Uber cockroaches

I probably should not write posts when I get these moods, but sometimes (not today) they contain little grains of information that I might use later and I should be in a position to resume editing the third edition of my physics book despite a good deal of traveling I have to do.
I was caught up enough today so that I didn't have to be at my desk till 10, so the dog and I have been spending a quiet morning on the porch enjoying seasonal weather and I have a small porcelain cup of coffee which I share every morning with daydreams.  For the length of time between when I fill the cup and when it reaches the bottom, I allow myself to think about what I really want in life and it is very simple and involves only one other person; something so close and tangible that it seems to me that I can grasp it, but when the coffee is gone I watch it evaporate, like the ring passing from a Merry-go-round.
  Except for some distant yard work and one particularly loud and obnoxious bird, it is peaceful here, but not as much as I'd like.  I long for the quiet remoteness that you need to walk two days to find and that I will probably hike alone next time I find it.
I had the strange, rather opposite, experience last weekend.  I was staying alone, though with near constant personal engagements, in an enormous city, living part of the time in a hotel so old and revered that it bragged providing lodging to Charles dickens although I suspect he had a better room than me.  I had never used uber before.  I'm glad that I grew up in a world where I did not have to share my job with a robot, where I could go out into the wilderness and not worry about whether I could keep my phone charged or get reception.  Perhaps my relationship with you belies that, technology was such a big part of that, allowing us to share and be connected.  But we had letters too that allowed me to more permanently fix my feelings and thoughts for you and the brave new world that awaits the next generation will be replaced by one where the robots build future generations of robots just as they build cars today.  Eventually, in this process we will render ourselves obsolete.  This bothers me less given my ideas of the universe, just as they ruined my view of gambling.  If everything has a set outcome, fixed in time forever, gambling makes little sense and who wants their eternity defined by staring at a losing hand of anything?  But it grieves me for everyone who is young, for everyone who will come after me, for my aspirations that something I do will achieve immortality beyond that which is fixed in time.
Uber in the small town where I live, is a very boring thing, not much happens when you sign on.  But in the big city, the application comes alive.  The little dot that represents the location of your phone is surrounded by these moving boxes that resemble nothing so much as circling cockroaches which appear to waiting for you to drop a crumb of food or perhaps to die so they can swoop in to make a meal of whatever you've left behind.  I did, against my better judgement and at the insistence of those around me, use it once.  It was an unpleasant experience, I later found that the driver was probably intentionally steering wrong to increase the milage and time for what was, after all, a very inexpensive ride that I tipped almost as much as its cost despite the absurdity of the driver.  I had, after all, accepted this.
I was much more content when I was using the mass transit despite the cold wet weather.  The city had trains that were connected by buses that took care of many of my needs. The bus was particularly human, not just because the humanity that takes the bus is one step below that which rides the trains which in turn is slightly below that of the UBER transit, but because it was run by a benevolent, very human type of bus driver.  The train pass did service on the bus, but due to what I imagine to be a 24 hour policy and coincidence, on the last day of the trip I pulled out my train pass and it did not work on the bus,  I had plenty of money, but believing as I do that the 5 dollar bill is the new one dollar bill which replaced the quarter of my youth many years back, I had but a single one and the fare was 2.25 (who thought of that).  I wasn't embarrassed, I had to disdain of money that the poor understand from the hard times I have, for a moment, left behind.  Nevertheless, I endeavored to search through my wallet and pulled out a 5 and the one and proceeded to attempt to use the 5 to pay my fare.  The driver, stopped me, insisting that if I only had the one dollar that I should use it instead; unwilling to take more than the passage required.  I accepted this graciously even though it made little sense given the relative wealth between the bus driver and I.
After taking my seat and enjoying the scenery, a very poor man came on carrying a toy pony on wheels which he dragged behind him on a string as if it were some sort of toy he was playing with.  I did not understand this and never will, I fear.  But he said he was only going four blocks and offered a pocket full of change for his fare which was probably less than the dollar I had used.  The bus driver after some minimal resistance, for the sake of appearances I can only assume, accepted this and I felt both a kinship with the impoverished rider and a little more secure that I had accidentally worked a system that was apparently designed to be worked, even though I'd have been happy to supplement his ride with my five dollars.
The first time I got on the bus, having been discouraged somewhat from doing so, I was a little put off, having no idea of its intricacies, perhaps a bit embarrassed by it's mixture of the most impoverished and those do not disdain them. But after the first ride I was comfortable, so comfortable that even had I been kicked off, or forced to over pay because of my ignorance of the limits of my transit pass it would not have embarrassed me.
 The most pleasant option were the bikes that were provided which could be ridden between locations at little cost and gave me almost as much freedom as if I'd had my own bike and the difference was largely made up for by no having to worry about locks or theft or the damage done when I hit a particularly deep pot hole (thank you Herodotus)  because my attention was distracted by the scenery, the traffic and the weather.
Tomorrow I will be involved in a much more complicated system than today.  I may be challenged on something of great importance to me and even today I may receive the information that sends me across the country.  But for the moment, I still have a few sips left in my coffee cup, even though it never held much.
It provides a very human warning that the cup is almost empty.  I have described before the outside, but inside it has a spray of leaves which can be covered if the cup is filled near to the brim, but which slowly are uncovered as the cup is drained.  When the bottom leaves are uncovered, it is time to start thinking about what I will do when the cup is empty and I have to abandon daydreams for another day.