I got home late last night due to company softball (you just can’t turn down those rare Central Park games). Little G and Little Miss C were ready for bed and, after 12 hours alone with the kids, The Missus was too.

So I decided to take the later train, the slacker-esque 8:43, and spend an extra 27 minutes with the fam.

That particular train always seems to be early, so I climbed on my bike with time to spare, and patted myself on the back as I hit the overpass stairs at 8:40.

Alas, the train came jugging down the tracks within seconds. I bolted up the stairs and heard multiple voices behind me yelling “hold the train!”, including one Weeble-esque woman who wasn’t going to make it if sprinting was required.

Once again, I thought, the 8:43 is early. As I climbed on board, I saw a ruddy faced conductor sticking his head out the window.

“A couple stragglers behind me,” I said.

I went to hold the door, but a few guys were already doing so. All the stragglers made it, and the train was off.

The five-seater in front of me featured a family of four: Mom, Dad, two little blonde kids. The girl had a front tooth that was hanging on for dear life; a stiff breeze could spell a visit from the Tooth Fairy tonight.  

Moments later, the conductor came to check my ticket. He had a red beard to match his red face.

“Why is this train always early?” I asked. (Hey–someone’s got to speak up for us commuters.) “It’s only 8:41.”

I showed him my watch, which was just turning to 8:42.

His face lit up.

“Actually, with the new schedules, it’s an 8:41!” he said smugly. “The schedule changed. We’re not early, we’re on time!”

He was kind enough to not say the rest: “And you’re not!”

He punched my ticket and sauntered on to encounter the rest of the breathless Hawthorne riders.

How did I miss that, I wondered. I actually read the new Mileposts every month, and the Metro-North press release emails too. They’re about the M-8 cars that never seem to arrive for the beleaguered New Haven lin riders, right? That one escaped me.

I turned to my Blackberry, and then to the Times, and then to the girl with the hanging-on-for-dear-life tooth in front of me.

Would the thing stay attached until North White Plains?

Six weeks ago, as June turned to July, I left my July monthly at home, and used the expired pass to get to the city on the first day of July, as is Metro-North’s generous policy.

I’d picked up an $11 one-way for my return trip that eve, and casually showed the expired June monthly for the second time that day in July. What the hell, I figured. Worst case scenario, the conductor tells me it’s expired and I produce my one-way ticket.

Well, the dead monthly worked. (Ah, the benefits of being a 40-something white male!)

I stashed the one-way ticket for a family member’s future ride, and we grabbed it this past weekend to take the kids into the city. Little G used to harrass us to take us to the city to see his favorite skyscrapers; he’s on a first name basis with most of them: the Empire, the Chrysler, the Flatiron, the CitiCorp. Now he wants to go and climb the giant boulders in Central Park, cuz, you know, you can’t find great rocks anywhere but in the middle of New York City.

Little G also used to be fixated on the landscape flying by from the train, but it only held him captivated until White Plains this time. Guess he’s growing up. Little Miss C, meanwhile, was happy to partake in another favorite commuter pastime; zoning out to a personal music device, she and The Missus being biPods as they listened to Music Together.

Kids ride free on the train, of course, so The Missus used the freebie 11-bucker on the way in, and we figured we’d get the return ticket from a machine at GCT.

The conductor came by and didn’t so much as look at The Missus, or her ticket. “Am I invisible?” she wondered aloud.

So, yes, two free rides thus far on our $11 ticket.

Our public transit highlights in the Big City included Little Miss G throwing a giant tantrum on the downtown bus in front of the Plaza, as I had not let Herself, who is 2, climb up the bus steps. She screamed the entire ride from 59th to 42nd, but was good enough to polish the filthy aisle floor by rolling around on it in her pretty blue dress. The driver appreciated that.

As we returned to the great northlands, the conductor was much more attentive. An awkward guy of about 30 with a large nose, he stopped in front of The Missus and clicked her now-pretty-wrinkled ticket.

We cheekily asked him if we would get money back on the ticket, as it was a peak ticket and we were riding off peak. (The nerve, huh?) He shook his head and went into a long explanation about returning the ticket at GCT, getting the difference back, but then paying extra to buy a new ticket on board. We didn’t completely follow, but the message was there–no money back.

