Any pond in a desert...
Well since no one else has written a blog for about a month I thought I’d better do one…
Here in New York they have two free newspapers, AM NY and Metro. Both of them compete for the most widely read newspaper, which is greatly helped by the fact that every weekday morning they put people at every entrance to the subway on Manhattan (not sure about the other boroughs) to hand out the free papers. The people are always nice, and say ‘have a great day’ or something similar when you take a paper from them. They are always smiling, despite the time of morning or the cold. They are often loud (in a cheerful way) and will joke with you if you look like you have a sense of humour.
The other day Pen and I went ice skating at Bryant Park (which is free – Fish) in the afternoon. As we were walking to get the subway we passed one of these people handing out free papers. This was a little odd to start out with, as I have only ever seen them in the morning, and she was the only one there (usually there are two per subway entrance and we were near three or four entrances). We could hear her talking from a distance away, which is usual, but as we approached we realized that she did not sound too cheerful. We didn’t think much of it and started to walk past her. Then we heard her go ballistic at someone who had put their purse on her stack of papers. She was yelling things like “THAT’S NOT A TABLE” and “GET YOUR STUFF OFF THERE”. We thought this was a bit odd, as they are usually so happy. It then hit us what she was saying while we were approaching… “If anyone asks me directions again I’m charging them fifty bucks” and “I’m not here to answer questions”, and other not so cheerful remarks. I thought this was hilarious (like a Santa moving his knee before a kid sits on it or something), so I stopped to watch her for a little bit. It turns out that Pen and I must have been walking without paying attention, as everyone else was avoiding her like the plague (which is not easy at Bryant Park, as it’s a busy part of town).
I thought it was so funny that I wanted a photo of her, but I thought she’d yell at me if she caught me. So I made Pen stand next to a bush or something and I had my camera phone out looking like I was going to take a photo of Pen. Then when she turned her back I swung around and took a shot of her!
Last week I worked as an IT geek at Pen’s school (I also taught 3rd grade history for fun… what do I know about 3rd graders or history!). Pen walks to work, so I walked with her last week. On the way we passed a supermarket that had a gingerbread display in the window. It was huge; there was a little village, a sled with reindeer, trees, and gingerbread men hanging from the roof. I won’t describe it too much, you can see the photo, but this was just a normal supermarket, not a big fancy store or anything. Amazing.
We’re doing a music video for Christmas, so if we know you and you would like one please e-mail us (if you click the link on this page then it comes from anonymous and you won’t get one).
Here in New York they have two free newspapers, AM NY and Metro. Both of them compete for the most widely read newspaper, which is greatly helped by the fact that every weekday morning they put people at every entrance to the subway on Manhattan (not sure about the other boroughs) to hand out the free papers. The people are always nice, and say ‘have a great day’ or something similar when you take a paper from them. They are always smiling, despite the time of morning or the cold. They are often loud (in a cheerful way) and will joke with you if you look like you have a sense of humour.
The other day Pen and I went ice skating at Bryant Park (which is free – Fish) in the afternoon. As we were walking to get the subway we passed one of these people handing out free papers. This was a little odd to start out with, as I have only ever seen them in the morning, and she was the only one there (usually there are two per subway entrance and we were near three or four entrances). We could hear her talking from a distance away, which is usual, but as we approached we realized that she did not sound too cheerful. We didn’t think much of it and started to walk past her. Then we heard her go ballistic at someone who had put their purse on her stack of papers. She was yelling things like “THAT’S NOT A TABLE” and “GET YOUR STUFF OFF THERE”. We thought this was a bit odd, as they are usually so happy. It then hit us what she was saying while we were approaching… “If anyone asks me directions again I’m charging them fifty bucks” and “I’m not here to answer questions”, and other not so cheerful remarks. I thought this was hilarious (like a Santa moving his knee before a kid sits on it or something), so I stopped to watch her for a little bit. It turns out that Pen and I must have been walking without paying attention, as everyone else was avoiding her like the plague (which is not easy at Bryant Park, as it’s a busy part of town).
I thought it was so funny that I wanted a photo of her, but I thought she’d yell at me if she caught me. So I made Pen stand next to a bush or something and I had my camera phone out looking like I was going to take a photo of Pen. Then when she turned her back I swung around and took a shot of her!
Last week I worked as an IT geek at Pen’s school (I also taught 3rd grade history for fun… what do I know about 3rd graders or history!). Pen walks to work, so I walked with her last week. On the way we passed a supermarket that had a gingerbread display in the window. It was huge; there was a little village, a sled with reindeer, trees, and gingerbread men hanging from the roof. I won’t describe it too much, you can see the photo, but this was just a normal supermarket, not a big fancy store or anything. Amazing.
We’re doing a music video for Christmas, so if we know you and you would like one please e-mail us (if you click the link on this page then it comes from anonymous and you won’t get one).
posted by Penny Ryder at 2:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home