~Friday~ Stagnant Driver pulled up in her 40-foot mobile oven this morning, and left it on bake my entire trip, searing her buscapade character name into time immemorial. What is wrong with her? I wish she were menopausal, although she doesn’t appear to be any where near old enough to be.
It didn’t occur to me until she got off the bus several stops later, but a most definite afternoon buscapade character, Temporary Alice, was aboard the bus this morning. You might recall that she is Temporary Alice, because her work badge, which she proudly displays about her person, has a big ole red “TEMPORARY” stamp across it. She’s also the mother of Word Search Lady, who for the longest time I thought was her sister instead of her daughter.
Three Hispanic woman sat in the front of the bus, each in their own seat in a sort of triangle. Using the image below as a visual guide, the Hispanic ladies sat at the points, with a white lady between the two on the left, and a black lady between the two on the right.
The three Hispanic women spoke in Spanish to each other and around the other two ladies. At times both the white and the black ladies’ heads looked like they might be watching a tennis match between Mary Joe Fernandez and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario.
Li’l Dino boarded at her usual stop, sans daughter today, and she took the seat behind me. I was looking at my CrackBerry screen when she passed by me so we didn’t say hello. However, shortly after she sat down, she tapped me on the same shoulder as the lady at the gym did the other day, only she said, “Good morning,” instead of, “Drop this shoulder.”
As I walked to my building after disembarking the bus, I heard the siren of a fire engine, and as it came into view, it occurred to me that although the renovation to Hillsborough Street that’s added a nice wide median in the middle of the road is fantastic for pedestrians crossing the street, it definitely can impede a 60- to 80-foot emergency vehicle getting to its destination.
It had to go past its destination, and then try to do a U-turn that would be challenging for a car, let alone a fire engine, and then head back a ways to its final destination. A fire could really spread, or someone could die, in that amount of time in a dire emergency.
I met Sarah and Anna at Cup A Joe Mission Valley for Friday Kaffee Klatch, where both Brad—and Roger—were a no-show. It seems like forever since I’ve seen Sarah, and I got a nice big smile and hug from her.
As usual, we had good conversation with a nice mix of personal stuff, as well as some intellectual discussion about Twitter, in particular as it relates to backchanneling at conferences and its potentially exaggerated value as a business tool.
I’d organized, or tried to, a service event for the people who work for my second-level boss, but it was pretty much a bust. We were to meet over between the gym and the student center to help unload supplies and set up for the big Stop Hunger Now Service NC State event that will go on tomorrow.
Only five people accepted the invitation to participate, and two had dropped out by 3:00. And when I left the office to head over there, one of the other people who had accepted the invitation was still working with no obvious “winding it up” going on. We were supposed to help from 3:00-6:00, and by 3:30 it still hadn’t started. Tons of students were standing around in the heat and humidity waiting for the first truck to show up from which to start unloading.
It pulled up and a line of volunteers to help unload it formed that was so long that the truck was empty before even half of the line had participated. The next truck hadn’t pulled up yet, I didn’t see any of the other people who had accepted the invitation, and at that point, I just headed home to work the rest of my shift from home.
Joe C. checked in at about 8:10, and we agreed to meet over at The Borough at 10:00, where and when I’d also told Phil and Joe T. I’d see them. When we arrived, they were sitting at a table with three friends, and Joe C. and I took stools at the bar. We had three drinks there and left shortly after getting to enjoy the biggest “showing your ass” that I’ve witnessed in a long time.
Some, presumably drunk, boy—who had actually been sitting with an overly-thin young girl who was crying—at the table that Joe and Phil and his friends vacated, was closing out his tab at the bar and started SCREAMING at the bartender, “NO, I’M NOT INCLUDING A FUCKING TIP ON THE BILL…” and continued loud and long enough to garner the attention of a wide circle around him, and for Liz, the bar owner/manager, to come take him by the arm and escort him outside.
Flex was an absolute tragedy when the four of us got over there and about doubled the size of “the crowd.” Joe and Phil didn’t stay long at all, and we left shortly after them, making our way over to Shanghai Express, where I ordered Sesame Chicken made spicy and “hold the moth.”