The days are starting to get longer and soon it will start getting warmer(even though it's bleeding cold right now)! Soon I'll go on my long bike ride trips(from brooklyn to manhattan or brooklyn to jamaica queens). I wonder how much the rest of new york has changed since I've been gone.  Then there is the NYC bike tour thing when you and serveral thousand other people ride your bike through the 5 broughs, I did it before in 2002 and I thought it was fun! It's funny to mention that all the good things that happen to me always happen in the summer, maybe it's because of all the positive energy or something, so I hope things will look up even though my return home from the army had a bad start. 

When the weather stop acting crazy, I'll visit my mother and grandma at the rosehill cemetery in linden n.j. and give them some nice roses.  Next saturday I'm going to go to visit my aunt at the cypress hills cemetery in queens. I wanted to go on their birthdays but I don't know if  I'll be able to do so. It's best to do it now while I have all of this time on my hands.

One of the things I look forward to now for the spring that I never really care about a few years ago are grasshoppers. Everytime I see one I think of my grandma. Here is the story.

After Grandma died on her birthday in 2001, and after they had took her body away, hours later I was suddenly in a empty apartment. I went in grandma's room and I kept hearing this clicking noise.  I had no idea where is was coming from until I looked up and saw a big leaf green grasshopper on the far wall in the corner.

I didn't know how it got up here (We lived on the 11th floor in seth low projects).  But I had a feeling that it wasn't by chance. So I got a chair and stood on top of it so I could try to catch the grasshopper. It kept making those clicking noises until I caught it. The grasshopper didn't try to fly(hop) away or anything.

I cupped it in my hands and looked at it. I had a feeling that the grasshopper was grandma telling me that everything was going to be ok and that she was alright. I went to the window and opened my hands. The grasshopper knew what to do, it opened it's wings and flew out the window.  I said "bye" as it left.

So since then I made a vow to never kill a green grasshopper. I only saw 3 since grandma died.  I saw one in fort jackson during boot camp, the second and third in APG Maryland.  I don't know if I'll see one in the city unless I'm near a park or something.

So let me slip back into the shadows until next time.

"Humans are the most dangerous animal of all, because they think they are above natures call."

Tigoness