Array
Today I met an interesting array of women:
I met a woman who fell off a ladder while cleaning the ceiling. Curiously I met her in a place where we were both below in water, so when she pointed up you really had the precise feeling of how far she fell. We both agreed there’s much to be said about falling down, once you’ve fallen down.
I met another woman who never went to a funeral until she was 40. That seemed extraordinary to me. She seemed to have no real conception of people dying. What an extraordinary thing to have 40 years.
There were more women, but I don’t know where they’ve disappeared to. They’ll return and I’ll add them.
Yesterday a man told me he was “in love”. This was another astonishing thing to hear as usually people say they’re tired, then they’re busy, often they tell you where they have been if they’ve left the confines of the city, they might tell you their mother was visiting from x place and finally they tell you what they’re upto. I don’t object to being told any of that list, but I was struck that it could be useful if people expanded the adjectives and got more specific emotionally.
“I’m as hammered as a hard hatted hedgehog”
“My left pupil is destroyed by red hairy lights.”
“I am in love”
“I am not in love”
“I am unlikely to ever be in love.”
“Any chance of a kidney?”
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From now on I am firmly committed to inquiring over the health of peoples hips. And how exactly is your hip health I shall ask at a poignant moment? I shall especially commit to this when I am approached by religious recruiters.
Driving to New West via the #1 highway, a new route for me, since I only drove Kingsway previous, it being a straight (diagonal) line convenient for not needing to turn left which I despise, and SW Marine which is a moon shaped approach … anyway via #1 as a passenger it occurred to me that we were sandhogs. The entire stretch of highway and wires and posts and dugout and boards and all else reminded me so much of sandhogs in novels I’ve read and yet we were arriving to the oldest city. No? We were tunneling out into the old spot. Odd that, somehow odd.
On the return it was the ribbon again at Boundary and Grandview. That stretch you experience sat at a traffic light. Not one you see necessarily from the bus unless you’re an over the shoulder viewer.
Incroyable
I’ve just learnt that a woman who works at the bakery fell over in exactly the same spot as me, except she was walking with her bike and that broke her fall somewhat.
Still that means three witnesses to the wanton disregard for public safety.
“The white board,” her friend said “Oh my God, I know that board… she fell over there too.”
While we were exchanging high octane on the trauma of falling over, some grumpy older bloke started giving out and rudely interrupted because he wanted her to hurry up. I shot a look at his left hip and wondered.
The stats on who falls over are alarming.
“About a third of people over 65 years of age that live alone will experience a fall this year. For those over 85, it will be half.” (Vancouver Coastal Health website)
Note the reference to home as danger. There’s no mention in the blurb on preventing falls on the lacing of our streets with debris or tripping over kerbs.
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There are approximately 4,000 hip fractures in British Columbia each year.
- For seniors, falls are the most frequent cause of injury-related hospitalization (from hip health centre website)
Crikey I never would have imagined how much it hurts to fall down. Physically, emotionally, all bashed up. No sleep and pain all day.
The cause of this particular battering? Speed and greed of money raring housing developers who care so little for public safety they leave shite lying about. I recall the letters of the sign TYAM, it read. To your arse Madame.
John Cage: A dip in the lake
The tuning in and out and the hiss, I like it. Gasp. Kind of exhale. like hearing a train on an interrupted cell phone signal. I am ticking on something in relation to it.
And less interrupted some violin works from Shostakovitch 4th Symphony (5 days left on it only)