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Public Transit Fun and Other Updates
I spent the last two or three nights of this past week, except for last night with insomnia – getting about 5 hours of sleep and awake for some really long days. I’m not sure what it was caused by. Last night, Friday night, I slept well and woke up later, so today’s public transit trip was a little delayed.
Next week, I am working a convention for OHSU that is hosted at a Portland motel. I originally wasn’t going to go, because I have to work (actually, supervise) a track meet on Friday night of the convention, but then I was told that OHSU needed some people to work an outreach booth at this convention so I signed up for Saturday.
Because the motel is in the heart of developed, crowded Portland, parking is in high rise complexes and they charge you $20 a day. Originally, this was part of the reason I was hesitant to go to the convention, because my parents freaked out when they heard I was going to choose to be carless for a weekend. They have some fears about public transit, and while I realize them to a degree, I think Tux and I are capable of wisely using public transit (and getting around carless for a few days) if it’s going to avoid $60 in fees and severe driving in tight spaces headaches.
Now that I signed up for the convention on Saturday, I needed to check things out by public transit because I didn’t exactly want to get lost or arrive late on the day that I was supposed to work. And I also wanted to check things out on Tux’s behalf and figure out if I needed to tweak anything before the convention.
So, I slept in this morning, and didn’t load onto a bus until noon. Tux was slightly afraid of the driver, because the driver fit the general profile of a man who used to harass Tux on my school campus, but as Tux watched me feed the money eater he grew more confident and slowly worked his way up to the driver and sniffed his scent on the air and watched him. I did have to give one tiny correction to make sure Tux didn’t sniff the driver once he got confident, but I was thrilled that Tux was finally able to overcome his fear. We loaded the bus and settled in. Tux had the typical adjustment / floor arrangement / size relationship difficulties, but that’s just because he’s huge and also wearing a large pack now. Oh well, I kept pretty well on the paw adjustment when I needed to, I think.
As the bus loaded even more along the route, Tux was very good. Several passengers sat beside me for times, and threw their stuff (sometimes roughly) under the seat without looking – the seat Tux was stretched out under. He handled it well and I was pleased. He also got kicked in the head once, but didn’t care. I do similar things to him (inadvertently) myself, the way my balance is and stuff, and my left foot when I forget to supervise it…but he’s a trooper though it.
We deboarded the bus and found the MAX station. We could see the MAX we needed, open and loading, but the crossing signals weren’t saying it was safe to cross and because the MAX and traffic signals and stuff are all choreographed in perfect harmony so nothing hits anything, I opted to wait. I also didn’t want to try to cross and find out as I’m trying to run across the MAX is shocking my dog – that would add a little time I didn’t have to risk.
The MAX, and the bus lines I was riding on today, are all “frequent service” so I wasn’t worried about missing the MAX I needed. I believe they come about every 15 or 20 minutes on weekends and because this was a Cinco de Mayo celebration weekend (I didn’t realize that when I left the house, but things worked fine) the MAX came on 10 minute intervals among its lines (routes).
So, after I missed the first MAX because of the crossing signals, I waited for the next MAX. My schedule said I needed to catch what we’ll call line one of the MAX, so I waited for another train to appear with that destination. In the meantime, another woman and a dog showed up, so I opted to stand in the location where the first car would pull up and she was remaining in the area for the second car. This would make things much easier on both handlers in my experience.
When that train arrived, other people deboarded and boarded and I cued the door for the ramp. The doors must close, the ramp comes out, then the doors open again and you board. Even though the gap wasn’t as bad as some MAX stations, I still wanted the ramp. When I looked down at the second car, the ramp was deployed for them, but I didn’t have time to run to that one, and the other dog was on that car, also.
The doors closed, the ramp came out, the doors opened partway, the operator closed them, the ramp withdrew, and the train took off. I shook my fist at her, and threw my arms out because I was visible in her mirror, but she left me. A man had even come to my side and started shoving buttons with me, trying to open the doors, but the operator aborted them and left.
The man who had come to my aid was thoroughly irritated. He could easily see, as could the TriMet operator in her mirror, that my dog was a service dog. I honestly don’t understand how she loads one dog, wearing nothing, but refuses to load the dog wearing something. Oh well. Tux was getting excellent training regarding large, noisy things in proximity.
I was able to consult the schedule and determined that the stop I needed to get to had both line one and line two trains running past it, so I wouldn’t have to wait on just a line one train again, instead I could take one or two in the direction I needed. The man who had come to my aid and was irritated flagged down a line three train, the next one in, and talked to both the operator of that train and the security agent with her about the experience. I offered him a dollar for coffee to thank him, but he just smiled at me, told me to keep my money, and said that he’d had a lot of fun giving them a piece of his mind about “how they treated the handicapped.” LOL. I liked that aspect of his personality, and his way of looking at that…I need to remember that.
I boarded a line two MAX with no problem, and settled in. When we initially boarded, though, Tux loaded, waiting for me, and then suddenly cleared the ground by about three feet. He didn’t yelp, and I originally thought that there was another dog onboard and he was trying to get a meet-and-greet, but there wasn’t, and I wonder if he got shocked. A few minutes later, after I settled him in, he jumped between my legs (from in front of them) and cuddled against me…I thought he’d gotten shocked again, but the passengers onboard the bus let me know I’d unknowingly set him half on and half off a turning plate in the floor to corner the train around curves in the track and when the train cornered, Tux was surprised to have his butt move without his authorization and his front didn’t move. That explains his jump and cuddle reaction quite well. Passengers also noted to me that his jump and clear three feet getting onboard the train may have been because he’d smelled the dog that had just laid where we were and deboarded at the stop immediately before ours. So, whether he got shocked or sniffed another dog can go either way, because we have the solution to the jump and cuddle.
