"Com' On Baby, You Can Do This, Never Thinking This Is Easy" & Taxi Miscellany & Poem

Tuesday morning it snowed again but this time, later combining with rain foretold a minor not major event, making my school run to Bellevue incident free.  It was only after I dropped the student off, and accepted a Metro/1st Transit run in neighboring Kirkland, did my fun begin.  Already 45 minutes late on this call, I was under pressure to both reach the passenger and get her to her Microsoft building in Redmond minus substantial delay.  Adding tension was an unknown address posing a potential mystery comprising slick roadways, steep hills and other assorted unpleasant winter weather surprises.

Looking at my Thomas Guide, plus the fact that I worked at nearby Fairfax Psychiatric Hospital in 1984/85 assisted in getting me pointed correctly, and yes, I was talking to myself out loud, relieving the stress, by "Com' on Baby, Com' on............! " making sure I wasn't losing my concentration.  

And yes, I quickly found my fare but truly few if any understanding the skill and professionalism entailed in getting to her address minus delay and excuse.  If it was understood, Uber and Lyft would not exist, the attitude being anyone can do what I do but of course it "just ain't true" and that is the damn way it is!  Yes, I am complaining but to whom I have no idea.

Cab Miscellany

---Second time I had this somewhat inebriated couple from Pioneer Square to the North-end.  A drunker version of the comic pages "The Lockhorns," this intelligent couple bantering their way northward.  I really like them, honesty minus pretense.  And getting $40.00 each time sweetens the sentiment. 

---Why dd it take the City of Seattle months to notice all these questionable massage parlors in and around Chinatown?  I knew instantly what was going on, and finally disgusted after reading about a NYC bust  in the NY Times, I sent it to the mayor, along with some choice commentary.  

And just a few  days later, the Seattle Times shouts out that 11 of them had been shut down.  One had aroused suspicions since 2015, meaning "better late than never" might not apply to Seattle's too usual "the blind leading the blind," making the obvious invisible to local authorities repeatedly saying they know what they are doing.  Beyond City Hall, does anyone else believe them?

---If this story is true as described, the State of WA should be totally ashamed, persecuting a flat-rate for-hire driver for not knowing both his WA State Business License and WA State Drivers License had been suspended due to him being "nine days late in paying child support."  

Turns out his 7 children are doing well, with 2 of them in medical and law school.  Who knows why he was delinquent but as was told in the hearing, it seems like he has been a supportive and loving father.  

The bigger question is as to why does the State of Washington criminalize small infractions while allowing landlords across the state to charge insanely high rents?  Due to a bill passed in 1981, landlords can charge anything they want but pity the cab driver who innocently offends State dictates, questioned as to "Why did you pick up fares over those nine days?"  Who is the real criminal?

And of course the answer obvious, everyone knowing the answer but certainly not stopping the "Spanish Inquisition-style" persecution, pressing the driver into a bureaucratic corner, stern fingers wagging "how could you, how could you have been this negligent?"

---Another joy associated with taxi is not being able to walk, two days ago my left knee suddenly squawking, making it very difficult to take a step forward.  "Why," my knee screamed at me, "why have you kept me bent for 30 years in the god damn taxi!  Are you crazy?"  

Thankfully, stretching and two bouts in a whirlpool helped some, allowing me some small functionality until I can get to my two acupuncture treatments scheduled for this upcoming Monday and Wednesday.  As I always say about taxi, for me it truly is "insult to injury."

---The NY Times wrote about the recent Uber legal hire who is attempting to clear out the over 200 credible sexual accusations against their operators, this before Uber's upcoming IPO (stock) offering.  I guess Uber doesn't want Wall Street to think they condone rapists.  

And I agree, not a good management decision. Instead, Uber is saying "it cares about and loves you" which might be true but since perhaps $120 billion dollars are at stake, one could question their sincerity.  

Do I?  Of course not, knowing they love me too despite my vociferous tongue describing Uber contradictions and evasions proliferating the transportation landscape.  

And where did this legal eagle originate?  The Obama administration.  Obama's former AG also assisting Uber, Uber one big Obama political family.  Ain't that nice?  Remember this next time you vote Democrat, the laborer's friend and ally.  

Poem

The only taxi-related part of this poem is that it was written when I wasn't driving cab, instead traveling with "she-who-can't-be-named" in northern California nearly 8 1/2 years ago.  I read this poem at my last "book opening" reading and thought it a good one but, upon review, not quite finished.  I share it because I'd rather talk about anything else other than taxi.  Ah yes, to be sitting right now by a river, never to drive a cab again.  I was ready then and more ready now.  

                                                                Crooked Numbers

Four plus four plus four equals five

           but of course it doesn't but certainly it does

if I want it to, with eight and nine and twenty

          

         adding up to to fifty-one;

                                                 or oppositely subtracting

eleven from ninety resulting in an implausible thirty

          or is it forty? 

or better, none of it mattering, numbers meant to be

                                                                    manipulated,

                 me and you and all 

to be added to 

                      or subtracted from,  everyone suddenly irritating

             abstractions.

Or requesting a higher math,  multiplied or divided into

                   
                     what or why perhaps

completely inconsequential to an existing 

                                                                   whole,

                     stating beyond doubt 

everything and anything

               is what I want or make or say it to be,

life obviously an artificial construct building to

       nonsense equating nothing to substance

                                       and why believe something

when instead one can maintain anything

       and all to be true by simply wishing upon

                      whim and fancy and imagined reality

floating upon a mountain-rimmed restless sky,

          dusk embracing me and you

and the river. 

                                       

                    

_____________________________________________

This was written at Mule Bridge trailhead beside the Salmon River sometime July 2010.  Now you know what "goes on in my head" besides taxi.  Scary, huh?