jets vs. sharks

sometimes i go home via the red line. last night was one of those nights. i was coming from a yoga class on the green line, and changed to the red line at park street. i realized that i like standing in the center platform (pictured below) and trying to guess which side people will ride: ashmont/braintree, or alewife. in my mind, it's a west side story thing. i always wonder if people will break into dance...

because really, i know this is totally stereotypical and cliche, but i think i can guess which platform people will ultimately migrate to. i like to play this guessing game for myself when walking down the center stairs, and try to determine who will go left (slightly punk southie urban hipsters and southie townies, and the like) and who will go right (geeks and nerds from MIT and Harvard, chill Somervill-ians, etc.)

and then, once i'm on the nerd/geek/somerville side, i like to look around the train and guess at which stop peopel will depart. again, i feel this is intuitive, but i'm often correct. Fancy people at Charles, academics Kendall, hippies at Central, academics at Harvard (but somehow they look different from the Kendall ones), neighborhood-y people at Porter, slight urban hipsters and 'regular' college kids at Davis, and then all the rest of the assorted bunch at Alewife.

Does this sound right to you?

Thursday morning conversation

As a dad an his small son got off the bus, the dad says to the son ( who is maybe 3?) " say thank you, Elijah", to which the kid responds with "thank you Elijah!"

It made everyone on the bus smile.

Have I mentioned I like Thursdays?

coincidence

yesterday andrew and andy came over for pancake breakfast. it was great to have a reason to clean our table and use our new dishes! we chatted about stuff, including a few memories from our wedding (3 weeks ago). i decided to blog about the conversation so i don't forget it.

let me start with a little background: our friend matt is a climbing friend of ours, and unfortunately had to decline the invitation to the wedding because he was traveling overseas to visit his girlfriend who is doing some work there (i think). then, somehow he realized that his flight was not until later in the day, the same day of the wedding, so he told dan he'd be able to make it to the ceremony and leave directly from there-- we were very excited!

ok, now fast forward to October 25. andrew, andy, and andra (who stayed with them for the weekend) drove from andrew and andy's place in Somerville to the venue in South Boston.

this is the story that andrew and andy told us yesterday-- totally paraphrased for emphasis.

them: who was your friend at the wedding with the big backpack, wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and flip flops?

us: oh, that was our friend matt-- he was literally on his way to the airport after the ceremony and cocktail hour

them: yeah... so we saw him on the street corner when we left our house-- he was waiting for the bus. all 3 of us noticed him and considered where he might be going, then all 3 of us noticed him again at the wedding and thought, 'oh, we could have given him a ride'.

random. fo sho.

overheard on the T

[dad, son, and daughter on the orange line, looking out the window between sullivan square and community college]

son: dad, look at those trains from the olden days... i've seen those in wisconsin.

it might just be me, but i found it funny. first, i think referring to "the olden days" is humorous. it reminds me of elementary school. second, what is the correlation, if any, between "the olden days" trains and wisconsin?

eyebrows

there is a woman who i sometimes see on my bus... she has these really evil looking eyebrows. pointy. she always looks like she's scowling. i have never spoken to her but i imagine she's actually quite nice, yet people assume otherwise.

rental car

every time i have to rent a car for work (for a site visit) it's some kind of saga... all things considered, this morning was not so bad. i had to wake up and walk to the car rental place. the only annoying part was the fact that there was no sidewalk for part of the route since a large pile of dirty snow had not been plowed, so i had to walk IN the main street... not so great... but i arrived and the workers were nice and actually had my reservation on file! my office had reserved a compact car for me but somehow the only car they had at the rental place was a PT Cruiser. it was fine, but i felt sort of funny driving it. i think that people judge you based on what kind of car you drive... whether they want to or not, they make some sort of assessment... i wonder what they thought of me today...

another weird outfit. this time, not mine.

what a ridiculous ensemble. i decided not to take a picture of her face for fear she might find me.

suggestions for toys

yesterday we managed to get a parking ticket, NOT for an expired meter, but for expired inspection! attached to the $40 ticket is a notice indicating a campaign in the city of boston to collect toys worth the amount of the ticket (or more) for tickets given in boston between december 2 and 4... so we're thinking that's the better idea. it just feels nicer. so.... what toys should we buy for $40? please comment with suggestions!

to the impatient woman at my bus stop:

sometimes the bus runs behind schedule, like today. it is raining and apparently the bus we got on was running late, since there was another bus immediately behind it. please don't get pissed off when people on the bus need to exit, causing both our bus and the close by bus to stop. it happens.

if you're so concerned about getting to work early, then leave earlier!