beer makes everything better

Yesterday afternoon my office left work early to celebrate a colleague's promotion. So, since I didn't want to drive to leave work early, and since I couldn't celebrate with them and still make the van (they were celebrating nowhere near my office), I decided to grab a drink closer to work and then catch the van. When I was telling my fellow vanpoolers this, Fred offered to join me, for as he said, "no one should have to drink alone, and I'll take any excuse to leave early on a Friday."

So, on Friday night Fred and I wandered over to the Fish Tale Brew Pub to enjoy a few pints and dish on our fellow vanpoolers. You know, I have to say it was nice to hear someone make some of the same observations and complaints.

Also, it turns out the van ride is SOOOOO much better with beer. It turns out that the annoyance from other riders, the traffic, and the insane air conditioning level just rolls right off of me after only one. I think I've found someone a new Subway/Metro/bus advertising campaign: public transportation, better with beer.

leave no vanpoolers behind

We left Tony yesterday. Accidentally, of course. But all of us, and it was a fairly full van, forgot that he was on in the morning. Luckily, Alison remembered as we were getting on the freeway. But, by the time that we could turn the van around Tony was gone. Sara went to look for him (as they work in the same building). After about five minutes, Tony came out and yelled at the driver (and apparently at Sara), complained that he had already called a cab and could not cancel it, and stormed off. Granted, he had every right to be angry, after all he was left behind. But, the whole thing reminded me how awkward we northwesterners are around conflict.

This was high vanpool drama.

random, redux

So, when I got on the van this afternoon we had to wait for a while for Kristi. I took that as an opportunity to ask Sara what Kristi was saying yesterday afternoon on the van. IE, was she really saying "time for chicken trucks" or did I have an involved hallucination. She was saying it and I wasn't hallucinating, although frankly, she might have been.

How do you spell Kristi? R-A-N-D-O-M

Today Kristi did two random things:

1. In the morning she pulled a penguin shaped pot holder out of her purse (no clue why she was carrying it around with her)
2. In the afternoon she said, "Time for chicken trucks" repeatedly at increasing decibles, I assume hoping for a response.

Sometimes, it helps me to understand her if I picture her mind like a giant iPod that she keeps mostly set to shuffle. Often, I think that the mix works for her, but occasionally it's truly odd.