Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

Day 262: The Gallop

I don't understand why AxL is still here. I look for it every day, that "thing" that he seems to be hanging on for...what that single reason for existing can be. Every night I pet him and give him a hug and tell him "it's okay to not wake up, I'll be fine...really."

Every morning he wakes up.

The day passes by in a blink and it's time for the evening walk. He seems to be "drunker" than normal, stumbling along, one step forward, three quick steps sideways, then two steps sideways in the opposite direction. After simply crossing the street, he just closes his eyes and melts into the sidewalk. His head goes limp, he takes a deep breath and sighs and falls asleep on the spot. I shake him to see if he's still alive and while he appears to be alive, he doesn't wake up and so remains in his "dishrag" state with his head flopped in an odd angle on its side as he snoozes away.

I give up and just sit down. Before long, we're collecting people or dogs and people who ask if he's okay. Soon enough, one of the passersby is going on her forty-fifth minute of holistic health remedies for dogs based off of her favorite 1600 AM radio station. I'm instructed to get Colostrum the next day and start administering it among other things. She finally waddles off as two tiny calves protruding from beneath her overly chubby overcoat propel her north up Waverly.

Soon after, I've got a gifted can of organic turkey dinner dog food in one hand, brought to me by John and Cooper the retriever who live in the building where AxL has taken to narcolepsy. While we're discussing dogs and food and dogs, AxL suddenly jerks awake, gets up and starts walking as I throw a thank you behind me to John for the generosity. AxL rounds the corner, then another and makes for the benches outside Gourmet Garage on 7th Ave. The manager with the thick Jamaican accent tossed down from his 7 foot high mouth greets us.

"He gon mag it too Chreesmus, mon, I tell yoo." I laugh in repsonse as he sits down and watches AxL while I dash inside to gather yet another pound of Jose's special "AxL Marinaded Leg of Lamb" for dinner. When I get back outside, I unleash the hound and he not only takes off. HE GALLOPS!!!! I have to jog to keep up as he rounds the corner of West 10th and just keeps going. He darts in front of a taxi bombing through the intersection and I hold up as I'm cleaved by the flying yellow Ford from my dog who appears to be gaining speed.

I break into a full run while the plastic shopping bag rustles in the wind. I finally catch up to him and get a hand on his collar. I look in his face and see eyes full of life and happiness and a big smile accented with a panting tongue. I get the leash reattached and he rips off again as if he were Seabiscuit reincarnated.

Eventually, three blocks later, he slows down, stops, shakes vigorously as if he were fresh from a bath and then he sets into trotting.

I don't get it. Not that I should, but I enjoy being witness to a spirit that seems to transcend everything going against it from old age to kidney failure. It's been ten weeks since the vet gave him two days to live.

Battle AxL. Galloping, happy, unpredictable, but definitely, nowhere near being finished.

Day 260: Veteran's Hour

Maria calls in the middle of the morning asking if I was ready to go. I had forgotten, sadly, that it was Veteran's Day and we were to attend the parade together. I do the dog chores of injecting him full of a bag of fluids, making pancakes, squirting stomach coating down his mouth...

I watch his he inhales his umteenth blueberry pancake in the last few weeks. I'm soon off on a cold morning and headed toward Madison Square Park. I meet Maria and we take in a 21 gun salute that makes us jump with each firing. I break out the camera to take photos and realize that my battery is in the red zone before we even start. Bummer.

We work our way up past the first few streets of the parade start and I marvel at how everyone in the parade is streaming down the streets to the East, lined up until their alloted start time. We clap and cheer as white-haired, limping men in uniform make their way up the route and my heart is full of sadness. There are so few left and there are so few people watching the parade. It's a sad statement of America in that how soon we forget how many we owe for how much we have.

At one point, Francois, a "Jack's Coffee Shop patron" is marching with another man while holding the corners of the flag. I call out his name and he waves as I give him a thumb's up. Francois was in the Algerian War. I take a photo of him and it turns out good enough to print and drop off to him later with an extra copy for his daughter.

