The Week
Well, hallelujah and give praise to Bejesus, the NYC Transit Strike of '05 is officially over and the city is now attempting to get back to normal (if anything here was ever normal to begin with).

I managed to get myself stuck out in Bushwick for the first day of the strike. I tell people this and they all say, "What? How did you not know about the strike? Don't you watch the news?!" Well, yes, I try my best to keep up with the news (though I rarely get it from the TV these days) and I pride myself on being well-informed, but I have a fairly good excuse for what happened.

I drove home to Braintree early Saturday morning to do Christmas prep work around the house and to organize/bring in all the gifts for the homeless veteran my family adopted this year for the holidays. I didn't check my email, the internet, or a TV news show while I was gone. The strike didn't happen on Friday, so I assumed they were just going to talk it out.

I drove back to NY late Sunday night, got in well after midnight and quickly hit the sack for I had work early next morning. I got home from work around 7 that night and promptly went to bed for a 4.5 hour nap (I was exhausted). I woke up around 1230, made some dinner, watched an episode of The West Wing, and banged out my last set of Christmas cards.

When I was walking downstairs in my building the next morning, I thought it was a little odd that the kids on the first floor were still hanging out in the hallways at 8am, but I shook it off and figured they were skipping school as I hastily made my way to the post office (those cards needed prompt sending and I was fresh out of stamps!).

After my postal business, I walked to my train station and saw it all closed and chained up. I thought, "Hmm, maybe the strike DID happen." Just to be sure, I walked to the next station and saw the same thing, and then I knew there was no way I'd be able to get into work for the day. Sure, I have a car, but who wants to drive into that madness? I would still need 3 other people in the car with me just to get over a bridge onto the island.

So I took the day off, watched all the Strike coverage on TV, got a lot of work done around the apartment, and sent out all my emailed Christmas cards. I'd say it was a rather productive day!

Once the evening rush hour ended, I packed a bag and hopped into my car with my roommate, Adam, as we ventured into Manhattan, where we both figured we'd be staying until the strike ended. Luckily, his girlfriend lives in the lower east side, and Nick lives by Union Sq., so we both had places to stay the rest of the week.

We had some out-of-this-world turkey burgers and fries at Nick's Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning I made the 30-minute trek from 18th and 3rd to 36th and 7th to my new temp job (Which so far has been great, by the way. Transit Strike + Week Before Christmas= Many people gone and very little to do). It was a cold walk on Wednesday, but I can't complain. People who had to walk across a bridge and then uptown or those who had to hike downtown from the upper east or west sides really had it bad.

I went out to finish up my Christmas shopping during my lunch hours and after work, and it was so bewildering to see these big stores on 5th and 6th avenue right near Times Sq. with their doors closed and the lights turned off in prime-shopping time with only a few days till Christmas. Even though I was away in Cyprus during the 2003 blackout and I didn't get to experience that first-hand, this 3-day strike probably activated a lot of similar memories from those electric-less 36 hours two and a half years ago.

I spent Wednesday night up at Danielle's place, who fortunatly lives only a few blocks from where I work. We just hung out, ate great Chinese food, and ponched out on the sofa for most of the night watching TV, which was exactly what I felt like doing. God, I needed that. Unfortunately, her place was northwest of my office, so my walk back to Nick's was even longer. But I wasn't alone- even at midnight there were people walking, biking, and rollerblading all over the city.

Nick, done with all his week's work at NBC, and Emily skipped town Thursday morning on the MetroNorth train up to her parent's house in Westport, where they hopped in a car and drove the rest of the way up to Braintree. I had some last-minute calendar shopping to do after work, and then I hiked back home. Thankfully it's progressively warmed up over the last 3 days, so Tuesday's teen temperatures and hellacious winds (which are the real killers, people!) were replaced by temps in the 30s and a calm urban breeze. Still, when I got back to the apartment, fatigue came upon me like the plague and I had to nap it out for an hour. I watched a little of my netflixed 24 last night with Ponch lying across me (she rarely shuts up with the meowing anymore- it can really drive you mad after a while. Wat once was a cute and endearing personality quirk has quickly become grounds for pet-homicide) and called it a night.

Today, they're letting everyone in the office out early at 3:15. It's better than 5, but I'm still not going to be able to get a good jump on the traffic that will soon seize all of NYC's outbound roadways. I have to subway it back to Nick's, load my stuff, the cat, and a bunch of their bags of Christmas presents into my car (3 trips right there) and then drive out to my Brooklyn apartment, where I'll have to load up my cat and anything else I need to bring home with me for the weekend to Braintree. I don't see me hitting the road home till 5, right in the heart of rush hour...on a Friday...2 days before Christmas. The 4-hour drive definitely ain't gonna be 4 hours today. If I can make it home by 10:30 I'll be satisfied.