METROPOLITAN DIARY
Grand Time
Dear Diary:
I was on a downtown A in November 2023 when I noticed a happy family sitting across from me. Mom, dad and the children all appeared to be having a grand time.
It was relatively warm for the season, and dad was wearing shorts. He obviously did not care if anybody noticed that he was also wearing an ankle monitor on his left ankle.
As a criminal defense lawyer, I certainly noticed. When I got off the train, I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. He smiled back at me.
— Robert Beecher
Loose Vegetables
Dear Diary:
I was in New York City for a summer program at NewYork-Presbyterian. I would often go downtown after classes ended for a late lunch in Chinatown and to buy some groceries before taking the Q and the 1 back to my Upper West Side apartment.
One sweltering July day when I had been extra ambitious in my grocery shopping, I waited 45 minutes for a 1 train and then had to squeeze into a completely packed car.
As the train left Times Square, I struggled to balance myself while unsuccessfully corralling my grocery bags around my feet.
By the time we left Columbus Circle, my tomatoes had rolled over several pairs of feet, my lettuce was under someone’s seat and I was more frustrated than I had been in a long time.
A gentle tap on my arm pulled me out of my self-pity. It was a young mother sitting nearby. She called her toddler onto her lap and then nodded at the newly empty stroller in front of her.
From there, we traveled uptown in companionable silence as her stroller overflowed with a watermelon, two cantaloupes and three bags of vegetables.
— Amelia Ng
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html