Inept

Early this afternoon I went for a pre-Thanksgiving walk in my neighborhood wearing red sneakers, black athletic pants, a black fleece pullover, sunglasses and a set of headphones that conspicuously covered my ears. The sun was out and it was in the upper 50's and I wandered over to Cheesman Park a few blocks away. Others were out enjoying the day - families with their dogs, couples and other solo park visitors. I walked up a slight incline to the pavilion, an area that has a cluster of tall columns covered by a roof, to get a view of the mountains. Spotting a bench, I sat down and watched my surroundings.

A man wearing a bright red outfit, including a red cap, drove back and forth in a pale yellow convertible along the road that bifurcates the park. It appeared that he was calling attention to himself but I was unsure what kind. A bit downslope from me, a 60-something man in a plaid flannel shirt, beige baseball cap, and tan chinos sat on the edge of the fountain and spoke on his cell phone. Two women, wearing bright pink shirts and carrying bundles of twigs, perhaps for a late afternoon fire, approached and sat on another bench. Up close they appeared to be mother and daughter. After a few minutes they, too, moved on.

Then the man in the flannel shirt came over and excused himself. I still had my headphones on yet he did not take that as a sign that I did not wish to be disturbed.

"Do you know if this is a gay park?" he asked.

I truly did not know the answer and I also did not know if he was a gay basher, simply a curious out of towner, or looking for action.

"I don't know," I said, looking at him more carefully. There was nothing slick about him. His eyeglasses looked as if they were from the previous decade, his clothing was clean but well-worn. His appearance was as bland and ordinary as they come, his rough and wrinkled skin offering little color contrast to his beige cap.

"Well, I asked two young women and they said they were bisexual and so I thought that maybe this is a gay park," he continued, as if by telling me this information I'd be willing to provide him some corroboration.

"I have no idea," I replied. Then I wondered if the red-clad man in the convertible had been, in fact, cruising for fun in broad daylight.

The man in the flannel then sat down on my bench, leaving about a person's width between us. I did not feel threatened by him so I stayed put, enjoying my view of the mountains. For several minutes we sat in silence and I wondered if was planning to leave or not. There were other benches around and if he had simply wanted to sit somewhere he could have chosen his own private spot. After an awkward interval he stood up.

"Sorry to bother you," he said, "I just thought that maybe this was a place where gay men came looking for sex."

"Why are you asking me?" I retorted, allowing my annoyance to show, adding, "Clearly I'm not a man."

He muttered something about bisexuals and wandered off.

Interruption

This afternoon an attractive 50-something year old man washed my feet and put my socks back on and laced up my shoes. Sadly, this was not a lover or even a pedicurist, but a technician at a podiatrist's office. Since I've been able to put on my socks and tie my shoes myself for at least a few decades, I felt rather foolish having him do the honors. There I was, my legs stretched out in front of me as I sat on the podiatry chair, jacked up to a height of about five feet off the ground. He said it was standard practice and, from what I observed in the waiting room, many patients are probably not capable of tying their shoes.

When I first arrived for my appointment, to check out some persistent pain in my left foot, I was one of the few fully ambulatory people around. Mostly older folk maneuvered in their wheelchairs and walkers, negotiating the path between the door and the reception desk. One man, his thinning hair slicked back with grease and his belly as round as that of the Buddha, was missing a foot. The receptionist handed me a stack of papers to fill out; on the top was written "Diabetic Foot Wound Center" and I asked her if, indeed, I was in the right place.

"Yes," she said. "Don't worry about that language. We take care of everything below the knee."

Below the knee. It was not an expression I'd heard before and, while it's true that my foot is below my knee, it can also affect areas above my knee, such as my hip and spine. But ours is specialized medical world and there was not much I could do about that. As I made my way through the forms, a woman in a motorized wheelchair returned to the waiting area from a consultation room; she wore specially made shoes, her head was held in place by a brace and her arms were covered with black fabric, obscuring her hands or where her hands might have been. Suddenly, my foot problem - and everything else on my mind - seemed quite trivial.

The podiatrist's analysis confirmed my suspicion of a pronated left foot; it has always tended to turn in but now the difference between my left and right feet had become quite stark and the imbalance was painful. My hiking habit will be interrupted for a few weeks while I wait for my orthotics to be made. In a saner system, my health insurance would cover the cost of these inserts, as they'll keep me active and probably prevent me from developing knee trouble later, which would be more costly to fix but would likely be covered. Such is the world we live in.

Inexplicable, Implausible II

Several months ago I wrote about the mysterious disappearance of some clothing, a t-shirt and a sports bra, that happened to be of the same brand. The sports bra turned up soon after that - I think it had gotten tangled in my sheets while I had sorted the laundry and revealed itself when I was going to sleep that night. But the t-shirt remained missing and I had given up hope of ever seeing it again. A few days ago I was working on an essay for a workshop I'm taking and one of the items that popped into my writing was the process of putting on pantyhose. Since I rarely engage in this activity, I wanted to refresh my memory as to how the nylon feels. I went into my closet, found my shoebox filled with pantyhose and opened it up. Inside, nestled alongside my stocking collection, was the missing t-shirt. I am completely baffled and clueless as to why I put it there in the first place, but I'm delighted to have it back.