Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I got to the dentist at about 10:30 for an 11:00 appointment, and they called me back at about 10:45. I explained what felt weird to the dentist's assistant, who had me bite into something black to verify that there was a problem. There was, so she called the dentist in from the next room. He spent a few minutes fixing the slightly too high bit of my new crowns, and then sent me on my way. I was done and waiting for the bus home by my nominal appointment time.

I stopped on the way home to get a package of pitas. I got off the bus, walked the block to Sevan Bakery, where I went in, found the bread, and headed directly for the cash register to avoid missing the next bus. The schedule says there should be a 71 every fifteen minutes at that hour, but the Transit app warned me of multiple buses that had been cancelled in advance. Based on that, I took the 70 bus to the dentist instead of the 71, which worked well enough that I'll probably switch to that routing unless there's a reason not to.

Now that I have applied for the German passport, I need to put relevant documents (birth certificate, marriage certificate, and German naturalization certificate) back in our safe deposit box, which is in Arlington Center.

I set out this morning a little after 10:00, got to the bank at 11:20, and discovered that they were having a problem with the vault, had called a repair person, but didn't know how long it would take, or even whether it would be that day. The bank clerk offered to call me when the safe deposit boxes were available again, so I gave her my cell phone number, and went next door to Kickstand Cafe, which has good outdoor seating and some food I like.

I had the roast beet and goat cheese salad that I usually get there, then looked at the temperature and bus schedules, and decided to go straight home because it was already hot (rather than making a side trip to Davis Square for the farmers market, or a smaller side trip for ice cream).

The bank called me while I was on the 77 bus in Cambridge, a few stops from the end of the line, so I thanked the person for calling and said I'd probably be in tomorrow. I made good transit connections, and was happy to get home to my air conditioned apartment, where I had some soup and a cup of tea.

The timing worked out for me to take the 86 to Harvard Square instead of the 66, so I discovered that there's now a stop at Commonwealth Avenue on the outbound 86 (to Reservoir) as well as the inbound bus I was waiting for. The 86 tends to be less walking if I'm changing buses at Harvard Square.) This means that whichever of the 66 or 86 is departing from Harvard Square first is the convenient choice, with basically the same amount of walking.

New version of "Charlie on the MTA." rewritten to be about the Orange Line shutdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNpYy-ury7k

Performed byJacob Deck, Ben Rechel, and Anna Seda, and written by a friend of theirs who wishes to remain anonmyous. (via Universal Hub)

And the lyrics:

Let me tell you all a story 'bout a man named Charlie
On a tragic and fateful day
He got driven to his office, gave a speech, took some photos
And shut down the MBTA!
(Chorus)
And will it ever return? It had better return
And be better than before (NO FIRES!)
Will our public transit ever actually function?
By now, we can’t be sure.
If you're in Back Bay and you gotta go to Malden
Or from Cambridge to Jamaica Plain
Hope you've got four wheels, or two extra hours
'Cuz you won't get there on the train.
We'll be late to our jobs, and late to our classes
And we're dreading September 1st
Could have done this two years ago when nobody was riding
Now this timing could not be worse.
(Chorus)
And will it ever return? It had better return
And be better than before (NO FIRES!)
Will our public transit ever actually function?
By now, we can’t be sure.
Oh, the workers said "give the T more money
Or the system will surely fail!"
Charlie said "why fund when we can privatize it --
It sure worked for the commuter rail!"
Then it got so bad that the Feds came around
And they said "this is all unfit:
Broken tracks, understaffing, and safety violations,
We must say you're in some deep shit."
(Chorus)
And will it ever return? It had better return
And be better than before (NO FIRES!)
Will our public transit ever actually function?
By now, we can’t be sure.
So the Orange Line, and the Green Line Extension
All shut down for a month, it's true! (TWO WEEKS' NOTICE!)
And the way things are going, it probably won't be long
Till he shuts down the Red Line too.
The director of the T said we should work from home but
if you can't things are looking grim
If your daily commute crosses any rivers
They just hope you know how to swim.
(Chorus)
And will it ever return? It had better return
And be better than before (NO FIRES!)
Will our public transit ever actually function?
By now, we can’t be sure.
Now you citizens of Boston, don't you think it's such a pity
Charlie's so out of touch with us?
Someone bribe his chauffeur, stick a nail in his tires
And make Charlie ride the fucking bus!
(Chorus)
And will it ever return? It had better return
And be better than before (NO FIRES!)
Will our public transit ever actually function?
By now, we can’t be sure.

(The original version of this was a campaign song, and then a hit song for the Kingston Trio.)

I went to the Arnold Arboretum this afternoon to visit the lilacs. I had fun, and my legs and hip don't feel as though I overdid things.

