Thurs. notes

It would seem that a large proportion of our school bus drivers are women.  Most of them are moms or spouses (cuz this job doesn’t pay enough to be most people’s only source of income) who are obviously connected already.  Poor pickin’s for the cat, ya know.

There’s one woman I see all the time – her routes overlap mine, so she leaves when I do and I cross paths with her a lot.  She always waves enthusiastically at me and she seems cheerful and a happy person. 

(Warning, shallow waters ahead)

She has the best figure, or one of them.  Attractive on many levels, you know.  I have been thinking of it for awhile – you know, looking for someone to hookup with (aside from those attractive highschool girls who are young enough to be daughters, who aren’t on the options menu anyway)  It happened that we got done at the same time with our am runs yesterday and that we were both parked in the lot behind the bus barn – we walked to our cars together.

I’ve been thinking of it for awhile, and here was a chance.  I said "Is there any good reason I shouldn’t ask you out?  You’re an interesting person." She got a goofy smile on her face and said "Well, I do have a "significant other, but thanks for asking anyway".

Here in PDX, "significant other" is often a code word for same sex couples… but it can also be used by discreet people to describe, kind of, their love interests.  I didn’t say, "oh, yer a lesbian, eh?".  I didn’t say "Damn the bad luck".  I said something witty like "Oh". and went on with the conversation we were having.

But really, damn the bad luck.  Seems like everyone is hooked up but me.

Oh well.

My #25 bus is in the shop for some fixes (I asked) to make it smoke less.  It’ll be there for the rest of the week, I’m told, so #30 is "my" bus this week.  It runs better than 25, and seems to smoke less.  I always felt sort of guilty as my bus smoked out the cars behind it at signals.  Heh.  I feel mildly guilty as my bus climbs Theissen Blvd at a stunning 15 mph.  I look back and see a long line of cars behind me.  I drive that road in the afternoons, shuttling from the skills center back to Putnam high school, where I pick up kids for the ride home.  Get 50 -60 kids on board, and boy, those buses SLOW down.  25 laid down a smoke screen behind us.  I feel sorry for the cars stuck behind me.

Supposedly, we’ve gained enough drivers to cover all the routes, but I still see that woman I mentioned yesterday driving instead of doing office work.  Yesterday, the dispatcher himself was driving too.  Judging by the other drivers (which for the most part seem like conscientious people) it would be hard to get fired from this job.  There does seem to be a future there for me.

yay!

Speaking of jobs, I see that the papers boss has a job note on the doors of his dad’s store.  The ad offers 1400 bucks a month.

Ok, this is several hundred more than I made doing the job.

grrr.

Had he given me a raise in any of the past three years, I might have not gotten this bus driving job….   Not that I’m unhappy that I did, you see, but jezz, see how little you were paying?  And how fucking lucky you were you had me working for you?

I’ll be dropping the two editions of the Sunday papers this weekend, so I’ll get a Sunday paper for myself (or at least, the parts of it I want).  I like like like having the nights off.  I’ve been getting a good night’s sleep all week, although that means I need to go to bed by 11 pm. 

I’m happy to not be a vampire anymore.

The break between the morning runs and the afternoon runs is up in about 20 minutes, so I’ll be going soon.  It has been raining cats and dogs most of the day (not now, tg) and the noon news said something about snow showers at higher elevations today.  It won’t stick, but the kids’ll get a rush off it if we see any.

I have snow training the 15th (MLK’s B-Day) and we’ll drive up to Mt. Hood and practise up there.  I think it’ll be fun, and of course (of course!) I will bring my camera.  I haven’t been up there in the winter for years and years.

I see by the clock on the wall that I should edit and post this and go back to work.  See y’all in a few hours, ok?

*****