KEY POINTS:
I thought I'd been handling the disappearance of my man in the park quite well. He'd been gone for about three weeks, absent at about the same time they dragged a homeless man of his description from the harbour.
I had no idea if this man was my man because I've never asked "my man in the park" his name. Mostly we just wave at each other as I jog by for the third time that morning.
But occasionally, when he's done a very good impression of being stone-cold dead the day before, I've been so relieved to see him alive and attempting to sit up straight that I've been forced to stop and have a chat.
"You okay?"
"Can't complain."
"It's awfully cold."
"Been here three winters, and I'll be here another three."
"Need anything? Blankets, food?"
"Tobacco."
"Right you are."
That night there was much discussion around the dinner table about what type of tobacco one buys a homeless person. Filters or rollies? Can he roll with those swollen fingers? Would he have matches? We finally settled on a pouch of Park Drive, if for no other reason than the symbolism of the word "park", and some papers and matches to go with it.
Meanwhile, my 10-year-old had been busying herself assembling some scroggin for "your man in the park", complete with an ingredients list "in case he has allergies".
My man in the park smiled so hard you would have been forgiven for thinking I was Santa Claus, Mother Theresa and the Angel of Mercy all wrapped into one.
"I've got everything I need here except tobacco, thank you so much," said my man in the park with an enthusiasm usually only found in the well-fed and the warm.
Mostly he gets left alone down in the park, apart from the various locals who check up on him, stop by for a chat in the sun and bring him supplies.
But lately, Grey Lynn has had the dubious pleasure of welcoming new residents who paid a million for their houses and expect their local park to resemble a manicured lawn rather than the living, breathing community space it has always been.
Just up the road a group of them managed to get the cat lady arrested simply because she's a bit eccentric, likes to wear an oxygen mask and yell "Puss, puss!" a lot in her effort to feed the local strays.
She was charged with disorderly behaviour, this for something she has been doing for seven years without event.
I'm not mad on cat lady myself. She once chased me and my dog down the road for no apparent reason, but she's part of my neighbourhood. What a dull life it would be if everyone who lived in Grey Lynn restructured their period houses to remove all character and build a monument to bland.
If we were all prone to geometric gardens of stone and yucca. If we all expected each other to conform to a code of behaviour one presumably inherits when one "upgrades" to the inner city.
My man in the park has himself been moved on from various haunts around the neighbourhood, one being a bus shelter, which served the purpose of letting me know he was still alive given that he always looked like he was in an irretrievable coma when he was stretched out in it.
"The cops said people couldn't use the shelter because I was in it," he grumbled.
"Well, it has been wet," I reasoned.
"Plenty of room for everyone. I'm not going to do nobody any harm."
So when he went missing I initially thought he was the man in the harbour, until the paper published a picture that looked nothing like him.
Then I thought it was the New Grey Lynners taking the law into their own hands and moving on the homeless at night while carrying flaming crosses.
And then there he was. Sitting in the weak rays of winter sun as if he'd never left, winning the battle with gravity to remain upright. I ran straight over to him.
"Where have you been?!" I demanded in my upset mother voice. "I've been so worried."
"I have absolutely no idea," was all he had to say for himself.
