I'm going to take a little leeway with this post because it didn't actually happen ON my commute, but after a long day of work, and then 2 hours in my "mobile office" (also known as Amtrak), all I really wanted to do was go home and relax and perhaps watch some mindless TV instead of working for several more hours like I usually do.  It had been one of those days.  Of course, on the days you most want to do that, it never happens.

The traffic was horrible getting home from the train station, so I figured I might as well stop and run a few errands since I wasn't going to get home until late anyway.  I went to the dry cleaners, stopped at RiteAid, and then went grocery shopping.  FINALLY, I'm on my way home, sure that my poor dog is very hungry by now.  I get home with numerous (reusable) shopping bags of groceries to put away and open the door that leads from my garage to my house, and WHAM, I was overwhelmed by the smell of gas.  It was so strong that I almost couldn't walk into the house.  I go into the kitchen, and the stove is on.....not on, exactly, because there is no flame, but it's on enough to be pumping out the gas. You know what I'm talking about.....like before the flame lights and the gas is coming out waiting to be lit.  My 17 year old daughter, who is wonderful and totally trustworthy, by the way, had come home from school for lunch and somehow left the stove on.  Well of course she had left after lunch and it had been on all day til I got home.  And did I mention that my poor dog is an inside dog?  The smell was so strong that within a minute or two, I was already feeling sick.  So I grabbed a mask (the kind that doctors wear....yes, I have them in my house for my allergies), and put the dog outside first (I had no idea yet how lucky I was that she was alive).  I quickly opened every window in the house, opened the sliding glass doors, opened the garage, etc, so there would be as much wind though the house for cross ventilation.  I then put the groceries away (only the ones that needed to go in the fridge), and then grabbed my computer and went outside.  I was afraid to even turn on a light for fear that any kind of spark might set something off.

I did a search to see if there was anything specific I should do and every single response I saw said to call the fire department. So I did.  Better safe than sorry. They immediately said to stay outside and they were on their way.  They were at the house within minutes, big firetruck and all, and proceeded to tell me that not only was I incredibly lucky that my dog was alive, but that I would have to be out of the house for the next 6 hours at the very least while they ventilate the house and "treat" the air.

So I ran upstairs, changed my clothes into a pair of sweatpants, grabbed a jacket, grabbed some dog food, a bottle of water, my computer and my kindle, picked up my dog and a blanket and left.  I stopped to buy some food and then finally thought to myself "where the heck am I going to go for the next 6 hours"?  That's when reality hit me and I realized my dream of going home and relaxing or going to bed early is now completely gone.  My poor dog and I went to the park so that both of us could eat, and I figured I might as well get some work done.  It kind of felt like perhaps I had no home because I was sitting at a park with just a blanket, a hungry dog, and a few precious items, with really no where to go and nothing to do.  So I ended up doing several more hours of work after all.  Then we just hung out for a while, I read my kindle, my dog took a nap (I really wanted to take a nap, too, but figured that probably wouldn't be the best idea), until eventually enough time had passed and we FINALLY got to go home. When we got there, we couldn't smell the gas at all, so whatever they did worked (thank you firemen!).  I think I went to bed at about 2:00am that morning (my daughter just happened to be staying overnight elsewhere that evening).

Rest assured, to those of you who are wondering, that not a day has passed since then that I haven't given my daughter a major guilt trip for this event.  For example, when she comes home and goes to hug the dog, I remind her that she better spend extra time with the dog because it was very recently that she tried to kill her.....or when she comes to give me hugs and kisses before she goes to bed, I tell her that I think I deserve some extra hugs and kisses because she recently tried to blow up my house and kill the dog.  Yes, I absolutely believe in blackmail and guilt trips.  Especially since she's a really good kid, and still gives me hugs and kisses at 17 years old.  But hey, she needs to punished somehow, right???

On this particular day it was pouring rain. I decided to leave a few minutes early just in case. In retrospect, it's a good thing I did. I called for an Uber and watched as my driver (4 minutes away) began to make his way to my location. Then I watched on the Uber map as he then proceeded to make several wrong turns leading him in the wrong direction. To me, it even looked like he went off-roading at one point because according to the map there was no road where he was driving. After multiple U turns he appeared to be on the right track, so I went downstairs to wait for him. I waited in the lobby since it was raining and watched on the map as he drove by the building several times. I really thought that all Uber drivers have GPS in their cars and could follow a mapped route but this guy made me doubt that theory.

