In the heart of the cold, cold city

So I had a plan.

I had noticed there is usually someone inside Domini’s restaurant doing prep work before 6 a.m. And I wanted to take a picture of that scene. Struck me as sort of Edward Hopperish. You know, with the surrounding darkness and all.

But this morning, as I got close to Domini’s, I could tell not many lights were on yet. If the guy was not in there working, it would not be the same picture.

I think this is why I crashed my bike into the curb and went down in an embarrassed heap. Instead of carefully watching for the little wheelchair slope at the corner (my plan was to quickly dismount and park on the sidewalk), I must have been distracted by looking up ahead at the restaurant’s windows.

Luckily, I was going slow. Amazingly enough, I was fine. My rugged, lights-festooned bike was fine. And I didn’t even mar my pants where I went down on one knee.

But upon getting up from my self-inflicted spill, I noticed someone across Sprague at one of the bus loading areas outside the STA Plaza. He was facing me. He had to have seen and heard my wipeout.

A little “Are you all right?” might have been nice. None was forthcoming.

That amazed me almost as much as the fact I had crashed. I mean, who doesn’t yell “Are you all right?” in that circumstance?

Don’t we even pretend to care about each other anymore?

OK, perhaps he was convinced I was fine by the way I got right up. Or maybe that stranger in the dark was incapable of human speech. Or perhaps he was praying for the Zags with eyes closed. I don’t know.

Then I noticed lights coming on at Domini’s. I walked over and there, inside, was the guy I see in the morning.

I took a picture. If I had not experienced the delay of my slow-motion crash, I probably would have concluded the timing was off today and just ridden on to the paper. So really, it all worked out.

Heading west, I thought about calmly shouting something to the bystander across the street. But I didn’t. Going negative is no way to start the day.

The way to start the day is to watch where you’re going.