Brave Birds And Sensible Shoes

The mechanic said it will be 3 hours if I'm lucky.

That does not make me feel lucky at all.

Time to fill
time to kill time
and search for coffee...

Women don't wear sensible shoes anymore and I suspect men have no problem with that, although I do wonder what office managers think when women wear 5" heels to work...pa-wok pa-wok pa-wok...here she comes and half the office grinds to a halt.

We really are a melting pot here in California....been here 30 minutes and have heard people speaking Russian, Hindi, and Spanish...I don't notice English anymore.

I don't know anything about birds, but these little ones (sparrows?) that hang around outdoor food courts seem pretty brave and boisterous. Are they telling their friends "don't come here, nobody's giving away any food" or are they shouting at the customers and placing their orders? "Get that cheesy-egg thing, its delicious and I can feed all my kids with that one!"

Almost 11:00am and the morning fog is having a hard time lifting away and is still battling the new rising sun for dominance over the parade of non-sensible shoes.

Men (young men mostly) still wear blue shirts and brown khakis for their office feathers which is much more sensible but pretty god-damn boring as far as feathers go. A born-and-raised-here software programmer talking about rents in The City to his new Asian co-worker over coffee said "you'll do fine here", and he will: he'll send his money home to his Mom and she will pick him out a bride and he'll make a trip back home someday and pick up his new partner for life that he has never met and he'll be fine with the whole pageantry of glorious feathers and the ceremony of it on the outside, but on the inside he'll never tell them who he really wants to build a nest with, and all this will baffle and intrigue his American office mates, but they've seen this many times before. Something good to be said about the whole process I suppose, but I'm not smart enough to know if its right or not so that's that on that.

Who needs coffee? Apparently everybody.

This just in: Sun wins battle over Morning Mist, Fog curses "I'll be back at 3:00!".
So where does it go to hang out until then..?

...pa-wok pa-wok pa-wok in 4" patent leather means "watch out for me because I am on autopilot while texting and not watching where I am going and if I fall from this height I will most likely spill my coffee and all my other shit will go flying and hopefully I won't break my fucking neck so watch out."

Good luck.

Should white men shave their heads bald and just give up? I'm not suggesting comb-overs or other such attempts at making the most out of not much left. Bald looks great on black guys of any age and thats just good genetic luck, but I have seen only a select few white guys where the look works and I have no idea why that is. To shave your hair off only to find you have an ugly dome would be most disheartening, I'd think. Wonder what the little sparrows think when they see people with no feathers? Probably don't care much but I'd bet they'd say something nice like "your nest at home must be very warm and comfortable since you gave it all your feathers. Good for you. I have all the feathers I need, maybe yours will grow back. So now if you could give me some of your cheesy-egg thing that would be fantastic. Thanks."

I never heard her coming because she was wearing sensible shoes...mup mup mup.

There must be a gym nearby. Spandexy giggly-wiggly-asses announce to world "I might as well be naked but they won't let me so here it is" and now I know where the older men in leisurely jogging suits have been coming from. Remember the first time you heard the expression "10 pounds of bologna in a 5 pound sack" and you giggled hysterically, or was it just me?

I closed my eyes for a moment and thought I saw a constellation, which would mean I'm seeing stars and that might explain a few of these last lines. Allergy medicine and caffeine and hot sun would serve me better on the deck at home and dreaming, but suddenly the stars are gone because...

...pa-wok pa-wok pa-wok on wooden platforms that will serve her well in the next flood when the dyke bursts and we all run screaming, except she won't be running, she'll be high-stepping above the water and looking down on us drowning fools and saying "So much for sensible shoes in a flood, eh?"

I had forgotten...pa-wok pa-wok pa-wok and that slit in her skirt is the only reason she can still move forward...how Casual Friday means no tie required but Managers still wear their suits and brown shoes with sultan tassels as if to say "tassels are pips for the feet and show my rank even when they make me take off my tie, but I keep one in my pocket just in case".

pa-wok pa-wok pa-wok back the other way means so far so good on the wooden platform stilt-walking before the flood.

"It's not for us to answer that question, it's up to her to answer that question" is what the Indian man said at his outdoor 'lets get coffee and decide who should answer the question' meeting, and I wonder what the question is and why they are batting it around and no one wants to answer it. The only question I have this morning is "What is a fair price for a wheel barrow?" I am not afraid to ask the question, so I think I'll go shopping and I'll let them know what I find out.

I'm glad the young couple behind me just left because I was having visions of reaching over and strangling her to make her shut up with her drivel about Kardashians and Honey Boo-Boo and her mother who had problems when she was growing up. I think her man friend would have thanked me and taken her coffee and cheesy-egg thing.

These little birds are fearless. I doubt they are born that way, which means they learned it from their parents who have become fearless around us trying to live and get bits of those cheesy-egg things. Impressive. I don't think we teach our kids to be fearless. We should rethink that.

I get whiffs of sugary sweetness hanging in the air from the Costco bakery when the wind shifts this way. Smells wonderful and reminds me of those huge waffle cones at the boardwalk in Santa Cruz, but I can't eat two dozen banana nut muffins the size of my head, so no thank you.

The cheapest wheel barrow I found was $50 and that seems like a lot to me so I'll keep looking, but now there is no one here to tell the answer to my question because the men in the meeting have gone back to their nest to tell her it's up to her to answer the question. It must be a very hard question to answer, and in this case it seems tassels on your shoes won't help, tie or no tie.

More Russian talk behind me. It sounds like a very wet language where there is a snake in your mouth whipping around and spitting out these fantastic gibberish words and then yelling "hahahaha!" but even that sounds different.

Lunch time is over now and all the non-sensible shoes and tie-in-your-pocket people are back at their nests. The only ones here now are the people who shuffle their feet because they are tired of selling coffee to the people in non-sensible shoes and ties in their pocket, so now it's their turn to feed the brave little birds who love that cheesy-egg thing.

Lets meet for coffee sometime.

I'll be the one in the sensible shoes (no tassels).



Ken Owen,   Van Niddy Press,   March 2013