So, I’m sitting in my car in the foreground there with coffee, camera and binoculars birdwatching the grounds out of frame to the left.
That black car pulls up. Woman rolls down the window, says “You’re blocking an active roadway, you know.”
Me: No, I’m not.
Her: You are.
1/
Me: No. I am not.
Her: That (pointing to the grassy lane to the left of me) is an active roadway.
Now, mind you, in ten years of going there, I’ve seen one vehicle pull down that path. They waved to me.
Her again: You should move.
2/
Me: (Tone shifting to “I’m not the one for this, lady.”) I have been coming here for ten years…
Her eyes go wide that someone might actually respond to her bullshit with a “No.” and she legit spits gravel hitting the gas to drive off.
3/
And then she parks in the lot.
The irony is that I had a lot of these experiences when I had a plot at that community garden.
Someone complained my blueberry cage was 3 inches too high - on one side - because it was built on a slope.
4/
This isn’t a statement about anything other than my experience but every single time someone took it upon themselves to police something that wasn’t their business, it was a white woman.
Every time. That small subset of the pop believes they are authorized to police others.
5/
They are not.
Observing someone doing something that causes no harm but you don’t like doesn’t commission you with any social authority whatsoever.
Mind your own fucking business.
6/
There was nothing remotely illegal about me sitting there.
Sheriff McGee, on the other hand, was there to pick up the spouse who was illegally walking their dog off leash in the nature preserve.
I’m printing out the ordinance for next time.
I’d hate to have see her ticketed.
This was the scene Sheriff McGee complained about.
• • •
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If we were a thoughtful society, this pandemic would have taught us that forced commutes to office parks - which are ecological disasters - is a terrible practice.
We turn green spaces into heat-absorbent pavement farms so people can unnecessarily go to offices they don’t need.
The amount of chemicals we dump on office park landscaping to make its ornamental green spaces look pretty is a sin.
The amount of land we consume with largely unused parking lots, also a sin.
And every large company in the country just learned firsthand, they don’t need them.
One of my secret getaways during the pandemic was an office park that was largely shuttered due to COVID.
Here, at the foot of the property, is a grassy area with no actual purpose. It has no path, no use, no proximity to offices.
That little Giving Garden - those little rows of raised beds tended by strangers - produces 70,000 pounds of fresh produce a year.
Since its founding, it has provided fresh, organic produce to over 200,000 families.
2/
Fresh produce is expensive.
Food-insecure families cannot afford the makings for a salad. They can’t afford a trip to the farmer’s market. They can’t afford local summer corn or fresh fruit.
When a food budget tightens to the point of choking, fresh produce is one of the cuts.
My son played his last regular season game of soccer today; and I’ve had a pint or two of Guinness.
So it’s about to get very Hallmark movie in here very fast. You have been forewarned. If you strap in for the ride, ya gets what ya gets.
Anyway, let’s proceed.
1/
It wasn’t my son’s last game with this team. They have a tournament left in June.
Today was just the last match of the regular season.
Surely that couldn’t be enough to send a grown-ass man into a Guinness-fueled nostalgia thick as marmalade.
And yet here we are.
2/
I had that June tourney in my back pocket. That was my buffer. I wouldn’t need to get all emotional today, you see, because it wasn’t really my son’s last game of the year.
I fully believed that. I was good.
This wasn’t going to be the Day of Unbearable Sentimentality.
3/
Sitting at a bar (for only the 2nd time in a year) eating a quick lunch.
Meathead 1 comes in by himself. Meathead 2 eventually arrives.
They have now been talking about transgender kids in their circle of friends for 15 minutes.
And it has been... adorable.
1/
As soon as I heard ‘transgender’, I braced for some asinine slew of backwards, bigoted, dumbfuckery.
Instead, Meathead #2 led Meathead #1 through a catch up about a mutual friend’s child who is transgender and another friend’s child who is gender fluid.
2/
Meathead #2 knows what he’s talking about. These aren’t the awkward fumblings of someone who doesn’t have the language for a topic.
He is lowkeying it but he has thought about this. Processed it. Worked through it. Came out the other side where the job is to be an ally.
3/