But Call Me Betsy

My working life is bookend-ed each morning and evening by riding SEPTA in some form; SEPTA, who has the saddest marketing tagline: "We're Getting There..." Like, we know we kind of suck, but at least we're trying! Most days, nothing of note happens, but yesterday, I heard a woman say, while holding twO children on her lap (ages between 2-4 years old): " And so I told her, don't you talk that way in front of my f**king kids." And then later, a kid on the Broad Street line announced, "I will recite Shakespeare for one dollar." The man next to me, this guy with a cane, took out a dollar bill and hobbled over to give it to the kid. They were too far away for me to hear what the kid said, but I thought it was totally awesome that the guy took him up on it.

For the last two mornings, I've run into the same older ladies from South Philly while catching the bus down Morris to the Broad Street line. Both women are in their late fifties, dressed for the office in that kind of generic way (khaki pants, sweater, walking sneakers), and have hair styles that are too young for them (long, dyed blond hair). Yesterday, one of the women was describing her day to the other and I couldn't imagine why: "Then she comes over to the house and does my hair up, cause she does my hair on Tuesday (pronounced "Tues-dee") and we watched the shows. Then I send a couple of emails and talked to my daughter and checked the fridge to see if we needed anything at the Acme cause Joe was going up their for lottery tickets anyways. Then we ordered Chinese and I went to Lane Bryant for these pants." The other woman said, "Well, I watched Fox News. I always watch Fox News because they have that investigative reporting show on and I like th...

I have a brilliant idea: Why doesn't Philadelphia develop an above-ground system of public transportation, perhaps buses, to help its citizens travel from place to place? Wouldn't that be grand and helpful? And maybe the buses could be scheduled to run about every 15 minutes. I mean, the city isn't that big, but they could get maybe more than one bus. Last week after the art extravaganza, Lisa Marie and I walked down 10th Street from Vine in the rain, hoping that maybe we could get the bus that supposedly runs down that way. We waited and walked. And walked to the next block and waited. And made it to South Street and waited. And then walked. And then suddenly, an hour and a half later, we were home! All on our own. No bus bothered us the entire time. The same thing happened on Friday--different street. I was meeting Kim at Market and 12th and decided I'd go down 7th and hop onto the bus whenever it arrived. Which it never did. What typically happens when a bus does act...