Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is a bit of a day in the life of post, back to toys tomorrow! As ongoing readers know, a few weeks ago Kim and I packed kitties and a few bags and headed to our house at the Jersey shore for a few weeks. With a new job I don’t have a lot of vacation so I am commuting these first weeks.

My new digs for work are way over on York Avenue and 62nd – an ideal daily commute from our New York apartment and I walk to and from most days. Occasionally I hop on a slow moving bus that wanders up and down York – and then oddly meanders across 57th Street.

I am paying for my being a hop, skip and a jump from work with more than a month of a Jersey commute which is an hour and twenty minute train ride, with another twenty to thirty minutes on the subway and walking on the other end. It is a bit of a shock to the system – being at the mercy of the NJ transit system and back in the clutches of the Q train daily.

On the other hand, as I write this from my deck this Saturday morning I just saw a hummingbird take a long, long drink from a flowering tree and that is part of my summer reward. As I write, I am perched on my deck in full view of some ripening peppers and tomatoes. Cicadas buzz in the background.

It may be worth it but there is a cost for my slice of paradise! Our morning, always an early start, is even earlier. Cats (so many cats!) need to be fed, litterboxes cleaned and Blackie needs his shot. Kim tackles much of it but there’s a mad flurry of activity for a bit. The train ride in is an easy one and I get on early so always have a seat. As long as I don’t have an early appointment to make me crazy if the train has a hiccup, it is generally a time for some extra work or reading.

A friend christened my commute with a travel mug for my coffee, which I now fill religiously and think of her as I drink my piping hot coffee on the train. However, the other day in my enthusiasm I filled it too high and the steam popped the top. When I threw my bag onto my shoulder to run out the door hot coffee streamed down my back! Ouch and a pause to change my top layer (and put some soap on it so it wouldn’t stain!) and I was out the door. My back smarted all the way to work and I couldn’t take my jacket off as my tank had a coffee stain on the back! I have learned my lesson and I both allow to cool and don’t fill quite so ambitiously.

This route to and from the city is a well worn one of course and I have been traveling it on and off since reaching adulthood. It was the first and last leg on my trips to and from college for the holidays. Eventually it was the trip I took to visit my folks once I was living in New York, and ultimately to my dad in hospice during his long illness. Aside from the time of the pandemic (I have written about my time taking the ferry here) and just beyond when I indulged in a car to and from my increasingly lengthy visits to mom during her illness, the train was my main conveyance here and back. (I wrote about those trips with a lovely comfort dog, Cash, here.)

The trip on the Jersey side starts out with water and woods. A third or more of the way there, houses start to emerged and are closer together, over some marshland (my mom used to talk about the wildlife in those marshes!) and then it becomes increasingly urban. Before you know it you are in Elizabeth and Newark and then the City is in sight before a ride through a tunnel (used to terrify me as a kid, these tunnels) where my ears pop, and then into Penn Station on the other side.

Of course the trip back is the same in reverse going back. Getting to the train is always more stressful in the evening and I struggle with the discipline to get out of the office with enough time to do the reverse path to the train. It is generally boarding when I get there (unless delayed) and I hop on in the nick of time. The evening by necessity is more work filled as I have left things I can deal with on the train for that time and it is largely work time.

Weather permitting a quickly assembled dinner can be had on the deck – twinkling lights on and Radio Dismuke (more about that here) playing popular standards of the 20’s and 30’s. Tempting to stay up, but an early to bed with the early to rise to commute on the horizon again!