People I've met

 The other day waiting for a little time to pass, after some intakes, I met Magda on a park bench. She was smoking, and I was choking, but I tried to be nice about it.



I think she had no idea, that I hated the smell. I said something like remember when people didn't mind other smoking? And I knew I could move if I wanted to, but I just sat there and talked to her.

She's from Poland. And she knows Italian. And when her husband came to get her, she resumed her life of misery. But for a moment, with me and the Dollar employee, you know, the only one who knows how to do anything, but will never get a promotion, she was happy and she was social and she was fine.

We talked about the difference between Italy and Vienna. But of course the difference is the same as you head north out of Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavia or whatever.

You pass the dirty picturesqueness, and move north into clean. And it's nice, to be clean, sometimes.

It's also nice, not to have a family owning a restaurant mad at you cuz you don't want to eat four times too much in one meal.

There's a line somewhere, where cleanliness starts and uptightness starts.

And I think of those paintings that the gentlemen brought back from their trips abroad, hung up in stuffy English houses, and remembered the picturesqueness of Italy.

I remember the picturesqueness of Italy, as a place where every turn of the eye yielded a postcard perfect image.



Somebody in the office just came back from Flore and it looks like she didn't want to leave.

That day I also met a lady, who has a sense of humor and is going blind.

She's hesitant, and she doesn't know why, but I do, to contact organizations that help the blind. She doesn't want to admit that she's one of them, and going to be one of them. She thinks they can help her once she's really blind, but I want her to get help easing into that transition.

A single person, isolated in her home, that used to be friendly, and now is becoming full of Hazards. Wouldn't it be good to get used to some things now?



What do I know



I also met the lady who said she was Hebrew, and thought that I  was. There's something about my  way of doing things, that makes people say that.



And it's not just the Muslim I know that asks me that, again, when he's annoyed with me. There's something more to it.



I told her that I wasn't, but that I study the Hebrew Bible and her eye is glazed over, so we talked about something else.



I guess she sees Hebrew more as a race, and less as a set of beli efs.efs. of iefs of set s a as a as ess ess ess ess and and and ce, ce, ce, ce, s a ace ace as a as ees ees ees ees ess ess ess ess ess ess ess ess ble. me.with me ith yed e's e's hen hen in, in, in, in, in, at, at, at, at, hat, me s me me hat hat hat hat now now now now now m I lim lim the the the the ust ust ust not not not not not not not t's t's
And was.