Neverwhere

My friend asked me if I could spare a few hours to help out the organization she works with. Several nights a week they seek out folks sleeping on the streets of the downtown Seattle area and offer blankets, hats, socks, gloves, scarves, sandwiches, and hot chocolate to whoever wants some. Last night the wind kicked up, slicing up the streets with a chilly malice, so the blankets especially were quite popular.

I took the bus downtown to meet them, and on the way I finished Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. It's a fantasy novel about the hidden Other World that exists in and under London, and what happens when unassumingly mousy Richard Mayhew finds himself inexorably entangled up in a plot and a quest with the people and creatures of London Below. Neil Gaiman has a way with description and plot and OtherWorldly characters (and their plots) that makes for an absorbing read.

It also makes for a bit of a haunting afterward. All night I kept doing these little double-takes--at the bright red light I glimpsed, ten feet beneath my feet, through a sidewalk grating. Or the little plaque at the edge of a pier that memorializes a ship that "sank beneath your very feet on this spot in 1909;" Tim pointed out a padlocked iron door at the edge of the platform and said that when he was a kid the door used to be open. "You could go right down and look at it," he assured me.

Saying that the world is a "magical" place tends to evoke rainbows and unicorns, twee talking animals and harmless, dainty fairies that sip from buttercups. Neil Gaiman remembers that "magic" is deep and dark. He knows that if there are talking puppies with limpid eyes, then there are also slinking creatures, all pointy teeth and rapacious hunger, who prowl in the dark and disembowel the puppies and feast on their eyes. If there are gleaming towers and languorous feasts, there are weird dirty caves hacked out under the freeway concrete, small worlds clustered in the hidden places, and thin, bright-eyed men with curly beards who speak sadly but firmly of others that have been tossed into the dark, cold waves...

So, then, the world is a magical place. Shudder at the thought.

***

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Published 1996, 352 pages. Fiction.

January 2, 2008 - Minus Ten

I had my second chemo treatment exactly ten years ago today--Friday, January 2, 1998. My parents had taken me to the first one, back on December 18. A girl named Michelle who'd lived on my floor the year before drove me to this second one. My doctor was extremely upbeat when he found out I'd never been sick after the first treatment.

"That's great! he kept saying, and told me that if one is going to be sick at all, one would be sick the first time. "So," he smiled, "if you didn't get sick at all the first time, I'd say that's a pretty good sign you probably won't get sick."

Two treatments in, I was beginning to be surprised that Having Cancer wasn't a continuously grueling ordeal every moment of every day. I was about to start the second quarter of my sophomore year at SPU, trying to maintain as many of my routines (school, work, campus volunteer activities) as I could and amazed that it looked surprisingly possible. With two down and ten to go, I was 17% done with chemo already.

More than anything, I was beginning to be humbly astounded at how many people were adamant about wanting to do what they could to help me. I've always tended to be a shy kind of person, standing on the sidelines dragging my toe awkwardly through the dust and assuming nobody likes me. So I was taken aback that so many people who were so much cooler, smarter, more popular, prettier, richer, more spiritual, and funnier than me--in my own true opinion--were genuinely enthusiastic about wanting to help me out.

I was also beginning to be flattered (and slightly uneasy) by the number of people who were already telling me I was inspirational, strong, and brave. Some had already started appropriating my cancer fight as a parable for whichever sermon or object lesson they happened to want to tell. At the time I remember being flattered and proud to be so recognized; but I remember a stirring of discomfort with that aspect of it, too.

And meanwhile I was secretly mourning that the boy I had a crush on had started dating someone else.

Looking Back

On November 26, 1997, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease, a form of lymphoma--cancer originating in the lymph system (I just learned from this article, just this very minute, that Paul Allen was treated for Hodgkin's in early 1983). I was 18 years old, a sophomore in college. After six months of chemo and a month of radiation treatment, it was declared to be in remission. Except for a short period the next fall when my oncologist worried that it was coming back (it wasn't), it's been in remission ever since.

