The adventures of a newly minted buschick, Bus BAP!
Hey kinfolk and the few other people who read this blog who aren’t related to me by blood, friendship, or marriage!
I had to drop in today to just share with you my beautiful weekend adventures here in Boston on the vanglorious (what ever happened to them? I loved them) and wonderful T. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, the T is the mass transit system of the Greater Boston Metro area! It wasn’t a really great weekend in Boston, as it was in much of the rest of the country east of the Mississippi, it was raining.
Oh yeah before I forget let me warn you right now this will be a stream of conscious blog with no rhyme or reason or neat tie ins at the end (well unless I stumble into one). I will attempt to section this off by day so you can follow my most random thoughts in the most organized way one can follow a completely random blog about bopping around the city, but hey no promises.
Friday
I spent my Friday night at home with a bottle of wine and Pad Thai from my favorite Thai restaurant down the street. I had to work pretty late because I needed to make up my hours from missing Monday. That is the one thing about being contract if you don’t work, you don’t eat, so to speak. No vacation hours or PTO to fall back on, but its cool it all evens out in the wash. I went to bed at a pretty decent hour, because I knew I had a full Saturday of cleaning and errands ahead of me. So like the OLD lady I am (not to be confused with the 20-something I’ve been told I look like.) I took my tired, old, semi-drunk (WHAT? I told you I had a bottle of wine with my dinner) azz to bed!
Saturday
I awoke early Saturday morning earlier than I wanted to, but not much earlier than I normally do. I had agreed to help a nice older man learn how to use eBay. I met this man one night catching my regular bus. I was walking to catch my bus when he offered to drop me off because no one was on his shuttle bus. I said yes, and sat at the front of the bus and exchanged conversation with this 68 year old man about his life and what not. At the end he asked me my dating status and I repLIED, as I always do in situations like this, that I was not only seeing someone here in Boston but back in the H too.
Anyway, he was polite about and he dropped me off just a few blocks from my house. Well, last week I ran into him again and once again he offered a ride. We chatted and talked (mostly because I plan on trying to hook him up with my mom when she comes to visit) and he knows I work with computers, so he asked me could I help him with his eBay business he had purchased. He even offered payment, something I had planned on refusing once the task was complete, well unless I felt he was insulted by it. I agreed and we made an appointment to meet on Saturday at the library near Dudley station. We exchange cell numbers and he called me the next day and asked if we could meet bright and early at 8:45am on Saturday, because he wanted to try to make it to church, as well. I said sure 8:45 was fine, I mean I figured I could always just come home and take a nap.
So Saturday morning I rolled out of the bed (an hour later than my normal weekday wake-up time and an hour earlier than I normally do on weekends), got dressed and ran down to catch the Silver Line to Dudley Station.
Boston’s Silver Line is an interesting thing, because it is a bus that runs like a train. I’ve been told it was created to replace the above ground tracks the orange line ran on. The city got rid of them. The Silver Line was put in place to make sure that those who use to use the now re-routed orange line, black folks, could still have easy access to downtown. I got that from a local and a non-local, so I will go ahead and take it as urban truth, not to be confused with urban legend. The Silver Line got me to Dudley in no time and upon getting off the bus I walked around and found the library right across the street from Dudley.
I guess this is where I mentioned that my friendly bus driver had not returned any of my calls. I figured since I was at the library, I might as well get a library card. So the librarian told me I needed proof of residence to get a full fledge card with check out privileges, but she could give me a courtesy card that would allow me to use the internet. I agreed, figuring I could bring my lease to upgrade my card later; after all I live down the street from a library. Then I asked her the location of the post office that was on my Sorry We Missed You! We ReDeliver for You notice I got from the USPS. She told me it was fairly close, so I used my new library card to find the best bus to take from the library. Let me tell you http://www.mbta.com/ is my LIFELINE and they even have a mobile version that I am always using when I am trying to catch the next bus after shopping too long in Target.
MBTA gave me two routes the 45 and 66, in true busBAP fashion I ran and jumped on a 45 that had just pulled in to Dudley with out reading the front of the bus. I needed to be on the inbound bus to Ruggles Station but quickly realized I was on the outbound bus down Blue Hill Ave. You see, busBAPs often jump on buses with out reading if the bus is the inbound or outbound bus. Luckily busBAPs have a monthly link card so rectifying said mistakes is only time consuming and not money wasting. It was cool though, I didn’t have anywhere to be, so I rode the bus until I saw a store I wanted to check out.
