walking to work

I took this picture today while walking to work. The leaves have hardly changed much yet here in balmy North Carolina, but the mornings lately are crisp and clear and full of saturated colors like the water droplets on this leaf.

Please don't take this the wrong way, car commuters, but I am really, really sorry for you. I know I'd get to work faster in the car, but then I'd have to burn gas, suck fumes and fight for parking EVERY SINGLE MORNING - and that's before even getting to work! How do you do it?? How do you sit in the traffic and stare at the Hummers without your heads exploding?

Here's my recipe for daily stress relief: get out of the car. Here in The Triangle, NC, we are fighting about whether to have light rail for commuters, whether anyone will take it because it might slow their commutes down by ten minutes, or somehow be "inconvenient." Ulcers are inconvenient, too, you know?

My favorite public transportation sagas are from Aunt Purl, who knits on the bus every day in L.A. since her car was stolen.

People get all irritated like I'm some kind of ultra-righteous freak with special powers of superhuman good luck when I mention that, at the age of 30, I have never driven a car to work in my life. Not to say that I never even did it once in bad weather (cause I sure have), but even here in the South where public transportation is considered a commie plot, I've always been able to either take the bus, ride my bike, or plain old walk and admire pretty leaves instead of getting in the car. I need it! I can't handle the car thing - I think you commuters must have superhuman powers of saintliness for not road-raging yourselves into the hospital, what with all those obnoxious SUV-drivers "sharing" the road with you. Do you meditate, or what?