Hmmph ...

My time walking to the MAX station today was spent musing at the peculiar things that only Portland, Oregon can offer.

I had stayed at my friends' house on East Burnside Street. The eastside, as you might already know, is not particularly ... uh, friendly. Lots of rough people, crazies, druggies, etc.. It's the stereotypical wrong part of town. And being a little girl walking 2 blocks down to the train station to take the MAX (I can take it for free because of my work!) is actually kind of dangerous. But I must say, though I would never live along East Burnside by my choosing, I am glad to have lived there because of the opportunity I got to see what it's like ... and a chance to have the most random things happen to me.

Like today, I was walking to the MAX station. On my way, some "gangsta"-looking guy shouted, "You look nice," by the friendly neighborhood corner 7-11, apparently, a regular hangout for "gangstas". I looked away, pretended that I didn't hear, and hurried on ... just to bump into two haggard-looking ladies, one in a fake fur coat, the other in a wheelchair, both smoking cigarettes. They stopped me while I was hurrying away from the "gangsta" and asked, "Could you push me to the end of the street, to that building next to the MAX stop?"

The wheelchaired lady's fake fur-coated friend puffed out a cloud of smoke and said, "I'm sorry, but I'm just tired." Apparently, she had been pushing her unfortunate friend, but the tar in the cigarette has caught up to her. Being the nice person that I am, I said, "Well, OK. But it's gonna be quick coz I'm in a hurry." So off we went.

On our way there, the lady intimately revealed details like, her mother died of alcoholism, though she knows she smokes too much, she only smokes generic, and she had broken her leg in 3 places, which is why she was in the wheelchair, which explains why I was there pushing her in the first place.

Oh, and did I mention that our destination, the beige building next to the MAX station, is a methadone clinic?

We ran across streets and almost sent her launching out of the wheelchair, which certainly would have broken her other leg in 3 places as well.

After a long run, a few heart-stopping traffic scenarios that I am glad impressionable small children were not there to see, we finally reached the building. Meanwhile, the train arrived. Luckily, the train doors seem to have suspended and waited for me. I made it on the train ... barely.

Whew.