"You are the only guy I know who would actually know someone mah-chin' in a pah-rade..." Maria jabs me. I laugh a bit. "It's like you know ten times moh people than I know and you only been heah since Febyoo-airy." I laugh again...she's right. It's all part of having a slow dog. You become a target for anyone wishing to talk and in New York, that's a lot of people.

Soon, the parade is over and Maria rolls up the American Flag I bought for her from a homeless-type entrpreneur who was selling them for $3. We walk back to Madison Square Park and part ways. I return home and set back to working away on following up on all the Ad Tech business cards that I collected over the two day fest. One guy calls me and asks me what I've been up to. I tell him about the parade and he makes an indiscernible comment that is filled with disbelief that I would even consider wasting a second of my time on anything but the internet and its little world of business development swirls that exist in nothing but a wired ether.

I decide not to even get into the discussion and let it go by changing the subject. And so here we are in this world, thanks to those who fought to get us here. Even if no one else is really thinking about you, I am. This isn't a great country, this is a land filled with great people who made it a great place to live with their selfless sacrifice and bravery.

I'm possibly not worthy, but I am grateful.

Day 259: Disbelief

The Ad Tech conference/schmooze-fest is finally over and life is back to a semblance of normality. I fumble through the work from home daytime ritual of checking email early, working out, walking the dog, checking email, making blueberry pancakes, checking email, answering the phone, hitting breakfast meetings, checking email, making marinated sirloin for AxL's lunch, checking email, answering the phone.

My days have added life to them of late as the president of our company assigned me a new personal assistant. Her name is Lucila and she's cuter than a lady bug's ear. She's also an organizational goddess and I know that she was assigned to tackle my disorganized demi-god of an inbox/calendar/contact database. In just a few days, she's somehow managed me into getting my inbox down from 492 emails to 272 and she's landed an appointment with a difficult client that I've been after for months. I feel like a VP (minus the golf clubs) and the actual title.

The day disappeared like so many other days disappear into weeks, months, and years. AxL and I set out in the afternoon for Round Infinity of prescription and fluid refills at Heart Of Chelsea Animal Hospital on West 18th. Before heading inside the vet, we have a brief stopover at The Downtown Dog House grooming place next door to drop off a case of beloved AxL Snaks Beer Biskits. Oddly, AxL trudges his way to the back room as if he's ready for a bath despite the fact that anything remotely relating to "bath" including walking past the door of this place is the bane of his existence.

While we're inside Downtown Dog House, Dr. Gabrielle, AxL's alternative medicine vet walks in to buy some food for her own dogs. She's in stunned disbelief that he looks as good as he does. I thank her on behalf of both of us for doing so much and for pointing us to Chinese Herbs among other things which somehow seem to be doing the trick (so far.) She takes some time to pet him and talk to him and then we follow her out the door and into the hospital. Once inside, the front desk staff and all the assistants make their way out to say hello to one of their favorite dogs. It's been more than once that they've sent him home with tears in their eyes thinking he was done and it's been more than twice that he's simply returned to say hello.

One of my favorite things is to simply watch the staff's expressions as they coo over him while just shaking their heads in disbelief that he's still hanging in there. I walk him back to the scale to weigh him and see how he's holding up - he's lost a bit and is down to 46.8 pounds, a new record low unless you count back 13 years to when I found him at a measly 38 pounds. It's impossible to believe that just months ago, he was 64 pounds and at his peak, 72 pounds. Over the weekend, I bought him a sweater and a rain jacket as he has been shivering during walks in the cold November air. He's now looking quite dapper in his navy blue and light gray turtleneck, as if he's just graduated from Georgetown University, after acing the MCAT's of course.

Loaded down with IV bags of fluids, five bottles of prescription pills, chinese herbs and some freeze-dried chicken treats, we head out and around the corner to "The Dish" on 8th Ave. I order us our favorite seafood fettucine with pink vodka sauce from Manny who gives me a cup of decaf to enjoy while waiting outside with the World's Most Determined Not To Give Up Dog. Before long, we're enjoying a classic Canal Street DVD - "The Incredibles" while slurping up hot pasta. You gotta love the Canal Street $5 DVD's because the sound is horrible, the picture is "bearable" but the best part is when someone in the audience gets up and walks in front of the bootlegger's video camera. Not that I'm one for bootlegging in any form but a friend loaned it to me to watch and since AxL isn't allowed in any "theater near you" nor is the movie available on DVD officially, I decide to spend an evening in the best way possible with the worst quality DVD possible.

