IN WHICH WE PLAN TO SHVITZ OURSELVES SILLY IN THE CITY

At this point I'm well used to not getting a chance to read the Sunday papers until Tuesday, and only get to skim them when I do...but today with Noodle home from school early, I got a chance to plop down on the couch with her and actually read while she half-watched My Little Pony.

And to my surprise and delight the Times travel section featured not the usual 1%er fantasy-journey pieces ("The Hamptons to Macchu Picchu, By Balloon and Sedan Chair")  but an honest-to-goodness useful quick piece on getting around with kids in the city without causing a wallet hemorrhage.

IN WHICH MY WIFE EARNED A YEAR OF BACK RUBS

Groveling is called for at this juncture. Anointing of feet as well.

Not that she asked beforehand, but the Nana went ahead and bought four tickets for a bus trip to see "Mary Poppins" on Broadway today - for herself, Noodle, Noodle's cousin, and my saintly sweet splendid sexy spouse. The sort of thing where there was no delicate way of backing out even though it gobbles an entire Sunday. Stuck on a bus for three hours down and three hours back, Her Awesomeness deftly battled the Nana's eccentricities while simultaneously entertaining the girls in all their squealiness.

I owe her bigtime.

Me and the Beast stayed home and had a splendid time doing Man Stuff, complete with lots of dangling-the-boy-upside-down-while-roaring behavior. We toured various area playgrounds, looked at lots of tractors, drew menacing stares from the geese who thought we had designs on their goslings, and saved a turtle that had strolled onto West Kerleys Corners Road without an appreciation for the hazards involved. There was even an Uneventful Nap, that rarest of phenomena.

It hardly mattered that there were simultaneous Noodle-n-Beast meltdowns when the ladies returned home. We're just glad it's all over with, at least until next month when I try to wheedle the wife into allowing that big trip to the Stadium.

KENNEDY BRIDGE? ER, AH...

Our public officials have nimbly stepped into the breach created by the writers' strike, because when you talk about naming a bridge after a Kennedy, the subsequent jokes do tend to write themselves.

IN WHICH WE WAX INSENSITIVE

Gephyrophobia is the debilitating fear of bridges, which I'd guess more than a few northern Dutchess and Kingston-area residents feel any time they have to cross over the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge. Amazing view, but looking to the left or right can be a bit queasy-making, especially if the wind's blowing. Still, if you want to get across the river there's no alternative to the bridge until that long-hoped-for Saugerties-Tivoli ferry starts up. Which brings us to the curious case of a Staten Islander named Jan Steers, who's lived with gephyrophobia for 13 years.

To re-state: she's scared to death of bridges, and lives on Staten Island.

Which strikes me as very much like being scared of the color green while living next to a golf course. But I'm trying to be the better man here, and so I will wish her all the best as she attempts to battle her phobia, even though the ghost of Sam Kinison is on my left shoulder in a little devil suit, doing his "we have deserts in America" routine about Ethiopians.

Buried in the Times article is this useful piece of information:

...the New York Thruway Authority will lead bridge phobics over the Tappan Zee, the longest span in the state. A reluctant driver can call the authority in advance and arrange to be driven across the bridge in his or her own car by a patrol operator. The authority receives a half dozen such requests a year, officials there say.

Which does make more sense for the rest of us than suddenly getting stuck behind somebody who panics mid-bridge.