Freewriting

 

It was wonderful to be home again. I pulled into my driveway at a little after six pm and unpacked a few things I needed from the van. It took me several days to get it completely unpacked.I took a hot shower, and put on real pajamas. (I�d been wearing a really big t-shirt and shorts while traveling so I could easily crawl out of my tent or the back of the minivan to get to the campground bathrooms.) I went to bed about 8:00 pm and slept until 11 the next morning. I was still tired when I woke up. It felt wonderful to be back in my own bed. I spent the next day unpacking some stuff from the van, grocery shopping, and catching up on my blog. A few days later I took the train to Philly, then on to Atlantic City. Dad picked me up at the train station down there. My niece was visiting, too, from Nevada, so I got to see her again. My nephew, niece-in-law and their kids came down, too. I wanted to pick up my car as well as see everyone. Dad drove it periodically to keep the batter running. It�s a Prius, so it can�t sit for a month without being driven. The battery needs to be kept charged. What a bizarre taxi ride! I hate taking taxis, but I didn�t want to ask someone to drive me because my friends are all off doing their own summer stuff. It�s not a long ride, but from my house there is no other way to get to the train station. There aren�t busses � that I know of � that run from here to there. Yellow Cab was the company of the taxi that picked me up at the train station and brought me home when I took the car down to mom and dad and then took the train back up here.I picked up the taxi right outside the train station without any problems. The drive know how to find my house, too. I live in a kind of out-of-the-way area in Lancaster Township, not the city, so a lot of people don�t know how to find it (including some of my friends). So I called that taxi company when I needed to be picked up to go to the train station. However, I regretted that. I called ahead of time and made an appointment to be picked up, but the taxi did not show. I had to call and remind them of my appointment. They clearly had forgotten. �We�re busy� was the excuse the dispatcher gave, but that�s crap. Appointments need to be honored over people flagging down a taxi or people who call later for appointments. He screwed up. The taxi he finally got to come and get me was apparently some distance a way. She was annoyed at the dispatcher, too, I think. It was a bizarre conversation. I�m not sure if she made up most of that just to make me feel bad about being upset that she was late. If she didn�t make it up, she has had a bad run of really bad luck. I did feel sorry for her. But it was a very weird conversation. She was an odd woman � her arms were covered with tattoos from her wrists up probably above her shirt-sleeves. She told me things I wouldn�t ever tell a stranger. I guess she either was feeling really bad and just needed to talk to someone, or she just wanted me to feel bad for being upset at her being late. Some of it really sounded like it was made-up, but I certainly couldn�t accuse her of that. And I don�t know � maybe it all really did happen. Our problems are all relative, I guess. Which is probably what she was trying to say � or rather, she was trying to make me see that problems were much worse than mine, which, in fact, they were.