Transportation Triumph

Today's traffic alert e-mail:

As of 9:45 a.m., Midtown Direct trains (6600-series trains) are operating in both directions between Dover and New York , subject to delays of 30-60 minutes due to wire damage near Maplewood.

Gladstone Branch trains (400-series) will operate to/from Summit only. Customers traveling to/from points east should transfer at Summit Station to continue their trip.

Morristown diesel service (800-series trains) will operate to/from Summit only. Customers traveling to/from points east should transfer at Summit Station to continue their trip.

Customers traveling to/from stations between Newark and Summit: All trains in both directions will stop at the eastbound platform. Westbound platforms are closed.

NJ TRANSIT buses are honoring Morris & Essex tickets and passes.

Updates like this make me giddy because I am not on these trains anymore.

I rode the Midtown Direct from Millburn to Penn Station everyday for four years when I worked in the mid-50s on first sixth and then fifth avenues and later in Times Square (no, not on a corner). For three years prior to that I took the Hoboken Express train to - unsurprisingly - Hoboken and then the Tube to the World Trade Center. All were good commutes as far as NYC commutes go, an hour door-to-door on a good day, but good commuting days can be hard to find. Like the day the entire city subway system (so it seemed) flooded from a major midsummer storm and nothing, and I mean nothing, was running. I remember what I was wearing on that day (my beloved sky blue suit with the ankle long skirt, the only thing I would have changed about it); its calamity is still that vivid.

I get a similar rush of feeling on days the traffic report details back ups on Routes 3 or 80 and feel a particular euphoria whenever Route 495 is mention - the only direct route in or out of Weehawken and the main route to the Lincoln Tunnel. I spent five years driving the commute from Weehawken to Parsippany navigating its few highs and many lows, s0me days literally entering into vehicular combat just to get home (seriously, people, don't get in the left-hand lane if you're not even going to do the speed limit! 65 means 80 in New Jersey!)

Every time I hear an alert like this morning and know that it has absolutely nothing to do with me, I just feel blessed. And yes, there is gloating, I'm not ashamed to admit it. It reminds me yet again of how lucky I am to have found such a great apartment last year, how much better off I am now location-wise than I was then. Yes, it takes longer to get to Philly and yeah, I'm becoming intimately acquainted with 287 from tip to stern. And yet. I sat in my backyard yesterday afternoon with my laptop armed with music, key-lime fizzy water, and Hershey Nuggets and not a single siren was heard. Fortunately no one urinated adjacent to me either so it was all good.

Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen. Simple pleasures, ya know what I'm saying? Amazing how the little things in life can so affect my mood. I'm having a pissy morning in general, the back-to-work blah after a holiday weekend. The sky is cloudy and the air on the low side of cool that I'm just not ready to embrace just yet, best evidenced by the blue capris and t-shirt I donned for this chilly morning. Now I've just received news that I'm shuffling off to pitch in at our sister company down the road, so I won't even have the comfort of my own space to off-set the general ick of the day.

But at least I'm not on the Midtown Direct today or tomorrow or the next day and much as I miss working in the big city (Boy! Howdy!) I wouldn't trade this morning's commute for the world.

You gotta hold on to the little things that matter. That's all I'm saying.

Not a Domestic Goddess

It's not a revelation that I am not a domestic goddess. Well, not a revelation to me. Or to anyone who's actual seen my apartment. Nonetheless, there comes a time when even I have to step up and - gulp - do housework. I fail to understand why this has to be on my holiday weekend, but I imagine it has more to do with finally having the time than not being able to live with the dirt and cat fur anymore.

My Thanksgiving weekend was full with a capital F. T-day morning was spent being lazy before heading to my boss' for her usual awesome spread and cast of thousands. This is also where I discovered heretofore unknown mad skillz on the drums as I kicked serious ass on the Rock Band video game. Friday was the traditional trip to PA to visit grandparents - a long, late day with lots of driving, dodgy diner food, an overly warm apartment and the all important nap via recliner. I did get the chance to surf web sites with my grandfather as we searched for info on the aircraft carrier he served on in WW II. One of the sites had the boatswain's (or something like that) whistle that I could play for him. Ninety-year-old man grinning like a kid - priceless.

Saturday was shopping with Mom as we used up her birthday gift cards. Shopping with my mother is a trial to be endured with good supportive shoes, full mental/emotional armor, and a loaded flask. Sadly, I was sans flask. This is a woman who shops when she can barely walk - when I can barely walk. But I persevered, through Target, an abortive attempt at Walmart, and a successful if rude experience at Sears Hardware. Now, of course, about half of the stuff has to be returned/exchanged.

I then lost the battle against a live Christmas tree (my new furniture!!) and spent 10 cold minutes at the Lion's Club tree lot explaining to Mom that the happy, nearly 7 foot Douglas Fir she wanted would fail to fit under our 6 and a bit foot ceiling. We wound up with a 5 1/2 foot Canaan fir that is happy enough, I promise. Once home, I dragged the enormous Christmas decoration box out of the inferno that is my laundry/storage room, only to discover that I no longer owned a tree stand. Moving casualty. So off to Walgreens I went, tree still affixed to the roof of my car, like the Grinch and his sleigh only no Max.

