Saturday, July 9, 2011

"Riding The Short Bus......Or So It Seems Sometimes...................."

Good Afternoon;
So, we've had 15,000 visitors here as of today, as recorded by Sitemeter.
The lucky hit came from Estonia and was a Google referral to a search for
'bus bitching'..................lol!

Yesterday, Friday, was uneventful, Giant, library, coffee shop, train, sitting in front of the First Watch reading and on FB 'til 2:30 am., then reading in the shed unable to sleep until near 5:00 am.

I'm at the coffee shop now after stopping by Jenn's around Noon for a shower and a lunch of some pasta and sausage leftovers she had and a big bowl of raspberries and strawberries sprinkled with stevia and sugar and placed in the freezer for an hour or so, then topped with a big slice of peach pie and nuked gently for 30 seconds and topped with whipped cream, (REAL from a spray can not that nasty vegetable oil concoction called Cool Whip!)...[and they're still using N2O.....wink-wink-S.E.G.!.......LOL].

I left there on the 5:35 pm. bus and saw another one of the street people I mentioned I'd be writing about. This is a black, woman, heavyset, who looks to be in her late 30s, but it's hard to tell. I have seen her around Reisterstown Plaza for years at all hours of the day and night and on the buses recently. She is very obviously suffering from at the least schizophrenia and paranoia in the extreme. The winter before last she was wandering around the Plaza parking lot and the Clarks Lane area walking up to cars stopped at the light saying "help meeeee", and stepping into moving traffic, oblivious. She would also stand in the middle of the empty parking lot 'keening' and asking for help. She would either ignore or run away from anyone who tried to talk with her. I had flagged down a cop car and they told me they were real familiar with her, but she always refused help and was never doing anything dangerous or harmful that allowed intervention. She would have on an old brown ankle length parka style coat, with what looked to be a minimum of clothing beneath it and sandals, slippers, or shoes with the backs crushed down and worn like clogs, or Crocs, no matter what the weather. Her ankles and feet looked to be covered with thick scaly callous. It looked like alligator skin.

After not seeing her for a good while she reappeared in the area a few weeks ago with a hospital ID bracelet, the plastic strap with all your info that gets snapped onto your wrist in the ER or Admitting, and...she was wearing 3 thin cotton hospital gowns, (the kind you are given for an examination that are never big enough, and are told to wear with the opening that never closes with the totally ineffective ties, to the rear;... 2 facing one way and the other the opposite way. It appeared that was ALL she had on, except for a pair of disposable 'footie' socks, and a pair of disposable slippers, that were never meant to be worn outside. She looked medicated to the ears, nodding off and snapping awake and staring frantically at things before nodding off again.
I saw her again the other night on the bus again.....STILL wearing the same gowns now gray and grimy, and the same footies and slippers....or what was left of them.

I tried to offer her some of the sandwiches and/or pastries I had been given, but she started mumbling incoherently and rushed off the bus at the next stop, ran across the street through traffic and got on the bus going the other direction. I don't know the details of either 'why' or 'where', and neither do the bus drivers who just let her ride as long as she does not wig out.
I wonder what she is going to do when the gowns rot off her body. She obviously is incapable of caring for herself or she would have found something to put on, and she refuses any help offered. I would not be surprised to find out she had been 'involuntarily committed' if I don't see her around in the near future.

I have to go now, I want to eat and get out of here earlier than my normal time because the MTA in it's infinite wisdom 'fixed what ain't broke' and changed the #58 lines route AND schedule. Now Mt. Washington is no longer a terminus, but a mid point stop...the bus goes all the way to White Marsh Mall and back, and traffic is crazy out there. So the bus is either 10 minutes late or 20 minutes early.

Later.......................Dave

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