Braving covid again, I met up with the rest of the local fam down at the Griz. They went on to a concert at The Ark. I came home. I almost always fade in the mid-to-late afternoon and I did so today. I perked up for dinner (salmon BLT, half of which is now in the landfill refrigimatator) but I knew I wouldn’t last through a concert. I am not a big fan of concerts anyway. I have always been much happier being involved in the works of staged performances than watching them. A player when I was an active musician. A jill-of-all-trades as a play production manager. I would sneak into the back of the auditorium to watch my kids on stage then get moving again. On to whatever I needed to attend to next.

I haven’t driven *to* downtown a whole lot since before covid, except the farmers market. There are weird bike lanes where there didn’t used to be and many of the long-time one-way streets are now two-way. It’s okay. I managed. They’ve also changed the parking lots and the one by the Griz is now plastic card only. Which I am ecstatic about. But. For whatever reason, if I can’t just tap my card, I am forever putting my card in backwards or sometimes upside down. This is not really an issue at Meijer but I think they need to install some sort of little LED light above the credit card slot because leaving in the dark, for the life of me, I could not see the graphic that showed which way to put the card in. And couldn’t remember how I did it when I entered the parking lot. (You put your card in when you enter and then the same card upon exit.)

But I did it. The GG had walked down and he actually offered to MEET me outside the restaurant to “help” me park. I actually thought about that for a split second and then decided to hell with it. I can handle this. And I did. And then ALMOST turned into the goddamn bike lane that didn’t used to be there…

I do think about all the years I used to shop downtown ALL THE TIME. I had my fave parking lots. The lot by the Griz. The Library Lot. Palio’s lot. Sometimes Kline’s. I knew the funky pattern of one-way streets like the back of my hand. I will learn this new stuff too. I am a fan of parking apps, etc. Except when they don’t work and they sometimes don’t and when they don’t I don’t have quarters hanging around in my console any more. Assuming the parking meters even take quarters these days.

Enough gibberish. G’night!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2024 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.