"How are you?" said the Traders Joe clerk.

"Wading through the torpor of ennui," I said. He goggled for a half-second. "Well, you asked."

It was true. I had used the phrase in a text earlier in the day when discussing a possible gig on a Cunard ship, and I guess it stuck in my head. Last week the stock inquiry made me said "exemplary!" which was, at the time, true, if a bit boastful. Not today. For one thing, I felt stupid: on Monday I had been putting my airpods away in the case as I walked through the skyway, and the case slipped out of my hand, bounced, and vanished behind a long bank of heating elements. The cowl went all the way to the floor. I managed to fish out one, but the other one, and the case, could not be reached. The cowl could not be dislodged. I went to the security desk and apologized for being an idiot, and they said that someone help.

Today I got a phone call from a maintenance fellow named Kofi, and he was enthusiastic about retrieving the items. I met him at the spot and he tried to remove the cowl. It could not be done. They were all interconnected, and they would have to start 16 feet down, at the wall, to remove them. I apologized for the trouble and said I appreciated the effort; at least they tried. It was, after all, my fault.

No, no, he said, I can do this, but you don't have to wait around. I will call you when I find it.

Two hours later, he did!

The amusing thing about the call: Kofi was originally from Africa, as you could tell from his accent. But he was perfectly comprehensible. Every time he tried to tell me something, a woman took the phone and started explaining how I could get the airpods, and she was 10X less understandable. A supervisor, perhaps.

Anyway, that's a relief. Also, when I was helping Kofi find them, leaning over the spot, my clip-on sunglasses fell behind the radiator. But I could get them without trouble.

Point is, though, these guys: above and beyond. As Kofi said: "it happens. It happens a lot."

The piano is gone.

I wonder about those stains.

Last week there was a strange team of Street Dudes, one youngish, the other grey and somewhat toothless, with a Down-Under accent. There was a lady playing Scott Joplin rags, and he wandered up and started playing notes that fit, more or less, with the key. He had this outsized persona that suggests he believes everyone finds him adorable and fascinating. He wanted to shoot a VIRAL TIK TOK where he comes up her while she's playing and starts talking to her, then plays along. The other guy shot it. It's rare you see VIRAL TIK TOKS! being made, but you know what? I wandered away after about 30 seconds, because it was boring and contrived.

Any detritus to share? Any hated ads, any junk that clutters the bottom of news sites and lies to you? Why yes!

I guess that's where my internet was coming from today. That's a hell of a project for li'l old Rush City

Well:

Oh finally I've been searching and searching

Remember this guy from last month, begging us to stop doing this one stupid thing to our bananas?

Now he's begging us to stop abusing our blueberries.

		The fun part: we can lip-read what he's saying. It stuttters every second pass. Three words then the three-words-plus-one.

What he's saying doesn't match the blueberries.

And now, our new Friday feature. Extracts from the Dream Diary . . . illustrated by Artificial Intelligence.

I was at some peculiar sort of speech & debate contest. I thought it was extemp, but it seemed we had to listen to a professional seminar speaker and then repeat back his points in our own speech. Okay, whatever. I barely listened, and made my own points about trade - cheap exports are bad for the country, because it hollows out our innovation and ability to produce, bad for the country that does them, because they become addicted to exporting at the risk of making a well-paid working class, but in the end good for the consumer. I had four points and a good conclusion. What bothered me was that I also had to appear in a performance of the Hobbit that afternoon, and I didn’t know my lines. But I figured I would have time to learn this afternoon.

The other speeches were varied. One guy who called himself “Marcel Marceau” did an elaborate theatrical thing with enormous billowing scarfs and blankets that had nothing to do with the topic.

When it was my turn it seems that the topic had changed, and now I had to speak on whether these were more turbulent times than ever. Everyone had left on one side of the auditorium.

I was talking about how it always seems as if there’s more change than usual, and a lot of people were concerned when Trump took office, whereupon someone in the audience said “no they weren’t” and I stopped my speech to argue, which I said I never do but I’ll make an exception - and then a small kid appeared on the dais, I was already standing on a ledge to reach the mike. I don’t know how the kid got up there, but he wouldn’t stop staring, and eventually I picked him up an put him on the floor and told him to scoot. Whereupon someone looking like a 1970s football player -

- interrupted the speech with angry remarks that I shouldn’t have done that, and I said fine and quit and left.

I called an Uber to go the Guthrie. I was sure they had already started the play. I got out my script and, which was all in prose, and discovered that my role was Yoda.

(Prompt: Yoda in Lord of the Rings)

I practiced my Yoda voice and it was surprisingly good. The first lines had to do about mistaking grammatical speech for true speech, and I had to recite a poem - it was printed on a perforated section of the paper in the script, so I assumed it could be removed. By then we were at the Guthrie, and it was $55. I opened the door, whereupon Daughter - who had materialized in the adjacent seat - was lamenting to the driver that I had opened the door! It’s so not done! I said I had a coupon, which was even more embarrassing, but the coupon wasn’t good.

Long-distance view of the Firehouse project.

Let's zoom: all these civic gifts up in the sky. Statuary in the back, classical frosting in the foreground.

One more thing of limited interest to anyone:

This massive complex is being rehabbed. The food court and skyway areas are empty; the hotel has opened. The exterior remains untouched. These blocks are an ancient leftover of the original parking ramp exit, and lead to a tunnel that has some great 1960s stonework.

If you're my age, this was the fashion of your childhood.

I assume he's not talking about a momentary attraction to another woman:

Regret, but also relief. And the state was spared the cost of a trial! Win-win all around. Solution is here.

Bonus fun! This year's old newspaper feature: a social no-no single-panel illustration. Can you figure out what's wrong?

The answer will be yours on Monday. For now, speculate away.

		Now two ways to chip in!

That will do! Hope you enjoyed your visits this week and found them a useful application of your time. See you here next week for more of the same - except all different.