Saturday, 8/5
Metro on parade at Umojafest
• Umoja parade
This year was more of the usual: classic cars, kiddie drill teams, and frats and sororities stepping. One thing that was new to me (perhaps because I rarely sit through an entire parade): Metro participated, providing decorated, articulated, hybrid buses to transport parade officials–at least I think they were parade officials. Whoever they were, they were passing out balloons to the kids.
• Errand at Northgate
I rode the 41 for the first time. So apparently, did everyone else in Seattle; it was one crowded bus.
• Dinner with our (very fabulous) friend Tony
We took the 16 from Northgate to his place, then (gasp!) rode in his car to Dinette. It’s a small car, and there were three of us, if that counts for anything.
Sunday, 8/6
• Church
After the service: trash emptying duties at Good Shepherd’s adopted stop. Hot gum is not a stop adopter’s friend.
• Parental visit
The westbound 27 was crowded with all the people coming from the lake. In the confusion, an older gentleman, who was standing (and probably shouldn’t have been) near the front, somehow managed to start a confrontation with a couple sitting in the reserved area with their two babies. The confrontation resulted in the couple angrily exiting the bus and the old man calling the cops on his cell, alerting them to the dangerous family on the loose downtown. The driver, despite his obvious irritation, followed procedure and pulled over at the next stop, to await the arrival of both the police and a Metro supervisor. The other passengers, less than thrilled about the idea of sitting on a parked bus (and apparently not bound to any particular procedure), began yelling at the older gentleman, calling him names and telling him to sit down and shut up.
Sadly, I can’t tell you how the story ends. I had a water taxi to catch.
• Return from parental visit
On the water taxi ride back downtown, a couple got engaged…sort of.
A few minutes into the ride, a guy named Mike got on the PA system and announced that the six months he had spent with a Miss Brea Youn (I’m guessing at the spelling, of course) had been the best of his life. Would Brea, he wanted to know, be willing to spend the rest of hers with him? A lovely young woman three rows from the captain’s booth (I’ll assume it was Brea) stopped digging in her purse long enough to give Mike (and all of the curious people watching) the “thumbs up” sign. Mike ran over to Brea, hugged her, and then returned to the group of friends he’d been standing with before the announcement. Brea finally found what she had been digging for–her pink Razr phone–and made a call, which she continued for the remainder of the ride. Meanwhile, her intended stayed huddled at the back of the boat with his friends.
Right before we docked, Mike asked Brea to take a picture with him (and, of course, his friends) to commemorate the moment. She obliged, pausing her conversation only long enough to say cheese.