Participant Observer Takes a Walk at Night

On the way home from a post-public-meeting round of sangria at El Sombrero (Transito Rapido Special, $3 this month!), a pedestrian walking Rainier Avenue from Columbia City to Hillman City observed and, to varying degrees, interacted with the following denizens of the steamy summer night:

1. Two women in bathing suits and flip-flops, towels around their waists, hair still wet from the Lake, eating ice cream cones in the parking lot at Full Tilt.

2. Three men sitting at a dark bus stop, all of whom agreed that it was indeed, hot enough.

3. A woman standing like a statue in the spotlight of a streetlamp, chin jutted out, pained expression on her face, entirely unresponsive to standard greetings.

4. Two figures hoisting what appeared to be a large shiny metal mushroom up a ladder onto a roof. The pedestrian might have walked right by without noticing them, but for the scrape-clunk... scrape-clunk sound of the mushroom making its way from step to step. And she might have thought she'd hallucinated the whole thing if not for the sight, this morning, of this addition to the Radio Hart roof assemblage.


Why they decided to sneak it onto the roof in the dead of night remains a bit of mystery -- though they may have simply been trying to avoid the heat of the day on the hot roof.

5. A pair of hipsters who peeled off at 42nd and headed up the hill into the darkness.

6. A car pulled over on the other side of Rainier, passenger engaged in conversation with a couple of kids on the sidewalk.

7. The empty parking lot at Dayspring & Fitch Funeral Home,where last Saturday Hillman City neighbors and friends gathered to watch a free screening of "Bend It Like Beckham." The occasional spattering of warm raindrops in the hour prior to the movie had prompted the Fitches to distribute their plentiful supply of somber black umbrellas to the crowd -- this proved enough to hold off any further precipitation.

8. Several apartment dwellers driven downstairs by the heat, sitting in doorways, trying to catch a breeze.

Upon arrival at Orcas Street, the pedestrian was greeted by a familiar figure -- one of the gentlemen from the bus stop had just stepped off the #7 bus thirty seconds ahead of her.

"Girl, you walk fast!" he exclaimed.