The night ends and we head to bed as AxL has missed most of the movie, preferring instead to snore away in chainsaw mimicry. I, like everyone else who knows him or has followed his roller coaster story over the year, remain in disbelief that he's still here, even if by a proverbial thread. I tell him every night, "it's okay to go, okay to step into the light and chase squirrels, there will be endless blueberry pancakes on the other side and I'll be okay without you because it' been so good to be with you." Yet...every morning, he wakes up with a look on his face that seems to groggily say, "hello world...hello fans, it's time to adore me again!"

My disbelief is more along the lines of regarding the fact that he will pass on someday, rather than the disbelief that he's still here.

Day 258: Spaghetti Confetti

I wake up wondering what day/time/place/life this is. Oh yes, now I remember, I'm in New York, I work for a technology company, I've got an old dog and as I look in the mirror, I see that I'm catching up to him if not in total age, definitely in looks. I'd hoped to age gracefully, like Sean Connery, however it's not to be. Forty years is around the corner and I wonder how I can feel 22 in my soul, have a body that seems ageless at the gym, a face which is rapidly losing its boyhood, and a driver's license which says I was born far too long ago to be real.

I ponder "legacy" in that one of my hopes is that by the time I go to the next life, that I've left some sort of ripples in the pond that radiate like the opera singer's practicing voice on a sunny afternoon from some building nearby on my block. It's time to get going as at least twenty years have gone by in a blink with nothing really to show for it beyond the tired eyes staring back at me with the overweighted burden of unfinished dreams just under the surface.

I realize that it's quickly approaching two years since I bicycled across the United States alone, without a clue and I've yet to finish the book I had so hoped to finish. Like so many things, it remains 90% done which is 10% not done. I walk the wonderful dog, the one who's been on 60 minutes, the one who's been on television in Japan, the one who's had news articles written about him, the one thing people always ask me about, the one strangers recognize and stop to pet as if he has some eternal healing power which fulfills them and makes them forget about life' more trivial things for a minute.

We groggily enter Jack's Coffee Shop at 136 West 10th Street. AxL's smiling face beams out from a frame on the wall. Ahead of us are two of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. They're excited to be wearing matching boots as they go about their errands today. They notice AxL, but not me. So the story goes...and this is why my neighbor feels invisible to the men of this city.

I order the "usual" and something extra today - a hot chocolate. I noticed that our Swedish neighbor's light was still on as we passed by the door, its beam emanating across the otherwise dim hallway floor through the half-inch gap which exists by not being there, at the bottom of said door. Last night when we stopped by to say hello, her eyes answered our light knock. She had been crying over something not wished to be discussed which in my mind, calls for an act of kindness.

As we return home, she's just coming out the building's main portal to the world. I stretch out a fully extended arm and say, "for you." She asks what it is and I mumble about "hot chocolate and looking like she needed it after a bad day." Her smile lit up, leaves blew off of the trees and her eyes sparkled in a competitive tandem with her perfect smile. This is a girl who would cause car wrecks at most major intersections simply by being present in the crosswalk...yet, according to her, after two years in New York, only one person has mentioned that she's "cute" since this city is filled with super models or their arch-rivals every five steps along the way. She politely waits while I depost Mr. AxL in front of his hot blueberry pancakes (Round 1) upstairs. I rejoin Swedish Neighbor and we mosey toward 6th Ave, talking while saying nothing of importance as if the conversation were the unnoticed parsely garnish on a Denny's entree. Speaking of, it's wonderfully refreshing to have not seen a Denny's, the cornerpost of my white-trash travels. since I can recall.