The lilacs smelled pleasant, but less intensely than I'm used to. Based on a couple of lilac bushes near my home, I suspect much of the scent had been carried away on the wind, rather than a significant change in my sense of smell, from covid or age or anything.

I was going to meet anne there, but she was notified of a possible covid exposure and we are being cautious.

I have an in-person doctor's appointment tomorrow, and there's an abortion rights rally on the Common Saturday, which means I don't think I should be running around (or walking around and up and down hills) Thursday or Friday. I may visit some lilacs on my way to or from Somerville tomorrow; there are some fine lilac bushes along the 73 bus route, on Mt. Auburn Street near Harvard Square, and on the block of Ash Street closest to Mt. Auburn Street.

ETA: I took the MBTA to and from the Arboretum. On the outbound trip, the PA system at Downtown Crossing announced that a Forest Hills–bound train was approaching, "with all new orange line cars." My orange line train back from the Arboretum had the same kind of cars, but wasn't announced on the PA; there was a message on the electric sign saying that the next train was boarding on track 1.

I decided a few months ago that I wanted to buy a new parka early in the winter coat shopping season, while there was plenty of choice. So I went out to LL Bean this morning. The trip is bus to subway to bus, or three buses, but straightforward except for the unexpected wait for the 73 bus.

I found a helpful saleswoman, and told her that I wanted a parka, with a hood and pockets, for dealing with a Boston winter. She brought me a few things to try; I liked one, and asked if they had other colors than brick red. Happily, they do and it wasn't in stock in Burlington, so they are shipping it to me, and I didn't have to schlep a heavy coat around on my way home. I also bought a bag of chocolate covered blueberries, and three pairs of socks, having noticed that SmartWool is making solid-colored socks again.

After shopping at LL Bean, I took the bus to Arlington Center, where I had lunch and then a cup of tea. The staff at Caffe Nero were friendly and helpful: when I pulled out my paper Caffe Nero card, with eight stamps out of nine, and asked if they were still taking those, she said yes, and gave me my tea for free, rather than charging me for it and handing me a fully stamped card.

Looking around while I waited for my tea to steep, I was thinking "this is why we're not dining inside restaurants right now": lots of people who had settled in, unmasked, with laptops, and at least one making a phone call. But I sat outside to drink my tea, took a short bus trip to East Arlington to buy coffee for cattitude, and then home. Amusingly, I got the roughly monthly email about the MBTA customer survey while I was on the 350 bus, so my "most recent trip" was one I almost never take, Burlington to Belmont with two stops in Arlington.

A few months ago, the person who runs elliott.org (a travel/consumer advocacy website) used a web poll to ask for opinions on whether Uber etc. counted as mass transit. I gave mine, and a week later was asked to approve a quote. I OK'd the quote and offered a quick copyedit on the article, which was accepted.

Then I waited for the article to appear, and then I forgot about it. The article is now on the website, with my quote at the very beginning, so everyone who gets the newsletter will see my name and "an editor who lives in Arlington, Mass." (Spoiler: he quotes my opinion as a lead-in to disagreeing.) Not exactly SEO, but I am going to wait a bit and then google myself.

We (adrian_turtle, cattitude, and I) went to the Boston Women's March today. We got there late, because we hadn't allowed for the size of the T crowds and resulting delays, but we got there, and spent a couple of hours standing around, too far away to hear the speeches, and reading and admiring other people's signs. The crowd was much bigger than anyone expected, meaning we left not only without marching, but without being able to see for sure where the march was leaving the Common.

This was Adrian's first large rally, and I think Cattitude's first at all; I've done this before, sometimes in less pleasant circumstances, like the counter-inaugural in January 2001. For this one we had nice weather, and the local government clearly on our side; Attorney General Healey's speech was quoted as echoing the ACLU and saying that Trump will see us, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in court.

ETA:Cattitude had in fact done this before, though less often than I have, but he dislikes crowds and was glad to have us there to keep him company.

Next time, I hope to have a sign, or at least some more buttons for my coat. (I expect there will be a lot of next times.) I had a number of pins that I threw away a move or two ago, on the theory that I hadn't worn them this century; if I still had it, I'd be pinning "SILENCE=DEATH" onto my coat again.

Side note: the MBTA was running extra trains (relative to a normal Saturday) and prioritizing moving people around over collecting fares, so just had the gates open at Harvard when we got there around 10:20, and at Park Street both when we got to the rally and when we left. We all grumble a lot about the MBTA, with reason, but sometimes they get it right.

I went to hand out with some people in Seattle yesterday afternoon; that was fine but not exciting, though I was amused by how many people looked at my drink and asked what it was (a raspberry Italian soda, with cream, which was deep pink and opaque).

