Very early one recent morning I left a West Side coffee shop and was greeted by an attractive woman with an exuberant ''Hi, honey!'' Recovering my composure, I responded that I had always dreamed of being greeted so warmly by a beautiful woman first thing in the morning.

It was only then I realized that she had been speaking to her dog, which she had tethered outside the coffee shop and which, in the 10 or so seconds in which this had all transpired, had walked several circles around me, effectively trapping me within its leash. The woman said with a smile, ''Was being tied up part of your dream?''

''No,'' I answered. ''That's probably a West Side thing. I live in New Jersey.''


Sign of the times: Fred Ehrman was walking along 55th Street recently when he noticed four burly constuction workers sitting on the sidewalk, eating their breakfast and deep in conversation. An attractive woman passed in front of them but none of the men looked her way. As Mr. Ehrman passed by the men he overheard the following exchange:

First worker: ''So what happened last week?''

Second worker: ''Telephone and the Internets had big drops but I made up that decline with my cyclicals and financials.''

Mr. Ehrman's postscript: ''I found myself ironically nostalgic for those old leering whistles.''

Dear Diary:

On the 86th Street crosstown bus recently, a passenger picked up something from the floor and gave it to the driver. The driver then announced: ''Someone just found a clip-on earring. Everyone check to see if it's yours. That goes for both men and women.''

Most of the passengers laughed and checked their ears. But the perfectly groomed woman seated next to me declared in an exasperated tone, ''Men don't wear clip-ons.''


Dear Diary:

A grandmother of three boys, I was standing on a bus, crowded with schoolchildren, going to meet my pregnant daughter. I was holding a book that I was planning to give her, ''What to Name Your Baby Girl.'' A boy about 10 years old, who was sitting in front of me, obviously noticed the title of the book. He looked at me and asked, ''Would you like to sit down?''

I didn't take him up on his offer because I was getting off soon, but when I did alight it was with a wide grin on my face and a more sprightly spring to my grandmotherly step.



When you adorned the eight-o-eight

And I could gaze, admiring,

My morning ride would stimulate

Now it is only tiring.

For with you vanished my career

As shameless subway gaper.

There's left this note of feeble cheer:

I now can read my paper.


Marjorie J. Witherspoon, who recently moved to Manhattan, was interested to observe the difference between the freedom her children enjoyed growing up in Vermont and the routine enjoyed, or at least employed, by some youngsters here. She noticed a boy about 10 or 11 leaving a store on the West Side, walkie-talkie in hand, reporting, ''I'm the leaving the store now.'' Walking behind him as they came to the first crossing, she heard him call again, ''I'm at 109th.''

At the next corner, the boy apparently couldn't get a response -- there was an anxious query of ''Dad, Dad.'' An exasperated voice responded, ''Give it a rest, Greg.'' The youngster ignored the advice -- at the next block he again reported his location. How long the two-way communication went on isn't known -- Ms. Witherspoon veered off.

Elly Elliott wondered whether it was a slip of the tongue or a sign of the times. She recently heard the announcer on a classical music program say that the next composition to be played would be ''a work by Smetana -- the overture to 'The Battered Bride.' ''

Dear Diary:

Fifty years ago, with my Army discharge and brand new N.Y.U. degree in finance, I was hired as a trainee at one of the large prestigious banks on Wall Street. The president, a tall, distinguished-looking former Ivy League football player, occasionally descended from his aerie and spoke to the trainees. His talk went something like this: ''You men are the future of this bank -- you will be calling on the General Electrics and I.B.M.'s of the nation. When a man from our bank steps into a meeting, I expect that his bearing and demeanor will be such that a hush will come over the room.''

That night, flush with the image of myself as a corporate leader, I looked in the mirror at the East Side tenement in which I had grown up. What I saw was a 130-pound, 5 foot 5 inch, 24-year-old with a receding chin who looked closer to 16. I said to myself, ''That son of a gun was not talking about me.'' Right then I decided to resign. Many years later, I became president of a much, much smaller bank. And what kind of young men did I hire to represent it? Yes, football-player types with a firm handshake who could enter a room and be noticed. GEORGE TREBAT


No time, no right time,

Order time, schedule it.

Spare time, rare time

Find time to do it.

Can't find right time,

Too fast time flies.

Left late, short cut

Save time, what for?

Be there on time

In time, so what?

Take time, make time,

Need time, heed time.

Spring ahead, fall back

Time knows no slack.

Man fools, changes time,

Hours rule, stay in line.

Time goes on way

May stop, Y2K?


Dear Diary:

I was avoiding the abandoned umbrellas and pleas for a quarter on the Bowery when I looked up to see a rainbow stretching over the East Village. In front of the Jean Cocteau Theater, I stopped and stood with half a dozen early playgoers, admiring the sky.

''Imagine that, a rainbow in New York,'' an elderly woman remarked. Further up the block, I exchanged smiles with a man hurrying along.

By Cooper Union, I looked up and the rainbow had dissipated into pink, blue and orange blotches.

''Well, at least we had it with us for a little while,'' a stranger who noticed me looking up commented.

A few blocks later at an intersection, a car tried to jump the light and honked at me. Walking past his fender, I gave him my best city scowl and looked up to see the sky gray once again.


One day, Elayne Rosen's 85-year-old mother had instant recall about a year-old incident. Later the same day, though, Ms. Rosen asked about something that had happened a few hours earlier. Her mother replied, ''I can remember last year but you'd better call me next year about today's question.''

Observations for this column may be sent to Metropolitan Diary, Style Department, The New York Times, 229 West 43d Street, New York, N.Y. 10036. Please include your name, address and daytime telephone number (required); upon request, names may be withheld in print. Letters become the property of The Times and cannot be returned. They may be edited, and may be republished in all media.

Drawings (Phil Marden)