Tag Archive: Commuting


>Long day plus

>Today was a long day, plus I had an appointment to get my nails done. So that made it even longer. Then I stopped afterward to get a mocha, notice how I got both those events in one picture? Aren’t I clever? *Preen*

I probably shouldn’t have stopped for the mocha, cause then I missed the 7:26 p.m. train and had to take the 7:56 p.m. I got an e-mail earlier in the day saying there was a problem with a stalled train at the New Hamburg Station so there was no train service between Beacon and Poughkeepsie. Not a problem for me since I get off at Beacon.

The reason I haven’t posted about our trip to the city is because I still haven’t renamed all the pictures I took. I am going to do that now and then I will post.

>Today

>Today I am suffering the consequences of yesterday being a holiday in that I turned my alarm off yesterday and so this morning it was still off so I overslept. The time I woke up I should have already been on the train. Then I couldn’t find my keys, yesterday when I got back from Verizon with Tigger I just threw them on my bed. When I went out to my car I was glad I was lazy and left my jacket in the car cause it is about 20 deg cooler today.

I had to drop my prescription off so that made me even later to work. Then when I got to work I realized I had left my ID in the bag I brought to work on Friday! So I had to stand there and knock on the door, no one heard me and I kept knocking, finally someone came, but not because I was knocking, because he was leaving. Well, back to work now.

>today so far

>Saturday Em and I went to the city. I have that post saved, awaiting publication. 

Today I had an eyedoctor appointment so I convinced Stitch to take me to the train later, the light was broken by the high school so a BPO was there directing traffic. He looked very happy to be standing there waving idiots er I mean drivers through the intersection. 
I missed the train some idiot (that would be me) forgot to double check the schedule, there were more police at the train station, the coffee shop was broken into last night (seems like a stupid thing to do on a Sunday night). 
Then I get to the eye place and the doctor checks me and *sigh* it appears I have been wearing my contacts too much and so I have to not wear them for a few days then go back and get my eyes checked and then I will have to only wear them 6 days a week. That means I will have to get glasses too. I will most likely have to get money out of my savings for that.

When I got to work, someone told me that sparks had been coming out of the outlet, so part of the office has no power. Not my part dog gone it! And our printer is out of service, I had to put a sign on it, then Herman was making fun of the sign so I put another sign on it, Don’t touch this, this means you Herman. I was waiting for him to complain about me putting his name on the sign so I could say to him, “Don’t F*** with me, I’m a bitch and I’m in a crappy mood!” But he didn’t. So I didn’t.

So that is my day so far. How is your day?

>Separately can ruin a commute together, definitely ruin a commute.

First the MetroNorth train equipment problems. I didn’t notice anything wrong with the train, but when we pulled into Croton there was an announcement that we were changing equipment. Equipment being the train. So everyone had to get up and get on another train. Which of course takes more time then just stopping and picking up more passengers. Then we were on one of the new electric trains that make me motion sick. While on the train I get a text alert about signal problems at GCT affecting the 7 train. Kind of dismissed it, nothing I could do about it.

I stopped to get tea on the way to the 7 train to settle my stomach, it worked, got on the train across from Robert ___ (the funny looking guy of indeterminate nationality with the hat). And waited, and waited, heard an announcement about signal problems(still!) finally the train started, and crawled, well crawled for a subway train, usually they barrel through at top speed. I saw something I have never seen before workers in the tunnel squished up against the wall. I don’t been squished as in flattened by the train, I mean they were squishing themselves against the wall as the train went by. Then the train started going fast for about 2 seconds then stopped dead. I pulled out my phone, 10 minutes until I had to be at work. I sent a tweet, “‘It’s 7:50 a.m. I’m supposed to b @ work in 10 minutes and i’m stuck under the city on a f***ing subway train!”

So I was late to work. Is being a stuck on the subway a good excuse for being late to work? I don’t know, but my boss was stuck on the same subway.

>Another day

>Friday wasn’t much better getting to the train. In fact it was a little worse. I mean I still caught the train I was supposed to, but I left the house with absolutely no make-up on. At the time I was supposed to be walking out the door, I was throwing things in my bag to take to work to put on there.