I haven't written much about it here. But next summer it will have been in remission for ten years. More than a third of my life will have been lived post-cancer. I've been thinking about that a lot lately; it's part of the excuse reason for my planned train trip in the spring, and it turns out I've forgotten almost everything but the highlights--the date I was diagnosed, the number of treatments, things like that. I don't really want to wallow in the past, but I find myself wanting to revisit those months, to look back and remember what it was like not just to be diagnosed and to be declared in remission, but also to remember what it was like during my seventh chemo treatment, or at what point it was that I shaved my head, or how much more I worried about the boy I had a crush on in April than I did about my low white blood cell count.

This probably won't interest anyone but me, but I think for the next few months I'd like to post a weekly snippet about what I was doing during that time, ten years ago. I'd commit to posting diary excerpts from those days, except that I was 18 and most of my diary entries really were melodramatic accounts of my most recent interaction with whichever classmate I was swooning over that month. So if anything jumps out at me, I'll share it; otherwise it will just be a summary.

Why not start today, while I'm thinking of it, spending far too long browsing online info about lymphoma (I think some of this information has changed since I was obsessively researching it ten years ago), and flipping through old diaries and such?

All Was Quiet on New Year's Eve

Last night I went to see Mr. Thel's band play a show not too far from the Space Needle. The organizers planned a break in the middle of the show for folks to go outside, have some champagne, and watch the Space Needle fireworks just a few blocks away. We went outside, counted down, and downed our bubbly, but the Space Needle fireworks seemed a little short-lived. They sputtered and stopped, sputtered briefly and again halted. We waited around for a few minutes, thinking, "Was that it?" I kept thinking there must be more, but it was pretty frigid outside so I went back inside.

Today I found the news that there was a corrupted file that caused the glitch. And then I found a video of the final fireworks show. Friends, I laughed myself silly. It's the funniest fireworks show I've ever, ever seen. I feel for the poor folks in charge of the show, who must have been freaking out... heck, they're probably still freaking out a little. Really, if you have about ten minutes and need a good chortle, I highly recommend the KING5 video of the "event," below. Or, for you busy souls, here's just one little taste of it, found at the Seattle livejournal community:





Wasn't that wonderful? I'm still wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes.

Holidailies has once again been a blast, but I really don't have the stamina or time to do this kind of thing year-round. I may be able to get a post or two on the "best of" list but I can't for the life of me write an interesting post off the cuff. It takes me far too long to write something I'm satisfied with; too long to do it every single day. But I think Holidailies 2006 helped me gear up to post a bit more in 2007 than I had in previous years, mostly by helping me get over myself and my internet version of stage fright. When you have to show up and post every day without fail, or spend days trying to catch up, you soon stop biting your nails over every comma in favor of just writing the paragraphs and hitting "post," for heaven's sake. I hope this trend continues into 2008; it's good practice.

Thank you all for reading! I humbly hope the "gift of my prose," which is what Holidailies is all about, was a gift you enjoyed receiving. I've certainly added a few new bookmarks for 2008.

Happy 2008, everyone.

Unwarranted Pessimism

I just spoke to the most pleasant, helpful customer service representative at the Seattle Municipal Court. That's blogworthy, right?

A man who bought a truck from us a year and a half ago never transferred the ownership into his name, and instead ran around without motor vehicle insurance, driving negligently and leaving the truck abandoned on the street, according to the helpful online ticket lookup system at the Seattle Municipal Court online lookup page. His tickets unpaid, they were sent to collections--where they were filed in my name.

I didn't find out until a month ago, when I decided to check my credit report online. I had a hunch about the likely source of the tickets, but I dreaded making the phone call. See, the thing is, I didn't file my seller's report within the five days mandated by law. I have spoken before of my inadequacy in the personal paperwork department; this is the very thing I was talking about. Since I filed my report belatedly, I was grimly afraid that somehow I would be legally liable for everything the purchaser did with the truck. When I had originally tried to file the late report, that's what the woman at the Department of Licensing indicated. Then she yelled at me for asking too many questions, and when I burst into frustrated tears (oh internet, do I overshare?) she hung up on me.

