Well, no one really probably wants to read my diary but it's all I've got to write about.  So here goes. 

On New Year's Day, Fayard my 20-year-0ld son and I decide to take a trip up to Pittock Mansion.  It's a mansion here in Portland that they have all decorated for Christmas.  The whole family went once about 10 years ago and have been meaning to get back ever since, but never have.   If you've read my blog before, you know Fayard has spina bifida and can't walk.  He just got a brand new wheelchair though, and that's something.  I mean he does relatively fine, is otherwise healthy, but not walking is a big deal, but people are adaptive. 

So Pittock Mansion has free shuttles from downtown Portland but they aren't handicapped accessible, which for us is okay.  We check out Trimet and the bus will drop us 0.4 miles from the mansion.  We are pretty good walkers, so okay with us.  P.M is open until 4 p.m. and we leave at 1:30.  We know the buses are on a Sunday schedule and going by the Trimet website, we know that we should be at our destination by 3:00 p.m.  Long story short, we are there by 3:32, and the 0.4 mile is all up a steep hill, which we could have probably done but not in 28 minutes.  We give up.  It's freezing, we're tired, back to the bus stop is all downhill.  Fayard makes the comment before we give up that climbing this hill is like the ending to True Grit, only I'll never have to shoot his wheelchair. 

So we go to wait for the bus on Burnside Hill which is rural-looking, but is flanked by houses up steep embankments on either side.  It's a steep hill with really no shoulder.  It was about 30 degrees, but I have my homemade wool hat and my ZeroXposur jacket that I got from Goodwill for about 5.00 and my suede gloves and am very warm.  Fayard on the other hand hates to wear jackets because they inhibit his upper body movement and he likes to go fast.  He is wearing a light jacket and a hood.  He has gloves but hates to wear them.  We freeze for about half an hour on this hill before we decide to head down to NW Portland, which we think can't be that far and anyway it's all downhill. Well the shoulder of Burnside hill is nearly nonexistant.  As we walk we see a tree with plastic flowers tied to it, a memorium of sorts to a pedestrian or some kind of ill fated event, and I think out loud that this doesn't bode well.  Fayard is more than a little nervous having me in control of his wheelchair to keep him from going down the steep embankment, but he trusts me and we make it to the next bus stop where we freeze for another half hour and start down even further to the next bus stop.  We are within about 10 feet of the next bus stop when a bus comes,  and I turn around and wave for him to stop.  He pulls up to the bus stops, pauses and drives away. 

I really, really hate that bus driver at that moment.  But then a nice older couple stops in an SUV and says "are you two all right?"  Well there is a sidewalk up ahead and we are blocks from NW Portland and I tell her yes, and we thank them.  Then we walk into town, go to Zupan's, get a cup of coffee for me, tea for Fayard and a gluten-free piece of cheesecake.  I have a Peet's Coffee gift card that I bought for a friend and hadn't had the chance to give yet, so I thought I might use this here because the coffee shop in Zupan's says Peet's Coffee! Well they don't take those gift cards but we had cash so that was okay.  My friend doesn't know how close she came to not getting this card.  We also bought some Italian sausage and parmesan  to go home and make a steaming hot pot of spaghetti.  We felt saved. 

The train ride home took us through downtown Portland and past Skidmore Fountain under the Morrison Bridge where so many homeless people live.  Fayard and I both felt so good to be off of Burnside Hill and on our way home for a hot meal when we looked out the window and he said, "Look at those poor souls."  We are not the type to think of people as souls, but it seemed a fitting description in this bitter cold.  I can't think why. 

Then I got home and got some very  bad news from my 18-year-old daughter that I won't share here. It's survivable but heartbreaking in its own way.  I did enjoy my spaghetti anyway.  That's the thing about food I guess. Fayard made a great salad too.  I wrote Trimet an email detailing our disastrous day and they wrote back, sorry you missed your bus.  Which leads me to a couple of side notes.

Today I took the bus to get some groceries, and a couple got on.  They were hinky, if you know what I mean, not quite right.  There are lots of people on the bus like this.  Well they were about 30ish, and the girl had soft curly, sandy hair.  She had a cell phone and was reading the paper.  She was not the least bit interested in privacy.  She yelled into her cell phone:  "They killed Tom!  Yes!  I'm reading it in the paper!.  The Police!  They killed him!  Yes, you know how Tom gets when he is drinking, and you know that bitch security guard who's always fucking with us over at the car wash?!  She said Tom came at her with a knife and you know Tom would never do that--"

And unfortunately this is where I get off the bus, and I see in a store front behind the bus stop sign is a man with a walker who begins to hobble toward the front entrance of the bus.  I am getting out the back door.  I am halfway down the block when I hear the man with the walker--who is by now almost to the bus--yell:  HEY! HAAAYAAY!  The bus was 10 feet from him and it slowly ambled away from him when it could have so easily stopped.  I know the bus driver saw him.  What an asshole.  And as I'm walking, I see the Oregonian front page displayed in one of those vending machines, and I don't remember the exact quote, but there it is, Portland Police Shoot Homeless Man.  I'm guessing it was Tom.