my friend BART

Went to the symphony tonight; Rachmaninoff "The Bells" and Symphony No. 2. It was awesome. Very interesting to hear a poem by Edgar Allen Poe sung in Russian, set to music by Rachmaninoff.

I took public transportation all the way up to the city: walked to Caltrain in Menlo Park, took it to Millbrae, transfered to Bart at Millbrae. Did the reverse going home, of course.

On boarding the Bart train at Civic Center, there were no forward facing seats in my car. But as they freed up, I sat down next to an older woman, who also got on at Civic Center, and was dressed as if she might have come from the Sympony. Like me, she had a book to read. She was looking at the inside front cover, which had a map of northwestern Africa. And I glanced a little longer and realized what book it was: "Skeletons on the Zahara" , a great true story of a shipwrecked boat and the survivors that were enslaved and eventually brought to freedom.

"I've read that book! It's really good." I said. We started chatting about the book, and about other titles of survival (Endurance, The Long Walk - which we both had read, Coming out of the Ice, which only I had read, The Life Of Pi, which only she had read).

I looked at the Caltrain schedule, double checking that the next train out of Millbrae to points south was at 11:04 pm. Yup. Except ... dang. We weren't going to make it to Millbrae on Bart until 11:10 or so.

My seatmate saw me checking the schedule, and learned of my minor inconvenience. She was heading south from the Millbrae station by car; she offered to drive me home (!). Amazing! I tried to avoid putting her to the trouble, but the Caltrain platform was empty when we arrived at Millbrae (meaning yes, the 11:04 had come and gone). I called my friend Bob, who lives in Redwood City (where this woman lives), thinking he could take me home for the last leg, rather than this kind stranger. No luck - Bob was out partying in Santa Cruz.

Well, thanks to the car ride, I learned this woman's name. She's a computer security director at Oracle. Her other car is a jaguar convertible (honest). She was a Czech refugee in 196x, at the age of 6. Her mother died in the refugee camp. Her father put 3 of the 4 kids into a boarding school / orphanage run by nuns. She was separated from her siblings due to age groupings. She spent 8 years in that school. Had American pen pals to learn English. Married one of them; came to the states, was a mother and housewife. Got a divorce, went to college at 40, majored in computer science. And is now a kick ass independent woman over 65 who goes to the symphony alone (by choice), lives in Redwood Shores, drives a Jaguar convertible when she's in the mood.

I gave her my card before I got in her car, to let her know I was legit. She gave me hers when she dropped me off. Quite an ending to a great evening!