working and long weekends

Work has been revived. No much to report since the Berlin Wall came down a few months ago: I moved cubicles (not because of the Wall), work is still…how do I say this?…boring, and I’m stuck on Metro because the bike path is nothing but ice and packed snow. But – the long Presidents Day weekend has somehow recharged the generator (refilled the generator?) and I’m back to being a little more aggressive. Just what everyone needs – me and aggressive.

Here’s what whacked me in the head on Saturday – immigrants, workers, and that Statue of Liberty. Commuting via rail, but particularly by bus, makes me realize just how long the hours and rides are for those doing the hourly work and manual labor in this country. I see them everyday, but Saturday evening at 7pm stood out (as I was driving home from the store) as the throng of workers moved through our neighborhood on their way home – on a Saturday (not very suburban, is it?). It only took two blocks for my tiny brain to go from “why are they working so late on a Saturday?,” to “not much money in those jobs, and the commute is a bitch,” to “now I see it!” And here it is: the chance to work and earn a living (even if it’s seven days a week), to have good schools for your children, safe neighborhoods to live in, no worries of persecution through religion or politics, and a chance to be warm and safe each and every day must be a pretty f*&king amazing feeling. If it takes those kinds of hours then people do it. Call it happiness, call it freedom – it’s all anyone wants…and we’ve got it. And we wonder why people come here.

Stay tuned.

T