Stuck on the bus, Gus

I spent five hours in transit yesterday, waiting for buses, leaving late buses, missing buses, running for buses. By the time I finally made it home, three hours after departing to pick up younger daughter from her new school, I was exhausted and depressed, and bellowed like an aggrieved Wookie at elder daughter for failing to bring in the recycling bins. Clearly, if I'm going to make it through the school year, I'm going to have to take the one-day-at-a-time approach, and not let my mind slip to the horrifying prospect of spending 4 to 5 hours each day on OC Transpo. That way madness lies.

We did manage to get to younger daughter's school by bus this morning, on a bus that was fairly crowded at some points (though not as bad as the picture), that was reasonably direct, and ended with a picturesque stroll up a quiet street. (Here's where I don't allow myself to think about what that will be like in the winter, or on a rainy day, or during spring thaw, etc.) Left younger daughter telling me that she was feeling "overwhelmed", but she seemed fairly happy at the end of her first day, so I'm trying to keep my chin up.

On the morning trip back from the school, I struggled to my feet as the first of the three-bus transfers pulled into the Transitway station at Westboro. A handsome young fellow glanced around wildly at his surroundings, then looked up at me from his seat and asked with a sheepish smile: "Is this the 85?" I laughed and tried to remember which bus we were on (it wasn't the 85). I'm not the only one trying to find a rhythm in my daily travel.

I've been attempting to ease my loss of time and freedom with newspapers, puzzles, and people-watching, but I don't find the last as beguiling as I do in Victoria, where all sorts of cameos and mini-dramas take place during the course of a bus-ride. Here's Write of Passage Number One (I may need to do a few of these to keep up with September's NaBloPoMo):

It's a summer's afternoon in Victoria and I'm facing backwards watching where we've been flow out through the rear window of the bus. In the very back seat, two Japanese ESL students, evidently taking the long trek back to their quarters in Gordon Head, have set up camp. They are surrounded by bags of groceries which seem to mostly consist of potato chips and pop, and they look like a double X: each girl has her knees tightly clutched together with the ankles splayed out to each side for balance as she folds scores of paper cranes. They've stuffed the completed cranes in their pockets; one breast pocket has blossomed into a multi-coloured corsage of pastel beaks and wings. I want to know what will happen when they run out of pockets, to say nothing of trying to juggle their purses and grocery bags with their origami when they have to get up, but it's my stop first.