The first is an image from the bus stop during the most recent blizzard, last week. I left the 4-wheel drive vehicle parked in the driveway and trekked the two blocks to the bus stop in my new winter boots.

I stood in the blowing snow for an hour before the bus came (Portland buses do not run like clockwork even in the sunshine) but I got to work eventually and enjoyed my time lollygagging, catching snowflakes on the tongue and watching and listening to the snowplows rumble across the white plain leading lines of ill-prepared commuters that carried on with their thumbs on their phones in snow-covered cars. It's pleasant the way a snowstorm softens and quiets down the morning commute soaking up the sound and closing in white around everything. Falling snow makes it feel like you're inside even when you're outside.

The second is a bit of graffiti, if I can call it that. I'm not qualified to identify graffiti or comment on the aesthetic merits of illicit scrawlings. I know that sometimes it can be beautiful, but mostly it's just boring and ugly. So, I'm not sure if this is actually graffiti art on the bus stop sign. If it is, it's pretty clever. It's a simple calculation, yet it is unfinished. It could be a comment on the artist's own graffiti oeuvre. Or it could be that someone challenged in the art of mental calculation, someone with a pen but without paper, needed to arrive at a sum on the spot. Maybe the bus arrived before he or she could complete the labor.