Subway ride of the Damned

Got into Penn Station late today due to a dental appointment. Bought my new monthly Metro card (last one at $89) and waited for a local. Off peak times you are used to waiting a while, but an E train came right up in minutes and stopped. I was waiting for the second car and thought it odd that nobody was in the first two cars. Good thing because when the doors opened they opened on the wrong side, allowing passengers to fall to the tracks below. The doors closed, the train moved on, and the E train headed south. Minutes later I got into a C train. They were acting weird as well. The driver sounded the horn incessantly from 14th Street to 4th. Some instinct told me to get out and try another train. That instinct was dead on. Got into an A train and saw the C train stopped at Spring Street, still honking. Then just north of Canal Street, we saw the still-empty E train to our right, just sitting there. I got off at Chambers and saw the E arriving at World Trade Center on the far track, still empty. I wonder what the driver was thinking.

Railway Robbery

My son's girl friend caught the train from Merrick to Babylon last weekend. Unfortunately, the ticket blew out of her hand and on to the track when train was arriving. She told her story to the train man who told her: "Too bad. That will be 9 dollars." That is six time the cost of the ticket she bought at the station. Do LIRR people wonder why people hate them?

All-time stupidity award for the LIRR

Last night I took the 5:19 train from Penn Station to Wantagh - 3 stops, with the first one being my town of Merrick. Halfway through the ride, they stopped at Jamaica for 4 of 5 minutes, like they were looking up directions. Then they made an announcement that the train would be making 4 additional stops, including St. Albans. When they approached St. Albans, the conductor told us that this station was only platformed at the first four cars, so those wanting to leave at St. Albans would have to walk up. After the stop, there was a sheepish announcement to ignore the previous story. By now it must have occurred to them that nobody would be getting off at Rockville Centre, Baldwin or Freeport because that's not where the train was going when it left Penn Station.

Train Talk

Gurdjieff once taught that humans go around their daily lives three quarters asleep. He came up with this notion even though, as far as I can tell, he never road on the Long Island Rail Road. I hate to trash talk the LIRR because some of the people who work there seem very nice, and I know they feel like they are the heroes of their own personal epic. However, their use of the English language often makes me cringe. It is not as prevalent now as it was years ago, but you occasionally here one of them announce:"Penn Station is our last and final stop," blissfully unaware of the fact that last and final are synonyms. Another night the conductor, working from some set script lectures us that large bags may be inspected by the NYPD. Too bad the train was leaving New York at the time.

However, my favorite is the use of the word "accommodate." This comes up when they cancel my 5:19 train and tell us that we will be "accommodated" by the 5:24 local train. What we are actually being is grossly inconvenienced. How I have fantasized about going to the dispatcher and giving her a piece of my mind.

Coming in this morning, they let us off at Track 12, which is below the AMTRAC waiting room. I finally got to an escalator and stepped on before I realized that it was not working that morning, just like many other mornings. I do have a helpful tip for them, If the escalator is not working, why not save electricity by turning off the recorded message of a chirpy-voiced announcer giving you instructions about how to ride an escalator. In the 59th Street subway station the recorded message reminds you that the escalators are for subway passengers only. I am 150 feet underground. How else could I be there if I was anything but a subway passenger?

Now all of the New York area is excited by the prospect of even worse service and higher fares. MTA, here is a new word for your vocabulary - MORONS.

"M" is for mystery

Got to the C&E tracks this morning at Penn Station and had to wait several minutes. Instead of a C or an E, we got an M train. It seemed to be heading south, so I got on, even though the sign on the outside said it was going to Jamaica. It is one of the new breed of subway cars that has marquee signs that tell you what station will be next. However, this morning, the marquee just flashed useless information like listen to messages from the crew. That would have been nice if the crew had been calling stops or, otherwise, telling us anything. At West 4th, a lot of us got out, and the train just sat there for several minutes. One could picture the crew looking at maps and deciding what is next. Finally, they announced that the train would move on to Spring and Canal streets. When I got out at Canal, I noticed that there was an F train on the A tracks. Welcome to MTA's Wonderful World or Reduced Service.

Quiet on the set

The other day I was crossing Hudson Street at Reade to pick up salads from one of the hot and cold buffets that feed Tribeca and I noticed that a film crew was setting up massive equipment. Feature films and TV shows are filmed here all the time. Last year I walked up to a street fair that was not a street fair - it was a set for a Jennifer Lopez movie. More recently, there was a group of African Americans filling the intersection of White and West Broadway. A crew member told me that they were filming a commercial for the Census Bureau. "A likely story," I thought, but then I saw the commercial. This time, I got a picture of the action and checked with a crew member to see what this was. Turned out to be a commercial for E-Harmony.

