~Wednesday~ I was quasi organized this morning, so I only had to add the four heaping teaspoons of coffee into the coffee maker, which was already primed with a filter and water.
I arrived at the city bus stop at 8:14, where within view there were three areas of the sidewalk “under construction.” I’m not sure what they’re digging for, but heavy machinery and construction workers are involved. I stopped looking at the latter when the bus arrived at 8:20.
Once again, Hot Mess Driver was not at the helm, and I hate to say it (but you know I’m gonna) I kinda hope she’s been “let go,” or has at least been permanently reassigned to another shift or route.
On one of the Gorman Street stops two Hispanic women, with four kids between them, boarded. I’ve mentioned these ladies before in that, at one point in time the one was pregnant with one of the four kids now with them, and that they usually end up sitting with at least one non-related bus passenger between them, who they then proceed to talk over in their subsequent conversations.
Today, I saw how that happened. They let the kids go find a seat while they pay the fares, and the kids take seats willy-nilly, and then instead of taking two seats side-by-each themselves and calling the kids over, they just join the kids wherever they’ve sat.
At a subsequent stop, a man with a bad combination boarded: holding a backpack in one hand and trying to put crinkled up dollar bills into the fare machine with the other. He really needed that other hand to flatten the bills before putting them in, as the machine kept beeping and rejecting them. I got an idea; consider this: It’s not called a handpack.”
I had lunch with a colleague, Libby, and my boss, Jude, who retired last year, and who was recently back from her trip to Paris, which she’d won from WUNC public radio.
We dined al fresco at Porters, where we were accosted by a very drunk guy walking by, and then were totally inundated with flies throughout our meal.
Other than that, the weather was great and the company delightful. Jude brought back two little jars of very spicy mustard for me. She knows I like spicy.
The rest of my month got “kicked up a notch” after confirming my trip to the beach this weekend with Joe, and later in the day being invited to meet my first cousin, Pam, and my first cousin once removed (read: Pam’s daughter), Tara, in Myrtle Beach for the weekend after that. I also recognize this invitation as an implicit affirmation, hence that tag below on this entry.
I also confirmed my visit to Joe in Chicago in July over the weekend between two weeks he’s going to be there for business.
I had a very explicitly affirming day, too, in a variety of ways:
- In the most superficial way—albeit one rooted in a gift that was not a superficial affirmation—I opened another box of Daily Affirmation Gum today, and its affirmation was: “You have the heart of a champion.” I only have one box left, the “Monday” box, and it’s taking everything I have to not open it just to read the affirmation.
- By a former IBM colleague of mine, this comment on a status update of mine on Facebook: “You continually crack me up, John! I know it’s been years, but I miss seeing you in the break room now that I’m on the second floor again. Hope your co-workers there appreciate you just as much. :)”
- That package I mentioned mailing at lunch time yesterday was to Robert—and which contained Des’ borrowed copy of Bossypants, a bar of fancy soap, Adele’s 21 CD, his ethernet cable that he left at my house a couple of weeks ago, and five or six bags of Bit O’ Honey—and about which I received this instant message later in the day: “Hello gorgeous! :-* Ok, I don’t know which is sweeter, the gift I received or the person that sent it (them). Thanks for making me cry. :-)”
- This Facebook comment from my first cousin once removed upon hearing that I’m joining her and her mom in Myrtle Beach for the weekend at the end of next week: “Could it be true? Is my fav cousin potentially popping in for a visit next week? :)”
Because I would have had to wait another 20 minutes or so for the city bus home, I caught the Wolfline #9 Greek Village bus instead. I knew I’d have a little bit of a walk, up Kaplan from Gorman, but my laptop bag was on the light side today and the weather was gorgeous.
When the bus stopped at the bus stop before my stop, and I didn’t move to get off, the driver said, “I’m going out of service. You have to get off here.”
“But I’m just going to the next stop… on your way…” I pointed out, since the bus goes by it to return to wherever it returns to when it goes out of service, but she said, “I’m sorry. I’m going out of service now. (As if I hadn’t heard that part.) And if I did that for you, I’d have to do it for everybody…”
I cut her off, and said, “I gotcha. Thanks.”
Off the bus, I got right to making lemonade from my tart, self-pitying lemons, and I thought, “Okay in addition to the weather being beautiful, this will give me a little more exercise for the day, and I’m going to pass that gotraingle.org sign with the erroneous information on it that I reported, so I can see if they’ve corrected it yet.”
They had not. Let me put a look of [click] on my face.
Dancing was a lot of fun. We had a good number of dancers, and there were a good number of bar patrons present, including Rip and his friend from Rocky Mount.
At about 10:45, I said my good-byes, and I invited Bob to walk over to The Borough, where my friend Jason was having birthday drinks. He had posted on Facebook that he was going to be there at 9:30 so that all of his friends could stop by and buy him a drink.
I’d told him that if he dropped by Flex before 11:00, I’d buy him one there, and since it didn’t look like he was going to do that, I went over there to buy him a drink. Lucky for me he was all “drinked out” by the time I got there, so I just wished him a Happy Birthday.