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I was getting my 10k steps in despite the bad air from distant fires, picking up stuff with the grabber (recycling in the grey bag, trash in the brown bag.) I crossed a side street on a hill to get something and a pickup truck stopped. "Hey buddy" the driver said. "Hi!" I replied, not recognizing him, but at my age, having met so many thousands of people, everyone looks vaguely familiar. I liked the friendly "buddy".
"Why don't you look up?"
"Eh?"
"Next time I'll just fcking run you over" and off he drove.
I thought that I should have an emotional reaction - rage or something. Shout at him, flip him off, something to burn off the feelings. But I felt nothing except mild puzzlement. Why is this?
At that point, I was not threatened and I cared nothing for his opinion. There was literally nothing to hang the emotions on. I doubted that I had actually been careless, but if I had, how would I know? I had not heard him slam on brakes or anything. Maybe he had been going faster over the crest of the hill, saw me, and felt alarm that he might hit me or inconvenienced that he had to slow down. I just don't know, because he was gone.
I don't know the objective situation and never will. Regardless of whether he was going too fast or I had darted out in front of him, if I had been hit, that would have been bad. Physics doesn't care about laws or righteousness.
Perhaps he just had to burn off a lot of feelings from what he saw and experienced, and swearing helped. No harm done, and I made a note to be even more careful
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Crossing the field to the dog park, I saw Scruffi moving quickly - for him - and Inge walking with. I called to Scruffi and we had a nice chat. She reminded me she was wearing her birthday dress and had been invited to Salty's. I told her the dress looked more lovely than ever and wished her a good time.
It was only after I got home at checked Facebook that I was reminded this was most likely her birthday. It is my habit, when I have time and the memory, to customize birthday greetings to family and friends by sending a photo (usually a flower) with greetings written on it, using MSpaint. People seem to like it.
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