27 August 2010

Just some of the things I saw today that may be important for some reason, some day.

I saw an old guy driving a sedan full of schnauzers. A schnitzel of schnauzers sitting in the sedan.

He drove right by a shirtless guy in a fishing cap with a big pitbull on a chain. We don't know if it was the friendly kind or not. And whether or not he actually wears the cap for fishing. They were just standing there, in the middle of the parking lot.

This was right by where the crazy guy was pacing out front of BigLots and shouting something out to anyone that would listen. I've seen that guy out there before. People walk around him with a large berth.

You know where I mean? Sort of by Starbucks. By the good Safeway. Near where I had to stop to buy the 2 cycle motor oil from a lady who called me Dear. When I tried to explain the little gold bottle that I knew it came in, 6 stocky guys dressed up like gangsters hanging out at the auto parts counter shouted in splendid unison, "That don't come in synthetic." I bought the not synthetic and I've garnered no complaints.

In the Starbucks, a lady as tall as an avocado tree commented on Omar's prowess in constructing her caramel something or other that must have been coffee but looked like a ice cream sundae to me. She also told me that Cat Stevens has a new album out. They were playing it at Starbucks. She bought it for her car and can sing along to all the words. I didn't feel chatty, but that lady sure did. Me and an old guy farmer were leaning against the wall and waiting for our drinks. He stared at the ground while I nodded at the tree lady. I didn't feel so embarrassed about skinnyvanillalatte when they announced the old guy farmer's drink. The name was 10 times long. I could have asked him if he knew my friends Peach and Casanova from Project Runway, and if he hates Gretchen as much as me. But I kept my mouth shut.

They were talking about the traffic jam in Beijing. It takes around 10 days to get out of it. You just sit there and wait and buy instant noodles and meet your car driving neighbors. You take a walk around, and when you call to say you're going to be late, you have to explain that it's actually maybe a week late. Not just 20 minutes.

This is a time of year when sometimes the car in front of you is a giant tractor, that putters along the road on the way to the next field. I've never been stuck for 10 days, not even 3. My dogs are very patient, they go most everywhere with me. We've logged a lot of miles in our Honda, me and Team Small Dog. It's getting ready to turn over to 200,000 miles and very few of those miles had no dogs in the back.

On the way down the road, I ended up in a procession of workers driving on to a field. Their vehicles, all lined up in front of me, all stopping at the stop sign up the road from where the crosses are, where the 2 guys from the migrant camp head onned a tree. One by one, they stopped and continued on straight, up the road to the next field, and me and the dogs went our different way.

1 comment:

Elf said...

I love posts like this--just looking at the world and registering it, rather than going through it like a zombie focused only inward, which I think a lot of people do. A good reminder to just Pay Attention! Because it's all interesting and maybe important in ways you don't even know yet.