These are pictures of the MARC train and the Park Lawn building. But let me connect them to my day.
I get up now at 5:00 AM and there’s no leeway, no snooze alarm, no lying to myself about ten more minutes…I have to get up because if not, I’ll be crazy and/or miss the train. Paul gets up with me because he’s a real doll!
I make the coffee and breakfast for the two of us, turn on the news (It’s even too early for MSNBC’s “Way Too Early”) and focus on focusing. Since we found and unpacked the calendar, it feels much better because I can actually see what day it is and calculate its relationship to the weekend. At 6:10, I get in the shower and at 6:40 we leave and do the drive down the mountain and across the Potomac to Brunswick MD where I catch the 7:07. I stop to get the Post out of the machine. (I subscribed to the Post and then found out there is only delivery on Sunday up on “Walton’s Mountain” so I’m stuck with newsstand prices). The train is generally on time and I join the throng of commuters and board at one of three points. I like the designated quiet car but have come to realize it doesn’t matter much in the AM because everyone’s quiet. (It matters a lot on the way home when many people have some kind of trainborne happy hour and do a lot of serious carrying on.)
The ride in uneventful until we come to Gaithersburg, MD and lots of people get on and look for seats and everyone who has an open seat next to them pretends they are sleeping or deaf and blind and people have to actually ASK if they can sit down even though this happens at EXACTLY THE SAME TIME every day with the SAME PEOPLE. I am amazed. I get off at Rockville, the next stop.
From there, I go down the stairs and into the Metro then up the escalator to the platform and onto the Red Line. This takes me just one stop to Twinbrook and I get off, go down the stairs, out the gate and walk the .8 mile to my building.
The Park Lawn building has 18 floors. I am on the 18th. When I enter my building, I go through security, just like the airport (only they don’t make me throw away my water bottle). I ride upstairs and enter the “headhouse” hallway where I walk by the office of the US Surgeon General. Just after the women’s room is the first door to my suite. I am one of about 40 new staff who are working on grants to health centers supported by the president’s stimulus package or ARRA, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I am not doing the most exciting job of my career, but I know I am helping get dollars out to an excellent health care system for the underserved and in my heart I feel like I’m helping Barack Obama.
Some of the best features of this job include:
1. Awesome coworkers
2. Great cafeteria food. Yes. It’s true. Choices range from stuffed grape leaves to turkey dinner w/ trimmings to Greek wraps, spinach lasagna…all for about $5/day
3. The building has a dry cleaners and they do alterations (like hemming newly bought pants that are now always 4-6 inches too long. What’s up with that? I’m tall.)
4. The credit union is in the building and there are not one but two free ATMs
5. There is a little shuttle bus you can take to and from the Metro when it rains
6. Inside the building, there is also a convenience store that sells Tylenol and birthday cards and has warm freshly baked cookies every day at 2:30
There is nothing about my life that is the same as before, way back in June. I work till 4:45, do the reverse commute back to Brunswick where Paul and Daisy pick me up and we drive home. Driving to work in Tucson took 5 minutes and I could often complete my work at home… entering hospice data on my little laptop. This is a daunting commute but I am rejuvenated and hopeful and grateful for it all. Every day.
