Wow, it was cold the last couple of days! Western Washington weather is crazy and the way residents respond to it is even crazier!
We use a DVR for all our TV watching. We like being able to skip the commercials and frankly without being able to I'm not sure how much TV I'd be willing to sit through. That's another blog though.
There are a couple odd things about watching everything on a DVR. For one, I no longer know what time or network a given show is on. I find it in the list and mash play. Because it's all recorded everything we watch is delayed by hours at least and sometimes days. Last night, in our copious hours of free time, Tammy and I watched one of our favorite programs. It aired originally on Monday and we watched it 24 hours later. In the middle of one scene, a marquee begins to scroll across the bottom of the screen with breaking news.
Every time that happens it conjures up terrible images for me. It's probably the result of growing up during the paranoia laden Cold War era where America sat grinding their teeth waiting for news that the missile exchange was occurring and we should "assume the position". Maybe it's the memory of 9-11 and the days after too. It seems like we spent weeks dividing our attention between the talking heads and that stream of text scrolling underneath. Between the stress, trying to keep one eye on the announcer, and one eye on the text, I think I developed muscle cramps of a type never before experienced by a human being. I'm surprised we haven't seen ads on late night TV from sleazy law offices offering to sue the networks on our behalf. "Did you or someone you know develop Yappidypanic syndrome during the coverage of the terror attacks of 9-11? If so, contact the law offices of Ray Soosalot. You may be entitled to compensation."
Ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Scrolling across the screen was this message "Breaking news: Rain mixed with snow is moving into Western Washington and the Puget Sound area…" Umm, huh? Rain mixed with snow? Wow, send up the flares and break out the emergency rations. I nearly fell off the couch.
Drivers in this area really do go nuts in any weather that deviates from 58 and overcast. Add to that the way our news media turns every drop of rain into "Storm Watch: 2010" it's a wonder we get anywhere. I was thinking about this today as I rode through downtown in one of the big articulated buses. All this was going through my head as I watched this driver maneuver this giant machine through downtown Seattle at an amazing clip. I've been riding the bus long enough now to say that these folks have amazing skills. Seattle, like most cities, is a driving nightmare. Calling what the folks behind the wheel of these buses do "driving" are like saying Meadowlark Lemon could bounce a ball, Jimmy Wayne is out for a walk, or Jimi Hendrix played the guitar. I can drive our little Hyundai around those streets, but what those people do is a completely different thing.
I did have one experience though that brought me close to calling Tammy and telling her not to bother picking me up at the Renton Transit Center. The good news would have been that she could star home early that day and that the end result was likely to be considered accidental so the extra insurance would kick in. I got onto the bus out bound from Redmond and the driver didn't look familiar. Now, I haven't been doing the bus thing that long, so I didn't think too much of the "new face". As we headed out though, the first thing that grabbed my attention was the age and condition of the bus. Rickety is probably too kind a word. As we rounded our first corner, the driver cut it a little short and we rolled over the curb. Again, hey, these things are bound to happen, but I wasn't worried… yet. Next I noticed the bus seem to change speed a lot, and switch lanes somewhat radically. That's when I started to worry.
My brain is prone to spin on things and I began to do the math at this point. Rickety, older bus, erratic driving, and the driver seemed just a little lost. Either the bus has been stolen by a "wannabe" transit operator or we had a new driver. The likelihood of the former being quite low, I assumed the latter. I decided to take my head phones off and listen. Sure enough, our pilot was fairly new to the route and the profession. The other thing that became apparent was she was darned excited to be employed and was really enjoying the work. She couldn't have seemed more elated had she screamed "Waaaaahooo" and made calf roping motions above her head. It was both wonderful to see someone so happy to be working and colon cleansingly terrifying to be bouncing down the road with her at the helm.
I've been on her bus several times now and she's gotten much better. She's rapidly building her skill and my head phones are back in my ears. You know what though, the excitement she has for her new job doesn't appear to have decreased one bit. They need to issue her a cowboy hat!
I don't worry so much when I see her pull up now. In fact, I rather enjoy the energy that fills the bus. If I look out and see rain and snow mixed as she pulls up though I may have to make that phone call to tell Tammy the combo to the safe.
Don't drive angry! Drive weird!
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