While You Were Out

Most of the time nothing happens back home when you are at work, and that is good. It's important to keep that in mind when you travel. Nothing is going on. No thing. The house is fine. Everyone is OK. But then you stay home one day and you become aware of all the hubbub outside and it kind of draws you in: a def increase in dogs and dogwalkers early in the morn, delivery trucks stopping by the convenience store on the corner, and a yellow school bus picking one up one lone kid--in late July? You see that a crew from Ridgewood Redevelopment Corp. is removing graffiti from the Amtech HQ across the street, so you go out to oversee that little job and get some pix. And then within an hour a DEP truck is at the catch basin that you called in about, with a big scoop thing dropping big loads of wet dirt and debris into the truck. You are glad you are there to help; to tell the guy that it was Con Ed who was responsible for putting that mud there in the first place. But it almost seems like he does not care. Hmph. Failure to value backstory (call that in, too). More pix. Then the lunch crowd, the guys from Communicar, mailman, and kids. Again the dogwalkers. Lot of activity, indeed, and you would be unaware of it all if you were back at your cubicle where you belong.