Bourgeois dilemma #38: electricity can be tricky

Most of the time, we turn things on and off without thinking too much about it. of course there's the occasional thunderstorm/hurricane/heat wave induced power plant failure when rural and/or urban dwellers find themselves in search of a flashlight to figure out what the heck is going on. or, if you are lucky, you have an off the grid cabin somewhere where on summer nights you catch fireflies in a jar to light the way after the embers of the fire circle burn down.

on a day-to-day basis, I am pretty hooked on electricity. the laptop and fully charged iphone that are the weapons of my trade are fairly key to survival. the fridge, and of course the tv that provides a comforting quiet half hour or so for some of my dependents: children, sweet husband and at this moment in time, my dear old dad. dear old dad really loves to watch the stock market ticker and manually calculates his net worth daily in spite of years of encouragement to take the even slightly longer view of a month or a quarter. he also loves to watch the history channel and on occasion the travel channel. at this writing, I am on dad duty at a rickety rental house at the beach. the first time the tv screen turned blue instead of tuning in to the mellifluous tones of Samantha brown, we were right on the phone to the landlord. a local fourth grade teacher who looks as if he logged his fair share of mileage following the dead in the 70s and 80s, he didn't seem to have the faintest idea about the cable tv. so I gutted it out with comcast and set up a service call. for three long days, dear old dad went without samantha. naturally, on the appointed day I stood sentry over the phone, living in fear of missing THE CALL that would tell me the service man was on his way. no call. at 5, the end of the 2-5 window, I placed the obligatory call to comcast myself and was told that the serviceman had cancelled since the customer was not home. now I don't need to tell you what ensued. I am sure you've had the same dialog with your local cable provider once or twice yourself. it just so happens that rickety beach rental's driveway is 20 yards from the entrance to the town beach and service call was set for a day that turned out to be a 10 in terms of beach time. I am pretty sure that if i had binoculars, I would have been able to see the slightly pale and flabby comcast man in his uniform down over at the snack bar up the way.

some people might want to take matters as simple as a cable outage into their own hands, but i've been burned by this approach before and so like to stick to the professionals. my sweet husband and i spent the first few years of our married life in a garret of sorts on the upper west side. the apartment's best feature was a terrace comprised of the downstairs neighbor's rooftop. otherwise, it was good for us but there were certain compromises. such as the bedroom, narrow enough that a double bed took up so much space that an arm extended from a lying down position would meet with the wall at about 135 degrees. another quirk of our newlywed nest was the air conditioning limitation in the lease. due to the landlord's probable lack of wiring up to code, it was written that only one air conditioner be run at a time. there were two windows in addition to the door out to the "terrace" and each of these windows had the special big plug nearby, leaving one to draw the logical conclusion that each window could hold an air conditioner and so they did.

I am a pleaser and a perfectionist which means that I am a stickler for things like leases. one air conditioner at a time was decreed by Mr. Mort Elbirt, and so even on the hottest day, in our garret, one air conditioner we did run.

now, there wasn't anything in the lease about an air conditioner and the television running concurrently so on a particularly scorching evening we were cozied up after our three course meal for movie night. the ac was humming and we were pleasantly chilled. tv on andbzzztboom. blackness. no ac. no nothing. we opened the door to the apartment and were met by a pitch black hallway and the sound of some rustling and concern below. my sweet husband, never shy about electronics and other matters that for all his god given intelligence he has no right to take on, went in to the breach and headed down to the basement to look under the hood. there were a few apartments with lights on so he was able to find his way down and was joined there by neighbor Ned who was clad in a silk kimono and not much else. In spite of the large rent we paid, the basement of the building had not been touched since the era of the horse and buggy and was a dirt floored room with a lot of plumbing and wires hanging around. enticingly, in the back corner loomed a large handle with a faded skull and crossbones sticker plastered to the front.

