You may now return to your previously scheduled blog...

Okay, I know that I have been remiss in posting for a long time now. I've even had a few friends helpfully remind me that I've been a slacker this fall. (Hi, Patrick!) But, hopefully later really is better than never. My plan going forward is to fill in some of the gaps, to catch you all up on what's been happening, and hopefully I won't fall behind again. My sincere apologies for the interruption. I also apologize in advance, the timing/order on the next few posts will be vague at best. I know that the events happened in the past few months, but can't remember precisely when.

sad news...

Kristi gave her two weeks notice yesterday. She's found a van that leaves from closer to her home and her last day will be the 22nd.

I'm torn about whether to mourn the loss of entertainment or celebrate the lower levels of crazy with which I'll be dealing. Only time will tell...

Do the Puyallup?

Last night I got a call from my friend who rides the bus to work in Tacoma (from Seattle). She had accidentally gotten on the wrong bus, fallen asleep, had just woken up and didn't know where she was. She was panicked and I was totally panicked for her.


Like anyone (I hope) who's commuted with a metro system, I've gotten on the wrong train many times and had the same "oh shit" realization, waking up to the sound of the wrong station being announced. I've also had my fair share of getting on the right train to have it become the wrong train without my knowledge (usually late at night, when I'm not at my problem-solving best). But there's something different about taking the wrong bus, especially buses that go from one town to another. I imagine it would be much scarier. (Maybe an "oh fuck" realization as compared to the aforementioned "oh shit" realization experienced on the subway.) Buses don't run very often in general, but when you're talking about commuter buses there's the real possibility that there might not be a way back into town until the morning commute. Luckily, my brilliant friend got off the wrong bus at a Sounder train station (in Puyallup), was able to catch a train back into Tacoma and could then catch a later bus back into Seattle. All in all, my guess is that it probably added 2+ hours onto an already long commute, all because of a simple mistake that all of us have made before.


I guess I'm lucky that this is not really a possibility with the van...

------

Writing this entry reminded me of another transportation mishap that this particular friend & I shared: we got on the wrong overnight train in Thailand. The conductors then kicked us off the wrong train at this tiny, deserted train station in BFThailand, and told us to wait for the next train, which came along an hour later. Seriously, I think that the only structure at this train station was the men's room that we had to break into to use the disgusting facilities. Thankfully the lights didn't work, so we couldn't see exactly how disgusting they were. That did mean that not only did we each have to stand guard for the other, but we had to use the facility with the door open, to let in some navigation light. What do you do when you're stuck at a deserted train station in the middle of the night in nowhere Thailand waiting for a train that may never show up, with only one person with which you can hope to communicate? Pick a fight, of course.

nucking futs

Last night we passed a car that had a bumper sticker that read "I'm going nucking futs!". Here's Kristi's response:

Kristi: Nucking futs.
Kristi: Nucking futs (laughter).
Kristi: It says 'I'm going nucking futs'.
Kristi: I'm going nucking futs.
Kristi: Nucking futs (laughter)
Kristi: Nucking futs (much, much laughter)

And how.

Clearly Kristi liked that bumpber sticker. Here are some of my favorites from the road:

• Jesus is coming, everyone look busy.
• I'm pro life jacket and I boat.
• A black ribbon (like the yellow support the troops or pink breast cancer ribbons) that read "sex, drugs, Rock 'N' Roll"

get out of my dreams, get into my (van)

It's official, the van has entered my subconscious. That's right, Saturday morning I had a dream that featured Jim from the van. Let me be clear this was a totally PG dream, thankfully. Basically, I was in the Olympics, lining up for the opening ceremony and being interviewed by a magazine about my thoughts about being in the Olympics (I have no idea what my event was). All through my interview, Jim was standing next to me and answering the same questions (although it didn't seem like he was a competitor) and I kept thinking, "he's totally stealing my thunder."

Naturally, I'm concerned about how large the van looms for me, if my fellow vanpoolers are showing up during my REM cycle. I'm concerned about the dream for some other reasons, but I'm really focusing on the van aspect.


Get in the back seat baby...

vanpooling, it's a gas...

