I need to get out more.

Did you know it’s springtime!? Did I see the first robin of the season? No, the first Sleeveless Freckleback!

I had decided to go for a stroll down 20th Street to go get some lunch from the Mexican place where Reba and I used to eat (before she moved off to her new job). I wanted to do this for a couple of reasons, the biggest one of which was to see if my knee would hurt more if I walked on it for several blocks. And, I have just missed going to the restaurant.

Anyway, as I passed by Subway, there was an attractive young lady sitting in a booth with her back to the window, resplendent in her cute, yet entirely professional, sleeveless blouse. I doubt I would have paid her much mind except the neckline in the back (the backline?) was low enough to expose a lovely crop of freckles. Not so many as to look like a horrible scalded rash--just enough to make for an engagingly entertaining game of dot-to-dot.

Er...I mean, you know, if you like that kind of thing.

Not that I do.

‘Cause I don’t.

Anyway, did I mention it’s springtime? Okay, good.

As for other diversions, I got to overhear a couple of guys in suits walking along and discussing something worth $20,000,000, and it sounded as if they were inconvenienced by the events surrounding it as I was when I couldn’t get the Coke machine in the basement to take my dollar. Call me crazy, but it’s possible that I might have gotten into the wrong line of work.

Thankfully, things haven’t gotten so bad that I stopped to pick up the penny that had lodged itself in the expansion joint in the crosswalk. Although I did consider it. It was a whole penny, after all.

The renovations on the Blach’s building continue apace. They had part of the storefront removed and there was a cold musty blast of dank air blowing out onto the sidewalk. Lot of history in that air.

Made it to El Sabor Latino Mazatlan Tower Café with no hitches in the knee. I don’t know what the deal is with it, but in normal walking it doesn’t seem to need help, but going down stairs feels really weird and hurtish. Anyway, walked in and had a seat at the little table by the cash register, and ordered a taco salad. Everything looks pretty much the same--they seem to have gotten a new chip and salsa boy, the mom waitress has gotten herself a sporty short hairdo, and best of all, the cashier is still as sweet as ever. Even though it’s been several months since we had been there to eat, she missed Reba being with me and asked where she was, so I had to fill her in on the new job and stuff.

On then, back toward the office. Another random women’s fashion observation (since I’m in the mood) is that if you are so pigmentally-challenged that you look like one of those clear plastic Visible Woman model kits where you can see your veins and muscles and stuff, it’s probably a good idea to go ahead and spring for a pair of hose if you’re going to insist on wearing a skirt. Just saying.

Ran into a guy I used to go to church with, and as usual had the brain lockup so common to me. Couldn’t remember his name to save my life, and then it came to me and I had to keep calling him that so he wouldn’t think I had forgotten his name.

Got all the way back to 6th Avenue with nary a twinge out of the knee. How very odd. Decided to make a quick detour into the AmSouth-Harbert building to avoid running into someone else I knew (I remembered her name, I just didn’t want to talk), and was met with yet more evidence of my lack of technological savvy.

There’s a wheelchair-bound guy who rolls around downtown looking for handouts--actually, there are several--this is the guy with the battery-powered wheelchair. Anyway, he had rolled over to the entrance doors to the building, and I noticed he was busily, laboriously, pecking a single finger on one of those computerized voice-keyboards. A woman had just exited and was walking away, when in his best Stephen Hawking impersonation, out came the words from the computer speaker, “HELL. OH. PRET. EE. LAY. DEE. WITH. MUN. EE.”

Computerized panhandling. Boggles the mind.

I’m going to type some more meeting minutes now.
posted by Terry at 2:14:00 PM