I Level Up, Wielding "Sanicans"

OK, dear Diary,

Now maybe I get it.  I hadn't understood that our mayor's challenge was progressive.  A kind of game, if you will.

I'd meant to take yesterday off from it, just lazily use Safeway's toilet and University Village's water fountains and rest.  But I woke up with hands dirty in a way that I OCDishly handle with a really long wash that I couldn't possibly get away with at Safeway.  Luckily the restrooms at Burke-Gilman Playground Park were open.

You can see my cart in the doorway of the men's room.  (And yes, that's my umbrella cropping that photo.)

After that, though, I didn't go back to any parks the rest of the day.

Today has been ordinary too.  Again, BGPP was open:

But this time I did check Ravenna Park - and its restrooms were locked, its water fountain still not running.

So yeah, a game.  On Friday, with Ravenna Park's restrooms open, the numerous homeless people of the U-District should have intuited that they wouldn't have far to go.  Today, with it closed, the object is to get to BGPP, Magnuson or Green Lake, again without being told.  It's kind of like the no-notice sweeps that have become the norm lately:  a game of musical chairs our kind mayor casts us in for our entertainment.

But like a more modern game, our mayor's game has hidden complexities, side quests so to speak.  You'll remember, dear Diary, that I told you back in my first note that my primary concern is running water.  So I haven't said much to you about "sanicans", which feature no running water, or even "hand washing stations", which don't feature much.  But our mayor has made it very clear that her game includes "sanicans".

So I thought, when both my gut and my bladder threatened to burst last night, exactly as I'd planned, but too late for park bathrooms, that I'd failed the mayor's challenge yet again, my body insisting on untimely relief.  But two friends wanted to talk, so I didn't manage to reach Safeway until 9:50, ten minutes before closing, when my dastardly plan to use their bathroom was instantly foiled by a locked door.

I hoped to shut my body up, so dawdled awhile, but finally gave in and went to find a "sanican" the University keeps in the lower, eastern part of its campus.  But it was out of toilet paper.  Oh, what to do?

After more dawdling, I finally did Number One in that "sanican", which enabled me to hike north to Ravenna Park, which has one next to a "hand washing station".  Now, last night the Ravenna Park "sanican" was surrounded by three things one would hope never to find near one:  mud, an actual puddle, and a hose emerging from it, its other end loose on the ground, so help me God.  Today around noon, 12 hours after my adventure, the hose was gone, but you can still see the mud and the puddle:

Probably both are made by the machines that service the "sanican", not by actual spillage, but try to tell yourself that at 1 A.M.  Anyway, I was finally able to do Number Two, followed by a decidedly non-OCDish sort of hand-washing, and get on with the hike to bed.

So yeah, I thought I'd flunked, with untimely bodily urges leading me to break an actual law and enter a park after closing.  But now maybe I understand the kindness of our mayor's master plan.    The correct way to see things is that by wielding the awesome power of the "sanicans", I advanced in knowledge, and became better prepared to spend today miles from running water.  Gosh, I wonder what more sources of hidden knowledge our mayor has included in this game?  Dear Diary, I can't wait to find out!