{"id":193,"date":"2010-08-29T01:26:54","date_gmt":"2010-08-29T01:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/?p=193"},"modified":"2010-09-08T04:03:19","modified_gmt":"2010-09-08T04:03:19","slug":"dont-sweat-the-small-stuff-its-all-small-stuff-or-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/2010\/08\/dont-sweat-the-small-stuff-its-all-small-stuff-or-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. It’s ALL small stuff. Or is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three buses, two BART* rides, and another two friends to get me back and forth to Oakland for the English class I teach at Laney College. Lots of Drivers du Jour . . . and one conversation worth noting:
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Scene I<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Me, on a bus in downtown San Francisco, to a woman wearing a coat in the seat across the aisle :<\/span> <\/em>“Are we far from the BART stop?” <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>“No, I’ll be getting off there. You can follow me,”<\/span><\/em> she responded with a condescending smile at my much more abbreviated costume [culottes and a sleeveless top].<\/p>\n

“I imagine we’ve had our three days of summer,”<\/span><\/em> she continued. It had been in the 100’s for the first time this year.<\/p>\n

“It was warm and sunny in Novato,”<\/span><\/em> I said, thinking that with all the driver\/ride juggling, I hadn’t thought of checking out the various microclimates where 20-30 degree differences are common.<\/p>\n

“I work in the city, and it’s been like this all summer. We haven’t had it much better in Mill Valley. Very aggravating. It’s just not right,”<\/span><\/em> she said.<\/p>\n

This drip<\/span> of conversation may seem too mundane to waste time or thought, but it’s important for context:<\/p>\n

1) The woman lives in Mill Valley. Most of the citizenry there look pretty ordinary to me.\u00a0 But Sarah Palin would undoubtedly label them “elitists.”**<\/p>\n

2) Last week one Novato friend mentioned how a Mill Valley woman had told her “how lucky she was to live so near Marin County.” Daaah, Novato is in Marin County. Get the picture?<\/p>\n

3) There’s the whole weather thing.<\/p>\n

Scene II<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Me to my new “friend” across the aisle:\u00a0“This busing into the city and BART-ing under the Bay is quite new to me. As a result of a fainting episode, I can’t drive for three months, and now my life is arranging rides and waiting \u00a0for them.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“Like <\/span>yesterday <\/span><\/a>when I couldn’t sleep the night before because I was scheduled to give a presentaton at a 7 am meeting, and I worried that my ride wouldn’t be there to pick me up at 6:30.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“That’s a lot of unnecessary stress. You could have called a cab,”<\/span><\/em> <\/span>the coated Mill Valley lady said.<\/p>\n

“But I don’t want to spend that much money. It would probably stress me out even more.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“WELL! Some people you just can’t help!”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

You can probably imagine the harumph!***\u00a0as she turned her head and body away from me. It was colder than the air.<\/p>\n

I like the challenge of turning someone around if I’ve done or said something that unintentionally annoys them, so I simply said, “Perhaps I do need to figure out better ways to handle my stress.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

She turned back towards me with that<\/em> smile and said:<\/p>\n

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s all small stuff.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then we were at 8th & Market to catch the BART train.<\/p>\n

ONE MORAL OF THIS STORY: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Someone else’s problem is small stuff.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Notes<\/span><\/p>\n

*BART = Bay Area Rapid Transit<\/p>\n

** I know some great people living and working in Mill Valley, but there are those who have “arrived” simply because they live there.<\/p>\n

***HARUMPH: “Interjection An expression of disdain, disbelief, protest, or dismissal; a huff, grunt, or snort. [from the Urban Dictionary<\/a>]<\/p>\n

****BTW, \u00a0white crepe coulottes and blue\/brown print smock [if you must know] \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Now here’s the deal with comments. Of course, I’d like to hear some “small stuff” from you below . . . but even more, I’d love to have you post a comment on the first article to help me get to 500 comments — my first mini-goal on the way to my maxi-goal of becoming Rich&Famous. <\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s the link for that first post<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three buses, two BART* rides, and another two friends to get me back and forth to Oakland for the English class I teach at Laney College. Lots of Drivers du Jour . . . and one conversation worth noting:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[23,24,21,26,22,27,25],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-small-stuff","category-stories-with-morals","tag-dont-sweat-small-stuff","tag-frustrating-microclimates","tag-marin-county","tag-mill-valley-elite","tag-san-francisco-bart","tag-sarah-palins-elite","tag-stories-with-morals-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}