Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

Day 310: Two Years - One Blink

Exactly two years ago today, at 2:11 p.m. Pacific Time, I stopped my bike after crossing through a small but colorful "finish line" held out by Marc and Cathleen Daniel as my great buddy, Joe Anderson held a bottle of champagne for me.

It was the end of a 3,782 mile, 57 day, two hour and eleven minute jaunt which I thought would soon be followed up with a book about the adventure. The book, sadly is not finished nor do I work on it much. Happily, the ride has stuck with me most every day of my life as a constant reminder of two things - what can be done and how fast life actually does go by.

Much like the 17 years which passed by in a blink since I wrote all my goals down before I reached this first one, these last two years have also passed in an even faster blink. I'm left wondering where each day went, what caused so much distraction away from writing the book, and will it ever be finished?

My buddy Bill Tucker once said, "life is backwards, we should get all of our money up front then spend our younger years and time and money doing the things we love because when we're old and our bodies are shot, then we can rot away at a desk and work to pay back what we pulled out." Not a bad theory but also - never gonna happen...mea culpa, Bill.

So I guess that leaves me with trying to answer the question as to how to actually make dreams happen in spite of the hours spent frittered in earning a living, chasing elusive relationships, caring for a lovable and geriatric dog, and a seeming infinity of bills, dishes, laundry, errands, and to do's.

By putting a magnifying glass to my typical day, it's surpsing that I've now carved out one to three hours for Iron Man training, another hour or two several times a week for riding lessons, and at least a good hour spent catching up this journal. So really, there IS time there but it just has to be spent more wisely on the things which are deemed to be worthy.

There it is, right over there - a telephone book-sized block of paper - an unfinished adventure from coast to coast all written out and in need of some editing, coloration, adjectifying, and inspirationally quotable insertions. It's time to start typing.

Please hold, the dog appears to be leaning his head on the door while falling down signifying "that time." We walk outside, snail ourselves down the sidewalk and happen upon pirouetting tourists lost in the diagonally scored and confusing concrete jungle called The Village. There's a hard tug on the leash behind me before I can get to them and show them where they are. AxL's going down again while pooping and I race back to "catch and hold" so we don't have to go through yet another bathtub brawl ritual to clean him off.

The old legs just don't have much life any more. But that adorable face and happy eyes are still in there and not giving up so there's nothing in my nature at this point which can pull his plug despite moments like these. The tourist eventually stop spinning and depart with a slightly disgusted pang on their european visages. A plastic bag is produced from my pocket, a pile is removed from the pathway and we are sort of trotting for a few feet again toward the not present in sufficient quantity waste baskets which adorn certain corners of this metropolis.

Determined to work on the book today, I go home and finish off the day's work. But then I've got to bike at the gym for training. I crank out everything that is in my legs in honor of the cross-country ride before swimming a mile in 31 minutes flat and have knocked a full eleven minutes off my time since starting serious swimming a few weeks ago.

Popping out of the Crowne Plaza, I absorb the electricity of Times Square on my way to the 50th & Broadway 1,9 and pass the old lady who stands there, perpetual cup in her hand, perpetually giving the subway reports: "just missed it, nope, that's not yours, should be coming soon..." I find a glove down in the station and take it back to her delighted self. It wasn't much, nor enough, but it did make a difference.

Back inside, I've got the shakes after the bike ride and swim so I grant mysel an "anniversary treat" of Peanut M&M's which often got me through shakes along the ride. I note all the headlines at the magazine stand - "Brad & Jen OVER!!!" I scream a happy "YES!!!!" knowing that I called it years ago when LoLo had insisted they would never split. I doubt I'll collect the $1 million from her though s we've never spoken since I don't even remember when nor care. That's a good feeling, almost as good as being "right" about Brad and Jen. I mean c'mon people, what male wouldn't take Angelina over Aniston???? (No offense Jen...)

