the finer points

When I said I was embarking on a new adventure, I guess I kind of lied. I mean, it wasn't just me embarking on it. I guess I should have specified that my husband and I were both embarking on it together. But I kind of didn't realize it would end up that way. Neither did he, until that first morning, when I called him at 5:45 am asking where the caltrain station was again cuz I'd forgotten to jot the address down, and I didn't quite trust the GPS to know exactly (though it did, we found out). Or the next morning wondering whether he thought I had time to actually make it to the train or not cuz I was running pretty late. Isn't it nice that we get to do something cool together like this? I keep trying to persuade him that this what couples are supposed to do, share in each other's experiences. You know, cuz we're married now. I think he'd be more convinced if this particular experience didn't involve him being woken up before the crack of dawn, but I'm guessing he'll come around eventually.

So far, commuting has only been sort of successful. The biggest problem is that I run perpetually late. Oh, usually about 5 minutes or so. Always. Everywhere. Which is usually ok, except when you're trying to catch a train that leaves exactly at 6:07 or 7:05. I think of all the days that I've tried to take the train, I've missed it more days than I've caught it. Once, I got lucky and they held the train for me! I came running up, dropping my lunch, and struggling to get on. And felt kind of proud that I'd made it. Until the conductor swung by a few minutes later and told me they decided to wait for me. They saw the whole thing - me losing my tuppeware lunch container, me jumping over some wall-type thing in heels and a skirt, me struggling with the ticket machine. Awesome.

Other days, I've been close but leaning towards not making it, and G tells me (when I call him to confer) that I should just go up to the next station and catch the train there. It's a tough call because by the time I get off the freeway and try to make it to the first train station, I lose valuable freeway time and lower my chances of making it to the next station in time, too. So making the decision about whether to go for the Gilroy station anyway or not is crucial. I have this picture of myself driving along the train tracks racing the train to the next stop, but so far, I've resisted and just decided to drive the whole way when I've missed the first one. Yesterday, I pulled up into the parking lot just as the train was leaving. The day before yesterday, I didn't even think I had a shot and never exited the freeway.

Some days, I've been torn about whether to drive or not and ended up making the right call to drive. A few weeks ago, I debated a bit in the morning, actually woke up early and just didn't feel like waiting for the train. So I decided to drive, and man, was I glad that I did. That afternoon, as I was heading home, I heard that two trains had collided into each other (AND later, some one tried to jump in front of a train to commit suicide -- yup, wasting everybody's time with their misery, great, huh?) so Caltrain was running an hour to an hour and a half late in both directions!! That was a close one. I'm pretty sure I would have hated waiting around on a Fri afternoon, and G would have had to prove again what a joint adventure this all is by picking me up from San Jose. Though I have this feeling that he wouldn't have done it. Cuz he doesn't really value our marriage like I do. Fortunately, I was whizzing down the freeway in my car already by this point, so it never got to that.

I heard that a similar thing happened on another morning not long after. Again, a morning when I just didn't feel like waiting around.

So come to think of it, maybe this whole public transportation thing is working out just fine after all.

like when i was 23

Last weekend, we had one of those nights that I haven't had in a long time. You know, like the ones from your 20s, when you can't quite remember what happened? Well, ok, those were my 20s anyway, maybe into my early 30s. We had an engagment party to go to in the easy bay, and it was a friend's birthday also, and he wanted to do dinner/drinks in the city. So we decided to get a hotel room in SF. G started drinking early in the afternoon and was already buzzed when we headed to the city. We checked into the hotel, and headed over for dinner, a tapas place with great sangria. After dinner, we hit a salsa club. As the night progressed, I realized that everyone around me was getting plastered. One of the girls in our party actually worked at the club, and was able to hook up with tequila shots, and pretty much all the nasty drinks that I've sworn (multiple times) that I'd never touch again. Slowly the crowd started to dissipate, and we outlasted even the birthday boy. Finally, though, I was getting ready to go, and managed to drag everyone out. At this point, there were a few place sticking around that we didn't know, but we went out to grab a cab with our friends L and B.

Of course, though, we were in the boonies, it turned out and there were no cabs to be had. So after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, I finally managed to get on hold with a cab company and was waiting when my friend L decided that maybe we could just take the bus that was hanging out outside the club. Before I could stop everyone, the three of them were all boarding this random bus, and L was asking them to take us to the Marriott downtown. But she got a little distracted cuz it turned to be an Indian party bus, and they were playing really loud bhangra. So she started showing off her dance skills and pointed out that she had an Indian friend. I'm not sure how it all happened, but I was dragged in, too, to be shown off, which is always fun. Turns out they weren't really discriminatory. They were just as happy to ply everyone with drinks with or without a token Indian girl in tow. Before I knew it, L was dancing at the back of the bus. B was glancing at his wife in exasperation. G was getting straight scotch from some of the guys. It turns out they're part of this Punjabi Association in the city and ocassionally go out on the town and check the clubs.

