Eye Contact

This week's lesson: Helmets are okay, but they're no substitute for eye contact.

I've been doing the bike commuter thing. My trusty JCPenney 27" 'racer' now has fenders, a rack with bag, new brakes, new thumb-shifters, and as of this week, a new chain. (And yes, a new helmet.) It's 15 minutes each way, and I'm making two trips a day, so that's a whole hour of cardio.

Tuesday, on my way to work, I had to go around a crowd of people at the HyVee entrance. There was a guy off his bike lying fetal on the ground -- it looked to me like he got hit by a car coming out of the parking lot, but I suppose it depends on how much he bounced. The cops were coming up by the time I was a block away, and I heard the ambulance coming a block or two after that.


The next day, I was coming up the same stretch of sidewalk to the other HyVee entrance, and an older woman pulled up past the crosswalk, careening her head left and right, but never noticing me. I ended up stopping next to her door, waiting for eye contact before I'd go past her.

In other news, the gardens are looking good. It's amazing how low-maintenance a perennial garden can be. I took some pictures and pulled some weeds over the weekend. Deer seem to be chomping down on the hibiscus -- I don't think anything else could get up that high. Usually they eat the day lilies, but I guess I've got a gourmet deer...


Marie is no worse, but not much better. Her appetite is pretty sporadic, and the sores aren't healing like they have in the past. Connie and I met with a new in-home care agency, to discuss back-up care when somebody is sick. Connie will eventually be getting a new job at the VA, but they seem to be in no hurry to get her started.

I took my wedding ring to a jeweler yesterday. I'm getting it resized to fit on my right hand. It feels weird but right not having it there.

I guess I haven't posted since dd, Katie and Nancy came over to do the dispositon of dp's clothes and jewelry. Here's a picture of the pile shortly after they started on it. It was harder than I thought it would be, and I didn't even do that much. Have I mentioned that I really appreciated that they did that?


Tomorrow, I've got company -- the daughter of a friend of Carl's is coming to Iowa City for the UI's writer's workshop one-week summer program, and she's staying the da King room. I'm officially shutting the B&B down, though -- I've given it a lot of thought, and it's just not something I'm that interested in doing. If I'm going to work in my spare time, I'd rather be writing code.