Thousand Word Thursday — The Garden State

April 8, 2016!

Friday Photos 2 : The Art of the Word

I was walking up Sixty-first street with my wife and children last night when I saw something laying on the ground. I giggled a bit when I read the words on the small piece of cardboard that lay there.

In case you can’t read it, it says “Shut up and mind your own Stupid Business Zone!” It also prominently features a large smiley face. I had to pick it up. Looking on the back, I was greeted with basically the same image.

Same words. Both sides of the card seem to be signed. I almost wonder if the person who wrote these words was hoping that the card would be discovered, his or her own work of art as it were.

A bit later, I went to the train station and discovered sitting on the escalator a business card that had some writing on the back.

It’s a pretty straight forward grocery list. It starts off with muenster cheese, perhaps misspelled. It goes on to list a rather generic pasta and then canola oil and either olive or olive oil. Lastly — whole wheat muffin. Just the one, then? Presumably they mean to buy a package of six.

It brings to mind a similar card I found when walking to work — it’s a bit funny how things work. You make a list of food to buy and then dispose of the list when you are done. It no longer holds any meaning for you. But just look at this next list…

I love that it starts with the location of the supermarket.

Perhaps this is not so much a list as two things that a person needs to buy in order to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly. I am surprised, however, that bread does not make an appearance on this list. Perhaps the person who got the list needed specifics for the peanut butter and jelly but not for the bread.

Lastly, graffiti. I have seen a lot of graffiti art on priority mail labels.

Why is this? Perhaps people are bold enough to leave their tags, but not so bold as to take the time to put them down with the possibility of being caught in the act?

Friday Photos 1 – The Signal Problems that Made an Adventure!

The MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) has many issues, of which old equipment that breaks often is but one. Yesterday afternoon on my way to meet up with my wife and children, the train I was riding came to an abrupt halt. We were informed repeatedly that there were significant signal problems and that workers were doing their best to get them repaired. It got so bad that when we finally got to the next station stop, they advised us all to walk to another stop entirely and take the 7 train and then switch back to the F. It was the start of a little adventure!

I had no idea how to get to that train station but it was a bit comforting knowing that hundreds of people were all going to be going to that very same station and that I had that many people to lead me there. Fewer decisions make for a less tired brain.

Indeed, quite a few people were leading the way!

I laughed when I saw this sign. I have no idea what its purpose is meant to be — selling cucumbers?

This is one of the prettiest subway stations I have seen in Queens.

The entrance to the station was actually a little tucked away. From the sidewalk at a distance, you would have thought that Dunkin’ Donuts was having a sale on coffee yesterday from how it looked like people were streaming into it. They were not — they were going to the station.

As an above-ground train station (yes, dear readers — some subway tracks are in fact more like superways — above the ground!) there were two sets of stairs — the first to the 7 train going back to Manhattan, and the subsequent one going up to the train going further into Queens.

This was quite an extraordinary coat. Impressive, really.

As I left the 7 train and went to the R train, I was reminded of how fortunate I am to be able to freely take the train and experience delays.

Friday Photos 12 – Contrasts

I was walking home from the synagogue this morning and was thinking about how strange it was, being the twenty-fifth of December and not having a thick cap on my head, a scarf, or even a winter coat — and instead having the kind of jacket I wear during the spring. I then saw this :

I couldn’t help but think that the snowman must have been pretty disappointed to be in this kind of a weird place — but then again, I imagine people who regularly have warm Decembers (the southern hemisphere comes to mind — people in Australia must be having a good laugh about how similar our weather must appear!) still put symbols of the winter holidays in their yard even if they get no actual snow.

There are a lot of yards like this in my neighborhood — places where the leaves on trees started to fall, but then stopped abruptly when the weather warmed.

It’s almost as though the trees were dropping their leaves because that is what they would normally do, and when the warm weather came they thought perhaps it was a really abbreviated winter and decided to allow the rest of the leaves to stay on. I do realize that plastic snowmen and trees do not actually have the same kind of thought process that we do, but you know what I mean.

I have been walking past this wooden fence for at least four or five years now. It was originally two plots of land that were left unfinished and undeveloped, but then one of them had a house built on it. It was a process that took over two years from start to finish — though it still doesn’t seem as though anybody lives there.

Lastly, this strange symbol on a mailbox — on that long standing fence. It is a bit strange and I cannot decipher it, so I turn to you — the good people of the Internet, to help me interpret it. Is it a name? Is it a message? Does the message ask the person, “If you can read this, post me on Instagram?”

Thousand Words Friday 12 — Global Weirding

Friday Photos 11 – The Loud Quiet Trip

This weekend I am going to be at my mother’s house in New Jersey. We try to visit about once a month or so, though next month our schedules won’t align so we won’t be able to see her until February.

If a person wanted to, they could meet a new interesting person every day – especially if that person lived in New York. Between the people that live here and tourists, it’s improbable to ever get bored.

The curious thing about New Jersey Transit is that, despite how many people use it daily, there is but one tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York as far as trains are concerned. This can lead to some pretty bad delays especially if there is a breakdown on the tracks.

You’ll note the sign says front of the train although this turned out to be the back of the train. This is because the MTA also uses these same platforms for Long Island Railroad trains.

When possible, I like to sit in the first or last cars because in theory, they are the quiet cars – no loud conversations are allowed, people are asked to turn down their music, and mobile phone calls should not be made. Again, in theory. The last time I took a quiet car, people in the train acted as enforcer of the rules and silenced anyone who dared to defy them.

I gave up trying to peacefully read after the third person got on her mobile and started loudly chatting about her plans to efficiently make a gasoline substitute using only slugs and cigarette butts… kidding. It was of course a completely useless conversation concerning the self, a private moment that should not have been made public – especially not on the quiet car!

That last photo, by the way, is a person conducting business — business! on the quiet car. As I write this I have relocated on the train to what I had hoped would be a quieter spot… but another phone call has begun…

Thousand Words Friday 11 – Pharmacy Soldier

Friday Photos 10 – Perspective

The seasons change and summer turns to fall, threatening a cold winter yet yielding the odd warmer day — el niño? Trees shed their leaves and turn bare reminding us that even a large majestic tree will change form and beauty.

We pass one another, often wordlessly, like trains on parraelel tracks. We have our destinations and they do as well.

There are few promises that are everlasting and nearly no unshatterable guarantees. What is ours can be lost in the blink of an eye.

It behooves us to cherish what we have while we have it.

We never know when the tide may turn against us.

Thousand Words Friday 10 – Leaf Carpet