bird town

As much as I would love to pretend that our lives completely revolve around surfing (see Kurt’s frozen lake pics) I cannot ignore the reality that life is, for the most part, simply made up of small, mundane everyday experiences. Hopefully in the end, when they’re all strung together, you might be left with something meaningful. Yesterday, cold and mundane, was one day I’ll remember.
 
Jen sent me to the store which, personally, is never easy for me. My mission, to buy instant pancake mix, a required ingredient for a science project for her students. Also, find original green Gatorade, a required ingredient for hydration. I was busy with work so I hit up the closest place, the local neighborhood supermarket. If you live in a city, or even a small town, you know this place. The type of place that sure, it has groceries, but it hasn’t been renovated since 1967. Kind of a weird smell going on, faded, dull accent colors under old fluorescent lights. Half are broken.  It’s shab-tastic.
 
Admittedly, I usually go to the high end market in the next town over. So it was a reality check waiting in a line behind four people, three of which were holding food stamps. That is just the nature of my neighborhood. But the cool thing about this place is that it’s a holdover to when this district, Birdtown, was a thriving factory town full of immigrants from Eastern Europe. They still sell 9 different varieties of Hungarian beer, but not original Gatorade. I struck out there. And no, Jen will not have the zany new Gatorade flavors like Vortex Blue, Phantom Orange or Velocity Red.  She’s old school.
 
On line I immediately recognized the check out girl. It was Claire, my next door neighbor, and she gave a quick smile. A single mom, she had just moved back from a year in San Diego. She and her son were staying with friends, living by the beach. Then she ran out of money. The guy at checkout was giving her a hard time, but not to be mean. More of a friendly, persistent pain in the ass kind of way that for some guys passes for flirting. He looked like a rough character. The back of his shirt said he was a mover, but he probably got it at Goodwill.
 
This was the slowest line ever. The other cashier, a nice Indian girl who helped me find the pancake mix was nowhere to be found. For the record, you’ll find it in baking, not in the breakfast aisle. Then I watched a tall, skinny guy with a sad, broken down expression slink through the front door that stayed open too long. In came the wind. This sent an arctic shock right through the store. For a moment Claire just froze at the register, she stopped typing, closed her eyes and cursed under her breath. I laughed and told her you’re a long way from San Diego.
 
Turns out the tall guy was setting up a display to sell Cleveland’s seminal newspaper, The Plain Dealer. Believe me, the death of the print media was written all over this skinny guys face. But now I was paying attention to the old woman in front of me. She was no younger than 70, wearing a gypsy? looking headwrap. She turned with a kind smile while making a prominent display of grabbing and slapping down the, whatever you call it, the plastic bar that separates your items from someone elses. There would be no mistake of her paying for my pancake mix.
 
The gypsy also needed a money order but Claire was having trouble getting through the heavy accent. This brought about the sudden reappearance of the Indian girl, who was teaming up with Claire to decipher  the actual price of the money order. Thuh Tee Foh Wunn, over and over, she said while using her hands to accent each syllable. I helped out too, and soon enough we had it. Same page. Money order for $13.41. The old woman smiled at us and scurried off. I told Claire no plastic bag, please.
 
I was headed over to the beer store down the street. I know for a fact they have original Gatorade, but only in small plastic! bottles. The trendy multipierced clerk there was always talking up San Diego. I typically go in wearing my #21 Chargers jersey on Sundays and he can’t stop talking about how much he knows about the place, the beaches, the clubs, everything. No bag, please. I said hey, I’ve gotta ask, if you are from San Diego, what are you doing here? He answered, suprisingly, that he’s never lived outside of Cleveland. But he has always loved the idea of heading out west to San Diego, especially now, as business here has not been too great. Someday, he said, he’s going to leave here for good.
 
It’s already March. Soon it will get warmer and the ice will melt. On those days when a good spring wind comes across the lake it will be easy to tune out lost jobs, politics and the economy. For a short time there won’t be anything on our minds but the waves. And once again, Cleveland, Ohio, it will be like water in the desert.  
 
Scott