Hey, no big deal. Three rides on an $11 ticket. That’s….like not even four bucks a ride. (Too early in the week to do proper math, sorry.) It’s like 1982 all over again–without the smoking cars.

[* The headline almost works, but not quite. Again, too early in the week for a clever headline.]

I missed my weekly Monday slacker train, the 8:43, last week, and was determined to make the damn thing this week.

Just before I was to head up for the shower, I noticed the answering machine blinking. That means someone either called very late or very early–never, ever a good sign.

It was the guy next door. He’d seen our tail lights on on our car, and thought we should check it out.

Thoughts of a dead battery flew around my brain. There’s never a good time for a dead battery, but this time might’ve been worse than the rest. Of course, I only need my trusty Trek to pedal to the station, but The Missus had planned a full day with Little G’s school up in Priusville closed for the day: a trip to Muscott Farm, music class (”Hellloooo, everybody!!!), other fun stuff.

I ran out to the car, and found my keys exactly where I presumably had left them the day before: not only in the ignition, but turned to the start-the-car position! [Why oh why do I feel compelled to reveal my stupidity, time and again, to a few hundred people I don’t even know on this site?]

I turned the key back to the off position, and went to start ‘er up.

Deader than Dustin Diamond’s career.

I went inside to break the news to the Missus [Editor’s Note: Funny how one of the Google Ads that went up based on this post was “Divorce Mediator”], and to call the guy next door. Quick note about the Guy Next Door: he’s saved our asses several times since we moved in 3 1/2 years ago, most notably, when we burst a pipe not long after moving in.

Guy Next Door (GND) said he’d be right over. I popped the hood of the car and stared in, pretending I knew what I was looking for. (Like that old comedian Jake Johannsen once quipped, perhaps a snowman who’s hat had fallen off…Here you go, Mr. Snowman! And boom, the car starts.)

GND said we had to roll our car back to the end of the driveway so he could hook his car up to ours. Alas, we couldn’t shift out of Park. The 8:43 simply wasn’t happening. I knew I needed a break to make the damn 9:16.

We cracked open the car manual and, like a pair of freshman car thieves, figured out how to pop open the transmission console, unscrew a few things, and, well, I’ll not reveal more in case real car thieves are reading this.

We got the car out of Park and rolled it to the end of the driveway, where GND had room to pull up next to our listless ride.

The initial jumper cable hookup didn’t work, so GND hooked the black pliers-with-fangs up to some other part of the crap under the hood to “ground” it, whatever that means. Bingo, our car started humming again.

I thanked GND profusely and asked him what sort of beer he prefers.

“Cold ones, outside, with the neighbors,” he said with a smile.

I assume he was talking about me, and not the nice old lady on the other side of him who recently passed away.

I hustled inside to shower and make that 9:16. As I showered I wondered how the heck I left the keys not only in the ignition, which I’ve never done, but turned into the Drive position. I could blame it on the kids–they’re always playing in the car and leaving all sorts of dials turned and switches flipped.

But no, it wasn’t Little G or Little Miss C.

I played back my last time in the car. Me and Little G had hiked at Hardscrabble yesterday. I brought my Hold Steady CD because I saw the band Friday in Ardlsey and the songs are still stuck in my head. We hit Starbucks in Briarcliff after.

When we got home, I had my coffee, my Hold Steady CD (the Missus don’t wanna hear that), Little G’s water cup, his snacks and, of course, Little G.

That might explain leaving the keys in the ignition. But not having the key turned forward.

I thought some more.

It was around 4 p.m. The Missus baked a ham, so we weren’t using the car to pick up dinner. I remember deciding to shut the windows, which I occasionally forget to do. But I’d already removed the keys from the ignition when I thought of it. I put them back in, and had to turn the car on to shut the windows. Then I got sidetracked.

There it is. Explained, if not exactly understood.

I’m locking the car tonight. And not, God willing, with the keys inside.

First off, a big thanks to Straphanger Joe for stepping in to keep the site fresh in my absence.

The family vacay was great–sun, beach, and an endless supply of buffet food and cerveza in the Dominican Republic. All we needed was a decent flight home Saturday to close the happy loop.

Indeed, New York was downright besieged by nasty weather. Despite the Male Stewardess on Delta assuring me that a little wind in New York wouldn’t slow us down–the CNN on our tiny airplane TV said winds were about 68 mph at JFK–the plane banged a left as soon as we crossed the U.S. coast, and headed for a surprise stop in Atlanta instead of JFK.

