The streets are still quiet, save for the few homeless wandering around. The trucks are on their rounds delivering milk and picking up trash.
A kind lady, probably the age of my mom, walked by with a cup of coffee in her hands and startled me when she said, "Sweetie, there are a lot of homeless folks and drug-dealers walking around. You might wanna put your bag away where you can keep it safe."
Gee. And I never thought they were that 'harm-ful'. All I thought they would do, at least here in Portland, was to ask for coffee money. Then again, this ain't Singapore.
Well, then again, I had encountered worse in Singapore.
Some years back, the man and I were having dinner in the crowded People's Park hawkie, sharing the same table with another couple. As usual, we would order dishes after dishes from different stalls, and when they served and we paid, we would simply leave the loose change on the table as we continued gobbling up our dinner.
Old man walked by and stopped at our table, started gargling away and waving his hands madly. Mute, he must be, we thought. Or maybe he was just pretending to be mute, as we concluded later when all of a sudden, while we were left open-mouthed confused by him, he just picked up the loose change on the table, hand-gestured a 'thanks' and walked away.
Oh, dumbfounded we both definitely were. The other couple sitting with us didn't know whether to laugh or to express sympathy.
Well, at least, we hoped it counted as a good deed rendered - however against our intentions it was.
Ok - I'm not supposed to be telling any story now because I don't have much time left till we leave the hotel for the campus. I'm still waiting for my pictures to load up. And I'm talking to the friendly EKIN on MSN at the same time. God, please help me.
I fell asleep by midnight, struggling to finish my work (which unfortunately is still not completed), and was up and about by half past four in the morning. My stomach was growling with hunger, just in time for my planned trip to the cafe.
See? I'm weird. I have no qualms waking up at 4 in the morning here, but I can't drag my ass out of bed at 7 back home.
And I don't think my roomie is going to have a good week, trying to adjust to her roomie's weird sleeping habits.
I was being a good aunt yesterday. I bought stuff for the little man, before I would buy anything for myself.
That eases the guilt much much more.
Since my ex-boss is no longer travelling with us on this trip, and my now-boss was here a day earlier for a side meeting, I became again the self-designated driver - "Hey, I need the practice for my Vancouver roadtrip" was my excuse.
And because there are six of us on this trip, I got us a monster.
I have never driven a car this huge, but it sure does feel 'queenly' being elevated much higher above the ground. I kept praying my side mirrors didn't get knocked off.
Anyway, my philosophy is: when you rent a car, get something you'd never be able to buy with your own money.
Makes good sense, especially if you're a poor car-lover? No?
And now that we don't have my ex-boss here hogging the car-keys, I think we can drive out for a nice hot Vietnamese lunch when we get sick of the cold sandwiches and falitas we're always fed here at the meeting.
The Vancouver trip is getting tricker.
1 - If I rent a car here in the US and drop it off in Canada, it's going to cost me an obscene sum of money. How obscene? I've yet to find out.
2 - So if I rent the car throughout the four days I'm in Vancouver, it might cost me more than budgetted for, but I'd just be charged the normal daily rates but I'm not sure if the car would be utilized for the four days. Hmm... maybe then, I might be able to drive to the mountains after all.
3 - I may have to leave Vancouver on July 27, so I can take a Greyhound from Seattle to Portland in the morning of July 28, so I can catch my 2pm flight back home.
4 - If I keep my rented car for the four days, I'd have to leave Vancouver in the wee hours of July 28 to head back to Portland, so I can catch my 2pm flight back home.
Argh. ARgh. ARGH.
Don't want to rack my brains now.
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