BART Strike and Insanity

The sun gently rises and birds sing.  What a pleasure to great such an inviting day.  The smell of coffee brewing and the cool sight of morning clouds chilled and lifting to the sparkling brightness.  This is how I love to greet the early morning!  Well, intellectually, I believe in the concept of a pleasant, bracing morning, but concepts do not always equal truth.

Truth is often ugly, cranky, puffy eyed.  Clanging.  Ugg.  I did not greet the day in a pleasant manner.  I was up early, but I was not happy about it.  AT ALL.  Not enough time for a shower, sweaty from the nights of an ever pervasive heat wave, I put on the clothes I had fortunately laid out and dusted on some makeup.  Brush through the hair and teeth (different brushes chosen) and grabbed a cup of coffee.  (Thank you, Doug!) Off I went.

Michael left well before me.  We both had a difficult task before us, mine, more involved, his more arduous.

BART labor strike.  Rats.  The whole BART System is shut down, and for who knows how long?  This means that 400,000 people who usually take up one square foot of transit real estate each are now going to all be in their cars, taking up the whole stinking road and all of the parking spaces.  I have to go to Oakland from Concord and Michael has to go all the way to San Francisco.

At my office, we had a meeting to decide how do get everyone to work.  Fortunately, three of us were able to set up a carpool and adjust our start time to get us to work.  Rose Marie even has a parking space.  We started at 6 and arrived at 7:40.  I guess that's better than the trip to the city.  It's taking Michael 3 hours to get to the bridge.

I really think the union is doing a bad job in telling their story.  They kind of look greedy and petulant.  Spoiled brats holding the Bay Area hostage.  I'm sure there is more to their grievances, but really!  They should be telling their story better if they want the commuters to not be so cranky about their modified commute.

This is going on during the longest, hottest heat wave I've ever been through.  Day after day of three digit temperatures.  Cranky drivers.  Cranky people.  Sticky, itchy, not in the mood.  So how do I keep up with my exercise when I am in my car for days and it's too hot to exercise when I get home?  Leave it to Michael to come up with a solution.  He has the Insanity workout that we can do at home.  I did it.  Does that make me insane?  Ok, so I am really a wuss, and I am not buff like Shuan T. So, while I did exercise through the entire workout, I didn't do everything they told me to.  I mean really, jumping jacks with squats, push-ups while crawling like a crab across the floor, now faster, now faster, now higher, now faster.   But, I did a lot, and a lot more than I thought I could.  Lots and lots of sweat.

You know, there was a time in my life when I didn't sweat much at all.  I think I believed it was unladylike.  Maybe it is, but I am past caring.  As long as I can shower afterwards, I consider sweating is a badge of honor for courageously wearing stretch pants and making grunty faces for 45 minutes.  Yay exercise!

So Insanity at home, appointment with the trainer at the gym, weekend bike rides and hikes, all squeezed into little slots throughout the week.  Insanity feels less insane than driving to work these days.