Fortunately I had already packaged up and addressed the book I sold so I didn’t have to fuss with that. I don’t have to worry about getting up early again until Monday. Then I have to worry about them fixing my time sheet for Wednesday.

http://www.youtube.com/get_playerIt started to pour today, and the sink started to back up. I got it on my camera this time. It didn’t smell bad like last time. You can hear me on the video telling the maintenance guy how this happens every time it rains. He stood back, obviously didn’t want to get in the picture. Just so everyone is aware, I do not work in some backwater burb, I work in the city, although some people in Manhattan would say I do(it’s Queens).

I didn’t make it

Those of you who have been reading my blog know that today is the first day of the pilot program: “Compressed Work Period”. I don’t think I have really explained it. What that means is, instead of working 10 days in a pay period, I will be working 9 days. Of course I will be working more hours per day, one week is 8 hours a day for 5 days, the next week is 8.75 hours a day for 4 days. So today was the first day I had to catch the 5:57 train to get to work at 8:00 a.m. Yes, I know I have a long commute.

Anyway, the only problem was some jerk in a monster SUV that thought he could park in the middle of the drop off spot so no one else could pull in there. I was going to blast my horn at him(yes it was a him, despite the plate saying ‘LADYTAZ’) but, my horn doesn’t blast, it cutely beeps. Anyway, I got into work at 7:50 a.m. so I wasn’t too miffed. So why did I title this post I didn’t make it? My goal was to leave the house with all my make-up on so I wouldn’t have to take my bag to work and put it on there. That didn’t happen, so tomorrow I try again. However, since I did make the early train, I treated myself to a yogurt parfait and Awake tea at Starbucks.

Also I (finally!) got my gifts from SEFA. I got a travel mug. This pretty key ring, that I decided to use, not hang on my wall with the rest of my key rings, And lastly this combo ruler and calculator, which I don’t really know what I will do with it.

Some of you may find this interesting, of all the pictures in this blog, the turquoise cup and the key ring were taken with my phone, the pictures wouldn’t turn out when I took them with my camera.

>I meant to post this yesterday morning, well I will be quick, he has started coming downstairs in the morning to make sure I am up. Thursday morning was cold so he comes down, I am in the bathroom doing morning bathroom stuff, to ask me when I wanted him to start the car to warm up. {SIGH} Not really his fault since I have been getting a little scattered lately and not leaving at my regular time. So I tell him ‘5 minutes’, later when I am in my bedroom getting my clothes out I hear him outside, then he comes to the door and he says something, ‘What?’ I shout, he’s gone, so I grab my phone and call him, he doesn’t pick up it goes straight to voice mail because he doesn’t have his phone on of course because he NEVER HAS HIS **deleted** PHONE ON! So I run upstairs to see what he said, cause something could be wrong with the car for all I know, and he says, ‘The car’s warming up.’ {DUH} So I say, ‘I hate it when you do this!’ He says sorry, I go finish getting ready and we leave for the train station late and I miss my train.

Now, I know he has no idea what I was talking about and will most likely continue to do it even if I tell him he doesn’t need to tell me the car is warming up, I know if he says he is going to do it in 5 minutes he will do it in 5 minutes, not 4 minutes 55 seconds or 5 minutes 5 seconds. Sometimes I hate dealing with Aspie-Bipolar people! It was not his fault I missed my train, I got up late, so you see why I title this post the way I did, cause this was both.

Oh, and no one has to post a comment telling me I am a bitch. I know that. I am working on it.

>Still cold

>in the 40’s F today, that would make it about 10° Celsius I believe. So not as cold as yesterday, but still too cold for April! In my humble opinion. Stitch is so cute, after I complained when I asked him how cold it was and his answer was ‘sort of coldish’. He now comes downstairs in the morning to give me a temperature report. This morning it was 44° F. So in his words, not very cold. I think I am going to have to dig out my velvet pants and ivory sweater for Phantom, I don’t think it will be warm enough to wear a dress next Wednesday.

This morning, leaving the subway I had to take the other stairs, the stairs I normally take are closed for repair. The stairs I am now taking bring me out on the side of the street where my office is, unfortunately that is also the side with no sidewalk. So I have to cross the Pulaski Bridge, (6 lanes) with no crosswalk. Not a problem you say? Well normally not, but this morning there was a gazillion traffic cops on the street. OK, maybe only 20 or so, but that meant instead of crossing the bridge, I crossed Jackson Street to where I could cross the bridge with a crosswalk and then crossed back Jackson to go to my office. All so I would not upset the nice (grr) people with the bright yellow safety vests and white kid gloves. And guns. I think they had guns, I try not to stare at them. This afternoon when I walked back to get lunch there was only two there. Maybe the rest were at lunch?

>Watch the Gap or LOO HEAVEN?

>What does it mean to you to ‘watch the gap'(WtG)?

For me, a regular commuter by Metro North Train and NYC Subway, WtG means to be careful getting on and off the train because of the space (gap) between the train and the platform. You don’t want to get your foot caught in that gap or fall down through it and wander onto the other track and get killed something that is very possible if your BAC is is .3 or higher. One time on the train a little girl dropped her ‘baby’ into the gap and she screamed . . . but I digress.

Fellow blogger Brit’ Gal Sarah from Brit’ Gal in the USA recently posted about the difference between USA and UK, then she did a separate post for public restrooms, or loos (I hope I got that right), which she says are much nicer in the USA then in the UK. I will have to take her word for it never having been out of the country to use a restroom or loo except for Canada.

To get to my point of this post, if I still remember that is, one thing she mentioned that she didn’t like in USA is the gap in the door, I started thinking it had never bothered me, so then I wondered why, was it because I grew up using public restrooms here and so was just used to it? Did it not bother me because everyone in the restroom is a girl (I hope)? Or was it because I had gym at a public high school and after having to change into those awful blue and white striped gym uniforms in a locker room with 90 other girls, whats a little gap in the door?

That lead me to thinking about gym class and this one particular sadistic gym teacher.

Then, because my mind works in strange and wonderful, OK we’ll leave it at strange. I started thinking about a terrifying experience in the Ladies Room at the Tarrytown train station. The station was ‘closed’ but they usually left one door open so you wait in there or go to the bathroom. So I went in to use the bathroom, since the station was closed there was no one else in the station or bathroom. There was this man walking up the sidewalk whistling. When I was in the restroom, I heard the whistling come up the hallway, now the men’s room is on the other side of the station, which made me wonder what was he doing in that hallway, he comes in the restroom and uses the toilet. That was not the truly scary part. The truly scary part was he didn’t leave, he stood by the door in front of the stall I was in, how do I know that? When I didn’t hear the door open I peeked out through the gap between the door and the support panel. I was trying to decide if I should yell at him to get out or see if my cell phone had a charge and call the police and hope they would come when another guy came in the bathroom and yelled at the first guy for being in there. At least I think that what he yelled. He was speaking Spanish, but they both left.

So any way, if you want to know how truly weird my brain is, when he was standing by the door I was thinking, if he doesn’t leave I’m going to miss my train.

>Last day of March started out cold

>32º per weather bug, 31º per the sign by the school. Then I had to stop for a roadblock on the road down to the train. It is enough to make one swear. But I didn’t, not really. I was just wondering what kind of idiot police department conducts a roadblock at 6:00 in the morning when people are trying to get to work. I guess they were finding what they were looking for since there were a few vehicles pulled over. I have current inspection and current registration so can’t stop me. :p

Then to my doctor’s office for my appointment and as I was waiting I was wondering what was making that buzzing noise? It was my phone, LOL, sometimes I amuse myself. Then when I got on the train at GCT to come to work the train just buzzed by my stop. Seems like whenever I get on the train in the middle of the day to come to work I get an express and end up at Queensboro Plaza.

When I got off the train I went to the Deli and got my lunch sandwich and then came to work, rest of the day was ho-hum normal except for a few little snags that I will have to work out tomorrow and then I will tell you. Right now I have to fly quick to go home.