Contact

Friday proved to be a day of windy rides. On the bike ride to the ferry, some dust blew in my contact and I had the bright idea to take it out to try to wipe it off once I got on the boat. Of course the wind blew it out of my hand and onto the ferry deck, which I'm sure was washed at least once in 1973. Blind, befuddled and wind-whipped, I proceeded to squat down and sweep my hand along the deck, my contact-less eye squinted shut so I could see well enough to actually find the contact, being careful not to move my feet lest I hear the tell-tale crunch of a hard contact shattering beneath my feet (a sound I know all too well, alas!). At some point I realized that to the passengers, I was now the weird lady on the ferry. Finally, behind me and to the left, I saw my contact glinting on the deck. I picked it up and held it in one hand, which forced me to weeble wobble my bike with the other off the ferry and into the street. I decided I couldn't make it to the office like this, so I detoured across the street to the casino to find a bathroom to wash my errant lens. I walked in through the doors to the guard, one eye still squinted shut (I really can't see anything with only one contact in because of my astigmatism). I'm sure I looked like just another customer come to play the slots at 730 in the morning and he waved me through without batting an eyelash.

I'm happy to report that I am typing this now with my vision fully restored.

The best part of the day was the ride back to Algiers after a long day at a conference. I decided to eat dinner in the quarter and dark was rapidly approaching when I got on the boat. The air was cool and the clouds scurried fast across the sky, tired after a long day, I imagine. As we approached the Algiers dock, I looked back and saw the lights of the street car moving down the road. It's a terrible picture, but do you see the line of beautiful, warm glowing yellow in the middle of the picture? That's the streetcar. For some reason it just struck me as so pretty and I got really happy.

So the day ended happily after all. Yay!