~Friday~ Finally a day in which I wasn’t running behind in the morning. I actually got out to the stop at 8:14 for the bus that doesn’t leave its originating stop about a mile away until 8:15. It might have had something to do with the fact that the university buses have stopped for winter break now, and I knew if I didn’t get my ass out there in time for the city bus, I had no other option.
Shortly after I arrived at the stop, Exercising Asian Man walked toward me, exchanged good mornings with me, walked past me, and then started jogging down the street in his dress shoes, with a stocking hat on, and a fully-stuffed backpack bouncing on his back.
He stopped at the intersection of Kaplan and Kent, where looking up Kent you see the bus coming when it is, and he did some stretching exercises bending over and back up, and then added some arm movements that looked like he was lifting imaginary weights.
He ran back and forth two times, and then on the third time, he removed his backpack and left it at the stop while he did one more run pounding on his back with his fists, a move I’m guessing he learned on Survivor, or perhaps even some National Geographic special on primates.
On the bus, it was so warm that we both took off our jackets, he probably overheated from his workout, and me, well, just because I’m me. Hello Outdoorsy Driver was at the helm, and as if in some sort of invisible igloo bubble shielding her from the intense heat, drove with a stocking hat, a zipped up coat, and white knit gloves on. I just don’t understand.
Excuse the poor quality of the photograph of this house ad posted today. I guess if you know all the current rates, this would mean something to you, but I don’t, so it doesn’t. I do know that right now a single trip ticket is $1.00 and a local day pass is $2.00, so something else must be changing.
The fact that you can’t tell what’s changing, from a communications perspective, is a problem. Just sayin’.
There was a lot more churn today on the situation exacerbated by that e-mail I received yesterday at work, which I’m not being cryptic about here to tease or make anyone ask what’s going on, but simply to capture for posterity, since this is my diary as well as my blog. It’s been my experience that expounding on work-related personnel issues in a public forum is generally neither wise nor fruitful. Discuss.
We had our Outreach, Communications, and Consulting holiday luncheon today, which was for everyone who reports to my boss’s boss. There were about 20 of us, and we ate at David’s Dumpling & Noodle Bar, and my boss’s boss picked up the tab. It was a nice time in spite of the current environment, which our boss’s boss admitted was “not good” right now, so at least the “elephant in the room” was acknowledged.
I caught the 6:30 city bus home, which was running extra late, so much so that I thought maybe I missed it and would have to catch the 7:00. It usually arrives by 6:40 the latest, but it didn’t pull up until 6:45 tonight.
At the Method/Western Boulevard stop, someone wanted to exit the back door, but the driver had only opened the front door to let someone on. In this case, one normally says “Back door” to alert the driver that they want to exit there, which is exactly what someone did.
Displaying zero-to-no care about customer service, the driver simply said back, “Front door.” Not, “I’m sorry, but the back door isn’t working, so you’ll have to exit the front door,” just “Front door,” as in, “Fuck you you fucking fuck! Front door!”
And while I’m ranting and raving: Once again, I ask, “How hard is it to understand this? How exactly—when the interior lights of the bus are blaring in your eyes and creating a glare on a window out to the dark—is one supposed to be able to tell what stop you’re coming up on?”
I got to the gym, which closes at 9:00 on Friday evenings, at 7:30 and worked out until 8:30, starting with 300 (15 sets of 20) ab crunches, and followed that up with 40 minutes on the elliptical machine, doing an extra ten minutes as penance for skipping a workout yesterday. Did I say penance? I meant “treated myself.” Yeah, right.
Throughout that entire time, my nemesis was there on the treadmill, walking in the slowest of baby steps to the front of the belt and then sliding back to the end of it. All through my ab crunches and all through my 40 minutes of sweating my ass off on the elliptical machine. Maybe that’s what bothers me so much. I work so hard and he’s just a sloth. And he’s thin. Bitter and chubby? Party of one? Your table is ready.
I got home close to 9:00, and while I’d considered going out this evening, I ended up staying in. I think this might be the third Friday I’ve stayed in. That’s a lot of calories and cash saved.
I devised and posted yesterday’s blog entry, played some Scrabble, and had an instant message conversation with Robert.
And then I read a little of The Help before falling asleep at a decent hour for a change.