Far out Queens

Yesterday I got on a succession of trains, and then a bus to get my Feline Forms stamped allowing me to take Manny to France. Unfortunately 2 hours into the journey to Queens still on the bus, I called their offices to say I would be late for my appointment but should only be about 20 minutes late. Whomever took the appointment overlooked the fact that it being Martin Luther King day, the offices would be closed. So I headed back to Manhattan having wasted four hours of my life in transit to disappointment.

Today I woke up confident that having gone through a dry run the day before, I'd have all the wrinkles of transfers and bus stops worked out. The bus dropped me off in a trucking cargo area, I followed the directions I'd emailed to myself from Hopstop.com hopefully headed towards Rockaway Pkwy, where I should take a left. The parkway had a pedestrian pathway that could not have been used in recent months or maybe years by any human person except perhaps to throw their trash or dump bodies. I could not see anything resembling a future intersection, but by this point I was determined to stay the course.

I reached another cargo trucking area center but this time the large lot had a few office buildings, the USDA was the first one, it took me literally one minute for the nice man who took my original appointment to stamp my papers and collect $35 precious dollars.

An hour later I arrived at the end of the subway line to return to my beloved Manhattan. At the end of the line there are two subway lines the J and the E. I had taken the E to far out Queens but I was thinking of having lunch at a dominican place I liked when working in the Lower East Side and the J would bring me there through Brooklyn, whereas the E would take me straight back to midtown Manhattan. The J train was waiting there and I got on the first empty train car with another couple, I planned to walk through a few cars to get to a more populated train car and I wanted to be in the middle of the train when I exited anyway. On the way towards the internal doors which lead to the next subway car rather than the platform the man that was part of a couple dropped a knife- his girlfriend looked at me an apologized with a smirk, and I carried on until I got to a car with a few more faces. Two minutes later the couple arrived and sat across from me, smiling.

Turns out I will be in the Lower East Side to meet my friend for Chris for a drink on Thursday- I could have dinner at the dominican place on Thursday- mission aborted. I left the train and headed upstairs in time to grab a populated E train car back to Manhattan.