A teeny bit of snow fell earlier this week, followed by rain, which was followed by a thin layer of more snow. The temperature dropped significantly over the past two days and has only hinted at the faint possibility of 32 degrees all week. What little bit of snow that was left has been trampled into ice, and all the rain puddles have become miniature skating rinks. Today was a clear blue sky and bright sunshine day – the kind of day in which you can see your breath as you huff and puff along the walkways, stepping over or around sheets of ice while dodging other people, dogs and cars.
Mel decided this morning that to attend the dinner, we would take the trolleybus to the city center rather than calling a taxi. That was fine by me. We donned our heavier coats, Mel put on his fur hat and I made sure my knitted hat was in my purse, gloves in my pockets, and out the door we went.
It was a lot colder, that is certain. I loved it! I love air temperatures like this – as long as I’m moving and not standing in a brisk breeze for minutes and minutes in the shade at a bus stop, waiting for the right trolleybus or marshrutka to come along. Actually, it wasn’t all that bad, but I was at the point where I was deciding I should pull my hat out and actually put it on my head when trolleybus number 9 finally showed up. I had been watching other people, and would you believe it? The only other person I saw without a hat of some sort on was an older woman with ‘big hair.’ I’m sure she was afraid a hat would squash her bright red hair back down from medium pumpkin size to normal head size again. It was very interesting hair. I, on the other hand, just have a hot head.
We got on the trolleybus and it was filled with mostly elderly people. There was a free seat so I sat down across from two old women. Mel sat beside me and away the trolleybus went. After about two minutes Mel leaned over and said, “I think it would be easier and safer just to stand up the whole way!” The seat was wooden, slanted slightly down and was wearing a liberal coat of super slick gray paint. We were facing backwards and the driver was apparently dreaming of the Indy 500. I think that if he/she could have, he/she would have popped a wheelie – or at least made the tires squeal on the pavement. However this was one of the old split-in-the-middle-two-parts-held-together-by-a- rubber-accordion trolleybuses, and it’s kind of like trying to get an elephant, or maybe better yet, a blue whale, to start and stop on a dime…. There were a couple times I was just sure I was going to meet the rheumy-eyed old woman sitting across from me up close and personal when I landed in her lap. As I sat there, exercising my feet and legs while trying to stay on the seat, I was glad Mel was beside me because that way I couldn’t slide off onto the floor of the aisle as we rounded a corner.
People on trolleybuses hardly ever smile. There are several ‘looks’ instead: I see you. I don’t see you. If I frown hard enough you will know how serious my life is. I can’t see you because I refuse to use my glasses, but what little I can see seems to be very interesting, maybe I’ll just stare at you and see if you eventually come into focus (this one from the old man who got off at the next stop – how many times can you meet someone’s stare and even smile at them before they give up? I don’t know because I haven’t discovered that yet.)
The two old women across from us were not smiling either. The rheumy-eyed woman was very serious indeed and her looks toward me were of the “I don’t see you, but I see that you are a foreigner (why don’t you have a hat on?) and I’m interested in figuring out who you are even though I don’t really see you” kind. The woman sitting next to her barely glanced our way. She is the one I watched. Her eyes fascinated me. This woman had the most beautiful brown eyes I have seen in a very long time. I leaned over and said quietly in the direction of Mel’s ear, “I think the woman across from you must have been very beautiful when she was young.” I tried and tried to think how I could pause on the way out the door at our bus stop and say, “You have beautiful eyes” but I chickened out.
I also noticed that way down in the back section of the bus, in the first row after the rubber accordion connection, there was a man sitting. When my “I don’t see you” glance washed over him, I did a quick stop and backed my eyes up. Rod Steiger! Dr. Zhivago! Could it be? Where’s Yuri Omar??? But no, even though this man looked very much like the villain, Viktor Kamorovsky, in Dr. Zhivago, he was wearing the wrong kind of hat (Greek-Russian fisherman style instead of fur muffin hat) and he was clean shaven. I looked around and no one looked like Julie Christie or Lara either.
Trolleybuses can be a lot of fun. You just have to think “fun ‘outside the box.’”
From the movie, Dr. Zhivago Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago: I told myself it was beneath my dignity for arresting a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: one man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic; five million people desperate for a bit of fuel will destroy a city. That was the first time I ever saw by brother, but I knew him and I knew I would disobey the party. Perhaps it was the tie of blood between us, but I doubt it. We were only half-tied anyway. Indeed as a policeman I would say, get hold of a man's brother and you're halfway home. Nor was it admiration for a better man than me. I did admire him, but I didn't think he was the better man. Besides, I've executed better men than me with a small pistol.
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