Incompletes
Thursday:
I bought two Paydays at Casey's. It was a dollar eighty-nine. I thought that was a lot for two candy bars, they weren't king-sized or anything, but that was actually the price of just one. With tax the two candy bars cost four dollars and six cents. I paid with a five dollar bill and said, Can I take the pennies out of the pennies cup? Every Casey's has one. You could tell the woman thought taking six was an abuse of the system, but the cup was filled with pennies and I've left plenty of pennies in the cups over the years, although not at this particular Casey's. I considered telling her I was on a bicycle and didn't want the weight of ninety-four cents in my pocket. There were several nickels in the change cup and even one dime just to give you an idea of how much change there was, but I only took pennies; counting out to six one by one. If I added spaces and signed this Billy Collins, you would say this is the best poem Billy Collins ever wrote and give me a million dollars, which I would exchange for pennies and spread them around at all the Casey's I bike to. —10/7/2022
Saturday:
I put on my jogger costume and started to trot down the street. The Deeks were taking their walk and I crossed them twice because I was jogging an out-and-back. On the first cross Marty said, “Not so bad,” and at the same time I said, “We sure timed this right.” I had no idea what what Marty was referring to, and he couldn’t have known what I meant. Marty might have thought I was being sarcastic, saying that we had timed our exercisings poorly because of the snow, or I could have meant we timed it well because we bumped into each other, or I may even have meant we timed it poorly because we bumped into each other. I wasn’t sure myself, and having time to think about it, I was much better prepared on the way back when I crossed them a second time. I was going to say, “At least it’s not too cold,” but as I neared, Marty stunned me by saying, “Not so bad” again. I was so thrown that he hadn’t bothered to come up with anything else in all time, I just said, “Yep.” 11/12/21
Monday:
Drove to Rockford and got a gyro at Nick’s which I’ve been thinking about since Saturday when we went to Oasis with Finleys and I didn’t get one. Sat in car and woofed it down. No fork so had to use fingers to replace onions that rolled off on to each bite. Was given six napkins which seemed excessive, almost insulting, but turned out to be just enough to cover me. I felt understood by the people at Nick’s. Drove to Pinnion’s IGA and was already happy somehow just being in that place and seeing it so lively. I said, Libman, 25 pounds, and the butcher said, “That’s the one we ate.” And the other butcher said, “Libman, yeah, we cooked it and ate. You prepaid, right?” It was good banter, and surprising. All I could really think to add was, “You would have done a better job than I’m going to do,” which ended things. I appreciate good banter and they were prepared and had home field advantage. I started looking at the hot sauces and then the guy brought out the bird, which was actually 26.5 pounds. I headed over to the checkout counter and they have two registers and the crowd was sort of all over the place, and one of the women waved me over. I said, “I don’t want to cut,” and she said, “They should be paying attention.” I said, “I really love this place.” And she gave me a funny look, and I said, “It really makes me happy you’re still around, just being in here. I bet since you work here it doesn’t make you happy.” And she said, “Not today.” 11/25/19
Monday:
Chris shows up, then Sue and Spencer. It’s drizzling, “chippy-chippy” like they said in Guatemala: steady but light and not too bad if you have a raincoat, which we all do. Head out into the woods and end up walking the mud and undergrowth for almost three hours. We find no morels. It’s not a terrible time, but kind of disappointing. Chris and Sue can talk about trees by name. Where I say, “Let’s look by that big one over there,” they say, “Let’s check that ash next to the maple.” Chris can also recognize birds by their songs. He has an app that plays bird noises back to the birds. (It’s a free app: I asked.) Chris will suddenly say, “Shhh…. It’s a scarlet tanager! Hear it? A scarlet tanager!” Then he takes out his phone and plays a scarlet tanager song back to the real scarlet tanager, who starts singing louder at the phone, and even begins to buzz-bomb us looking for the other scarlet tanager. To me it seems mean, plus the whole time I thought he was saying “Scarlet Johansson” so I was doubly confused.