You know how people all around us are talking about how one of the good effects of the horrendous gas prices is that people are taking alternate commute options to work and isn't it great? Yeah, well, if you're one of the people who has been taking such an alternate commute option for a long time the gas prices mean that there are consistently a lot more people joining you in your alternative commute-style. My van is a twelve passenger van, there have consistently nine, ten, or eleven people on the van for the past few weeks (and that's with a holiday weekend and some drama diluting the pool).

Yes, it's probably better for the economy and it's certainly better for the environment. And yes, Al Gore would be happy. But, here's an inconvenient truth for you, I'd like some more personal space, please.

Vanpool of another flavor

Another friend of mine rides in a vanpool to Everett everyday, about 30 miles from Seattle for all you out-of-staters. From my conversations with her, it seems like she *likes* the people in her van. It's left me wondering whether 1) I'm terribly judgemental; 2) the people going to Everett are less grating than those going to Olympia; or 3) I'm just a keen observer of the idiosyncrasies and oddities of those around me. Since I like number three the best that's the one I'm going with, although I have a sneaking sensation that number one might have something to do with it as well.

a note from the bus

A friend of mine takes the bus daily to Tacoma, which is also a pretty crummy commute. We alternately commiserate and compete for bad (or sad) commuting stories. A few weeks ago she told me this gem:

I was on the bus in the morning, drinking coffee, staring out the window when I noticed that insurance ad that references The Brady Bunch, with a large picture of the Brady's house.* So, I started thinking about their house and the show and I realized that there's no way that the house in which the show was filmed could look like the one shown from the street.

The friend then went on to describe the architectural features of the inside house that didn't match up with the outside house. I think it involved the outside house being a split-level, but I tend to gloss over when people use architectural terms, so I may be wrong. Anyhow, the point of the story as it relates to this blog is that when you have a long commute you have far too much time to sit and think about everything, over and over and over again. Yet another thing you people with a reasonable commute have over those of us who less than reasonable commutes.


* The ad she was referring to was this one from American Family Insurance:

Tony's back

So, after we left Tony (an event I will now be calling "the incident"), he didn't ride the van for a while. I guess he needed to cool down a bit. Or, he just didn't have to work in Olympia for whatever reason. Since I'm left to my imagination, though, I'm going to assume it's the most dramatic thing possible -- he needed to calm down and somebody had to call him and beg his forgiveness.

So, we haven't seen Tony since the incident. It's only been a week, but I had certainly noticed, and I'm sure others had as well. Well, today Tony was back and was it ever awkward. Seriously, a normally group of chatty folks (and me) were silent going down and back. Very weird.

Again, a little bit of vanpool drama.

vanpool etiquette training

We got an email from Valerie, our vanpool coordinator, today informing us that we have to have a training on Monday to go over the role & responsibilities of sitting in the co-pilot seat, driver responsibilities, and other issues of proper vanpool etiquette. It also included an apology to Tony for leaving him behind as well as the following statement: "To say I’m a little concerned about this is an understatement of gargantuan proportions."

This guilt trip would irritate me less if the lesson on proper vanpool etiquette included the following:

• After about 10 minutes into the drive, shut the hell up. No one cares about whatever it is you're talking about.
• Take off your jacket before you ask for them to turn off the heat/on the air conditioner

Since I doubt that it will, in fact, cover those points I reserve my right to complain about this training in a future post.

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.

Straight out of news of the weird

So, maybe a month or so ago Kristi was sitting shotgun in the morning while Oscar was driving and they basically chatted the whole ride south. I couldn't sleep and I think they were loud because I distinctly remember hearing Kristi saying something like, "Man, I'd like to see some nature today. You know, like a big Sasquatch or something." At the time I remember thinking that's kind of funny, but maybe not worth a blog post. I tell you this because yesterday the Sasquatch reared it's ugly big foot again. The moral here is, it's always worth blogging.

The story goes, I forgot my ipod at work yesterday and was sitting in the back row of the van chatting with Alison and Trent who were sitting in the middle row. At some point in our conversation (which went on forever) I realized that Kristi and Sara (sitting in the first row) were talking, and from the looks of it I was potentially missing something blogworthy. This concern was confirmed for me when I heard this from Kristi: "So, they've been seeing a whole lot more of these types of droppings recently. And, I don't know if it's like Sasquatch or if it's not real. Cause, you know, my son's father has actually seen Sasquatch, so that's real." Awesome.

The thing is, because Alison and Trent were talking I don't actually know what Kristi and Sara were talking about. However, I'm sure of the following: 1) Kristi believes in Sasquatch, 2) she also believes that there is some other cryptid migrating from Canada to the Pacific Northwest. Anyone have any idea what type of creature she could be talking about?

There were points during the ride when I wanted to shush Alison and Trent so that I could listen to Kristi. Of course, sometimes when I'm listening to my ipod I take out the earpieces if I think that Kristi is saying something wacky.

On a pretty unrelated note, Kristi's been wearing what can only be described as sewn together cloche-type do-rags. I've been waiting to post this while trying to find a picture on the web, but I just can't find one so I'll do my best in describing it. She's got a few of them, all of them are either plain pastel colored or pastel camo patterned. I guess what I mean by cloche-type is that they gather at the nape of the neck, and are sewn together there. I say do-rag, because they're cotton t-shirt material. That's the best I can do to describe them. They're pretty bizarre; I have no idea where you get one, but I think I love them (for Kristi, I'm not looking for any gifts here).

Won singular sensation?

I just don't get this. First of all, I would never have expected Jim to be a joke leader (his usual style is to repeat someone else's joke immediately after they've said it all the while laughing). But, after his debut of the whole Won & Theiu sound like one & two joke a couple weeks ago the joke has developed into an entire genre of Won & Theiu sound like one & two jokes that everyone (save me, it seems like) finds hilarious. Seriously, every afternoon for a while now I've had to listen to a whole repertoir of "we have to pick up Won but not Theiu", or "we have Theiu but no Won".

The arc of this "joke" typically starts out with a discussion of who was on the van on any given morning and who we still have to pick up (since we have to make special trips to pick up both Won & Theiu at their individual stops). Then, typically Jim or Fred will make the "Won but not Theiu" or "both Won & Theiu but not three or four". Finally, Fred will leave the number comparison behind will usually resort to a really bad play on words, like "I think we should listen to some Theiuns" or "I wont (prounced like want or the name Won plus t sound) some air conditioning".

I just don't get these jokes. I mean I get them, their names are hominyms for one and two (and to and too). But, I don't really get why everyone seems to find them so funny. I, frankly, find them irritating, which is weird because I love both stupid jokes and stupid jokes that involve plays-on-words. Sometimes I wonder (or Won-der, if you will) if it's that I'm sensitive to jokes about names, or something. But, really, I just think it's probably more likely that they're just not funny.

All I can say is, thank god we don't have anyone on the van with the names First or Second, because it would be Won (now I'm finding it fun) big Abbot & Costello ride every afternoon to Seattle.

you're so vain...

I've noticed that when I sit directly behind the driver that I tend to stare at myself in the rear view mirror. Weird, right? Seriously, I'll realize that I'm looking at myself, look away and then find I'm making eye contact with myself 5 or 10 minutes later. Normally I don't consider myself a particularly vain person, but I guess there's more vanity there than I thought. Feel free to call me Narcissus.

In my defense, every time I find myself looking at her in the mirror, she's staring right back at me.

And, because I can't help myself, here's every mirror-related joke I came up with, but didn't add to the text of this message:

• I'm starting with the [wo]man in the mirror
• Mirror, mirror on the [windshield]
• There's that lady who follows me everywhere. (Side note: this is the sort of thing I say to my niece & nephews when they see their reflections.)
• You're pretty. No, you're pretty. No, you're pretty. No, you're pretty.
  

Smell you later...

So, there are basically three smells on the van:

1. High school gym - that strange combination of body odor, dirty clothing and moisture
2. Leftover ketchup - i.e. ketchup that has been left out on a plate at least overnight, but probably longer, now has a film over it and the odor has taken on a life of its own
3. A combination of menthol cigarettes and that pink powdered soap that some high schools have in their facilities

I feel strongly that I am not responsible for any of these smells.

