Saturday, August 17, 2024. Had a good bike ride, a bit faster (?) than usual. Not much of a rest this time around, I was riding for the sake of it. I slept a little bit later than usual, not getting out of bed at 9:00 AM but sleeping in a little bit more.

I had a dream where a younger Bill with horrendous eyewear was leaving me. It was a distressing dream and made me very sad. I told Bill about it and he laughed it off since it was absurd. Totally made up of fragments of long ago that have nothing to do with what passes for real life today.

I did my usual Saturday grocery shopping at Shop Rite where they’re really trying to cut contact with customers. More sel-checkout, only 2 populated registers and there were lines forming at each cashier. This is how it’s going to be. I don’t like the layout of the store but they are not going to change it back for me.

There was a guy before me at a lone self-checkout so I maintained a respectful distance as he took items out of his bag and scanned them before putting them back in his bag. He eyed me suspiciously and I thought that was because I was not looking at my phone. He skedaddled and I took my cart to the scanner.

An employee told me I couldn’t use this checkout since it was for the supercarts that tally up your items when you take them off the shelf and put them in your supercart. I mentioned the guy before just used it and she explained that was because she didn’t have a chance to prevent his paying for groceries.

As this little chat went on I was scanning my items. She said I could not do that because what if a supercart came up. I looked around and I was safe and not blocking the exchange of capital and data for anyone with a supercart. I also explained to her that the more she delays me from doing my own capital exchange could hinder the progress of the arrival of a supercart.

There was also a supercart manager giving me the hairy eyeball. I was able to jet on out of there and realized that to these people I was just another cranky old white guy. Which was the guy before me as well. We do not travel in packs.

After chilling out with Bill for an hour or two, I put on the bike shorts and helmet and gather my items for an afternoon bicycle ride. When I headed down the front steps with my Unique Lotus bike on my shoulder I noticed some drying raindrops on the steps and sidewalk. I hesitated for a second but decided to go ahead.

I felt a few more raindrops as I rode down the block and as I headed south toward Jersey City, opted to turn back. As I turned back I turned back again and was back on my usual route to Liberty State Park. No frills, just a 5-minute break under the tree I like and soon I was back in Hoboken.

I’m glad I did it since it did not rain until about an hour after I had climbed the four flights of steps, my knees mumbling loudly.