Please Give

I'm running the NYC Marathon in November in honor of Dori Brown. Please consider contributing to My effort through my TNT website. Thanks a million!

http://pages.teamintraining.org/nyc/nyc11/pjempty

Memorial Day

Today's the day for remembering those who lost their lives defending this country. For the most part, it's a 3-day weekend that kicks off the summer season that includes BBQs washed down with beer, family gatherings, a cheerful goodbye to winter. I had a boyfriend in college and I went to spend Memorial Day weekend at his house in East Rochester. His mother had lost her husband and oldest son in WWII. Memorial Day was a big deal in this family. We did the BBQ thing, too, but it was a little more somber than most.

We arrived in Jeffersonville at 9 pm on Friday, a bit later than planned. We decided to eat out because it was so late. At the first restaurant, the kitchen was closed. At the second, they were just about to close but did our order. The Chinese restaurant stays open until 11pm but I had a bad experience there with shrimp toast.

I actually slept until 6:40, the equivalent of my son's noon. After some light work and a few errands, I went off to yoga. Then I had a massage. Limp as a dishrag , I hopped into our car and we drove to PA for a BBQ. We arrived to find 10 people who had started their warm-up drinking at 10 am. We had a lot of catching up to do. The food and company were great, and we left around 9:30.

Sunday was another hot and steamy day. I started with a 4-mile jog along the river, and collapsed in the hammock when I got back. Marty made me breakfast, and then we went to a garden center to pick up a few plants. After planting most of them, I took a long-awaited shower and we had lunch. The rest of the afternoon, I took it easy, reading the newspaper and my book.

Our neighbor Lorraine came for dinner and we had a nice time. She's an Israeli woman of Belgian background who was orphaned in WWII and eventually emigrated to Israel where she served as a combat soldier in the army. She spends half the year in Israel where she has a family, and half in Jeffersonville, from which she commutes to NYC and works as a lawyer in the Israeli government. Somehow, the topic turned to politics where she expressed her belief that Obama is a very bad president and terrible for Israel. She likes Mitt Romney. I explained that the American people would never elect him president because he's a Mormon. Mormons are too exotic for American tastes, even weirder than Catholics and Jews. Forget Muslims.

We drove Lorraine up the hill and made plans to see her in 2 weeks. I came home and had some chocolate. I was in bed by 10, awakened only by a thunderstorm that raged sometime in the night.

Sweating in the City

Seattlle weather finally dissipated yesterday and we were treated to our first taste of summer in all its humid glory. I didn't hear too many complaints. Off came the fleece and rain shoes; on came the tank top and sandles.

Harry and I did a little retailing before heading to Gyro II, my favorite place for gyros since 1978. Then we steeled ourselves and went to the DMV. Harry's license expired when he turned 18 and he got a temporary one in December. The new one never made it to New York, and when I tried to call the RI-DMV, I got busy signals and hang-ups. So, armed with every document Harry possesses, we anxiously entered the land of barking DMV workers who have as much sympathy for their fellow humans as a tiger eviscerating its helpless prey.

We waited on line for an hour. Harry gave in his form, his temporary license (now also expired), his social security card and birth certificate. The clerk asked for Harry's RI driving record (whoops). We didn't have that doc. I suggested we use the orignal expired license and he agreed. Then he asked for a student ID and grades (!), a credit card (which he doesn't have) and something else. I suggested that perhaps his medical insurance card would do. Bingo! Another hour of waiting and we were finally called to a window to finish up the transaction.

The woman left for a minute--that made me nervous. When she returned, she asked Harry if he was 18. Duh, it only says it on the skatey eight pieces of ID he turned in. It was then we realized she was hearing impaired. She couldn't tell if a number was a 1 or a 7, and in addition to her speech being incomprehensible, she had a difficult time hearing what we said. To ask for payment, she presented us with a card that had the amount on it. I charged it, Harry got his temporary license and we were on our way, 2 hours later.

Two hours isn't such a bad wait. The DMV has streamlined its process over the years. The workers are the same, probably due to genetics.

We arrived home to find the water was still off (the tank was being replaced). I'd filled pots with water, so we were okay. I've certainly survived days without water before. I thought I'd have time to relax before my first workout with Team In Training, but I had to get to 72nd and Cenral Park so I had no choice but to grab a bottle of water, change and go. I decided to jog there. In a few blocks, I had a wardrobe malfunction--my bra unzipped. I dashed into a store and asked to use a dressing room. The clerk was amused. I arrived at the meeting spot 10 minutes late and they had already left for their warm-up run. I was all warmed up and ready to go.

We did some cross-training exercises, some stretching and some yoga poses, which I was pretty good at. I never did meet my team (there were hundreds of people there training for various events all over the country) but I did receive my TNT jersey which says New York City Chapter on front. That was a proud moment for me. I thought, I'm home.

Euphoria Begins With a Good Night’s Sleep

After eight hours of shut-eye (one on the couch), I got up and followed my usual morning rituals of meds, coffee, checking my email and seeing if the world was going to end today. For the latter I turned to the Times. Stay tuned …

I wrote a dull post on my other blog, read more of the Henrietta Lacks book and then had reconstituted homemade banana bread and a cranberry muffin, finishing the coffee. Then I walked into town and got the mail, and went to Peck’s for a few things I needed for dinner tonight. Doug is joining me.

Yoga was next. I admit that I’m not a very good yogaist. I can’t disconnect my mind no matter how I breathe or which twisted agonizing position I force my body into. Today was different. Today I didn’t think about what I’d be eating for lunch and dinner, what I’d be doing next week or how I was going dig myself out from under a pile of debt. I was floating in the moment, my mind a blank. This lasted for one and a half hours. Nirvana was mine.

