~Wednesday~ I caught the 8:45 bus in instead of the 8:15, as the university was on a weather delay opening at 10:00. It’s the day after the “big ice storm” that brought everything to a standstill around here, and it was cold while I waited for the bus, about which warnings had been posted on the CAT website about possible delays.
At about 8:55 a bus pulled up to the intersection near my stop, and I thought, “Finally,” and picked up my laptop bag. And then it turned right instead of left, and there was just enough time for me to see that it was the #11c bus, not my #12 bus. The #11c does not usually come this way, but I remember having read at the CAT website, too, about that route being on a detour or changed.
I busied myself while waiting by trying to get all artsy with the sun reflecting off the ice in the grass, which looked as pretty as a picture:
And here I am, a shadow of my former artsy self:
The bus finally came at 9:01, which was way late. It was appropriately warm on board, though. A man sat in the handicapped seating section holding two shiny black canes.
At a subsequent stop a couple got on, the woman of which was blind, and the man seemingly her escort. She spoke loudly, which made me wonder if she might be a slight bit deaf, too, and she came across as high maintenance, and by that I don’t mean because of her physical disability.
She had a small suitcase next to her feet, and to it, a soft-sided, cooler-type lunch bag was attached. After sitting there for just a moment, and without anybody having walked anywhere near her, she said to her escort who was sitting across the aisle from her, “Do you have room over there for my bags? It’s just that people tend to walk closer to this side of the bus and they might smash…” and I thought she was going to say something like, “…my Christopher Radko ornament” or “…my Fabergé egg” or something along those lines, but instead she said, “…my lunch.”
Approaching my building on the walk from the bus stop, I heard a car alarm going off in the parking lot behind my building. I wondered how long those things go off if no one is around to turn them off—presumably it’s before the battery dies out.
Today was our first official work day “down in the basement,” and to the management team’s credit, they did try to make it nice. And by that I mean they brought in food. There were some huge banana, chocolate, and blueberry muffins, which made me think of Brad and Anna (inside joke), some chips with guacamole and salsa, Hershey’s chocolate nuggets, some mixed dried fruit, and sliced oranges. It was all very nice, and appreciated.
I went into our new break room, which is only new to us and not the building in general, and I was amused by this sign posted over the coffee pots. That circled phrase just slays me for some reason:
Today was the bi-monthly (of the every-other-month variety) University IT Committee meeting, an official university meeting for which I have scribe responsibilities. A couple of things stressed me out about the meeting:
- It was hot as f*ck in the room when I arrived—almost as hot as the bus when that hot mess is driving.
- The remote control that turns on the projector—which is kind of critical to display the agenda since we don’t print it any more, and if people have presentations to share—was nowhere to be found.
But it all worked out. The admin person who had the remote showed up ten minutes before the meeting started, and it was a short, lightly-attended meeting. The short part is most significant, as the shorter the meeting (it’s scheduled for 1.5-hours, but only lasted 60 minutes), the shorter the minutes.
I got on a rant today about our voice mail system, which when after it tells you you have a new message and you elect to listen to it says, “The following new message has not been heard.”
D’oh. Isn’t that what makes it a new message? If it had already been heard, it wouldn’t be new, now would it. Perhaps there’s some way to save a new message without listening to it, and in that case, I would expect to hear, “The following new message has not been heard.” However, I would still argue that a saved message is no longer new, and it would be more accurate at that point to say, “The following old (or saved) message has not been heard.”
I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to go off on this, as it’s something that has bothered me about our voice mail system since I started working there on September 15, 2008. Who’s keeping track?
On the 5:00 city bus ride home, two of my long-time buscapade characters made an appearance. Temporary Alice and her daughter Word Search Lady—whom long time readers will remember I initially thought were sisters—were on board, and as is their habit, sat in separate seats.
The black guy in the wheelchair, who a while back you’ll remember spoke so loudly on the phone telling whomever it was on the other end to “go to the website and buy insurance today,” was also on board and he was telling a story to Temporary Alice, but she didn’t seem at all engaged in it.
Word Search Lady was in the seat in front of me, and instead of the usual Word Search puzzle magazine she’s usually heads down in (hence her name), she was playing this in her lap instead:
At one point, she put that away, and took out what looked like a child’s calculator. Its casing was turquoise with navy blue trim, and it had bright yellow keys as its number pad, and a bright orange On/Off button. I have no idea what she was calculating. Surprised? Well, you know it wasn’t for lack of trying to see.
Today is my “blogiversary” of seven years of not missing a single day of blogging. I actually started blogging regularly back in the fourth quarter of 2002, and pretty much blogged every day in 2003 except the last couple of days in November and all of December.
But January 12, 2004 is the day from which I haven’t missed any days at all, so I’ve made that my blogiversary. That day, coincidentally, was also the day I started graduate school. Thanks to my friend, Anna, for converting the years to days:
I had what I’ve dubbed “Mediterranean Spaghetti” for dinner this evening. Into the Italian spaghetti sauce, I added Portuguese sausage, and then pimento-stuffed Spanish olives. It was most delicious.
Dancing was a lot of fun tonight. We had a good number of dancers, a few bar patrons including Bob, Kevin, and Dave, and I got in a ton of exercise.
They have “slushies” (peach and kiwi) at the bar now, to which you can add liquor for a couple of bucks, I think they said. I got a small sample of each, each separately and then mixed together, and it was all good. However, I am not a slushie-type person, so I don’t see myself ever ordering one. Some bourbon added to that peach flavored one might be pretty yummy, though.