Friday's hellish commute

I forgot to write about how crazy my commute was Friday morning. I feel a little bit sorry for BART, because they have been receiving so much negative publicity lately, but Friday morning's situation made things worse. When I arrived at the Walnut Creek BART station at 7:25 am Friday, the sign on the platform said the next train would arrive in 6 minutes, which is normal. Because I was getting off work early to go to Fresno, I wanted to get into the office a little early to not feel as guilty about taking off early. I was listening to my iPod and waiting in a larger than normal line for the next train when I noticed that I had been waiting a lot longer than 6 minutes for the next San Francisco bound train. In fact, no trains had gone through the station in either direction for over 15 minutes. The platform was getting really crowded at this point and I was thinking to myself "I hope this platform can support this amount of weight!".

Around 8:00 am, with many disgruntled commuters around me, the station announced that we had to move to the other platform to board our train. We were not given an explanation as to why the trains were very delayed or why we had to move to the other platform. This is when I learned I will die if a train on fire ever comes through the station. In order to get to the other platform at the Walnut Creek station, you have to go downstairs and come up the other side. Because the escalator only goes up on the side I was on, taking the stairs down was our only option. I could not even reach the stairs for over five minutes, and by this point, the station agents finally switched the escalator to go down. Once down, there was another large crowd trying to get up the stairs to the other side. This is when I got some comic relief, because some people were so fed up with waiting, they were running up the escalator that was going the wrong way. The station agent was yelling at them to come back down because she couldn't switch the escalator to go up with people on it. After waiting another few minutes for the escalator to clear, I finally made it up to the other platform, which was packed with people.

It took about 20 more minutes to finally board a train, and we were stuffed like sardines in a tin. My arm ached the rest of the day, because I was stuck having to hold onto the bar running along the ceiling of the train the entire ride to work. I wish the taller people would let us shorter people have the easier to hold side bars, but no one knows how to be considerate on BART. I finally arrived at work right at 9:00 am, 45 minutes later than I should have. One of my co-workers arrived at the same time at me because she was on the same train, so we had each other as an alibi, since BART seems to have delays on Friday mornings more often than any other day of the week. We learned that a car had broken down on the tracks between Walnut Creek and Lafayette and only one track was available to use on that portion of railway.

I'm happy that I was able to arrive at work at 9:00 am, because my father-in-law, who was off boarded from the broken train in Lafayette, did not make it to work until 10:00 am since all of the trains coming through were too crowded to board. I hope that BART learns to be better prepared from this commute in case it ever happens again.

6:30 am is sleeping in for me

It was so nice to be able to sleep in an extra hour today. I had an early morning doctor appointment, but since it was only two miles from the apartment, I did not have to get up at 5:15 am like normal. I actually found parking at the Walnut Creek BART station afterward as well, which is quite a feat for 9:30 am. I guess I better schedule all of my morning doctor appointments on Fridays from now on so I can find parking! I also got to test out using my EZ-Rider card for parking, and it is so easy and awesome! No more memorizing my parking stall number, which I always forget by the time I have have to enter it in the system. I do not have to have money on me anymore either. I do not carry cash on me very often, so I would always have to scrounge up change to pay for parking or beg G for a dollar.

I think the kitties were a little confused with me staying home a later than normal, but they slept on the bed as they normally do while I was getting ready. There are some days that I wish I could crawl back into bed with them, but then I would not be able to afford their food and litter if I did not go to work. Mickey was super cute rolled into a ball on the bed this morning. I really need to get a picture of him when he sleeps like that, but the lighting in our room is terrible and the pictures I take in there never turn out very well.

Well, TGIF! Thank goodness next week is only a three day work week! All I have to worry about is surviving Fresno for Thanksgiving.