Author: Jeff

There was a lot of dissent about the parking situation among the people on the sidewalk.

One man grumbled, “Those ‘no parking’ signs are confusing! They say ‘June 6’, but today is the seventh.”

But his friend pointed out, “Actually, it is June 6.”

That only upset him more.

The theater marquee said “Kiddie Parade – Sunday” beneath the movie titles. There was a man leaning up against the bike rack when I went over to park my bike. I asked him, “What’s this kiddie parade?”

“I guess it’s just a Wallingford thing. . . . A lot of people are going to get towed.”

The street was cleared by the time the movie was over. There was no traffic and there were no parked cars. A small family was waiting patiently for the parade on a line of lawn chairs at the edge of the curb – front row seats. I could hear drummers tapping out a marching rhythm a few blocks away.

Someone was negotiating with the police at the end of the street. A boat-car maneuvered around the police car and came sailing by. It was the Seafair Pirates. (Oh, no.) They were hanging off the boat-car, waving their swords aloft, just the way any of us would if we were dressed as pirates and hanging off the side of a boat that was driving up 45th Street.

I headed around the corner and wandered around the sidestreets. I found the practicing marching band and three or four different drill teams lined up in formation. Each group was wearing uniforms of a different degree of polish.

There was a lemonade stand set up on someone’s front lawn. That sounded good. I parked the bike and walked over.

“I’ll have a cup of lemondade.”

The girl poured out a measure of syrupy pulp and changed my dollar.

“How’s business?” I asked.

“Fine.” She said that in the most disinterested tone that she could manage. The situation wasn’t as novel to her as it was to me.

Horizon

Around the corner, on the website of your favorite study in light, water, and obsessive-compulsive behavior, I’ve posted the last daily(-ish) Horizon photo. (There will be more Horizon shots, but they’ll be less frequent.)

A photo gallery from 8/12/02: Flags Everywhere

Disneyland had a record number of visitors on the day after the rainstorm. Everyone that had planned to go on the rainy day, went the next day, including us. When the park closed at around midnight, the family regrouped on Main Street and headed out. Above the exit there was a giant sign counting down the number of people in the park. I don’t know if the counter was always there or if it was just there for the record-breaking day. It was connected to the revolving door-style turnstiles at the exit; and with each turnstile rotation, the number on the board decreased by one. My brother, Chris, quickly assessed the situation and said, “If we go through at the same time, we’ll mess up their count.” So I squeezed into one of the turnstile wedges with him and we went through together. On the long walk to the van, I imagined the confusion at Disneyland when they saw that everyone was gone, but the counter still read 1. They would think that somebody was hiding out somewhere in Disneyland. They would have to put together a manhunt. Probably the first place they’d look would be Tom Sawyer Island, because that would be the best hiding place.

The type wasn’t reset when paperback books got larger. The old typeset film was blown up to fit on larger pages. The print became less sharp than a typeface reproduced at its intended size. The lines of each letter are less precise than we once believed. The shapes of the different letters indistinct.

Because they can read the space around the print more clearly, modern readers are now able to find the true meaning of the words on the pages more than they’ve ever been able to before.

Fishermen’s Terminal

Tom has a big set of photos from our bike ride yesterday.

It was raining outside just now. At least, it was raining on my street. But at the moment, all of the heavy clouds are pushed off toward the horizons. There are only a few thin streaks of cloud in the sky above us. There were three or four people stopped in the sidewalk, studying the sky, trying to trace the raindrops to their source. I wandered by, also looking up, and a man told me, “It’s raining!” And then, sounding less confident, he asked, “Isn’t it?”

I reassured him, “It is.” Then, less certain, “Where is it coming from?”

I didn’t see the old man walk over. He was just suddenly standing beside me. I said, “Hello,” and he just looked at me as if I were wearing my bicycle as a hat.

I was caught up with his puzzled facial expressions, so it took a moment before I noticed he was wearing a security guard uniform. “Oh. I’m just taking some pictures.”

“Of what?” He had a Scandinavian accent.

“Of these ropes.”

Tom notice the confrontation and wheeled his bike over.

The security guard took a long moment to think about what I’d said. (Or he might have been waiting for me to explain my explanation.) “. . . Do you like ropes?”

“Well.” I hesitated. “. . . They just seem kind of funny . . . to me . . . someone who hasn’t been around big fishing nets . . . I guess.”

There was humor in that man’s eyes. He was ready to laugh with me, but I had no quip to deliver. I disappointed.

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Unfortunately that wasn’t my least confident moment of the day. I took a spill crossing over some disused railroad tracks in Ballard. There are bits of me scraped across a street in Ballard, and there are bits of Ballard scraped into my hand and my leg.

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Tom and I rode out to the Ballard Locks and Fishermen’s Wharf today. My bike’s odometer reports that we traveled 17 miles, but it also reports that my maximum speed was 99.5 mph. I guess if that were true, then I could have my pride back.

Terminal 91 Bike Trail

Over the course of an hour, three or four insects and other crawlies – all in unlikely shades of chlorphyll green – fall from the tree I’m under and flicker across my arm hairs, my ear, and the pages of the book I’m reading. Later, a mile from the park, I tie my shoelaces and shake a tiny green caterpillar from my shoe.