When it looked like he had finally found the building, I opened my umbrella and stepped outside into the parking lot and to my surprise (perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised) he was nowhere to be found. According to the map, the car was stopped, so I called him. I had a bit of a hard time understanding him due to an accent, but he explained to me that he was there, and waiting in front of the building. I explained that he wasn't in front of the building, and if he's at the building he must be on the side and could he please drive around the building to the front.  He said that he's already at the building. I said I understood but he was at the side and could he please drive around to the front and he told me to walk to where he was. I explained that it's pouring and that it would be great if he could just drive towards the exit because that's where I was. He said he's already at the building. I said again that I realize that he's at the building and I am at the building as well and he said he can't see me and as I tried to answer he interrupted and said that he is canceling the trip and I need to find a new ride. What the heck???? I actually had to get someone from my office to take me to the train station. As I called up to my office, I watched him drive right by me to exit the parking lot.  He literally could have stopped for 2 seconds and picked me up. Thank goodness one of my staff was able to leave right then and get me to the train on time.

If you've been reading my blog, then you read the previous post about the day that I was on the train that hit and killed a pedestrian.  This story is what happened with my Uber driver on that very same day (I know.....you're thinking "there's more???")!!  So if you didn't read that post, go back a few days to the one about the Amtrak and then come back and finish this one so you get the full impact of my day.

Quick recap: I was on an Amtrak that struck and killed a pedestrian.  We were stuck on the train for hours, not allowed off.  They finally let us off somewhere between Oceanside and Solano Beach and we were left to find our own way to wherever we were going.  This is where my story picks up.

Guess what I did?  Of course!  I called an Uber.  My handy dandy Uber app told me that my driver was 4 minutes away.  Great!  I'll just stand on the street corner and wait.  I was a little smart and walked about two blocks away from the train because everyone was calling Ubers and it was a total mess right outside the train with Uber drivers trying to find their people, and passengers fighting over Ubers.  Ugh!  So I was waiting quietly in the shade on my corner a couple of blocks away.  I don't know if you've ever used Uber, but you can see the car coming to get you on the app and follow it until it gets to you.  I watched as my driver made several wrong turns, and went in the opposite direction, made several u-turns and basically 10 minutes later (remember the 4 minute initial estimate) called me.  She said "can you give me directions to you or tell me your exact address?"  Well of course I couldn't give her directions because I really didn't know where the heck I was.  And an address?  Not really, because I was on a street corner somewhere.  So I went walking around looking for an address on a building to give her.  I asked her if she could see my blinking dot on her GPS and she said yes, so I asked if she could just follow the route to me and she said yes, so I suggested she try that.  She said ok and hung up.  I then watched her again go the wrong way.  She called me back and said "I think I'm on the right street, can you see me?"  I actually laughed out loud at that point because how in the world could I possibly see her or even know if I was seeing her?  If she was anywhere near me, she would see me, standing alone on a street corner.  This ridiculousness went on for almost 20 minutes until she said "I'm cancelling, just hit the cancel button."  Ok, fine with me.  So I cancelled and re-entered my request for a ride.  Guess what?  She actually accepted the ride again!!!  I couldn't believe it!!!  I know that Uber drivers can't see all the info they're accepting, but I know they can see where the start location is, and it would have been the exact same location and the same requester and she actually accepted it again!!!  So when I saw it was the same driver, I immediately cancelled it (I may have to do a separate blog later on the fight I had with Uber regarding not being charged a cancellation fee).  I waited a bit and then entered the ride request again, and another driver accepted.  Thank goodness.

This driver found me immediately.  When she got there, I told her that I was going to Orange County and she told me that was too far and I needed to get another driver.  She was nice about it, but just didn't want to go that far.  So I used guilt.  I told her what had just happened, and that the train had just hit someone and we were stuck for hours, etc etc.  She took me :-)

So we'd been in the car for about 15 minutes making small talk (if you read my blogs for a while you'll find that I end up always talking with my drivers).  We ended up talking about the strange weather.  That's when she informed me that I should get ready because the weather is going to get even more strange.  I asked her what she meant by that and she told me that in September there are going to be three days where we won't see any sun at all.  I, of course, asked her to expand.  She then went on to tell me the following:

The three "dark days" in September indicate the end of the world.  That there is a woman in the sky with stars circling her head, who has been impregnated by Saturn or Jupiter, she couldn't remember which one, and that her fertilization is what causes the "dark days".  The "dark days" are foretold by the Book of Revelations in the Bible and that Jesus will be coming back in September and that is when he will be taking all his Believers back to his Kingdom with him. 

