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early wake up call

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This morning at 4:34am, after a night of trying to sleep and waking up from dreams repeatedly, I was wired awake by a noise that got louder and louder.  It was a dragging noise, I thought, like someone dragging a large machine along the pavement with a tow vehicle.  Then came the smell, a strong burning rubber smell.  I pulled open my blind and looked outside to see a vehicle turning left at the intersection outside my window.  It was still dark outside, so I couldn’t make out what kind of vehicle it was.

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Bird electric scooter

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It seems we have a new rental electric scooter company in town.  Anybody hear of Bird?

The last company, Neuron, had bright orange scooters – rattly things that were like a tank version of a scooter.  (I’ve never actually rented one, but I heard others talk about them.)

Now we have Birds.

MPE Link Pathway

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Apparently we Southern Albertans are getting another bike path, called MPE Link Pathway.  Did you know about this?  I just read about it in the Feb. 13 2024 Lethbridge Herald.  Yes, I know, I’m a bit behind.  I have a stack of newspapers to get through.  But this is one of the more interesting articles.  I wonder if any of it is complete yet.  See map.

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idle chit-chat

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So I’m standing in line for 10 minutes or so at Walmart, waiting to pay for some jeans, and a guy comes comes up behind me.  He looks at the till next to us which just recently hung its ‘closed‘ sign up, and we both shrug.  “Six of one, six more of the other one,” I offer.  “Yup,”  He says.  “It’s like a zoo in here,” I say.  “Yah, not as bad as other places,” he says.  We both stand there and nod.

I comment on this because it just seems as though people in every society around the world are starved for friendship, idle chit-chat, hang-out time.  There’s this old guy behind me, looking like he’d just coming off a day’s work, so, for no other reason aside from to tell him that the world wishes to say ‘hello’, I opened my yap.

The guy at the till, a younger black guy, looked tired, sick, out of sorts, and out of place.  I said, “Hiya, friend.  How you doing”?  He looked at me with a pensive face as if to say, “Well let me tell you about my day.”  He said, “Not too good.”  <sigh>  I wish I could help out, friend.  Age, colour, stature, level of wealth … we’re all brothers and sisters, and we all need love.

morning calm

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Sitting outside on the multi-coloured bench with a cup of coffee and a tablet reading the news, I find a calm and peaceful serenity that replaces the morning fog before the caffeine hits.  I watched the moon and the sun trade places and fawns hop around like they’ve just eaten a pile of oats.  A cacophonous raucous of birds broke the silence of the morning with their ritual meeting-in-the-trees.  I watered my flowerbed and a bit of the grass and picked up some trash that blew in on the last chinook.  I watched at 7:41am the water pressure dip a bit, signifying that the folks are up (toilet flushing).  Eventually hunger will set in, and I’ll go inside for a bagel with peanut butter.  But, for now, I’m enjoying the calm.

  

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