Musings/amusings

Well, yesterday I was taking my walk when, near Boston's Government Center, a man (large white dude, 50-ish) on a bicycle came barreling down the sidewalk at me. I started to move out of his way, then thought he was zigging to my zagging, and moved in the other direction. My course correction apparently threw him off, perhaps in much the same way as seeing a large man on a bicycle barreling down the sidewalk right at me threw me off a bit, and as he pedaled by, he yelled "fucking ho" at me.

"Fucking ho"?

Say what?

Say what the fuck?

And, no, I had not called him an a-hole. Not until he called me a "fucking ho." At which point, I did yell at him: "You're not supposed to be riding a bike on the sidewalk, you asshole."

Coronavirus madness.

Meanwhile, as my cousin MB informed me by text this morning, someone was found on Tuesday on my street, just up the Hill from where I live, at the corner of Beacon and Joy, in broad daylight, suffering from a gunshot wound.

To say that this is not the norm in this 'hood would be an understatement.

Anyway, it turned out the the man who'd been shot - a non-fatal injury, by the way - was fleeing the "quote unquote scene of the crime" (to quote Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant, which is something I've always wanted to do, and likely have in the past). The scene of the crime was the Soldiers and Sailors Monument which stands on a hillock in the middle of the Boston Common. And is pretty well known as a must-avoid drug dealing location. So while it's terrible that there was a shooting there, and I really don't like the idea of guns being fired in an area I walk through quite frequently, at least it wasn't some sort of innocent bystander thing - someone walking their dog or a little old lady heading over to the Roche Brothers to take advantage of geezer grocery shopping hours.

A bit of local excitement.

Mostly, things are, of course, pretty grim.

But it's not all awful.

The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago let its penguins waddle around checking out the exhibits. There are a number of videos floating around that show this. The one embedded here is pretty good. And the whole thing is pretty cool, other than the fact that it's kind of sad that the penguins only get to see their fellow sea creatures under such circumstances. On the other hand, penguin life - as anyone who's watched the documentary March of the Penguins well knows - is nasty, brutish, and short. Not to mention cold and dangerous. So maybe penguins are better off living in an aquarium. By the way, according to The Google, penguins are highly intelligent. Not intelligent enough to avoid a life that's nasty, brutish, short, cold and dangerous. But when compared to many other critters, plenty smart enough.

Anyway, I found the penguins being able to wander around the Shedd amusing and, oddly, somewhat uplifting.

Less uplifting, but certainly amusing, was the incident in NJ, where the police were called in to break up a gathering that was in violation of the state's no large gathering order. The bunch of 40- and 50-somethings were getting together to watch a Pink Floyd tribute band perform. Amusing, of course. But also a WTF moment. Who wants to risk their life to watch a Pink Floyd tribute band???
New Jersey has been pretty hard hit by the coronavirus, with more than 1,500 deaths to date. By point of comparison, Massachusetts has had 433. Yes, NJ has a larger population (8.9 million vs. 6.9 million), but that's still proportionally a lot more deaths per capita.

Guess there's just more folks, per capita wise, who don't mind dying if they get to hear a knock-off version of "Another Brick in the Wall." Shine on, you crazy New Jersey diamonds.

Me? I'm content to be in Massachusetts, even if there is a Masshole out there who called me a 'fucking ho.' Seriously. Maybe he was from New Jersey? I didn't have time to react to his accent.

That's all for now. Chalk it all up to pandemic fatigue.

Think I'll go bite the head off of a Peep...