The bus trip home was annoying. First, I had a long wait for a bus (based on the posted schedule, I think one bus was canceled, so I waited 40 minutes for a bus that should have been there five minutes after I got to the bus tunnel). That was irritating mostly because I wanted to get home and start working on dinner; my role was to dismantle the crab, so cattitude could then make crabcakes. I talked a bit with a group of tourists, who'd started by asking whether this was the right place for the 550, and mostly chatted with each other, and played a game on my phone.

So, the bus eventually came, I sat down, and as we went through the tunnel it filled up. The man who'd sat down next to me started by asking "are you Jewish?" I said "no" on the grounds that I didn't want to discuss that, or anything, with him. He then asked the tourists to keep their voices down, which they did, after a bit of "what's your issue?" between him and someone sitting in the row in front of us.

Then we got outdoors, and I called Cattitude to let him know that I was finally on a bus (I had expected to be home by then). Man next to me said "was that English?" which I ignored completely. Having had one maybe-plausible and one iffy attempt to start a conversation fail, he then asked me about the area code of my cell phone. That got me to say "I don't want to chat, just like you don't want to listen to those people."

PSA that nobody who needs it will listen to: when a stranger says she doesn't want to talk to you, that isn't an invitation to discuss why she doesn't want to talk to you. I repeated "I don't want to chat" and when that didn't quiet him, a louder "I said I don't want to chat, that includes about why I don't want to chat."

He persevered. I said, again loudly, "Either be quiet or let me up" (since he had the aisle seat). He said something like "OK, get up" but made no immediate move to let me up. The person behind me told him to respect me. I got up and walked backward on the bus, figuring I would much rather stand than be near this rude, possibly drunk man. To my surprise, someone offered me a seat, which I accepted. Meanwhile, the man behind me called to the driver "Driver, we have a harasser back here!" which led the man who had been hassling me to say something like "no, you're harassing me." After a minute, the driver basically told him to behave or he would be off at the next stop. (We were on the I-90 bridge over Lake Washington, not a place the driver can pull over and kick someone off.)

Mr. Rude had moved to the window seat after I got up; to my surprise, another woman sat down and started talking to him, and they had a quiet conversation.

Then we got to the next stop, started to pull away, and Drunk Number 2, at the back of the bus, demanded that the driver let him off. So the driver stopped the bus again and said "get out" and Drunk No. 2 stopped to shout something like "Do you think I don't want to fucking get off?" and took his time getting up and out of the bus.

Someone who'd been sitting near him called forward "you don't get paid enough!" The driver said "What?" and I said "She said you don't get paid enough." The driver told us he'd already had two incidents today, and that if we were pleased with him, please tell Sound Transit. I took down the bus number so I can do that. He said a few cheerful things about the Seahawks, which got laughter, and the rest of the ride was basically quiet.

I got home, asked Cattitude for a hug, washed my hands, and proceeded to bash a cooked Dungeness crab with a rock. This is my normal process—I have a round probable-geode that is just the right size for my hand—but I don't usually take as much satisfaction in the smashing.

Follow-up 12/23: I sent the bus company a comment on the driver the day after I posted this. This morning, I got email from King County Metro Transit this morning, saying "A commendation has been generated in your name and sent to the Driver’s Supervisor. Your commendation will become a part of the driver’s permanent record."

This isn't my home climate either, but the summer plantings look right: similar variety of trees, choices of garden flowers, and the weedy maple saplings growing up through other plants look like home.

The trip itself was fine once I got checked in at the airport: a car service (Eastside for Hire) stood me up annoyingly, with a series of phone calls starting a few minutes before the time I had booked the cab for. The driver wasn't much good at communicating on the phone, and I had to repeat the full street address to her. It didn't help. By the time she called to say she really was at the front door, I was on the 550 bus, about to get onto the highway across the lake, and hoping that the traffic would be better than predicted. At 7:12, on the bus, I told the driver that "6:45 means 6:45, not whenever you find a map of Bellevue." The transit part (bus over the lake, light rail to Sea-tac) all went smoothly, giving me 20 minutes from when I got off the light rail to get to the Air Canada counter before the official cutoff for checked luggage.

There was almost no queue there, and the people in front of me kindly let me go first when I explained, and then I had an easy time at airport security, leaving me time to buy and drink tea before boarding the puddle-jumper to Vancouver.

The lesson here is either "go back to the other car service" or "6:45 is enough time to do this by bus if I actually go to the bus stop at 6:45 rather than 7:05."

I got to Montreal a little late, but at that point I could do it on automatic: find the ticket machine, buy weekly transit pass, 747 bus to Orange Line metro to 90 bus, and here I am. I was very glad to see rysmiel, and we had a late-by-the-clock dinner including poutine, then stayed up past 1. OK, fine, my body should be on west coast time: except that I was up less than six hours later. Still, I am here, rysmiel is here, there is tea, and we even have plans for tomorrow.