~Thursday~ A deputy sheriff was in the ‘hood this morning when I headed out to the bus stop. It stopped right in front of my house and I saw him walking with some papers in his hand toward the townhouse across from mine. You know I stretched my neck as far as it would stretch without popping—to note exactly which door he went to. Yenta!
I was a bag lady going into work today, with my laptop bag on my right shoulder, my soft-sided briefcase (porting both my breakfast and lunch, among other things) on my left shoulder, and carrying a grocery bag containing the leftover dozen of those two dozen cupcakes I brought to dancing last night.
At the bus stop, I checked The Weather Channel app on my BlackBerry, and before it showed me the current stats, a big red warning message came up that said, “Increased fire danger across North Carolina today.”
I was on the 7:45 bus this morning, and at the Burt and Gorman stop, as usual, Li’l Dino and Pack Backer boarded. As we pulled up to the stop, Pack Backer took two long drags off her cigarette, and tossed it, still burning, out into the dry grass. Increased fire danger on Gorman Street today.
At the McKimmon Center stop, that man I mentioned a while back now—the one with enough junk in his trunk to start a pawn shop, stood in profile in front of the fare machine trying at least six times to get the machine to take his two one-dollar bills. He was with a lady with a head scarf on, and I started sweating just looking at her. As soon as she sat down, she reached up to open a window, but it wouldn’t budge.
A lady’s voice comes over the intercom, every day, once in each direction during the time that I’m on the bus. On the way into work, on the inbound route, she says, “Now approaching Gorman and Hillsborough Street.” On the way home, on the outbound route, as we pass Meredith College and approach the turn onto Beryl Road, she says, “Now approaching Beryl Road. Remember, there’s no eating, drinking, or smoking on the CAT bus,” which is then repeated in Spanish. The message on the inbound route is not repeated in Spanish.
My question is, “Why?!?” You might think this would be for sight-impaired riders, but if it is, why only those two stops? And if it isn’t for them, I repeat, then why only those two stops!?! And why the translation into Spanish only at the Beryl Road stop? The only thing special about the Beryl Road stop is that it’s where the bus “starts over,” if you will. Where the electronic sign changes from “Outbound” to “Inbound.” I wonder if an announcement is made as it approaches the bus station at the other end of the route. Even if it’s played at the beginning and end of the route, still, why then in the middle of the inbound route at Gorman and Hillsborough, and only on the inbound. Inquiring minds want to know.
While walking from where I departed the bus to my work building, I passed a dime laying in the middle of the sidewalk. If I wasn’t so burdened down with baggage, I probably would have bent over to pick it up. Well, if I hadn’t been burdened down and there wasn’t that person following me so closely.
I had three rapidly successive thoughts about dimes, the first stemming from my awareness of how close the person behind me was to me:
- Stopping on a dime
- A dime a dozen
- When all you got is one thin dime, and one thin dime won’t even shine your shoes
We had our monthly staff meeting at my boss’s boss’s level, and one of the agenda items was Space Planning. After we talked about the movement of staff between various buildings and offices, my boss’s boss had just started on the next agenda item, when I interrupted him to say, “Stan? Just one more thing on the previous item?”
“Yes, what’s that?” he asked.
“So, there’s no plan for Pluto to make a comeback or anything like… Oh nevermind. It’s not that kind of space planning is it?”
There were collective groans all around the room, and I later tweeted this about the incident:
I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon with my boss going over a survey that I’m going to fill out for our organization, as this is one of the things she usually does, but since she’s retiring on the 30th…
This evening, I attended an Information Session about the Alternative Service Break program at NC State. This is something they recommended at Tuesday’s meeting, that the advisors check out one of the meetings just to see what kind of information the students get when thinking about applying for the program.
It was interesting enough, and I re-met the student leader for our trip, so that was good. She’s excited about our service being closer to New Orleans this time, as last year’s trip was in Thibodaux, which was an hour or so away from the city.
Also, exciting is that this year’s trip falls over Mardi Gras! That’s the good news; the bad news is that this is an alcohol-free trip!
I fought a nap all night long, and arrived at Flex for Trailer Park Prize Night at about 11:15. Alex’s sister was in town, and she was a pleasure to meet. Joe and Phil were there, too, and I spent some time talking to all four of them and Alex’s Steve.
Funny, I was just thinking about Juan and Todd a couple of days ago, and how long it’s been since I’ve seen either of them out since they broke up, and a little bit later, Juan walked by and said hello in passing. It looked like he was on a date.
I left there at about 1:00.