One more sort of transportation, seen on May 22, 2009

Seen from the bus window on my home bound commute.



Portland Cascadia Pedicabs. This young man's got his hair in two French braids, on on each side of his head. Cool.



This is a video. Click on it so that the play button will be revealed. Thanks! I never tried this sort of transportation until this year, on my way home from a Portland Trail Blazers' game. It was a lot of fun! Here's a video of the first 33 seconds of the ride--he got me home A-OK. I rode with Boombox Josh of PDX Pedicab--riding in style, as he put it, on March 5, 2015, the night that we beat the Dallas Mavericks!



The fellow I saw in 2009 may have been dressed like this because Rose Festival events had started, not that anyone ever needs a reason to dress how they please in Portland.

Sights I'll miss until I am about out and about again, No. 2

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Seeing people reading on the bus and/or listening to their music on their commute. I sometimes read or listen to music, but most of the time I'm looking out the windows or watching people.

SURGERY UPDATE: No complications from the operation, no need to be cut wide open--hooray! Woke up when I was supposed to with family and friends there in my room. Kept going back to sleep and still managed to sleep for a couple hours at a time during the night. I cannot remember exactly when I did it, but in the afternoon I managed to walk about 75 feet using an old-style walker for confidence. Ate jello and popsicles. This morning ate room service breakfast, hospital style--scrambled eggs, toast and jelly, sausage links, chilled hard-boiled egg, fruit cup, cranberry juice. I left bits of everything, but managed to consume enough that I felt happy to have eaten. Then, I fell asleep again in the chair--pretty comfortable chair once you get the pillows behind you. Oh, I forgot. The surgeon came by around 7 a.m. and said that I could go home in a few hours. So, that's where I am now! Just ate a little bit of plain rice and a baked chicken leg. I'm about to eat a few pieces of fruit and then take a nap in the recliner.

RESULTS/DIAGNOSIS - unknown at this time, waiting for the extensive biopsy results, may know by the end of next week.

THANKS for all of your prayers and well wishes! 

Didn't get to take a photo of these this year.

Where I catch the bus for the first part of my morning work-day commute, these trees still stand on the corner where I cross NE Sandy on my way to the bus shelter, just to the right out of the photo. However, the building which belongs to this parking lot is being remodeled, and a fence surrounds everything on the triangle-shaped lot. Plus, there are construction trailers and vehicles in the way, too. No idea how long this will take to be completed nor do I know what the business there looked like inside prior to all of this work. And I'm wondering what, if anything, will be done to the exterior which is mundane, at best. I took this photo March 18, 2011.

Your perfect commute?

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Since I saw this good lookin' vintage pickup truck on my March 9, 2013, after-work commute, I have decided that there is someone out there who gets lucky twice a day, Monday through Friday. What I mean is that if you can't luck out and live on a bus line or a MAX line (and be able to afford the daily cost of a ticket) and therefore have the opportunity to use mass transit for your workday commute, I believe this would be the way to go. Feast your eyes on my serendipitous capture of a 1950s Chevrolet step-side on it's way south on NE 20th Avenue. Did you notice it's vivid blue matches the recycling bin on the sidewalk? That the red letters on its hubcaps that spell out Chevrolet match the red hand in the Don't Walk traffic signal? I don't have to ask if you realize just how happy I was to have my camera around my neck as I walked the block and half from my bus stop to my apartment door.

Please tell me the year of this truck. Thanks!

Seen from a TriMet bus

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On January 8, after I walked westward over the Hawthorne Bridge into downtown Portland, I ended up on the bus home which takes me eastward back over the Willamette River, on the Burnside Bridge. OK. I know what you're thinking right now--she's crazy, she goes west to go east, to get home after work! Yes, I work in Southeast Portland and live in Northeast Portland. But, I promise that there's a logical method to my madness. 

If I go straight north after work for 22 blocks by bus or walking to catch that last bus home on East Burnside at NE Grand Avenue, I have to stand up in the aisle of said bus, hoping I can balance myself from one of those high-up straps, for the 20 blocks until I come to where I get off the bus. Not always. Sometimes a person gives me, the senior citizen, his or her seat. And if I do stay on the east side of the Willamette River, you'd think I'd save some time, get home quicker. Nope. The only way I can save any time is if I manage to catch the streetcar right in front of my building, but I've only done that three times since it started running last September. 

