Day five was fun. I arrived at work an hour and a half early (when rides are offered, you don't really want to push your luck). This allowed me the opportunity to sit down and have breakfast with a coworker. Subway breakfasts have become boring ever since they stopped actually preparing eggs and stopped carrying round 4" buns; they're microwave-ready egg patties leave me with an underwhelming 'meh'. I learned that there was freezing rain going on, so thankfully another coworker offered me a ride home.
On Day Six of this wondrous OC Transpo bus strike, I did the inevitable: I walked to work. With a car, there are half a dozen different routes to take to get there, and two buses (that take the same basic route). That said, there's no convenient way to actually walk there, not without having to overshoot and circle back, or walking from point A to point B to point C to the Destination. It's all very awkward, and a lot of it has to do with how poorly planned out the mall and its immediate surroundings were. I opted to use a bunch of side streets that looked via Google Earth to be the best path to take. Had it not been winter, I'm sure there are other shortcuts that could have been explored, but snow limits one's ability to explore. As does time, and the need to actually have energy to function for the following eight hours.
I also defiantly walked past a "do not walk here" sign on the transitway and walked straight through the station, in the middle of the road. It's not like there are any buses around to be delayed or hit me, right?
What worked for me was that the temperature was not only above zero, but edging toward double digits. Winter boots kept my feet (mostly) dry as all that snow we've been up to started going the way snow does when its warm. Had it been colder, or windy, it might have been hell. Luckily, all I really had to deal with was the splashing caused by vehicles thanks to the watery state of the roads. One driveway I saw during my journey was less a driveway and more a pond.
You also notice in the winter that most of these side streets don't actually have sidewalks.
Today, I went to pay for my winter semester. The credit card company is probably happy now that I owe them money. I feigned happiness to the woman at the Registrar's office that I would be getting lots of reward points, kicking myself slightly for not going with the not-so-free credit card plan that rewards me more points for every dollar I spend.
My little cousin drove me, since she had an appointment at the school. It's moments like that where you realise that the little girl you perceive is actually almost 18, is driving by herself, and is planning to move into a house with a bunch of friends. We talked about drinking and driving and drugs and boyfriends. Very surreal.
Her appointment turns out would last the whole evening, so I walked home rather than wait an hour for a friend to pick me up. I might have waited had I remembered that they day before, snow was melting left, right, and centre, while today it was comfortably below zero. The whole bike path was ice. Yay for winter boot traction!
One week later, I must admit that with a bit of luck and wonderful people patiently dealing with my frequent requests for rides, the bus strike hasn't been too bad. Sure, I still have some Christmas shopping to do that I haven't done, and I haven't had the freedom to go and do things, but I'm still getting to school and work as needed. The two head cheeses behind this kerfuffle still aren't bending to meet one another at some reasonable medium. Last I heard, there's talk of possibly talking again "before Christmas". Here's to another week of getting around how I have been: one day at a time.
Comments