Sailor Soldier of Love and Justice

Yesterday morning started out shocking with the news that they finally caught bin laden. I saw the president's tweet that he was about to talk about something important just as I was getting into bed, but I assumed it was something to do with gas prices. My assumption was pretty far off.

It was bizarre how one man's death brightened everyone's mood that morning. People were POLITE and SMILING on the train. On a Monday morning! Pretty crazy.

The rest of the day was calm after that. Spent most of the day answering questions for people. Then our marketing agency made a big mistake that psycho boss don't catch, so next week I get to sit through a mind-numbing lobbying meeting that I have already had to sit through twice.

In the evening, ben went to bed early so I cleaned up a little around the house. Then I went to bed early too. Unfortunately I woke up again at 4:30 from a terrible nightmare. It left me so drenched in sweat, I had to get up and shower. Ben wasn't there to comfort me after the nightmare because he had a late night shift at work. Then my dog thought it was playtime, so I had trouble falling back asleep.

Ben crawled back into bed about 15 minutes before my alarm went off. I was bad and stayed in bed an extra 20 minutes to spend some time with him.

I hope today goes fast. Ben has a game tonight, so at least I get to leave early today.

Currently I am trapped in my old apartment with no heat. But I have electricity, so I'll just try to distract myself from the cold.

Last night was the worst commute of my life. Not exaggerating. Five hours long and I came home with the beginnings of frost bite.

First of all, the trains were packed. But I did get a train without waiting longer than 10 minutes, so it wasn't that bad actually. The real problems started when I got to the bus station.

The line for the buses snaked around the platform and up the escalator into the metro station. I waited 90 minutes for a bus; and most of the waiting was spent out in the snow and wind. Eventually a bus did arrive. Not MY bus. But A bus. By this point I wasn't even sure my bus would EVER arrive, so I hopped on this one figuring a bus that goes part of the way was better than waiting out in the cold. Bonus: I got a seat!

I was really glad for that seat too, because it was a two hour bus ride. It only took us about 15 minutes to get almost to our exit because the buses get to use a special lane. But there's one final mile of highway that needs to be passed before we exit. And that's where we spent most of our time. The highway was a parking lot. And to make it worse, people did in fact park their cars and start walking home.

I do have to compliment everyone around me through the waiting and the bus ride. Everyone kept their spirits high and were more than willing to share their food and drinks with other riders that were feeling hungry or unwell.

After we finally got off the highway, it became extremely clear that we weren't getting to the park and ride. The roads here were parking lots too. The driver finally got us as far as the cross street and let us loose into the snow.

Ben had tried to dig our car out to come get me, but he couldn't compete against the snow. So I was left at the park and ride with no way home. I had to walk. Which actually wasn't as bad as standing because at least the movement was keeping me warm. However, I noticed during the walk that my feet were feeling more and more like clubs as I went.

While walking, the sky was flashing and booming because we had THUNDERSNOW! Although I was miserable at the time, I can appreciate the epicness of it all.

Trees were falling all around me as I walked. TRESS! One large one came crashing down right into the road. Luckily no one was hit. If it had fallen just a foot more to the right or left, it would have hit someone because there was nowhere for anyone to go to avoid it.

Lots of people were out trying to move the trees. And some people were even nice enough to direct traffic to help people avoid more roads with fallen trees. The local gov't may be totally incompetent when it comes to dealing with snow, but at least everyone else was able to work together and try to get through it the best they could.

After I had totally lost feeling in my feet, finally a kind person drove by and offered me a ride. Her car was so wonderfully warm. She was actually lost because she had to detour from a road covered in fallen trees. I gave her directions to the road she was trying to get to. I think it was a fair exchange of favors.

And then I was finally home! Ben was concerned about the loss of feeling in my feet and filled the bathtub with warm water for me to soak them in until circulation returned. Some of my toes were extremely pale. When the water finally started to warm them, they itched like crazy! Poor sad toes....