I part ways with the Swedish flower and grab the V train to 53rd while soaking in as much of "Winter's Tale" as I can. All too quickly, I'm in the throng of the Hilton's exhibit area amid Val Kilmer look-alikes in cheap suits who are picking sesame seeds out of their teeth from the morning's bagels. (You can take the boy out of the trailer park...)

I somehow make it through the day, head home, meander the Village with the World's Cutest Dog, whip out another round of pancakes, and then I ready myself for Round 2 of Cocktails With Business Cards. At least on that front, I'm a conversation piece as my company is a "paperless" office which of course, includes our business cards made of clear plastic instead of paper. We are the coolest of cool because of this. In fact, one of our "young single" salespeople hands his cards out to said "hotties" of New York because the cards are such a conversation starter in any forum/venue.

I decide to just recollect15 minutes of dreaming from the all too comfy bed on the floor next to AxL's. It's the death knell of the evening as I sleep right through until 10 p.m. and considering the fact that I've not heard from Natalia, co-worker of transplation from Argentina for the last 48 hours, I decide to just call it a conference "enough done" and stay home for the night.

We're tired of pancakes so I open the cupboard and rediscover some Tomato Basil pasta sauce nestled next to overpriced whole wheat spaghetti. What could be better? There's also a pound of marinated Hanger Steak in the fridge and soon enough, water is boiling, dead cow is broiling and sauce is bubbling happily away with enough ambition to splatter the creamy wall tiles next to the stove as if a vineyard had met the mob on a bad hair day.

Only weeks ago, spaghetti was a thing of refusal for my picky, furball friend. Tonight, it's a throwback hit and he slurps and chomps and inhales it as if he'd never had a pancake this fine day. Spaghetti flies and I smile as I try to pick bits and pieces off the floor, the wall, the dog's head, the throw rug, the cupboards, the fireplace. He's a four-legged, pink-tongued, Italian wrecking crew wreaking havoc on all things Semolina. I can't help but laugh and smile, chuckle, giggle, and smile some more at the spectacle.

It's moments like these which tumble and float through the blue sky memories of the last thirteen years with my best friend, this dog, this lazy angel with overly finicky eating habits. I scruffle the fur on his head as he half-closes his eyes with contentment. I try to pick the last bit of spaghetti confetti from my sauce-stained sock as AxL continues to smack his lips and tongue about with a stuffed happiness. Why he has lasted so long I have no idea and I have even less of an idea how much longer he will last from here, but that's why these golden minutes are precious and more valuable than the finest diamonds.

Day 257: New York Monday

I wake up automatically at 5:50 a.m. and check AxL - he's snoring away, I shake my head that he's STILL alive and acting what seems to be normal after yesterday's see-saw adventure. I take him out for a short, groggy walk before climbing into a steaming hot shower. I'm lucky as far as New Yorker's go in that I've got great water pressure and I smile over the little blessing as steam fills the room that barely holds a tub, toilet, and sink.

I grab my riding boots, pants, book, iPod and race to the 1,9 train stop at Sheridan Square. It's another perfect morning except it's cold and windy which actually makes it another perfect morning. I climb into the 1 train without looking up from reading. I can't get enough of "Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin and I wish the story would never end. Soon enough, I'm winding my way out of the W 86th Street stop, up Broadway, over to Amsterdam and West 89th. I'm greeted by an enormous flatbed of hay pointing the wrong way up the one way street in front of the Claremont Riding Academy.

I greet the trio of happy cats melted across the front desk before changing into my garb which makes me want to speak with an English accent and say things like, "Ah yase, ah spoht uv tea wood be deevoine, lovff." I gather up my apple and carrot for Mr. Powder, the cantankerous one and I head to the rich smelling ring. I have yet another new instructor this morning as I've been passed to a new one every lesson for reasons I can only guess. I walk up the steep ramp and grab Powder the magnificent one. Some horses just have a regality about them which defies words but not the fact that they were sculpted by God and Nature over time to evolve into one of the most statuesque and beautiful creatures, the antithesis of Guinea Pigs or cave bats.

As we reach the ring, we're greeted by a Kiwi accent and stunning blue eyes peeking from beneath a green Claremont baseball cap attempting to contain energetically bright red, curly hair.

