2 Men on Kingsway

The man at the fruit stand at Twyford Place and Kingsway smokes as he lifts a crate of apples. The cigarette dangles from his lips. I pass by on my way to get my coffee. He looks up. Our eyes catch. I pass him most days. Most days he is smoking, hands-free. I wonder if the ash from his cigarettes ever drops onto the fruit. I don't normally buy fruit from this fruit man, not because I'm prude about a little cigarette ash on my peach, but because my company serves fruit. There's no need for me to visit the fruit man. I sometimes wonder if he recognises me the way I recognise him, and if so, if he gets annoyed that I don't buy any fruit. This morning I look at the nectarines. They tempt me. I'm always tempted by a nectarine, yet so rarely satisfied. The last batch I bought (from my local Tesco) was mealy. I can't stomach a mealy nectarine. I feel compelled to buy a nectarine, but at this time of day I'm moved more by coffee. I think I might come back in the afternoon if I have time, if I remember my craving for a nectarine.

After buying my coffee, I'm standing on the other side of Kingsway, and waiting for the light to change. This is a dangerous intersection and traffic has wisely slowed to a crawl. I often find myself looking at the faces in the vehicles that pass ... usually the buses, but today it's the passenger in a black cab. Just as I'm staring in, he stares out. The taxi rolls on; the passenger twists his head to maintain eye contact. It makes me chuckle inside. I wave. He looks to be laughing too.

I never do go get that nectarine.

No Shuffling

I learned something about myself on Sunday, as I walked down Fulham Road laden with 2 bags of groceries from Waitrose. Normally I wouldn't go to Waitrose. The Tesco Metro is more convenient, but I needed to stock up on doggy pooh bags, and Waitrose carries a kind I really like. They seem to be lightly lined with a lightly sweet smelling talc. Recently, the council hasn't been providing the doggy-bags they used to dispense in red metal boxes hung from scattered light posts in the park. Earlier in the day, I had noticed the red doggy-bag dispensers themselves had been removed. My Man noted, "It's a sign of the times. There are bound to be cut backs."

As I was returning from my doggy-bag motivated trip to Waitrose with 7 packages of doggy-bags, among other goods, I heard from behind me a syncopated shoe-sole-scraping sliding across the pavement.

Schlllossss schlisss. boomp. Schlllossss schlisss. boomp. Schlllossss schlisss. boomp.

You get the picture.

My jaw clenched. My teeth gnashed. My hands formed fists, and I heard myself scream in my brain, "Pick up your goddamn feet!"

That's when it dawned on me that I hate it when people shuffle their feet. Not only do I hate it, but I would actually consider this to be my one and only true pet peeve. When I realised that the shuffling of feet was in fact a pet peeve, I decided to check my inventory of pet peeves just as a point of comparison. Guess what I found when I checked my pet peeve inventory ....

Nothing. Nothing, other than the shuffling of feet.

That's when it dawned on me that I'm a generally mellow person. I never thought of myself as mellow, but when I examine myself, I do have to say: I am mellow.

Schlllossss schlisss. boomp. Schlllossss schlisss. boomp. Schlllossss schlisss. boomp.

I gnashed my teeth again as the actual shuffling of feet distracted me from my exercise of self-examination and returned me to a near-livid state.

Didn't your mother ever tell you not to shuffle? I'm not overly polite, but come on, this is lesson one in basic education. When you were a child your mother must have told you to pick up your feet - at some point in your youth. Why don't you just do it?

Invariably the shoe-dragging shufflers are young women who, if they would just pick up their fucking feet, would be quite pretty.

Losers Weepers

Yesterday morning when getting ready to take Butters for a walk I picked up the lead, put on my sunglasses, paused, and reached for the little green pouch that contained my slick little Sony.

I haven't taken any pictures of Dog in a while, and it's a beautiful morning-- a morning to take pictures.

I slid the little green pouch that contained my slick little Sony into my trousers' pocket, and grabbed my keys.

Midway through Dog's walk, I gasped with the realisation that my slick little Sony was no longer in my trousers' pocket.

