Two Parking Lots Pop

Everyone is tired.  Everyone slept well.  I assumed one of us would get bounced to business but miraculously we all did.  I’m still not sure how that happened and was too tired to ask.  We get our luggage and confirm that across the traffic there’s a place where the busses Grand Central stop for people.  I wait in line for fifteen minutes before the guy at the head o the line near the clapboard tells me I need to go inside to buy tickets.  “By the Dunkin’ Doughnuts.  Turn right.”  The bus better not come while I’m waiting to buy the tickets.  It doesn’t.

Forty first street is blocked off by the police, so the driver takes a detour and places us across from the main Grand Central entrance on Forty Third Street.  Schlepping.  I’m carrying two of their enormous suitcases into station and down to the automated ticket booth.  We have forty minutes to kill and I suggest we head to Starbucks where the line to order isn’t long but the line to pick up is daunting.  The barista and another argue over whether or not the guy who just stormed off was justified in being frustrated.

The train heading north isn’t too crowded.  We wait on the heat of the tracks for the doors to open.  An incoming train disgorges its passengers and suddenly we are mobbed with people stepping around our luggage.  Still, our doors don’t open, until finally, we are embraced by the air conditioning inside.  These bags will never it on the overhead racks but fortunately we find a set with two couches facing one another and place all we have by our knees and out of the way of the passengers who make their way up the aisle. 

Last stop, Poughkeepsie.  It’s a very good thing there is an elevator.  Up above, my father, who’d agreed to meet us is confused about precisely where he is supposed to meet us.  “I’m in the parking lot.”  There are two parking lots pop.”  “There’s a police car.” “Are you under the highway bridge or down closer to the river?”  He doesn’t know.  I take a guess.  I better be right.  I’m not heading downstairs only to head back up again.  He’s there.  So is my mom.  We pack up the two cars and head on off. 

At the house I have a call.  Everyone else is moving clothes into their room and walking around the house.  I’m out on the porch talking with a colleague to someone I’ve never met in London, just like I said I would, at this time about his business and what he hopes to do in Asia.  By the time I’m done, my folks are ready to leave. 

Wednesday, 8/28/19