I got off at the next stop, walked back down a few blocks and went into the beauty supply and bought up all kinds of fun busBAP things, (hair, earrings, makeup, hair products, a cool lighter and more hair). After playing in the wigs for a hot minute I walked out and got on the bus going the right way. I rode ‘til the end of the line and still no USPS. I spent a good hour and half trying to find that damn thing and finally I gave up. That is the thing about Boston much like Houston; sometimes the streets do crazy things. I caught my old faithful 43 Park Station home. The 43 is one of the buses I catch regularly to go downtown and home from the Redline, when I ride the subway home from work if I have just missed my regular bus, the 43 gets me a stones throw from my house. Normally take the 8 to work. I like riding buses more than the train because I like to people watch outside of the vehicle of transport.
Once I got home I did what I like to call a Saturday morning Rachel (my grandmother) clean. When I was a little girl my grandmother had a Saturday cleaning routine instilled in my aunts. They use to get up early on Saturdays and clean the whole house. I mean clean, clean. They usta mop, vacuum, dust, fully clean all bathrooms, start laundry, and even windows! Ok… I’m kidding about the windows, no one does windows. Anyway my aunts use to rush and work in a beautiful symphony of team work like a Disney movie to get the house spic and span in time to sit down and watch Soul Train!! Those were the days.
Anyway, after not being in Boston last weekend I had a ton of laundry to do from my Houston visit and a two week’s worth of cleaning. I finished all my cleaning made a few calls home and then left out to run a few walking errands around the hood and on the T to try to find that stupid Post Office again, still no dice. Finally I gave up and went to Blockbuster and traded in my Blockbuster online movies for three in house movies and headed to the house.
I stopped by Subway to grab a sandwich for lunch and dinner ($5 foot longs baby!) where a wonderfully flamboyant MAC faced, slightly chubby Pueto Rican gay man asked me did I know who Tocarra was on ANTM. I replied yes and he told me I reminded him of her!! Woo Hoo! Look, after years of people telling me I look like Latifah I was happy to have a new Glamazon comparison. After all, Queen is pretty, but Tocarra is SEXY. And to be honest, I’ll take sexy all day every day. Sexy doesn’t age; just ask Raquel Welch, Kim Catrell, and Robin Givens. Just for the record, I don’t think I look like Tocarra or Latifah, but it’s the curse of having so few Glamazons in the industry there are only a few women people can compare you to.
I left out of Subway brushing the dirt of my shoulders after that compliment. Ironically I was listening to Jay on my iPod. When I looked up the 1 was stopping right in front of me, so I jumped on and caught a ride down a few blocks. BOY DO I LOVE MY BUS PASS!! Upon my return home I received a text inviting me to a card party; I got all the info had some 6inches of my foot long BMT and collapsed on my couch watching one of the DVDs I had rented or should I say it was watching me.
I rose from my slumber groggily and finally moved my ass to make it to Jamaica Plains (JP if you’re nasty!) for a card party with a bunch of people who were not only younger than me, I would venture to say extremely smarter than me (ok smart in a different way smart!). I took the Orange Line to Forrest Hills and then caught the 39 which let me off RIGHT down the street from the house. I was greeted by my host, a young Rice alum who is finishing up his degree at Harvard Medical, along with three other medical students and a Policy Admin graduate student who was finishing up his studies and would be returning to the real world of work, you know as opposed to the REAL WORLD of class, to work in New Jersey for Corey Booker. Sometimes I think it is so funny how the shift to adulthood happens. In a matter of months we go from paying for knowledge (college & universities), or promising to pay –if you have loans, to getting paid for using that knowledge (work) anyway...moving on
It was a fun and interesting night like the total opposite of my Saturday nights in Houston, as of late. I won’t comment anymore on that, but those of you who know me FA’ REAL know that a quiet Saturday night playing Bid Whist is not a H-town Mo thang! (Well, at least lately it hasn’t been. You know I go through my party girl/ homebody stages).
