If you aren’t on the bus when the bus leaves, you don’t leave on the bus…

I have begun taking the bus to work daily. Although I miss my bike, the shortened daylight and a nagging injury have made the bus the ideal way to commute. The bus is very convenient and easy and I have been able to keep up with my enormous load of proofreading while commuting.

Regular bus riders are on time. They have a set schedule and they stick to it. Long gone are the days of sleeping without an alarm clock or snoozing. Instead, my life is set to a schedule and it always begins the night before. It usually looks a little something like this:

8:30 p.m. Read Basha books and get her to bed.

9:00 p.m. Shower. Lay out clothes for the next day. Pack my lunch for the next day. Pack all that I need in my backpack.

9:40 p.m. Read.

10 p.m. Go to bed.

5:20 a.m. Get up. Remind myself that I chose this lifestyle. Get dressed.

5:30 a.m. Make coffee and eat toast. Read emails while having breakfast. Make second cup of coffee to take on bus.

6:00 a.m. Become extremely annoyed that my ipod has not downloaded my news show. Try to do this quickly. I should be on my way to the bus stop. Give up midway through.

6:05 a.m. Pick up paper in driveway and RUN with coffee toward the bus stop. Congratulate myself on the fact that all the sloshing of coffee will thoroughly mix the sugar and cream I dumped in the cup at the last second.

6:06 a.m. Thank bus driver profusely for seeing me run and stopping. Contemplate what sort of baked good he might enjoy for Christmas.

6:07 a.m. Wonder how long it will take before my heart rate returns to normal.

6:08 a.m. Put on makeup. (I think this is just good time management and the other two people on the bus now know me so well, they don’t care.)

6:10 - 7 a.m. Read paper while listening to ipod. Go over any leftover proofreading I need to do. Finish reading email. Read books. Listen to music. Call my parents. Become annoyed again that I do not have my show downloaded to my ipod.

7 a.m. – 5 p.m. Work hard. Really freaking hard. Love doing it.

5:03 p.m. Freak out that I am going to miss my bus and run to bus stop.

5:03 p.m. Thank god that a lot of other zoo employees are getting on the bus, thus slowing it down at the stop while I run like a maniac across the zoo parking lot to the bus. Thank the car on 23rd for stopping and allowing me to cross!

5:04 p.m. Get on bus and reevaluate heart rate. Try and decide if there is any calorie burn from a one- minute sprint.

5:05 p.m. Talk to other zoo employees. Today the zoo’s CEO is on the bus as well as a keeper and a coworker in our Conservation Department.

5:15 p.m. Finish emails, while listening to Amy Mann.

6 p.m. Get home and make chili for dinner.

7 p.m. Play with Basha and the dogs.

8:30 p.m. Start over.

It is inevitable that I will miss the bus if I do not leave earlier. More discipline is needed. However, so far I’ve been able to make it!

We have a couple of other fun developments recently. We hosted a coffee meetup at 6:30 a.m. downtown. Two people attended and we all rode the bus in together. These two people are now bus riding regulars!! This is great. So we are talking about hosting other meetups, including a happy hour sometime soon. We have learned that many people are very intimidated by riding the bus and by having a friendly face show you how it’s done can make it that much easier.

I also met with the Panda Cycle people. They are custom building me a bike!!! It’s so awesome – really. It’s hard though as I had no idea the plethora of items I need to pick from. Mainly – the seat and handle bars baffle me. I am leaning toward the 12 speed with North end handle bars and a brooks saddle. Thoughts?

Happy commuting everyone!