If I catch a westbound bus after work, and I have three possibilities by 5:06 p.m. or so, I get off at SW 6th and SW Main, walk three blocks north and catch the last bus home (I have two possibilities) in just a few minutes, and I get a seat. I feel much better about riding a bus when I am sitting in a seat, being a senior citizen and all. 

Anyway, I took this photo looking through the windshield from my seat on the bus last Tuesday. I like the red taillights and the red and green traffic signals; the row of green street signs on the left of the photo; and all of the white, double-light street lights. One of the best things about this photo is the huge neon sign for United Finance, atop their building on the northeast corner of East Burnside and SE Grand Avenue, the cross street. You can see the opposite side of the same sign, in Vintage Portland’s post with a 1963 photo of the Burnside Bridge. In order to thoroughly enjoy this fabulous photo, click on it to enlarge it, then click on it again to make it even larger. Then scroll towards the lower right corner--you'll have to scroll across and down, probably. You'll see the sign then. 

And if you scroll around to see more of the bridge itself and notice two white-roofed buses, one behind the other, on the left of the photo, the bus I was in when I took the photo above is in that lane and close to the intersection where the white car is making a turn south. That intersection was then Union Avenue, the cross street, and Burnside--in 1989 Union Avenue became Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Did you notice the green street sign in my photo? In the top right corner? NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. is the street we're stopped at in the bus. The next green sign might be legible to you--it's NE Grand Avenue. 

Thanks to Vintage Portland, those of us who subscribe to it, as well as those who come across it randomly, get to see all sorts of fine vintage photos of our city and its environs!

Seen on a TriMet bus

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July 24, 2010, after work on the homeward commute, I couldn't resist taking a photo of my work friend you see here--she worked in another department during a specific season for several years. We got acquainted at the bus shelter waiting for our first bus home, easily chit-chatting together from the get-go. She's from New England originally. Can't you just hear her fantastic accent? I can. Doesn't she look classy-sunny-day-summertime-perfect? And this is at the end of the work day! The last time I saw her, serendipitously this summer walking on the sidewalk downtown, she told me she was working full-time at a major department store and that she and her husband were contemplating moving back so that they could be closer to family. She already knew that she could transfer to a store there. I hope all goes well for them, no matter which coast they call home.

In response to one of my commenters, Andy, here's a link to what's in the news right now about TriMet. And let me make it totally clear, I do not work at TriMet. I use TriMet every time I leave the apartment, unless I'm going somewhere within walking distance, going somewhere in a Zipcar, or going somewhere with my sons or  a friend who has a car. I find all space associated with TriMet to be perfect for people watching, vehicle watching, and therefore, taking photos.

http://www.oregonlive.com/roadreport/index.ssf/2013/01/trimet_boss_says_the_oregonian.html

Waiting, with Loyalty, #1

Downtown Portland, September 27, 2009.

Looking through my older photos taken when I worked in Southeast Portland and lived in Northwest Portland which made for a visually interesting commute twice daily has made me realize I need to get out and about on weekends more, on the hunt for photos to shoot. You see, since Mama died in January, 2011, and I moved, I still work in Southeast Portland, but I live in Northeast Portland. My twice daily commute offers somewhat less variety, especially during the winter. It's good for me to have a goal. How to you operate best? Setting goals for yourself?

What's black and white and red all over, again?

How's this for another serendipitous juxtaposition of like colors? While there is a good deal of gray in this photo, look at the red lights and reflectors on the parking enforcement scooter (far right, going out of the photo), the man's bicycle helmet, the back of the trailer (or whatever you call these vehicles), the reflectors on the bike and on the trailer, the flag atop the pole at the back of the trailer, and the usual spots on the back of the Volvo, as well as the circle Smart Park sign on the pole.

It was the bicycle commuters that caught my eye. I've seen lots of these around Portland, always flying a tall flag to alert vehicles to the trailer behind the bicycle. And I didn't see anything else of interest until I downloaded the photo.

Someone commented on my first WRABARAO for more Ruby Tuesday posts. post that it would have made a perfect Ruby Tuesday photo, so when I saw this I thought, "Why not? I'll try this Ruby Tuesday thing with this photo."

Look at the Mr. Linky list at Work of the Poet for more Ruby Tuesday posts.

Here's to serendipity and creative fun for all.