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Rain: NYC, December 9, 2014

It’s raining, it’s pouring. Mayor de Blasio must be happy it isn’t as cold as yesterday because then there would be one heck of a blizzard with everyone complaining it wasn’t being plowed fast enough. On the M9 coming home, the windows were so fogged I often had no idea where I was, not near enough a window to wipe and see. I had an aisle seat. That meant those standing next to me dripped, their packages too and their umbrellas. My shins were cold and soaking wet. Somewhere someone was playing music so loudly it was coming out of the earphones and sounded at first like an imam singing, calling us to prayer, that vowel-full from the back of the throat call from a not too far away minaret; but then I could have sworn it was Beijing Opera, Beijing Opera, yes, but as I really listened there she was, Dolly Parton singing I Will Always Love You. No kidding.

Getting off the bus at 11th Street, the wind and rain were blowing so hard I could hardly hold on to my useless umbrella as I headed for the Dominican grocery store at the corner that has fresh produce, local milk and meat and fish of good quality. Once inside, safe and warm, sheltered from the storm, I saw the folks around the cashier were laughing looking at a photo an old man was showing them on his iPhone. Wanting to join the fun, I got closer and peeked at what appeared to be one magnified cockroach beginning to devour another, but because the devouring was happening at the lower parts, mandibles among segmented legs, it looked like the insects were having oral sex, in flagrante delicto cunnilingus, in fact. Everybody was laughing in Spanish. “Tiene una mente sucia,” I told the old man who took it as a compliment, and the cashier, although she was kind of grossed out, kept on laughing too. In fact, a good time was being had by all as I began to shop happy that, safe and dry, I would soon be home. Home is happiness.

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