
i arrive at work at a very early hour...about 5:15 AM to be exact. Across the street from my office is this little park about the size of once city block squared. The little park offers such ammenities as a few scattered benches, a weird-ass stonehengeish water fountain and a ton of grass with a cobblestonish path weaving through. As i stand outside my office, smoking my morning cigarette, cursing the fact that i'm awake at this hour and dressed like a corporate mummy (i hate the fact i have to "dress up" for a job where i sit in front of a computer and answer help-desk calls and NEVER see a client...lame) anyway...i wander...
so...i am looking out across the morning half-light into the park and there, every morning is this tiny chinese (or korean or japanese i'm not sure) but a very very elderly asian woman doing what looks like (my irish is showing) thai-chi. She is alone and generally speaking, there's no one bustling about the sidewalks or the park paths much before 8 AM. It's just this solitary elderly woman doing thai-chi.
it's quite peaceful to watch actually - and i guess sometimes the hopeful thought creeps in suggesting that maybe, just maybe, when i'm that old, i'll be able to fine solstice in the quiet of the park doing thai-chi or some other form of physicality that invigorates and inspires me to continue pushing forward...
whew. anyway...wave to him someday - maybe he'll respond - or trip.
~hayden~
When he runs by, he runs right by my car, and sometimes even me. He's got the usual North Berkely Hills "Don't talk to me" puss on his face. (Like I said, people aren't very friendly around here!)
I have to admire his elan' however. This guy is seriously old as Methuselah, and he's out there pounding the pavement! He doesn't look as serene as any Tai chi'ers out there.
I wonder if I could ever get into that. My mother practices meditation, and it seems to help center her, but I feel myself a bit too high strung. (I only sleep four hours a night. See above reply to saladbar's comment.)
Monterey... in SF? On your way to Glen Park??
I meant Monterey street in Berkeley. It's not too far where ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) saladbar and I live, just a stone's throw from Solano avenue.
Oh, whew. Er, I mean... never mind. NO REASON!!! Um... yeah. ;)
BTW, isn't my journal even more exciting now that you can read the locked bits? :)
Waitasec, I haven't checked out your locked bits yet.
(Uh oh, that didn't sounds right!) :O | |