I deboarded where I needed to with great ease because the MAX stops at every station and the stations are well marked and verbalized. Buses aren’t nice in that aspect.
Tux and I walked through a park and I decided to let him relieve because he hadn’t had a chance in over two hours. He made a lake, so I need to remember to be conscious of that on Saturday. I also need to make sure we bring plenty of water on Saturday, possibly in a backpack with other stuff, because I don’t think I’ll be able to travel as lightly next week as I did today.
We finally found the entrance to the motel and wandered through it some. There were two gatherings going on, one of older men and one of little girls in tutus, and the little girls kept screeching doggie, doggie, doggie!” until I was about three hallways away. None of the motel staff even acknowledged my presence, so if that is a problem on Saturday, I’ll have to politely educate them that while their managers have trained them correctly not to acknowledge a service dog, they may acknowledge a service dog handler and offer assistance.
After an explore around the motel, I wasn’t able to find the bus stop to start the chain of buses I needed to get back to where I’d come from, so I used the MAX again. Remember, I had seven stops for the MAX between my destination points. About the second stop after leaving the motel, my feet, which were tucked under the seat of the MAX, began to vibrate. Initially, I thought this was because someone had kicked their foot under my seat and Tux was surprised by it, but then I realized that the backstop went all the way down to the ground except for about 3 inches. I could feel Tux getting distracted again, so I strained my head in all directions and finally figured out what it was. Another dog, again unmarked. The man with the dog worked with his dog to get it to stop distracting mine and I worked with mine to pay attention to me instead of the dog that had, when it loaded, stuck its nose under the panel that extended almost to the ground and surprised Tux.
Because of the amount of people on the MAX, Tux and I were trapped in our place, and the other person wasn’t doing anything to move elsewhere, either, even though it would have been possible if he’d wanted to do it. When he didn’t get off by the stop third from mine, I had a discussion with a man sitting beside me to please advise the gentleman that I would be getting off at such and such a stop and I would be using the door to my left (instead of to my right, which is where they were) so that I would interfere with his dog as minimally as possible. Just as we arrived at the second stop, the man I’d spoken to for the message turned and started to say something to the man, and even though I didn’t realize it, the dogs apparently saw each other somehow, how I don’t know because there were legs and physical barriers and angles and everything that make no sense that the dogs would see each other, and the dog that was behind us bolted to the end of its leash, snarling and snapping at Tux. Tux instantly tried to hide in my feet, rolled halfway over on his back, exposing half his belly, and his tail wagged so hard and so fast that it sounded like a rat-a-tat-tat-tat jackhammer. The owner reeled in his dog (finally…I don’t know if the leash was 4 ft long or 6 ft long, but a 2ft leash or 1 ft leash would have been much nicer, I think) and the message that I was deboarding was passed down.
At our stop, I worked Tux out, who was still understandably worried, and did steal one glance toward the other dog before cowering down, turning left as I asked, and walking out with me according to my directions and deboarding. When we had about 20 feet between the two dogs on the MAX, Tux did perk up a bit, which was positive to me, and except for stealing the one glance, he listened to every direction I gave him even though the dog was a huge distraction and I could only hold onto him with one hand (I was positioning my body and kept positioning it to defend him from the other dog if necessary).
After deboarding MAX, Tux and I hailed a few buses until we found directions to the bus we needed to use to get back to our starting point, and then walked to that location. We had to wait a long time, but finally the bus showed up and we boarded without a problem, even though I discovered later I’d inadvertently showed the wrong ticket because I didn’t know I had two tickets in my bag. Oh well. Tux slept that ride away until the town before the one that we needed to deboard at, he kept waking up and asking me, “Alright, is this our stop now?” and, “We’ve been on this bus an awful long time Courageous Heart! Are you sure you’re not sleeping or something?” After that we headed home and I was pleased with how well the day had gone.
In other notes, I have a busy week this next week. Monday will be semi-normal except for going down to the Testing Center and seeing if they can find my midterm for RT’s class. After class, I will miss a significant part of track because it starts early and ends early that day, and my commute doesn’t jive so well with that time schedule. I must also call and cancel my Tuesday appointment at a local school to help with math because…I forgot I’ve committed to track during those hours for something special. Wednesday, gulp, I must take a midterm. Thursday, I must attend a meeting on behalf of OHSU, and see if I can get out of track so I don’t have to cope with the tight traffic along that route, and besides, I won’t get back to think about track until 5 p.m. at the earliest, so it makes minimal sense to drive. Friday, I must work (actually supervise) a track meet which will go to 8:00 at least, probably 9:00 or 9:30. And then Saturday, earlier than 5:00a.m., I must be awake and possibly driving (with another human and Tux as passengers to keep me awake and help facilitate this) – to the place I’m going to meet the Tri-Met bus. Wow. Glad I can sleep on the team bus on Friday night, because I think I will. And then somewhere in all this, I must do my homework – learning objectives for week 7 by next Monday, and a large paper due week 7, also on Monday, that I haven’t even gotten back yet. This semester, my professors are creating the files the mornings before they give them to us, and haven’t gotten to the grading of the proposal papers yet, and that is making things difficult, especially when everything due & busy / traveling is the same week. Maybe tomorrow I’ll start writing the large paper without my professor’s comments, and just hope I’m semi-right in what I do, and work on it hard Monday night and Tuesday before I leave for a track meet, and Tuesday night if I can before I crash into bed to sleep before my mid-term. Then Wednesday night before that meeting, work on it again, and Thursday morning before I leave on public transit or my car. Lovely, lovely. Same rules for Friday, morning work…then submission.
Time to bang my head against the wall just a bit, and I’m going to bed now. I’ll set my alarm for 7:00 or so and start my paper and stuff.
Courageous Heart
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