Atlanta Hartsfield is legendary for its busy-ness; add untold thousands of pissed off New Yorkers, sunburned and perhaps even still sand in the crotch, rerouted from the likes of the DR, Puerto Rico, Orlando, etc., and it was just mayhem–no one knowing where to go or what to do, people cutting lines to nowhere, a jammed airport suddenly swollen like the banks of the Bronx River. The worst of human nature at its best.

Two little ones in tow, we saw no hope in crashing in the airport, and quickly booked a room at a nearby Hilton for what certainly seemed like a reasonable rate, at least by New York standards. Thank God for the Blackberry.

We checked in around 10:30 p.m. and, after getting Little Miss C and Little G to bed, I huddled over the Blackberry again from our bathroom. Calls to Delta’s main line got the immediate busy signal, but calls to the Sky Miles club (like I’m really a member) actually were met with a human. I got a nice lady named Bobbie who repeatedly attemped to get us on a flight the next day, but as soon as something became available, it was quickly grabbed.

“It’s like…moving pictures,” she said, not quite the apt metaphor but I got the picture.

She eventually got us on two flights: the Missus and Little Miss C on an 8 a.m., and me and Little G on an 8:15er.

It was close to midnight. We’d lost an hour coming from the Dominican, and were about to lose another due to daylight savings. We shut out the night’s misery and slept.

And woke up five hours later to get the kids together and get to the airport.

It was pitch black and cold behind the Hilton in Atlanta. The queue for the freakin’ airport shuttle was 50 deep, despite a pair of short buses making the run.

Our clothes better suited for the Dominican than ATL’s surprising chill, we lost about 10 minutes waiting for an available bus—an amount of time that would bite us on the ass later.

The airport was pretty much the same madhouse as the night before; massive lines for everything. We finally checked luggage and the Missus and Little Miss C bolted for their 8 a.m. flight, us boys a bit behind.

[LUGGAGE UPDATE: It’s noon on Tuesday and our three suitcases are still AWOL.]

[LUGGAGE UPDATE II: It’s 3 p.m. on Wednesday and our three suitcases are still AWOL.]

[LUGGAGE UPDATE III: No luggage as of 10:30 a.m. Thursday.]

Security was downright slammed; the girls breezed through, though, as Little Miss C was in a stroller. They made their plane.

Me and Little G, however, stuck in security, missed it by five minutes.

And so our 12 hour ordeal at Hartsfield began, as we rode the monorail to various stops (A, B, E) and attempted to go standby on various flights (9:50, noon, etc.). The standby boarding passes piled up in my pocket like spent OTB slips.

The system is more crooked than a New York governor. We were #s 17 and 18 for the 9:50 flight, then #63 and 64 for the nooner. If you think you’re prioritized because you’re traveling with a hungry, underslept 4 year old, you’re sorely mistaken.

The standby crowd gradually got to know one another as we schlepped from gate to gate like migrant workers. We got to talking with Tom from Ardsley, a 40-something who was traveling with two senior citizen females, perhaps one of them being his mother, and one of them in a wheelchair.

In between playing dinosaurs with Little G (Little Foot goes to a scary place called Meat-Eater-Ville and has a close call with a hungry T Rex called Sharptooth, played over and over and over with minor variations), we kept calling the Sky Miles hotline on the Blackberry, and were told the earliest possible flight to New York was Tuesday morning—a full 48 hours away.

Just as we’d looked into flights to Baltimore, Phila and Washington, Tom From Ardsley had tried Cincy, Detroit, anywhere that would get him and his ladies out of Atlanta and toward New York.

We realized there are two approaches to getting nasty with an airline employee. You can get just simply downright nasty with no real strategy for getting results, as we’d seen the mook dumbass in the Yankee shirt do the night before as he rammed his SmartCart (the only smart part of his operation) past a line of stranded stragglers to show an airline employee he was angry about the disorganization and lack of communication. (In fact I sat across from the aisle from that mook dumbass on the flight to the DR; when the 8:30 a.m. departure hadn’t happened by 8:35, he yelled, “It’s 8:35, c’mon, let’s go-oohhh!!”

The other approach is what Tom From Ardsley did—yell and scream but do it in a way that nudges the employee into producing some sort of gainful result.