So I postponed any further investigation like a champ! Until today, when the little voice inside of my insisted, It's the last day of the year--gird your loins and call. Maybe it's all parking tickets that...all...happened to blow away from my car, anyway. Unlikely, sure, but best find out.

I called. I spoke to the nicest woman, who regretfully informed me that I'd have to pay the ones that the new owner incurred prior to my actually filing the seller's report, but was happy to tell me that all I needed to do was send them a copy of the seller's report to dispute the others.

Internet, this is awesome news. Yes, I'll have to pay $150 for tickets I didn't incur. But better $150 than $1000! And oh, I can't tell you how relieved I am to learn that I won't actually be liable for vehicle violations that villainous man makes in the future. This silly little nightmare of mine can finally be laid to rest.

Happy New Year, indeed!

2007 Books

Well, let's see here. I sort of got lazy sometime mid-September and quit writing down the titles of the books I read. Oops!

Here's my best reconstruction of the list of books I read in 2007:

1. The Outlaws of Sherwood: Robin McKinley was the first female fantasy author I read. I read this in junior high but remembered almost none of it.
2. Ethan of Athos: Yes, I am still working my way through everything Lois McMaster Bujold has ever written.
3. Riddle-Master of Hed: I thought I read this trilogy in elementary school, but I think I must have understood little of it then. Lyrical and magical; I liked it.
4. Heir of Sea and Fire, 1/20
5. Harpist in the Wind, 1/22
6. Parable of the Sower: I started this last year and stopped because I found it so dark. I found it still dark and disturbing.
7. Buffalo Gals and other Animal Presences, 1/27
8. Agent to the Stars, 2/1
9. Walking Home, 2/3
10. Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person, 2/12 : Oh, this was good. And then I googled the author hopefully and found that she died last October. But her comics are true, I can tell you that.
11. Od Magic, 2/14 : The book as a whole did not do much for me, but the initial description of Od took my breath away. Hello, goddess.
12. The Last Unicorn, 2/16
13. Homeland and other Stories, 2/20: One of my perennial faves.
14. Spook, 3/1: The summary at Powells.com calls Roach a consistently funny writer...I got used to her incessant sarcastic little comments eventually, but they were something I expect more from an email from a friend than from a nonfiction book. Ever so astonishingly, this book does not solve the question of what happens to the soul after death, but it was a mildly interesting (and yes, entertaining) look at some of the historical fraud and conjecture about the afterlife.
15. The Face, 3/5: My first Dean Koontz book. I really did not like the writing style... The story was okay but I kept getting distracted and irritated by the endless exposition and description. Plot! Give me Plot! Noematic.org vanishes and this sells millions? One more bit of proof of the basic injustice of life. Hmph.
16. Walking Seattle (Falcon Guide), 3/10
17. Odd Thomas, 3/14
18. The Deserter's Tale, 3/17
19. Passage, 3/29: This book is going to haunt me.
20. Writing Down the Bones, 3/30
21. Doomsday Book, 4/3: Apparently I cannot finish a Connie Willis book without convulsive sobs. This makes two for two. I loved this book so much even as it broke my heart.
22. The Compass Rose
23. The House of the Spirits
24. Grass
25. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
26. Stardust
27. The Foundling and Other Tales
28. Life of Pi
29. The River Why
30. The Sharing Knife: Legacy
31. Tooth and Claw
32. Silver Linings: Travels Around Northern Ireland
33. Freakonomics
34. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
35. The Gift of Fear
36. The Secret Life of Bees
37. Eats, Shoots & Leaves
38. The Postman
39. The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
40. The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House
41. The Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country
42. The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists
43. The Sandman Vol. 5: A Game of You
44. The Sandman Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections
45. The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives
46. The Sandman Vol. 8: Worlds' End
47. The Sandman Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones
48. The Sandman Vol. 10: The Wake
49. Charmed Life
50. The Lives of Christopher Chant
51. The Magicians of Caprona
52. Witch Week
53. The Pinhoe Egg
54. Conrad's Fate
55. Assassin's Apprentice
56. Royal Assassin
57. Assassin's Quest
58. Fool's Errand
59. Golden Fool
60. Fool's Fate
61. The Golden Compass (re-read...)
62. The Family Tree
63. Sideshow
64. The Book of Three (re-read)
65. The Black Cauldron (re-read)
66. The Castle of Llyr (re-read)
67. Taran Wanderer (re-read)
68. The High King (re-read)

