Just me and Mr. Wright

This morning I had the bus to myself. Just me and Mr. Wright. That's the bus driver's name. I gave him a Christmas card last week. One morning a few months back as I was trekking to Broadway I saw the bus go by as I crossed West End; its another block up to 79th then a loooooooong block from West End to Broadway. I knew I missed the bus yet when I turned the corner onto Broadway there it was waiting. So you can see why I wanted to thank him.

I sat reading P.J. Parrish's Dark of the Moon, its really getting good after a slow start setting up the main character, til we got to 46 St. then I got up to get ready to get off and chatted with Mr. Wright as we made the turn onto 42nd St.

The building is so quiet. Normally I get here around 7:20, today it was 7:10ish. I picked up the newspapers and headed up to the even quieter 22nd floor where Hilda, the cleaning supervisor, was in the elevator lobby having finished checking to make sure that the night crew had done their job.

Now its just me, my clacky clack keyboard and a large iced coffee reading emails, replying, checking in with the Gaggle (a message board I 'meet' friends on every day).

Just yesterday I was there chatting with some gal pals who are, like me, bitchy. We were one upping each other about bad gifts we've received. That's how it started out but me being me, I segued off into how good a gift-giver I am prompted by an email from BBF who is in Paris for Christmas, poor thing, saying:
By the way the Kazuko heart has gotten a lot of attention here. I really love it!


I went to neighborhoodies.com and built my son-in-law a black New York City hoodie resplendent with a grey pigeon on the back. The daughter got a tres cool cherry red clutch ... Husband got a new Apple keyboard (the old one was a bio-hazard of crumbs and cat hair) and a crossword puzzle calendar ... a gal pal down south got a silky Indian shawl ... and I made several pals calendars featuring photos of places we've been together this past year.

Getting the right thing for the right person is important. I think this why so often people are disappointed in what they receive in return.

I got all that lovely loot but I also gave as good as I got ... so I was again a winner in the gives good gift war ... let me tell you being this good consistently is exhausting.