The Wild Ride in Everyday Ramblings

I took this five years ago on a walk with Mrs. Sherlock on the same weekend as this. We were walking in her now old neighborhood (as she has completed her move). She’s been in the new place about a week. Last time she checked in, she still didn’t have internet there.

The wearing of time on things. That is often the mood I am in, this dark wet time of year.

Feeling it especially this year. The good news is my niece seems to be tolerating the set ups for her cancer treatment pretty well. I am impressed at what a trooper she is being. She is going to be fine.

On Thursday I went across town to meet with the guys for our dialogue group. I walked downtown and it was drizzling, totally manageable in my rain pants and short hiking boots. But when I came out to take the bus home a few hours later, whoa baby, a storm had come up. Thrashing sheeting rain and a cold cold wind.

Trying to figure out how long I had to wait at the unprotected bus stop I sidled up close and personal to a huge old horse chestnut tree, trying to almost hug it as there were no leaves. My hands were freezing. I was quite drippy by the time the bus came. And weirdly there were no lights or heat on the bus. That was fine. I was able to get my mask out and put it on. A number of folks were wearing masks on the bus, so I thought it behooved me too as well. I normally do anyway.

Then this slight man got on. He was wearing jeans and a belt, but they were down just above his knees showing his shorts. He was clearly inebriated, on something, and I have never seen this before, standing right behind the small unhappy looking woman driver started to vape. She told him he had to stop, another rider chimed in. I was blessedly in the back away from this. An argument ensued. This on a freezing dark bus in the middle of a big storm.

I thought she was going to need to get help to remove him. She stopped the bus, and I am thinking that I will need to get off and wait for the next one. She did at least stop where there was a shelter. And eventually, I am not sure how she did it, but she got the guy to calm down, stop vaping and stay put. We went on our way, and he got off in the normal fashion a number of blocks later. Whew. She should get an award. Seriously. Or hazardous duty pay.

After that I had a transfer to make, and I had to wait for another bus (there was a shelter) and when this one eventually came it also didn’t have heat or lights and the windows were all steamed up and one couldn’t see a thing. By the time I got to the grocery store my hands were ice cold. But weirdly, the grocery store wasn’t that warm either.

When I finally got on the last bus, the one on the way home, it had stopped raining quite so hard and there was heat! And lights. The driver, understandably, also looked miserable though.

When I got inside, I was thrilled to find that my socks had kept my feet dry and I put on these absurd Dearfoam fleece booties I had splurged on recently, wrapped myself up in a blanket and thawed, thinking happy distracted thoughts about how incredibly privileged I am compared to so many in this big mess of a world of ours.

This too shall pass. Yesterday, when we had a break in the rain I went down to the garden and cleaned up all the twigs and small branches that had blown off the overhanging oak tree and onto my plot. We are only weeks away from time to get ready for the garden year to come. If we don’t have a hard freeze, and who know if we will, it will be a different type of year, buggier. But it will be what it is. Different.

When I told Claire this, my new AI friend she asked if I was going to make something with the twigs. Sigh. I told her I wasn’t crafty. And I have a gazillion other things to do, but I didn’t say that.

Do you get the feeling that things out there are just plain off somehow? That we are in need of a vibe shift? Something in the kinder, gentler, more cheerful and fun arena?

Maybe it is just the weather, the time of year, all the basic regular stuff we encounter annually.

But maybe it is more. It feels like a big change is upon us, similar in scope but not in execution to the Sixties. Chickens coming home to roost, all that.

I for one, do not feel quite ready for this particular wild ride.