So at this point, G was WAY FAR GONE. And the thing is, I know how he is. He's the best drunk in the world, but the hangovers are ridiculous. Like he's out all day ridiculous, whining and complaining about his stomach and his head and everybody suffers. I still remember a lovely weekend when he came to see me in San Diego, got drunk on the first night, and spent the rest of the weekend in bed. He won all kinds of bonus points that visit, as you can imagine. So I definitely did NOT want him drinking anymore. I was still on hold with the cab company and trying to grab scotch drinks from him left and right. But some how, I'd take one away and another would appear in his hand without me ever knowing where they came from. All the while insisting that he wasn't really drunk. No, not really. L was explaining to anyone that would listen that she had great Indian friends (but would start describing this girl who I'm pretty sure is Persian). G for some reason started talking to the guys (you know, cuz they were all bonding over Scotch) about how they should check out this strip club next. A man who was even more drunk and I think the culprit-enabler handing my husband plastic cup after plastic cup of scotch, explained that actually, they were here with their wives. Who, by the way, I'm sure were VERY THRILLED by my friend L showing off her dancing skills.

Unphased, G pushed forward. As near as I can figure, the whole incident reminded him a bit of this bachelor party he went to a few years ago where they hired some girls from Craig's List, and rented a party bus. I guess the girls did their show on the bus. This was the first I'd ever heard of the incident. Later that night, G would tell me all about it in detail with our friend B (who hadn't even been at the bachelor party) trying to change the subject, cuz you know, there's that whole guy code about bachelor parties. Anyway, I'm thinking now that the whole bachelor party thing was already in his head, cuz that's the only way I can explain what I overheard next - him explaining how the guys ccould actually even hire girls off Craig's List. OMG. Yup, I'm pretty sure that's what he said. My husband, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. I set aside my phone long enough to apologize, the man said that no apologies were necessary. He knew all about Craig's List. All rightie, then. Never mind. But he stuttered again that they were here with their wives, which I think sunk in with G at that point, cuz suddenly I felt his arms wrap around my neck and his voice saying that yah, he got that, he was here with his wife too.

Honestly, I don't know how I did it. Finally the cab came, and I was able to drag everyone off with me. B seemed to be sober too and making sure his wife got in the cab. I took one more scotch out of G's hands and dragged him in too. When we got back to the hotel, the consensus seemed to be that the best thing to do would be keep drinking even MORE, and we headed off to the bar. Which thank god wasn't serving anymore. L really wanted to go to the bar across the street, but I was pretty exhuasted by that point, and called it a night. And fortunately, they did too. Cuz the next morning, B, who I thought had been mostly sober was throwing up and almost had to be taken to the hospital to be my rehydrated. And G - as predicted - spend the day moaning and groaning. I spent the whole day waiting for him to feel up to heading up, and no shocker, he never felt like he was up for it. Instead, I just had to sit around the hotel room waiting around, watching crappy TV and being totally unsympathetic. I'd wanted to hang out in the city all day, and I guess I got my wish, just hadn't figured it'd be in a hotel room.

AND here's what was probably the most hilarious part about the whole evening. Cuz if you remember these types of evenings from your partying days, you remember how it goes, right? You'd be shutting down the bars, crawling into bed at 3 in the morning, maybe drinking some water or taking a Tylenol if you have your wits about you, and fall asleep partially in your bar hopping clothes. Right? Right? Well, I guess we had a little version of that going too, except that guess what time it was when I crawled into bed that night (after helping G off the floor cuz he fell while trying to get on the bed)? A whopping 12:30 AM. Seriously.

the tired me

So far, public transportation hasn't exactly been easy. Its not that I'm opposed to it, I'm just wondering why they can't make it more convenient around here. Around the world, people rely on buses, trains, and cabs, and they're able to get where they need to go with relative ease. But I'm realizing that for me, probably cuz I don't live very close to a big city and because I don't think the US is really the King of Convenient Public Transportation, getting to work suddenly has been taking longer, is more expensive, and is a downright pain in the ass.


