Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I didn't get out of Boston as early as I'd hoped today: having thought originally of the 3 or 3:30 bus, then tried to aim for 4:00 after adrian_turtle pointed out the value of lunch, I missed the 4:30 bus because it filled about 4 people ahead of me in line, and thus left Boston about 5:00. I expected to get to Port Authority around ten, and thus home 11, and was grateful that cattitude offered to hold dinner that late.

Then we got a "20 minute" rest stop somewhere near Hartford that turned into 30. Not good. But the traffic was good, and we wound up crossing upper Manhattan on 145th Street. At St. Nicholas I was thinking "that's my subway station" (it's not, except that any A station is my station). At 125th and Amsterdam, a few of my fellow passengers persuaded the driver to let them out on the corner. I asked if I could get out as well, distentangled my pack from the overhead bin, and hopped off to an urging to hurry. A moment to orient myself, and it's two long blocks back east to St. Nicholas. I was home at 9:30, which is around the time I'd have hoped to be at Port Authority if I'd gotten the 4:30 bus.

I got down to the uptown platform at 125th, saw a man taking his jacket off, and followed his example, and we chatted about how warm it was down there.

It's amazing how much time you save, on the way home to Inwood, if you can get out at Harlem rather than go down to 42nd Street.

I wouldn't have tried this sort of maneuver just anywhere--but this is New York, this is a main street on a warm fall evening, and I'd spent quite long enough sitting on a bus with no reading light.

Greyhound did well by me this weekend.

On the way up to Boston, instead of going along I-95 (NYC-New Haven) and then turning north to Hartford and Boston, the driver went up 287 to 684. This was the unofficial Westchester County/Western Connecticut Fall Foliage Tour, lots of yellow trees, and some orange and red ones, and red bushes, and quite a bit of green still, such that I was annoyed when they put a movie on somewhere near Hartford not so much because it wasn't a very good movie, but because the movie images reflected in the bus windows interfered with my looking at the trees.

adrian_turtle and I did a little wandering yesterday along the Bikeway, which was again yellow trees, red bushes, and green grass, just getting chilly in late afternoon. Looking out her window this morning, under a gray sky, the yellow leaves definitely said "it's fall," though it was quite warm again when I got to Harlem and Inwood this evening.

[We had an excellent time, and I'm not going to post further details of either the conversation or what we did in between conversations.]

The good news is that the tingling in my left hand and arm has gone away. Or maybe not: about five minutes after posting this, I had a tingling on the outside (pinky) edge of that hand.

The not so good news is that the fingernail I was worried about detached itself almost entirely while I was in a restaurant bathroom this afternoon; I've bandaged it, on the theory that even an almost-detached fingernail is probably better protection than nothing at all. I am going to take papersky's suggestion and stock up on cloth band-aids, and adrian_turtle's advice and look for some loose-fitting mittens so I won't have to put snug gloves over it while it heals.