Friday festivities

I got off this morning at the Canal Street station and walked to West Broadway where, to my surprise, a street fair was setting up shop for the weekends. It ran 3 blocks to Leonard Street from Beach. I went out after 11 and checked the whole thing out. About two thirds of the booths were food - lots of shish kebab, italian sausage, crepes - all of your major temptations and it smelled good. I finally settled on lamb kebab and brought it back to work. The food at the kebab place was better than their spelling.

At Ground Zero

This morning I drove myself to the train station - that means I have to go way early to get a decent parking spot and take the 7:02 to Penn. That leaves me with time to burn when I hit Penn Station. I took the E train all the way to World Trade Center - mainly to stop back at Whole Foods, but I paused at the Freedom Tower today. I've complained about the slow pace of this, but at least we now have something to look at.

Taking the A train

Yesterday, I'd taken the 7:02 train to Penn, so I had time to burn. I took the A train, which only has 4 stops to Chambers Street. I young girl, maybe 8 or 9 was sitting on my left. She got up at West 4th street and unwittingly dropped her little purse. I scooped it up and got her attention before she left the car. A "thank you" would have been nice.

UPS

I recently went to the UPS store on Broadway to ship out some slides to be digitized in California. A woman walked up the the counter wanting directions to the nearest post office. They directed her to a branch at the federal courthouse. Just at that time, their mail man walked in - he laughed and said "People should use us. We're cheaper."

Why we didn't send out holiday cards

Zero years always make me more contemplative than ever. Forty years ago I first met my wife while we both worked for the Phoenix Public Library. August 21st will be the 40th anniversary of our first date and the 20th anniversary of the day we drove out of Phoenix for what we thought was a two year stay on Long Island that is still going on.

This year we would have had lots to do in a "What our year was like" holiday message. Went to Pete Seeger's 90th birthday at the Garden and saw Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen and Arlo Guthrie among many others. Went to the US Open and saw the young man who went on to win the entire tournament. Got tickets for the first game of the World Series ever played at Yankee Stadium. Served my first year of my job at the New York Law School that made me a daily commuter to Lower Manhattan.

Donna had been irradiated as a baby in a brief period of time when doctors thought radiation was the answer to a number of health problems. Babies who had that treatment turned out to be at high risk for thyroid problems later in life. This fall Donna's thyroid was tested and found to be so full of irregularities that she was urged to find a surgeon and remove her right thyroid. Scary enough. Then it gets worse. While taking a catscan for that operation they discovered that she has a 3.5 centimeter benign tumor on the back of her brain. It had not caused any symptoms. If they hadn't found this by accident she would have found out the hard way.

This led to months of visiting neurologists, brain surgeons and long talks with the insurance company. The plan now is that she will have the thyroid surgery in early February. Afterwards, she will get a new MRI and see if the tumor has grown. If so, it goes in the spring. If not, she may still have it taken out at the earliest time possible. One of the top surgeons in Manhattan met with us for a second opinion and reassured us that this is fairly routine, although there is a one in five chance that she will experience some vision irregularities after the surgery. Also a one in twenty chance that there will be more serious complications.

It's going to be an interesting year.

Hot and Cold Heaven

Tuesday's are the days that I may eat out rather than bring in leftovers to heat up in the staff kitchen. Today my lunch consisted of an avocado half, Caesar salad, roast pork, fried chicken wings, General Tso's chicken, blackberries and pasta salad. Because the weight of this was 1.08 pounds, the bill came to exactly 8 dollars and because it went over a pound I got a free bottle of water. Most of those items if ordered as an a la carte item in a sit down restaurant would run twelve dollars, even in Tribeca. Welcome to the world of Manhattan's hot and cold buffets. They may exist in other boroughs, but I've never seen them.

When I started work here a year ago, the first "Hot and Cold" to win my heart was at the Chambers street exit on the A and C line. They are one of the cheapest at $6 a pound with a can soda thrown in if you go over a pound. Then I found a rich vein of them on Broadway - From Leonard Street to Duane Street there is one every block. At the moment, the one that I most prefer is Roma, just south of Worth. They are $7 per pound but their meats are superior. Just north of Worth is the Variety Foods - the newest addition. North of Leonard is Fancy Foods, a long-standing tradition. Their only problem is that they don't serve avocado halves. Several of the Broadway places don't label their foods much or at all. Two blocks to the west at Church and Duane, Bouley is the class act in all of this. Theirs is 10 per pound but they have entrees like Long Island Duck and beet with walnut salad. If you're going there, be sure to hit the place before noon. For the other Hot and Colds, be warned that they start phasing down after 1:30 and the offerings after that can look pretty unappetizing to say the least.

There are Hot and Colds in midtown and uptown as well. If you are in town for a brief visit, I'd strongly recommend these to a Prix Fixe 35 dollar lunch in midtown.
You'll thank me.