Sunday
Sunday was a great lazy day. I had finished cleaning my apartment. I had a nice quiet but fun Saturday night and I had some movies to watch and a coffee date in the late afternoon. I slept in until about ten, then I lay in the bed another hour just listening to the sounds outside letting the sun hit my face. You know that kinda half sleep thing that normally happens the five minutes between you pushing snooze and the alarm blaring “GET YO AZZ UP” again. I rolled out of bed folded the last load of laundry made breakfast (the other 6inches of my Subway BMT) and did basic grooming for a lazy Sunday, made my normal Sunday morning calls. I watched a movie and then got ready for my coffee date. The date was pretty cool, he was a local and the first local man here that I haven’t thought was crazy. Seemed sane, but it really doesn’t matter. I think the fact I have no pressure to actually ever find a man makes my attitude a bit different on dates than most men are use to. It’s like when the job I have now came along. I was perfectly happy where I was and there was no pressure in the interview because if I didn’t get the job, I like the one I had fine and I knew my life would go on. I also had the expectation that in order to make me leave my present job the new job opportunity would have to knock me off my feet.
Well that is the way I feel about men. I have a solid friendship back home and while I’m dating here, it would pretty much take a man KNOCKING me off my feet for me to become his girlfriend (to be fair that includes the man back home, but that’s a blog for another day. A day I feel like letting you guys in my business like that.) Anyway we ended up walking my neighborhood because the tiny itsy bitsy Starbuck’s in my neighborhood was full. It was nice to walk and talk and shop (I think I may have found a new laptop, y’all!!). We ended our date and I grabbed some takeout, I really need to grocery shop and came home to watch some TV and get my mind right for the work week.
All and all I would say I had a great weekend and just for the record Bus Chick, this weekend I took 6 buses and one train (orange line) or is it 5 buses and two trains, as the Silver Line is a bus that is treated like a train. Well no matter what you choose I took NO CARS, making my way through Da’ Bean in true mass transit, carbon footprint reducing, glamorous, Bus BAP fashion.
Be EZ,
OG
I had to drop in today to just share with you my beautiful weekend adventures here in Boston on the vanglorious (what ever happened to them? I loved them) and wonderful T. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, the T is the mass transit system of the Greater Boston Metro area! It wasn’t a really great weekend in Boston, as it was in much of the rest of the country east of the Mississippi, it was raining.
Oh yeah before I forget let me warn you right now this will be a stream of conscious blog with no rhyme or reason or neat tie ins at the end (well unless I stumble into one). I will attempt to section this off by day so you can follow my most random thoughts in the most organized way one can follow a completely random blog about bopping around the city, but hey no promises.
Friday
I spent my Friday night at home with a bottle of wine and Pad Thai from my favorite Thai restaurant down the street. I had to work pretty late because I needed to make up my hours from missing Monday. That is the one thing about being contract if you don’t work, you don’t eat, so to speak. No vacation hours or PTO to fall back on, but its cool it all evens out in the wash. I went to bed at a pretty decent hour, because I knew I had a full Saturday of cleaning and errands ahead of me. So like the OLD lady I am (not to be confused with the 20-something I’ve been told I look like.) I took my tired, old, semi-drunk (WHAT? I told you I had a bottle of wine with my dinner) azz to bed!
Saturday
I awoke early Saturday morning earlier than I wanted to, but not much earlier than I normally do. I had agreed to help a nice older man learn how to use eBay. I met this man one night catching my regular bus. I was walking to catch my bus when he offered to drop me off because no one was on his shuttle bus. I said yes, and sat at the front of the bus and exchanged conversation with this 68 year old man about his life and what not. At the end he asked me my dating status and I repLIED, as I always do in situations like this, that I was not only seeing someone here in Boston but back in the H too.
Anyway, he was polite about and he dropped me off just a few blocks from my house. Well, last week I ran into him again and once again he offered a ride. We chatted and talked (mostly because I plan on trying to hook him up with my mom when she comes to visit) and he knows I work with computers, so he asked me could I help him with his eBay business he had purchased. He even offered payment, something I had planned on refusing once the task was complete, well unless I felt he was insulted by it. I agreed and we made an appointment to meet on Saturday at the library near Dudley station. We exchange cell numbers and he called me the next day and asked if we could meet bright and early at 8:45am on Saturday, because he wanted to try to make it to church, as well. I said sure 8:45 was fine, I mean I figured I could always just come home and take a nap.
So Saturday morning I rolled out of the bed (an hour later than my normal weekday wake-up time and an hour earlier than I normally do on weekends), got dressed and ran down to catch the Silver Line to Dudley Station.
