Rumplestiltskin rides the bus.

So the new job is going well.  Everyone has been very welcoming, I've had an actual orientation with an explanation of what it is they want me to do, gotten my ID badges and business cards and all that. 

The biggest adjustment (other than working in a cube, which I've never done before and which is bringing on a bit of sensory deprivation, like a lab rat) is the commuting situation.  At the old job I had free parking.  At the new job, I do not.  And parking in downtown Denver is an expensive pain in the ass. 

One of my employee benefits is a monthly bus pass at less than half the regular rate.  I've always been a driving commuter, not a public transport commuter, so until I spent the first day driving around finding an inexpensive and not too far away public lot in order to avoid the $35 a day fee of parking in my own building, it didn't occur to me that I would be taking advantage of this particular benefit, particularly with two morning daycare dropoffs to contend with. 

But I I live directly on the bus line that has a stop right at my building.  I discovered that if I get the kids up early enough, I can drop them off at their respective locales, get home, walk across the street to the bus stop and have it drop me off in front of my building 12 minutes later, meaning I'm still getting to work by 8 or 8:15 at the latest.  And it will save me over $100 a month (at least) in parking fees. 

Done and done.

And it's kind of an interesting experience.  Good people watching.  Yesterday on my ride home, there was a guy in front of me who had a little spindle that he was using to spin thread out of some loose cotton (I'm assuming) fibers he held in his hand.  Spin spin spin.  It was kind of mesmerizing.

As he got off at his stop, he started talking to the woman sitting across from him who looked a bit stricken by his overtures.  Everyone around me started giggling when he finally was gone, and it turns out that when she had first sat down, he had taken out a huge knife and without saying a word, approached her with it to cut a stray string that was hanging off the hem of her skirt.  (I had missed this episode, but the lady sitting next to me told me about it.) 

I'm so bummed that I didn't witness this interaction in person.  It totally would have made my night.  In any event, I certainly never would have had the chance of observing this awesome spectacle commuting in my car.