13 Oct 06

Time:

Left apt 1231, arr airport gate 1415.

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Listened, as I did to a jazz band the other day and a cellist before that, to some highly skilled musical talent in the vicinity of the subway. This one was under 53rd as I waited for the train to Penn Station, and the tune of the hour was Ave Maria.

Ran past Amtrak en route to the LIRR train that would take me to Jamaica Station and thought, of course, about another time I was in the labyrinth below Penn Station and heard the words "Delray Beach," followed shortly thereafter by "Port Washington" as I made it up the stairs and into hearing range for the Long Island Rail Road announcer. I also thought for just a second about some of the train trips I've taken - all of them between Florida and New York - and in particular about how one of the stations in or near Washington, D.C. reminded me of one of the barrel boards on Donkey Kong Country.

Hopped on a train that would be headed, after it left me and a pack of others at Jamaica, to Port Washington.

Chatted with a very nice - and very good-looking - guy who I think was a cop in Wantagh. He told me about his daughter visiting colleges, I told him I was going to Florida, he offered me an Altoid, I declined... it was all very nice. I only gathered that he was a police officer because he flashed a little paper card at the conductor rather than handing over a ticket, and it looked like it had a shield shape on it; I wish I had been that quick-thinking after either of the two times he mentioned that he was old, or when he said I was young, because if I were smart I would have taken the opportunity to pay a compliment with ulterior motives.

Realized that the guy sitting in front of me on the plane had also ridden in the AirTrain elevator with me an hour earlier. Of all the gates at that airport....

Sat next to a gaggle of flight attendants (okay, it was three plus one in the next row up) who were "deadheading" back south. (I knew truck drivers used that term; it made me laugh to hear the young, eye-shadowed attendant say it.)

Watched as a high-schoolish kid, his mom, and maybe her friend made their way to the row right behind me and across the aisle. I wouldn't have paid them a whole lot of attention (beyond the fact that the kid had on a brilliant blue class ring, and it made me think that of course such an item is the jewelry of choice, de rigueur, for a kid in a Mets cap and a Lawn-Guyland accent who calls the lady next to him Ma and answers to Tommy), but then I overheard that they were going to everybody's favorite hurricane hideaway, "I don't know, someplace called the Palm-Aire?" Ha.

Hit up Golden Corral and in so doing walked past a jolly woman who announced to us, "Hey now, I left you all some food!" I didn't realize it before, and maybe it's just buffet restaurants or something, but Boynton Beach is seeming rather like a genuinely integrated town! Very impressive.