~Wednesday~ I walked up to the bus stop at 8:19 and the bus arrived at 8:20. I love it when that happens.
When I boarded there was a city bus newbie, who was asking the bus driver at which stop he should get off in order to catch a connector to somewhere. I walked around him, and as soon as I sat down, I attempted to open the window above my seat, and it actually opened. It was perfect weather for an open window, once we were moving of course, as otherwise you know what it was like in there. I’m going to get through this post without using the “S-word.”
A man sitting in the center-facing bench in the right front of the bus had on black tennis shoes, navy blue socks, khaki shorts and a gray t-shirt. He had a bushy goatee that was wiry and could have used some trimming, or at least some combing. The part of his hair that stuck out of his ballcap in the back looked greasy, and at one point, he removed his hat, ran his hand through what heretofore had been hidden bed head, and put the cap back on.
A guy that got on at Gorman & Marcom, just walked to a seat without stopping to pay his fare. “You gotta pay your fare,” the bus driver said looking at him in the rearview mirror. The guy went up and paid his discounted fare, which I know is discounted, because he’s a regular and whenever he pays—today being no exception—a lady’s voice from the fare machine says, “Please show your ID.” On the way back to his seat, he looked at the Try Transit Week ad above a window, and mumbled, “I thought today was ‘Ride Free‘ day.”
Earlier, when the driver was giving that guy the connector information, he mentioned a “red zone,” and then before I exited, I heard someone mention a “blue zone” pertaining to the routes. I’ve been riding the city bus for over two years now, and that’s the first I’ve heard of zones.
A quick look at Moore Square Transit Station suggests that those colors correlate with loading areas at the bus station downtown, which would explain why I’m not familiar with them. I’ve only been on the bus in the downtown station once, and I actually transferred from one bus to another, so I was just looking for the route number of the bus I wanted to change to and didn’t notice the zones.
In the category of explicit affirmations, I received this one today in response to making that “donation to a worthy cause” that I alluded to in Monday’s entry:
| “Just yesterday, I received two donations, one of the small but thoughtful variety, and one that was over-the-top-never-expected-it-freakin-awesome-holy-crap-he-is-a-generous-man variety.” |
This is kind of funny and a testament to one of the very neat things about social media. So, today was the 5th anniversary of my colonoscopy. (Woohoo! I know you’re excited about that!) Of course, since I haven’t missed a day of blogging in over six years now, I blogged about it back then. And, of course, I tweeted about the event today:
To which a young lady, who lives in Canada and whom I’ve never met, but have communicated with (via LiveJournal comments and Twitter) over several years now, tweeted in response:
and
In case you didn’t click on that first tweet to see the blog entry for that day, I of course, posted the results of my colonoscopy, which is to what @howstarscollide is referring:
Thank you for your continued reading over the years, my young friend!
This “booted” car was parked right across from the bus stop, where I waited for the 6:00 bus home, which didn’t come until 6:20, which was way late.
I walked into Bob’s a few minutes after 7:00 for his 7:00 Tupperware Party. When he introduced me to the others already there, I said, “Hi, I’m John Martin. I’m 52 years old, and I’ve never been to a Tupperware Party.” For a slight second I felt like I was at a 12-step Plastics Anonymous meeting anticipating a booming, “Hello, John!”
I had no idea there were “games” involved with Tupperware parties. I thought someone would just have the stuff set up on a table, you could walk by and pick up anything you wanted, pay for it, and leave. The Tupperware rep asked a round of questions, for which you could earn a $1000 bill of play money for each correct answer, and the questions were things like, “What was Earl Tupper’s middle name?” First of all, I didn’t even know that the Tupper part of Tupperware was someone’s name, although I guess I should have. And someone in the crowd actually knew that his middle name was Silas.
At the end of the questions, there was an “auction” of various Tupperware pieces that you could buy with what you had earned, and I bid this little salt and pepper shaker up to $8,000, which was all I’d earned answering the few questions I could, and the group (which was quite large—13 or so) was kind enough to not raise the bid to $9,000 and close me out. There was, what felt like, thunderous applause when the rep announced that I’d won.
At one point, while describing the new pieces, and demonstrating how some of them work, the rep asked, “Who cooks in the microwave?” I proudly raised my hand, but if it had been one of those situations in which you keep your hand up as long as something’s true, within in a minute I would have started to clandestinely slide it down. Sort of like when you’re traveling and go line-dancing and run out to the dance floor because they’re doing a dance you know, and about 6 steps into it, you realize they do a totally different version of it where you are and you have no idea what you’re doing, slithering off the dance floor. But I digress…
When the rep asked who cooks in the microwave, she actually meant cooks your own meals in the microwave. I “cook” Lean Cuisines and Smart Ones in my microwave, and I melt cheese sometimes, and I heat up my syrup to pour on my waffles that pop out of a toaster. And I had actually earned a $1000 bill for answering yes to that cooking in the microwave question. In retrospect, it seems like it was “dirty” money.
My favorite part of the party was the introductions, where the Tupperware rep asked each of us to say a nice thing about the party host, Bob. I said, “I like Bob, because he reads my blog,” and in retrospect I wish I hadn’t made it about me. There was a collective gasp from the group when Bob’s aunt sister said, “I’ve known Bob for all [bleeped out] years of his life,” unbeknownst to her that his age had been a closely guarded secret for years from everyone else in the room. People had such nice things to say about Bob, who I’ve only recently met, really, so it was cool to learn more about him in such a nice way. I also adored his two dogs—Frances and Vincent.
Line-dancing was horrible tonight. The only dancers beside myself were: Carl, Bill, Joe, and Phil. There was virtually no crowd. It all broke up by 10:30.