Cav's Place

Bucharest and Iasi are participating in the “European Mobility Week“. Actually, parts of Iasi have been closed off for motorized traffic each weekend for years now, remember when she was showing me the areas, so it was easy for them to partcipate. In Bucharest I guess quite a bit of planning was in order, but in the end, after various other events that took place these days, they decided to also allow only bicycles and pedestrians in certain central areas of the city today, for the “World Carfree Day”.
The Minister of Environment supposedly didn’t drive at all this week, biked for short distances and used public transportation for the longer ones.

That said, I wanted to check out what was going to happen today, especially since I didn’t go anywhere this week so I had to go out anyway to stick to that “plan”.
Was wandering if I was going to get the timing right to watch the “bicycle march” passing somewhere. Checked the streets they were going to be on and that gave me what I thought to be a better idea.
They were going to pass on Kiseleff Boulevard early on, and Herastrau Park is also there. I’m not sure if I’ve been there only once or not at all, so I said I’ll leave earlier and take a stroll around the park before that time.
Getting there on foot would have probably taken at least two hours and I really didn’t feel like it, despite walking perhaps a similar distance once before, this spring. But the book fair I went to with Jen back then was also in the area, so the bus I found out I needed to take to get there would take me here as well.

With that in mind, I went on my merry way. Walked briskly for about 15 minutes to get to that bus stop, got in a bus, got pretty bored on the way despite that annoying old lady who thankfully didn’t pick me to annoy, got off a stop too soon because I basically had no idea where I should get off considering the closed off areas and walked the rest of the way.

Something had obviously just ended right at the park entrance, because some people were dismantling a stage and the ground was littlered with popped blue balloons, so I went on.
The initial plan was to just walk around a bit, heading left, towards Kiseleff, so I’ll go out that gate when I get to it… But since things never go as planned, at some point I saw a bridge and an interesting area ahead, so I took that path and then decided to go around the lake…
And I went around the lake clockwise, which is the wrong way if I meant to end up towards Kiseleff. And that’s one BIG lake. Plus that there’s a dead end somewhere, so after walking for close to one hour I had to take a railroad bridge accross the lake and then wonder where to go from there.
Luckly there are a couple of tall buildings there, one at the end of Kiseleff and one on Dorobanti, which was where I now needed to go as it was already quite late, so eventually I got to a place where I could see them and managed to find the same gate I went in through, after wandering around quite lost for about one hour.
(Needless to say, I didn’t see anything that might have happened on Kiseleff…)

At some point I was walking along the lake and heard somebody say, after having spoken on the phone, “Heh, her kid played on the computer and she didn’t know how to turn it off now”. At that, my mind went “Well, I didn’t turn mine off before leaving and didn’t want to either… Wonder if I turned the monitor off though… Better yet, I was making some tea… Did I actually make it or just left the water boiling and left? Hmm, how long have I been gone for? … Well, absolutely no point in worrying now… Been gone for an hour and a half, have no fucking clue where I am and even if I knew I’d be at least an hour away from home, so… I guess I’ll find out if I see a fire truck in front of the building when I’ll get there…”
I didn’t leave it on though, phew… Had that happen lots of times when I was still living there after Andra left, usually realized it after some two hours, after all the water evaporated and I smelled charred metal…
I keep saying I have basically no short-term memory. But that’s normal, people with excellent long term-memory usually have poor short-term memory and vice-versa.

Otherwise, I kept feeling a dagger through my heart whenever I saw a couple lost in their own little world, be it sitting on a bench or on the ground or walking… And there were plenty of them, obviously…
In a way it makes me really happy to see them. I’m talking about those I feel to be in their own little world of course, not the shallow ones, and I think I became quite good at telling them apart. It always makes me smile when I pass by them… But, at the same time, it really hurts…
Was actually wondering if everybody forgets how it is to love once they get past a certain age, because you usually only see teens and people in their 20s like that, plus the occasional elderly couple that’s just sitting there… But today I actually spotted a few couples in their 30s and 40s holding hands and hugging, and I think one or two even kissed while I was passing by them. That was sort of nice, there might still be hope for this world…

Thing is that initially I wanted to take the subway back, since there’s a subway station right at the park entrance and dad left me a subway card that expires next month with a single use left on it when I went to that book fair with Jen, so might as well use it… But I forgot all about it while rushing to cross the street.
I rushed because what they did was give pedestrians priority even around the closed off the area. Traffic lights for motorists are constantly blinking yellow and those for pedestrians are always green, which actually does more harm than good since it means motorists must actually care, which many don’t.
That means it’s a good idea to cross in a group around there and when I got to the street a bunch of others were also crossing, so I just took the opportunity to tag along and completely missed the subway station. Looked around from the other side and felt like smacking myself, but then decided to settle for the bus…

