good bus, bad bus, and waffles

I am always amused at how the way I feel about New York can change in seconds. On a crisp fall day, with the sun shining brightly, and kind people holding doors and smiling on the subway, as I eat a cupcake while finding a really awesome dress on sale, I love New York. On a frigid sleety day when I am loaded down with bags and people are shoving and yelling as a homeless guy pukes on the street, not so much. This week, I had two experiences on the bus, one sweet, and the other, odd.

#1-Riding the bus to work. In between stops, the driver starts honking, and I am wondering,who is the idiot driver causing this outburst? Turns out, the driver is honking at some kids who are running for the bus, to tell them he's going to stop. Stop he does, and lets the kids on, who are all junior high age, and all adorably in some state of disarray so signature to that age.....ahhhh, the days of messed up hair and backwards T shirts. Anyhoo. As a side note, the girl sitting across from me on the bus had on Nike sneakers with a pink stripe, pink socks, a pink backpack and pink leopard print purse, pink cell phone, and pink I-Pod. Awesome.

#2-Coming home from work. As I sit on the bus, I become aware of a very tall European man standing right in front of me. He has the bushiest eyebrows I have ever seen (really! like toothbrush bristles pasted above his eyes!) , and a cup of coffee with a lid. He is talking on a cell phone, and has to get something out of his pocket. He wedges the coffee cup in between his arm (the one attached to the cell phone) and his body, while his free hand searches in his pockets. I watch the coffee sloshing in the cup, praying for no spillage. Ahhh, he finds what he was looking for. Coffee cup gets transferred to the free hand. Wait, it's not a free hand. It's holding something else. As his hand tries to hold the coffee cup and whatever else is in his hand, I watch the coffee slosh higher and higher, closer and closer to lid opening. I shrink back into my seat- I can't watch. I'm mere minutes away from being bathed in coffee. Just as I am about to either faint, scream, or run (all exaggerations, but I think they all really drive the point home) the bus stops. He sits down. Ahhhhh. Thank you.

Last, and in no way related to the above anecdotes, we made waffles for breakfast this morning. We were tag-teaming it pretty well, taking turns removing the waffles from the waffle iron and buttering them when our rhythm got mixed up, and Paul opened the waffle iron too soon. We both lamented the sure to be butchered waffle, and decided that this waffle should be eaten immediately, to put it out of its misery. When the waffle was finished, we opened the waffle iron, and found that the waffle was miraculously saved-not maimed whatsoever. We stood over the waffle iron, awed. "It's like forgiveness!" said Paul, "all the mistakes are gone!" "Right!" I said, "and just like forgiveness, only the waffle iron could fix it. Not like when you try to fix a pancake and it just gets even worse. " Thank you, Paul. Thank you, waffles. Thank you, forgiveness.