9/20- The Slow Down

Since arriving in Port Townsend on the 9th life seemed to suddenly crank up its speed. From the rope climbing, sailing, Todd's visit, getting a job, and all the little things in between Saturday was promising to continue that pace. Thankfully, but much to my chagrin at the time, it didn't.

The plan Friday night when Todd and I left for the movies was that we'd leave at 9am for Seattle. From there Todd would catch a bus back to Santa Fe at 1:15pm. That would give us leisure time to peruse the city for an hour or so before getting to the station. As seems to be our way with plans they changed over night. There were five people to coordinate with for the ride down, all of whom had shifting schedules that had been changing all week. The fifth was a girl who was going to catch a ride down with us for a gathering Wendie was going to. As far as what was known of our end of the plans, all Wendie knew was that we needed to be in Seattle for a 1:15pm bus.

We woke up around 8:30am or so to find the plans had changed. Rather than getting out of the house by 9am we left by 9:30am missing the 10:35am ferry out of Bainbridge to Seattle. This heightened a mood that was already feeling heavy. The dynamics over the week had continued to feel a little odd as Wendie and Daniel were hosting more than they'd intended and Todd was struggling with finding a place to go, ending up unenthusiastically finding his way home again in the end. With the missed ferry came the prospect of possibly missing the bus since Greyhound has a habit of over selling buses and if you're not their early you can be shunted along to the next bus leaving five hours later. It was a cluster of miscommunications that day.

Oddly, the tone was set from the beginning with the weather. Since arriving it had been bright and sunny all week, this Saturday it was overcast and rainy. It had rained in the night as well and Todd had left his phone out of the bivy since the night before we were staring up at stars. This caused extra havoc since his phone got washed out and was still needing to make calls to Shalain for arrangements.

This was the beginning of the day.

Thankfully the fifth girl had decided to cancel. With the weather Daniel became nervous about his boat loosely anchored out in the bay so he decided to stay as well and take care of it. It ended up just being Wendie, Todd, and I riding down, and just Todd and I being dropped at the ferry since Wend intended to head over with Daniel in the evening after her gathering.

I had been trying to reach people all day to meet up. Lawrence's days off were Monday and Tuesday, Laura was at a wedding, Rachel was moving until 4pm, Trish is a drop in anyway, and I couldn't get a hold of Chieu. The day was not looking good, and I still wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it back to work Sunday afternoon. Getting to the ferry terminal Todd finished up his repacking and I finally did the final checking on the two buses I wasn't sure about for returning the next morning. As it turned out, those buses didn't run Sundays.

About fifteen minutes before the ferry arrived to take us to Seattle I decided not to go. Todd would be taking a cab straight to the bus station, I had no real plans with anyone over there other than Rachel at 4pm, and this new discovery had me leaving Seattle that day at 3:30pm to make it to work Sunday. I walked Todd down the gangway and bid him good luck. It seemed we needed plenty of it this day. Thankfully before he left he gave me $10 to get him some mate Daniel had been telling him about whenever I finally did make it to the city.

Turning around to head back I looked over my finances and discovered it was a very good thing Todd gave me that cash. I had miscalculated in my books and found out I was short a few bucks for the many buses I'd be going home on. It only cost $4.50 all told, but when you have $3 it can be a problem. I got a coffee for some change and began my wait for the bus in a somewhat aggravated mood. Luckily it was Saturday, a phone day.

I called my Dad to see what he was up to and had a really good, over due chat with him and found out he's doing quite a bit of writing of his own lately. After that I caught my first bus to Poulsbo then spent a good while talking to my Mom as well. She was in Maine at Chauncy's, a favorite lobster place of her Dad's, with her sister Holly who was in for the week. Holly lives out in LA and was visiting my Mom to support her through a process of getting new eyes, as my Mom says. She's always had horrible vision, but finally has come across new contacts that bring her 50/20 vision up to 20/20 vision. The two of them were having a great time just hanging out all week.

The connection in Poulsbo was a four and a half hour wait so I visited the library as well, and spent some time catching up with Ang back in Denver on the phone. There was a strip mall nearby with a grocery store, so I bought some crackers and peanut butter to eat for the last hour of my wait at the bus stop. While there I ended up sharing them with this guy, Mike, who was hobbling around on a bum leg. He and I had a good chat for a while about my travels and his life. In fact, he'd seemed bummed about the long wait before we started talking, then when his girlfriend called a while later I heard him say everything was great and he was having a good time, so I guess I wasn't boring him.

About a half an hour before the connecting bus came the bus showed up coming from Port Townsend. When I checked if I needed to get on that bus Daniel hopped off, so I chatted with him while waiting for that bus to swing around and head the other way. By the time I got back to the house I put on a movie and zoned out for the night.

Sunday I returned to work and had a great time meeting Jessica. She was the girl working with me that day and was just full of life. It was completely dead in the shop all day, so she and I just spent time getting to know each other as we wiped things down. A little after I got home, Wendie and Daniel returned and we all retired to a movie. The shuttling through had ended and now I felt like I'd dropped, temporarily, back into the regular day-to-day life I left in March.