Change is constant.

 After all the moving things around last night and all the other things, I didn't list anything and I didn't do any painting either. Instead I went to bed and read "A Time Of Miracles" by Bondeaux, a book about a kid in the Caucasus whose mother does the utmost to get him out and away and even gets him another nationality, to get him out of there. 

There are slight echoes of this in our being told, growing up, that we're tan because we're part Navajo Indian. The Navajos went from being just another bunch of "dirty Indians" to being quaint and idealized in the 1920s and 30s, to being actually heroic because of their work as code talkers in WWII. It was a cool reason to be tan. And a much better reason than because we're Lithuanian and not just Lithuanian but Tatar, a sort of "eh" group among Lithuanians. To give an idea of the lowly status of Lithuanians in the US early in the 20th century, the protagonists in Sinclair's "The Jungle" are Lithuanian. Well, imagine being a swarthy out-group even among that group. 

I woke up at about 5:30, and after coffee etc. I was out the door at 6:30. I stopped at Nijiya and got a can of Doutor coffee and $20 cash back. Then I cruised down to Wal-Mart, parking the bike at Big-5. I looked around in Big-5 by which I mean I ogled the guns'n'knives. Then went into Wal's. I needed diet soda and TP, but once I got looking around realized I also needed rubbing alcohol and Dawn too. And there were no 4-packs of TP; I had to buy a package of 12. I had $10 in my wallet already and it came to $29 and change. 

Money well spent though, and I rode back up to the area across from the ex Cafe Stritch. I figured I'd hang out and drink my coffee, and found a little table to sit at. There was a guy set up by the curb with a screen or something and a bunch of stuff so I thought he might be an artist and had a look. 

I ended up settling down there with him; he was playing a video game on an Xbox and holding the space by the curb for the taco truck that comes around later. He told me about his life. About restraining orders and mother dying and becoming homeless and being fired from the bar Paper Plane where he'd been a bouncer, and how he had all this irregular work. 

I asked him about the homeless guy with a dog and a cat who used to beg by Cafe Trieste, who I've not seen in a long time. He said he'd seen the guy just a few days ago so I guess he's still alive. He also told me the guy has a house and a van, so he's not really homeless. (Still, he probably either inherited the house or bought it many decades ago and has to maintain it and pay the property taxes and so on, so I don't regret the money I've given him.) 

I was going to hang around for the taco truck but it came out that it would not be around until 10, so I took off. St. James Park had some kind of city attempt to take the park back from the bums thing going on. They were going to show a movie, about a talking pig called Babe. There were quite a few families there. I dug out my change and got a taco from the truck for $3 and sat and ate. There were a couple of tables there but they were monopolized by a homeless ghoul-ess with a baby carriage full of crap. The taco was really good and at least it's an attempt to run the bums out of the park. It had been a bum-fest when I'd gone by earlier. 

I rode back here and unloaded and had two bags of trash to take to the FedEx dumpster, so I took off with those and partway there, here came Karen the security guard in her little truck who told me "You can't trespass in here" with a twang. I said, "OK" and kept riding. The word "trespass" has some meaning here, because if a person gets an actual citation for trespassing, they can be arrested if they're caught there again. On my way to the dumpster, here came a bum carrying some stuff hanging off his bike handlebars, heading in the direction Karen had gone. Good, I thought, she'll be busy with him. I pulled in behind the dumpster so my bike lights would not be visible and dumped my trash. 

Now I could not go back the way I came, nor could I take the other side of the parking lot because that's Karen's beat also. So I rode up Junction, around past Tom's place, and down Zanker and checked the bountiful dumpster - nothing new - and got a couple yellow bell peppers from the veggie dumpster. 

It's 10 degrees warmer than it was last night. And there are changes, always changes - the house that looks kind of like a synagogue is now a greyish blue instead of green. More store fronts are empty.