Drive to work

Yesterday I drove to work.

Actually, before I drove to work I fell down the stairs and hurt my foot. OK, my toe.^[1]

The toe turned blue and swelled up and it hurt(s) to walk. Pedaling might make it worse. Best to, ugh, drive to work. (We live in a transit hole so mostly not possible to ride the bus.)

In the past decade I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve driven to work. It’s not a thing I do. I’ve never driven to a job downtown.

And, frankly, it was a good day for driving. Rainy. I sat in a warm dry seat and listened to soothing music (Zöe Keating’s Into the Trees) as I drove through the forest. If I’d have had a coffee, I would have drunk it. I get why people do this.

It took a little more than half an hour to drive to the parking garage ($8!) and another five minutes to walk to the building. About the same length as my “short commute“ route along Terwilliger.

The homeward commute took less than fifteen minutes of driving. But by the afternoon the sky had cleared, sunny and crisp, beautiful Oregon weather for November first. The kind of day where I’m apt to quip “I pity anyone who didn’t ride their bike to work today.”

Anyway, I’ve broken toes before. You tape the broken one to a good one and lace your shoes really tight. As a bonus, bike shoes have really stiff soles so the toe doesn’t flex any. I rode my bike to work today. Crisp and clear, smelled like wet leaves and pine trees. I pity anyone who didn’t ride their bike to work today.

^[1] I don’t know why I fell down the stairs. My left big toe got snagged in the carpet about three steps from the bottom and and flipped onto my head — like a cartoon dog — and wrenched that toe away from my foot at an unnatural angle.

All day long I thought — what if I were carrying Ada down the stairs when a thing like that happened?