The bums who love me

I spend a lot of time in the city and something rather amusing has happened.
I've made friends with the local street urchins.
Yes, those lovable, grumbling, sometimes shouting profanities homeless men of Portland who used to make me want to cross the street just to avoid possible eye contact.

Pretty ladies can sometimes earn unwanted attention.

Once someone got way too close for comfort wondering where I was going, sweetie, and followed me several blocks late at night.
My only way of handling the frightening situation was to nearly scream, YOU LOOK JUST LIKE THE ARTFUL DODGER! HAVE YOU SEEN THAT MOVIE?? WHERE'S YOUR FRIEND, OLIVER??
Needless to say my queer outburst stunned him long enough to redirect any unseemly behavior and I managed to get inside Guy's building with a CHEERIO, GOOD CHAP! and scurried away from the possible rapist with my heart beating double time and me wondering why the hell the first thing that came to my mind was a 70's musical.

I am a weird girl.

But that was months ago.
Since then, my interaction with creepy men on the street has turned into a Disney movie.
Like the opening to "Beauty and the Beast" where the townspeople are all wishing Belle a Bon Jour! the bums of Portland greet me each morning with similar songs of praise.
Good morning, beautiful.
Look at that red hair! You have beautiful red hair.
You look like a picture out of a book. You're so pretty.
Happy holidays, darling. Don't lose that smile! Love the glasses!

It's like, they all suddenly became extra grandpa's and uncles making my day brighter.

There's this area in NW near one of the shelters where I always park if there's no other spots available for blocks.
There are always spots available there because it's in front of this overhang where a lot of homeless men sleep.
And without a doubt, most people subscribe to the similar kinds of fears I once did about getting too close to the bums.
And it doesn't make us judgmental haters, there are some homeless people that can be downright mean when you don't hand over your "spare change."
And I'm not gonna lie, the ones screaming incoherent strings of sentences like some actor with turrets in a Pinter play can be downright scary.

But I'm glad that I have discovered a little hamlet of friendly street wanderers who look forward to our morning paths aligning as surely as I do.

Even when I've got no makeup on and I'm simply filling the meter, they always have something appreciative to say.

I gotta start baking them cookies or something.