It is true, cities are exciting but not when enveloped with staggering heat and humidity the way New York is right now, and everywhere you go you feel as if the sun is constantly leaning on your back.

However, your family arrived from overseas and today is the day to take them shopping downtown in Manhattan.

It becomes extremely miserable being outside, wading through throngs of people holding on to water bottles(myself included) for dear life.

The subway is worst but imagine waiting on the platform for thirty minutes or more for a train to crawl into the station and you finally step into a car with no air conditioning...eyes wide and mouth opened not so much to utter something obscene (what tha' $#!...) but perhaps for ventilation purposes--the exhaustion cracks you and you're too tired to maneuver through the car to somehow get into another car, but you try anyway, (family, shopping bags and all) for chances are (and we did try), that the other car is just as or staggeringly hotter than the last one.

The last thing you need at this point is to hear a baby screaming at the top of its lungs--as if the HeAt, and the train screeching on the tracks through the tunnels weren't bad enough.

By this time you're dying to get off the train and back out onto the street in the sun, mind you, because you figure there is a great deal more heat and humidity in the subway and relief is to be sought outside. The prospect is irresistible--besides, you need a water refill. You get off the train and climb up the steps in a mad rush to get above New York, happy to leave "below" in more capable hands.

Above, police cars line the sidewalks and a crowd gathers at a newspaper stand. Onlookers are drenched in sweat but you bypass the crowd and it takes you about five minutes to spot a pizza restaurant down the way and another five to work your way down the sidewalk and go in.

Ahh--the air conditioning feels great. You eat and chit chat and you hardly want to leave afterwards to go back outside but you have to. Determined that this madness must cease, you call it a day and go home via the subway no doubt.

Later...

FRIEND ON THE PHONE: "So how did your shopping go?"
ME: "fine."

Mark Pilgrim has an interesting weblog: Dive into Accessibility in which he discusses and provides new approaches by which "bloggers" can design their Weblogs for people with disabilities.

Although his entries are quite long he really delves into the subject and even uses character sketches of five real people with various disabilities including technological, which makes it difficult for them to take advantage of the Internet.

It's a pretty interesting read, particularly when you get to the sections where he provides his 25 tips on making accessible sites. The tips are all compiled from his interactions with people with disabilities who listed the features they would prefer to use when exploring the Internet; for instance, web-safe colors, identifying the links for images and so forth.

Although we all know about the Internet and accessibility issues, I found it interesting that Mark targets the blogging community. Thoughtful though.