Buses and Banking

I kicked ass today. I taught two intros to pop culture that (on my end, at least) went smashingly, grabbed a skinny misto and a skinny stem ginger muffin (the closest I've found to mass-marketed muffin perfection) at Starbucks and managed to catch the X90 to London by 12:30. On the way, traffic apparently slowed to a standstill in London, so I hopped off at Notting Hill Gate, caught the Tube to Piccadilly Circus by 2:40, picked up my passport by 3:23, and realized that the only bus that would get me back for dinner was leaving Victoria at 3:30. So, factoring in the speed of the bus and the day's traffic like the ninja that I am, I jumped on the Tube at Piccadilly and got off at Baker Street by 3:40, where I caught that bus at its last stop out of London at 3:44, and rolled into Oxford at 5:58 to go to dinner at 6:00. I was less proud of my abortive attempt to activate my new Bank of America card, since they keep insisting that I a) call from my home phone or b) use a Bank of America ATM, neither of which are possible within a couple thousand miles from here. So I called, and after being on hold or making polite suggestions for twenty minutes, the guy apologized and suggested that I try to purchase something and cross my fingers or give up and fix this in December. I wanted to fix this so I could put it in the rockstar narrative of my day, but trying to catch a flight to the East Coast just to do that seemed like too much work, even if it crossed my mind that the time difference would actually make it possible.