That's the list, then. I plan to edit it later with links to all the books in question.

I certainly managed to read a good bit more in 2007 than in 2006. Selling my car had a lot to do with that; all those hours I would have been driving, I was frequently reading on the bus instead. That's one of those intangible benefits to getting rid of a car--sure, we saved money on gas, insurance, and maintenance, but I was also given a lot more reading time. Another big factor would be the fact that in 2006 I spent scores of hours packing, moving, unpacking, looking at houses, signing paperwork for a house, repacking, moving, and unpacking. It's been a year, and still melt with glee whenever I contemplate the fact that I don't have to do that again for as many years as I want to stay here. Ahhh!

Favorites from the year? The six books by Robin Hobb that I stumbled upon in November (55-60, above). She vaulted straight to my list of favorite authors; I am delighted that there are still at least 5 of her books that I haven't yet read. Plus I will track down the ones she wrote under a different name, Megan Lindholm. Neil Gaiman's Sandman series was weird and wonderful, and Stardust was enchanting. Diana Wynne Jones wrote a slew of young adult novels that I somehow missed when I was a young adult. Fortunately, my cousin praised them in August and I was delighted to find that they were just as entertaining to read as an adult.

With five books already on my "to-read" list for 2008, I definitely plan to continue this project. It's been a fun and useful reference. In 2008 I think I'll follow meloukhia's example and try to be more detailed, give at least a perfunctory review of each book that I read. And I'll try to remember to list every book, whether it's a children's book I buy for a niece or something I re-read or a graphic novel or what have you. And I don't think 50 is a very ambitious goal under normal circumstances, but keeping in mind that I'll be traveling the country for an entire month by train, and likely more inclined to stare out the window and visit with friends and see the sights than to read all day, I'll leave it at that anyway and we'll see where I end up.

(edited to add other books I belatedly recalled to the end of the list)

Greyhound, part 2

When last we checked in with our intrepid passengers, they were heading north from Eugene on the day after Christmas with an irascible driver requesting directions from passengers to each station. I think he must have picked up a route guide in Eugene. At least, I think that's what he had open on the steering wheel, and was flipping through, as the bus barreled up I-5. (We only yawed across our lane a little bit, and I'm sure we didn't sideswipe anyone. Well, I'm pretty sure.)

Passengers guided him to the Salem station without mishap. Our stop was relatively brief, and as we made our way back to the freeway the driver got on the intercom. "Could the Woodburn passengers please come to the front?"

The three travellers who planned to disembark in Woodburn came forward--a young man and woman and a little girl, probably around 2 years old. I was close enough to the front to hear the driver's question for them. "Hey, I don't really know about going all the way to the Woodburn station," he confessed. "Is there someplace closer to the freeway where I can drop you off?"

The young man was remarkably agreeable. "Sure, there's a McDonald's just off the exit."

"And that's just off the freeway?" the driver pressed.

"Yeah, yeah, it's just right off the exit," the man said.

"And I can just drop you off there?"

"Sure," the man nodded, "that's all right."

Another passenger also overheard the conversation. She turned and caught my eye and grinned. "We're going to save so much time that way!" she hissed eagerly.

