Breaths of life

O leans over, puts his forehead to Lilith's, says "I do the Ha with all of my dogs. Breath." Went to swim meets this past weekend, so we talk dull sporting events with kids. "Practicing for fatherhood". O says he already raised his brothers; their mother a single mom with two jobs. In a better place now. "Or so they say," I interjected. "Oh she is," says O. Cancer.

 

An expanded forest of cones greets us at the Temple parking lot, where a man sits in a bulldozer, dozing. Preparing to expand the parking lot. "So many tourists," he says. "Why do they all come here anyway?" He has family in the cemetery, but he's never been to the temple. I don't know how we get there, but we always do. "Why aren't people kind to one another?" he asks. "They seem to get such pleasure in hurting each other, and they call themselves Christians." He's going to Vegas soon on vacation, but given what's going on, he doesn't want to travel, told his wife that. But the tickets were bought. He's hoping things get better. I say Lilith and I will look for him later on in the week.

 

I ask at the booth why they don't put more parking at the front, and move tourists on trams to the back, where the traffic has gotten so thick. "Oh, they can't have the tourists near the funerals," I'm told. "Some tourists started yelling the other day at people at a funeral who were trying to use the restroom. It got ugly. Most of them don't even know they're in a cemetery; they think it's a park with flowers scattered over it." The stones are flat, most of them, so they don't see that they're graves. 

 

"That asshole blocked the cats from getting under the guard shack at the front. They're killing the spirit of this place." Sure enough, plywood's installed between asphalt and the bottom of the shack, nearly all the way around. "The cats were all upset; they started circling the shack, some almost getting run over--we warned them about that." They're going to block off the space under the refrigerator, one guy says. (The space is very small, indeed.) "See that guy over there in orange bandanna?" he asks. "He did it, was proud to do it. Says he enjoys pissing people off." (This surprises me, a bit.)

 

Does anything surprise you?