JULY 19 - Mission Accompished, Rug Rats, and I Heart Archie Bunker

I don't think I should skip two nights in a row, or I may just not bother any more, so here goes. I may, however, have lost my touch.

Another hot day today. This morning I caught a bus to King George Sky Train Station, and caught a very uncrowded train .. for those of you who haven't had the (mis)fortune to ride a sky train, this is what one looks like from the inside. That blue ad on the top reminds people that:

WE HAVE THE EXPO LINE, WE HAVE THE CANADA LINE, AND WE HAVE THE MILLENIUM LINE. WE DO NOT HAVE THE FREEBIE LINE.


I thought that was very cute, but wondered how many people who sneak on without paying fare are able to read. Or of those that can read, how many would really give a darn.

I headed to Scott Road, where I boarded a bus to Ladner. My mission? To kidnap two grandsons for a sleepover in Surrey. Now this bus was very empty indeed - but it was a great example of one person being one too many.

He came behind me while I was waiting to board, but somehow managed to push in front so he was the first on the bus. Gray hair tied in a ponytail, humungous earphones, and a belly that would make a pregnant mother-to-be of triplets proud, he sat in the first seat near the door and started a loud almost one-sided conversation with the bus driver.

Loud because he was listening to music on his earphones, so when the driver responded with more than 'Yeah,' or 'Hmm,' he picked them off his ears and said, "Pardon me?" That's when I noticed he was wearing hearing aids. Anyone talking to him didn't have a chance. That also explained why he was shouting while talking so he could be heard all over the bus. Even the guy across from me started whistling, probably to try and drown him out, but that also started to be a bit irritating.

The conversation started with the three sticks of Pepperoni he had bought at the snack stop, and the fact that someone in his life didn't like pepperoni as it gave her heartburn. Then he went on to say how two of them were mild, but the one he was chomping on at the present time was hot because he picked it from the back of the display. After the 4th or 5th "Pardon me?" the bus driver finally gave up and quit responding, but that didn't stop the chatter.

From there it went to how things were changing, and then , bless his heart and kill me now - for once I wholly agreed with Archie Bunker - and then, he starting on politics and taxes.

However, all nasty things, like all good things, must come to an end, and I welcomed the quiet and fresh whisper of a breeze when I got off the bus at Ladner Exchange and walked to Neil and Shannon's place.

A quick turnaround, and I had Mission Impossible accomplished - two boys riding in the back of the bus, quietly saving their energy for bedtime.

We packed in quite a lot of stuff for a few hours - watching TV, playing games on the floor, the main object of them all being to make sure four faces were not looking at the camera at the same time ...

..

... playing in the park, bouncing balls at Chris and Lizzie's, playing games on Uncle Steve's XBox, watering gardens, plus the general boring stuff like meals and picking up Legos. It's almost ten o'clock now, and time to start spreading the sleeping dust.