Interestingly, the worst of these is the cigarette and powdered soap combo. It really turns my stomach. Unfortunately, the smells seem to be seasonal. The ketchup smell lingered through the fall and winter, but now I'm suffering through the spring of my olfactory discontent (via smoke & soap).

Spring is finally in the air, people, and that's not necessarily good news. Here's looking forward to summer, which should transport me back to basketball games and spirit assemblies.

*I almost titled this entry "I smell sex and candy here", but frankly both of those would be preferable odors.

Road racism, redux.

Rather than choosing the safe path of steering clear of all race related topics, Jim went the other way and dove right back in yesterday for another chance to sound pretty insensitive. Here's the story:

After Oscar picked up Jim and I in the afternoon, Jim was again driving and Oscar again sitting shotgun. The two were plotting our route and making sure that we didn't need to wait at my stop for anyone else, so Oscar looks at the roster and reports that we didn't need to wait, we only had to pick up Won and Theiu. At this, Jim starts laughing, repeats "Won and Theiu" a couple of times and then says, "Won and Theiu, all we need is to get a rider name Ti" and laughed at his joke. Then he continued to repeat the joke and laugh at it at least three times.

The thing is, I really don't think that Jim means to sound the way he does. I think he's pretty kind and actually pretty accepting. He certainly tolerates Kristi better than I do. However, he does say some pretty inappropriate and stupid things. Like, once we were waiting to pick someone up and my mom called me on my cell. After talking with her for a few moments I hung up and Jim said, "It sounds to me like you have a Jewish mother." To which I responded, yes I do in fact have a Jewish mother. He turned red and then tried to backpedal, saying "well you know that's an expression that people use." I'm not Oscar, and didn't really let him off the hook and instead said something like "yeah, it's an expression based on a stereotype." Nevermind the fact that, at times, the stereotype totally fits in my case.

This highlights one of the biggest problems with the van: we're not friends, but we're not strangers. It's not like on the bus or the subway, where you might see someone again and again, if you have the same commuting schedule, but unless you're super friendly you're probably not going to talk (unless it's about whether said bus/train is late or early). But, we're not really friends either. I may know people's names, job titles and what agency they work for, but that's about it. However, we see each other so often that we often behave like we're closer than we really are.

Road racism...

This afternoon someone brought up the subject of rising food prices and food shortage-related riots that have been going on internationally. In response, Sara (a quiet newer rider) said off-handedly something akin to "and we wonder why people try to come into this country." In response, the driver, Jim, said something that I can't remember about illegal immigrants and Mexico and then checked himself saying, "Of course, we've got to be careful because we have an illegal immigrant here in the van with us," and gestured to Oscar who was sitting shotgun. [Here's some background that will prove useful for the rest of the story: Oscar is Filipino, his parents immigrated to the US, but he was born here. Other than Oscar, at least Sara and I know this about Oscar.]

Now, back to the story. Sara either didn't hear what Jim said, or more likely couldn't believe what she said and asked him to repeat himself. Meanwhile, Oscar and I start laughing uncomfortably. So, Jim starts to repeat himself, but rather than just resaying his earlier statement, he asks Oscar a series of questions that included at least the following:

• You're Mexican aren't you?


• Were you an illegal immigrant?


• Are you second generation American?


• Did you immigrate to the US?

Each of these was met with a prompt "No" from Oscar and uncomfortable laughter from Oscar, Sara and me. Finally, Jim asked Oscar, "So, where are you from." Oscar responded explaining his family's immigration history and in what was I think an effort to mitigate how badly he looked, Jim added "Well, you know I'm an immigrant too. I was born in Norway." Seriously.

Meanwhile, the conversation was so obviously awkward that sometime during Jim's questions for Oscar Kristi tried to alleviate the tension. While they were talking she would throw in things like: "Well aren't we all immigrants here?" Followed up with: "I know that my ancestors came from somewhere in Europe." It was actually kind of cute watching her try to alleviate the tension.

Directions for how to get a paper cut on your gums...