Now, I'm pretty familiar with the Bible, but I don't remember anything in the Book of Revelations about the lady in the sky with stars circling her head who got pregnant by Jupiter or Saturn.  Then again, there is much about Revelations that can be left to interpretation.  However, I'm thinking that I probably would have heard that version somewhere along the way.

Ultimately, she asked me if I was a Believer, and before even hearing my response, told me that she would pray for me and that she hoped to see me in His Kingdom.  She also told me that I wouldn't recognize her in the Kingdom, because none of us would be a version of what we are on Earth, but we would automatically "know" each other and be able to connect through Him. 

By the end of the day, when I finally got home, I honestly felt like I was the one with stars circling my head.  Do you remember in the old cartoons when a character fell down or got hit in the head and they represented that by showing little birds or stars going around in circles around the character's head?  That was me that day.  As if someone had perhaps taken a hammer to my head a few times and I was just waking up.......

But the good news is, I'm awake and moving on to another day so that I can keep commuting because for me, each commute seems to mean a great new story!!!

I was driving to work one day last week (instead of taking the train because I had too much to carry), thinking to myself that this would be one day that I would not pick up a story for my blog since I'd be in my car minding my own business. Well, I was wrong.  Yes, I was still minding my own business, but apparently that does not mean that weird and random things don't still happen to me.  Sometimes I think that the Menehune (I was born and raised in Hawaii, and the Menehune are a mystical race said to cause mischief for people.  Learn more here http://bit.ly/2oQ85MB), anyway, I think the Menehune have followed me here to California and are causing mischief for me.

So I was driving to work, very engrossed in what I was listening to on the radio, when a large big rig truck in the lane next to me honked very loudly.  I looked around to make sure I wasn't doing anything that would potentially make the driver angry i.e. swerving into his/her lane, and I wasn't, so I figured the honk wasn't for me.  Three important things to point out here.  I drive an SUV, so if a large truck is on my right side, I can't see into the cab to see the person.  I can see right up to the very bottom of the window.  The second thing:  I want you to picture driving in traffic from OC to SD; you tend to be near/close to the same cars for most of the trip, right?  The third thing:  I'm wearing a skirt (this will be important later).  So....  I keep driving and a few minutes later, the big rig is next to me again.  Honking again.  So I look around and still, I'm not doing anything wrong, so I keep driving.  When this happens a third time, I think to myself, maybe the person is trying to get my attention because I have a flat tire or my gas cap is open, or something else and the person is trying to actually be helpful but I keep ignoring the attempt.  So I lean over to try and see through my passenger window into the cab of the truck and the male driver has a sign that he had written and he's holding up to the window of the cab.  It says:

NICE LEGS (apparently my skirt was showing enough for him to decide that)
GIVE ME YOUR PHONE #

I know I've been hoping to meet the man of my dreams, but I'm not sure that this is exactly the way to do it.

As you read this, is anyone wondering if I gave him my number???

For the most part, Amtrak has been good to me and outside of a few instances (which I'll expand on more in later posts), our relationship has been relatively smooth.  Last week, however, was one of the times I felt that perhaps Amtrak didn't love me as much as I love Amtrak.

