Lately, I've been preparing for my upcoming cruise, and trying to get as many things in order before flying to California. I had been thinking of buying a camera for this trip and realized that it wouldn't make sense because I usually get good enough pictures on my cell phone and realized that that the DSLR camera I already own is gathering dust on one of my shelves. (In my defense, the camera doesn't take SD memory cards, lenses aren't made for this camera line any more, and the rig is bulky as hell.)
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Yesterday, I decided to look at cameras on Amazon and found that most of the inexpensive rigs would take more than 2 days to be delivered to my house. (I wasn't going to pay extra for 1 day delivery.) This was unacceptable, and was one of the main reasons I started to think differently about buying a new camera. For the most part, this was an unneeded expense, like my drive to the family homestead I took.
Why am I mentioning my drive to the family homestead?
My brother and I own a house that we've been renting out for years. This year, our tenant left, and the place has been vacant since January. There were upgrades we needed to make to the house, such as replacing the water heater, replacing leaking gas pipes and replacing the washer/dryer in the basement, that had to be done before we could rent the place out again. While we were doing this, another "might as well" came into play - we repaired and painted the basement walls, then redid the electric wiring and lighting to make it appear as an almost finished basement. Yet, my brother forgot one thing: Did he make sure that the fire extinguisher was back in the kitchen before the final inspection. So, I took 4 hours out of my life to find out that the extinguisher was in place when I could have spent it doing something more enjoyable.
There was no way I could do anything else that day. I had to open up a co-op board meeting specially held to interview 2 applicants to purchase apartments. This kept me from doing what I would have liked to have done - having one last evening by myself before 2+ weeks of being in the constant presence of others.
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Today, I had only one thing on my docket: seeing an acquaintance I met on the first post Covid shutdown cruise I took in late 2021. J, as I'll call her here is a retiree who can afford to take several cruises each year, including at least 1 from a bucket list category. We have been in very loose communications over the past 3 years, and we had another opportunity to meet again - She's going on a cruise that sails out of New York tomorrow, and I'll be leaving for California the next day. But there is one problem. She's staying at an airport hotel. (Why she's not staying in Manhattan I'll never know.) So, this makes my journey to see her more complex, as I have to take Metro North to Grand Central, take the Long Island Railroad to Jamaica, and then the JFK Airtrain to the TWA Hotel where we planned to meet.
My friend was supposed to arrive in NYC at 9 am, but got bumped to a later flight. That worked out for her, as she didn't have to wait as long at the hotel to check into her room. I started down to the airport when she was checking in, and was lucky to catch an express train with a few minutes to spare. (It helped that some people were leaving early, and I found a parking spot within 50 feet of the parking meter kiosk.
With parking voucher in hand (I won't call it a ticket lest a reader get confused), I hopped onto the train (train ticket in hand), and made it to Grand Central at 3:45 pm. I had a little time to kill, and went to the LIRR concourse at 4:15 pm, catching the next train to Jamaica. It was easy to kill a few minutes in Jamaica (nothing much to see here, as the train station puts function over form), and then I caught the Airtrain to the airport. (The Port Authority still uses the obsolete Metrocard to pay for Airtrain rides, and will eventually shift to a "tap and go" system sometime in the next 12 months. But I digress....) Given that I was in the airport at 5 pm, I decided to go to the JetBlue terminal, then walk over to the TWA Hotel. Well, my friend made it to the Airtrain station earlier than I expected, and I trekked back to the Airtrain station to meet her.
We met around 5:30, and proceeded to the TWA hotel for dinner. This hotel was originally the TWA terminal at the airport and was decommissioned when American Airlines took over TWA. It didn't make sense to preserve this terminal for flights, as it couldn't handle today's jets. More importantly, this building is a landmark piece of architecture designed by Eero Saarinen. So, it made sense to turn the place into an expensive airport hotel and make the place a living history museum.
I didn't get the chance to explore the whole place - it was time for dinner, and I was hungry. We talked about cruising for the most part, and indirectly talked politics in a neutral way. (She pays no interest in politics, but understands why I'd have trouble with the current regime in DC. She loved the place, and was very glad that I suggested we eat there. Service at the restaurant was fast in the delivery of our food. Our water glasses were kept full. And they weren't in a rush to chase us out for more paying customers. So it was I who noted that it was 9:30 pm, and that I had to be on my way.
Hopefully, I'll see my friend soon on another cruise, or when she's in New York for some other reason.
PS: My friend is going on the same cruise as another friend from my Yonkers game night group. Hopefully, they will bump into each other and have a great time.
