bus Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Ramblin' with Roger

L is for Lanes of Traffic

“When there’s no bike lane, you’re supposed to ride on the sidewalk.”

1. In July, traveling north on that stretch of Interstate 90 in New York between the Pennsylvania border and Buffalo, closer to the former, there are four lanes of traffic, two in each direction.

The Wife is driving and is in the right lane. Another car is in the left lane, slowly passing us. Suddenly, a motorcycle darts between us! Another motorcycle is already ahead of the other car.

Then the motorcycles, in turn, proceed to drive between not one, not two, but FOUR pairs of cars, in about three minutes. I was happy no one got hurt.

2. I am riding my bicycle down my street. I am as far right as I can be, given the fact there is a string of parked cars. I can sense that there’s a car that wants to pass me, but there’s oncoming traffic, and this is not an option.

We catch a red light, and we both stop. I can pull to the right because there’s no car that close to the intersection.

The driver says, “There’s no bike lane.”

“OK”

“When there’s no bike lane, you’re supposed to ride on the sidewalk.”

“NO, sir!”

“That’s the law.”

“You are INCORRECT, sir. Check your drivers’ manual. There’s a section on bicycles in there.”

Seriously, I used to carry around the booklet from DMV for such interactions. In my state, it is ILLEGAL for me to ride on the sidewalk, unless I’m under 14. (Note: I’m not.)

Apparently, this is a problem elsewhere.

3. Still, I LOVE riding my bicycle in the city, because I often find change on the ground, where the driver’s side door might be. I’ll stop for even a nickel, but not for a penny. Though if I stop for a mixture of coins – it has happened – I’ll get the pennies as well.

4. August: I was waiting for a bus, when a young man, probably in his twenties, asked me if I could “spare some change” so he could ride the bus. I told him that I could “spare a 50-cent change card” that I happen to have. (The fare is $1.50, and if I put in two $1 bills, I get the change card.)

His eyes narrowed as he said, teeth clenched, “Have a nice day.” I don’t think he was being sincere.
***
Now I Know: Slow and Steady Wins the Lottery

The Calculus of Bad Driving

ABC Wednesday – Round 19

Once, and other thoughts

ROGER will provide.

The musical Once was playing at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady in May. The Wife and I got into our seats about 20 minutes before the 7:30 opening. Already there were a bunch of people, some singing and playing instruments, but others just milling around.

We ascertained from another patron that the audience members could go up on stage and hang out or even buy a drink at the bar. Why we didn’t I’m not sure, other than the desire not to climb over people to get in and out of our seats. But it was very cool to watch.

Then the audience members leave the stage, but the music continues. One man sings a solo. The house lights are still on. Then Guy (that’s the name of one of the characters) sings the first song from the show as the house lights begin to dim but not so much because Girl (the other main character) has to walk down one of the aisles to walk up the steps to the front of the stage.

I saw the movie Once, and I recall enjoying it. This iteration is somewhat funnier, especially the banter between Girl and Guy early on. All the other musicians stay on stage, taking on various roles, moving sets, and singing. The large mirror on the set was used to great effect.

It was such a wonderfully organic production that I may have failed to mention that it was very good. A review.

Bus hallelujah

I was riding the bus to work; the weather was messy. A guy gets on the bus, known to some of the other patrons, but not by me. He said he had lent his wife his bus pass. I used my 10-ride card to pay for his ride. Immediately, two or three of these women went “God is good!” and “God will provide.”

(When I told the story to a colleague, he said, “ROGER will provide.” I laughed.)

Later on the trip, after the man had departed, these good women were trash-talking about someone, not on the bus, with at least one of them using all sorts of four-letter words to describe the woman in question. It was quite surreal.

Hillary can’t be President

Apparently, there are people out there who believe that a woman cannot legally be President of the United States. This is because Article II of the U.S. Constitution begins: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected…”

I’d ignore this as linguistic silliness, except after the birther attacks on Barack Obama, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone decided to make a legal case on this issue, as, in fact, someone tried and failed to do in 2008, the last time the former Secretary of State ran for POTUS.

One fellow has been badgering a local journalist about this topic, publicly on Facebook, concerned and frustrated that the mainstream media is ignoring this “important” issue.

And

*When my family rode our bikes home from the Pinksterfest on May 7, even as cars were stuck in gridlock, one of my church friends accused us of “gloating.” Untrue at the time. But after getting that reaction…

*When signaling about a potential poker game by email, someone wrote: “There will be lectures from Dr. Card on ‘Probability Theory and its Effect on Personal Finances and the Preservation of Quality of Life.'”