What a breakthrough. I wish I could repeat this at home when I’m trying to sleep and my mind is flitting about like a butterfly on steroids. I’m going to try for a little more euphoria when I have my hour massage later.

After that, I plan to sit back and enjoy the ideal weather and calming brook sipping an ice-cold martini and wondering if Doug will serve the dinner.

Jville Wears Green

We drove up to the country Friday and only had a little traffic on the FDR to the GWB. This was our first trip in our new car, a graphite gray Subaru outback with black leather interior and every bell and whistle you can imagine. It was getting dark as we arrived, so we couldn't see the yard. We unloaded and started on dinner, spaghetti and white clam sauce. I fell asleep at the table, while Marty went into the living room and crashed on the couch. I put the perishables away and went to bed.

What a surprise in the morning to look outside and see how lush and beautiful everything was, just spring in neon green with touches of color from the blooming trees and small flowers carpeting the edges. It was raining, but that only made the brook more vociferous.

I went to yoga and picked up a book at the library, the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Marty installed pantry shelves, and we geared up for guests. Doug came with his crew and plenty of ice, limes and tonic. We had ensalada caprese and spanikopita to start. Well, there wasn't any spinach in the spanikopita because they were really knishes. It became the running joke of the evening, harking back to an earlier mix-up where Doug was going to make ice cream in his ice cream maker and there was a bug zapper in the box instead. Dinner was great, grilled veal chops with spice rub, shrimp on the barbie and asparagus risotto. We took a walk to town after dinner and had ice cream, then returned to the house for coffee and German butter cake. A new German bakery opened in town and they bake whole grain rye bread and yummy pastries.

I called Mark to see how he did at his track meet. He'd run a PB, 3:43 in the 1500. He's ranked 9th in the Eastern region and 30th in the country. He also proudly reported his grades: 2 B's, 2 B+'s and an A in Spanish. He's one happy boy and I'm a very proud mom.

Sunday was more of the same weatherwise. I painted a curio cabinet we'd found on the street near our old apartment, we put a deposit on a "harvest table" for the apartment and picked up some things for lunch.

We went to the gym when we got back to NYC. Marty did a spinning class and I biked for an hour. We ordered in pizza and watched part of the Yankee game. I went to bed when they were losing 5-4

The Best Laid Plans

We made it to the train just in time. We were going to New Haven, CT to watch Mark run in the Ivy League Championships. Our luck was running, as the highway we would've driven on was closed. Oscar the taxi driver took us to the Stadium after getting lost (we even tried Spanish--he's Cuban), but even then we couldn't make him understand us. He gave us his card and told us to call for the return trip, he was desperate for business.

A sunny day soon turned threatening. We'd already seen and chatted with Mark and his teammates, when lightning struck. The track and stands had to be cleared and everyone was told to go into the baseball stadium which they'd deemed more secure. There we sat for hours, waiting for the third and final cell to pass by. This three hour delay wasn't good for the runners and made us nervous about our evening plans, which included a 7 pm pick-up to go to a Russian nightclub in Brooklyn where we were meeting a group of friends.

Heat 1 of the 1500 meter race went off, and lightning struck again. Mark was in heat 2. Argh! We trudged to the baseball stadium. Suddenly someone said: the race started! We' already missed lap one. We ran to the finish line area and cheered Mark on through the last 3 laps. He lead the whole way, but eased up at the end and took 2nd, qualifying for today's final.

We knew at that point we weren't going to be drinking vodka with our friends, so we called and canceled. We also called Oscar to pick us up, but he was off duty. Oscar's not going to make it in New Haven. We called Metro Cab at the advice of a police officer. They called back and said our car was waiting for us, but we didn't see one. Then this little girl and her Dad walked by. We'd spoken with this adorable child, whose name is Mary, so she smiled and said hello. Her dad then offered to take us to the station. Turns out that his nephew was in Mark's heat"Speedy Stevie" and had come in 1st.

We had almost an hour until our train so we went for a nosh at Sbarro's. We had chicken wings and some beer. We also realized the Kentucky Derby would be on TV so we asked they change the channel. We got to see the entire race. This was fun, although without the mint juleps we'd planned to have, it wasn't quite as atmospheric.

Home by 9, we picked up Chinese menus along the way. Marty walked Turbo, and came back to make the Juleps which we drank listening to jazz. We had delicious dumplings delivered and watched the news. I crashed at 11:30. Marty slept in his chair for a while. He still has dishes to do.

Back to New Haven in a couple of hours. We're meeting Harry and Mariel there and spending Mother's Day together. New Haven is reporting a 30% chance of showers ...

New Woods

We moved Thursday to our new 31st floor apartment on the Upper East Side. Like David Byrnes, I wonder: How did I get here?

A few fun facts about my new neighborhood:

More restaurants than I ever thought possible.
Parking is not so bad.
Services are awesome. You can basically get anything you want at any time.
It's not ethnically diverse but it is age diverse, something many NYC neighborhoods are not.
It's cheaper than my old neighborhood.
The library is 2 blocks away, which is where I'm writing this.

A few not-so-fun facts:

Verizon doesn't serve my building so I have no phone, internet or cable. Worse, they canceled my email account.
You can easily get fat here and must join a gym. Yoga at my new gym is really hard, like you have to be a yogic master to not kill yourself.

Being out of the Ground Zero hub-bub is welcome. Last night, we never would have slept. All those hipsters with a good excuse to get bombed on Sunday night. I didn't get the news until early this morning when I was able to filch an internet connection from a neighbor.

I have to polish my pearls and get my face lifted, perhaps buy a lap dog. Really, dahling.