Weird Wednesday in Portland, Oregon
The explosion of a bagel shop and trying to get to the office
This morning I was sitting in my doctor’s office, chatting about horribly tight muscles, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and the joys of cycling when the lights went out. It was pitch black in the windowless office. Lots of running around and jokes about eating the emergency rations followed. We finished our appointment by the light of our cell phones, and I went to catch the bus to the office.
There was no bus, but there were a lot of fire trucks and ambulances and a huge plume of smoke. A contractor nicked a gas line and a bagel shop blew up. The news reported injuries but no deaths thanks to a quick evacuation before the explosions. I saw a fire fighter with his eyes bandaged, lying in an ambulance. A woman in pajamas smoking a cigarette told me her apartment windows fell out and she thought there’d been an earthquake. A hairless bear of a man in his underpants seemed delighted to be out in the street in his underpants. Other people were crying.
There was still no bus, so I walked to the streetcar. A few blocks into the ride, the streetcar operator announced a bus/car collision on the tracks up ahead. I got off the streetcar and walked the rest of the way to work. The aroma in the elevator hinted at a fresh batch of cream of shit soup being boiled into submission by the cafeteria. And that was all before 11 a.m.