"Tale me aboot yore roiding ex-peeriunce so fah..." It takes me a minute to get past those eyes and refocus on her extremly full lips outlining a Hollywood smile completing "Sarah's" face leaving me wondering which recent magazine cover I've seen her on. I stammer what must have been sheer stupidity as she follows with an "okay thane, ohf yoo gow neow!" I climb aboard thinking that by now, I have the hang of this.

Powder has other ideas and refuses to move. "Giff 'im a keek!" comes the accent from a chair on a platform at the side of the ring. We finally start moving, all too slowly. Powder is in rare form today. He refuses to turn and soon he's standing with his forehead against one of the pillars in the ring supporting the ceiling. I eventually get him moving again, only to have him refuse all commands and slowly butt up against another pillar nearby. This is so different from the horse I had as a kid who would simply do just about what ever I thought and when it came to moving, it more about trying to get him to stop running than anything else. It feels like I've never been on a horse combined with my first day of learning to drive a stick-shift. After fifteen minutes equivalent to half my riding lesson and several manual interventions by Sarah, I'm completely embarassed, flustered and at a loss. Finally, Sarah hands me a small "wheep" to inspire him. She starts hauling Powder nose first on the broad circle of the outside of the ring and instructs me to "giv 'im a lit-uL tap now!" and I lightly snap his flank.

We're OFF! The grouchy, unruly, and overly obstinate Powder has suddenly woken up and realized that I'm boss. For the remaining fifteen minutes, he trots like a gem, obeys every pull of the rein, every turn and direction and I'm actually riding. Sarah is yelling enthusiastic praise from the side as I smile while trying to maintain concentration on my form and her commands of where to go and what to do next. I'm actually "posting" in rythm with Powder's shoulders and it feels natural and easy instead of a collision between between adolescent swing dancers. It's a "wow, I'm GETTING it!" moment that ends all too soon. I thank Sarah and retrieve Powder's treats which he slobbers and chomps with great glee as I have a one on one discussion with him while looking him in the eye. I feel a new understanding between us in that it seems we've come to an agreement that I'm rider and he's horse and if he listens and goes, I'll ride and we'll get along famously.

I head back inside after delivering him up the ramp with a pat on the butt. I wish I could go with him and brush him down, covering myself with hair and the scent of stable and horse to carry with me for the day but the staff takes over at the top of the ramp. I enter the office and the formerly grouchy employee has warmed up to me now that her morning coffee has kicked in and I found a common love with her of sailing. It turns out that one of the Rah's crew is a regular rider at Claremont and we discuss every sailing adventure book in turn while scheduling my next lessons. I'm two for two in getting past bad attitudes this morning and I'm happily rebooked for every Monday at 7:15 with the fetchingly accented Sarah of New Zealand and Mr. Powder. I could've have gone with the flamboyantly gay Dan who's a really great instructor, or with Karen, the silver haired mom of a wanna-be rockstar combined with Galloway, the enormous Thoroughbred of kindness and compliance. I decided that I want the "heaven and hell" combination of Sarah's accent and Powder's attitude. Why not as life is about enjoying yourself and this was one of the most enjoyable Monday mornings I've spent in New York or anywhere for that matter.

I head back toward downtown, passing through the cursed Starbucks where I order a mocha before catching the subway full of morosely faced commuters hating life. Once home, I re-walk the dog, race through the shower one more time while feeling the ache in my legs from all the "posting" trots which is a lot like doing thirty minutes of squats. In a flash, I'm off to Ad Tech, an internet advertising conference where I meet fellow employees and head into the sea of cheesiness. I love the internet, but this world of high-tech booths and car salesman types is sometimes too much. I do it admittedly for the great paycheck and dream of the day I soon have my boat in the gentle waters off St. Tropez or Cannes.

I talk the talk and walk the despised walk for the entire day, return to eat and feed the still-living AxL before heading out one more time to the "after-hours" cocktail parties where the only two actions required are drinking and exchanging business cards with any and all followed by tomorrow morning's foggy recollection of who was who and why did I talk to them and what was it about again???

