Creature of habit

Dan is currently working on-site at a client office, so he isn't in our office much lately. He came in late this afternoon to pass some work on to me that I'll be doing tomorrow, and I was going to catch him up on what I'd been doing since we'd last talked. I said, "I got an iBook!" and he said he already knew--that he'd read it in my journal. And he said he'd laughed at my account of getting lost going home the other night.

Actually, it was him who made me think about getting on 635 and finally making it home--he lives basically out in the same direction that I do, and he said that as he's driving downtown, if it looks like traffic is slowing down considerably on I-35, he'll jump onto 635 and go to work that way. I'm still not altogether sure how that works, but I did remember that when I was driving on the unfamiliar highways, and it allowed me to find my way home.

I'm basically a creature of habit. I'm not very good at remembering how to get places. I can follow directions, and I can read a map, but I don't pay attention when I'm not driving, and if, for instance, someone asked me how to get to Bennett Spring, in spite of having been there maybe 50 times, I honestly have no idea. If I had to drive there, I would get out a map and plot a route, and it would look familiar to me as I drove it, of course, but I couldn't tell you how to get there on my own.

Sometimes if I have to drive somewhere unfamiliar, I'll write the directions down so that I can reverse them and get home afterwards. Which reminds me of something that happened a couple of weeks ago, before Misty's wedding. Did I mention that I was in the wedding? I was. I read The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. I was very nervous about it--especially when I found out I was going to have to use a wireless microphone--but it all worked out okay.

But it also meant that I was involved in the wedding rehearsal. It was in Olathe, at a park, and I had directions provided by Misty. I hope Misty won't be offended when I say that her directions bordered on the surreal. I was talking to David earlier that day, and said that I had to drive somewhere that I was unfamiliar with, and he asked if I had directions. I said, well, yes, but they left a bit to be desired. I don't have them in front of me, so I'm paraphrasing, but it was like, "go south on I-35 to 151st Street, then go west until you see a sign with a quail on it; if you see Target, you've gone to far. Once you pass the sign with the quail on it, turn right on the street with no name, and look for a house with a blue door . . ." Okay, now that I wrote that down, I remembered that those weren't the directions to the rehearsal, those were the directions to Misty's parents' house, where they were having a pre-rehearsal pumpking carving party, and I wasn't going to be able to get away from work early enough to go to that, so the directions were moot.

But anyway, I related my directions, and he laughed, and said, well, just be sure you pay attention and are able to reverse them to get back home, and I said, "Oh, you mean like: leave the house with the blue door and go back down the street with no name, and when you see the back of the sign with the quail on the front . . . "

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