Red Shoes

I am thinking that you may have been wondering what happened to that girl Caroline, who used to write to this little space in the blog world. She hasn’t been around in a few months.
If you thought that I had forgotten about my blog, you would be a little right, but not completely. Truth is the past few months have been a little unsettled. Been as my blog is called song of happiness I didn’t really want to post a bunch of miserable posts. So I saved you from that

I am hoping that things are now settling down some, although I am not feeling very settled as yet, but I don’t intend to bore you with those details.

Instead, I am going to try and think of something else to write about. Maybe one of my public transportation stories.

As you may know I don’t drive (yet – but I have been working on that lately), so I take public transportation to work. It seems I am one of those people that people like to talk to. This morning I was wearing my favourite red shoes. There was a couple of us waiting for the bus, including one lady with a white cane. She checked with me the bus number before we climbed on board and we ended up sitting next to each other.

Now, I learnt something here, as I thought people with white canes were blind, but turns out that is not the case, as she commented on my red shoes - so clearly she could see, although maybe not quite so well. My shoes happened to be the same red as her skirt. Well, by this point she’d heard me talk enough to pick up on my accent, so the discussion began.

She had been to England a long time ago, and had fallen in love with it. We got to talking about where in England I was from, and I was impressed that just by me saying I was from the North East, she was able to rattle off counties in that area, and name landmarks, although she’d never actually got that far north.

Needless to say this was quite a different experience to some of the others I’ve had since moving here, where when asked where I am from and I say England, they think I mean New England…

As I've mentioned in previous posted, I take the Portland light rail to work (a.k.a the MAX). Most of the time it is a fairly uneventful trip, I generally nap, read or knit and zone out for the 20 mins it takes. Normally the other passengers are doing the same thing.

I was riding at a different time one day this week, so it wasn't the usual commuter crowd.

There was a small group, obviously friends, talking about there jobs and what they wanted to do. At least that is how the conversation began. One was talking about working in retail and the upsides and downsides. Another then piped up to say "I'd like to get paid for getting laid" hmmm. Interesting. Now please note, this is a conversation they are having in public, and not quietly either. I honestly was trying not to listen, but I was about as successful in that as a fish surviving in a desert.

They then went on to talk about how many crappy movies and parts he'd have to take part in before he'd actually be able to get laid as a porn star. Then they continued to talk about how nasty the female porn stars are, how it would be like "hot dog in the grand canyon".

I mean seriously, do they not care who was around them listening. I mean there could have been small children in the vincinity...

I mean I know we all have the right to say what we want when we want, but perhaps there should be some kind of volume control. I mean, I didn't really want to hear about all this in the graphic detail they were sharing.

Although, it did give me something to write about.

The Weekend

Since I last wrote I have been down to Wolverhampton to visit on of my friends and her boyfriend. They are so happy and in love together it is lovely. We had a lot of fun. I arrived there on Friday and stayed till Sunday lunchtime. I took the train down. Of course typical Caroline fashion, it didn't go quite as planned. I was planning on listening to some tunes while reading a book all the way down.

As I waited at Durham train station, a guy came and sat next to me, and of course wanted to converse. He kept asking questions to keep the conversation going. as the train pulled in, he suggested if there were two seats together that we should sit next to each other. It seems I was never taught how to say the word with 2 letters, beginning with N and ending in O. So the first part of the trip was not quite as planned. It wasn't horrible either though, although it seems since I have left the NE, that there's a lot of mumbling geordie that I don't understand, and it seems to be every word that he said... oh well. He got off at York and I was able to enjoy the rest of the journey in peace.

Saturday, we headed to a place called Ludlow, I was unable to take photos as I'd forgotten to charge my camera battery, but my friend's boyfriend's nephew took lots of photos for us, mostly of Ludlow's bins, but oh well. Ludlow is lovely. There's a castle there, which I need to find out more about. Seems that Mary was kept there once King Henry was married to Ann and Elizabeth was born, but I don't know that for sure.

I just went the castle website, and I wish I had gone into the castle now, as it would seem some of my anscestors, once lived there - the De Lacys.... I really need to find out more now. Well not right now, but at some point.

Sunday I took the train back up North, and to my parents house. My dad and I watched Criminal Justice - all 5 episodes, I really enjoyed it. I wonder if I can get the DVD back in the US.

Today, was a low key day. We headed into Corbridge to watch a Roman Gladiator fight. It was fun. Hadrians wall is at Corbridge, so there's a lot of roman stuff in the area. There's nothing quite like watching scantally clad men hitting each other with swords on a wet and windy day :)

This Is The Life lyrics

I am so much like a yoyo at the moment, unfortunately it’s not gravity that is bringing me down. I do a pretty good job of talking myself into a happy confident place, but then something will happen that will send me back down again. I don’t do well with sadness, I really don’t like it (although I am sure that not many people do like being sad). I much prefer to be a happy person, and I am doing my best to get there at the moment.

