Metro Journal: May 22 BYOC?

The last woman to get on at the same 780 stop as I do sounds like she's paying in nickels. She's there forever and I hear dozens of the things going in. I'd say pennies, except the machine doesn't take pennies.

On the 207, a white-haired man gets on around Sunset. He's got a camera bag and a "I am a tourist in case you couldn't tell" man-purse slung around his neck, and he's carrying a rather large suitcase. And a folding chair. He's having quite a time with it all, and another passenger has to help him by holding the chair. Then he doesn't even sit down. He stands behind the yellow line. He brings his own chair (and there were more than plenty open, even at the front) and does not sit down. He does, however, get off at the next stop, and the laborious process is reversed.

Transit TV has a headline reading, "China sends emergency relief to quake-hit pandas." With these headlines, and I don't know what wire feed they get them from, they print the headline and then the first sentence of the story. (In this case, people who normally gather bamboo to feed the pandas obviously have their own problems, so the pandas are in danger of starving.) Very often the first sentence does not at all explain the headline. I'm not saying they're mixing up headlines and opening sentences. I'm saying that a lot of these things seem to be written by people who were never taught not to bury their lead.


Every morning I religiously check the weather forecast. You have to if you're going to be spending large periods of time walking or standing outside, which are sometimes required when you ride the bus. Thursday's forecast was for cooler temperatures than Wednesday's (getting into the mid-60s F). Friday and Saturday had a possibility of thunderstorms, which in Southern California only happen a couple times a year. So I bring a fairly warm jacket. I don't need it in the morning, because it already seems warmer than the forecasted high. I walk a couple of blocks to a restaurant for lunch, and it was trying to drizzle. It was also much cooler than it had been at 9AM, but the sky was still more clear, just with occasional dark clouds. At 3 I walked across the lot for my afternoon foofy drink and it was definitely not raining or looking too ominous. Then, around 5, someone points out the window and says it's raining. And indeed, it looks fairly wet out, and there is no longer any sunshine peeking through the clouds. I think, crap. I had no umbrella, because it wasn't supposed to rain until the next day, and besides, the sky was very clear and the sun rather warm when I left home in the morning.

I decide this constitutes a RideShare emergency. I need to leave before it starts pouring in earnest.

As I'm waiting for the elevator, a co-worker is on his way out, too. We discuss the wacky weather and how I'm leaving a little early so I don't get bronchitis twice in one year (ok, that was my mental rationalization, but anyway), he asks where I live, I tell him, he says that's right on his way because he lives in Pasadena (which borders Glendale's east side) and I get a free ride! And he gets to use the carpool lane! Yay!

We talk about some of the weird things people will do on the bus, the kinds of things "reality TV" shows could never begin to capture...