*Prince’s “Nothing Compares With You” was on the May 5 episode of the TV show Grey Anatomy, which I thought was amazingly quick, given the fact that he died on April 21. I imagine something was booted.

Drama: waiting for the bus

At that point, I’d stopped thinking about her until she rapped on the glass of her porch.

1) This happened a few months ago: Getting out of church, I had just missed the previous bus home by seconds, and I had a 20-minute wait, so I sat to read a newspaper in the bus kiosk. There’s a young woman sitting nearby, 20ish, reasonably attractive, and either Hispanic, light-skinned black or maybe Italian.

This young white guy comes over to her, detailing some mournful story of woe, noting how he “needed” someone to talk with. “Could I talk with you?”

“My boyfriend wouldn’t like that.” “We’d just be talking.” But she shut him down, harshly, and he walked to the other end of the kiosk.

Then the boyfriend arrives, and she tells him, in great deal, what had just transpired. Pointing to the guy, “You mean that white n***** over there?”

After she confirms, he goes at it verbally with the other guy, whose apology goes unheeded, until his bus finally arrives.

Wow. An unnecessary escalation of the situation, AND a totally different understanding of the N-word from mine.

2) This happened a couple of weeks ago.

Going to work, I rode my bike from my house to a place I catch a bus. As I approach the stop, I see a bus go by. Is it my bus to Corporate Woods, or the other bus that goes in a different direction?

My ride leaves downtown at 8:03, but takes a few minutes to get to where I am. I ride onto the sidewalk and straddle my bike while getting my cellphone from my backpack. It’s off – it’s almost always off unless I’m using it – so it takes a few seconds to warm up.

The woman from the doorway of the front enclosed porch, who is black, yells to me, “Get off my sidewalk with that bike.” “I’m just checking the time.” “Get that bike off my walk, b****!” I repeat my response, but she escalates hers.

So now I know I haven’t missed the bus – it’s only 8:05, so I get off my bike and start walking, maybe 0.3 mph, to just past the property line, where the bus stop is, and I stop and wait, while she’s busy screaming at her two kids, a girl maybe 10 and a boy perhaps seven.

At that point, I’d stopped thinking about her until she rapped on the glass of her porch and gave me the middle finger salute, which I ignored, as my bus pulled up. She watched me as I put my bike on the bus before it took off.

I’d been to the stop before and never encountered that person. I went back the next day but didn’t see her. Did she even live there, or was she some crazy relative who was just visiting?

Was she really upset that I had the bike nowhere near either the walkway or the driveway, or was something else was afoot? Maybe she thought I was a drug dealer (the gray-haired guy on a bike) or she didn’t like my red and white striped shirt, which looks pink at a distance. I’m just spitballing.

Strange ride on the CDTA 905

She sat on an aisle seat, on the left side, and started leaned so far to her right, I thought she’d surely fall over.

In mid-January, it’s the Thursday afternoon matinee of the play War Horse I need to get to at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady. I hop on the 905, that limited-stop red Bus Plus, at Washington and Lark in Albany at 11:39 a.m., right on time, and it should get me around Nott Terrace at 12:24, more than an hour before the play.

It would have except for that young woman. I had a difficult time gauging her age, though in the 18 to 25 range was most likely. She was sitting in the first set of seats. Well, sitting might have been overstating it, for she was slouching lower and lower, and I thought her head would hit the ground. As it was, she knocked over a large cup of milk from Stewart’s that spread back three rows of seats.

I moved across from her and she woke up to say she was fine. But this conversation must have triggered, for he stopped the bus a short time later (at the WAMC stop).

Driver: I didn’t let you on to throw your drink all over the floor.
Young Woman: I didn’t THROW it, it spilled.
D: And you’ve done this before.
YW: So why did you let me on the bus?

It went on like that, with a couple of passengers pleading with the driver to get going before he ordered her to sit further back on the bus. He probably figured she’d rest in some window seat. Instead, she sat on an aisle seat, on the left side, and started leaned so far to her right, I thought she’d surely fall over. Instead, she’d regained awareness.

Some guy who was sitting in front of her was going to take her picture, I suspect to verify her condition. She was aware enough of him, though, to suggest that if he did take her picture, she would report him as a “sex pervert.”

She’d nod off, leaning, and dropped her phone or another device twice onto the floor. Then she’d be lucid enough to engage in pleasant banter with the folks in the back of the bus. Then she’d zone out and dropped her wallet twice, the second time, with her cards falling out. She bent over and was fodder for much laughter. I don’t know if she realized they were laughing AT her rather than WITH her.

At some point, a guy got off the bus, but before he left, leaned over her slumped body, then left. A minute or two later, she says she had been robbed. She may well have, but I was too far up front to tell for sure.

