Blogging daily isn’t a habit yet but it’s getting there; it’s part of my effort at self-care. Yesterday I returned to another element of what used to be my daily routine, I took a walk. My plan was to go to the New York Botanical Garden. When I got there, I discovered it was closed on Mondays. I’m going to try again today. I didn’t turn tail and go home, I planned a walked that I thought would be four miles. I was close, It was 3.85 miles. It would have been four, but the one stopped at the supermarket, forgot to buy the thing I went in for, but did buy ice cream. I had to get home before it melted so I couldn’t walk the last bit I had planned. I had thought of walking through the Bronx Forest, but it had been raining and that trail gets very muddy. I’ll save it for another day. I hope I can maintain the habit of daily walks. It’s good for both my physical and mental health.
I have one chore related to losing my wallet to do. I have a new debit card, but I am not getting the senior half-priced transit fairs with it. I found out that I don’t have to go all the way to the southern tip of Manhattan to link the new card like I did when I first signed up. They can make changes at a number of subway stations, including 161st street Yankee Stadium which is both of the subway lines near my house. When I went to see Rainbow Girls Sunday night I stopped there to take care of it. My timing was unfortunate, the Yankee Game had just let out, the place was a madhouse. It’s amazing how many people don’t buy their MetroCard or OMNY before the game. Back when I used MetroCards I never left my home station without enough money on the card for the return trip. Some of these might be out-of-towners who don’t know better. Luckily you can no longer by MetroCards at what used to be token booths but are now service centers. That’s where I needed to go. The problem the crowd caused was that it was so loud the clerk, and I had trouble hearing each other. I gave him my license and he did all the prep work that was needed, finding my account and verifying that it was me. Then I had to go over to where the chip reading machine was. That’s how OMNY works, you use the chip on your card, or your phone’s wallet app. I tapped my phone. Nothing happened. I tapped my card, nothing happened. I handed him my card and he brought it over to the machine from inside the booth. I couldn’t see what he was doing but I saw something was wrong. We went back to the window where we could talk but I couldn’t make out what was wrong. I was afraid it was a problem with my card. It took a few minutes, but he finally was able to covey to me that the machine was broken. He said I should come back another time. The next time I’m using the subway is tomorrow, I’m going to the Met game. I don’t want to pay another full fare. I got spoiled.
I’m not feeling comfortable enough with the blogging yet to return to my more political and philosophical posts. I’m not up to the confrontations. I just wrote and deleted a paragraph longer than what I’ve written so far. It was about a common flaw in human nature, but that’s now how I want to start blogging about ideas. When I get a positive inspiration, not something to complain about, I’ll write about that. For now, you’ll have to be satisfied by this short piece.
Wise Madness 