First of all, it actually took me a while to plan the route. Nothing comes near my house. Caltrain, the South Bay Area's train system, comes only as far as Gilroy, which is about 20 miles from me. And they actually have only 3 trains that come all the way down, most others go only as far as San Jose, 45 miles away. So 3 possible trains each way. THEN, none of them go close to work. At least not walking distance close. So I had a few options:

• Take the train to the downtown San Jose station and get on a downtown shuttle (25 min drive to Gilroy, 50 minutes on the train, up to 15 minute wait for the shuttle, about 7-8 minutes on the shuttle, and dropped off a few blocks from work)


• Take the train to a station south of downtown and find an alternate mode of transport to work (there's a light rail that gets there in about 5 minutes so seemed like that would work in theory (25 minute drive to Gilroy, 42 minutes on the train, 5 minute light rail ride, and dropped off almost in front of work). It's actually not that bad, takes only a few min longer than it takes me to drive and park.

So of course I opted for #2, and I tried that on my first day. And I discovered that Light Rail was designed by retards. Its slow, it's painful, apparently its often late. But the worst thing was that it's not at all set to coordinate with Caltrain. The afternoon light rail is actually scheduled to arrive a minute or two after Caltrain takes off. So basically, I came running up, and the train was just pulling away. AWESOME, I wonder what genius decided that would be the best schedule. Unlike Caltrain, light rail runs every 15 minutes, so I guess its not a huge deal to take the earlier one or wait an extra 15 minute in the morning (because the morning was totally off too, did I mention -- I got off Caltrain just as a light rail train was taking off, apparently a minute or two BEFORE Caltrain is set to get there). But here's the thing. When I drive all the way from home, the whole trip takes me about 55 minutes. So I'm already spending WAY more time getting to work. I don't also want to spend a bunch of time waiting at each turn. Its one thing if I could just get on near the house and hang out til I got to work. But each time I transferred, I had to wait, and it all adds up. I don't want to be spending 2 hrs each way on my commute.

The other thing is that my work is super particular about working a full 8 and a half hour day. I'm sure I've complained about how we have to sign in and out. So dammit, I'm not ready to work even a minute more than I have to. But with the lack of train frequency, and the lack of coordination between the different modes of transportation, I couldn't make the train work without having to work a half hr extra every day (or barely missing the train by 2 minutes in the afternoon). Which all pretty much resulted in me leaving the house at 6:05 AM and coming home at 6pm. Ugh. With almost 4 of those hours spent commuting (and actually, most of that excess time spent waiting somewhere - which has also been fun with the recent cold spell).

But, it was relaxing to not have to drive. I didn't have to sit in traffic. I didn't have drive into work half asleep still. And I didn't have to pay for parking (plus my work reimbures a bit for using public transportation), so it actually did end up being a bit cheaper. Not to mention the costs of wear and tear on my car, the gas, the more frequent oil checks all associated with driving. So I kept looking for ways to maximize the process, and came up with option #3:

• Take the train in the morning and the bus in the afternoon. The bus comes right in front of work. It runs a little more frequently, and drops off at the Caltrain station where I left my car in the morning. So that seemed like the way to go.

EXCEPT, you know what? The bus is MISERABLE! OMG, people actually take that stupid thing every day???? You can't lean back, the seats are really uncomfortable. It was super crowded, so I amost couldn't sit down, and when I did, I was scrunched in pretty tightly between a couple of people. It stunk. And it stopped like EVERY TWO SECONDS. Dude, it was supposed to be an express bus, and actually cost more because it was an express bus. But no, apparently express just means it gets on the freeway, makes good time for a while, and then just gets off the freeway a lot to accommodate every single person on the stupid thing except me. People in Morgan Hill, for example, need to be dropped off right in front of their house. Once, and I kid you not, we stopped just before a light, waited at the red light, crossed the intersection, and stopped again. Like seriously folks, you could have walked to the stop faster than it took. It took the bus a half hour to go the same distance it would have taken me 7 minutes to drive. I know, cuz the next time I drove, I timed it. By the time we got to my car in Gilroy, there were only a few people left on the bus. I think most everyone else had decided to get off and walk the rest of the way.

I might have tried it again just to give it one more shot, but I was nauseous for the rest of the night, and couldn't imagine coming home like that everyday. The bus came to screeching halts. There were random bumps for no reason. And overall, it just felt like I was in an hour long earthquake or roller coaster ride. It doesn't take much for me get motion sickness, either, so that option is a definite no go.

