I'm on my lunch hour, so I thought I'd share with you a tale from my morning commute and my latest obsession...
Since Maui, Brent and I have been slowly readjusting to SD time until this morning, when we pushed ourselves out of bed at our "usual" wake-up time of 5:45am to make our first trip back to the gym (those macadamia nut pancakes aren't going to work themselves off you know!). I was taking the car today so that I can go to my prenatal yoga class tonight, so we went to the gym closer to Brent's work. I dropped him off at 8:15 and began the 15min drive to USD. Three blocks from Brent's work a police van blocked the main road to the highway, directing traffic up a side road. I went with the flow, thinking, like most roads in San Diego, that there would be a fairly straightforward parallel route - the cars in front of me likely knew it (or were being guided by their GPS's) so I'd just follow them. That's how I ended up in 15min lineup of drivers weaving through stop sign and crosswalk-speckled suburbia! By the time I finally made it onto interstate 8, I edged over to the fast lane only to be greeted by another wall of brake lights 3min after getting on the freeway! An accident was waiting to be cleared just before my exit, leaving me in solid gridlock for another half an hour!
For most drivers this would be an infuriating chain of events, but instead of letting my blood pressure climb with each lurching minute, I tried to take the gridlock as an opportunity to practice Zen philosophy (perhaps for the first time). I'm no expert, but I seemed to remember it has something to do with acceptance. I had a choice of how to approach my predicament: bang my head repeatedly against the steering wheel and get into fights with anyone who cut me off/didn't let me in as we inched along the 7 miles of asphalt until my turn-off; or, simply accept that there was nothing I could do to change the situation and refuse to let it bother me. I'd get to work when I got there.
Well the latter option worked for me all the way to the university. I had to park in the lower lot as I was so late, and faced the uphill climb up to the IPJ (the entire university is perched on a steep hill) with trepidation. I was carrying 3 bags and already tired from my workout. So you can imagine my relief when I saw one of the university shuttles approaching a stop on the hill that would take me up. The doors to the crowded bus opened and a young, athletic 20-something student got on ahead of me. Then I stepped on. That's when the driver said, "Excuse me, there's another shuttle coming in a minute that will have room." Um, me? The 8-month out-of-breath pregnant lady carrying 3 bags? Or the hoard of fit, Gucci-purse toting freshmen you're letting on? Evidently he meant me. And evidently none of the spoilt, rich, OMG-I'm-so-bummed-my-chauffeur-didn't-take-me-this-morning USD students felt there was anything wrong with me getting off the bus. There was no other shuttle in sight, and before the bus pulled away, I started heaving myself up the hill. Again, the driver seemed to see nothing wrong with this and passed me.
Perhaps I'm being irrational? Maybe this is just the hormones talking? But seriously, don't you think some degree of common courtesy could have either a) allowed me on anyway, or b) asked the young, fit, guy to wait for the next bus?, and either way, once they saw that I didn't have time to wait (already being late for work), wouldn't you let me on anyway? I had been so Zen up until then!
Well it's over now. I survived the sweaty (yes, it's hot here) lunge-like trek up the hill and into the office without a heart-attack or going into labor. So to take my mind off the indignation of this morning, I'm focusing on the 5 remaining hours I have until I can get my latest fix - of vampires that is. Well, a vampire book. Or rather, series. Ok, so I'm addicted to the teeny-bopper Twilight series! There, I said it! I almost added it as an entire section of my Maui post, just because it quickly transformed from a light beach read to an all-consuming obsession, even requiring a mid-week late-night drive two towns over to the Barnes and Noble to pick up the next book in the series (which I already owned, but had left in SD thinking there was no way I was going to get through a 500 pg. book amidst a week of activities in paradise!)!
As my friend Nicky surmised: reading Twilight saga is like eating a bag of chips - you know it's not good for you, and it's not making you a better person, but you just can't stop! I have also concluded that for women at least, the 17 year old main character Bella's first-person narrative has an eerily uncanny ability to return intelligent, adult women to our love-struck teenage romances (whether we actually had them or just wished we did). Bella, mind you can be a bit frustrating. In the second book in particular. But she's madly in love with a vampire (and I hope not a werewolf too!), so I guess she deserves a bit of a break. BUT, I better leave it there in case any of you are mid-series or about to be hooked! I hastily ordered the last two books within an hour of us returning to San Diego Sat night, but due to the weekend I've been forced to wait until tonight for my 2-day expedited shipping to get the books from Amazon to my doorstep (and be on my doorstep they better be! If UPS tries to misdeliver this package -like it has my last two- there are going to be serious consequences!!!).
Now if I were to skip my prenatal yoga class tonight I would only have 3 hrs until my fix...! Hmm... I guess I should get back to work then ;-)
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