My day started off relatively normal and once I got on the train I plugged in my iPad, turned on my music, put in my headphones and started to work.  I rarely take notice of my surroundings such as which stop we're at, so I didn't pay too much attention when we were stopped a little longer at one particular stop. However, when "a little longer" became "a lot longer", I took out my headphones and started looking around.  That's when I realized we weren't actually at a station stop.  I happened to be sitting in the second car from the front of the train, so I could see that there was something going on, but I wasn't sure what was up. I asked the woman in the seat across the aisle and she said no one had come on the speak yet to explain why they were stopped but from her side of the train she could see a lot of activity as well.  It was at that moment that one of the Conductors got on the speaker and said we were stopped due to an "emergency incident" and didn't know how long we would be delayed.  Good thing I had a bagel with me.  About 20 minutes later, the Conductor got back on the speaker and informed us that the train had struck and killed a pedestrian, that there was to be an investigation and that no one could get off the train (since we weren't at an actual stop), and that the delay could take up to 4-5 hours.  Now, being a regular commuter, I understand this.  They can't let us off the train because there are live train tracks surrounding us, plus they have to investigate the situation and the train has to stay exactly where it is, etc.  But it's definitely not easy to hear that you might be sitting on the train for the rest of the day.  Instantly, the whole demeanor of the train changed.....but I'll get back to that in a bit.

So now everyone is on the phone telling people they're not going to make it to wherever they're supposed to be.  And to make matters worse, the Amtrak wifi seems to be down, so no one can get on their iPads or whatever gadgets they had. I had a jetpack/hotspot, so I offered the use of it to those around me since obviously we were going to spend the day together.  My new best friends and I start to chit chat a little and commiserate about where we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to be doing that day.  One poor woman was on her way to help her very elderly mother before her surgery that afternoon and now would not make it prior to the surgery.  Argh!!  Can you imagine???

And I'm sure the dining car suddenly got very busy.

Now let's get back to some of the people on the train and how I believe that they suddenly were taken over by aliens when they were informed that they couldn't get off the train for possibly up to 5 hours.  I was so disappointed in humanity. Many of the folks, just in my train car alone, were unbelievably rude to the Conductor when he informed us that we were stuck there for a while.  A couple of them actually yelled at him and swore at him.  Come on, folks, it's not his fault.  He's actually doing his job and keeping you safe by not letting you walk onto live train tracks.  I get it, you're very important and have important places to be, but how about taking a step back and thinking about what just happened out there?  Perhaps you could cut the guy a little slack and chill out a bit?

A lot sooner than expected (thank goodness it was about 2 hours instead of 4-5), they brought in some planks and covered the tracks and let us off the train.  We were somewhere south of Oceanside, so we were all left to our own devices to figure out how to get somewhere, and some stayed on the train to eventually get to San Diego.  Many called on Uber (which increased the cost significantly).

And if you're wondering about my Uber ride?  Well, I Ubered back to Orange County, and boy was it a doozy of a ride, but I'll have to cover that in my next post.....See you soon!

Prior to my position at LegalStaff, I had never used Uber.  But now, every time I take the train from my home in Tustin to my office in the Kearny Mesa area of San Diego, I take an Uber from the train station to my office in the morning, then back to the train station in the afternoon.  I meet the most incredible people as they drive me to and from the office.  And when I say "incredible", I don't always mean in a good way.  I am naturally an outgoing person, so I tend to talk to my drivers.....I am figuring out that perhaps it sometimes might be better to get in the car and pop in some headphones.

On this particular day, I had a female driver. We made a little small talk as I settled in and she got on the right route to my office.  Somehow (and I guarantee I did not initiate this topic of conversation) we, well she, started talking about men and how hard it was to date these days.  Maybe it's just that I have "that kind of face" that make people want to talk to me.....maybe I should have gone into counseling?  She proceeded to tell me numerous dating horror stories that she had recently gone through.  And when I say she told me stories, I don't mean vague stories.  For some reason she thought it would be ok to tell me details.....About how one man took her and her son on a boat with his friends on their second date assuring her that it would be a family event but the boat turned out to be fully equipped with a stripper pole and strippers.  Unfortunately, by the time she realized that this wasn't going to be the man of her dreams, they were too far out for she and her son to get off and swim back, so she had to suffer through it (I think her son was 11.....I'm guessing he didn't hate the experience). But let's be honest, I'm a mom and I'm not so sure I would take my 9 year old child out on a boat on a second date with a man I'd met on-line, so perhaps she was doomed from the start.  Regardless, I was regaled with stories such as this one for the 15 minute ride to my office, and if I remember correctly, this was the tamest of the bunch.  To her credit, by the end of the car ride, she said to me "Gosh, those are really horrible stories.  Perhaps I should take a break from dating for a while."  I sure do wish her lots of luck and hopefully her Prince Charming doesn't even own a boat.