From my commute.

I’m still waiting for my Poetry Post to appear in front of my house. In the meantime, I enjoy other people’s posts.  I particularly like the style of this one, and the nice bird perched on the edge.  If you would like the full text of the poem, without glare, go here.  This particular post is outside TaborSpace, which is my favorite multi-use space/Presbyterian Church in Portland.

On the way home, my heart sang at the sight of this overly spotty young man being dwarfed by this balloon, clicking through his Rubik’s cube. Just when I’m getting resentful of the time it takes to commute via bus, the universe presents me with something like this and I’m in love with the world again.

Big Trimet day.

Wanna come along?  Well, you missed the first part, because I didn’t think to take pictures.  Imagine the Lombard Transit center, where I picked up the #4 and rode it over to Vancouver street.  There, I disembarked and went to the Dishman Community Center to swim.  Finished there, I walked to MLK to grab the #6.  Here we can switch to photos.

Across the street from this stop for the #6, are two houses, both alike in dignity/ in fair Portland where we lay our scene.  They are also apparently owned by the same person, who painted them the same color.
 

Where I came from:  Dishman.
 
I disembarked at Burnside and MLK to switch to the #20.  I probably had enough time to walk up to the theater, but was hungry, and wanted to leave time for a lunch more substantial than popcorn.  While at this stop the gentleman waiting with me asked me what I took the picture of.  When I explained it was for my blog he asked, “Who reads it?”  I told him that friends did and his reply was “Oh” and he ceased talking to me.  This amused me.  I guess I wasn’t a famous enough blogger for him.
 
I went with Tapalaya for food and had a very good pulled pork sandwich with two sides:  collards with bacon and a black-eye pea salad.
 
My movie destination was right around the corner.
 
Waiting for the #20 again.  This was my longest wait of 20 minutes.  O! Sunday schedule, why must you thwart me!  Happily, my time was taken up by watching a disaffected youth cross Burnside, forcing cars to stop for him while he flipped them off.  He then stood behind a pole that was part of the building across the street and in short order a police cruiser pulled up, parked and talked with him then searched. him.  A second cruiser arrived to help with the search and a third cruiser showed up, searched him again and then took him away.  He didn’t seem to be opposed to the idea and I wondered what story I missed there.  Of note:  the first police officer was a man, but the other two were women.
 
The #20 deposited me a block from my work, where I ran a quick errand.
 
Then walked to the Yellow Line and had to wait another 10 minutes.

From the Yellow Line, I disembarked and walked the final four blocks to my home.  Thanks Trimet for ferrying me around.

Steadfast bee (or wasp?)


Internet research has convinced me this is a wasp, and furthermore, that it’s a Yellow Jacket.  At any rate, I have a very clear picture of it because it stuck itself to the window of the Max right next to the seat I was sitting in.   I noticed it at Killingsworth and it rode with me for three more stops before I had to get off.  I wonder where it was going?

End of the 6 in Kenton


When I moved to the Kenton neighborhood, I was thrilled that not only was I smack dab in the middle of two Max stops, but that one of the stops was a “Transit Center” meaning a number of bus routes converged at that point.  I was in public transit heaven.  I could take the yellow line downtown. Or I could take the #4 to George Middle School where I volunteered for two years.  I could also take the #4 back toward downtown taking me through Mississippi’s hip neighborhood.  I could take the #75 to the St. John’s Movie theater or the other way to a variety of places: Trader Joe’s in Hollywood, Laurelhurst Park, Hawthorne Blvd.  I could also take the #6 to Jantzen Beach and once they cut the amount of service on Sundays, the #6 was my quickest route to church, depositing me a short three blocks away.  Living near a transit center is awesome.

I still have the Yellow Line,  #4 and #75 at my service.  But beginning September 1, the #6 route changed “to  eliminate duplicate service.”

I understand that Trimet is stretched to capacity, but as someone who doesn’t own a car, some of those duplicate services are important.  Now if I want to go to Jantzen Beach I have to take the #75 to MLK and transfer to the #6.  If I want to go to church I get there way too early or way too late.  I’m disappointed to lose the #6 route through Kenton and I hope service will be restored someday.

Car

Most of the time, I’m happy with my car-free existence. Or, to put a finer point on it: the existence in which I don’t own a car myself, but my live-in boyfriend does so we get to use it for dates and I can drive it sometimes when he is not using it. I like that not having a car means that I have two ways to get to work: taking the Max or biking. I like that when I have to go somewhere and use public transportation, I can read. “How do you read so much?” people ask me. The answers: I’m a fast reader, work 32 hours per week and am not very social. But one of the keys is that when I’m on the Max or the bus, I’ve always got my nose in the newspaper or a book.
I love that the employer-paid-for Trimet pass means I pay very little to haul myself around town. I love that sometimes when taking public transportation, I can just change my mind and walk. I love the “public-ness” of public transportation–the smells (though sometimes, not pleasant, always a great reminder of the “us” of “us”) the people watching, the stories that come from it. I love peeking at what people are reading, eyeing their shopping bags and wondering what their story is.
When I bike or walk, I love that I get to where I’m going under my own power and have time to memorize poems and sing some songs. I love that I watch the scenery, that I am “in” the weather. I love that people say, “You biked here?!?” “You walked here?!?!” as if that was some miraculous feat only accomplished by lesser gods.
And some days I don’t love my car-free existence at all. Today, for instance, when I just want to see a movie at a theater I know will take me two buses and a good twenty minutes of waiting in the cold rain to get there I wish more than anything I could just jump in my non-existent car and drive there in only twenty minutes, with no stops for other people to climb on and off. When the bus is hot and steamy from so much vapor coming off of people I can’t see out the windows I always feel a very special kind of car sick that I don’t enjoy much. I wish that when I am done watching the movie I could just jump back in my car, set the radio to my own station and zip home, avoiding just missing one bus meaning waiting the full 16 minutes until the next one and then just missing the connection which means huddling in the corner of the bus shelter and holding my book just so so the rain doesn’t come down on it.
Most days I like my car free existence. But today I would love to have a car of my own.

Rain and Trimet’s inefficient shelters.

Hey look! It’s torrentially raining at an angle of approximately 45 degrees. Too bad our “shelters” have a flat top which enables that 45 degree rain to come right into the shelter and onto us. I wonder how Trimet could have designed the shelters differently? Hmmmmm and hmmmmmm.

ps. That guy with the umbrella has very good boots for the amount of rain that is occurring. Well done, random passerby.

Leaves on “shelter”

I’ve written about how little shelter the new “shelters” in the transit mall provide. They do, however, make a nice flat place for fall leaves to land on and rain to form droplets, making a pretty autumn picture. And then the “shelter” leaks and drops rain on my newspaper while the winds buffet me from every side because THERE IS NO PLACE TO GO TO GET OUT OF THE WIND AND RAIN.