Boston’s Silver Line is an interesting thing, because it is a bus that runs like a train. I’ve been told it was created to replace the above ground tracks the orange line ran on. The city got rid of them. The Silver Line was put in place to make sure that those who use to use the now re-routed orange line, black folks, could still have easy access to downtown. I got that from a local and a non-local, so I will go ahead and take it as urban truth, not to be confused with urban legend. The Silver Line got me to Dudley in no time and upon getting off the bus I walked around and found the library right across the street from Dudley.
I guess this is where I mentioned that my friendly bus driver had not returned any of my calls. I figured since I was at the library, I might as well get a library card. So the librarian told me I needed proof of residence to get a full fledge card with check out privileges, but she could give me a courtesy card that would allow me to use the internet. I agreed, figuring I could bring my lease to upgrade my card later; after all I live down the street from a library. Then I asked her the location of the post office that was on my Sorry We Missed You! We ReDeliver for You notice I got from the USPS. She told me it was fairly close, so I used my new library card to find the best bus to take from the library. Let me tell you http://www.mbta.com/ is my LIFELINE and they even have a mobile version that I am always using when I am trying to catch the next bus after shopping too long in Target.
MBTA gave me two routes the 45 and 66, in true busBAP fashion I ran and jumped on a 45 that had just pulled in to Dudley with out reading the front of the bus. I needed to be on the inbound bus to Ruggles Station but quickly realized I was on the outbound bus down Blue Hill Ave. You see, busBAPs often jump on buses with out reading if the bus is the inbound or outbound bus. Luckily busBAPs have a monthly link card so rectifying said mistakes is only time consuming and not money wasting. It was cool though, I didn’t have anywhere to be, so I rode the bus until I saw a store I wanted to check out.
I got off at the next stop, walked back down a few blocks and went into the beauty supply and bought up all kinds of fun busBAP things, (hair, earrings, makeup, hair products, a cool lighter and more hair). After playing in the wigs for a hot minute I walked out and got on the bus going the right way. I rode ‘til the end of the line and still no USPS. I spent a good hour and half trying to find that damn thing and finally I gave up. That is the thing about Boston much like Houston; sometimes the streets do crazy things. I caught my old faithful 43 Park Station home. The 43 is one of the buses I catch regularly to go downtown and home from the Redline, when I ride the subway home from work if I have just missed my regular bus, the 43 gets me a stones throw from my house. Normally take the 8 to work. I like riding buses more than the train because I like to people watch outside of the vehicle of transport.
Once I got home I did what I like to call a Saturday morning Rachel (my grandmother) clean. When I was a little girl my grandmother had a Saturday cleaning routine instilled in my aunts. They use to get up early on Saturdays and clean the whole house. I mean clean, clean. They usta mop, vacuum, dust, fully clean all bathrooms, start laundry, and even windows! Ok… I’m kidding about the windows, no one does windows. Anyway my aunts use to rush and work in a beautiful symphony of team work like a Disney movie to get the house spic and span in time to sit down and watch Soul Train!! Those were the days.
Anyway, after not being in Boston last weekend I had a ton of laundry to do from my Houston visit and a two week’s worth of cleaning. I finished all my cleaning made a few calls home and then left out to run a few walking errands around the hood and on the T to try to find that stupid Post Office again, still no dice. Finally I gave up and went to Blockbuster and traded in my Blockbuster online movies for three in house movies and headed to the house.
I stopped by Subway to grab a sandwich for lunch and dinner ($5 foot longs baby!) where a wonderfully flamboyant MAC faced, slightly chubby Pueto Rican gay man asked me did I know who Tocarra was on ANTM. I replied yes and he told me I reminded him of her!! Woo Hoo! Look, after years of people telling me I look like Latifah I was happy to have a new Glamazon comparison. After all, Queen is pretty, but Tocarra is SEXY. And to be honest, I’ll take sexy all day every day. Sexy doesn’t age; just ask Raquel Welch, Kim Catrell, and Robin Givens. Just for the record, I don’t think I look like Tocarra or Latifah, but it’s the curse of having so few Glamazons in the industry there are only a few women people can compare you to.
I left out of Subway brushing the dirt of my shoulders after that compliment. Ironically I was listening to Jay on my iPod. When I looked up the 1 was stopping right in front of me, so I jumped on and caught a ride down a few blocks. BOY DO I LOVE MY BUS PASS!! Upon my return home I received a text inviting me to a card party; I got all the info had some 6inches of my foot long BMT and collapsed on my couch watching one of the DVDs I had rented or should I say it was watching me.
