I forded a river today.

Towards the end of my day I chatted with a colleague in her office when we noticed the clouds darken the sky.  The question wasn't whether it would rain but when.  My colleague looked down at my practical sandals and then at her leather wedge sandals.  She remarked that clearly I was ready and she was not as she pondered whether she dared make the run to her car barefoot.

I returned to my office to log off and pack up my work laptop.  Fortunately, I keep a poncho in the backpack that I use for my laptop so that I always have one on days like this.

I carried my scooter, poncho, and backpack down the stairs to the ground floor where I unfolded the scooter and donned the poncho.  I can only imagine what a sight I was to see as I passed an attorney from my office on my way out the door.  

Through the streets of my city, I navigated puddles, traffic, and the occasional pedestrian.  When I arrived at my favorite park, the place was so empty the two resident ducks were exploring the usually very busy path now filled with puddles to play in.  They were surprised to watch me zip by.  

The rain had gotten even heavier by now.  Puddles were getting harder and harder to avoid.  My scooter momentarily slipped on some wood boards of a path, nicking me in the ankle as I clumsily stepped off - one of the hazards of riding a scooter.

Then I reached the final block which had a river running down the middle of the road.  There was no way to avoid this puddle so I forded through it, feeling the entire board of my scooter get fully submersed at times until I reached higher ground.

I admit, I smiled throughout the entire journey as the rain washed over me, refreshing me, and cooling me after days of weather that at times reached triple digits.

I reached the main building of my apartment complex.  As I stood under an overhang, I folded up my scooter and then took off my poncho and shook off as much rain as I could.  Aside from my bangs and my legs/feet, I had actually stayed pretty dry.

I entered the building to see the eyes of the office staff on me.  "I don't mind the rain.  I don't melt." I said before continuing on to pick up the mail and head to my apartment.

It's been a while.....

Aside from a post a couple of days ago, you may have noticed a several year gap in posts.  I just thought I would briefly catch you up to what I have been up to.

Sometime in early 2019, I let the scooter gather some dust.  My commute was only 7 blocks, hampered by a lot of uneven sidewalks that took some focus to navigate, and I wanted to slow down even further.  You notice more scootering than you do driving but you notice even more if you start walking.  I got to know the faces of the people that I saw day in and day out.  I learned the schedule of the flowering trees each February and then again in the ones that flower in the summer.  I paid closer attention to the songs of the birds and the occasional lizard scurrying into the bushes.  And since it was only a 12 minute walk, it was still short enough to come home for lunches.  

And then in 2020, it was if the world stopped with the arrival of the coronavirus.  In mid March of 2020, my employer scrambled to make sure everyone had laptops and sent us home to telework.  There were so many advantages we learned from teleworking but it didn't come without some challenges.  The first challenge was our 1 bedroom apartment where the desk where my husband worked physically touched the kitchen table where I worked.  We solved that problem by upgrading to a 2 bedroom apartment with a loft in May of 2021 in the same building.  The other challenges related to the technology we had would somewhat improve over time until we got into a good routine.  During this time, weeks and even sometimes months filled the gaps between my stops in the office which were never more than an hour or two at a time.

Then in late April 2022, over two years since we were sent home, my employer called us all back.  The scooter was still gathering dust at this point as I returned to walking back and forth to work.  My husband's work had not yet called him back so he continued to telework every day for a number of months after that.

Even before the start of the pandemic, our apartment complex had started to rotate through office staff a little too often and that just accelerated with the pandemic when they left some positions unfilled.  The building went on slow decline which for us culminated in having to spend the 2022 Christmas weekend in a hotel because our apartment temperature was in the 40s and management did very little to address what caused that.  So after the first of the year in 2023, we started the apartment hunt.  A number of brand new buildings had opened in the last couple years or were opening soon.

In March of 2023, we moved in to a new apartment in a newer building  This new place is now just about a mile away from work.  It is definitely still walkable and when my husband and I go in together, we do walk.  But the route we take includes almost half a mile through a wonderful park with a paved path plus a couple blocks of a bike lane on the street.  So there aren't as many broken sidewalks to navigate.  And those extra few blocks turned a 12 minute walk into over a 20 minute walk.  So I have dusted off the scooter and ride it to the office usually two days a week plus one evening a week to choir practice.

Stormy days

 One risk of commuting by scooter (or on foot) is the uncertainty of the weather.  In the last hour of my work day, the skies darkened as strong storms approached.  A severe thunderstorm warning was issued and a chorus of thunder sounded between lightening strikes.  I did wonder whether it would pass by the time I was ready to go home.  

Fortunately, the rain had turned to a drizzle and the lightening was in the far distance as I stepped outside onto the sidewalk outside my office.  I swerved around the deepest puddles as my made my way towards the local park that was on my route.  Usually this is a park full of people - dog walkers, runners, children playing, people lounging on a blanket in the grass listening to a guitar player, etc.  Today, it was empty, eerily empty.  I paused as I saw the young yellow-crowned night heron sitting in his favorite tree.  I'm sure he was enjoying the quiet.  Then paused even longer as one of the resident ducks swam towards where I stood, looking for food that I didn't have.  And then I continued on my way.