After failing to successfully cajole an employee at the Blackberry store near our gate to let us have a courtesy charge, we bought a new charger–35 bucks, if you’re scoring at home. After a brief charge, we got on the horn again, and scored our first break in 24 hours: a flight the next morning.

Suddenly our mood lifted; I began seeing Atlanta in a positive light. Get a hotel room downtown, see the sights with Little G, drink the native Coca Cola, see where Andre 3000 grew up, be up in the air inside of 24 hours. It sounded eminently doable.

Meanwhile, Tom From Ardsley was working a Delta employee pretty hard, and got results: a flight to Newark that afternoon. Tom told me he’d told the man that me and Little G needed to get out that day too, and that we should talk to the Delta guy.

I weighed my options: the flight the next morning was OK by me, but leaving that day would be unthinkably good. I approached him, hoisting Little G up to eye level so the Delta guy could see the sadness and tiredness in the whelp’s mug.

The Delta guy was Michael Hagans, a handsome black man with a gigantic, winning smile. I told him my new pal Tom From Ardsley said he had some magic powers to get people home. Hagans smiled that megasmile and began typing.

He typed for several minutes. On cue, Little G whined about how miserable he was.

“It’s OK, Little G, I know you’re exhausted,” I said, pinching his bottom to maximize the look of despair on his face. “This man is going to do his best to help us get home.”

I may have muttered something about the kid’s emergency medication back in New York, I’m not sure.

Hagans asked if we’d go to Newark. Sure, the gals went to JFK, but they’d probably be home long before use anyway. Absolutely, I told him.

Typing. More typing. More freakin’ typing. Magic fingers coming up with the winning keyboard combination.

“OK,” said Hagans. “You’re all set. Two seats flying to Newark at 5:30 today.”

I shook Hagans’ hand, though I would’ve preferred to kiss him. Little G gave him an emphatic high five. I hugged Little G.

“Keep taking care of your family,” Hagans told me, words I may not forget for a long time.

We were over the moon. We celebrated by riding an escalator to a Heineken-branded restaurant, which was set apart from the rest of the dreaded airport. We got lunch and set about working on Little G’s airplane Lego model we’d bought at the gift shop. Buying it was alternately brilliant and foolish; it would occupy a bored, cranky four year old for hours, but it also required intense concentration to put together, and that was in short supply after the previous 12 hours’ events. Plus, I’m just not that hot at models and other spatial-relations-related exercises.

The food came, a chicken cordon bleu sandwich, a grilled cheese, some chips, Sprites. The house music played some country broad – Shania, Trisha, I dunno – covering, fittingly, Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home.” “I’m on my way, I’m on my way,” she twanged. “Home…sweeeeet…home.”

And, five hours and endless dinosaur role playing later, we were. I must’ve stared at my boarding pass a dozen times, making sure it was real, treating it like the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Our seats were in the rear of the plane, but that didn’t stop us from pushing to the front as soon as they started boarding the rich people and using the face of an exhausted four year old to our advantage. They let us on, and we locked into our seats like we’d never give them up—whether or not Delta found the nine people it needed to opt for the $600 voucher and night in Detroit to solve its little overbooking problem.

Soon as the wheels went up, Little G fell asleep. I looked down at him, curled up so tiny in his seat, and it just hit me, my mind a jumble of SmartCarts and droning Delta announcements and Monorail rides and Little G scared by the unnecessarily loud auto-flush toilets. I dropped a tear the size of a whiskey shot on my sleeping son.

PAST PLANEJOTTINGS INVOLVING DELTA HERE

Since I don’t spend nearly enough time riding the rails to New York City, we packed up the gang to head in for a day trip yesterday. Little G is obsessed of late with two colossal things: skyscrapers and dinosaurs. So we threw it to him: see the dinos at the Museum of Natural History, or see the skyscrapers in midtown.

He opted for the buildings, which meant we could take the train.

We bundled up the kids, packed the snacks, and I got a taste of what the rest of my commuting brethren enjoy each day: driving to the station and parking in the lot. It being a weekend and all, we had our choice of spots, so I took the one usually occupied by the Yankeemobile during the week, hoping to impose some sort of jinx on the spot.