Enough subway celebration, I go and listen to three guys making great music on conga drums, and a flute after popping a buck into the bucket. Smiling a true smile at life and its flavors, the kitchen is awaiting my arrival:

Calamari Endive Ladles - Slice some baby red potatoes and start frying them (med-high heat) in a dash of olive oil. Peel two cloves of garlic, slice thin and begin frying it in a small separate pan (med lo to med heat) with a dash of olive oil and sesame seeds. Take some fresh calamari (squid) and feel for and pull out the little "beaks" if they are there. Slice the calamari into about 1/4" pieces. You should now have little "ringlets" and you can include the tentacles if you like them. Toss this into the garlic and stir now and then. Also add some ground cloves for a neat extra sidekick. Take some fresh rosemary, basil, and cilantro and chop it up. Don't use the dried crap - it's not the same (like Angelina compared to Aniston - no offense again, Jen.)

Take some fresh string beans, the thinner the better and either break off or cut off the little ends. No need to pull the strings if they are thin enough. Cut them into about 1/2" pieces and put them to the side. Slice up a roma tomato or an if you have "heirlooms" (yellow, green, red) cut them into thick slices then cut from the center out like bike spokes so you have thin tomato wedges.

Eat a piece of potato and see if they are about done. If they aren't, lower the heat on the calamari which cooks faster. When the potatoes are about done, toss in the green beans, stir a bit (you don't really want to cook them more than a minute or so) and then toss in the calamari pan's contents and stir another 30 seconds. Put this onto a plate and then sprinkle the tomato pieces on the top and around the edges of the plate for presentation. If you have any left over herbs, sprinkle a dash of these on top of that or garnish with a bit of grated romano or parmesan. Add a slice or two of your favorite bread with a small dipping plate of olive oil and vinegar on the side and your done.

Cooking time - 15 minutes
Cost - $6-$10
Cleanup - 2 minutes for 2 pans, cutting board, knife, spatula.

Dessert: Muesli in a cup with fresh blackberries, sliced nectarine and a wee bit of half and half poured over the top. Prep time - 1 minute.

Day 309: I think I can...

For what it's worth, I feel like a newly born solar system. Planets making up my formerly disparate life seem to be coming together and finding their orbits as the last month has gone by. Harmony is emerging from cacophony as erraticism is aligned into deliberate patterns governed by consciously directed subconscious awareness. As the world attempts to fall apart according to the "NY Times" on my door step each morning, I continue to tighten down the screws, nuts, bolts, and belts while honing the rough edges and tuning up the moving parts in a dynamic me-some.

Take today, for example. It was crafted rather than haphazard. I pinged out of bed at 6 sharp, bounded to gather my riding gear only to find it already assembled and ready to go - field boots, riding pants, boot hooks, shoe powder, a book for the subway, carrots for Quonset the steed...

A brush of the teeth, a walk of the dog and I was off early rather than late. I had a good ride and am starting to make headway into slightly more advanced things as I continue to strive for the day when I can just take a horse and head to Central Park on my own, sans instructor du jour. After the ride, I skip coffee and grab the 1,9 home with a brief stop at 50th to splash out a mile in the pool in about 35 minutes. I'm home and "working" by 9:30, right on schedule including breakfast for myself and Mr. AxL. I crank out some priority work, take care of "meditation time" at lunch, then eat whole wheat toast and lox before finishing off the last half of the working day.

At 5:30, I pick up AxL's medicine, buy a swimcap of my own, take the dog out for a quick one-block lap which is about all he can pull off of late and then I'm running on the treadmill. It's a quick one tonight, doing interval training for a simple 3.2 miles in 30:50. A horrible time, but a good start. Dripping with more sweat than lead singer in concert, I hit the weight room mat and try to turn my one-pack into a six-pack. Thirty minutes of incredibly hard stretching to undo everything I piled on last week and I'm done.

A zip through the grocery store and by 9 p.m., dinner is in full force in the oven, on the stove, and over every square inch of my Barbie-playhouse sized kitchen. I have a new thought - a book titled "Cool Cooking" made especially for people who want to cook something cool and different, but don't want the hassle or know really the first thing about cooking beyond making tacos or mac and cheese.

Allow me to illuminate - tonight's menu which took a mere twenty minutes to prepare and serve, all done with a minimal amount of pans since I hate to do dishes, consisted of the following:

Entree: Mozarella di Bufalo, Heirloom Tomato, avacado and fresh basil lightly drenched in cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil

Salad: Fresh Squid, green beens and white asparagus lightly sauteed in olive oil with sesame seeds, garlic, and pepper fills a cup of radicchio and endives drizzled with wasabi mayonnaise dressing.

