Mother’s Day phonecall to my mother.

On Mother’s Day I gave my mom a phonecall around noon after sleeping in after being out decently late the night before.

“Hello,” she was like.

“Happy Mother’s Day!”, I was like.

“How are you doing today?”, she was like.  “Let me guess, you just got up, you’re cooking yourself some breakfast, and you decided to give me a call now so you could get it out of the way since you have a lot to do today.”

At that, I paused.

“You’re right,” I finally was like.  “How did you know?”.

“Because I know you and mothers always know these things,” she was like.

Jogging surprises: Park wildlife.

This one park just north of my apartment is a few hills with an old water-filled quarry between, and much of the hillsides covered in native prairie grass, with pathways and staircases all around on top of them.

 It’s a great place to jog, since otherwise the city doesn’t have many hills...  I like to go down onto the dock sticking out into the quarry-lake, then run uphill to the top of one hill, where there’s also a great view of the skyline.

In any case, I’ve seen a lot of egrets and some ducks and a few Canadian geese on the lake – like a week ago one was sitting on the dock and hissed at me when I jogged around the first time, so I made noises and stomped the 2^nd time I came by and scared it off the dock and into the lake – and there’s always rabbits on the hillsides, and occasionally I see people’s cats wander through the fields.

Also, like 2 weeks ago, I was going on this pathway by the quarry, and something dark on the path started moving right in front of me and I flipped my shit, though it was only a big garter snake, I realized, after a second.

Then, like a week ago, during a light rain, there was a garter snake on the path going down into the quarry between the hills, and another one on the path that gradually ascends cross-ways up the side of the big hill.

It’s kind of cool that the prairie habitat that the parks department put in provides all that shelter for snakes and other animals.

Bike problems: Got a new bike.

The boil on my bike tire popped, so I took the bike into the shop.

The gears had also stopped shifting and the bike was a bit rickety from riding all winter, and between a new tire and tube, getting the gears to shift again (which would involve a chain replacement), and a tune-up, the price was going to be somewhere around $105, and even then the bike would maybe last just another season.

On the other hand, they had a 3-speed used bike for $150, and though it didn’t have a back fender, they could transfer mine on for $10, so I did that instead.

 

The bike is a metallic red, and rides very smoothly.

 

It's an old Schwinn (sp.?).

Puzzle magazine problem.

Like 3-4 months ago, I wrote in to the one puzzle magazine that I subscribe to about a mistake that I found in one of their puzzles, since if you do that and they publish your letter, you get a t-shirt.

Within a few weeks, I got back a letter from an editor there saying they’d chosen my letter, and including a slip that I could mail in for a t-shirt.

So, like 2 weeks ago, my new issue of the puzzle magazine came in – and I discovered that I had never received the issue before that, where my letter had appeared!

I called in the “subscription problems” 800-number and talked with a helpful operator, who said that the issue was out-of-stock, and given that issues were out-of-stock all the way back through fall 2013, it wasn’t likely they’d ever have copies again, so they could extend my subscription by one issue.

“You know,” I was like, “I hate to bother you about this, I wouldn’t care at all about the issue, but I wrote a letter in about a puzzle mistake and my letter was published in that issue and I even got a t-shirt for it, so I really want it to have it for my fridge and to make copies to send to my parents, if there's any way at all I could get a copy.”

“Oh,” she was like, “I get it.  Wait a second, let me see if there’s a copy lying around the office somewhere.  Can I put you on hold?”.

Then, she did that, and five minutes later she came back on and said she couldn’t find any, and the supervisor who had keys to this one spare room where there might be an extra copy was already out-of-office for the weekend.

“I left a note for her with your number explaining your situation,” she was like, “And she should call you back next week and we can go from there.”

Great T-shirt.

Like a month ago after a long night I ended up pretty hammered at the one seedy club that I like to go to.

Like 3am, this one drag queen entered, in black form-fitting tights though she’s shaped like an apple, with a tshirt that said –

 

TASTE OF [THE CITY]

- and an arrow below that pointing right straight down to her snatch.

Addendum.

When I was barhopping like over 2 months ago, I was at a bar in the restaurant-club of a Polish fraternal organization clubhouse building.

The postcards tucked in the table tents advertised the adjoining hall space as good for quinceanaras, and the flipside of the postcards was in Spanish.

Loud neighbors: Called the police.

A few weeks ago I had gotten like less than six hours of sleep 2 nights in a row over the Thursday and the Friday night, and then on Saturday night 2 houses away a Mexican family had a quinceanara (sp.?) party in their backyard, with a DJ in their garage and bright primary colored red, green, and blue strobelights rotating around, you could see through the open garage door.

And, the bass was so loud, that even from 2 houses away, the frames in my bedroom window shook.

And, my roommate, whose room faces away towards the front of the house, could hear everything there.

And, the bass was even extremely palpable in the bathroom, which is in the interior of the house.

So, I just waited around, and finally called the cops when I knew I would be turning in.

They showed up just around midnight, and had them turn down the music and close the garage door.

I felt a bit dickish since it was some 15-year old girl’s party, but on the other hand the music was crazy loud...

In barhopping I've seen that in Mexican neighborhoods, where families have incredibly loud DJed outdoor parties late at night, so it does seem like it's maybe a cultural thing, where people do that and no-one complains.

Also, I wonder if the family even had the money to rent a hall, or if they just had money for a DJ but no hall.