Rainey Blogs on Some Days

Anton Chekhov , the great Russian playwright, said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out." A couple of years ago, my oldest daughter took her written driving test at the Lodi Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) after a harrowing trip from our house to get there. We left home at 7:25am. Our goal was to leave at 7:15am. It was my fault because even the slightest variation to my daily routine completely throws me off, even though we were planning to leave even later than I normally do when I go to work. We were still OK leaving a little late because we needed to meet the driving instructor at 7:45am, but the trip to Lodi from Leonia should have only taken about 20 minutes on a normal day. But when we got on Route 46 West not far from our house, we immediately ran into a complete closure near the Pathmark in Fort Lee. I managed to get to the shoulder, exit into the Pathmark parking lot and hurry through sides streets in Pal Park so we cou...

Today I ordered my coffee at the Starbucks at 78th and Lexington on my lunch hour from training a new seasonal package helper. It's expensive on the Upper East Side , so each day I'm bringing my lunch, which I eat along with a coffee at Starbucks while I sit and look out the window at the people passing by. Today no seats were available in the store when I ordered—which I'm finding is quite common in Manhattan--but as I walked toward the rear of the store not knowing what to do, a woman with a baby in a stroller got up and left. We made eye contact and smiled, a mutual understanding of my good fortune of being at the right place at the right time. I went right over and took the seat, a nice leather bench against the wall. A job interview was in progress on my right—a twenty-something professional Jamaican man was being interviewed by a twenty-something American woman. He looks like a young Forest Whitaker , whom I had recently seen in the movie The Last King of Scotland . I...

On Wednesday, I sat down next to a woman in the Starbucks at 78 th and Lexington facing the window looking out. The Manhattan Starbucks are all so crowded that you have to sit next to someone. I took the one seat that was left at the window, grateful to get a seat because earlier in the week I had spent one lunch period squatting down leaning against a wall in another Starbucks, waiting for a seat while my feet fell asleep and tingled like crazy. The woman was feverishly journaling in a notebook, exactly the thing I had also intended to do during my lunch hour there too. I journal on a black steno pad that I carry around with me most of the time. I was wearing UPS browns, taking a break from training a new helper on how to deliver packages. Since it is New York, no one seemed to think it strange that a UPS guy was journaling on his steno pad. I can't remember ever seeing a man journaling anywhere , let alone a man wearing a UPS uniform as I was. But everyone just pretty much leav...