24 Sep 06

Time:

Less than I thought it would take to accomplish the things I needed to do!

Money:

$76, new Metrocard [didn't come from weekly budget]
$0, because I'm trying to leave my weekly budget alone until Tuesday if I can.

More interesting things:

Caught the bus near my train station to go across town. I was waiting pretty close to the back of the crowd, but a workmanlike-looking kind of guy stepped back and gestured for me to get on first. Seriously, I will never as long as I live understand the claims about rudeness in this town.

Sat, once I had actually gotten on the bus, behind a lady reading a sheaf of emails she was resting on top of her bag. Now, normally I do not make a giraffe neck in an attempt to read over the shoulders of those around me, but in this case I simply could not help it: from what I could gather, this lady worked for a company with the sole purpose, judging by its name (which I will not repeat here), of going around to (presumably) rich people's houses and ORGANIZING. Like, there was a comment about one of the kids - whose name was one of those preppy shortened surnames - having a ROOM for his STUFFED ANIMALS. This room, furthermore, was located at the house "up in" some area that was not Manhattan... he has a captain's bed here, not that I'm sure what that implies for the organizing lady.

Learned, from a hand-lettered posterboard sign in its front window, that Harriet's on the UWS "may well have the best effing burger in town." H yeah, Harriet.

Passed a pub called the Dead Poet. Clearly I will have to visit.

Also passed a guy wearing a Gator basketball championship shirt - and he wasn't even at the Gin Mill. (Well, he was pretty close. But he was on the sidewalk and I don't even think that's where he was headed, so it definitely counts for my list of Gator sightings.)

Visited Zabar's for lox and bagels (duh.) First of all, belly lox is unbelievably good - nice and salty without being too much. (Of course, it would take a lot of salt before I would say it was too much.) But I didn't find that out until I got to Anne's. The purpose of me mentioning Zabar's already is that as I waited for my lox, this lady behind me was collecting pre-made sandwiches, and as she moved purposefully past the counter, she held one of them up and asked the deli guy (although it seemed like a question for the general assembly) whether it was okay to bring the food on the plane. I really, really love that: the New Yorker who cannot possibly bear the concept of facing the inferior cuisines of inferior locales and so steadies herself (and her kids, I think) with nice items from the "appetizing counter" (not that I have come to understand why it's called that.) I can see a day in the not-too-distant future where I will be inclined to do the same thing; in fact, as I told Anne yesterday, I think I'm already there.

Enjoyed a salty meat sample - prosciutto - as I awaited my salty fish packet. I can definitely get with a store that gives prosciutto, even one slice, away for free.

Decided to take the crosstown bus about twenty blocks south of the one I usually grab. It had the immeasurable advantage of speeding past not the Central Park Police Precinct (important and appreciated in its own way, of course) but the Delacorte Clock, with all the wrought-iron animals.

Waited for the train near Hunter College and decided that the gray-and-white signs ostensibly detailing nearby institutions of public interest but which in fact usually tell about hospitals are a little ominous or something. I mean, it's not like Sloan-Kettering, the Hospital for Special Surgery, or the Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital are places you end up after, like, a ride in a screaming ambulance - for the most part I think you pretty much have a while to accept it if one of those is a place where you need to go. And furthermore, it's not as if when you're in need ANY hospital seems ominous in the least... if my arm fell off, say, there wouldn't be anything I'd rather see than a hospital. AND the signs DO mention stuff like YMCAs and all that. But still. They weird me out a little, even if it is in a way that makes me want to keep looking at them. And 68th Street has the biggest collection I've seen yet.

Walked past a wine store on my way home. The doors were open, the signs for an evening tasting were inviting... and a Labrador Retriever took them up on it. He stood quietly next to his person, waiting for the decision of Cabernet or Pinot Noir, I guess. We do have some cultured dogs in this town, that cannot be argued.