Bubbles

Today on the walk from lunch to the office, my coworkers and I noticed a homeless man from afar. He was holding something to his mouth and puffing. I initially assumed he was smoking something. As we got closer, I could see that he was blowing bubbles. As we got even closer still, I could see that he was very content in his current activity. He was so happy to be sitting there, puffing away and not paying any attention to those walking past him. Perhaps the funniest thing about the scene was that the bubble solution he was holding was wrapped in a dirty sock.
It was a little gross (the sock, the smell), a liitle bizarre (he had a stash of empty peanut butter jars surrounding him), and a little endearing.

Modesty

This post comes to you secondhand, but don't worry, it's from a reliable source :)

Every city has its share of homeless people, and Berkeley is no exception. In fact, many congregate around the Downtown Berkeley BART station to panhandle. Yesterday, Mike was waiting at the bus stop next to the BART station. All of a sudden, one homeless woman grabs her stomach and starts running towards the bus stop bench. In a great deal of drama, she pulls down her pants, sits on the bench and begins to pee ( as if it was a toilet)! In broad daylight. Surrounded by people (though I doubt anyone was still sitting on the bench).

And this, my friends, is why I will never again sit on a bench at a bus stop.

Glad I wasn't carrying around a wad of 100s like I usually do

On the escalator into the Montgomery BART station, I could hear a boy selling chocolate bars at the bottom. Since I'm on my way to the airport to go to Phoenix for a long weekend (Go Ducks!), I decided to buy three bars - one for me, Mike, and his cousin Christopher. This is actually a tradition of mine. Every time I'm at an airport awaiting a departing flight, i buy a candy bar. This used to be a special treat for me, as I rarely flew and was also very restrictive with my intake of sweets. Chocolate is now an important part of my daily diet (it goes air, water, then chocolate), so it's not really a special treat, but I'm not one to break tradition.

Ok... Now back to the salesboy. I pulled out my smallest bill, a ten, and asked for three bars and change. He looked into his box, counted the number of remaining bars (seven) looked up at me and said "can you buy five?" Surprised (and impressed) by his forwardness, I feigned shock and said, "you want me to buy five?!". He then looked up at me with big eyes through Harry Potter glasses and a meek smile and said "Please?".

And now I am ten dollars poorer but five candy bars richer.

I'm such a sucker :)

Drama in the FD

On my walk home from work to the Montgomery BART station, FOUR full-size fire trucks came from three different directions and converged at the corner I was waiting on. All the firemen got out of the trucks and started scanning the top of the building across the street. There were no cop cars (yet?) or ambulences on the scene. No smoke or fire alarms. No SWAT team (thank goodness or I may have needed a change of underwear!). This all screamed "We've got a jumper" and as soon as the crosswalk light turned green, I was out of there. I know, where's my sense of adventure? Curiosity? I'll tell you what, I naturally run low on both and I did not have any desire to stick around and watch the potential outcome. I wonder if the Financial District, much like the Golden Gate Bridge, has it's share of suicide attempts, with its super-tall buildings?

And that was that

As we pulled up to the El Cerrito Plaza station today and the doors opened, I could hear the station agent calling over the loudspeaker: "Officers, could you please apprehend the two men trying to take this track.". My best guess is they were trying to jump the corrals.

Then the train doors closed and we were on our merry way.

I was *this close* to a good BART story.

Yeats

On BART yesterday morning, a 30-something man in business attire was standing up and reading "The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats." This is certainly a diversion from the SF Chronicle and Wall Street Journal I see most men reading on BART (seriously). Because I forgot my headphones and book, I kept an eye on him. Over the course of 15 minutes, he never turned the page! He also would look up often and as people exited the train (he was standing by the door), he would slightly shift his book so that the cover faced the exit.

That's a new pick-up technique! I'm sad to say (for his sake) that no one approached him to comment on his good taste in poetry.

I was really hoping someone would!