And of course I got off a stop too soon when coming back too, since I don’t know that area at all and I was dumb enough not to count the stops when going, but better one too soon than one too late…
But at least the ride back was mildly amusing, with two guys who were part of a group fighting pretty much all the way. Seemed friendly enough, despite the fact that at some point two others stepped in to calm them down a bit, saying they’d better not draw blood.
Oh, and while waiting in the bus stop I saw a guy get somewhat beaten up by his girfriend. They made sure there was some empty space around then and she seemed to be practicing some fighting moves on him, until she actually hit quite hard several times by the looks of it. He seemed amused up to that point, then a bit confused. Then, on the bus, they didn’t speak and she basically didn’t look at him at all, looking deep in thought. I noticed because they were right next to me all the way. Suppose one of those annoying “What have I done now?” “Nothing, leave me alone…” moments took place as soon as they got somewhere private…

I was saying I ran away when I was supposed to pick a pair of glasses. I might be weird, but, to my mind, that meant I didn’t pick a frame and therefore don’t have any glasses. Well, dad sent me an e-mail from work tonight that he left my glasses on the living room table. (He works tonight and then they’re leaving for the weekend.)
WHAT THE FUCK??? If I didn’t pick any, I DON’T HAVE any!!! Besides, they’re a bit big, the casing’s black, the frames are dark gray and they look like crap.
Oh yah, the frames are half-frames, along the top of the lenses, but that’s a piece of crap anyway. And you should know how much I hate black and any other dark shades or colors. And it’s not that glasses could look in any way acceptable, they’re absolutely hideous by definition, always said that and always will, but there might probably be a few models that could possibly make a tiny step towards being marginally tolerable if I’d be feeling especially generous, and this is not one of them.
Plus that I had one more thing to discuss that I didn’t tell him just so he won’t do this shit. I know the eyesight of those with light colored eyes can deteriorate as a result of exposure to light, because part of that light filters through the iris. Well, there’s barely a trace of color in my eyes, they’re quite as light as they can be, so I should have asked if the lenses could help that somehow as well, filter part of the light without becoming sunglasses, since I spend all the time in front of a bright monitor… So, of course, this wasn’t taken into account since I made sure nobody knew exactly what it was I meant to say.
AND they’re fucking brand-name! The casing says “Yves Saint Laurent”! WHAT THE FUCK??? When he wanted to discuss price with me before we left to supposedly pick a pair I told him I wouldn’t get anything brand-name even if they’d pay me for it and he picks this??? Let me say it again: With the possible exception of sportswear, I will NOT have brand-name items on my person! Period! (Edit: Dad wrote back to say that, considering the price, he highly doubts they really are what it says they are. Oh, a fake then? I’m sure somebody would be interested in that bit of news…)
What the fuck is so hard to understand in “don’t do anything for me unless I specifically ask you to”, huh? I’m not wearing this shit! Keep picking them up and mean to smash them, but then wonder how the fucking “talk” would go afterwards and throw, kick or punch something else instead. If the neighbors have any complaints, considering the time, they can delegate one of them to act as a living punching bag while the rest can just lick my balls!
And if any of you have any “wise” comments, shove them. Don’t care if anybody thinks I’m unreasonable, ungrateful, an ass or whatever else along those lines. If your fingers are itching to comment, shove them up your ass and then take them out and lick them clean! And if you’re still thinking something along those lines, shove your head in there as well! Now fuck off!!!

Seems just about right…
Ok, so I took it twice, changing one answer the second time around to something that’s actually closer to the truth now that I think about it, because the first time it said I’ll be a Spirit of Hope and that didn’t seem right. Me, surrounded by loved ones and having had a good life? Right…

Two years ago tonight it looked like there just might be a chance to get everything together again, fix what was pushing us apart and nurture what was pulling us together… But the fact that I’m here now in this situation means it didn’t work out like that…
I’ll always think I could save saved it all at that moment more than at any other, that we’d still be together if I’d have done just the right thing then, if I’d have figured out exactly what that right thing was. It might have been the only opportunity I had, throughout this whole mess, to really make her have a change of heart. I’ll even keep believing that if somebody would tell me there was nothing I could have done even then. I’ll keep believing it even if that somebody would be her. Actually, especially if that somebody would be her…
It should have been, as they say, the first day of the rest of my life… But it became only my last good memory… I guess that’s still far better than nothing, but, Gods, how I wish I would have known what to do and done it…
If I’d have to pick my worst regret, it would be this, not being able to figure out just how to turn things around during that night and the day that followed, during probably the only time when I might have had a good shot at it…

Seemed like I had to give in and order those damn glasses anyway, and persuaded myself to do it by thinking “I can always not wear them after I’ll have them, but I can’t wear them when needed if I don’t have them”. So I told dad about it a few days ago and he said he was giving in himself and was going to go this Saturday to have his eyes checked and order some for himself.
Well, today’s Saturday, so we went… And my part went exactly as expected: The guy looked at me, I turned on my heels and ran, end of story.

On a somewhat related note, it seems like the old problems I’ve been relatively peacefully coexisting with for several years have all decided to act up lately, making me need to have them checked out, or checked out again in case of some of them. That means there should be a few more visits to doctors in the next few days, and… I really don’t see that happening!