"Yeah, great," I said. Except for the poor folks who bought a ticket to Woodburn...

We pulled off the freeway, stopped at the McDonald's, let out the young family and their bags, and left them in the parking lot as we roared off toward Portland.

We arrived in Portland just two hours later than I'd originally been scheduled to get there--on a bus that had departed only one hour late, originally. (I did the math in my head--if we didn't lose any more time, I'd be home by midnight!) Our driver announced our arrival--"Portland! Everyone exit the bus so they can clean it, please!"--and then spryly hopped off the bus without giving any additional information for those of us continuing northward. He wandered around near the disembarking passengers for a couple of minutes, handing out re-boarding passes in an offhand way to anyone who claimed to be continuing north.

I hustled into the station, having no idea how long it would take to clean the bus. I had a pressing concern for my two checked bags. In Roseburg the harried ticket agent had loaded everyone's bags onto the same baggage cart. The baggage cart was then loaded on to the first bus--the one I didn't get on. I realized this just a few minutes too late to stop it. She told me I could check for my bags in Portland. Or in Seattle. They'd be in one place or the other, she assured me...probably.

The amiable ticket agent in Portland told me, "Oh, we wouldn't hold any bags labeled 'Seattle.' They'd go on up, we wouldn't hold them here."

"OK, so they probably just stayed on that earlier bus?" I asked, relieved.

"Yeah." He paused. "Or they might go on a later one."

I was too worried that my current bus would leave me in Portland to stay and puzzle through this logic, so I thanked him rushed back outside. The bus was just backing out of its spot. I yelped in dismay and ran a couple of involuntary steps forward. Immediately I was accosted by a stern security guard. "Ma'am," she barked, "Do not run after the bus. No buses are currently departing. Which gate are you supposed to be at?"

I stared at her. "I have no idea," I answered. "Our driver didn't tell us anything."

She found out where I needed to go, and directed me there to wait "until your bus is announced, whenever that may be."

I waited. I walked over to the concessions and bought a fast-food dinner. I bought a Coke. I text-messaged a friend. Just then my mother called to make sure I'd arrived safely in Seattle. I laughed hollowly at her optimism. I was that hopeful once, I thought wistfully. Those cheery morning hours seemed so far in the past, so impossibly far behind. I had matured since then; I was a harder, wiser person now. I swigged my Coke, and I waited.

Finally our departure was announced, and we reboarded. When the new driver asked for our reboarding passes, about half of the passengers who'd been on the previous bus with me realized in consternation that they'd never even heard of such a thing. Fortunately they didn't seem to be an actual requirement, as the driver peered at their ticket stubs and waved them onto the bus.

This leg of the trip soon promised to be far more pleasant for three reasons. First, it wasn't actually a Greyhound bus; it was a "Raz" bus contracted for the heavy holiday traffic. So there was more legroom and the seats were a bit larger. Second, only about a dozen passengers were continuing north on this bus. A dozen passengers on a 50-seat bus means double seats for everyone! And finally, we wouldn't need to make all of Greyhound's regular stops, because this bus was just for dropping us excess passengers off at our destinations: Vancouver, Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle.

I sprawled out across my two seats, pulled my hat down over my eyes, and dozed off. Vancouver came and went. I woke up in Olympia to look out the window and watch as we glided past the capitol building. I fell asleep after that, but woke when the bus slowed again.

Assuming we'd arrived at the Tacoma station, I sat up and blinked around. We were driving up a hill on an arterial street. As I looked, disoriented, we took a sharp curve and slowly passed by an overturned shopping cart next to the road. We turned again, onto a smaller street. It got darker as we passed beyond the illumination of the streetlights on the main road. We passed a Taco Pronto! restaurant and a few auto body shops, and then we drove past small houses in the dark. Again we turned; other passengers on the bus had awakened and were beginning to mutter in confusion. I overheard one guy on his phone: "No, man, we're just in some neighborhood up here." He cackled loudly. "I think we're lost, bro! Naw, dude, I'll call you when we get to the station."

