~Friday~ I waited on the opposite side of the street of the bus stop, since it’s starting to warm up in the morning, and it’s shady on that side of the street. I was caught up in Facebook on my BlackBerry when the bus appeared at the intersection, and I scooted across the street.
At the stop at the intersection of Gorman and Conifer, a man got on carrying a baby over his shoulder—well, with its body on his chest and its head up on his shoulder—and the distinct smell of incense wafted in his wake.
At the next stop, there is always a Hispanic man with his little girl who is waiting for her school bus, and today I thought about two very different ways people might perceive him: “Shouldn’t he be working??” or “What a devoted father!”
And that made me think of one of the songs from Wicked that I really like, and which is so true:
We call it – “history.” (sung) A man’s called a traitor – or liberator |
After passing the stop at the McKimmon Center, a white guy came up from the back of the bus, and said to the driver, “I missed that last stop, could you just let me off here?”
“I can’t let you off between stops, sir. I’m sorry. I can let you off just across Western right there at the next stop.”
He took a seat in front of me and reached under his mirrored glasses and rubbed his eyes. I imagined that he’d fallen asleep back there and missed his stop. Being able to sleep: the beauty, and at times, evidently, the beast of taking public transportation.
I had a meeting with my manager late morning, which was just the official delivery, and signing, of my annual contribution assessment, which I mentioned in an earlier entry this week was most affirming.
I met Brad, Anna, Sarah, and Jonah at Cup A Joe Mission Valley for lunch. Jonah had made a card for me, and Sarah noted that he was so excited when he was addressing the cards to find out that the spelling of my name is so close to his. Adorable.
Anna had made muffins (gluten-free spice ones), and she had a little three-pack of them for me all wrapped up:
Brad brought a book with him called, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms that, as you might imagine, made all of us virtually squeal.
No I haven’t switched teams, and that’s not a … Don’t be so
This evening, I met Sarah downtown, where we parked at Flex, walked down to The Borough and from there caught The R Line over to the Convention Center stop. In front of us as we exited was the new Raleigh Amphitheater, which has yet to be officially named due to the controversy over naming it after a sponsor who’s undoubtedly made a huge contribution to its existence, Bud Light.
We were going to enter the amphitheater, since it was free admission tonight, but they wanted me to throw my umbrella into a huge pile of them on the ground under a table, where I could retrieve it on my way out. Uh… No.
We walked around to find something to eat, but after making it all the way around downtown and back to City Market and not really seeing anything that captivated us, we took The R Line over to Glenwood South and ate at The Diner. I left my credit card there, but would not discover that until later.
We met Joe and two straight couples who were with him over at The Borough. The girl of one of the couple works with him and the other couple was a friend of hers and her husband. Sarah and I used our keen Myers-Briggs “J” personality proclivity to come to a quick decision about the girl of the other couple. We love us.
The girl who works with Joe I really liked, although being over-served eventually resulted in things being over-shared. On her part, not mine, actually. Surprise. Surprise.
Phil joined us, and it was incredibly hard to talk in there due to how loud it was. Also, there was all kinds of drama about starting a tab and then moving away from the bar—closing out one tab to start another, or alternately having two open at the same time… blah, blah, blah. I hope that process helps the people who work there, because it sure doesn’t enhance the customer experience.
At a little after 11:00—just after Rigo was spotted meandering around and I just assumed he was looking for Anna, or some other emotional attention this evening—I walked Sarah back to her car over at Flex.