The merry face of Grindelwald (write of passage number thirty-two)

It has been established that I hate and dread the after-school buses of September.  I hate and dread the buses before school as well, but younger daughter has been getting lifts in the morning for the past three years, so I'm mostly spared them.

If we're truly unlucky, younger daughter and I are forced to catch the #150 Lincoln Fields which rounds the corner on to Iris and picks up a plethora of JH Putman students who are middle-school students, therefore 12 and 13-year-olds, and by definition loud and self-involved.  They crowd aboard, wrestling, turning suddenly with over-sized back-packs whacking the seated passengers, and pitching their voices so as to be heard throughout the bus.

Our agony is, mercifully, short-lived.  We get off at Queensway Station -- only to board Transitway buses crammed with Algonquin College students who are older, and slightly less obnoxious, usually hooked into their phones and earbuds. We are joined at Lincoln Fields by Woodruff High students, who vary in their loudness and obnoxiousness, and we climb off with some relief at Bank Street to await a #7 -- which is crammed with Glashan students, another blessed middle school. I use the term "blessed" ironically; elder daughter survived her early adolescence there.  Barely.

Two lovely girls see younger daughter and I struggling to the back and offer their seats.  I accept gratefully, but younger daughter has already sat down and when I point out the available seat by the window, she pushes past the astonished girls, shoving me aside with a "Move, Mum!"  I thank the girls again and see others in surrounding seats turning to stare.  I pull out my newspaper, turn to the Suduko, and bury my embarrassment in the squares, deciding to skip a treat at the coffee shop today.

Many passengers get out at Rideau Centre, but they are more than replaced by a parade of Lisgar students, and to my despair, more than a dozen De La Salle students troop on the bus near St Patrick, as the driver attempts to bully them to the rear.  Soon, my ears are being assaulted by teenaged angst and loose back-packs.  Two girls are hanging (well, swinging) from the railing and looking over my shoulder as I attempt to focus on my Sudoku.  One of them points at a square:  "That one's a five, you know."

I gaze up into her laughing eyes.

"Thank-you," I say, meaningfully.  Returning to my puzzle, I'm thinking grumpily: The merry face of Grindelwald….

When the last wave of kids board at Beechwood (gawd only knows from which school), I'm beyond caring, although I do curse under my breath. Our stop is next.

Usually, by October, the after-school activities kick in; some students will find lifts; others will drop out. Eventually, there will be a little more room on the buses.  I'm hanging on to that.

Tired and scared of living on the edge too long

So, the day we'd been dreading came, and when daughter came downstairs, I asked her if she'd like some music, thinking she might like something different, but no, she wanted CBC Radio Two, just like every school-day morning.  I turned it on in time to hear an intro to what the host described as one of the less-appreciated songs by Blue Radio.

Can't quite remember what it was, but it wasn't my personal favourite, the first song I remember hearing from them: 
Strange, after all these years, the only part of the video I really remembered was the part near the end when the keyboardist does a little jump to the high-hat crashes.  (Although, watching it again, I did remember the oddly concave-topped feet of the woman.  Blue Rodeo had more than one bare-foot woman strolling through their videos, usually getting dressed before wandering off.)

Before Blue Radio became well-known - as they are in Canada - they were more of a punk/new-wave band called, among other things, Fly to France, and, not long ago, I heard a recording of the band  performing this song in that style. I found this snippet:  
I like the country version better, but I think you always prefer the version you hear first, don't you?

Oh, and younger daughter went out to her lift without a fuss and seemed to have a relatively good day.

The blackberries came out to say goodbye...

Melinoe on a half-shell

Oh, ouch. The tensions of the last week have found their way into my middle and lower back, into my jaw. Sometimes my hands shake. Tomorrow, we confront the teaching staff at younger daughter's school. We only plan to deliver the hereunto undeliverable homework, along with a reminder of our phone number and respective emails, but it may be an indication that things have already gone too far.

I comfort myself with music, with books, with movies, with memories. On one of our last nights in Victoria last August, my friend-of-the-right-hand offered to take us to Mount Tolmie to watch the sunset.

"Oh, could we go to a beach?" I asked. Six weeks had passed, and I had failed to stroll by the sea.

So she drove us down to Willows Beach. The sun had already slipped behind the park, and the mountains were mauve and misty. The water rippled in lines of silver and lilac. Younger daughter took off her shoes and waded into the gentle pearly ripples, while we filled our shoes with fine grey sand. A seal poked up her head, then slipped away unseen.

And I didn't have a camera with me. But I do have this picture of an abalone shell. That's something what it was like.