Yesterday I lost my camera.

I lost my god damn camera.

God damn it.

I'm surprisingly nonchalant about it. Maybe it's the glorious weather (finally) or my certainty that digital camera prices have dropped and the fact that mine was pushing two years old -- almost a grandfather by digital camera standards. Even so, I find myself occasionally mentally retracing my steps along the walk that led to Sony's disappearance. I remember a light little thud. For a fraction of a moment, I remember thinking I had nothing but keys and dog bags to drop. So I dismissed the light, little thud.

I'm sure now that that thud was my Sony.

Benched

Time spent away hasn’t been time spent with loved ones. It’s not been holiday or celebration or bereavement. It’s not been down to any good and decent reason. It’s been about throwing yourself into work with all the enthusiasm and energy of a recent grad when really you are just in the pursuit of avoiding a wandering mind that would wander onto wonderings of a nature that makes them want to be avoided.

What the?

It’s about not realising that this is what you’re doing: finding yourself in the office at 7am looking at the computer screen and wondering why you came in so early, but certain that you can busy yourself.

You’ll catch up.

And before you know it, it’s 9am. Everyone else is trickling in …

Lazy sods.

… and you’ve got 3 spreadsheets open and 4 midway-ly composed emails not yet saved to draft and you’re getting caught up in the mania that is a day full of meetings and too little time and it has worked! You’ve lost yourself.

Until about 5 when your early rising catches up with you, and your stomach is growling because the bowl of cereal for lunch eaten hastily in front of those still unfinished emails at 15:00 just didn’t do it. You’re itchy to go, but feel guilty. There’s a rub. You’ve been in since 7, not had a proper lunch but still feel that a 10 hour day would be construed as slacking.

At home you continue the escapade. The dog needs walking, you walk her. The plants need water, you water them. Laundry is done. If there is something good on TV you’ll lie on the sofa up against your mista and watch yourself fall asleep. Invariably, My Man will accuse you of ‘not being which him’ when he wakes you to move from the sofa to the bed. This is one of the things you love about the My Man-- the way he sometimes says 'with' like he is from somewhere else. You refall asleep in the bed.

Your eyes open before the alarm goes off.

And you begin all over again.

What starts off being about escape has snowballed into habit. Normal circumstances require discipline to put work down and move on to priorities. I’ve thrown the discipline into the wind and abandoned myself to the chaos.

I’m paying for it now.

Healthy Eating

What to write?

I had it in my head last night -- or was it this morning, when it was still dark -- something about an idea I had.

It's coming back to me bit by bit. An idea with which I could go to the Dragon's Den or to American Inventor.

I'd not seen American Inventor until last weekend. It was conceived (and stars!) Peter Jones and seems to be a cross between Dragon's Den and American Idol (or XFactor). "Inventors" demonstrate their "inventions" to a panel of judges who then determine whether the contestant "inventor" will go on to the next round. I use the quotation marks around inventor and invention because to my way of thinking some of the people they put on the show are hardly inventors -- and their wares are hardly 'inventions'. It seems to me that the producers (Peter Jones!) wanted to use the word "inventor" in the programme's title; so they did. "Entrepreneur" would have been better.

For example, one woman made it through to the next round based on her edible snow globe kits. Her kits contain various sweet comestible parts that, when assembled, become brightly-coloured edible snow globes. No joke. Now, I don't want to take any credit away from Krafty Kathy and her Cake and Cookie Construction Company, but I just don't see her as an inventor. A lot of gumption and hard work and sugar have gone into her endeavour. Good for you, Krafty Kathy! But, please, an inventor?

That's the backdrop to my idea.

My idea also involves a foodstuff. Unlike Krafty Kathy*, even if my idea were to take off, I could never call myself an inventor. My idea wasn't about inventing a foodstuff, but rather repackaging.

Wouldn't we all eat better if broccoli came in a bar?

. . . .

In the past 3 minutes of silent contemplation, I've convinced myself that my idea is rubbish.

*Not purely fair; I don't know if Kathy refers to herself as an inventor or not. Just because she was on the show ....