Care's Bear

I got home at 9:35 from the opera, Puccini's Il Trittico (2 of the 3).

I walked home, about a ... 20 - 25 minute walk. Rain throwing itself ferociously out of the sky as if to hammer every part of me that it could, wind slapping the rain in my face, my pants soaked and hanging from the weight of the water. Dark dark night like only an October night of pissing rain and fierce wind can be.

Walking past the Governor's mansion, up ahead on the sidewalk - a bear. DAMN. A small one. I am thinking, "where's mama?" I shouted at it, waved my arms, but there is no friggin' place for a bear to go there, it is all street and sidewalk and drop-off. It skittered off a bit, but there was a car coming from the other direction. A cab.

Bear decides - which way to go? Across the street in front of the cab! I'm already waving at the cab, gesturing, pointing. Cab stops. Bear crosses the street right in front of it and up the stairs of the white and blue house across from the capital. Gets out on the little tiny strip of lawn by that house. Poor bear is freaked.

Cab starts moving, slowly again, toward me. I wave at him some more and he rolls the window down, I ask him if he'd mind giving me a ride just up the street, that I didn't feel like sharing the street with the bear. He nods, I go across the street, get in, he turns around in the Governor's mansion little turnout, he says yeah, he was wondering about the mama. I told him, wait, I don't have any cash, we have to go to the ATM. He says I'll just take you to the corner, no problem. He takes me to the corner by the State Office Building, I fish around and try to give him $3, all I have, he said, NO, I told you this was on me, just call this cab company when you want a ride. I told him was a hero. He was. My little hero of the night.

Oh, and the opera was fun, too.

And I played all of my major scales tonight, as my very light Friday practice.