Right Place. Right Time. Surreal.

Serendipity is such a thing. I wrote last week about learning of the death of a writer- a longago acquaintance, son of my first mentor in law and much of real life. Around the time of that post, I found his mother on Facebook. Despite knowing full the vagaries of messaging that way, I tried sending one, with my deepest sympathies and some of my recollections of both father and son.

Just yesterday, I got a kind and appreciative reply to that message from Margie.  And then the weird stuff happened.

Today's a mostly Rochester day- the place I know that family from. I had a layover between things this afternoon, and so I volunteered to take the local office's deposits to the bank, since I had one of my own left over from yesterday to put in.  Instead of the closest M&T branch, I chose another one, for a reason that, in the end, made no sense- and yet it did.

Brett's deposit slips were all filled out, but as usual, I'd just grabbed one of my own along with the one check, and took them to the stand by the entrance to fill it out. There, under my nose, was a book of checks, lying on the counter.  In the joint first names of Howard and Marguerite- and the same, uncommon, last name as the boss I lost long ago and their son lost to us a month ago.

I'd met Howard a few times- he was the longtime D.A. in this county, and his father was Lloyd's paternal uncle- but while I vaguely remembered his wife's name, I don't think I'd ever met her.  Until today- I called out the name on the checks and their owner turned from the teller, wondering who was calling it. I handed her the checks, and then explained that I'd just been in touch with Margie in the past few days. She instantly knew why I'd been in contact with her, and the sadness came back all over again.

The odds of this happening are as infinitesmal as the real relevance in the happenstance. Yet it somehow makes me feel sadder, and yet better, at the same time.

Park. Which rhymes with Snark.

Any regular reader of this space knows that round round get around I GET AROUND.

At one time or another, I've appeared in person in more than half of the 62 counties of this state, and in "foreign" lands from Newark to Orlando to even London (the latter unadmitted to the Bar).  I've acquired an uncanny knack for finding my way to most of these venues, more or less on time, often with no idea beyond what area code the courthouse is in.  My preference is on-street parking, metered or not; public ramps, above or below ground, come in a close second; and private car parks bring up (and shove up, financially) the rear. 

Yet one, and only one, is the center of Park Snark for the entire universe, and I've no idea why.  It's a fairly new-build, inexpensive and centrally located above-ground ramp in downtown Rochester, relatively convenient to both state and federal court and other offices.  Six stories in height, with elevators at two of the diagonal corners, its informational and warning notices attract LULZ like no other structure in the universe.

Some examples from earlier visits (I now know to expect such things, and have the phone camera at the ready):

A warning from your Friendly Local Police Officer Station



And this one, in place of the usual city-required notice that "elevator inspection certificate is on file in the office"


So. Back there today, I discovered that the two lifts closest to my destination were out of service. One of them has been more or less permanently disabled for close to a year, resulting in this September snark on the outer door of that one:


Did anybody answer, that asked. By today, apparently they had, because both in that corner were now out of service with repair promised. So when I returned to my car via one of the two at the other corner, the scribes had been busy again:



Nice to have bright lights while walking the stairs. And on the tape, How about elevator replacement.

The ? is assumed on that one, I assume.

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Lest you think this-all is confined to the garage itself, behold the sight on the way over TO the far-corner lift, at the onetime Mickey D's, and for the past decades a succession of cheap Chinese restaurants at the unconstitutional corner of Church and State:



I figure "parking," "pranking" and "fracking" have an equal chance of being what they intended in this particular neighborhood.