Going On A Ride As The Neighborhood Goes

Someone delayed the start of my morning ride.

They* climbed from the gutter and onto the sidewalk, missing my front tire by a few feathers.

If I hadn’t seen—and touched—Maria’s pigeon a few weeks ago, I would have been shocked that this one came so close to me and didn’t fly way as I drew closer. They did, however, fly away once I started riding, which led me to believe (or at least hope) they’re not sick.

Now I’m going to tell you a secret:  They and I are part of a conspiracy to gentrify the neighborhood.

Ok, so that was a joke.  We’re not the only white folks in the neighborhood. And although it’s not the Upper West Side or even Astoria, this part of the Bronx doesn’t seem to need (or want) gentrifying:  It’s working- and middle-class, racially and ethnically mixed with, it seems, more of both “traditional” families and LGBTQ people than I expected.

I must say, though, that even in the most posh NYC neighborhoods, I don’t see many people or other beings whiter than I am.  And it’s not often that my ride is momentarily disrupted by a pigeon.

*—Have I become everything the Faux News/MAGA crowd hates? I’m even referring to animals by gender-neutral pronouns!

Who Copes Better?

What did I see this morning, as I began my fourth week (!) in my new apartment?

Marlee has been cuddling with me even more than she had been in the old apartment--and that's saying something.  I wonder whether she's scared about being in a new and possibly strange place.  Or does she like my body more because I've gained weight? At least, I feel as if I have.

As you might imagine, I haven't done a lot of cycling, at least compared to what I normally do.   If I have gained weight, however, it may have as much to do with how I've been eating.  Last night, I realized that because I've been so busy, most days--including yesterday--I've been eating my biggest (or only) meal at the end of the day.  

Will Marlee still love me--or, at least, my body--as much when I get back to my normal cycling and eating habits?  And will she like this new place when it's all neat and arranged? 

The Four-Two-Oh!

 As I mentioned yesterday, it was “four-twenty.”

Many theories have circulated about how that combination of numbers, and yesterday’s date, came to be associated with marijuana.  One is that “four-two-oh” is the police code for it.* Another is that the date is Bob Marley’s birthday.  Neither explanation is true.

Still another  explanation is that it’s a reference to Bob Dylan’s song “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”:  Multiply those two numbers and you get 420.  While this is somewhat more plausible than the other two stories I mentioned —and the 2016 Nobel Laureate for Literature did, after all, introduce the Beatles to weed— I still doubt it.

The most credible explanation seems to be that a group of California teenagers met at 4:2O in the afternoon to partake of it and other pleasures prohibited by their school—and the law. Supposedly, that group met during the 1970s and one of its members, Dave Reddix, later became a Grateful Dead roadie. (What else can a teenage pothead from California become?) In late 1990, he distributed a flyer (Remember, there was no social media!) inviting Oakland “Deadheads” to smoke with him at 4:20 pm on 4/20 in 1991. That flyer landed in the hands of a “High Times” magazine editor, who printed it in his publication.

So..the folks at Trek could be forgiven for naming one of their models the 420.  After all, it was 1981 and they probably didn’t know about Reddix and his troupe of truculent teenagers in Tiburon.  Or did they?

*—Cops always say numbers digit-by-digit.  So, for example, the 114th Precinct in my old (It still hurts to say that) Astoria neighborhood is “the one-one-four.”