On this morning’s trip to work it was just the driver and I. Individual chauffeuring, no less!
I always enjoy this time of year when all of the normal work behaviour patterns start breaking down. The schools and universities have finished for the year; everyone is starting to go of on holidays; there’s absolutely no traffic on the roads. Colleagues are wandering around the office in shorts and T-shirts, and there seem to be champagne office Christmas breakfasts going on in every park around town.
Yeah, but I hate that all of the cafes shut down for a few weeks. Where am I to go for my coffee hit?
In other news, spurred on by Masterchef, I am making a crouembouche for Christmas, which is making the house very hot, given the hot night we had. Looking forward to a milder Christmas, should be BBQ weather!
It’s two days before Christmas in the US, and there were a lot of empty spaces in the parking lot at work. I stopped by the library this evening, and it was almost empty. I guess everybody’s doing last-minute shopping. I’m getting ready to head out of town tomorrow–I hope it doesn’t snow this weekend! Or freezing rain, that would be worse. I’m ready for some candy canes and mistletoe!
I had the opposite problem - traffic was so bad that my bus was an hour late, and crowded when it finally got there. And it was colder than usual outside, so I had to freeze for an extra hour in the dark all by myself in a lonely industrial neighborhood. Did I mention that you have to cross a bridge that passes by a homeless encampment before you can get to the nearest populated area? And that there are no public bathrooms nearby? Puts you in a real holiday mood, it does. And I still had to get to the mall and finish my shopping.:mad: Oh well, at least that’s done, and I am now home, enjoying a homemade tamale (thanks, Mom and Princess!)
Lucky13, are you me? I waited 45 minutes in the freezing cold and wind for a bus that never showed, and finally decided to jump on one that took me kinda near where I was going, except that I had to cross three busy roads and a seriously “who the hell designed this thing” rotary to get there, in the street of course, since it’s snowy here and the sidewalks weren’t cleared. People better appreciate that I risked my life to get them Christmas presents!
I was almost the lone rider on my bus this morning, but as we were pulling away from the last pickup stop, one person came running up, and the driver stopped again and let him on. He actually apologized to me for taking away my status of lone rider, but I thanked him for sparing me the environmental guilt. It was all quite cheerful, although haunted by the specter of the county considering shutting down some bus lines due to low ridership.
A year ago we had 16 inches of snow. In Portland, two inches can shut down the entire city, so 16 inches and temps in the low 20s made it even difficult to travel by bus.
I live diagonally across the city from close friends. There is, believe it or not, ONE bus that goes from near my house to theirs. Usually, bus routes tend to just go N/S or E/W and you make at LEAST one transfer, usually more. But this one route is long and convoluted.
I had no choice but to ride it to her house and back on Christmas Eve. The trip there took a couple hours (a 30 minute trip by car). The trip home wasn’t as long, but the entire trip I was the only one on the bus. I fell asleep at one point, and the driver yelled to wake me up, asking where my stop was. (I didn’t think I looked that homeless…) I told him and he said, “Oh. You have a long way. Go back to sleep.”
I flew home on the 23rd. I screwed up, though: I booked the flight so that I could catch the plane after work, but forgot all about that when I booked by vacation and took the 23rd off. The night of the 22nd I called the airline and asked if I could be moved to a morning flight. They said it would cost me over $200 to make the change so late, and seeing as I paid $300 for round-trip tickets I said screw that. So I get to the airport the night of the 23rd, and I am the only person on the plane. Seriously. For want of $200 they flew a plane that seats 20 all the way to my city and back to pick up one person. Idiots.
The bus and metro were actually relatively busy on Christmas Day - certainly they were busier than what I think of as “quiet” - but perhaps I was just taking them at the hour when everyone was going wherever for Christmas dinner (as I was).