I rose from my slumber groggily and finally moved my ass to make it to Jamaica Plains (JP if you’re nasty!) for a card party with a bunch of people who were not only younger than me, I would venture to say extremely smarter than me (ok smart in a different way smart!). I took the Orange Line to Forrest Hills and then caught the 39 which let me off RIGHT down the street from the house. I was greeted by my host, a young Rice alum who is finishing up his degree at Harvard Medical, along with three other medical students and a Policy Admin graduate student who was finishing up his studies and would be returning to the real world of work, you know as opposed to the REAL WORLD of class, to work in New Jersey for Corey Booker. Sometimes I think it is so funny how the shift to adulthood happens. In a matter of months we go from paying for knowledge (college & universities), or promising to pay –if you have loans, to getting paid for using that knowledge (work) anyway...moving on
It was a fun and interesting night like the total opposite of my Saturday nights in Houston, as of late. I won’t comment anymore on that, but those of you who know me FA’ REAL know that a quiet Saturday night playing Bid Whist is not a H-town Mo thang! (Well, at least lately it hasn’t been. You know I go through my party girl/ homebody stages).
Sunday
Sunday was a great lazy day. I had finished cleaning my apartment. I had a nice quiet but fun Saturday night and I had some movies to watch and a coffee date in the late afternoon. I slept in until about ten, then I lay in the bed another hour just listening to the sounds outside letting the sun hit my face. You know that kinda half sleep thing that normally happens the five minutes between you pushing snooze and the alarm blaring “GET YO AZZ UP” again. I rolled out of bed folded the last load of laundry made breakfast (the other 6inches of my Subway BMT) and did basic grooming for a lazy Sunday, made my normal Sunday morning calls. I watched a movie and then got ready for my coffee date. The date was pretty cool, he was a local and the first local man here that I haven’t thought was crazy. Seemed sane, but it really doesn’t matter. I think the fact I have no pressure to actually ever find a man makes my attitude a bit different on dates than most men are use to. It’s like when the job I have now came along. I was perfectly happy where I was and there was no pressure in the interview because if I didn’t get the job, I like the one I had fine and I knew my life would go on. I also had the expectation that in order to make me leave my present job the new job opportunity would have to knock me off my feet.
Well that is the way I feel about men. I have a solid friendship back home and while I’m dating here, it would pretty much take a man KNOCKING me off my feet for me to become his girlfriend (to be fair that includes the man back home, but that’s a blog for another day. A day I feel like letting you guys in my business like that.) Anyway we ended up walking my neighborhood because the tiny itsy bitsy Starbuck’s in my neighborhood was full. It was nice to walk and talk and shop (I think I may have found a new laptop, y’all!!). We ended our date and I grabbed some takeout, I really need to grocery shop and came home to watch some TV and get my mind right for the work week.
All and all I would say I had a great weekend and just for the record Bus Chick, this weekend I took 6 buses and one train (orange line) or is it 5 buses and two trains, as the Silver Line is a bus that is treated like a train. Well no matter what you choose I took NO CARS, making my way through Da’ Bean in true mass transit, carbon footprint reducing, glamorous, Bus BAP fashion.
Be EZ,
OG
Comments
Wow, you make riding mass transit sounds like the thing to do. And I'm glad to see that you like the Subway B.M.T. also because that is the best sandwich on their menu.
Your weekends are strangely similar to mine,but I purposely leave a FEW details out because my mother always told me that you should have some "mystery" to yourself.
I know what you mean on the dating thing. I use to think that I "needed" to belong to someone,but at 46 yrs old...I don't think the same way as I did now that I'm 20 years older & completely wiser.
Some men tend to think that just because you are alone is because you don't assert yourself. It's not that at all...I'm just more "particular" in the company I keep because if he don't mentally stimulate me, then we will never get anywhere.
Nice blog,sweetie....keep up the great work !
And seriously,what I say on this internet & the person I am in real life is NOTHING like you would project. It's all about enjoying every moment that I can for all the time I'm allotted on this earth. I've been favored by the Great I Am & I love everyone unconditionally.
I'm a big gurl that like *big thangz* in a big way ! And nobody dares to tell me what to like or what I think because I have my own mind. And you know that I kick sexy square in the azz all the time !
One Love..