The day after getting back from the Celebration Etc was one of slightly anxious waiting. I'm a pretty good waiter, but this was something to be anxious about. bunny_hugger was going to be coming down, for a week, either that evening or Monday morning, depending on just how her weekend visit to her brother turned out. Not that she wouldn't want to spend more time with him, or that I'd be upset with her taking that time, but I just didn't know when what might happen. But around mid-day she called with the plan, to take a late evening bus here and arrive at a nearby park-and-ride about a quarter to 11. She hadn't stopped off there before but I gave what felt like adequate directions to me (there's a Jersey Mike's there, there's a Mexican restaurant where we ate with my parents) and didn't really consider the lack of landmarks before the bus stop.
And at a quarter to 11, I was there, in the Jersey Mike's parking lot and completely concealed from the bus's approach path. But she wasn't there. I waited. She wasn't there. I didn't see any buses passing, though, and I should have. It could be she'd got off at the wrong stop and the bus was early; I couldn't imagine it being late, not at that hour. I took out my hand phone, which I totally have and even had charged, and found her number among my contact list. The phone started to ring and --- oh!
The bus was driving past. I put the phone away and got out of the car, and started walking to the bus stop. And walking faster. I saw her, on her phone, trying to call back and correct my ``missed'' cancelled call. As her phone was making mine ring, I caught her eye, and her body, the way she catches my heart.
Trivia: The launch of Viking 1 on 20 August 1975 carried the orbiter-lander probe intended for the second launch; they were swapped when the first probe's batteries produced nine volts rather than the required 37 in tests the 13th of the month and had to be replaced. Source: On Mars: Exploration Of The Red Planet 1958 - 1978, Edward Clinton Ezell, Linda Neuman Ezell. NASA SP-4212.
Currently Reading: It's A Bunny-Eat-Bunny World, Olga Litowinsky. (It's about the world of children's book publishing.)