After a couple of hours at Babalu and several more hours at Crobar until I couldn't watch white people dance to hip hop any longer, I'm home. It's 2:30 a.m. and I throw my stupid conference badge with the stupid string on the back of the doorknob. I pull enough business cards out of my pockets to ensure my future retirement and make one more round of pancakes (just in case) for the sleepy Mr. AxL who has already put away three such meals for the day. I look forward to sleeping in tomorrow until I realize - it's only Monday in New York.

Day 256: The Other Side And Back

I bolt upright fully awake and overloaded with zinging adrenalin as if hit by electricity. It's 5:48 a.m. A fleeting memory flashes through my whizzing brain - yesterday, a man was telling me how he lost his 13 year-old dog just a couple of months ago when it simply vomited once and keeled over in front of his eyes. The next memory hits in a millisecond - Bennett's dog, Sammy did the same thing in front of the dogsitter last year.

I was awakened by the sound of AxL coughing once with liquid overtones...I see him now in the early morning light streaming through the window. He's sitting up as a milky foam is spilling from his lips and drool off his chin onto his bed. Just as I say "no, nO...NO! NO!!!" his eyes go blank and his head rolls back as if his neck is broken. Then the rest of his body follow the roll of his head and he simply collapses on the bed. I bury Elle with my half of the comforter as I scramble to catch the dog. I grab him just before his head makes gruesome contact with the hissing radiator.

I set him back upright and look into his eyes for a moment. More coughing, more milky foam. His head just flops sideways over my arm holding his shoulders up. I feel the rest of his body just go limp like a wet beach towel in my forearms. Elle digs her way out from under the pillows and comforter to ask me what's wrong.

Then she starts barking commands like a diner short order cook - "don't shake him, just let him be, just hold him and let him go quietly, STOP CRYING, you don't want him to know you're sad! Just hold him peacefully!!!! STOP PETTING HIM it's disturbing him!!!!"

I can't help but shake him a little to see if he's alive or not. He's not breathing at all, he's just lying on his side with his eyes staring out at nothing. I bite my lip as tears stream down my cheeks and I feel Elle's soft hand on my back. I'm telling AxL how good he is, what an angel, how much I love him and how brave he was to hold on for so long.

His body jerks once as if he were shocked bya defibrillator. His eyes refocus and his chest heaves up and down with life. My heart leaps then sinks as he takes one long sigh and goes blank one more time. He's done. I bury my face into his neck one last time and whisper in his ear that he was the best dog ever.

His legs give a quick jerk all at once and his chest heaves full of air again. This is torture. It's like watching a fish die on the dock as it fights for life in between spaces of death, not death. A strange sound of fear and frustration comes out of my mouth and Elle tells me to be quiet and stop disturbing the dog one more time. I tell her that I can't take this back and forth as AxL stops breathing one more time.

She wraps her fingers around my arm and scruffles my hair with her other hand trying to comfort me. AxL gives another bodily heave as he coughs and sucks in a few more breaths before stopping again. I tell Elle that I just can't watch this, it's killing me. It's too much. She tells me he's finally stopped. AxL jerks one more time and grabs another breath thirty seconds later. I've lost count of the back and forths and check the time. It's 6:28 a.m. and this has been going on for almost half an hour now. His eyes are closed and I try to feel if his heart is beating at all. Elle tells me he's breathing again, she can see it. Sure enough he is. I'm in disbelief. This time, he doesn't stop as the faintest sound of snoring emanates from his wet nose. His breathing grows stronger and the snoring grows louder. This can't be happening...why on earth does he torture me like this? It's not that I want him to go, but I want the uncertainty to eventually find certainty. I figure he's gong to hang on a bit more and I'm drained so I fall back asleep, exhausted to the edges of every atom comprising my anatomy.

I wake up an hour later as the sun hits my face. It's a perfect day and AxL is still snoring soundly on his bed. Elle is still passed out after a night of horse jumping and champagne following a long day at work. I let her sleep and I wake the dog up, take him upstairs to the roof to pee near the downspout. Instead of peeing, he just drunkenly falls over when his legs give out. He's not gone yet, but today is surely the day at some point.

