random bits

So today was a really random day for thoughts.

It all began with me having to catch a bus home for a change, as my car is at the mechanics. It was a welcome change to my usual routine though, having a car is a luxury really, being able to get straight from A to C (without having to stop, get off at B redirect to D go back to C...like a bus might do for you) is a luxury we take for granted sometimes. Seems like its been ages since I last caught a bus, there was a time I loathed buses, never on time, always full etc etc...But today I really looked foward to it. There is something about catching a bus that makes one feel more sociable as a human being.

For me, to get to the bus stop I have to walk through a little mob of shops. There is always such a great atmosphere round this particular street-very diverse- there are grocery shops and clothes shops and random little secondhand stores and cafes, the German bakery, a French ingredients shop, Indian spices galore, Mediterranean coffee, the list goes on. The bustle of people leaving work, doing grocery shopping, school kids rushing home. The grocery stores all trying to sell off their produce -half price in light of closing time nearing (I succumbed to a bag of mushrooms and beans!!) You feel like you are part of a larger living thing, everyone contributing to its motion.

Which brought me to mushrooms, when you buy them fresh they are always covered in specks of dirt, like they had been freshly plucked out of the earth. My family has always taught me to cook mushrooms with just a quick wash at first- you need to get rid of the big pieces of dirt but save all the 'vitamins' etc!! LOL! My husband on the other hand 'insists' that all earth grown veges that can be peeled must be peeled so that every trace of dirt or brownish tinge is removed.Hmm...seems a bit pedantic to me!! How harmful could a few specs of dirt be?? I was just watching on TV last night a cow chewing into a root of something, swallowing what looked to be handfuls of dirt as well- they seem to manage ok!!Surely our guts are more robust then we let them be. But then again, we are not cows whose main diet consists of grass and probably dirt!!LOL!

The bus was not surprisingly way off schedule. I was waiting for bus 43, which is meant to circulate every 10 minutes...I waited from 4.15pm to 5.10 pm before one showed up, meanwhile about 8 buses on route 45 went by!!Anyways, the bus trip itself provoked many thoughts. The bus driver, to the frustration of his passengers took a good 7 minutes helping a limping old lady on to the bus, step by step, all 45 steps!! he he! Its things like this that warm the heart, and remind us that we are all sociable caring beings you know? these days I am sure we hear too often that people are becoming more and more self centered and lend a helping hand less ( more-so in these developed countries) but every once in a while you see things like this that remind us that we actually are courteous and caring people.

On the bus itself, so many different characters. There was another limping lady, but she obviously had an injury to her ankle. What was interesting was that she had sneakers on that were at least 3 sizes too big. Was it so that she could wear those very fluffy socks and make a cushion-like sole? Was it comfort? Or was it just that she didn’t have any shoes of her own so was wearing her husbands???Hmm...we will never know. Lots of other people who looked like they had just finished a tiring day at work, or a hard out day at school. A young group of brown boys got on the bus later, an interesting mob. All very clean cut, with big diamante studs on one ear and slightly blonded Mohawk haircuts!! They made me wonder where they would all end up. Made me think of those days in secondary where everything surrounded being cool. Half of them had a palagi chick hanging off them- that is probably the coolest accessory item at the moment for them LOL! (No offence to any palagi chicks!! he he!)They all sat in front of me, and as you do I eavesdropped into a conversation (well, the whole bus eavesdropped really) which was also heartwarming. One kid was asking the other kid ( both brown boys) why he waited so long at the bus stop when he obviously could have caught a whole lot of previous buses, his answer was that there was another boy, Samoan kid, fresh off the boat ( just come from Sa) who he walks to the bus stop with. they live in opposite directions, but this new kid goes to the bus stop and tries to catch rides with people who drive by, heading the same way as he (people he knew obviously, like his neighbour, the priest etc) So the kid on the bus, waited until the new kid could find a ride home, before he caught a bus in the opposite direction. Doesn’t that storey just wanna make you go 'awwwweeee'!! Kids are so innocent. I remember in year 8, one of my friends had a bit of an emergency with an unpredicted womanly function (you all know what I mean) and she was like "do you wanna walk me home??" at like 10am on a school day, and I remember being like "hmm, yup sure" this was at leififi intermediate, two hours later her dad happened to be driving home for lunch and picked us up half the way up vailima!! And gave us a bit of a telling off. To us, it all made sense, we needed to go home so we just walked, we had each other what could possibly go wrong??!LOL...those were the days.

Anyways so I get home, and am reminded that I live with boys. I.e. bought a new loaf of bread this morning, the whole thing is gone on return home. Boys aye...