There's a 60-ish, grizzled, codgery sort of man who appears out of nowhere every day during lunchtime and walks very slowly from one end of Dolores Park to the other. He leans heavily on his cane as he hobbles up 20th Street to Church, stopping to say something to everyone he passes. He asks the dog-walkers with their handfuls of seven leashes if they have any dogs to spare. He compliments me on my choice of sitting spot. He congratulates me on having ice cream, even when what I actually have is a granola bar. The first time I saw him he said, and I quote, "This is the last time I'll show up when you invite me to lunch! You've et it all up already!"
He actually used the word "et". I stared at him like he'd grown an extra head, he repeated himself, I continued to stare, and eventually we both grinned sheepishly at each other and continued about our respective tasks.
Today he walked slowly up 20th Street toward me, and I turned around and smiled at him as he approached. He told me I'd picked a beautiful spot to have lunch, and I wholeheartedly agreed. He stopped walking for a moment and looked out over the city. "I used to live along here in the Fifties," he told me, "and I'd cut across this park on the way to third grade." He looked nostalgic for a moment.
"Anyway, no one used it back then. Now you see people here on the weekends, all the time." I looked around at the sunbathers and nodded. "I don't blame them," I said. "It's a beautiful park."
He paused for a moment. "The name on all the city maps is Mission Dolores Park," he stated, then hobbled slowly up to the corner and disappeared into a MUNI bus.
Posted by dianna at July 6, 2004 04:29 PMdo i have to buffer you two with my breasts again... oh, wait.
Posted by: erica at July 6, 2004 09:53 PMbuffer...buffet...*shrug* by all means! though, yeah, this time I was being nice. (I didn't even use an ellipses...though, erica, you did! :-D)
Posted by: Erik at July 7, 2004 07:07 AMi'm starting already to feel the genericness of this, but this really deserves a nod. so. nod.
Posted by: didofoot at July 7, 2004 12:26 PMYeah, I don't really know about this whole nod business anymore. I'm starting to worry that I'm tailoring my blogging to the nods of my audience, evaluating potential entries on their ability to generate nods. This comment, for instance: will it be a big earner? Doubtful. Throw it in the virtual trash can.
Posted by: Dianna at July 7, 2004 01:08 PMthose ellipses were perfectly appropriate for the humorous pause i was attempting to elicit in my comment, thank you very much. see if i ever buffer you with my breasts again!
p.s. this is starting to feel weird. i will henceforth resist the urge to draw attention to my breasts.
Posted by: erica at July 7, 2004 02:08 PMwell then what is the point of them? use em or lose em, kid.
Posted by: didofoot at July 7, 2004 02:11 PMthey hold up my shirt. i like old people with breasts. nod.
Posted by: michele at July 7, 2004 02:21 PMI was just accused, on a totally different tangent of existence, of being mad, and I STILL don't know what y'all are talking about. I'm so going back to my coding; it understands me and I understand it.
Posted by: Erik at July 7, 2004 02:55 PMcoding has no breasts, is not old, and does not nod. spit.
Posted by: michele at July 7, 2004 03:05 PMPtooie.
Erik needs a healthy dose of reading Kristen's blog, and then he will find this and all other comment threads to be perfectly comprehensible.
You're not mad, but coding is for suckers. Sucker.
Posted by: Dianna at July 7, 2004 03:09 PMIf you're Christ, you really ought to know this. You're totally supposed to have lambs.
Posted by: Dianna at July 7, 2004 04:11 PM