Curiouser and Curiouser

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Perhaps this image will make up for the extended period between posts.

The Two B's

Your Boulevardier prefers to walk in the early morning hours. Today, he was on the Boulevard by 7:30 a.m., along with a goodly number of fellow pedestrians. They fell, broadly, into two camps: those who wanted to be there, and those who had to be there.

Those who wanted to be there, at that hour, were generally out for exercise. They could be identified by their sensible shoes, warm jackets, and, occasionally, sweatpants or shorts. They, like Your Boulevardier, have found that Castro Valley Boulevard is a fine place to stretch the legs -- the wide, clean sidewalks, plenty of storefronts to admire, and friendly fellow walkers make it a congenial place. Often, these folks travel in twos or threes and wear outfits that are more alike than different. The solo exercise walkers frequently don headphones; they're in a public place, but they want to be left alone.

Then there are those who have to be there. They're generally on the Boulevard because it provides the most direct way to get from somewhere (home, we would assume, at that hour) to a place of business or commerce. They can be identified by their clothes, too -- dressier coats and shoes, with less emphasis on comfort and more on appearance. Those who have to be there always walk solo. Another telltale sign: a person smoking while walking is, safe to say, not out for exercise.

Your Boulevardier passed Knudsen's Ice Creamery and noticed that a meeting of LeTip, the organization for exchanging busines leads, was convening. Perhaps 40 spots were available, and a good 30 were taken -- an impressive turnout for that hour. The members clearly wanted to be there.

Postscript, regarding LeTip: why any organization in humble Castro Valley would have a pretentious, French-sounding name is beyond the ken of Your Boulevardier.

But Gambling Is Illegal in California

Your Boulevardier can not claim to be a football fan, but he was amused by the level of frivolity today at the Castro Valley Post Office, much of it at the expense of a certain postal employee who, apparently, picked Seattle to win the Super Bowl. Even patrons in line seemed to know about the unfortunate bettor's choice. Phrases like "He's going to have to work a lot of overtime" were gleefully tossed about like so many penalty flags. Your Boulevardier wishes the fellow better luck next time.

Super Entropy Sunday

The morning dawned perfectly clear and bright, beckoning Your Boulevardier to walk. A crisp morning such as today's portends a wonderful day, but occasionally -- and unfortunately -- our fellow citizens can get in the way of its enjoyment. Today was one such day.

Entropy -- the inevitable tendency of a system to move toward chaos -- appeared to have been in full force overnight. Indeed, it seems to have been aided and abetted by persons with an excess of time and a shortage of common sense. A two-liter liquor bottle and a spray of beer cans sat on one street corner; shopping carts were abandoned far from their homes; three of the heavy concrete trash receptacles along Redwood Road, provided by the able Castro Valley Sanitary District, were toppled. A bicycle was abandoned in the BART parking lot. Trash rode on the morning breeze.

Your Boulevardier did what he could to rage, rage against the entropy. Two shopping carts were returned to their respective lots -- one from the Rudy's parking lot to Longs, and one from the Longs lot to Albertsons. (Your Boulevardier felt a mix of civic pride and embarrassment to be pushing shopping carts along the street; thank goodness for sunglasses.) The abandoned bicycle and overturned trash bins were reported to an impressively uninterested BART Police officer reading his Sunday Chronicle in his cruiser. Your Boulevardier even made an attempt to right the receptacles, but they proved too heavy to budge. Your Boulevardier, he is embarrassed to admit, did not deal with the liquor bottle, though in writing this he is tempted to return to the scene and dispatch the container. (After all, a bottle on the street is soon, often as not, a bottle broken.)

Why the rash of trash, on an otherwise perfect Sunday morning? Your Boulevardier is at a loss to explain it, but is trying not to let it spoil the day.