Monday was smokin' ...

I'm making a thousand and one adjustments in my life.

Some are logistical, some are financial, most internal, a few are external.

If, like me, you are more a "process" than "product" type of person then there is a lot of potential there for growth.  It's enjoyable.

Still it's an interesting challenge, crafting a new life, a new career.  Not for the faint of heart, or for those who are uncomfortable with uncertainty.

More often than not I take the bus in to the Orchard.  There are incentives to use it, not all of them financial.

I've outlined some of the social ones in previous posts.  You hear conversations, you see people, you think about thoughts and conditions far from your own.

Case in point - I've only had one vehicle catch fire while I was on it - and even then I was just a passenger and it wasn't our fault.

Ah, but today, yes, today is a very special day.  It started off prosaically enough, with the alarm going off exactly as I set it, too early for how I felt but early enough to get me to the bus stop.

No, this particular adventure happened when we heading out by the Portland Transportation Center - the PTC, which includes the train and Concord Trailways.  As we drove along I noticed a  particularly strong smoky smell rose from under the Lady next to me.

I didn't want to say anything - I'm in no position to call the kettle black - or even stained a little bit.

It was when an active trail of smoke matched up with the acrid odor that I began to look around - discreetly but with growing alarm.  It was confirmed when one of the ladies on board asked my seatmate - who had boarded just a couple of stops before - asked her to move her bag.

An acrid smell and an active white cloud broke into the cabin.  There were calls to stop the bus, to open the window. 

I give the driver - whose name escaped me, sadly, as so many do - credit for not losing his head (or for having gone through this before, which is more likely).  He pulled us over by the Train Station, opened the front door and ordered us out.

It didn't take long.  The wait for a replacement bus was short and rather friendly.  Co-workers phoned ahead to warn of the delay (I had cleverly left my cell phone at home on the couch), a young couple put big furred booties on their little girl, then lit up cigarettes and smoke like chimneys.  I spoke to the drive about the effects of burning hydraulic fluid (it looked like the wheelchair anchor tiedowns had leaked fluid that had somehow overheated.

We boarded the replacement and went on our way.  

I can say that this experience colored the entire day, in that various problems that came up at the Orchard - even ones that would have given me the screaming fantods no more than a month ago seemed old hat and easy.  Conversations were personable and fun - as was the bus ride back.

There has been a lot of up and down the last seventy-two hours - Mary Flagg, financial news, professional news, all sorts of stuff.  I appreciate sadness, I celebrate joy.  But either one - or worse, both - in alternating intensity can really drain you, rob your sense of the colors in your life.

So it was nice to still see scarlet light in the sky, even walking home just now, at 5:15 in the Winter afternoon.  I love Winter, but a reminder of light and brightness means a lot.  

Sometimes it's just a color in the sky.

Sometimes it means everything.