the rollercoaster

it's been a day. a very wet and emotionally rollercoastery day.

it started off with mr smear getting up late, but in a better mood. we actually had a pretty good morning.

i dropped him off, returned home, and helped gd get laundry to the cleaners in anticipation of the plumber coming in. he didn't come in today. maybe tomorrow.

we proceeded to the clinic, submitted the request we needed to, then moved on to the hospital. we got steered very wrong at first, and ended up being refused entry into the psych ward (which really isn't where we wanted to be in the first place). i peeked through the door in the window, it looks like a very sad place to be.

the directions we got were terrible, and there was precisely no signage whatsoever, but we eventually found the reception and submitted the other half of the request.

as we were walking out, the detective from yesterday called me and asked me to come in. i said goodbye to gd and walked to the light rail station, eventually arriving at the police station in pretty good time. only the princess i needed was in a different castle. i walked around looking for the entrance hinted at by the first sign i saw, then noticed a second sign making it clear that it was the wrong building, then noticed a third sign suggestion where i might find the right building.

but the building numbers are out of sequence, so no. 14 (the one i was looking for) isn't next to no. 12 (the one i was at), but rather behind no. 16 (the auto-dealer whose employees are clearly used to helping out confused non-visitors).

giving my statement to the detective wasn't unpleasant. it unfortunately took a long time, though, so i had to rush to get to my office when there aren't easy bus routes (or walking routes, i almost got lost along the way) and i was wearing my galoshes the entire time.

i eventually hopped on a bus, only to get stuck in traffic that seemed to be much slower than walking, only to get through said traffic quicker than if i'd walked. i then proceeded to be stopped by each and every remaining traffic light.

it was emotional.

i arrived five minutes late to the meeting, having foregone picking up a coffee along the way (because i'm not an idiot), only to discover that the meeting had been deferred.

...

the barrista cracked me up. there were three people ahead of me in the queue, he sorted them out, then me out, then said "watch their faces" and smiled and waved at the long queue that had formed behind me as he made his way to the bathroom 😂

the workday went pretty well, even though the meeting took much longer than planned and i fell asleep in my chair facing everyone else while my boss stood next to me. they all found that funnier than i did.

at lunch time i received a concerning message from mr smear's teacher, and after a back-and-forth i asked her to call me and we had a proper sync. it turns out mr smear's been lying to us consistently about doing his homework, and he's been really defiant with his old homeroom teacher. his current teacher was worried that he might have a learning disability, but after we talked further we're pretty sure he doesn't and that he just needs proper motivation. additionally, it was a relief hearing that socially he's managing himself quite well, when he isn't scaring his classmates with gory drawings...

speaking of which, he had a visit from a "play therapist" this afternoon, which apparently went well. it does, however, bother me a teensy bit that one of the games they played was a drawing competition, and the contest in particular was "who can draw the goriest picture". he was apparently very disappointed by the therapist's effort 🤦

...

on the way home, it was drizzling and dark and the bus rode straight past the stop. i chased after it, knocked on the door with my umbrella, and had a heated argument with the bus driver which apparently neither of us understood*. eventually he let me in, and when i asked him why he did stop he said he didn't see me, even though i was waving like mad. 

* we continued to barely understand each other even when i got on the bus, he has a strong accent and he speaks softly and quickly

this irritated the crap outta me, so i told him to give me his name or number so that i could report him.

"i don't have to give you anything."

so i took a photo of him, paid my fare, walked through to the middle of the bus and called my mom back to resume our conversation.

when we got to our stop, he refused to open the doors. there were a bunch of people stuck in the bus trying to get out, and there were a bunch of people outside the bus in the rain trying to get in, but he came up to me to take a picture of me. i'm still not sure what for, but i happily let him take a photo and then followed him to the front of the bus hoping to be able to get off and go home.

but when he opened the doors, something seemed odd and i registered that he was telling the story to the random man who'd just got on - then i registered that it wasn't a random man, it was a conductor. the conductor tried to make peace, i explained my side of the story, and he explained his, and i suddenly realized a) that he was upset about me taking a photo of him and b) that he was offended that i hadn't thanked him for doing me the favor of letting me on the bus and c) that he had apparently been worried that i was going to break the glass door by tapping on it.

along with the conductor's previous encouragement, i figured that none of this made any sense and that none of it was worth a fight, so i apologized, i thanked him for the favor (in spite of my vehement disagreement on that point) and i showed him my screen as i deleted the photo (it's not really deleted, but whatever). he calmed down, offered me his hand, i shook it and wished him a good evening, and left - only it would take a while for my nervous system to relax after all the excitement.

...

and then my mom asked me for some information, which wouldn't have bothered me but it included some confusing** context that involved one of the thugs from high school that threatened my life in grade 10. i guess i'm still traumatized from being threatened immediately after being elbowed so hard that my throat was too swollen to talk for days, and then chased around on rollerblades by a bunch of vehicles carrying gangsters wielding baseball bats (amongst other weapons) until i finally managed to lose them (and they knew where i lived, because they waited outside my apartment block for ages before eventually getting bored).

** and unnecessary. love you mom!

...

the remainder of the evening's been pretty cool. mr smear and i discussed All The Things, dinner and bathtime went well and there was no complaint about not reading because it was too late. gd and i've got three episodes left of freaks and geeks, so much of it is just soooo hard to watch, but so good!