Morning in a City

Today's news speaks of a "super smog" over a city in China...

 The view over the San Francisco Bay cities doesn't seem to be much better these days, thanks in fair part to the ongoing Bay Area Rapid Transit strike that has nearly crippled regular travel across the Bay and around the affected cities and townships.

 More busses, more ferries, and above all, more cars idle in gridlock as drivers unaccustomed to weekday travel realize all too late that the lane into which they have dived is not the lane they need. This, of course, goes over like a ton of bricks with those who are eligible to use the Fastrack and carpool lanes but cannot reach them because of those idiots trying to get back into their appropriate lanes... grrr...

 Fortunately for me, I've been able to stay on one side of the Bay today, though city traffic is sufficient challenge. I did notice that there was an uncharacteristic number of open spaces at BART parking lots... Imagine that...

 Near government buildings, however, there is never enough parking. If you need a government service, you should use mass transit to get there. Mass transit, however, is woefully overloaded and will be for the foreseeable future...

 On the other hand, street parking is only $2.00 per hour, compared with the open-air parking lots advertising $4.00/hour. What's to choose? Better yet, upon my third shift of spaces, (don't ask,) I found to my delight that the previous parker had left 1:40:00 in the meter. Yay! for the kindness of strangers. 

Finally settled, I stopped to look around and listen. One of my great pleasures in life is to listen and note the sounds around me. They generate their own kind of music. As I watched a young man striding by immersed in the sound of his earbuds, a young lady with head slightly tilted as she strained to hear the voice at the other end of her phone conversation, workers chattering on their way to and from lunch, I heard the deep boom of a cranked up car bass. Then a jack hammer cut in, creating a curiously energizing counter-rhythm. I was fascinated and could not help contrasting it with the memory of a recent morning listening to birds on a wire, sharing their morning gossip in much the same manner as the passing workers.

 And somewhere along the way, the sun had broken through the clouds...