We must have really been lost, because we ended up in a cul-de-sac. The driver hauled the bus around in a U-turn and we headed back down the hill. Past the dark houses, past the Taco Pronto!, past the overturned shopping cart. I don't know Tacoma very well, so I was thoroughly lost myself. We found ourselves going under I-5; for a moment I thought the driver was just going to take the northbound onramp and skip on to Seattle in disgust. I kind of wished he would, actually.

At last the driver found his way to the Tacoma Greyhound station. This time my brother happened to call to be sure I'd arrived safely home. (So young! So innocent! May he never be as jaded as I had now become!)

We didn't get lost again (or if we did, I was asleep and missed it). The bus pulled into the station with the final six of us just before midnight (so, in the end, the trip took just about exactly twice as long as it takes to drive it--twelve hours versus 6.) I didn't see Mr. Thel anywhere, so I went on inside and began to explain the woman behind the ticket counter the story about my bags. She cut me off after a sentence or two and told me to go outside to the baggage claim area.

I went outside. There was a sign that said "Baggage Claim." Below it was a handwritten sign that said "Closed." But below that was an arrow directing me further on. I went on along the side of the building and found an open bay. Large signs sternly warned "Employees Only--Do Not Enter." I peered inside and hollered, "Hello?"

Nobody came. But as I looked around I spotted my bags on a baggage cart a few steps inside the forbidden bay. I glanced around again, hoping I wouldn't end this unforgettable trip with an arrest for trespassing, and darted inside. I grabbed my bags and nonchalantly strolled back out. Nobody yelled, nobody accosted me to demand my identification or denounce my trespass. Whistling cockily, cheerfully wheeling my duffel bags behind me, I strolled out toward the dark street to meet Mr. Thel.

Wildlife Rehabilitation

My mom spent a few years as a volunteer for a wildlife rehabilitation organization. All I can remember about it is the time she caught a bunch of baby mice and swiftly dispatched all of them so as to feed an injured owl she was nursing back to health. Plus I remember that she spent a week away up north somewhere just after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, helping clean the oil off of sea birds.

This morning Mr. Thel burst into the house and informed me that he and Chloe had just spotted an injured red-tail hawk down the street, flopping around on the ground. He found a large cardboard box and a couple of old towels to help capture it; I helped by tippety-tapping at the computer to find a nearby wildlife rescue group. It turns out that PAWS has a wildlife center open 7 days a week up in Lynnwood. Mr. Thel donned bicycle gloves to protect his hands and together we went back to the bird. The hawk was alert and definitely opposed to being captured, but Mr. Thel successfully managed to place a towel over it and gently transfer it to the box without much fuss. The bird's halfhearted struggle (and the way it sort of flopped over on its head in the box at first...) made me even more concerned about its condition.

We brought it back and left it in the driveway for a few minutes while I staggered about trying to find my glasses and get dressed. PAWS is across Seattle from us, but Sunday morning traffic was light and we were there in half an hour. They have this whole compound up there; I'd known of them as an animal shelter but had no idea they did rehabilitation and release of wildlife. The woman at the wildlife center transferred the injured hawk to their facilities and assured us that a vet would be out to take a look at him tomorrow or earlier. "When I transferred him to the cage he immediately clutched at it with his talons, so that's a good sign," she said. She took our address and the location where he was found, and said that if they can heal him they'll release him back here where he came from. "We'll send you a card to let you know what happens to him," she promised.

Northwest Wonderland

Recently I took a day trip with a friend up to the Anacortes area. It was grey, rainy, and chilly, but once you accept the cold and realize that you won't melt it's delightful to have a place to yourself the way you do on a winter day. These pictures were all taken in Washington Park outside of Anacortes, a spot which must be jam-packed with people during the warmer months. We saw only one other visitor during our slow trip around the loop road, and he looked as surprised to see us as we were to see him.