the gravitational pull of this handle was too much for my sweet husband who, in spite of increasingly loud and high pitched protestations from neighbor ned and the fact that he was standing about ankle deep in water that had been sitting there since 1895 (I knew after a brief 6 months of marriage to stay out of it), approached, touched, reared back and then went for the kill and pulled the switch and flapped it back. total blackness and the eerie quiet that comes when 10 or so window unit air conditioners cease humming instantaneously. as we mounted the six flights of stairs from the basement to the garrett, people were in the hallways canvassing about what to do and one of the long standing tenants placed a call to the landlord. Our concern was limited to where we were going to sleep that evening, and thank god a pal was traveling so we hoofed it a few blocks to another apartment with functioning AC and TV leaving neighbor ned and the rest of the crew to swelter in the dark.

The next day, I navigated a rather irate Mr. Elbirt

you have two air conditioners

we do, but we only run them one at a time. there are two ac plugs

don't lie to me

and so forth.

Years later, we had to get a letter of recommendation from Mr. Elbirt to purchase a co-op and learned that he had died of a heart attack. presumably, the stress of managing law breaking tenants did him in.

There are a few of these types of incidents in our collective history as a family - garbage disposals, alarm systems and the like falling by the wayside with well meaning attempts to fix/stop/etc. But I've got comacast in the crosshairs here at the rickety rental. How dare their technician out and out lie to me? Supervisor Sally is very contrite and apologetic as to the fact that it will be two days before she can get someone out here. So I give dear old dad the bad news and he goes back to his word find puzzle. On the appointed day, I call first thing to be sure that all is in order for the 12-2 window, and a new teleprompt informs me that I can reset my signal after an electrical outage by pressing 2. who knows, maybe running the dishwasher and the washing machine at once counts as an electrical outage. After all, the clocks are forever blinking here at the rickety rental. Please wait 40-60 minutes while we reload your channel line up. And gosh darn it it works. I cancel the service call and post the number on the fridge. All set. A week later, it's part of the routine. Put in a load of dirty clothes and towels, mop down the kitchen counters, start the dishwasher and call my friend at comcast to reload my channel line up. Until, one day, she's not there. My only option is to wait for an operator. Not, we've all had the infuriating experience of hitting “0” repeatedly and being informed in some matrix like command that that option is not valid.... press 1 to return to the main menu, dos to habla espanol and so forth. But in this case, I just want to press 2 and go on about my business. Instead, I have to try to convince customer service representative Johnny to do what she has done for me so beautifully all of these days

Hi, yes, ummm I know why my problem is, I wanted to reset my signal but the command isn't there, can you do that for me?

No ma'am, you don't have any equipment there so I am unable to do that.

Huh. that's weird, I've been doing that about once a day for the past week or so and it seems to have solved my problem.

Well that's not possible. You don't have any of our equipment over there.

Listen, your last name doesn't happen to be Elbirt does it?

What?

Never mind. Just do what I am telling you please. Don't ask questions; just do the thing that she does when I press 2. Don't tell me why it won't work, just do it please.

OK.

And about 40-60 minutes later, the channel line up loaded, Dear Old Dad settled in to watch Samantha Brown in Cambodia and is happy as a clam.

Until I decide to blow-dry my hair.

Bourgeois dilemma #3: i've turned in to a dog person

most of my life, I have been characterized as afraid of dogs. my own personal mythology encompassed a matching pair of russian wolfhounds that terrorized me on the suburban street of my childhood home with their grand pointed noses about eye level with my smaller self. only recently was that memory adjusted by my sister, 9 years my senior, who informed me that the dogs were dachshunds. no matter, I just never really clicked with the idea of a dog. gerbils yes, and a series of goldfish poignantly named "cat" and "dog." but my mother was allergic so we were not a dog house and that lack of canine connection left me wary of the drooling, jumping on you, sniffing at your crotch and smelling bad scenario that I associated with dogs. even to the point where I would mock my college roommate when she would call home and inquire sweetly after "Boo and Sham" her little hounds named for Bristol VT and, of course, Chamonix.

I did have a minor connection with my first love's dog, some kind of shaggy medium dog named, of all things, