Rainy days and Mondays

They don't get me down.
This rainy Monday started out with a misty walk in the park.




Friendly new buds on the trees.




Spotted some happy tulips (yes, these really were tulips... I think) just off 5th Avenue.




And how could a day not be great when it ends with a Shack burger and an Upper West Slide? The secret to no line at the Shack is going in the middle of a downpour. It was a fun FHE date.



Happy Monday!

Rainy weekend

These are the flowers Klane gave me at the airport last week.
They have found their home on our windowsill, and I think they're quite pretty.

Unfortunately I seem to bring bad weather with me wherever I go. Manhattan finally had a week of beautiful weather on the exact days I was in Utah, then as soon as I got home it started raining!

The pouring rain and gale-force winds made for a cosy weekend spent mostly indoors. We watched movies and snuggled and drank hot chocolate and ate Costco frozen food like potstickers and chicken bakes. (I am going grocery shopping today.) The only time either of us left the apartment was on Saturday when I ran outside to take out the trash. I was pretty much soaked in a matter of seconds, and any plans I'd previously had of a Saturday night out quickly vanished.

Now it is Monday, my beloved day off. I have successfully wasted the first half of my day iChatting with my parents, surfing blogs and sweeping my floors. I think I'm going to get down to business now and hopefully do the laundry, clean the house, go grocery shopping, take Klane lunch, and go running. Today is supposed to be day one of my half-marathon training schedule. We'll see how that goes... I am a fairweather runner and I'm just beginning to realize that training in New York in the Spring will involve a lot of running in the rain. Yikes. Can I do this?

Stories from the Subway

I spend almost an hour down there every day. A lot goes on in the subway. Here are a few little moments.

One perk of working on a holiday like MLK day: Look how empty the train was in the morning! No problem getting a seat!


The other day on the way home (on another unusually empty train) I noticed this guy. He had flowers and a big bag of groceries and another little bag. I liked to imagine he was going home to make a romantic homemade dinner for his girl, and give her flowers and a gift to top it off. :)


On my way home today. Typical, semi-crowded train.


Looking out the subway car window, onto the platform at 59th St.

Almost every day on my way home, I happen to get on a train with the same conductor. You may ask, "But how can you possibly know it's the same person?" Actually, this guy has a very distinctive voice and way of announcing the stops. He kind of drags out the words, and his voice goes up and down. It is definitely the same guy. It's funny, but I've become so accustomed to his voice that I notice if it's not him when I get on my train home. It's become a part of my daily life to hear "my" conductor on the way home. It's almost comforting!

Today I took a video of one of the stops, so you can hear my conductor. We need to give him a name.

Aww, he's so cute.

But think about this for a second. B and D trains come by every 3 to 7 minutes during rush hour. That's a lot of trains! What are the odds that I would get the same conductor every day? I don't get to the platform at exactly the same time every evening. I like to think about where this guy starts out every evening, to put him at my platform at the right time every day. It's so cool that in a city of millions of people, you can cross paths with the same people multiple times. I wonder how often that happens with random people (you know, not MTA workers) and you never even realize it...

I like this picture. We're all in this together.

A Day in the Life

I've posted so much less lately. I'm sorry. But it's because there's not a lot going on around here besides commuting and working to post about. We've become accustomed to life in New York, now it seems normal that we live here. But I realized that to a lot of you, riding the subway to work is not a regular occurrance. And so I took some pictures along the way today to show you what my day is like.

I wake up, get ready, and head to the subway. If I leave at 8:14 I can get a seat on the B train. If I leave at 8:16 I end up standing on a crowded C train, and I have to transfer at 59th Street. I try to catch the B.



I spend the day at work here:



I LOVE MY JOB. I love it. I. LOVE. IT. (Not Tuesday though.) I love working with kids. I love meeting all the interesting people that come in (even a few celebrities!). I love the people I work with. I love that I work in the same field as my dad. Today there were cupcakes to celebrate Kim and Lisa's birthdays. We sang. I chose chocolate with peanut butter frosting. I love my job.



I work in a nice neighborhood. Today I walked to a gourmet grocery store near my work to pick up some exotic ingredients that the Harlem stores don't carry, like.... canned enchilada sauce. I know. Africans aren't into mexican food, apparently.

I love the neighborhood. I love the buildings. So much character. So beautiful. I took some pictures on the walk.




who lives here? seriously! gorgeous!




(at this point I realized there was something smeared over the lens on my camera phone, cleaned it off, and the pictures became much clearer.)


lexington and 62nd street


fdny





lamp post



It gets dark around 4:45 this time of year. When I leave the office, the trees are lit up along Park Avenue. I hope they leave them all winter.



Back in the subway. More waiting for trains. I read a lot of blogs and books in the subway (perk of not being behind the wheel on my commute).



If I plan on cooking, I stop by the grocery store on the way home. It's usually quite crowded, or seems so because of how tiny it is. Two people can barely pass in the isles!


(there is no enchilada sauce here.)


You use a basket instead of a cart. you've got to carry all your goods home with you!

Then it's home to cook dinner. Sometimes I take pictures for the (neglected) food blog. We eat and chill out for the evening.



And the next day we do it all again! Woo hoo! Fun life! :) :) I really do love it. Even if it makes me so tired that all we do on the weekends is sit in bed with the computer for six hours on Saturday. Now you know what we're up to.