Lamb chops and collard greens

I was on the bus back from my boyfriend's place. It was late at night and I was zoning out when I got on the bus, but I did notice the black and white striped chef pants and white shirt of a man who got on at the same stop. He placed a fragrant stack of take-out boxes in a plastic bag next to him in the front seat of the bus.

I found my own seat further back and continued in my unfocused reverie until noises from the front of the bus began to permeate my consciousness.

"Oh man I like to get those lamb chops, you know, some good lamb chops, and then, mmm, I like to, mmm, stuff 'em with bleu cheese and cover 'em with onions, and then um, I like to sear 'em and bake 'em...." The cook was regaling the bus driver with his epicurian adventures and I got to eavesdrop.

And unlike the prattle of most front-seat-bus-talkers (ahem, Transit Man), the driver liked it: "Mmmm oh my god you making me hungry!" she said. The cook needed no more encouragement to continue on his best-of reel.

"And um, I like to get those collard greens, and cover them all up in butter, and I like to get some scallions..."

"Mmm-hmm!"

"And then I get some potatoes...."

"Mmm, oh yeah!"

I was initially kind of annoyed at the cook - maybe because I thought he was pestering the bus driver until I realized she was enjoying herself. But we reached my stop, I too was totally entranced by the cook's words and reluctantly got off the bus.

Seemingly normal bus driver actions in two parts

1) Last week I was on a bus (standing, of course, since rarely do I get a seat) and I realized we'd been stopped for sort of a long time. I craned my neck toward the front and saw that the bus driver was leaning out his window talking to a man with a little notebook. It is true that there are managers or overseers or whatever you might call them that keep track of buses and talk to the drivers but this, for some reason, seemed different. I wormed my way a little closer to the front to maybe hear what they were saying or see what his notebook said. To the best of my knowledge the bus driver was placing a bet on an upcoming futbol match.

2) Yesterday I was boarding a bus when the driver threw his gears into park and ran off the bus into the nearest kiosko, which is like a mini convenience store. I stood waiting patiently for him to return so I could pay my fare, assuming he was getting a pack of cigarettes since everyone smokes here. He left the bus running, the door open, and the keys in the ignition in the middle of a busy street with a bus full of people. When he bounded back on, he carried only a bottle of water from which he took one sip and then handed back to a woman without looking at her and with whom he seemingly had no connection. She said nothing and, when she got off the bus a few minutes later, didn't even give him a second glance.

Good Reads

I was sitting at the window seat just behind the pivoting joint of an articulated bus. A woman sat in one of the middle seats directly in front of me. She was reading A Little History of the World, a book I immediately noticed, because I've recently been reading portions of it between other novels.

A couple stops later, a man with a head cold sat down in the middle seat across from this woman, carrying nothing but a paperback copy of The Stand, by Stephen King. Setting aside the obvious coincidence of a man with a head cold reading a novel about the superflu, what's even stranger was I had also recently been reading the book. In fact, he owned the same edition I currently had in my bag.

I was amused at this point, but still willing to pass it off as nothing more than a mild coincidence. After all, The Stand, like most Stephen King novels, was a huge seller, and it's no surprise that someone might think to reread it amidst all the media hoopla about swine flu. And though "A Little History of the World" is no best-seller, it was recently released in paperback, and was a featured non-fiction item at Elliott Bay Books.

But then a woman sat next to me reading a bilingual copy of Dante's Paradiso, the sequel to his most famous work, Inferno. I've never read Paradiso, but I had been reading portions of Inferno recently, particuarly a bilingual translation with the Italian on the left side and the English on the right.

So there I was - suddenly surrounded by three books I had been at least partially connected to within the past week. And before that morning, they had seemed like disparate works to me, but as each passenger showed up in order, I started to see an overarching connection between them. There was the development of the world from pre-history to modernity; the speculative novel about humanity's near demise and ultimate redemption, and Dante's poetic vision of an ideal afterlife. Was the bus trying to send me some important message about the universe?

