the_vulture

I must make a better effort to keep up with my blog. It gets to be a bit difficult, though, as my leisure time is somewhat limited and often taken up by other pursuits. Alas...

On my way at about 2 in the morning last Tuesday, I had a bit of a disturbing encounter with some of the local thuggery. As I was walking along the street nearing home, a jeep full of young men turned around the corner from the opposite side of the sheet. They swiftly pulled to a stop just ahead of me, after having accelerated through the turn. I continued walking along, though I strongly suspected I was the object of their attention, for a number of reasons; first, they have simply wanted some information, like directions. Second, if their intentions were not so benign, showing fear by stopping or altering travel is a mistake. Third, if it was to come to a physical confrontation, the jeep would have served as a good tactical obstruction by which to limit how many of the little boogers could come at me at once. (Crikey! With that level of paranoia and continuous risk evaluation, you'd think I'd grown up in some crime ridden ghetto.)

There were five young men in the jeep, maybe in their late teens or early twenties. Fortunately, all of them looked like I could drop them in one solid hit. And perhaps that's why, when I finally got fairly close to the vehicle, they peeled away, with but a singular, violent throwing motion (hardly threatening as the passenger window was rolled up) and a menacing sneer from the driver. 'Course, slightly annoyed look I was probably sporting at the time might also have had something to do with it. As mentioned earlier, thugs of this nature prefer a fearful nature and it was actually kinda hard to be fearful of this lot, even if there was five of them.

Still, when I got home, I phoned the event in to the local police. These little hoodlums may have had second thoughts about picking a fight with me, but I have smaller and female colleagues at work, some of whom I knew would be walking these streets mere hours from the point this occurance. That's aside from any other unfortunate member of the public who might've ran afoul of them. In most cases, I'd be skeptical if the cops would do anything about it, but these local ones actually seem to maintain a pretty active presence, as demonstrated on Saturday, so perhaps something good came of that call.

In other news, I've racked up a bit of a bonus by working a day of overtime yesterday. Yeah, I'll be working a six day week, but, honestly?, that's not at all that taxing. The only issue is squeezing in time to get other stuff sorted in my off hours. Today, for example, I took a bike ride out to a local charity used goods warehouse to check into possible furniture for my flat. Sadly, that seemed to be nigh a wasted effort as they were charging quite a bit for what was quite slim pickings. I'm better off shopping for stuff at Walmart and Zellers. This was especially disappointing because I really wanted to pick up something I could use as an altar (I've been feeling somewhat spiritually amiss) and it was over an hour's worth of time I could have devoted to other things. I at least, however, came home with a rice cooker/veggie steamer in reasonable condition for a mere four dollars.

I also got a bit of exercise on the bike, which helped clear out the lactic acid burn from yesterday's run. It was a pleasant enough run that took me through a lovely marsh and allowed me to soak up a luxurious amount of sunshine. Sadly, though, my nipples got chafed (owie!) and, alas, there was no one about to kiss them better for me. *melodramatic sigh*