12 Hours, 26 Minutes between Brooklyn and Home

On a midnight train from Brooklyn

I did it. I successfully worked 41 hours by 3pm on Friday afternoon. I even managed to leave work on time and without leaving my cellphone, keys, or Tupperware. However, when I found myself sitting on a broken train 2.5 hours into my journey and only halfway between crafting bliss in Brooklyn and the New Haven train station it didn't seem to matter. Luckily the train guys fixed the problem, pissed off some snobby Nutmeggers by skipping Greenwich station and managed to get me to the church on time...or at least to Grand Central at 6:43 (only 23 minutes late).

At Grand Central I met my recently-moved-to-NYC-friend, and we were off to Brooklyn. We arrived in Brooklyn at 7:40 (twenty minutes late), sans dinner and discovered Brooklyn is a bit like the rest of New England in that just because there should be a ton of restaurants doesn't actually mean there are, and you should have packed the power bar.

At the bARTer there were tons of great crafts. Heavy duty shopping bags made of many 'disposable' shopping bags pressed together into sheets of plastic and stitched into a re-usable bag. Beautiful photos taken by creative souls, a couple of crazy stuffed animals, a sculpey monkey and some generally crafty crafts with great stories behind them. I brought a pair of hand-knit-hand-warmers (say that ten times fast) I had knitted last season with the intention of publishing a pattern. I'll have to work on the actual writing down of the pattern before I can publish it, but that's another post for another day.

I have never seen so many wonderfully crafty folks in one place at one time. It was how I imagine a Star wars convention, only with people talking about aperture speeds and knitting patterns instead of the imperial army and wookies. Except-the women out numbered the men, and everyone was generally attractive, and no one was wearing anything they had hot glued together, so really it was nothing like a Star wars Convention-but you get the picture.

It was a bit hot, and we hadn't really eaten dinner, and it was rather crowded. When my partner in crafting crime had to step into the hallway and breathe into a baggie (I *luckily* had in my handbag). I knew it was getting close to time to leave. The bARTer ended , my friend scored my handwarmers and we headed up-town to try to find something to eat and get me on a train to make it back to Manchester by a semi-reasonable time.... I missed the 11:24 train.
Time for plan B. Food and the 12:22.

A bit of walking and a $14 sandwich later I was on the 12:22 headed for home. I had time to reflect on the evening among the snoring train passengers, and I realized it had been months since I had any adventure in my life. Although Brooklyn is not terribly adventuresome it is great to remember a mini adventure in NYC is only a train ride away.

This is what tired feet look like

I arrived in my Manchester parking spot at 3:20 am 12 hours and 2o minutes after my adventure had begun, and suddenly realised I couldn't find my house keys. It's funny just how willing you are to steal a chair off your neighbors porch and climb through your window at 3:24am when faced with sleeping in your car. As I was about to commit a couple of misdemeanor crimes I suddenly remembered where my keys where, put the chair down, and at 3:26am went to bed.