Thursday

This is scary. Up until today, when I typed the blogger address in it would pop up asking me my user name and password. This time it went directly to the innards of my blog. It looks that possibly when a week from now some little snot-nose kid at this computer station at this library can key in blogger.com/home and have full control of my blogger.
Uh-oh!

I probably will not blog tomorrow. We will be leaving around noon, so in the morning I will have to slip the baggages down, two at a time, as not to catch the attention of the greedy bell-hop who will want his cut of what comes and goes... I think we paid him a buck per baggage, which added up to $8, which Anna paid. I can earn that $8 for myself.

Yesterday evening when Anna got out of her meeting we took the rapid transit downtown. Every Wednesday, they advertised, is the arts after 5pm. Music in the streets, and art displays. So, we headed for downtown. There are four stations between the one closest to our hotel and downtown.... it is according to what time of the day you go as to what you transfer over to at each station, or to stay on. It was too complicated for me to keep up with.

In fact, on the way here yesterday I asked an old salty-looking "tug Boat Annie" looking character which train do I get off or take to get to the library, and she said, "Hell! I an't got nutin' to do, I'll just go with you, I like to go there now and then to read the magazines." So, she went with me, talking a mile a minute. She is just an old unpretentious country gal. She got me in the library and we went our separate ways, however once she came up to the 4th floor where the genealogy section is to check to see how I was doing. She told me her nephew did her geneaology years ago... and she told me a rough outline of her ancestors: "they were poor as dirt and we are still poor as dirt."

So, back on the rapid transit, we again tried my method of getting there of not trying to read the electronic charts and the maps under clear glass or the little handouts... ask somebody. The people we asked were three young black ladies. They said they were getting off the station before but they would tell us which train to wait for. Then one said she would go on up there with us she wanted a hotdog. Then another one said they turned off her power two days ago so she needed to go up there too, to pay her bill - she forgot, but the neighborhood of the hotdog stand reminded her. One they way up they were telling us that one time the car broke down and they had to get out and walk the rail (20 feet up) for a short distance and swing over to the other car. The heavy one refused to try to walk on the rail, and the fire department had to be called to get her down. What was so funny is the way they were telling it... all three were telling their own perosnal horror story to us, at the same time, and each talked louder and louder to be louder than their friends. Their stories reached a very loud pitch of a racket.

All three of the women stayed on the train, or changed over properly, and we got to the right place and they went for their hotdog, pay the power bill, and I'm not sure what the 3rd one did, but we went on down to the downtown park where there was music, arts and crafts, and even a girl in a red veils kind of dress dancing on the Federal Courthouse steps.

We looked around and didn't see a good place to eat so decided to head back on the rapid transit.

before us at the turn sty was two teenage girls, a black and a Indian (Far Easter). They both very quickly squeezed around the outer guardbar. Then one of us put thirty-five cents and it didn't light up and let one of us through. We got to the other turn-thing and their were two black teenagers, a boy and girl, which I thought to be siblings, the older girl seemed to be controlling the younger boy. She put her 35 cents in and it let her pass through. Then it was the boy's time and he didn't have 35 cents. She said she thought he had 35 cents to use for this and he thought she had enough for both of them. One was paid and already inside, and the other wasn't. Anna gave the boy 35 cents and he paid and went through.

Then we did.

On the platform this time we chose two white guys to tell us the right cars to take. They both were wearing Levis and t-shirts. They were both dirty, caked in dry dirt dust. I suppose they were construction workers. They were nice looking, laid back in a rugged sort of way, and if they had a bath and clean clothes would look like two yuppies. Then, I noticed one of them rubbing the other one's back. Broke Back Mountain boys? Or Broke Back Construction Workers?

They gave us the right directions to get back where we started from.

Then we went to a steakhouse close to hotel. A place called Morton's Steaks. I suggested to Anna that with valet parking I needed to go back to the room and change in long pants, she scoffed at the idea.

Inside everybody there were dressed nice. Before I got there the worse dressed person was in business casual.

After they brought our water and took an order for our Diet Cokes were were ignored for 20 minutes. Finally we hit the roof to our waiter. Then he hustled around like a nervous little well-dressed mouse. He got our food to us, and we paid and left, leaving him a small tip.

I guess we showed him! And he probably is saying, "I guess I showed them - it was worth the sacrifice to get the message to them."

Burp!