The morning goes by too fast and it's time for the marathon. I've wussed out due to the fact that I started training with three weeks to go and wasn't willing to pay $300 on Ebay for someone else's chip and number. I decided to just "support the team" of Weegie, Jenny B, Jason, and Andy, all great friends from Amazon.com days. (Weeks, Months, YEARS?) I hop on the V train and take it to 125th Street. I get out and I'm in the fringe of Harlem. It feels like another city as I jog to the Willis Bridge where a river of 33,000 runners are head-bobbing through. I stand on the rail looking for Weegie to come chugging through but don't see him. I wait and wait and wait. A wheelchair athlete, number W50 stops nearby. He has no legs and his arms are amputated just below the elbow. He has big pads of ace bandages with grooves in them. He's a handsome guy with a huge smile despite his condition. I feel, as always, like a schmuck for how many blessings I have but don't use (legs, arms, hands) to their full potential.

I wait until an hour has gone by and decide to give up. Just as I go to leave, I hear a little voice, "KURTTILA!!!" It's Jenny Brown. She asks me to come with her because she's floundering a bit and needs the encouragement. I hop the rail and start jogging just before mile 20. I'm now on the other side, in Brooklyn. Jenny is cramping up a bit and I start inspiring with stupidity. I figure I'll only run a mile with her and then peel off and hit the subway as I have to meet my boss at 4 to do some work despite being a Sunday.

We're running through the Bronx and people are going nuts in the projects, screaming and yelling and cheering. It's an incredible feeling even though I don't deserve it for just landing in the middle of all this. I vow to run next year for sure by doing what it takes to qualify. The leaves in the trees are a colorful overdrop to the cheering masses under them. I fail to peel off after a mile or two and find myself still running as we cross back over into Manhattan as Harlem continues the raving cheers. Soon, we're in Central Park amidst even thicker throngs and we've picked up Jenny B's friend, Claire. I try to take pictures which of course can't do this moment justice. Green, oragne, brown, and yellow flakes peel from the branches overhead and float down in a ticker-tape celebration as we continue to plow our way onward to mile 25...Jenny B has caught her second or third wind...she's smiling now despite the cramps trying to slow her down. We round the corner on the south end of the park and are headed for the home stretch. I finally peel off just before I know I'll get caught in the last quarter mile of the overly packed finish line.

Now I'm stuck...on the wrong side of the throngs and there's no way across the course to catch a subway back to the Village and home where AxL may or may not be still going. He has been such an amazing friend and I feel a bit like crap for bailing on him to do this, but on the other hand, it's been such a long struggle all year and I've skipped doing so many things that I just have to trust and live life and when he goes, he goes. I can't be sad over it any longer and keep procrastinating when once in a lifetime memories like these crop up. I have to run back almost a mile to get across the course and then I find a subway stop and head back downtown. As I pop out and race for home, I'm already thirty minutes late to meet my boss all the way back up in midtown. I scramble through the shower after stepping over the still-alive AxL who is acting as if nothing is wrong. Go figure.

My boss has called four times wondering where I am and I race back out, grab a cab and head to East 54th. I expect to spend an hour there, but he and his wife have bought me ice cream and Perrier, somehow knowing they are two things I really like. I finish up just in time to race a couple of blocks over to Times Square and Carmine's family style Italian restaurant where everyone has gathered post-marathon to enjoy pasta. We spend a few hours catching up on the past and talking of things forward. Eventually, the evening ends, we bid adieu and I share a cab with Weegie, his brother and wife.

I walk through the door once again to find AxL happily munching away on unfinished blueberry pancakes still in his pie-plate bowl that he has nosed across the expansive floor of our 300 square foot palace. I give him a huge hug and we head to bed after flossing, brushing, skin-toning rituals. He immediately starts snoring per usual. I take a deep sigh and wonder how soon he'll eventually go to the other side and stay there. I shrug it off and close my eyes knowing he's back for now and that's all that matters on a late Sunday night.