Day of the demented / all the ravens in the world / I love my neighbors, pt 500

This. This, has been a hell of a day, from mid afternoon onward. In three parts . . .

Part the first, DAY OF THE DEMENTED

Work is over, catching the bus to catch the bus to take me to my car to head home. So, too, catching the fairly full bus is a guy in a wheelchair. As all of you who ever take or have taken the bus prolly know, there are special wheelchair seats that non-wheelchair people have to get out of when they're needed. Today, this guy, who I have seen on the bus many times and is usually very nice and soft-spoken, refuses to move. Says "why don't they move" pointing to two old ladies in the other wheelchair seat. And then says very loudly to the bus driver "fuck you". After some time of us all sitting there and the two old ladies moving and the wheelchair getting put in, the guy who apparently lost his marbles winds up getting escorted off the bus.

Then, the guy sitting next to me starts going on about how someone needs to beat this guy up. And on. And talks about how back in Ohio he made people get up to let a wheelchair guy on, and the wheelchair guy gave him a thousand bucks. And then begans talking about how he would like to beat the guy up, except he doesn't want to go back to jail. Describes in great detail, while lighting and smoking a cigarette on the bus, how he wants to smash the guy's head through a window and throw him on the ground and kick all his teeth out. And how he is an ex-con, and most people are afraid of him just because of how he looks and he has a lot of respect for me for sitting down beside him, and he introduces himself, and of *course* his name is Homicide, cause, why wouldn't it be? but even though he's done a lot of things to hurt himself and others, he would never not get up for someone in a wheelchair. And how if he sees this guy again he's going to follow him home and find out where he lives, unless he' just loses it and beats him to a pulp on the bus. People are staring, the driver is staring at us in the mirror, and this guy is oblivious to it all. We're in the very back of the bus on a long row of seats, his girlfriend in the corner, and then him, and then me in the middle, and some other really big dude taking up the other two seats, and his girlfriend puts her hand on his thigh and moves it up and then they get off at the next stop (err, no pun intended).

Then, right before I finally get off to catch the bus back from Palm Springs to Yucca Valley, this guy in front of me blows up at the people in front of him, because this woman asked this other guy if he wants her to hook him up with this mutual friend who is in jail. Why does the guy in front of me yell at her? Because she was being disrespectful to say "hook up". I kid you not.

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Part the Second, ALL THE RAVENS IN THE WORLD

Driving home, I saw a couple of ravens. They were flying with the wind at a nice clip alongside for a bit, then we went into this valley about a mile or a bit over a mile from our house, I saw more ravens. And more ravens. A flock. Another flock. Turning and wheeling. At the bottom of the little valley, where lots of trees and a well where all the people out here used to get their water are, a whole host of ravens took flight from the trees as I drove by. Literally hundreds and hundreds of ravens. Other flocks of ravens were visible to both left and right. People had stopped by the side of the road and were taking pictures with their cell phones.

I have never seen anything like this in my life.

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Part the Third, WHY WE LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS, Part 592.7

Sasha is out walking with our dogs when lo and behold, right as she leaves our gate, both of our neighbors dogs come running up. And go for the walk with her. She has to save one of them (who looks like Marley could be the father, except for Marley being a spayed female and all) from a rattlesnake, which was coiled right in the path they were walking on. Everyone else had the sense to stay away; this one wanted to go up and sniff it. She got it away. Then after the rest were all past, it started trotting back. She couldn't get it to come away so she ran off and hoped it would run after her, it did, or rather he did, and yay. So after she gets back I walk them down their driveway, to see their gate wide open. Better yet, it is stuck and won't close. I call our mutual friend Andy, who gives me their number, I call and no one answers. I leave a nice friendly message explaining what happened, and tell them to call me if they need any help getting their dogs back in. Apparently, the lights were on but no one was home. Finally, right before I started typing this, they came home. I go to check and make sure their dogs went home, and only see one, in our yard. I put him oustide the fence and hope he goes home. I check again about 15 minutes later because I don't see lights there any more. One of their dogs is in the fence, the gate closed. The one who stayed over here at first? Running back and forth between our fence and their fence, locked out. Don't you love these people? I'm going to wait till I'm sure they are asleep and put him in. If they come out and say something even remotely impolite to me it will be hard not to do unto them as my new buddy Homicide talked about doing to the dude on the bus.