We stood behind this tree for awhile watching a seal pop up nearby.



On the other side of the headland the wind was much stronger; we only lingered long enough to admire the foggy view of the islands and this gnarled old snag.



Someone added a festive touch to the bluff behind the deserted beach!

Greyhound, part 1

I only bought a Greyhound ticket from southern Oregon to Seattle because Amtrak was sold out. I think, next time, I would rather ditch work for an extra day or two and hold out for Amtrak.

Now, mind you, I had purchased a bus ticket online five days previously, so I'd been pretty breezy about the prospect of riding Greyhound home. It couldn't be that awful for a 350-mile trip, right?

Wrong.

My first inkling that it would be a very long day came when I checked in at the ticket counter Wednesday morning, a full hour early as recommended. I'd wondered why the heck you'd need to arrive an hour early just to sit and wait for a bus (Greyhound doesn't bother with things like metal detectors and security lines). The reasoning became clear when the ticket agent informed me that buying a Greyhound ticket doesn't guarantee the purchaser a seat on any particular bus. But I had a ticket! And I'd bought it almost a week ago! Didn't matter: I'd be added to the list of passengers waiting for the next bus.

"Oh and by the way," she added, "the 9:00 bus was so full he didn't even bother to stop here this morning--so everyone who was supposed to get on that bus is now in line to get on the noon bus. Ahead of you. You're number 21."

When the noon bus arrived, wouldn't you know it, they had 20 seats available. I and numbers 22 through 35 watched forlornly as it filled up and pulled away.

Now, the next scheduled bus wasn't due to arrive until 4:30. I did the math in my head (something I'd do over and over throughout the day) and figured that would put me in Seattle at 1:45 a.m. That was assuming the 4:30 bus would have a seat open, of course.

However. The ticket agent, bless her heart, had been talking to her dispatcher all morning to plead for an additional bus to be sent down from Eugene to pick up us poor slobs who'd been getting left behind all day. Not long after my scheduled bus departed, another bus unexpectedly arrived, loaded eleven of us, and headed north.

This is where the fun really started, because our bus driver had no idea where he was going. Oh, he had no trouble figuring out the "north on I-5" part, but as we pulled out onto the freeway he said loudly, "Okay, which exit do you think I should take for the Eugene station?"

Those of us sitting close enough to the front to hear him looked at each other blankly. Fortunately the fellow in the very front had been making this trip frequently throughout the year to visit his spinal surgeon in Eugene. He directed the driver to take a particular exit, and take a right. Of course then other passengers who knew Eugene pretty well began to argue about which way was best.

"Naw, you don't want to go right here, you'll end up in Springfield."

"But I-5 goes down the middle, soon as you get under it you'll be in Eugene."

"This isn't the way we usually go."

"Shouldn't we take a left up here?"

"No, take a right."

The passenger in the front stuck to his guns and guided us in to Eugene. The driver announced that we'd have a five minute break--"Maybe closer to ten, but then we're gone," the driver said. I hopped off for a quick bathroom break and to stretch my legs, and then slid back into my seat. Most everyone else was similarly punctual.

Forty-five minutes later the driver reboarded the bus, a styrofoam leftovers container and Starbucks cup in his hands. "Okay, everybody ready to go?" he asked cheerily. I heard a few low mutters--I've been ready...We've been here...Man, if I knew we had time to go to Starbucks...--and then we were off. As we pulled away, the man in front of me (a new passenger who'd replaced the knowledgeable co-pilot) said to his wife, "Well, we'll be a little late, but that's all right."

The driver bristled. "Late? Late? Did somebody say we're going to be late?"

Everyone was quiet, so he persisted. "Who said that? Who was it that said we're going to be late?"

The guilty man protested, "Well, we are going to be a little late."

The driver shook his head fiercely. "Greyhound," he admonished us, "doesn't guarantee you anything."

Into the silence that spread out from this announcement, he lamely added, "Except safety."