Monday This and That

Ah, does it feel good to have an extra day off. If I had my way every week would be a four day week, but, of course, that will never happen so all one can do is go along with the flow until retirement time finally arrives. Oh, I could retire tomorrow if I chose to, but to do so would be to lose out monies due because I am not of retirement age.  And, I have to say as I creep along with another year  and few months to go, I keep my fingers crossed that they won't move the ages up again.

On a sad note, one of the great Pagan writers, Patricia Monaghan passed from this world yesterday. She will be dearly missed by all. May she rest in peace. Her work will live on forever.

On Friday I received a comment on my blog complaining that when he opened my blog the music blasted and someone in his household was sleeping.  Instead of telling me nicely or asking in an appropriate manner, he  said, "Turn the music down, jerk". Needless to say, I got a good laugh at that one, and I do have a suggestion for you, Will. I suggest you learn how to speak to people and become a little more respectful. They say you catch more flies with honey.  And, if you don't want to hear musical blogs then, (1) Turn your volume down before you surf blogs because many people I know have music on their blogs, or (2) Don't surf other people's blogs.  Simple as that.  Why should I have to turn my music off because someone is sleeping in YOUR house. You're thousands of miles away from me.  (Sigh)

My goodness, did I ever get some good news on Friday after I arrived home.  I'd spoken with a transit worker in the morning, and he advised me that I should prepare for at least a month of having my train out of service.  Of course, I was flustered.  It's not been easy getting up every morning at 5 am, being out the door before the sun comes up, and struggling to get back and forth to work.  But, knowing what was going on somehow made it seem more bearable.  It was getting quite stressful waiting every day for word that the train was running and then facing the disappointment of knowing I would have to take that grueling trip again the next morning.  

So, you can imagine how pleasantly surprised at 7 pm when I logged onto the transit website to see that my train was back on track.  To be honest, I don't know how long I could have gone on at that pace.  Now that I look back on it, the buses, not the traveling, were the most tiring part of it.  Buses were slow, and bus stops were crowded with tired people just trying to get home.  Whenever a bus pulled up, it was  like a mob scene with all that pushing and shoving to get on.   The first couple days I'd hold back and wait for the next bus, but by then, another crowd had amassed, and I learned that if one didn't push and shove their way on like the rest, one might be standing there all night, so despite my misgivings, I became just like the rest.  I had no choice.

What really irritated me was those who waited around trying to catch a free ride.  A whole sub-culture of these people appeared at bus stops, and for awhile, they made it bad for the rest of us, the honest people who paid their fare.  What they did was, hang around by the back of the bus waiting for the door to open to let the people out.  When it did,  they'd squeeze their way in without having to pay a fare.  Then, what would happen was they would fill the back of the bus, and many of the fare-payers could not board because they took up all the room.  Finally, bus drivers got fed up and began letting us out before we reached the stop.  That meant they wouldn't have to open the back door to let people out, but it also meant longer walks for the rest of us. 

I don't know about everyone else, but I am still frustrated with this new blogger.  It seems that I type a post and in draft, everything is fine, but then when I preview it, some of the spaces between paragrahs is triple spaced rather than doubled...and what a great pain to fix it.  I just don't have it in me this morning.  Does anyone else have that problem?

And, so that's it; that's my news for Monday.  And for now, I'm going to kick off my shoes, grab my Kindle, and relax for the rest of the day for tomorrow, the work week begins.