It was an odyssey to get to New Jersey. I was planning to take the 6 to the E and arrive at Penn Station. Well, it didn't work out that way. I took the 6 only to find out the E wasn't running. So then I took the 4 one stop to Grand Central, the S one stop to Times Square, and the 2 one stop south to Penn. Way too much work.
I took an early train to New Brunswick, and I
passed Metuchen and Edison along the way. I got a little sentimental, I hadn't been in those towns in six or seven years. I was playing "Jersey girl" and "Jersey boy" on my iPod. My father has a place with a "friend" near Rutgers university. Seems to be happy. I checked the flights homebound and saw the Newark ones were filling up. LaGuardia still had some space and twice the number of flights so I figured I'd go there Sunday morning.
We headed back into Manhattan and went to Brother Jimmy's BBQ. The best thing I can say is they played great music, a lot of southern rock. The brisket was mediocre at best. It was stringy. The letdown was the terrible cornbread. I'll say it for the last time. Corn kernels have no business in cornbread! The Carolina sauce was straight vinegar, I had to add regular barbecue sauce to make the pulled pork sandwich taste decent.
The fried brussels sprouts were really good. Dad had never been a fan of Brussels sprouts, but he enjoyed these. The beans had a nice flavor, but could have been thicker in consistency. This is definitely not a pace I'd return to.
We took a tour of Madison Square Garden, going through the concourses, Chase bridges, Rangers and Knicks locker rooms, suites, and arena floor. It was really a great experience to get so up close and personal with the Mecca.
We went down to Greenwich village, to walk around. I wanted to go to Wogie's, a Philly themed bar. But he wasn't hungry. Instead, we walked through a street festival. We got to a fruit stand. Dad wanted watermelon, but I didn't. And he took it personally that I didn't want it. These are the discussions with my father that make my moments with him so frustrating at times.
Halfway through the 30 block north, it started raining. I wanted to go to different restaurants, but we wound up back at Nathan's where I had two hot dogs and crinkle cut fries. They're some of the best dogs in the world, but it wasn't what I wanted at that time.
So we got to rainy Citi Field for the Mike Piazza jersey retirement ceremony. It was a fantastic ceremony, even with the Piazza themed tarp on the field. The train slowed to barely a sprinkle and as soon as the ceremony ended, it rained again.
After three innings, that crap game was over too. This season has spiraled completely out of control. With a few days to look book, I'm disgusted the Mets traded their second baseman of the future for another left handed outfielder who strikes out a lot and can't play defense.
We got back to New Brunswick and I figured I'd check the flights again. With rain in the area, I wanted to be sure I could get on a plane in the middle of the day. And what did I see waiting for me? Nothing but red flights all over New York. I knew right then that breakfast and bagels were not happening on Sunday. I had to get to LaGuardia as early as I could.
So on my 35th birthday, we left at 5 am and I got to Newark airport around 5:40 a.m. I was the first one there actually, aside from the one guy sleeping on four chairs. The counter didn't open for another twenty minutes and by that time the lobby was filled. There must have been 30 people and I had a feeling a bunch of them were there for the same reason I was.
I paid $31 and I got on the first shuttle, which left around 7. The van was totally full with even people. We got to Kennedy airport in about a half hour. On the way, we passed over the Verrazano bridge and went into Brooklyn. It felt only right that I was near my grandparents old house on that day.
We arrived at LGA around 8:30 a.m. I was set up for a 12:29 flight. I could have picked a earlier flight at 10:30, but I figured I'd be safe since you never know how these shuttles will go. So I checked my bag in and got through security. But something caught my eye when I was checking in. I checked the departure board and saw that the 6:45 a.m. flight to Chicago never went out, it was delayed.
I knew this terminal had a rebooking center, so I headed over to list myself on an earlier flight. I also listed myself as a D1, which as a standby, gives me higher priority than my typical D2. I get six D1s a year and this was a time to play that card. After waiting maybe a half hour for two guys, it was my turn. She moved me to the earliest flight. Apparently it was delayed because one of the flight attendants went MIA. And that's not Miami. When I got to gate D7, the boarding had just begun. On the standby list, I was #11 out of maybe 18. About half the people were on, but it wasn't happening in order. Numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 13 were on. So at this point I had no idea how many people were getting on this plane or what the criteria were.
I navigated through the crowd of people to get to the counter, I wanted to let the agent know I was there. She seemed a little annoyed, not with me, but that the rebooking center was adding more people to the flight and it was going on after they should have been let on. Within three minutes, I had a boarding pass, seat 14C. I gave a big fist pump as I headed down the ramp. Sure I had to wait a couple of hours for my bag, but that's well worth it.
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