Freaky Friday

The next full moon must be upon us; eaveryone everywhere is acting "different" today.  The skies overhead have cleared, and for what seems like the first time in weeks (ok, one week, but it seems longer) I get to wear my sunglasses.

It’s a beautiful, crisp morning here, and it made me smile hard, which my Middle School kids perhaps misinterpreted; I heard words that aren’t supposed to be spoken in school.  I had a brief discussion with one of the girls – "we’re not on school property" she said, when I  tsk tsk-ed her about language, but then she remembered and realized that, yes, this is a SCHOOL  bus.  It’s too nice a day and the infraction is too minor to do more than say something about anyway.  And SMILE.

Not only are people being freaky, the railroad crossing at Harmony and Linwood, which I cross coming and going with the Middle School kids was malfuctioning again, closing the gates and flashing the red crossing lights … and not letting MY signal turn green.  I sat through four episodes of the gates closing and opening and said to myself – well, never mind.  I’m not allowed to say that outloud on the bus, so when the two cars in front of me bagged the wait and turned right, so did I.  The next crossing down the street was not down – no trains, after all, and I got the kids to school going a different way than normal, and we were only a few minutes late.

I was the last bus into school though….

Today, McDonalds is introducing their coffee bar drinks – free small Lattes all day at Micky D’s, so even though money’s a little tight, I stopped in for a couple dollar breakfast sausage biskits (damn.  how to spell that eludes me.  freaky friday!)

Today is a "1" day, so I have a shuttle run from the Skills Center to my old high school (the one I served last year) and another from there 25 minutes later to "my" high school this year.  My Mid-Day is that much shorter today than yesterday.

This morning some of my High School kids asked me if I had ever gone to college.  Yep, I said, and they asked "well, why are you driving a school bus then???"  I said "ya know, the best thing in life is to get paid for what you love to do.  I love to drive, so here I am". Gave ’em some food for thought.  Wait’ll I tell ’em I was an English teacher in Japan for six years!  I guess like a lot of people, they tend to think of school bus drivers as ignorant people who can’t get a "better" job, but I pointed out the best thing about driving them around – it is recession-proof.  School kids will ALWAYS need us drivers.  My dad told me, when he got laid off in 1975, bitterly, "they use you and lose you &^%^&%.  Get a job where they always NEED you".  He was a highly educated Electro-Optics Engineer… but.

I have been a janitor.  I am a school bus driver.  I have been a Security Guard.  I was an engineer in the Navy.  The only time I’ve ever been laid off was when I was a delivery driver for a window manufacturer in the early 90’s.  During the First Gulf War, remodeling and new construction took a dive as the economy here in Oregon nose dived into the dirt, and as "the new guy", I lost my job – no windows going out meant that they didn’t need three drivers.  When my CDL came up for renewal the next year, I didn’t want to spend the fifty some bucks to renew it and lost my first CDL.  It was 15 years before I got it back, but I have it now again, and it’s good for seven more years.

As far as I can see, I’ll be driving a school bus for at least that much longer, despite dealing with the kids.  I love my job.  I do something totally necessary.  The rewards aren’t necessarily tangible, but I KNOW, and that’s good enough.  I am NEEDED.

I like that.

***

New subject.

I love my car.  It’s almost a year old – in fact, it is one year old today, because on the door post, it says it was assembled 1-9-08.  Happy Birthday, Cali-Blue!

My car is the lowest level Caliber.  I was at the dealer’s the other day getting my 12,000 miles service done, and wandered the lot, looking at other Dodges, and I see that I paid thousands less than the 09 Calibers there…. although, that SXT (same color, power everything and a sunroof too!) was kinda nice lookin’.  I offered to trade straight across, mine for that one, and the service lady (and how hot is she???) laughed.  Probably not gonna happen, lol. (ok, I gotta say it.  NICE cleavage and smooth tan curves and oh god, I hadda work at not looking down her shirt… but Oh. So. Fine!)

Anyway, the Caliber.  MY Caliber.  It’s an SE Plus – AC and aluminum 17" wheels and 60 series tires and the touring suspension- she’s got feet under her!  I didn’t opt for the higher levels of stereo, because I had rented one the year before and was impressed by just how fine it sounded.  My radio has bass, treble, AND midrange controls to it, and it sounds really good.  In fact, I was driving through the desert a week ago in California, and had the CD player turned UP, and was marveling as it caused the rear view mirror to vibrate to the heavy bass in the Pink Floyd tune I had on then – excellent Bass!</spa

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Then I realised that it wasn’t just the mirror vibrating to the beat – no, it was my eyes too!  I blinked and got some flow over my eyes and omg, my eyes were dancing too!  My Cali-Blue LOOKS good, SOUNDS good, and ya know, best of all, it’s MINE.

Best mileage of any car I’ve ever owned too.

***

Life is really good today!

*****

by the way, this is Public Entry number 1971 – 2392 total.

Pretty good, eh?