The Metro Adventure

I live just one block off of Washington Blvd near Lyon Park in a basement apartment. I did the green thing on or about March of 2009 by giving my car to my daughter in Louisiana when hers died. I surmised that I could do the Metro thing using a combination of bus and train to get me to and from my job in Alexandria. It all worked well until yesterday....when it snowed.

I normally take the 77 ART (Arlington Regional Transit) bus to Shirlington, a neighborhood of Arlington where my employer provides shuttle service from the Arlington campus to our Alexandria campus. At a total cost of $3.00 a day I am on the verge of coronation as a bonafide "skinflint" due to the lack of monies spent on my commute. Sometimes, if running late, I will catch the 42 ART bus to the Pentagon and take the Blue or Yellow line to King Street to accomplish the same purpose. This usually adds a couple of bucks more to the commuting cost but I am still ahead of the game financially.

Yesterday, the snow began sometime while I was deep inside the bowels of my building, but when I emerged to leave at about 4:15 pm snow was steadily and wetly falling (read big flakes that went 'splat"when they hit). Time to break out the umbrella I won in a raffle at my recent training class. While another lady co-worker and I were waiting for the shuttle, we noticed that the driver turned left and proceeded down a side street like the proverbial ' bat out of hell". We looked at each other and I voiced the thought that 'maybe he went for a coffee at 7-11". We both traipsed to the corner and noticed 'no driver in sight' and determined to catch the train.

Upon boarding the train, I decided that I would exit at the Pentagon and take the 42 bus since it would pass by my house and save me about a four block walk. After an hour wait for the bus, it finally arrived and I boarded said bus for the 15 minute ride to my destination. We left the Pentagon lot and headed for Army-Navy drive. Upon the turn onto Army-Navy Drive, we encountered a parking lot and remained in this parking lot for the next hour. In that hour we had proceeded up the street to the west side of the Pentagon (where the plane crashed) between the Navy Exchange and the Air Force Memorial. With traffic going nowhere, I decided to hike out towards home and so I did. I trudged up the hill and past the AFM and continued on my quest with quite a few other folks who had the same idea. The source of the traffic snarl; two Metro buses had locked up on the hill, thus blocking any traffic from moving. At this point, my decision to take the bus is whipping my ass.

While not familiar with the area from a walking perspective, I was sure that after trekking up Columbia Pike all I needed to do was to make a right hand turn and head in the direction of my house. From Google maps I have determined that this is about 2.6 miles as I walked up Columbia Pike to S Fillmore and turned north to my destination at S Fillmore and Pershing Drive. I made the trip in about 1 hour and 40 minutes considering I had to stop once for a bathroom break and trudging through un-plowed snow takes a bit out of the old legs.

I got inside and peeled off the wet clothes and shoes, hopped in the shower. Once warmed and dressed for bed, I made dinner; blueberry pancakes and bacon with a small dose of pure maple syrup and settled in to watch Criminal Minds and Blue Bloods. I don't remember the ending to Blue Bloods but I did get a good nights sleep.

The moral of this story is...ride the damned train and walk the four blocks to home. Why is hindsight so enlightening?

January 9, 2011/January 12, 2011

It is Sunday morning and I didn't go to church today...there is nothing unusual about that, I am a rare attender of church these days. In fact, I woke up at 7 and watched a movie called Kingdom of Heaven with Orlando Bloom and Liam Neeson. The got up and did the dishes and some other piddling stuff and decided to do something I promised myself that I would do as the New Year was rolling in....write daily for at least 10 minutes. I have written in my head, scribbled a few things down in a notebook, made some postings on Facebook, but I haven't parked it at the keyboard to do some serious thought regurgitation about a few events of 2010.

Family

The family is pretty much intact this year after the loss of my dad in October 2009. I have blogged about him over the past months as part of my own personal healing concerning his loss. At the end of 2009, my son Christian and his girlfriend Aimee declared themselves a couple and the week before Christmas he took Aimee to Tunica Hills out from Baton Rouge, LA and there he proposed and she said "yes"! There will be a wedding in July as well as a birthday for Caleb their precious son and my perfect grandson. For that I am grateful. There are, of course, transitions as Hannah and Katie continue their schooling. Hannah is getting close to her Masters and Katie is working toward he Bachelor's degree in Photography. Jeremy had a rough Christmas in the hospital battling a staph infection but he is out now and moving toward his recovery.

This was the first Christmas I got to spend with my birth family and my children and it has made me hungry for more of both.

Friends

2010 saw a great time of reconnection with friends from my past. There was a reunion of sorts with Facebook friends in Clarksdale in March, a college Baptist Student Union and Mississippi College football team reunion in the October and visits from Charles and Debbie (Mills) Delcambre and Ron Bruce. These reunions have brought back to memory many good times with people who I have known and loved for many years. The Facebook connections have been painful as well, with the passing of several friends in 2010 to sudden illness. I think this has hit me the hardest in that time had separated us for so many years and then we were recently brought back together only to be snatched away by death. The community of Facebook has allowed us to share in each others lives as we observe each others goings on through the pictures and wall posts that we make. Nevertheless, I am grateful for all of my friends where they are and however we may be connected.

Personal

2010 brought some changes in my life personally. I am single again and the reasons for it are more personal than I will share here. Just let it be known that I hope that I have learned to better express myself in terms of what it is that I want from life. My goal is to find and be contented in the place that I am and not try to look to others for fulfillment and comfort. That is not to say that a career as a hermit is in my future. That is not who I am at all. I strive to live the teachings of Jesus when asked by the rich young ruler. He summed them up as the following..."You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, this is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like the first, love your neighbor as yourself.

In all of Torah, only ten commandments were written Ex 31:18 “with the finger of God.”

The first three teach us how to love God: “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve,” “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” and “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

The remaining seven teach us how to love one another: “Honor your father and your mother,” “You shall not kill,” “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,” and “You shall not covet your neighbor’s property.”

I think that pretty much sums up my theology from here on. Politics don't matter at this point, nor do ideology...it is the person that matters to me. Let's hope and pray I stay the course.

As the title states this was written over a period of a couple of days. I wish for you that read this a peaceful and prosperous 2011. Spend your days seeking ways to perform random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.