Ewe, I'm a herdee!

This past week I became an expert herdee. Never heard of a herdee?

From Tuesday morning, I was one of thousands of riders on the green line to Riverside that was shuttled from the train to a bus and back on the train every morning and night for four days on my commute to work. It turns out that the 48 hours of steady rain caused the dirt under the tracks to disappear, creating a sink hole. The pictures just showed a set of tracks with nothing under them. Scary to think that a train could've been passing and derailed.

The first time I did the 1-2-1 routine it was kind of fun; I got to see new areas that were unfamiliar to me because I'm never in a car or bus in those neighborhoods.

It was only three train stops that were closed off but it got tedious very quickly. Unload from the train quickly, follow the mob scene up the stairs to the awaiting buses driven by folks that had just signed up that morning to collect the overtime (familiarity with the route not required), go around collecting other "stranded souls", make your way down the ramp at the station where the track had not been affected and make the trek to one of the last three stations on the line.

By day three, I was ready to scream. Or walk to the Applebee's near one of the stops and have a drink or two. Thank God it wasn't opened at 8:30 in the morning!

At each of the 1-2-1 points there were at least five MBTA employees "guiding" us through the process. Yeah, right!

Guide is probably the verb used early Tuesday morning when the MBTA officials disseminated the plan to the hordes of employees raking in the OT. In reality what these folks did was watch as the one or two shepherds herded the ewes and sheep to the next step in the process.

It's just water

Last weekend, Mother Nature decided to bless the Boston area with two days of showers. The end result reminded me of Storm 2006 in El Paso.

I set out on Monday morning with my family-of-four-sized umbrella and my cheetah print rain boots. A light drizzle fell throughout the day, but occasionally it would pour. When I arrived at the train station at the end of the day, the MBTA was using buses to shuttle us from the station. The employees from that station that rode along with us appeared to have been sworn to secrecy when I asked what had happened. We then proceeded to go to each station along the route and pick up every other person that was supposed to be riding the train.

Within minutes, the bus was filled with other anxious, wet commuters. So I settled in my seat for the most odoriferous 45-minute ride I hope to ever experience. The scent made me think of what it must smell like in the staging area at the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in Madison Square Garden: wet dog.

getting my fix

On October 16th, I arrived in Boston to start a new job. I spend a lot of time on the T since my commute to work is at least an hour-and-a-half long. My experiences on the commute from the Bronx to Manhattan is what I miss the most.

On Valentine's Day weekend, I rode the mega bus to Penn Station to get my fix. We arrived at Penn Station at around 1:30 a.m. When I got on the 2 to make my trek uptown, the train was packed like it is during the middle of the day. A large majority of the folks riding were under the influence. As I got on, I immediately noticed a guy that was sitting in the corner seat closest to the door, bent over with his head between his legs. I didn't see his face but saw the "baba" pooling on the floor of the train. I remember the day when I would've wanted to get off the train at that point. Instead, I smiled and thought to myself, "Yes, I'm home!"