The driver stopped the bus across from the McDonald’s on State Street in Schenectady, calls his dispatcher, and we wait, much to the furor of more than a few riders. Then she says that she WASN’T robbed, at which point I swear there were those who seemed ready to do the young woman bodily harm. Several riders plead with the driver to go. She leaves the bus and goes to the Mickey D’s, with the riders more impatient by the minute. Then she comes back because she had left a large bag by her original seat on the bus.

By this point, the police fortunately arrive, we’re allowed to go, and I’m only 15 minutes late.

Was the young woman on drugs, prescription or otherwise? Did she have narcolepsy? I don’t know. Nor do I know whether a guy who said he was going to post a video of her on Facebook actually did, but he, who was sitting behind her, did record her for several minutes.

Talk about a long, strange trip…

The days of whine and hosers

This will be a breakfast blog* post, just for my friend Dan:

30 December 2013: Took the bus to work early so that I could get my monthly allergy shot and not miss much work. There was a woman on the bus who was complaining about everything, sitting near the front of the bus. She was fairly loud, and about every fifth word was a vulgarity, no exaggeration. Worse, there were two or three women in that section who were listening to every perceived slight or projected hassle with rapt attention. After I got off the bus, I was SO relieved. My working theory is that some people LIKE to listen to others complain – I suspect they also watch those argument-driven reality shows such as The Real Housewives of Peoria, or wherever – but I found her exhausting.

31 December 2013: We went an hour southwest to Oneonta, NY. Two years ago, for First Night, it was about 50F (10C) at 5 pm. Last year, it was 34F (1C). This time, it was 14F (-10C).

First, we went to the new home of my parents-in-law. I mean, it’s new to them, and it’s nice, though they are still in the midst of unpacking. Sometime after I got there, I tried to post my blog post on ABC Wednesday, but I couldn’t GET to my blog. But I didn’t have time to investigate.

The trip to the motel was an adventure, with this sudden snow squall popping up. Do you know how there’s a covering at motel entrances? We were getting pelted by snow and wind WHILE WE WERE UNDER THE COVERING. It probably looked cool to watch, if one weren’t IN it.

Finally, after the wife and I got to the motel, I called the blog service provider. The blog problem wasn’t on his end; it was the dumb blogger who failed to update the Akismet, and my blog was under attack from Chinese spam. 20 minutes later, it was all fixed. Thanks, Shawn, and sorry!

That evening, went to venues with The Daughter, while The Wife went with her mother, and her father was off on his own. Among the acts were these Indonesian dancers, a woman and two children, whose music was not loud enough in the large room, AND who competing with the fire eaters just outside.

There were also belly dancers, and I was impressed, not only by their skills, but by the fact they didn’t have perfect bodies but put themselves out there; only one you would call slim. One of the young woman in particular, who my wife had seen months earlier, had particular confidence and charm. If there were snarky remarks, I didn’t hear them.

1 January 2014 (very early): The Wife and I stayed at a hotel, went to sleep c. 11 pm. Around 4:30 a.m., some folks were pounding on a door down the hall, complaining in a too loud voice about the fact that they had been locked out of the room. This went on for at least ten minutes.

Then it came to me: the absolute perfect putdown for these clowns. “You know that resolution you made not to be an a**hole this year? Well youve already broken it!” These things NEVER come to me in the moment.

But then I thought, in my foggy, exhausted haze, “Do I want the very first thing I say in the new year to be cursing out some strangers?” Instead, I opened the door, and said, in the most polite voice I could muster, “Hey, there are people trying to sleep here!” The crew mumbled some apologies, and eventually, we went back to sleep.

2 January 2014: Back in Albany a day early in anticipation of a snowstorm, which came. Shoveled a couple of times. The landlord next door hasn’t provided his tenants with a shovel, so they are always borrowing ours.

Went to the grocery store, listening to someone talking joyfully about being fired from her job, and from her retelling, I could see why. Everything was THEIR fault. She didn’t even bother sitting through the exit interview: “Am I fired? Then I’m outta here!”

3 January 2014: Shoveled the walk for the third time in the morning, when it was a balmy-2F (-19C). Got to work, and my computer would not connect to the network, so I couldn’t use it at all. Apparently, I’m at least the third person in my office to experience this. But the guy who could fix the problem was on vacation. His assistance came over in the afternoon, and after a few hours got me into my own computer at about 3 pm. My wife had TOLD me to stay home…

*Dan claims Ramblin’ with Roger is a breakfast blog, one a person reads at breakfast. I initially thought he was suggesting that I write about what I had for breakfast – I seldom do – but now, when I have a bunch of little bits that don’t warrant individual posts, I refer to those as breakfast posts. Like this one.