fajrdrako | Does snow make people chatty?

I have changed my entire strategy for getting to work.

In spring, summer, and autumn, I mostly walk.

In the winter I take the bus. For two months now, I've gone to Bank Street every morning, whre I have (theoretically) the option of several buses in quick succession, any one of which will get me to work if I transfer at the Rideau Centre, or walk from there - and one of which takes me within a block of work, though actually catching that one bus seems a matter of faith and luck rather than timing.

For the past two weeks, the buses on Bank Street have been terrible. Not just traffic problems - that goes with the territory. It seems some buses broke down, OC Transpo can't afford to get them fixed, so we simply have big gaps in the schedule. At rush hour. Through centretown.

So for two weeks I've waited for a long time at the bus stop (regardless of when I arrive there), and when the buses come, they are badly overcrowded - often several will go by without picking anyone up because they're already packed way beyond capacity. If they do let anyone on, there is only standing room, sardine style. The result: I'm late for work. Not necessarily by a lot, but I am indignant about it.

So: new plan. There is also the #6 bus, which actually comes a little closer to my place, but it's inconvenient - I have to leave the house at least 20 minutes earlier to still get to work on time. And it gets me to work, on average, half an hour earlier than I need to be there. But. That's still 'on time' and I get a seat for sure, and a quicker trip.

Today it was snowing hard - still is. And even the #6 was fifteen minutes late: I hate to think what Bank Street buses must have been like. People walked by with their dogs - cold, slightly-martyred people done up in toques and scarves, while the dogs wagged and grinned and bounced - dogs love snow. The world was utterly quiet, except for the sound of the snow pellets hitting my hood, like rain on a tin roof. I took photos. They'll probably look as if the world is in fog. Blotchy fog.

I tend to think of my time at the bus stop and on the bus as time I have to myself - I can read or think, don't have to talk, except maybe for the occasional "good morning" if I meet someone I know at the bus stop. But today.... the woman at the bus stop with me turned out to be very interesting: a singer and musician who is working in a bookstore, starting up several local choirs. I got her card and info for

duncanmac, since she's accommodating to those with odd work schedules. I even thought, "It might be fun to join a choir - that would be something new and different!" I was in choirs as a kid, and loved it. The only problem - I can't sing.

Once on the bus, a pleasant, voluble man noticed I was wearing a Mountain Equipmen Co-op coat (as I usually do) and started chatting about winter coats, new and second-hand, and by gum, he managed to talk for twenty minutes straight about the subject and - more amazing yet - to be quite interesting while doing so, even digressing into the anecdote of his meeting with Peter Ustinov in Switzerland back when it was more affordable to go there.

And I still got to work on time.

I'm on a roll.