I love the days when nothing really happens. No urgent phone calls. No work so pressing that it can't wait a little longer. Just a wandering day in the neighborhood when all the details seem special: three baking sheets of roasted cactus still steaming at Austin Cantina, people lounging in the outdoor living room of the library entrance watching every passerby admire the St. Bernard dog resting his head on bear-sized paws.

It's lunch break and the construction crew on Northwest 59th is scrimmaging in the street with a soccer ball; kicking up dirt and sawdust. On Northwest 24th the equipment is unmanned at the construction sites but men in orange vests and hard hats are visible through the shop windows, a coffee here, a bowl of chili there, others are walking off with bulky coolers. No flagger, no off-duty police officer in front of the QFC site, just a gauntlet of closed sidewalks.

Mothers and babies fill the comfy chairs in the Ballard Community Center while little girls in leotards do Creative Movement on the other side of the double doors. Four distinctively yellow delivery trucks are parked outside for the third Thursday in a row, but the picnic table is empty. Sometimes letter carriers meet for lunch at the Community Center, parking their vans to eat together outside. But there's no sign of men or women in brown, blue or maroon. I follow the sound of basketball thumps to the gym. At the far end four men are playing two against two, in t-shirts and long shorts. Four express delivery drivers who meet at lunch break one day a week. "Thursday is the lightest day," one explains, wiping his forehead. "They won't run around Greenlake with me," said a second driver, "but this is pretty good exercise."

Before they started convening on the Community Center on Thursdays they used to "eat a big meal and want to nap all afternoon." As though on silent alarm at the hour they check cell phones and pack their gym bags, bypassing the showers to change in their delivery trucks. None of them live in Ballard; not even in Seattle, but the gym used to be on one driver's route and he learned it was open for use. "And it's free," he said.

It's not everywhere that you can park four large trucks to meet for lunch.

The sun is directly overhead by the time I reach the library towards the end of lunch hour. An enormous dog is stretching himself into a skinny shadow to escape the sun. I approach the dog with my camera. Jeff Cooperman is taking a break sitting in the sun on one of the metal chairs outside the library entrance. "Everybody has to photograph that dog," he called out to me.

It's so pleasant outside, my library returns can wait. I sit on the warm concrete next to Jeff watching people come and go, dropping off books, paying for parking, stepping out of the library for a cigarette. We look up at the roof, watch strangers admire the dog and talk about neighborhoods. Originally from the East Coast, by way of Texas and Japan, he moved to Seattle to attend Bastyr University in Kenmore, but was drawn west to the neighborhoods of Seattle. We talk about growth and transportation; he sells electric scooters and does acupuncture. He said he'd just been thinking about Ballard's growth and wondering what he'd do if he were a developer. "Would I try to do something sustainable or would I be saying take the money, Jeff. Go to Fiji."

He sees Seattle without a sense of history, just appreciation for its present. He loves the Olympic Sculpture Park and the Lake Union Streetcar. "It's cool," he said. "I like its colors." I tell him about the trolleys that used to run on the waterfront, until they lost their trolley barn. "Like San Francisco?" he asks, "really?" No cables I tell him, but brass fixtures and bells that clanged.

"Now you've got me feeling forlorn for something I've never even known," he said.

Earlier Jef/ Birkner at Austin Cantina had told me about a customer who cried over his banana cream pudding because it tasted just like her mother made before Alzheimer's. That story made me miss the way my grandfather sugared still warm strawberries to bring out the juice and how we ate them with warm shortcake and freshly whipped cream. I wanted to share with this stranger Jeff my forlorn feeling because it was the first May Day in 20 years without flowers on the doorstep, no children working together in my house to fill baskets, no knocks on the door.

"Trolleys," he said again, as though trying to picture them. I could have told him how about trolley lines were once all over the city but I didn't want him to cry. The dog looked sad enough. Lunch break was almost over but the sun was still shining, there were books to return, girls in leotards dancing their way home, houses to frame, deliveries to be completed - still so many hours of daylight. So much potential left in the day. After all if someone can feel forlorn for something they've never even known can't we all experience joy in something we've never seen?

Peggy can be reached atlargeinballard@yahoo.com. She writes additional pieces at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard.