25 Nov 06

Time:

?

Money:

$30, dinner and beverages, Jack Russell's.

More interesting things:

Spotted, while still in Florida, a luggage tag marked with a 516 phone number. Of course, since we were in fact headed back to New York, this was not exactly surprising, but it reminded me of hearing the words "Delray Beach" in Penn Station, and I enjoyed it for the same reasons.

Sat on the plane next to two (ostensibly) rough-and-tough hunters who really did not like flying. More interesting, however, was that in response to his friend's question about how magazine photographers managed such cool shots of bucks and does and whatever, one commented that "Those pictures come from deer farms! Where they breed deer!" My only question, then, is: do they really have such a thing? What do they do with the deer? It's not exactly Golden Retrievers we're talking about here.

Saw a big ol' (for a personal jet, anyway) plane out away from the main terminals at West Palm marked "TRUMP" on the fuselage.

Stood in a slightly insane line to get a new Metrocard before I realized that the main craziness was for people waiting to do business with the station attendant, not for the machines. Even so, there were still lines involved, and when an older couple who had been behind me before we figured out where we actually needed to wait got up to a machine before I did, they offered to let me jump ahead of them. Now, I'm quite sure that these people did not live in the city, but I'm going to add it to the New Yorkers ARE Polite Campaign anyway; we can have a special visitors' section if it's necessary.

Decided that I am never so happy to see the E as when it's important to my trip back from the airport. This is not to take away from the value of being down south; I'm very fond of Florida and of course I love my family, my dogs, and my house. But getting back here is still really nice, and it always seems like that particular point of the return trip is when I suddenly remember where it is I'm returning to.

Listened to a small boy with his dad and his older sisters, I guess, on the subway. He had a little stuffed cat and a cowboy hat, which of course meant he spent most of the trip talking about the cat sitting IN the hat, the cat sitting ON the hat, the cat sitting UNDER the hat, so on and so forth. I was pretty impressed with his prepositions, but even more so when he hung the cat by its paws from the string of the hat and announced that it was a "cat in a PARACHUTE!"

Admired the Christmas lights and garland at Jack Russell's. It's pretty dark in there, and when you add all those little sparks it glows the way I like so much.