The 9:53 was about five minutes late (what, you couldn’t be late when I was chugging into Hawthorne station on my bike today with seconds to spare, having read Little G one too many pages from one of his dino books this morning?), and it was pretty packed. The Missus had suggested seats near the front, to minimize walking along the Grand Central platform, so we set out for seats.

I saw what looked for all the world like an empty three-seater, but upon arriving at it saw a SnoozerLoserThree-Seat-User–a young woman napping across all three. (For the record, SnoozerLoserThree-Seat-User is just a working title…we’ll try to come up with a snappier term for those seat-sleeping types. If you can think of a good Word of the Week for this, please send it along.)

[The Missus snapped this shot moments before the woman woke up.]

We instead grabbed a pair of folding seats facing each other, but Little G–his first train ride since the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City in December–started howling because there’s no window next to the folding seats (handicapped people apparently don’t enjoy looking out windows, I s’pose). He and I relocated to a two-seater with a window behind the SnoozerLoserThree-Seat-User, and he was happy again.

North White Plains saw a cattycorner two-seater open up, so the Missus and Little Miss C slid in there.

And we were off.

It’s interesting to see what affect the SnoozerLoserThree-Seat-Users (SLTSUs) have on the train. At White Plains, we saw at least four different parties do just as I did: See what looked like an available seat (or three!), approach it, then look with dismay at the body lying supine across it. We get it, you’re tired, you’re hung over. But it’s not a victimless crime. Buy three tickets and I promise I won’t blog about you.

The SLTSU eventually woke up around Bronkers and then, to ensure she had all three the rest of the ride, spread her backpack and a second back across all the seats. No longer snoozing, she was merely a LoserThree-Seat-User.

Much like Little G’s beloved view out the window from the train, making the trip with newbies is a good reminder that there’s interesting stuff to be seen amidst the boredom of the daily commute. Little G’s favorite among the New York skyscrapers is the Chrysler Building, and we were all of a block south of Grand Central when we looked back and saw it in all its silvery majesty–a vantage point I’d hardly noticed in three years of walking that route. (Cue the Annie soundtrack: You’ll stay up, until this place shines….like the top of the Chrysler Building!)

We meandered down to 34th and Park and decided not to tell Little G about what skyscraping colossus awaited around the corner. It took seconds before his eyes went wide and he said “Look!!!” Indeed, the Empire State Building (the informal “Empire”, to Little G, who’s on a first-name basis with all the Gotham skyscrapers–the Empire, the Chrysler, the Flatiron) loomed like Kimbo Slice in the foreground.

Staring skyward as we were, we were pestered by the usual swarm of hawkers looking to sell us a trip to the top. We turned them down, but did stop at a gift shop to get post cards. Little G wasn’t having the 10 for a buck cards, opting instead of the 99-cents apiece ones: One of the Empire, one of the Chrysler, one of the World Trade Center, RIP, and one of the Brooklyn Bridge.

After a cold but fun frolic in the Madison Square Park playground and a pit stop at my work, we headed back for the train. We grabbed some sandwiches at Mendy’s (”You said lunch, Jerry. Soup is not a meal.”) and hit Grand Central with time to spare. I made a big show in front of Little G to drop a quarter into the cup of a homeless man huddled in the foyer of Grand Central (the hypocrisy…like I ever do that on a normal commuting day). Sensing a teachable moment, I paraphrased the man’s placard for Little G once we were out of earshot, telling him that the man did not have a job and did not have any money.

Little G found the positive in that way kids do: “If he doesn’t have a job, then he can play with his kids all day?”

I stammered through a response that said he could, but the toys would not be very good.

We hit the 12:48 with a few minutes to spare, grabbed a six-seater, busted open our Mendy’s bounty, and looked forward to one final view from the bridge.

Miserable morning in the northeastern U.S., including a hard, steady sideways rain. Let’s call it the Umbrella Buckler.

Biking to the train was way out of the question, and even walking there seemed less and less viable.

I asked The Missus about perhaps hopping a ride when Little G was heading off to school up in Priusville. That would mean them leaving earlier than normal so I could catch the 8:43; it also meant helping get both Little G and Little Miss C dressed, shod and ready to rock by about 8:35.

I stood in the shower and hoped the walk to the train would not be a repeat performance of standing in the shower. I was leaning toward the ride-with-the-kiddies option, but when I got downstairs, Little G’s school pants I’d picked out were dirty, Little Miss C had fouled yet another diaper (on top of the, what, six she desecrated yesterday. We’re tapping her damn piggy bank for the next batch.), and the place was in a typical state of disarray. I had 13 minutes to make the 8:43, so I bid good bye to the clan and set out on foot.

It was awful out there, and I hadn’t gone 30 feet before my umbrella caved and my feet were wet. But to be honest, it wasn’t as bad as the Great 2009 SuperSoaker from December 9. The rain wasn’t coming down as hard, and it was actually warm this morning.

Still, a miserable day to walk, with only the middle of the street free from giant puddles. I jogged to Amsterdam and crossed Bradhurst.

I ventured down the hill, that sleepy neighborhood where that one house still has the McCain-Palin sign up, and spied a white Cadillac easing out of the driveway a bit ahead.

The driver put it into Drive, went 20 feet and stopped.

As I approached the driver rolled down the window. Could it be?

“Can I give you a ride somewhere?” asked the woman.

Score.

“Sure,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

As I opened the door, the woman said, half kidding, “You’re not dangerous, are you?”

“No,” I said as I slid into the passenger seat. “Are you?”

“Well, not really,” she joked.

We made small talk. She said it was an awful day to try to walk. I explained how I could’ve waited to go with my son, but I would’ve missed my train. The kid thing…immediately and insuperable evidence that I was not, in fact, dangerous. We discussed mine (wee little folks) and then hers (college age). She told me to enjoy them while they’re young–just as the nice elderly man with the two young dogs does every time I pass him with one of my kids on a walk. (Random trivia about that man: his name is Joe Girardi, and he says he’s a distant cousin of that Joe Girardi.)

I promised the woman I would.

I mentioned that I usually bike; she said her husband had bought a bike and wanted to get out more, but found the Mount Pleasant area completely unsuitable for biking. I suggested the old rail trail running parallel to 9A and the Saw Mill; park in the lot near the Pleasantville exit off 9A, and ride from there.

She said she’d mention it to him, and suggested that the info was a fair trade for driving my ass to the train. She didn’t actually say “ass.”

We got to the back entrance to the station on Broadway. I thanked her again, and hoofed it up the stairs.

Three times now, I’ve been driven to the train by strangers: a woman from Ireland, a man from Russia, a woman from Yonkers.

Humankind is doing OK, if you ask me.

Mother Nature, she’s still a bitch.

There’s a fun little game me and Little Miss C play.

Little Miss C, who is 1 1/2, takes my wallet any time I leave it at a height she can reach. (Insert cheap sitcom jokes about wallet-grabbing females here.)

She likes to rearrange every last thing in the wallet: bills, credit cards, business cards, train pass, Metro Cards.

Yes, Metro Cards.

I don’t know if I’m the only one with this problem, but I’ve got a half dozen of the things in my wallet, five of them with less than a buck on them. I’m sure there’s some algorithm out there that would prevent me from ever having loose change on my MetroCard, but right now it eludes me. Since fares went up to $2.25, I’ve been left with a less than even sum on my cards. When I buy a new MetroCard from a city machine, I can add on to that card and hope to someday get it to an amount that divides equally by $2.25. When I buy a new card at Hawthorne station, my only option is a $20 card, and the almost useless old cards pile up in my wallet.

Well, Little Miss C rearranges everything, with half the cards spilled on the floor. I hastily put my wallet back together, then forget about our little game until the next morning, when I’m rushing to the subway under Grand Central, half the damn city behind me as I approach the turnstile.

You see where this is going. I try card after card, the turnstile rejecting me with a rude Insufficient Funds time after time. The would-be riders behind me get more agitated, thinking me some out of town rube.

Back at home, Little Miss C is surely laughing.

Well, four months after it opened, the TJs finally got out to visit the High Line, the marvelous raised pedestrian park on the Way West Side of Manhattan. What took us so long? Well, it’s a hike from work, the family doesn’t get into the city much, and we’d heard the High Line was, like, cursed or something.

But we made it out yesterday, a near-perfect blue skyed fall day. We easily found a parking spot on Little West 12th, did the requisite staring-at-the-sign for several minutes, wondering if it was too good to be true, then ventured across the street to the rail trail’s southern entrance.

We had a stroller, and there are dozens of stairs and no elevator at that entrance, so we had to take Little Miss C out and haul the stroller up two sets of stairs. I believe the elevator is located at 16th Street.

It being a beautiful fall day and all, the High Line was packed — lots of accents (mostly English) and lots of people snapping photos. On the ride down, stuck in Giants traffic north of the GBW, I’d promised Little G ample views of his beloved “Enterpire” State Building. We did catch one glimpse at the ol’ beauty, but the great views from the High Line are along the Hudson: ferries ferrying by, motorboats, cruise ships, and Jersey doing its jersey thing across the way.

The park is a mix of concrete walkways, boards and what High Liners call “Wild”–the fauna growing on the sides of the walkways. Park volunteers are quite adamant about keeping the Wild wild–one snapped at me for standing too close to what are essentially weeds.

We met some friends, including a very pregnant woman and their 3 1/2 year old, so we didn’t conquer the whole Line. We found seats and a table at a recessed deck area near 15th, and the kids got cupcakes from a stand along the Line. There was no line for the bathroom, and there were even a pair of attendants handing out paper towels just outside the bathroom doors.

The most unique architectural element we saw was some wooden auditorium seating built into the platform around 16th Street, with the bench seats facing a glass wall that shows traffic racing up 10th Avenue. The kids loved watching the cabs, buses and cars roll by. Dad dug it too.

The High Line was teeming with humanity yesterday, but it never felt packed, as everyone keeps moving. The vibe was very positive–everyone seemed impressed, everyone appeared happy to be there. There were plenty of seats, including some wooden platform seating affixed to the old rails that actually slid a few feet in either direction. The kids loved it–there were ramps to climb, buildings on stilts to walk under, rails just below floor level to race along (”I’m Thomas!” “No, I’m Thomas!”), and of course cupcakes to eat. Small children can peer through the walls of the rail trail at the streets below, and I didn’t see any spots where a kid was actually in danger of falling to the street.

The Missus lamented the lack of alcoholic beverages on the Line; indeed, in our previous life, it would’ve been perfect to order a beer or white wine and watch the sun slide down below Jersey. But one can certainly understand the notion of not selling booze to people walking about some 30-50 feet in the air. And there are oodles of trendy brunch spots under the Line, including the recently opened new Standard Grill (one star, NY Times); the teeming Meatpacking District surrounding the High Line is either Manhattan at its shimmery best, or the worst collection of over-trendy restaurants jammed with fading Carrie Bradshaws, depending on your take on New York.

For the more downmarket hunger victims among us, there was a perfectly adequate hot dog stand at the base of the stairs on West 12th.

One very New York-y thing I noticed: lots and lots (and lots) of people snapping photos along the High Line. But they weren’t the typical landscape–cool pedestrian park, river, skyscrapers–shots. No, in true Gotham style, these were glammy shots of friends and loved ones, attempting to look their hippest in a cool setting.

All told, a memorable visit to a compelling landmark.

[image: NY Times]

Sometimes we pay too much attention to the feats of our celeb heroes–Derek Jeter’s 2,722 singles as a Yankee, Mark Sanchez’s surprisingly strong start to his Jets career–and not enough to the everyday Joes pulling off great feats of strength and fortitude.

Such as me making the 7:50 train after waking up at 7:30 this morning.

I had to get the early train–yes, poor me, the 7:50 is the early train–after the Boss suggested all his minions be at a conference. I did not set an alarm clock, because I have two very trusty flesh-and-blood alarm clocks in Little G and Little Miss C. When was the last time I slept past, oh, 7:15, was pretty much how my thinking went before turning in last night.

Indeedy, The Missus gave me a shake at 7:30 this morning.

“It’s 7:30,” she said. Before she finished the statement, I was in the shower.

I was out by 7:35, and dressed by 7:40–no minor accomplishment, seeing as I had to dress up a bit for the conference. (Of course, dressing up a bit–like the 7:50 being the early train–is relative.)

I offered a quick kiss to the clan, shook the dew from the morning’s Times, and climbed on my bicycle at 7:43.

The streets are definitely more clogged since school started; it’s actually kind of a drag. I was stuck behind a silver Honda at the corner of Bradhurst. The Honda waited for…just…the…right…moment before going, and I actually went around it and crossed Bradhurst before the car did.