So I'm still trying to figure out the best way to go. Next time, I'm working on option number #4:

• Take the latest possible Caltrain in the morning + light rail (shortest wait time between Caltrain and Light Rail with this option plus I get to get off south of downtown which gives me less total train time). The whole route is actually well coordinated so total travel time in the morning is just 1hr 15 minutes, only about 15 minutes longer than what it would take me to drive. Then take a bus in the afternoon to the train station, which would get me to the Caltrain station with just enough time to spare (as opposed to light rail which would make me get there after Caltrain leaves). If it works, it would let me take the first possible train in the afternoon, thus reducing my overall commute time. It pretty much requires me running to everything (so maybe no more heels to work) but if it works, it'll be the best option yet.
  

Is your head spinning yet? Cuz I know mine is. And this is seriously the way I felt for a whole week or more while I was trying to route all this out. In a way, it was a bit addictive. I spent every free moment at work for an entire week perusing bus and rail maps (totally cutting in on my blog and websurfing time, hence the preparation I referred to in my previous post). And of course things always look all right on paper, but it's a lot less fun putting it all into action. Cuz that requires that everything runs exactly on time, including me. Which is a huge IF. So I've been running into all sorts of those issues too, but I'll save that for the next post. And here I thought that the freaks would be my biggest worry.

the new me

First of all, I have to say that I'm disappointed. I think 3 of you commented on the pregnancy rule-out, and I'm shocked. Really? You thought that if I were pregnant, that this is the way I'd reveal it to you? In my blog? You didn't think I'd maybe have said something to you sooner? Wow. Anyway, at least for the 3 of you, you can rest assured that if that day ever comes, you'll probably find out long before I go public to the rest of the world. Especially since I think it was mostly family that even brought it up? Which was also kind of interesting. I actually thought everyone would have thought it was job-related, seeing as how I'm always complaining about work, and kind of really dislike it a lot.

ANYWAY . . . thanks for the great guesses. Lisa, you definitely get the prize for the best guess cuz I was cracking up when I read it. Sadly, none of them were right.

Nope, actually, I'm proud to say that I've recently entered the world of environmentally friendly commuting!! So basically, for some reason or another I've chosen to torture myself with public transportation. Which in the past hasn't really worked so well for me, mostly cuz I'm a huge bum magnet. I don't know what it is, but I have a big sign on my head that says. "Are you a loser? Please come talk to me." I used to ride the bus a fair amount right after I graduated from college and didn't have a car. And I'd have to say that I've been stared at, drooled on, proposed to, you name it, its happened. Once, on a slightly longer ride, I sat next to some kid who fell asleep next to me, woke up, and told me about this dream he'd had where we'd (as in he and I, to each other) gotten married. He looked slightly drugged out and had a hospital bracelet on his wrist. Awesome. I looked for the nearest exit just in case.

Another time, in Portugal, I got followed onto a train by a very loud Portuguese man. He had been talking to me on the platform while we waited (mostly actually at me since I didn't really understand what he was saying and was looking for every possible way to ditch him) and then just followed me onto the train. It was the middle of the night and most of the other passengers were asleep, at least until he came in with his loud booming voice. I was mostly worried that people would think we were together. I hadn't considered the possibility though that he'd sit right next to me, fall asleep, lean his head onto my shoulder and start snoring and drooling. Clearly, I hadn't guessed how much worse the situation could get. By the next morning, I was way beyond caring what other people on the train thought and just wondered how much longer I could deal before shooting myself.

So here I am, looking forward to some great times ahead. It's already been going wonderfully, too. I'll have to tell you guys all about it in future posts, but for now, I just didn't want to keep you in suspense any longer. What do you think? Way too much drama for nothing? :)

Free Starbucks card

So I know that I was a bit hit-or-miss with the postings over the last few weeks. I hit a lot of dry spells where I just couldn't think of much to blog about. Plus I'm about to enter a new stage in my life, and I was a bit busy a few weeks ago preparing for it. Since it might be a little slow this week also, I was thinking I might give y'all a chance to guess what my new adventure might be. Whoever comes the closest will be mailed a $5 Starbucks gift card (Don't worry - I'll ask you offline where to send it to, so my entire readership of 5 whole regulars won't be able to track you down and steal it from you). Or, if no one comes close, the funniest guess will get the card. Come on, guys, you know you want to guess. OH, and if Starbucks isn't your thing, I might be persuaded to make it a gift card for something else, assuming it's something I can get a hold of fairly easily.

I'll give you a few hints. I'm NOT pregnant, dying of a slow and painful disease, or changing jobs. It is something I've been talking about for a while now, so I might have mentioned it to some of you. And I'm hoping it'll help with some blog fodder, though that wasn't the primary purpose.

I'll probably break down and tell you all about it by about Wed or so, so hurry up and get your guesses in before then.