Getting a little time off work–and the commute–thanks to the arrival of Little Miss C on Sunday, I had the express pleasure of accompanying new big brother Little G to his Music Together class today up 117 a bit in Hillaryville.

As any veteran of a Music Together class or CD knows, the session kicks off with a little “Hello, everybody” song, in which the mothers are covered with a “Hello, to all the mommies,” while the lone dad and lone nanny each get their own shout-out.

The class ambled on through a little “Jumpin’ Josie,” then “I’m a Bell,” and later, the little egg-shaped shakers came out for “Train to the City.”

As the leader started the song–adults and kids alike, on their feet, shuffling in a circle as if to mimic a train–the tune reminded me of some old Peter, Paul and Mary hippie nonsense I’d heard as a kid; something about a train that didn’t allow gamblers, womanizers, cigar smokers and other profligates.

The lyrics have been cleaned up for the thigh-high set–This train is going to the city, this train, and This train is going to Grandma’s, this train…

At one point the leader, an aging hippie with straight iron-gray hair, started to improvise. This train, she sang through cartoonish teeth, is going to the station, this train…

Mid-verse, she said she couldn’t come up with a rhyme for station. Uh, I thought, An on-time train ain’t but an abberation, for starters, or Metro-North’s drinks got hit by inflation, or Not commuting for a week fills me with elation, but I bit my tongue.

The leader redeemed herself on the next verse by coughing up this clever bit of poesy:

This train is going to Yonkers, This train
This train, is going to Yonkers, This train

This train is going to Yonkers/

The engineer has gone bonkers, this train

The mommies, the nanny and I laughed when we heard that one.

[images: eplkids.blogspot.com, haverstrawlife.com]

I had the divine pleasure of working from home yesterday, and with the 90 minutes of round-trip Metro-North time out of the equation, I was done–and, of course, home–at 5:30.

I took advantage of the bonus time by taking Little G to the playground over at Hummerville Elementary. He climbed the three steps up to the ramp he loves to run on, a 30-foot corridor on a slight incline that leads to a mad tangle of slides, tunnels and bars.

I was watching out of the corner of my eye when Little G suddenly dropped like a rock, parallel to the ground just before he slammed into the ramp. He jumped to his feet as I ran to him; he wore the WTF? mask just before his little face scrunched into prepare-to-wail mode.

As it turned out, some jackass–OK, more likely, some kid simply being a kid–had laid a branch about the size of a pool cue across the ramp’s handrails, about 2 1/2 feet from the ground. Caught up in the rapture that is those first couple steps on a playground, Little G hit the stick with his forehead at full speed, and even broke the thing in two.

I held Little G as he wailed, a small cut rising on his temple. Of course, he wanted Mommy, so we got in the stroller and headed for home.

I offered a little “special coal”– which seems to work for Thomas the Train’s boiler ache in one of Little G’s books, and often for Little G himself after he’s taken a tumble. The invisible offering helped a little.

There will be countless times when I’m at a loss to explain life’s small injustices to Little G (and, down the road, Big G) after he’s been stung by one.

This was but the first.

The Missus and I had the divine–and exceedingly rare–pleasure of an actual dinner out without Little G rolling Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater all about the place. We chose the Iron Horse Grill, a cozy, tasteful joint located inside the old Pleasantville train station house.

Located smack in the middle of the village, Iron Horse Grill wears its train past proudly; the name itself is a reference to the train that first rolled through P-ville around 1846. It’s not hard to envision the old waiting room, people seated along a long wood bench that takes up almost the entire western wall. A miniature electric train adorns a shelf near the entrance. You can see the trains fly by out the window, though you can hardly hear their rumble.

Entrees run around $28-30, and Iron Horse was still pushing a winter menu over the weekend–root vegetables, , braised meats, hearty soups, full-bodied wines.

The room was surprisingly packed for 6 p.m. on a Saturday, but never got uncomfortably loud.  

The Missus had the duck with spiced yams and I had a Chatham cod over potatoes with a beet coulis around it. Unfair as it may be, we always end up comparing suburban restaurants to those in the city. Iron Horse kind of invites such comparisons, with its classy decor, ambitious menu and not inexpensive checks. The Missus thought her meal was city-level in terms of ingredients and presentation, and a bit lacking in terms of flavor. I thought the cod was a tad bland, even for cod, but the beet coulis brought it to life.

We finished off the meal by splitting the warm pecan tart, which was good, but we both agreed it needed a little more “glue” to hold the crumbly dessert together.