Main course:
Fresh tri-color linguine topped with basil rosemary portobello sauce

Baked monkfish marinated with lemon, wasabi, and cilantro

Everything fresh, all done in twenty minutes, start to finish, dishes were ten minutes to clean up at the end and trust me...it rocked.

Ten o'clock and time for bed. The legs are drained and the stomach is filled. Work is done and tomorrow is yet to be. Face is washed and moisturized, teeth are brushed and flossed, apartment is spotless, dog is medicined and full of fluids yet again.

I believe I'm finally getting the hang of all this and considering how I felt on the treadmill even at the end of the run, when it comes to getting the act together plus completing the Iron Man six months from now...I think I can.

Day 308: Central Park Skating

Finally, my eyes opened before the alarm went off at 6 a.m. It's Sunday and fiinally, yes finally I'm going skating at Wollman Rink in Central Park. I get up, walk the dog, buy hot chocolate at Jack's, and get dressed, not quite in that order.

I grab a couple of Lemon Zest Luna bars and bop down the stairs with my skate bag over my shoulder, grabbing the Sunday Times off my front doorstep on the way to the Sheridan Square 1,9 Uptown. I take this train so much between riding on the Upper West Side, swimming at Times Square, and now this jaunt to Columbus Circle that I feel almost as if I have a familiar car with which I commute each day.

As I reach exit after reading the latest horrors in the world offset with one cute story about a Brooklyn Ale House which serves beer to dogs, I'm greeted by glorious sunshine and cold air that makes it feel good to be alive and awake early. Jaunting through the park eventually results in landing upon a large herd of off-leash dogs barking, playing, running, wrestling, barking, barking, wrestling, and barking. They seem to reside next to the entrance to the rink - a wintry and glorious site.

It's HUGE. The skeletoned trees lining the rink hold up spires of New York piercing the blue behind above, concrete adults standing aft of their limbed children in a family portrait. I make my way down a foot path and into the rink which has TRUMP emblazoned everywhere possible from the doors to the coaching staff's jackets to the Zamboni's side panels. I walk to the counter to pay.

"$18, please," says a girl half my height who can't be older than twelve and can barely see over the register. Only "The Donald" would "chire" (hire child labor) to charge such exhorbitant prices - it keeps the general public from backlashing against the youthfully innocent messenger. I pay as if this is a normal price for skating in New York although when I competed back in '88 the price was around $4 an hour and that was considered pricey unless you lived in L.A. Am I really this old? No. It is just really expensive.

I opt out of a $20 locker which would refund me $6.45 upon returning the key.

"Might as well hire someone at $13.65 an hour to just watch my bag," I mutter. Finding an open bench, I pull out the skates which have not seen daylight nor my feet for two years and begin lacing them up. They are extremely dry and hard, lacking any suppleness normally attributed to creations of elkskin and cowhide costing $650 a pair back in the day. This also, will hurt a bit.

Taking to the ice, that old bicycle feeling is gone where it was nothing to step back on after a long respite. My legs shake and wobble and I can't seem to power or carve as I build up too much speed only to find I have trouble not colliding with younger skaters who are now wondering where this royal blue shirted behemoth came from. After a spell, "Rose" shows up who is a friend of a friend who talked me into this outing. She skates quite a bit more often than I do and despite me thinking up to this point that I'd simply astound the entire rink, I'm really a trainwreck in search of derailment in the unforseen but obviously near future. The session changes over a bit and they split the rink in two with low padded barriers. I'm now relegated to a "dance" session on one side while platoon of red-jacketed instructors leads several battalions of half-pint students on the other.

After about an hour and a half, my skates have warmed and softened to the degree that I can actually skate again although jumping or spinning is out of the question due to several factors, most of them to do with me but also that it's restricted during the "dance only" portion. Thank GOD.

It turns 9. Feeling deep cuts on both sides of both ankles from the scissor action of the tongue inside the boots it is time to quit. Rose and I grab a latte at Sbux near the Trump International Tower and chat about life goals, procrastination, and organization. She has to get home to her home and family and I need to get home to my dog so we both grab the 1,9 and rocket South underground. I thank her as she departs at23rd and then I ride on to Sheridan Square and home.

Another New York experience is now checked off the list but it's going to be a few weeks until I can tackle Rockefeller Center's rink as my now bleeding ankles need to heal. What can be said except that it was all worth it and more.