Maybe not. Just as I was stepping off the bus, the Flaming Lips were playing on my headphones: "Oh, oh, oh, finding the answer. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Finding there ain't no answer to find."

Priorities

Wednesday night was a very important futbol game for Argentina against Uruguay. The winner of the game advanced to the 2010 World Cup while the loser has to fight for a spot in a play-off against Costa Rica. Uruguay and Argentina have both won the World Cup twice, and Argentina has qualified for the last 10 consecutive World Cups (Uruguay failed to qualify in 2006).

The importance of the game was complicated by the fact that their very controversial coach Diego Maradona is either loved or hated by Argentineans. As such, some people were actually rooting AGAINST Argentina in the hopes that it would cost him his job once and for all.

So, it was a Big Game.

Businesses without televisions closed early. People left the office early. Bars with televisions were crammed to the max. And, bus drivers were in a hurry to finish their routes.

I stood and waited, patiently, as not one but TWO busses, mostly empty, swooped past me and the 10 other people that gathered during my wait. One bus driver had to stop to let someone off, but to prevent any of the rest of us from getting on, he pulled up a half block from the stop. Silly me, I ran to catch it thinking it was his mistake. He would not open the door for me and zoomed off. I screamed an obscenity at his tail pipe, much to the delight of two teenage boys passing by.

"What do you expect?" one of them asked me. "His priority is futbol!"

The third bus driver must not have cared much either way, because he eased his overflowing bus to a stop and the 10 of us crammed on. The old lady I had been talking to and was then squashed into my armpit until I got off 10 minutes later smiled and said to me, "See? Some of us care more about money than futbol."

Argentina won 1-0. The game was much less interesting than my effort to get to the bar to watch it.

I wasn't even ON the bus!

One of the most surprising things that ever happened to me involving a bus occurred when I was on foot. I was walking from my place near SPU to PCC, and I was on the Fremont bridge.

A bus that was heading south opened its door without stopping, and the driver made eye contact with me. He opened his mouth in a smiling grimace. He was all toothiness and toothlessness, and out of his mouth came a sound crossed between "HAA!" and "URG!"

Once he'd passed me, the door closed and the bus kept on hurtling south.

Spotted on the 44

Two male college students, extremely high and giggling loudly and uncontrollably on the 44. Memories....

Is it really good luck?

I had just washed my hair, and had spent the time to blow dry it (a rarity for me). I left the house feeling pretty good about myself; high heeled boots, hair swinging in the wind as I walked to the bus stop. I was waiting right on Nickerson, playing on my phone, when I felt something heavy, like a pine cone, hit me on the crown of the head. I looked up to see if a squirrel was pelting me, but I saw nothing but a crow on the power line above, a foot or so to the left of me. I touched my head a couple of times and found nothing there, but I also didn't see any pine cones around me either. When I touched my head a third time, I realized that the impact I'd felt was caused by a huge mound of solid bird poo. That damned crow must've made a half-assed effort to throw me off by scooting over a foot.

I cleaned up as best I could with the canvas tote bag I was bringing my boyfriend, scooping the poo out of my hair. By the time the bus came, I'd been giggling to myself for about 10 minutes and texting people with "a bird just took a dump on my head!" People responded way, way faster to the bird poo text than to a standard "what are you up to?" text. "i hear its good luck!" and "oh no!" and "looks like youll be bringing something extra over to nathans" (my sister).

The texts kept pouring in as I got onto the 17; it was rush hour so I couldn't seclude myself in my own seat. I sat next to a nice-looking middle aged woman. By this time, I was in a state of barely-concealed hysterics. For being so crowded, the bus was near silent, so when I started shaking and crying with the laughter I was trying to hold in, I have to think my seatmate noticed. I laughed all the way down Market Street, up 24th Street, and right into Nathan's apartment. He promptly made me take a shower, and that was that.