Ben and I watched some more My Little Ponies, and then went to bed. Except we had no blankets or pillows or pjs or even a change of clothes. But we did have an air mattress! We went to bed in our work clothes and fuzzy robes, using my dog's stinky bed blanket for warmth. BECAUSE WE LOST HEAT. And was anyone going to get out in this weather and fix it? No, of course not!

So we slept for six hours before it got too cold in the apt to stay still. I hope my bird is going to be ok. We still have gas and electricity though. I have pots of boiling water on the stove to try to keep things in here a little warmer. And ben is trying to shovel out the car with our stupid little travel shovel. The full sized shovel is at the house...

I have a 2 hour delay for work. I can't believe they are asking us to come in. I don't even know how I am getting in. The buses are running on a saturday schedule. I would try working from home in the apt, but...no heat. Yeah... And the house has no internet. Awesome.

So what have I learned from yesterday? When the office lets you leave 2 hours early for weather, leave 3 hours early.

Must be jerky suit day. One businessman aggressively pushed me this morning, one walked into me like I wasn't there, and another one sat on me.

While walking down the escalator at a reasonable pace, the first man grabbed my shoulder and pushed me to the standing only side. He continued pushing people out of his way and huffing very dramatically until he got to the train. To my amusement (and I suspect the amusement of the others he pushed as well), the doors slammed in his red, huffing face.

The next train that arrived was too packed for anyone to fit on. He had veins popping out of his head at that point. He stormed off after that. I hope he went upstairs again, but the train that arrived once I lost sight of him was totally empty and everyone got a seat.

A few stops later, a businessman ran into the train car and sat down with such complete carelessness that he landed half on my lap. I pushed him off, but he didn't apologize at all! Then he starts rummaging through his pockets and, I do not kid you, wrappers and receipts poured out like in a cartoon. All over me. I flicked every single one back at him. Again, no apologies.

Once I was off the train and walking to my office, a man walking with another businessman was deep in conversation and walked right into me. That was even with me looking out and trying to avoid him. And he just kept walking like I never existed! At first I thought he did it on purpose to rob me, but I looked through all my bags and pockets and everything was still there. So he was just being a total jerk.

Forgot to mention my commute this morning!

There was a guy on the bus this morning complaining about everything. It must have been his first day or something. Loudly complaining about traffic the whole way. What was anyone going to do about it? Not like the driver could magically remove the other cars from the road.

Then when we got to the train station, he complained about the cost of tickets. And the crowded conditions on the platform. And the 5 minute delay between trains. And the crowded trains. Seems like this guy would do better traveling off peak. I complain a lot, but not loudly at the station!

I skipped the train with the complainer and waited for the next one. Unfortunately the next one had no ac. I tried skipping around from car to car, thinking it was one small malfunction, but it looks like it was the whole train! In the end I just tried to sit and think cool thoughts. I was not feeling up to waiting for the next train and having to stand the whole way. At least the hot train had plenty of seats.

The man sitting next to me was cascading sweat. He smelled pretty bad. And then he started scratching himself all over. Like he had a giant rash. He ended up taking off his shirt so he could scratch more of himself. It was extremely gross and I moved to another seat as soon as I could.

After the train though, the outside air felt wonderful. The walk to work was so nice, I wished I could just keep going. But I was a good girl and went in.

This morning's commute was a challenge.

First, my bus nearly missed my stop. It was flying down the road (way over the speed limit) when I realized it wasn't slowing down for the stop. So I started waving for it and chasing it down as it sped by and eventually slowed down.

While I do approve of morning exercise, that is not what I have in mind.

When I got to the train station, the platform was totally packed. You could hear the constant wows and ughs from people coming down the escalator.

And of course each train that came to our station was also totally packed because it had two previous stops at likely equally packed stations before ours. It took me about 30 minutes to finally squeeze onto a train. (And rudely take a handicapped seat because my knee STILL hurts, but just on stairs and standing on buses and trains these days.)