So, this morning I got to the van pickup site early. As I was waiting in my car I noticed that Kristi, in her car parked in front of me, was using a piece of a paper to floss her teeth (I could see her in her rear view mirror). Then, when that didn't work, she switched from the normal looking paper she had been using to something thicker looking (it looked like the type of card stock they use for fliers for 5Ks). Then she put down the card stock and started either scratching her head or combing through her hair with a crochet hook. Finally, she went back to the paper for another attempt at her teeth.

It was at once bizarre and fascinating.

next stop, over-played

Here are two jokes that are not funny:

1. Home, Jeeves. - said to the driver after the last person gets on the van in the afternoon.
2. Next stop, Georgetown. - said by the driver as we are pulling in to our parking area in the evening.

Seriously, these were mildly amusing the first time I heard them. But, after hearing at least one of them nearly every day for more than a year, I'm pretty much over them.

Pants revisited

This morning my pants ripped while I was on the van. I don't know how or when, I just looked down and saw thigh where I should have seen pants. (It's particularly annoying, since the pants are too big for me.) Anyhow, apparently today I would be interested in some pants.

Highway to Hell

This morning Kristi tried to give me a Bible. It was like one of those ones that Christian groups give out (or try to give out) at colleges and high schools, except with a black rather than green cover. She also told me that that "it might really help me." Now, I don't know what a good time would be to be proselytized by a crazy woman, but i can tell you with goddamn certainty that it's not before 7:30 in the morning.

She also tried to give a fellow vanpooler, Trent, a hideous king (or maybe wise man) bobble head doll. Among the many strange things about this woman is that her bag isn't really that big, and yet she has room for a knitting project that involves 3 rather large skeins of yarn, as well as the aforementioned bobble head doll, the small bible, and a DVD I've noticed her carrying around (i go back and forth imagining it's either Left Behind or The Rocky Horror Picture Show). Is a Scary Poppins joke too obvious?

Now, let me tell you the back story: When I got on the van this morning Kristi and Trent (the bobble head recipient) were discussing which lie was “worse for America’s youth,” the Clinton-Lewinsky lie or the WMD lie (this was at 6:40 in the morning). At the time I knew not to enter into this discussion, so I didn't until I heard this bit: "(George W. Bush) didn't lie, he didn't know what he was doing...he's a puppet. i think he's a good president and that he would be reelected if he were able to run again this year." I countered this assessment with something incredibly intelligent, like "there's no way, he's got historically low approval ratings and 80% of Americans think we're headed in the wrong direction. There's no way." Apparently this sentiment screams out "this girl needs saving."

I hope it's needless to say, but I declined the Bible. In fact, the more I deal with Kristi, I'm growing particularly proud of how politely I can decline something, especially considering that all of the offering happens before 8am.

I have one nagging thought about this, though. Which is worse the pants offer or the Bible offer?

Is that a giant neon cross on your church, or are you just excited to see me?

So, there's this church in Lakewood (about 20 minutes north of Olympia, for you out of staters) that's a got a giant neon cross on it that you can see from the freeway. The cross is surrounded by a blue neon tall arc with narrow base. On either side of the large blue arc surrounding the cross are small half-arcs. Basically, it looks like a neon cross encompassed by a large neon blue phallus, although from some angles it looks like a rocket ship. Either way, I find it really funny and find myself looking for it most afternoons.

pants follow-up

Just to clarify, I was not interested in Kristi's pants and quickly declined. I have no idea why she would actually offer them, but I have a couple probably wrong ideas:

1) She often compliments me on my shoes, maybe she feels my pants don't match up in quality/beauty?
2) She knits, maybe she also makes pants. Her knitting is hilarious, btw. She often runs out of yarn mid-project and rather than searching for the exact match, will switch to yarn that is close. Mittens that start out mustard colored and end up in more of a buttercup are quite distinctive.
3) She lives in a communal setting where they have a give away box, and maybe someone was liberating their closet of a lot of pants. Let me tell you, while I am not interested in hand-me-down pants from someone I only know from commuting, what I am even less interested in is hand-me-down pants from a stranger who lives in someone I only know from commuting's apartment building (or wherever she lives).

pants

20 minutes into the van ride Kristi turned around to ask me “are you interested in some pants”. Wtf?