Drama on the Burbank Express (return leg at least)

Another solo flight I'm sorry to say. That's my fault as today was very spontaneous.

I am searching for ideas to decorate the under stairs empty space in our living room and also decorating ideas for our bedroom. ( I was going to say ideas to liven up our bedroom but decorum won out). Hence a spur of the moment decision to take the train to Downtown Burbank and visit the new enlarged Ikea there. https://www.ikea.com/us/en/store/burbank

And who am I you wonder. Am I Loco or Motive.? I shall not say. I will say however "I am an ordinary man, nothing special nothing grand" while he is a mechanically able mighty minded musician. I also enjoy a little alliteration every now and again.

$5.50 for a return trip. With gas at $3.25 a gallon its great value. It's 40 miles to Burbank and return. In my truck at 11 MPG that's 4 gallons. You do the math.

I was parking by the Community Center when I watched the 2:10 train depart. No worries I am retired remember. And have recently bought a road map http://maps.randmcnally.com/ because Google  https://www.google.com/ gets me there too fast.

While awaiting the 3:00pm train a 55 year old homeless guy came and sat beside me. I didnt intuit his age .... he told me.

He was smoking his filtered cigarette and sipping from a wee airplane sized bottle of Jim  Beam. The no smoking signs surrounding us are obviously losing their deterrent effect. I wasn't bothered by either, the signs his smoking nor his drinking, and we chatted intermittently during our wait.

Another great mystery of the world - how come homeless guys can keep loose cigarettes in their pockets and manage not to crush or break them ? Is this a superpower ?.

He was originally from Virginia, Richmond to be precise.

He was wearing shower flip flops over white socks.

And was supposedly heading to Palm Springs. I had no idea you could get a train to Palm Springs and told him so. He was unsure too so I looked it up for him. Two trains and two buses would get him there in about 7 hours. I explained this to him as briefly as possible.

My insight is my super power and I had determined his retention ability was being imapired by his imbibing. He asked repeatedly if I knew how he would find the train he needed at Union Station. Unfortunately I really didn't know and told him so. He was not unhappy with that answer.

He then tried to claim that whatever river it is that runs through Richmond, Va was the longest in the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_River Perhaps my immigrant accent led him to believe that I was unaware of the great Mississippi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River I promptly corrected him telling him  I knew my Tom Sayer / Huck Finn stories.

He smiled, I thought acceptingly at me, but in retrospect it could have been the Jim Beam hitting home that brought the smile to his face.

Unfortunately for him he had failed to acquire a train ticket and therefore was left abandoned on the platform while the other 3 passengers and my self scurried aboard for Burbank.

I was once again struck by the lack of WiFi on the train. I was reminded of a recent trip to Dublin, not a wealthy city at all, but there even the buses have free WiFi. Not only that there is an electronic bill board that clearly displays both the upcoming station as well as the expected ETA there. There are similar facilities on-board trains on the Eastern seaboard of the US. Why not here in sunny SoCal .@Metro https://www.metro.net/ .

Had a minor disappointment at Burbank Downtown. It's less than a mile to Ikea but I was unsure if the streets had sidewalks or not. So I called a Lyft. https://www.lyft.com/ One was supposedly coming 5 minutes away, 4 minutes away, 2 minutes away. Then I get a notification that another car was coming and it was only 10 minutes away. I decided to let Google Maps walk me to Ikea.

Does Google Maps only give walking directions on  streets with pedestrian sidewalks ? I think it may as the 18 minute walk was all on sidewalks.

Ikea, once I figured out where the pedestrian entrance was, was its usual inspiring self for my decorating projects and provided a very satisfying Chicken Cordon Bleu, mixed veg and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, with salad and unlimited delicious coffee. All for less that $10.

When I was ready to leave I tried Lyft again as by now I was at 7,000 steps on my Apple step counter and was a little tired. I hate that step counter as I always feel lazy if my step count at the end of the day is less than 10,000 steps. It's at 8,069 as I write this.

I had to call the Lyft driver twice to help him find me at the entrance. He had driven down  to the underground parking and was waiting for me there at that entrance.

A $5 Lyft ride and a $5 tip and I was at Burbank Downtown Metro station awaiting the train back home. https://www.metro.net/ It was after 6 and so lots of commuters.

When the train arrived I had to first check if it was the correct one. The schedule on the internet  https://www.metro.net/ said the train number was 221. Of course that was NOT the number displayed on the train engine that stopped. But it was in fact the train I needed. So all aboard.

I had entered via the handicapped door. No worries there were able bodied seats available. Although at least 2 of the handicapped seats were occupied by able bodied people. I sat behind one of the handicapped seats and only noticed after I sat down that the other seat by me was filled with someone's stuff.

The owner of the stuff was a good looking 30+ year old who had moved up a row to try to chat up another attractive 30+ year old. He got slightly agitated when I offered to safeguard his stuff. He wasn't having any of that thank you . So he pulled his expensive Lowepro backpack and hefty garbage bag and his windbreaker jacket up alongside him and her in the wheelchair accessible seat. Thankfully he was 100% engaged in chatting up his attractive seat neighbor and left me alone. I couldn't figure out where he was coming from. But I guessed hospital as he had left a crumpled up face mask in a clear plastic bag on the floor of my seat. I hoped he was well on his way to recovery.

I became a little agitated my self when another wheelchair came on at the next station and Lothario made no effort to give up his seat. Neither did the young lady who was enjoying his ministrations. No worries the driver of the wheelchair was very skillful and he maneuvered into another seat vacated by the train's ticket taker. (What is his title ? Conductor ? )

Next thing you know there was a loud female screeching from a young lady behind me. All other noise on the train stopped. We all listened in to the one sided conversation she was having across her phone punctuated by her screeching that "they were going to take away my baby" and it was "your fault. You are starting trouble for me. I told you not to answer the phone. They going to take away my baby ... "

Scary life changing consequences indeed.

Within  a few moments silence had broken out and I dared take a look at the screecher. She was young and extremely beautiful with a gorgeous little energetic tyke struggling on her lap. I was instantly sad and a bit depressed. What roads had she traveled that led her to the belief that "They" were going to take away her son. And who the hell was creating trouble for her at home.

After we exited the San Fernando tunnel https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw2137a.htm I stood up to get ready to exit. There were a number of other folk exiting too. The train ticket guy opened the door and looked up the line while the train was moving. He was greeted by a strong stench of something awful and promptly looked at a young black guy standing by the door and asked him if he had farted. Seriously has asked the young fit muscly guy had he farted. The guy answered No! in a surprised voice. I cracked up and laughed aloud which prompted several others to laugh as well. I admonished the young ticket collector that he should not now look at me "The Old Guy" as the source of the odor. This elicited another snicker from those of us who had heard the original encounter. Several of  us were still laughing at  the ticket collector's audacity as we walked down the platform My depression was lifted that quickly.

I was aware I hadn't spent too much time agonizing about the plight of the beautiful young screecher. But I was committed to finding beauty and cheerfulness now.

As I drove down Newhall Ave past Hart High my search for beauty was rewarded more than once.

First it was the sight of a 40 something Hispanic couple strolling arm in arm on the sidewalk, their beautiful chocolate colored skin shinning with happiness. ( I envied their skin tones. Bet they never had to deal with skin cancers on their faces unlike my Celtic visage ).

I rolled down my windows as I passed Hart High and was rewarded with the wonderful smell of fresh cut grass coming from Hart's new soccer fields. The smell of fresh cut grass is very evocative for me. But that is a story for another trip.

I was once again embraced by the warmth and comfort of the SCV suburbs.