The service was perfectly professional; I liked our waitress’s shamrock tattoo on her hand, and when she wasn’t sure whether the Pinot Noir or Sangiovese had more heft, she deferred to another staffer who really knew her stuff. A second waitress kept her cool when the woman seated next to us–some crabby 60-something biddy–went through a ridiculous litany of order specifications that would’ve driven the mellowest of servers nuts.

By our count, Iron Horse falls somewhere between good and very good.

I think everyone on the 5:27 to Mt. Kisco had the same thing on their mind yesterday: This daylight savings time thing sure is sweet.

With the extra hour of sun hitting us fully three weeks earlier than it did two years ago, it warmed the soul to come out of the Grand Central tunnel and see sunlight shining over Harlem, sunlight that lasted all the way to our stop.

For a moment, I cursed the sun staring me in the face as I labored up the giant hill on Broad Street, a big yellow ball just starting to contemplate its descent behind the cliffs separating us from Sleepy Hollow. But then I came to my senses, and realized how much nicer it was than the pitch black and a stiff, frozen wind in my mug.

Cheesy as it may sound, strains of “Here Comes the Sun” ran through my head–all together now, it’s been a long cold lonely winter/It feels like years since it’s been here–as Little G and I ran around the backyard, pretending we were, respectively, Lightning McQueen and and Strip Weathers (ask any boy between 2 and 5 if you don’t know what that means).

We’d kicked winter’s dark, finger-numbing, spirit-sapping, seemingly endless ass. The days of al fresco margaritas can’t be far behind.

Trading Bud cans in paper bags for Anchor Steam in proper imperial pint glasses, the Trainjotting crew tipped a few jars at Pershing Square last night, with some lively banter about the Grand Central documentary on PBS, the depth of subway minutia over on SecondAvenueSagas, and G. Francis’s unhealthy obsession with the bathroom cars on the New Haven Line.

We set up a miniature F train on the bar so people might know where to find us, and that sparked the interest of the bartender. I didn’t get his name, but he was a good looking guy in a black t-shirt that looked actorly; you could envision him in Law & Order, playing, well, a bartender, perhaps, and vehemently denying any knowledge of how the woman ended up crammed inside the bar’s ice chest.

The barman picked up our wooden F train, examined it closely, and explained how he was obsessed with trains as a boy. I told him Little G is also obsessed with trains (TJ’s successor in the Trainjotting engine room a few decades down the road?), and we discussed the merits of toys that require elbow grease and imagination to work, as opposed to seeing how many times you can hit the Fire button on a video console.

His face had lit up as he kept examining the little F train and spinning the wheels, and you could see how the thing instantly took him back to being 10.

A good time was had by all, though I still can’t figure out how I had 20 minutes to get from Pershing Square to Grand Central across the street, yet still did not have enough time to secure a little Two Boots for the ride.

The Missus isn’t big on betting, so we kept the terms fairly benign. If her hometown Pats won–and beat the spread–her pedicure was on me (I don’t know, something to do with her feet).

If the Giants won, or at least came within 12 of the mighty Brady Bunch (Brady Bundchen?), I was able to demand a ride to the train station on the day of my choice–and not one of those days when it was raining/snowing/sleeting and she was going to drive my sorry ass anyway.

OK, it’s not exactly plunking down $10Gs on the craps table at Binion’s, a starlet on each arm, but this is what we call excitement in our post-baby, suburban world.

Thanks to Eli, Plaxico and the boys–not to mention Strahan, Kawika and those defensive-minded types who turned Brady into a walking hemoglobin today–I get my ride to the train and don’t have to contribute to the dubious pedicure industry.

(Kawika Mitchell. Has ever there been a more bad-ass individual?)

Better yet, I came up big–huge, even–in the office pool, taking a few “hunge,” as the sales guys here might say, in the sales guy pool.

I’ll have to double-check my day planners from the last few decades, but I think it was one of the 10 greatest days of my life, not counting my wedding, Little G’s birth and getting an Atari 2600 in 1981.

If you want to take part in tomorrow’s Giants parade at Battery Park, Metro-North is kicking in some extra trains. On the Hudson Line there will be an 8:41 a.m. departure from Poughkeepsie serving new Hamburg, Beacon, and Peekskill and arriving in Grand Central at 10:11 a.m. 

On the Harlem Line there will be an 8:30 a.m. departure from Southeast serving Brewster, Goldens Bridge, Katonah, Mount Kisco, Chappaqua, North White Plains and White Plains and arriving at Grand Central at 9:48 a.m. 

If you’re on the New Haven line, well, you’re on your own.

Well done, Big Blue.

