Sorry to be banal or even trite, but there’s a very high chance that girl was me! My mom and grandma used to pick me up from school and we’d take the subway to my piano lessons and my grandmas sculpture class which were both in the same building. Cucumbers - the small crunchy ones - were my preferred snack. My grandma hated them so she’d crunch and, only 20 years later did I learn, spit them into her hand and into a small paper napkin she kept in her purse! If the family seemed to be of middle eastern descent, I’d be curious!
2
“My First Dead Body” is quintessential New York, 1979, the year I moved here.
6
To family snack : and no one said , “get your own “or “ ewww, it has your germs “! Sounds like real family to me! I babysat to a family of three children a long time ago and I was amazed to see parents made sure kids wouldn’t touch each other’s food or left over: it has the owner’s germs ! I came from a family where left overs passed on to those still had room for more! I joked to my son not to touch my left over or eat food I had touched to my bare fingers and he said: your germs are my germs, we are family! I know, he’s mine ! He’s 27 now and still does take and eat food from my bare fingers !Snack on!
5
@Miahona
Yes, share and share alike, even our germs.
Some of my fondest childhood memory is when both I and my brother are out sick from school. Not the being sick part, but the part where we're more or less recovered, but still, cough cough, not "well enough" to go back to school. My mom would let us have our ways because we've just, cough cough, go better, and we'd take full advantage of the unexpected day off and the (relative) freedom...
2
These are the best things I have read all week! Great idea from The New York Times!
3
It would have been perfect if it was a pickle ;).
5
I love Goldman's middle name! Only in New York! You can't make these stories up! Can you?!
4
being a nyc expat, its stories like these that put a smile on my face.. can"t happen anywhere else...!!!
3
Surely the millions of New Yorkers generate more than these few stories?
Complaining, yes but still fortunate...
1
Wait, how did Arno pay the bus fare?
3
@Imagine With a token!
6
I love New York.
3
@ Eric Smith
SO - How MANY dead bodies riding have you had?
14
I’ve always loved the diary but these past two years it’s felt more like a lifeline, helping me remember our humanity and our collective humor and understanding. Many thanks for this feature.
64
Yes, the blase NYer. Driving from midtown to Chinatown one evening in the early 80s, we sat in traffic caused by police roadblocks. "It's a jumper," said the guy in a nearby car. I looked up and saw a small person hunched at the edge of the roof of a 12 story building; I could see other people behind her gesticulating.
"Oh my God," I said to my aunt and uncle. "There's a woman on top of the roof who's thinking of jumping." Silence. Then my uncle said, "We're not going to talk about that."
21
Eric Smith’s piece makes a perfect short-short story. The best detail: the cop handing over that $10 fare.
Also love the chef “discounting” that coveted slice of cake. I’ve always thought the best chefs are those who take joy in seeing the joy food brings to others.
I had an experience that was a tiny bit similar years ago, in Los Angeles. I was headed into the La Brea Bakery Cafe (the original one, well before the business expanded), supporting the arm of my elderly mother, for a ladies’ lunch. We stopped into the small, adjacent bakery to look at the bread, but we were running late for our reservation. I said I would come back to buy something after our meal. By the time we returned, everything I had wanted was sold out! The person behind the counter, seeing my disappointment (and probably moved more by my mother’s), put a large loaf of bread in a bag and handed it to me, saying it was a gift to apologize for being out of what I wanted. I still remember that the bread was chocolate cherry, and it was delicious. Even more do for having been gifted as a gesture of kindness.
71
@Passion for Peaches, regarding the person who probably felt he was not feeling well, but seems that he didn't want to not pay for his ride, that's the perfect example of a story that might have felt sad if it were in the old daily standalone online story style, and yet it resonates deeply as one of the tapestry of five (and likely also will within the NY Today column when its day comes).
12
Great stories this week!!! Keep them going, please!!!!
31
@AJ Yeah, I agree.
1
Every week I savor the chance to remember how much I love New York. Thank you, writers and rememberers; your threads create the cloth and infuse it with its simple, everyday magic.
45
@kathy In other words, you mean Manhattan!
1
Thanks for the much needed giggles and acts of kindness this morning. Wondering what was the shoe's brand name?
42
My cool Dr. Scholl’s (Original Collection).
29
@DebRG Got it! Thanks
2
Love the pictures! And even more, love metropolitan diary. Please keep the stories coming!
39