Bass too busy to testify on homelessness, not too busy to ease a street-vending crackdown

…(cont) So I went and found the piece — New York Post, this morning's paper, still on the porch where the dog left tooth marks in it — and I read it twice, standing there in my one raincoat because it was doing that thing where it can't decide if it's going to rain. "Karen Bass has told a powerful congressional panel that she can't testify next week about homelessness failures in her city, because, well, she's busy." That's the sentence. I copied it into the notebook so I wouldn't lose it, though where the notebook's gotten to right now is anybody's guess.

Here's what I keep circling back to, and Danny, forgive me, I know you already explained this part twice. A calendar only has so many boxes in it. Somebody fills them in, one at a time, and whatever doesn't fit, doesn't fit. That's not an accusation. That's just how a Tuesday works. I've got a car in the garage that needs a fan belt and I keep telling myself Saturday, Saturday, and then Saturday comes and I'm at the toll plaza instead because my brother-in-law needed a ride. Nobody made me choose the toll plaza. I just did.

So the question I had for Danny — and he's the one in school, not me, so correct me — is whether a person can be too busy for one thing on the calendar and not too busy for a different thing on the calendar, in the same stretch of days. He said sure, happens constantly, that's what a calendar is. Fine. I'm not arguing with the law student.

Except then I went back to the morgue — that's what we call the old clippings, Danny, not a real morgue, don't put that in a paper — and found something from August 28th. New York Times. Same mayor. A street vending crackdown in her city had been getting some pushback, and she eased it, personally, after a debate, and in the piece she's quoted saying the food vendors discourage restaurant patrons, and she says it right alongside homeless encampments, like the two belong in the same sentence. Her opponent in that race, a woman named Nithya Raman, said the vendors ought to be brought into the system instead of pushed out of it.

I read that one to Danny too. He got quiet.

Because here's my trouble, and it's a small one, and maybe it's nothing. The hearing she's too busy for is about homelessness. The crackdown she found time to ease also got explained, by her, using the word "homeless." Same subject. Different rooms.

I don't know what's on a mayor's calendar. I've never seen it. Neither has Danny, and he's the one with the casebook.

Excuse me — before you go — one more thing, if you don't mind, because Danny asked me this and I didn't have an answer. If a person has time to personally revisit a policy on street vendors, on the record, in a newspaper, does "too busy" mean the calendar was full, or that it was arranged?