HOME AT LAST

• I got home about 9:30 pm last night worn to a frazzle.  Had not slept much in two nights largely due to fact that my hotel roommate during the conference I was attending had late night parties in our room both nights.  I finally got them to leave but the roomie was in and out all night which kept me awake.  Thankfully my trip home was uneventful - just what was needed after having had the experience I did trying to get to Wilkes-Barre on Friday.  That was the trip from hell - movies have been made about journeys like that.
• To top the whole story off, on the way out of New York city on Friday night (8:00 pm) the bus got just outside of the city and broke down along the side of the road.  We sat there for about 30 minutes before another bus came along and took half of us leaving the other half to wait.  I was lucky enough to be in the group that got on the first rescue bus.  Wonder how long the others had to sit there?
• On the bus out of the city I sat next to a young Hispanic woman who has to commute four hours each day on the bus from her job in New York to her home in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania.  The bus was full of black, Hispanic, and other immigrant workers who can't afford to live in the city they work.  The woman told me she has an 11 year old son who she gets to see on the weekends.
• My last night in the conference hotel was punctuated by a 5:00 am-ish police flashlight in my eyes when three cops entered the room with my roomie in tow who was being evicted from the hotel for having a alcohol-laced dust-up with the night manager.  They brought him up to pack his things before escorting him out the front door into the cold of night.  As I sat up in bed in groggy disbelief the cop with the beaming light asked me, "You got any guns in here?...or hand grenades?"  All I could think afterwards was that the revolution isn't going to do well in Wilkes-Barre when it finally arrives.
• I am spending the day in bed recovering, my throat is sore and I have no energy.  Waiting for me when I arrived home was a special edition music magazine about The Kinks sent to me by my cousin -  great stories about each album they ever made so that will help pass the time in bed.