weekend cleveland vacation

some people i know went to either coast this weekend, but given the gas prices and the lack of other motivation, i stayed in cleveland this weekend, but, as usual, had adventures anyway.

jody and ernie and i went on a late saturday night adventure involving numerous cups of green tea at various locations, my first experience at steve's lunch (a 24-hour hot dog place with incredibly cheap food and fantastic people-watching) and then a late night cleveland drive.


having gotten inspired by the architecture and the bridges and the graffiti, we repeated our route sunday afternoon after church with our cameras. there were other people chilling down on train avenue so we didn't hang out there long, but ended up taking some great pictures down at the funwall, where there's new painting so fresh that you can still smell it and the colors are glowing. the pictures are still on my camera but they are amazing.



my old housemate dan came in from pittsburgh and me, him, and alex hung out at edgewater, flying kites and people-watching. there was a guy walking around playing an stratocaster on the beach hooked up to a small amp, and bowler hat segway man made another appearance. this guy is always impeccably dressed like someone out of a bbc drama and rides his segway around the park.

i've been dogsitting the past week and will be doing that this week as well, after the weekend break. as i was walking them on saturday morning, this lady on the porch of one of the houses called me over and was asking me if i lived in the neighborhood and how i felt about it. she's from a suburb to the west where it's pretty nice and she was disturbed mostly by the fences in everyone's front yards because they're "ugly" and "people don't do that where i'm from." that's true, but it's a different place.

i tell her that like anywhere, you just need to be aware of your surroundings and not do anything stupid, and that i know a lot of people down here and spend a lot of time down here, that i don't worry too much. and that it's more likely that your car will get stolen down here more than anything else. she doesn't seem that convinced but i'm sure that if i have kids someday, i'll worry about them too.

i didn't tell her about the day before when i was walking the dogs when i saw what looked like the beginnings of an ugly situation starting to go down in a corner store parking lot... death threats and swearing and people crouched behind cars, hearing the one guy yell "go ahead and shoot me, but you better kill me, because i know where you live and i'll come after you..."

as i turned the corner, i thought i saw another guy pulling a gun out from his back pocket, but i wasn't going to stick around to be sure.