7 01 pm pdt   [ oh, and... (aka racing III) ]

Today, on accident, I discovered inpassing.org, a site of overheard quotes and other random observations from a Berkeley student. The site took me back to school and living on Telegraph. Through inpassing I found thegivingZone, with which I spent several minutes. Another search brought me to the Obscure Store, which was more or less like News of the Weird and Oddly Enough.

Here are some recent things I have forgotten to mention:

When we went to the zoo, we took two buses. At the end of the day, all of the kids were playing on the amusement park rides and the time got late. My boss and I discussed trying to rush to make the bus, which came once every 30 minutes and decided we were better off getting back later and taking the next bus. So we let the kids play a bit more and headed to our bus stop. When we got there, there was a bus labelled "special" which pulled away, and then an unlabelled bus pulled up. It was clearly waiting for some group. We hadn't been able to charter a spacial bus because they required 30 people and we only had 20. But the people who were supposed to take that bus weren't there, so the AC Transit guy says that we can have the bus if they don't show up for ten minutes. Great! But our bus should be there in five, and we're going to have to take it when it comes. Then he says we should get on the special bus and wait a few more minutes. If the other group comes, then they'll take both of us. Well, the other people never came, and neither did our regular bus, but we got our own special bus. We didn't have to pay the transfer rate, we didn't have to stop at all. We got home earlier than we would have if we had left the zoo to take the first regular bus. What a delicious treat after a long day...

When I went out dancing with Phil and his roommies, we had a compulsary discussion about breasts, which prompted me to ask each of them if they were breast men or leg men (I include butt men with leg men). One was a leg man and I asked for a rating. He said 8 or 9, which I thought was very generous, but I was just pleased to be over 7. Later in the evening he tried to recind the numbers, saying a whole point was much too big a range, but I refused to listen to anything higher. Anyway, at the point at which my legs were so generously rated, I realized that I am self-conscious about my legs due to one incident in school. I was at Berkeley and it was one of those rare days when it was warm enough even for me to wear summer clothes. I was walking across campus with Desirée (my roommate at the time) wearing cut-off shorts that were in fact hand-me-downs from her. Amidst the general yelling that goes on on-campus during any given day, I heard a voice. A young black woman, sitting enjoying the sun no-doubt, yelling, "Hey you, yes you with the skinny legs." With great horror I realized she was speaking to me. I turned to Desirée as we made are way onlong Telegraph and said, "Do I really have skinny legs?" I thought I had normal legs. She answered in the afirmative, and I think I've been rather embarrassed of my legs since that day. But a leg man told me I had decent legs so I have decided to revise how I feel about them. Go legs!

Several days ago, I got to be part of a high speed chase! I got on the freeway to go home, and as I passed an onramp, I heard a siren. I couldn't tell where it was coming from until a red car pulled sharply in front of me and cut across several more lanes, followed by a motorcycle cop. Red car man had a bit of traffic to contend with, so he would make his way across all of the lanes, ride in the shouldre on one side of the freeway for a while, and then repeat the process. He was quickly out of site with his reckless driving. At first I thought it kind of funny, but then all I could hope was that he didn't hit anyone and ruin their day. Do what you've gotta do, but don't cause others distress...

My grandfather's surgery went very well but he can't stand how weak he is so he isn't doing his exercises which are designed to rebuild his strength and return him to his pre-surgery lung capacity.

On the 18th, I made the kids some new Sokoban levels and one of them said, "Rachel, you're the best! You're the greatest in the world." That made me feel very good. In related news, my collection of art from the kids has grown to quite a significant size. I am thinking of decorating one wall in our apartment with their drawings and paintings. [For those who don't know, I work in the afterschool program at an elementary school in Oakland.]

We went racing again today [racing #1, racing #2]. Matthew did well, but not perfect. He was doing exceptional on his last round when he lost control and the car fish-tailed so wildly that he had to come to a complete stop before continuing. Even despite that he still nearly matched his previous time. We were at Candlestick Park: