It's time for the subway squeeze and it's not even apple season
"After fire destroyed a crucial signal relay room at the Chambers St. station Sunday, the subway agency suspended C trains, reduced A runs - and said it would be three to five years before full service on the Eighth Ave. line would be restored."
~ The New York Daily News
They say that when it rains, it pours. Well in New York, when it snows the subways get crowded. We had our first blizzard of the year this past weekend. There are cars buried up to their roofs in snow that's been shoveled off of sidewalks and streets. Suddenly, all of the once snobby car owners feel the need to use mass transit. This causes a shortage of seats, and more importantly, slows the trains down considerably since these aristocratic individuals don't know how to get on and off a train. A stop that once took fifteen seconds now takes a minimum of a minute as people stuff their way in and insist on standing right in front of the doors, which, when they close, close on their yoga mats and cause the train doors to reopen and for the conductor to become verbally violent over the speakers (which is muffled and distorted beyond understanding).
To make matters worse... a homeless person (or so the transit authority would have us believe) set fire to a shopping cart of homeless people stuff in order to stay warm and caused a major fire in one of the tunnels. Conveniently, this fire just happened to be in a switch room containing over 600 circuits that run the "A" and "C" lines. The original estimates said it would be three to five years before things are up and running, but after they realized this was completely absurd (by which I mean 8 million people revolted against the transit authority and the MTA realized their bluff had been called). The transit authority came back today and said that they’d have service restored gradually over the next five to nine months (now that sounds better). To put things in perspective, the entire line was constructed in a little more than one year. Also, the subway damage from the world trade center was repaired in nine months (an estimated three year job). Therefore, saying that it was going to take five years is ridiculous. It’s also convenient that there were already plans to begin renovating the switching system sometime in 2005 (something that hasn’t been brought up in the papers, but I read in a book I just finished about the subways). The technology currently in use is the same as was installed in 1932 (designed in 1904) so you could say it’s time for a revamp anyway.
Note that the fire was on Sunday as was the blizzard. This meant that on Monday, not only were there more people because of the snow, but on top of that there were 600,000 people displaced by the non-functional A and C lines.
Needless to say, the subways were quite crowded. There was one good interaction yesterday between a regular rider and a displaced rider in which the later pissed off the former. It ended with the regular yelling at the man and suggesting that he “not piss me off first thing in the morning” and to “adjust yo-self right now! Preriod!” I couldn’t help but laugh. The man turned and faced the other direction and everyone went back to reading their books. Even better was yesterday afternoon when a woman felt the need to use the aluminum side of the subway car to… inspect the buggers in her nose. It’s one thing to use the reflective properties of the inside of the train to make sure your hair and makeup are okay, but a full on investigative search of one’s nasal cavities doesn’t qualify. She went at it between 4th and 34th. I suppose it goes to show how much New Yorker’s really just don’t care what people think.
If anyone wants any apple crisp, I know where to find it. Sunday we had a bunch of extra apples lying around, so Paul decided to make an apple crisp. Nice enough. Tasty.
Monday night Br. Ed cooked. His mode of cooking consists of emptying the fridge and “recreating” what’s there. This is often dangerous, but he pulls it off. So what does he do for dessert? He re-serves Paul’s apple crisp (fair enough) but he adds half of a week old apple pie and breakfast cereal and mixes it all up and reserves it… actually it wasn’t too bad.
Now mind you that Br. JP wasn’t paying attention on Sunday and wasn’t there on Monday, so you have to give him the benefit of the doubt, but… what did we have for Tuesday night dessert??? You guessed it… Apple crisp!!! Only this time it was made with three month old rice crispies, mini wheats, and unpeeled apples stacked high on top (by which I mean overflowing). When I saw it before dinner my immediate remark to Clare was “what the heck’s with all the apple crisp… it’s not even apple season!” Bill, at dessert time, made the exact same comment… Clare and I burst out laughing. JP, boasting that he too had used old products in his apple crisp, said that he used up the box of mini wheats that had been around for “so long” without “being eaten”. Br. Bill ran to the cabinet and yelled at JP, “Not being eaten! JP, I had them for breakfast this morning. You’ve got two boxes of Raisin Bran that are yours and you use my one box of Mini Wheats! What am I supposed to eat tomorrow!” You’ve got to understand that JP is a special person. You just have to laugh and smile and move on with life. There are some things in life that are certain: death, taxes, JP serving dinner a minimum of thirty minutes late, some form of potato with his meals, and whatever he serves… there will be lots and lots and lots of it (thirteen large pieces of chicken last night. There were only four of us at dinner.)
I'm cooking tonight so I thought about going for a grand slam and fixing more apple crisp tonight, but seeing as we’re low on apples and the only cereal left is raisin bran, I am opting for Bananas Foster. When is banana season anyway?
~ The New York Daily News
They say that when it rains, it pours. Well in New York, when it snows the subways get crowded. We had our first blizzard of the year this past weekend. There are cars buried up to their roofs in snow that's been shoveled off of sidewalks and streets. Suddenly, all of the once snobby car owners feel the need to use mass transit. This causes a shortage of seats, and more importantly, slows the trains down considerably since these aristocratic individuals don't know how to get on and off a train. A stop that once took fifteen seconds now takes a minimum of a minute as people stuff their way in and insist on standing right in front of the doors, which, when they close, close on their yoga mats and cause the train doors to reopen and for the conductor to become verbally violent over the speakers (which is muffled and distorted beyond understanding).
To make matters worse... a homeless person (or so the transit authority would have us believe) set fire to a shopping cart of homeless people stuff in order to stay warm and caused a major fire in one of the tunnels. Conveniently, this fire just happened to be in a switch room containing over 600 circuits that run the "A" and "C" lines. The original estimates said it would be three to five years before things are up and running, but after they realized this was completely absurd (by which I mean 8 million people revolted against the transit authority and the MTA realized their bluff had been called). The transit authority came back today and said that they’d have service restored gradually over the next five to nine months (now that sounds better). To put things in perspective, the entire line was constructed in a little more than one year. Also, the subway damage from the world trade center was repaired in nine months (an estimated three year job). Therefore, saying that it was going to take five years is ridiculous. It’s also convenient that there were already plans to begin renovating the switching system sometime in 2005 (something that hasn’t been brought up in the papers, but I read in a book I just finished about the subways). The technology currently in use is the same as was installed in 1932 (designed in 1904) so you could say it’s time for a revamp anyway.
Note that the fire was on Sunday as was the blizzard. This meant that on Monday, not only were there more people because of the snow, but on top of that there were 600,000 people displaced by the non-functional A and C lines.
Needless to say, the subways were quite crowded. There was one good interaction yesterday between a regular rider and a displaced rider in which the later pissed off the former. It ended with the regular yelling at the man and suggesting that he “not piss me off first thing in the morning” and to “adjust yo-self right now! Preriod!” I couldn’t help but laugh. The man turned and faced the other direction and everyone went back to reading their books. Even better was yesterday afternoon when a woman felt the need to use the aluminum side of the subway car to… inspect the buggers in her nose. It’s one thing to use the reflective properties of the inside of the train to make sure your hair and makeup are okay, but a full on investigative search of one’s nasal cavities doesn’t qualify. She went at it between 4th and 34th. I suppose it goes to show how much New Yorker’s really just don’t care what people think.
If anyone wants any apple crisp, I know where to find it. Sunday we had a bunch of extra apples lying around, so Paul decided to make an apple crisp. Nice enough. Tasty.
Monday night Br. Ed cooked. His mode of cooking consists of emptying the fridge and “recreating” what’s there. This is often dangerous, but he pulls it off. So what does he do for dessert? He re-serves Paul’s apple crisp (fair enough) but he adds half of a week old apple pie and breakfast cereal and mixes it all up and reserves it… actually it wasn’t too bad.
Now mind you that Br. JP wasn’t paying attention on Sunday and wasn’t there on Monday, so you have to give him the benefit of the doubt, but… what did we have for Tuesday night dessert??? You guessed it… Apple crisp!!! Only this time it was made with three month old rice crispies, mini wheats, and unpeeled apples stacked high on top (by which I mean overflowing). When I saw it before dinner my immediate remark to Clare was “what the heck’s with all the apple crisp… it’s not even apple season!” Bill, at dessert time, made the exact same comment… Clare and I burst out laughing. JP, boasting that he too had used old products in his apple crisp, said that he used up the box of mini wheats that had been around for “so long” without “being eaten”. Br. Bill ran to the cabinet and yelled at JP, “Not being eaten! JP, I had them for breakfast this morning. You’ve got two boxes of Raisin Bran that are yours and you use my one box of Mini Wheats! What am I supposed to eat tomorrow!” You’ve got to understand that JP is a special person. You just have to laugh and smile and move on with life. There are some things in life that are certain: death, taxes, JP serving dinner a minimum of thirty minutes late, some form of potato with his meals, and whatever he serves… there will be lots and lots and lots of it (thirteen large pieces of chicken last night. There were only four of us at dinner.)
I'm cooking tonight so I thought about going for a grand slam and fixing more apple crisp tonight, but seeing as we’re low on apples and the only cereal left is raisin bran, I am opting for Bananas Foster. When is banana season anyway?