One Week Ago Today...................

                            Last Friday was part of David's staycation; we trekked out to Morris Plains, New Jersey, to visit our good friend, Marilyn, recently widowed.  Her daughter and son-in-law were in town, and they picked us up and drove us back to the train station.  It was a perfect day all around, until---

                           On the train trip back, we stopped at Chatham, and were delayed there.  An announcer told us that we would eventually go to Summitt, because a tree had fallen on the tracks and power lines, on our side, between Short Hills and Millburn.  At one point, we started forward, stopped halfway, as the train began to go backwards, scaring the hell out of me.  We held back in Chatham, while the situation was trying to be resolved.  Eventually, we were told the train would drop us off at Maplewood, where shuttle buses would be waiting to take us to that train station.  From there, a train would take us to Manhattan.

                           Getting to the shuttle buses was like something out of an escapee drama.  Of course, it did not come in the same direction as the others, so all had to run frantically, praying to get on, let alone a seat.  And when we got to Maplewood, it was worse.  We had to wait outside in the cold, the station was locked, so no rest areas, my bladder need release, and everyone was in a panic.  It was like that scene in "Doctor Zhivago," where Yuri and the Gromekos are fleeing Moscow to their place in the Ural Mountains.  And I did not even look like Julie Christie.  Hell, she wasn't even in that scene.

                               We waited for an hour, but it felt like four.  I had visions of staying in a nearby hotel, if we could find one.  Or crawling back home into our bed at three AM that morning.

                                The train came, and again, like film escapees, we piled on, getting a seat.  A trip that should have taken ninety minutes took three hours.  David and I were lucky.  It could have been worse--longer, or having the tree fall right on our train!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 Isn't public transportation wonderful, girls???????????????????

                                But, as Diana Ross sang in "Love Child," "I'll always looooooooooove you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"