And then came a frustrating hour setting the tree up.

How successful was I at this?

It tilts.

But so does my apartment, so really, from the right angle, it's actually straight.

Polish logic.

Sunday, I played hooky from church (yes, I know, I'm going to hell on an express elevator) and cleaned like a madwoman. This included installation of the new kitchen curtains (gift cards!) complete with hardware, a process that included creative swearing (why be dull?) mismeasurements, unscrewing the screws I just screwed (?) remeasuring, rescrewing...did I mention I'm not a domestic goddess?

On the plus side? Kitchen now looks bee-u-ti-ful.

I had planned to write this weekend, to clean things up for a submission, but Mice and Men have nothing on me for plans gone awry. It was 6pm Sunday night, back spasming, belly growling, before I was able to light my eucalyptus candle and set up my personal tea pot and matching cup and saucer with tasty Vanilla Carmel tea - all necessary elements for my muse to flow. Which she kind of did...but mostly didn't.

And yet? Still better than living in Weehawken.

How was your Thanksgiving - relaxing or fulfilling - or both?

Am I Wearing a Sign?

There are certain things that you expect to see if you spend a lot of time in Manhattan, or any major city really. Excessively pierced and/or tattooed individuals. Homeless people. Street theater and/or musicians. Rats the size of a small tiger. Flamboyantly dressed women or men pretending to be women. Women working to be treated like men. Tourists. The sidewalk preacher who may also a candidate for the loony bin. The Naked Cowboy. Activists passing out flyers. A fake baked chickie, her skin a dark-orange mess, walking like she was all that and a bag of Sun In. A professionally dressed couple macking on each other outside the World Trade Center at high noon. (Oh the stories I spun on that one!)

Public Urination.

For a while there during my tenure in NYC, I felt like I was wearing a sign that said "Please make my day and pee in front of me," because I seemed to be running into that a lot . Perhaps not surprisingly, these events occurred in and around the W. 4th Street subway station on the Blue Line as I was shuffling from work to classes at NYU. The Disneyfied area of midtown would never suffer such high jinx.

The first time was on a stormy day when the steps were slick with torrential rains. A clearly homeless woman had come down the first flight of stairs into the subway station to the covered midway landing and promptly squatted down and released a likewise torrential stream of urine. Just as I was coming up to that same landing from the subway.

Lovely.

Months later, walking up 4th Street towards NYU, a man drunkenly offered profuse apologies as I crossed the street and walked eastwards. "Sorry Miss, so sorry, sorry" he slurred at me. I couldn't figure out why he was apologizing to me until I notice that he was peeing against the side and bumper of a car right there in the middle of the street. I remember disgustedly saying to him "If you're sorry, don't do it," and walking swiftly by.


I mean, you kind of shrug that off as the price of doing business in the big city. But I haven't worked in the city for several years now and despite living in the fairly urban Weehawken for seven years, never had anything like that happen on this side of the Hudson River.

Until yesterday.

My new apartment is in a two-story house made up of two buildings that are connected by a second story bridge. The second building (not mine) houses the garage on the first floor and another apartment above it. It's actually quite and intriguing set up. Underneath the bridge and between the two buildings is an open breezeway connecting the front driveway to the backyard.

My landlord' s husband J looks like a tall Buddy Hackett. He's good natured and pleasant, just a tad odd and a bit eccentric. He seems to be around all the time, wandering around presumably doing upkeep things eschewing the backyard to take his rest in camp chairs set just outside our shared door in the breezeway.

Yesterday evening, I was out back in my own camp chair, enjoying the nearly forgotten pleasure of a summer evening in a backyard. My mosquito lamp was burning while I worked on my laptop in the company of a bottle of Vitamin water. I could hear J from time to time in the breezeway and wasn't surprised when he came through to the back yard. At the last minute, I decided not to acknowledge him as I knew he'd come over and jaw for a while and I wanted to keep writing while I was on a roll.

A few seconds later, I heard a faint buzz-like sound and looked around for any bees that might be swarming around. What I saw was J peeing into the weeds against the back wall of the garage. I confess I gaped for a minute, stupefied at what I was seeing. And then my first thought was "I am not telling my mother about this."

Apparently my new suburban landlord' s husband hasn't quite grasped the idea that there are "other people" living on the property now.

I'm choosing to believe that he didn't know I was there. I certainly didn't announce myself figuring it would only make the situation worse. I know that he likes to enjoy a beer or two once he gets back from his office cleaning job on Sunday, and I figure that probably impaired his awareness.

But come on!!!

What is the deal with people publicly peeing in front of me? Do I need to hang an occupancy sign in the back yard? A his and hers delineation line? A picture of a urinal with a line through it?

Maybe a placard reading "To Pee or Not to Pee - There is NO QUESTION!"