The train I was on was so cold I could see my breath. My fingers were cold and numb. It was actually warmer OUTSIDE than it was in that train. But I was afraid if I got out, I wouldn't be able to catch another train for 30 minutes. I endured the cold and got to work only 30 minutes late.

Everyone kept stopping by to ask me why I was shivering and blue. I wasn't able to sit down and start some real work until I made a cup of hot tea and defrosted myself with it.

It seemed like everyone on the train this morning was coughing. It's a conspiracy to give me the swine flu or something.

Also, the woman who sat next to me today was so large, she radiated her own heat. It was weird. At first I thought it was just residual heat from standing out in the sun. It felt like I was sitting next to one of those little portable room heaters.

I am sick of the metro. I was 40 minutes late to work thanks to their incompetency.

For some reason, trains were running every 10 minutes during rush hour. This seems pretty frequent unless you know the normal amount is every 3 minutes.

By the time the train got to my stop (3rd on the line), the trains were completely packed. So even though the platform at my stop was also completely packed, there was nowhere for anyone to go. Bah.

I actually considered taking the train to the beginning of the line. If I could have pushed my way through the crowds, I probably would have done it.

And best of all, I still get to pay rush hour prices for that nonsense. I think if metro is going to run their trains like it's the middle of the day, I should at least get a reduced rate.

My bus driver decided not to show up this morning. It was a long hot wait for the next one. Nearly finished The Black Cauldron while waiting. I think I have the worst bus driver in the system.

But at least I got a seat on the train. Even though the train was packed, there were two completely empty seats. When I checked why, there was a discarded wrapper on a seat. I pushed it to the floor and made myself comfortable. Then laughed as others scrambled for the seat next to me. Losers.

The public transportation in this area needs some serious help.

On tuesday I left work early to go vote. But because of a thunderstorm that day, there were massive metro delays. I waited 20 minutes to catch an orange line train. The worst part was that for every one super crowded sharing your kidney orange line train that went by, two or three nearly empty blue line trains went by!! I don't understand why they didn't switch some of those blue to orange to help get people home.

So yeah, I missed my bus, caught the next one, and just barely made it in to vote.

Then yesterday, the same thing happened!!! I got to my bus stop just in time to watch my bus leave the station. Fantastic.

I decided to catch the 505 instead, which comes sooner than the next 552 but requires me to walk a bit further to get home. But when that bus arrived, it offloaded and went out of service! We were told we'd have to wait for the NEXT bus (30 minutes later). The people at the front of the line totally flipped out. They also called the driver's supervisor. After about 10 minutes we were on the bus. There was nothing wrong with the bus. The driver just didn't want to drive anymore that day. Grrrr.

All the extra walking and standing for the last 2 days has really aggravated my knee. I hurt it about a week ago. The internet says that since it is not swelling, clicking, or grinding, it is probably something minor and I just need to keep off the knee to give it time to heal. It had been feeling mostly better until this week. I think I reopened whatever damage I had going on in there. Sad.

In other news, my dog makes a terrible guard dog. I ordered pizza last night (got home so incredibly late, I could not cope with cooking) and when the delivery guy arrived, my dog barked very ferociously. But as soon as the door opened and she saw he was carrying food, she stops barking and starts wagging her tail at him as hard as she can. He was her new best friend.

Stupid dog. If anyone wants to rob us, they'll just need to bring a doggy treat.

Despite all the delays on the metro, it's really the people that makes it so bad.

Case #1: Mr Poopypants

The man who sat next to me today smelled liked he pooped his pants. I thought I'd die. I almost immediately had to get up and find another seat. I was even willing to stand to get away from that man.


Case #2: The Gentleman Boner

Ben kindly came up with the name. This was an elderly man that seemed to be totally oblivious to the erection he was sporting. To make it worse, he was wearing bicycle shorts. There was noooo way to hide it, even if he tried.