I took the Long Beach Transit bus #22 to downtown Long Beach today. It cuts west to Cherry at Carson and then south on Cherry all the way to Ocean Boulevard where I got my first glimpse of the ocean which is always special whenever I come to visit. It was a nice ride through Lakewood and Long Beach. I think we went over/around Signal Hill but I'm not sure. We turned west on Ocean to the transit center. The blue line metro, the Long Beach buses, at least one Los Angeles bus and a Orange County bus come into the transit center. There is also a bike center which not only rents bikes but stores them for free while you take the bus somewhere.

I took the #5 bus north on Long Beach Boulevard, with the blue line next to us the first part of the way. At Del Amo we just missed the bus and one guy called someone to pick him up and offered me his transfer. Since I had used mine this was nice as I made a full circle trip for only $1.00. Cool! I took the #191 back home. It was a nice bus trip around the area.

I read "Rilla of Ingleside" by L M Montgomery. This is #8 in the Anne of Green Gable series and Rilla is Anne's daughter and is set during WWI. I couldn't read these on a regular basis anymore but it's nice/sad to read them occasionally and see how sweetly people are portrayed. Even the not nice ones are let off fairly easily, except for the Germans, of course. It's set when people could be sweet and innocent, or rather, people could read about sweet and innocent people and believed that it was possible. Now I, and most people I know, are such cynics that this puts a lump in my throat.

I think we've gained more than we lost since there was a lot of abuse and lost possibilities when everyone did what they were suppose to and pretended to be sweetness and light but there is a feeling of loss. I see this same attitude, though, in much of the "let's all be nice to each other" attitude which is very strong at work. There is certainly no need to be hateful but sometimes there are more important things to do, like making it through the day, than pretending to be "sweet" to everyone. When it is fake "sweetness" I find it to be very disgusting. Politeness and courtesy go a long way but there is no need to be cheery all the time. A big thing in the book was not crying, but carrying on, which is crap. When someone you love dies why should you pretend it's ok.

We went to see "Star Wars: The Attack of the Clones" this evening. It was good, though still depressing but then this covers a depressing time when the evil empire was taking control. Anakin is a whining arrogant brat but cute. I enjoyed it but it still isn't anything compared to the first three movies which were exciting, but most of all, fun. The two new movies don't have that sense of fun.