~Tuesday~ With yesterday being a holiday, it’s a short work week, and I started it off in the rain at the bus stop noting the end stages of muffin deterioration. You can see that the wrapper is almost completely flattened now. Remember how it looked a week ago Monday?
I waited for the bus for fifteen minutes in the rain, making it one of those days when it’s not fun to be taking public transportation. The good news about the rain, though, is that most likely by the end of the day, that muffin will finally be completely disintegrated. Finis. Kaput. Gone. Done with it.
A skinny, white boy wearing jean shorts, and and flip-flops on the feet at the end of quite hairy legs, took the seat across the aisle from me and crossed his legs like this:
Although he wasn’t Sci-Fi Fantasy Man, he delved into his book, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Shadow, which I imagined being about a planet where they don’t value running a comb through your hair before leaving your house or spaceship in the morning—a planet that he obviously felt at one with.
My work day started off with our weekly 9:00-10:00 staff meeting. We actually finished the business part of the meeting with 20 minutes to spare (a very rare thing indeed), but spent an extra five or so minutes catching each other up on our respective holiday weekends.
Early afternoon I walked over to the Reverie Coffee Shop, where I asked Sallah (the owner and barista) if he’d had a nice vacation, since I’d stopped there last week or the week before one day and he had a “closed for the week for vacation” sign on the door.
“Did you go anywhere fun?” I asked.
And he replied, “Yes, I did. Brazil.”
Just after noon, I read—and proofread—my manager’s assessment of my annual contribution to our organization, which I found quite affirming.
Just before leaving work, I used the restroom and saw that the bump that I’d felt just below my left nostril all day was actually a pimple. Really? 52 years old and still getting pimples? Really???
I caught the 5:00 city bus home, and two blast-from-the-past characters were aboard—Temporary Alice and her sister-who-turned-out-to-be-her-daughter, Word Search Lady. I couldn’t see Alice’s badge to see if it still had TEMPORARY EMPLOYEE stamped on it. I could see that her daughter was indeed working on her word search puzzles.
As the bus approached the Western Blvd. / Method Rd. intersection, my left leg went all numb and it made me think:
- I must not be having a heart attack, because my left arm’s not numb.
- I wonder what would happen if I had a heart attack on this bus.
- Do they have procedures for that?
- Would the driver use his walkie-talkie or two-way radio or whatever it is he has up there that’s sometimes blasting with “One-Adam-12” type talk on it?
- Could the driver use my cell phone to call an ambulance?
- Has anyone ever died from a heart attack on a CAT bus before?
A quick Google search of “CAT bus Raleigh dead heart attack” didn’t find any, but a “how many people die of heart attacks on buses” did yield a story with the title of, “Driver, 89, keeled over with a fatal heart attack whilst driving.” Great. Something else to worry about. This was supposed to be about me.
I received a most affirming e-mail response from Pam in response to my e-mail to her and Rene telling them that my blog entries from Friday and Saturday were available for their enjoyment. She wrote:
| You closed your email to Rene and me as LOVE YOU GUYS. Well, I love you more! I too am drawn to you. We must promise to stay connected. I am at work right now so I don’t have the time to reply on your blog. Great job! You didn’t miss anything. Are you sure you’re gay? I’m so drawn to you because you’re so adorable and an absolutely wonderful man. I am so glad you’re in my life. I can not wait to see you again. Thank you for the kind words about my kiddos. They are wonderful and we are very close. They adored you too! Well, must go. I’ll keep in touch. PS: Love the pictures.
Love you,
(Rene’s) Pam LOL
XXXXXOOOOO
|
I love how she signed it, “(Rene’s) Pam” as that’s how I differentiated her from “(Bobby’s) Pam” in my blog entries. Too funny.
I did everything in my power to convince myself to get to the gym tonight, and finally at around 8:00, I did. Did convince myself, that is. That doesn’t mean it happened. Before I got out the door, I’d grabbed my laptop, and I drove directly to Cup A Joe’s at Mission Valley instead. What a slug!
I desperately wanted to finish up my blog entries for the weekend. Specifically, I wanted to finish Sunday’s entry before another day passed by, and I delivered on that—finishing up right at the 10:30 coffee shop closing time.
At home, I quickly devised Monday’s entry before hitting the sack. All caught up. Whew!