Category: Before

It’s a Little League game and both teams’ uniforms are the same color. I walk past the batting team’s dugout – they’re a few yards down from the sidewalk – and listen to the team’s well rehearsed chattering encouragement. A batter advances to the plate, another passes in front of him to get to a spot where he can take some practice swings. I turn the corner behind the backstand, now walking parallel to the third/home baseline. The pitcher, catcher, and coach break their pitcher’s mound conference and I stop to watch for one at bat. The first pitch is wide. Ball one. Runners on first and second steal their next bases. The second pitch is hit, and the left fielder and center fielder both make for a point between their positions. Parents cheer and the center fielder backs off to let the left fielder get the ball. The left fielder reaches low to catch it – Out – and I gasp, “damn,” because I guess I’d picked my team.

Those profiles that I rediscovered awhile back are showing up as bottles, a lot of them stenciled along Pine Street.

A bright red pint of iced Kool-Aid sits on the table beside a cute mod girl, who leans out over the front edge of her chair on the other side of the window. A large-leaved potted plant pushes into frame. The wall under the window frame is green-painted brick.

Out comes the camera. I push aside the lens cover and nothing happens. The battery is back at home, in its recharger.

There’s a guy leaning back in the sun with his espresso. He wears a red tanktop and his shoulders are already a deep bronze. His short blonde hair pokes up out of a red Chicago Cubs sun visor, worn backwards and upside down.

A squat pitbull-type walks at the end of a taut clothesline leash, panting and slurping deep around the duo-tone tennis ball wedged into one side of her mouth. Stringy white slobber drips out over the ball once or twice per sidewalk square, but in a cute way.

The printable Beans for Breakfast calendar for May is here. This month’s calendar was prepared with invaluable feedback from Samantha. I thank her and I hope to renew the collaboration at some future date. If you would like to contribute to the June calendar, leave a comment to that effect, and I’ll select an entrant at random.

As always, the calendar is available in two formats. The first file is appropriate for reproduction on letter size paper, as used in the United States and Canada. The second file is optimized for the A4 paper format, as designed by the International Standards Organization/Technical Commitee 6/Work Group 8 under the guiding hand of The Creator, and as used by the rest of the world.

The calendar user accepts all responsiblity if he or she chooses to print from a file that is incompatible with his or her printer paper. Click here [   ]. Okay, Thanks.

Letter Size (104 kb PDF)
A4 Format (104 kb PDF)

A quick storm hit this evening. It toiled around a bit, downed a powerline on my block, and finished up in a few hours.

Samantha and I went down to Alki Beach yesterday. I’d never driven there before, but I found a shortcut and didn’t get lost at all.

A flock of birds flies out over the water, their wings flicker in unison. They turn back quick, changing colors. Their one side is dark, and the other is white. They zigzag in front of me five or seven times, finally settle on their first heading, and then they’re gone.

There’s another flock floating around out there. One dunks its head beneath the surface and disappears. The others follow, one every ten or fifteen seconds, until there’s one left. That last one just stays up on the water.

4/24/04

A man and a woman walk up to a small group of women standing on the corner outside R Place. The new girl wears a sarong, bikini top, and a straw hat decorated with fruit and leaves. The other girls are more conservatively dressed, though some are accessorized with frills that are consistent with the theme of their friend’s elaborate costume. The guy who just joined – white tanktop and jeans – is inflating a beach ball. One girl bounces back and forth, from one foot to the other, ina dance of impatience.

Now the corner is mobbed bya dozen men. With the exception of the bagpiper, they’re all wearing some combination of white polo shirt and khaki shorts or Hawaiian shirt and jeans. They overshoot the club’s entrance, mingle briefly with the others, and then find the door.

The guy gives the now inflated beach ball to one of the girls and crosses the street toward Hot Mama’s Pizza, where I’m finishing a slice. At some point, the number of girls in the group is reduced to two — the girl with the hat (now holding the beach ball) and another (who is blowing up another beach ball). I finish my pizza and walk out onto the sidewalk (forgetting my backpack). The girl in the hat is calling out to someone that I don’t see, “I didn’t have my ID.”