Right about now, dear reader, if you enter the city each day from the upper reaches of the Harlem Line, you’re probably saying, “That so-called early train is a 7:52, not a 7:50.” And you’d be right. I take the thing so infrequently that I didn’t even know the real time it was supposed to arrive, giving myself two extra minutes that–for the record–I didn’t even need.

The train pulled up, me and a bunch of 7:52-type strangers got on, and we made that weird stop in Mount Vernon about 20 minutes later.

The 7:52-ers are definitely a more corporate bunch, but I’d like to think I fit right in with my dress shirt and necktie, which I was able to fasten from the comfort of an unclaimed 1-3/4 seater. 

Hours later, back in the office, my co-worker–who splits his time between the Hudson and Harlem Lines, depending on his dog-sitter’s schedule–teased me about the tie.

“You can take it off now,” he said. “The conference is over.”

I told him I felt grown up in it, and looked forward to showing off the Grown Up TJ look to my fellow riders on the 5:46 home tonight.

A bit later, I ventured to the post office for stamps. The post office on 23rd and Lex took the stamp machines out about a year ago. I don’t know if the whole city did this, but it could go down as the most idiotic move in the history of idiotic moves. Whereas four or five machines once served the needers of stamps, those same fools must now stand on a line that counted about 50 people when I walked in.

Mercifully, a worker by the name of Stone ushered us needers of stamps over to a separate line. I asked Stone why the post office scrapped the machines.

“I only work here,” came Stone’s reply. Uh, thanks.

There was a woman behind me on the stamp line. She had straight blond hair, was about 45, and wore a blue pinstriped dress shirt and blue slacks–an outfit that would’ve worked equally well on a man. Certainly not unattractive, but everything about her screamed WASP.

She voiced some displeasure with the stamp line, and we briefly discussed the PO yanking the machines, much to the aggravation of customers, employees, everyone.

“Must be part of Obama’s socialism plan,” she said.

I stared at her, trying to follow the leap from A to B–or, in this case, A to Q.

I paid for my stamps, and, as is typically the case with me, thought of a half dozen snappy comebacks after I’d walked out of the post office. (Among the rejects: “Now, see, what you just said right there, well, that didn’t make any sense whatsoever.”)

Equally vexing, how did she end up identifying me as a friendly right-wing Barack-basher? Did three years in the suburbs really scrub any hint of counter-cultural funk from me?

I looked down and saw the answer: The necktie! The stupid necktie!

I ripped the thing from my neck like it was a boa and jammed it into my pocket.

The Baby Who Snubbed Me on the Track 38 Ramp This Morning.

I was climbing the ramp to the Grand Central Concourse after exiting the 8:43 out of Hawthorne on Track 38.

You were clinging tightly to your mother, as babies of about 15 months are wont to do.

You were a cute Hispanic girl in a blue dress and matching hair clip, dark eyes and an immuteable expression.

We were slogging up the ramp, which moved at its usual snail’s pace. I’d tried to pass you and your mother on the platform, but your mother failed to move right and allow me a berth. So you were directly in front of me on the ramp, staring over your mother’s shoulder like an animal peering over a foxhole.

Since we had a few minutes of ramp ascension in front of us, and because I like babies (especially when they’re not screaming screeching at 3:30 a.m., Little Miss C), I offered a goofy smile.

Still, you stared, expressionless.

I tried another goofy smile, and another. Failing to elicit anything but the frozen mask from you, Baby, I shook up my act–swinging my head back and forth, opening my eyes and mouth wide. Perhaps there were even wildly gesticulating hands involved.

Nothing.

Which is weird, because my act usually–make that always–plays well with babies. Strange babies love me, and never fail to laugh when I suggest they do so through painstakingly executive humor-inducing machinations. If the mothers don’t offer up a “Wow, you sure are good with babies,” at least they’re thinking it.  

By this time, several other commuters were aware of my efforts, increasing the pressure on me to get a smile and save face. I tried a few more desperate gags from my bag of tricks, but alas, could not garner so much as a hint of a smile.

We finally got to the top of the ramp and the expanse of the concourse. I shook my head to express my disappointment in you, Baby, and bolted for the subway.

What’s so darn pressing on the agenda today? Eat, poop, cry, sleep. Repeat.

Don’t be such a baby.

Frustrated,

Trainjotting

PS: Can you please tell your mother to speed up, or at least move to the right a bit so faster walkers can pass?