Well, now that is out of the way… as some of you know I ride the MAX to and from work (not relax max, but the light rail system here in Portland – I have to say that otherwise all kinds of rumours will be bouncing around). Well yesterday was no exception. I was on my way home, thinking about my life (deep stuff you know), and then there was a group of 4 guys who got on to the MAX. It was hard to miss them as you could smell them as soon as they stepped through the doors. I am not sure about the rest of the states, but Portland seems to have a lot of young folk who don’t seem to have homes. This group was one such group. They were a few seats away, and as I zoned out staring out the window, one of them picked up his guitar. They started singing a song, all 4 of them, on the MAX. Now I am sorry, but that sort of thing doesn’t happen everyday. It happens in movies and commercials, but not in real life. I’ve been riding the MAX now for 3 years, and I’ve never seen that before.

The song, what I could catch of it, was a little amusing… something along the lines of “You are what you eat, I am no Golden Arches” of course I wasn’t able to catch much other than the chorus. Well, once the song was done they got off the MAX, and life returned to normal (relatively speaking of course). Now the odd thing to me about this exchange, was no-one on the MAX really acknowledged what was happening, no strange looks, no uncomfortable glances or smiles, everyone just continued with what they were doing, it was as if this sort of thing happens every day. Perhaps it does, just not when I am around.

I wil follow you

The conversations that I hear on the MAX (Portland’s light rail), are quite often rather interesting. Today was no exception, other than it was more of a monologue than a conversation. A guy and a girl get on a couple of stops from my work, they sit down behind me. The girl is chattering away (seemingly to herself).

Why am I following you?

You said you were going to take me home, and now I am following you.

I’ve been fantasizing about spiders a lot lately.

Spiders are quite good thing to be thinking about.

You can think about good spiders and bad spiders.

I was thinking about having a spider party.

Invite everyone, all of my friends and his friends.

All the spider friends.

There’d be no drugs.

Well there could be drugs, lots of drugs.

Crazy drugs.

We’d all sit in the dark like spiders.

Everyone would come over after not sleeping for a week, and we’d all fall asleep, like spiders.
Why am I following you?

You we taking me home, but now I am following you every where.
I can go to the store and get my diet pills.

Now there were lots of pauses in this conversation, and I am not guaranteeing that I got it word for word… but it’s a little odd isn’t it?

The guy that she got on with (the one that she apparently was following), didn’t say a word, occasionally he’d talk to the other girl next to him.

I just thought I’d share.

Light-Rail Coyote

I was struggling to think of something to write about today, but as I was packing for my upcoming move, I came across my journal from when I first moved here, so I am going to tell you a story of a fun weekend back in August 2005(I have had other ones since then, don't worry, it wasn't my only fun weekend here in Portland).

I was invited to a pig roast at the coast (Paradise City to be exact). I had never been to a pig roast, and I actually have never been to another one since. I must say that the pig didn't look too pretty, but it sure did taste good. We hung out at the beach for a bit, drank some beer and ate. Been as I don't drive I caught a ride with a friend back to Beaverton, to catch the Max (this is our light rail system) back home.

There were a couple of guys on the Max who were trying to find their way into town, for a few drinks. They were from out of town, so didn't really know where to get off, or where to go. I suggested that they went to Ringlers, before heading on to the bar they really wanted to go to. Been as it was a Saturday night, and I had no plans, I decided I'd go back and join them. I was all sandy and wind swept from the beach, so I popped home to clean up and get changed, before heading back out to meet them at Ringlers.

After playing some pool (which of course I kicked ass at), we headed to Kelly's, which was the bar they wanted to go to. Kellys is a pretty cool bar, it was the first time (not to be the last) that I went there. This bar has motorbikes hanging from the ceiling, its the owners collection, he has more, but only displays a few here.

There was a lass sitting at the bar on my own and my 2 new friends (Pedro and Mike), started chatting to her, or was it chatting her up... Christen (the girl) had just moved to Portland, and had gone to the bar in the hope of meeting some people. We ended up going dancing. Pedro and Mike got kicked out for some reason, so we ended up losing them. I met a french girl in the bathroom, and the 3 of us had a lot of fun.

On the way home, we met a lad from my neck of the woods, he was over for a Sunderland v's timbers game. I think we'd also found Pedro and Mike again by now (actually I believe they found us, we'd tried to give them the slip). We shared a cab, and got some food before calling it a night. Christen and I became really good friends, and became regular drinking buddies. We seemed to do well with meeting lots of new people, and seemed to have a crazy story from every time we went out.

I haven't actually in seen her in a long time, we both ended up in relationships, and our friendship sort of fizzled.

I never heard from Pedro or Mike again, although at one Halloween, we did see Mike dressed up as a Gorilla. It was rather odd.

The weekend following the Pig Roast was also interesting. It was a normal Saturday morning, and I was trying to get as many errands done as possible. I'd just received my bonus check from work, so I wanted to go post it to my bank account, I also needed to do some groceries. I was expecting it to be an uneventful Saturday morning... While on my way to the store, I walked past the street it was on, so did a quick about turn before crossing the road. This girl started shouting something at me, but I couldn't make out what she was saying.

Turns out she was a prostitute, and thought I was running away from the police, she thought I was a prostitute too. I promise I was dressed decently, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She told me I should become one or a dancer, that I could make a killing, I politely declined. If any of you have seen me dance, you'll find it all the more amusing, I dance as if no-one is watching, or should I say I dance and hope no-one is watching.

I am telling you, there's some weird things that happen here in Portland.