A poor roll model

Demeter is taking advantage of the fact she now has family in town. Well, that was the idea, so I agree to accompany her shopping. She thinks of this as a happy thing.

I'll let her think that.

I've never cared for shopping, accompanied or unaccompanied, so the day before the expedition, I do a dry run - a wet run, really, as it's pouring. I do a circuit of likely items and stores.

On the appointed day, I lead Demeter through, pointing out likely items. This works well.

I reach to stop the elevator at the Bay Centre as a woman with a stroller approaches, because that's what I liked to have done for me in my stroller days. It turns out she's going down, so she elects to wait.

"I never hold the elevator," Demeter explains. "You never know which direction they want."

"Yes," I say. "But I think, in the long run, it's better to acknowledge a person's presence. She knows that we knew she was there. That can change a whole day."

We're nearly done, but Demeter decides to make a three-block detour to buy green tea for elder daughter. Three blocks is quite a consideration at the tail-end of an ambitious shopping day - especially if you're at the tail-end of your eighties. I see Demeter tiring out, and suggest a restaurant, reaching out to prevent her from entering a crosswalk at which the signal is ticking down; she'll never make it across with her walker/rollator.

She decides to trundle past the bus stop instead. I move to the inner sidewalk to avoid a tangle of strollers, walkers, and wheelchairs by the shelter.

Demeter presses on past a blond woman standing in front of a pole. The woman looks after her furiously and exclaims, "Seriously!"

I'm bewildered, but join Demeter at the cross signal.  While we're waiting, the lady approaches us from behind and scolds:  "A simple 'excuse me' would suffice!"  As I gaze at her blankly, she declares, "She ran right over my foot!"  I think I might have felt tempted to apologize if it weren't for the self-righteous glare and the schoolmarmish tone. 

Even then, it's not my place to excuse my mother, who hasn't really heard her, anyway. As we cross, I relay what was said.

"I didn't run over her," Demeter says flatly.  "I feel lines on the pavement; I would have noticed her foot had I run over it."

I feel discombobulated and distressed, even as we settle into lunch.  I'm also a bit wary, because the woman looked familiar -- but then, everyone in Victoria does.

I wonder if what really pissed her off was not being acknowledged.

Oblivious (write of passage number twenty-three)

I could hear her long before I saw her, the steady and inane chatter of someone on a phone in transit: "OH HI!....I'M ON A BUS...YEAH, WHAT'S YOU UP TO?...."

When I rose to make my way to the exit, I found my way blocked by the usual crowd of people who cling to the space near the exits. One was a stocky woman, shopping bags slung on her arms, both hands gripping the bars on either side of the door. She had her head severely tilted to one side, gripping her cell phone between her ear and her shoulder, her eyes fixed in the middle distance, talking incessantly.

As we reached our stop, I managed to trade places with one young fella, so that I was standing at yakking lady's shoulder. The door opened and someone stepped down. The woman's arm dropped but she had not moved, so I nudged into the narrow space between her and the door.

"I'M GETTING OFF AT THIS STOP, SO YOU DON'T NEED TO PUSH," declared Yakking Lady over her shoulder as she clambered out. She proceeded up the flights of stairs, keeping up the commentary into the phone, with periodic backward glares at me. When I got to the bridge over the station, I watched her toddling off down the road and into the evening, cell-phone glued to her ear, packages swaying, possibly regaling her listener about the pushy woman on the bus. (The nerve.)

Risking the ire of the Irish

Why am I not wearing green today? Were you wearing a daffodil or a leek on March 1st for St David's Day?
I didn't think so.
What's that? You're not Welsh? I'm a family historian. I have my family lines, both paternal and maternal worked back at least six generations across the board (fifteen generations in a couple of lines). Not a drop of Irish blood.

No beef with Ireland; I enjoy Irish music, art and literature. However, I feel less kindly toward people using St Patrick's Day as an excuse to act more boorish than usual.

Today, the Resident Fan Boy, younger daughter and I were returning from Westboro where we had purchased new "indoor shoes" for school. This is a necessity for Hades where janitorial costs have been so cut back that schools can't afford to have the floors cleaned more than once or twice a year. As a reward to ourselves, we had a lovely lunch at Fratelli where I had thoroughly enjoyed a large bowl of tomato and garlic soup and now was feeling guilty about inflicting myself upon our fellow passengers on the ride home. That is, until two characters in green shirts, leprechaun hats, and over-sized glasses (not sure about the significance of that last item) boarded the bus. One girl spread herself out in front the back door, listening to tinny music on her earphones, and looking vaguely put out every time someone needed to exit.

The other was a fellow who entered the bus ahead of an elderly lady and plunked himself into the one remaining free seat which happened to be a courtesy seat near the front, immediately producing a magazine from his jacket and immersing himself in it. The elderly lady glanced at him wearily and made her way toward the middle of the bus where I was, so I stood up, tugged her sleeve and directed her into my vacated seat. St Patrick saw us and muttered: "Sorry..." but apparently had no trouble with my standing and trying to keep my distance from the leprechaun with earphones who had evidently poured half a bottle of scent over herself before venturing out.

I like to think that this was because I looked young enough to be standing. I also like to think neither of them was actually Irish. Or Welsh.