[photo: ESPN]

I knew this was going to happen.

Fifteen months after leaving the city and settling up there in Hummerville, I actually know a few people. Neighbors. Little G’s friends’ parents that turned up at his birthday party last week. That sort of thing.

One of the things I’ve actually liked about commuting is that I don’t know a soul on the train: No one to pretend I don’t see on the platform in the morning, no one to make small talk with or, egad!, share a seat with as we schlep to or from the city. I just want to be alone with the expensive Bose headphones, Crackberry, NY Times.

But twice this week, I’ve been called out by these new acquaintances on board. They’re seemingly terrific guys — smart, interesting, even urbane. But I’d rather just stay in my Syd Barrett-esque cocoon when I’m on the train. It’s how I cope.

And as the Missus and I creep closer towards being Pillars of Our Community in the coming years, it’s only going to get worse.  Little G’s school mates! His soccer pals! The Missus volunteering for the bake sale! (OK, that may never happen) .

Consider me outed.

Filthy Mark is a friend from high school, given the nickname thanks to his formerly Falstaffian appetite for certain vices. When Filthy Mark joined the NYPD about a decade ago, the moniker was tweaked to Filthy Narc. That made us laugh, but didn’t ultimately catch on.

Filthy Mark and I have been playing phone tag, for lack of a better term, for several days, trying to get our families together (he lives in Copland up in Putnam Co.). He was on my mind as I hustled to the 5:27 last night. As I stepped onto the platform with about a minute to spare, a cop jumped in front of me. He looked for all the world like Filthy Mark.

I had my iPod cranking, was focused on getting my ass onto the train, and wasn’t quite thinking clearly.

“Excuse me, sir, I’ll need to check your bag,” he said.

Was Filthy Mark f***ing with me, I thought for a split second. Upon further inspection, it was not, in fact, Mark. It was a cop named Prieto, and he needed to search my bag.

Had I been put on a watch list for disparaging Metro-North on this blog, for listening for a little too much revolutionary music like the Clash’s first album, for attending that lone Amnesty International meeting in college (it was just to impress a girl! i swear!)? More pressing, the Missus and Little G were counting on me to be on that 5:27 so we could check out that great Jack O’Lantern blaze up in Croton. If I miss the train, we miss the pumpkin blaze, and I’m sleeping in the minivan.

“It’ll just take a minute,” said Fake Filthy Mark with what actually might be classified as a smile.

I told him I’d confused him for a second with a friend from high school as another cop–a dark, giant fellow who, making things even more confusing, looked like another cop friend (McDowell) from high school–slid a white ticket the size of a stamp into a machine.

“That’s it, you’re done,” said Fake Filthy Mark.

The whole thing took 40 seconds. I made the 5:27 with half a minute to spare.

The woman cleaning up coffee from the floor of the 6 train this morning.

I wonder about you.

A full hour since I saw you, I’m still wondering.

There was a coffee spill on the downtown 6 that made the Exxon Valdez look like Little G had dropped a juice box. We stepped over and around it as we entered, found spots to stand that seemed to be out of the rushing java rapids.

You grabbed a spent AM New York, stood from your seat, and began mopping it up. Your posterior was prodigious, to be honest, and you wagged that big thing in various riders’ faces as you cleaned up the java mess. People smirked. I saw them.

Then you took the soaked pages, deposited them in a plastic bag, and tied the bag shut with an emphatic yank.

What followed was equally impressive. You didn’t adopt a mask of self-righteousness, you didn’t look around the car to register the approval of your fellow straphangers. You just sat there blankly as the smell of spilled coffee tickled our nostrils.

I’m wondering. Was it you who spilled? I did notice you set down a small coffee cup with a lid before you commenced your cleaning. If so, I applaud your accountability, your selflessness. I spilled it, I’ll clean it up. Isn’t that what the subway, the city, the world needs just a little bit more of?

But I’m wondering if, ya know, you’re all there. Because no one does that. If you spill, you shrug your shoulders apologetically, give the rest of the car some vague ‘I’ll try harder next time’ look, and try not to look at the mess you made before exiting at the next stop to avoid further embarrassment. You don’t clean it up.

But you, you do. You had black hair with specks of gray on the temple, close cropped in what one might call an unstylish boy cut. You had a Metro-Card in a plastic sleeve around your neck, and a ring full of keys there too that would make Schneider from “One Day at a Time” blush.

You seemed perhaps… not normal. Still, I can learn from you. We all can learn from you. If I see you again, I’d like to buy you a coffee.

But please, be more careful with it.

Regards,

Trainjotting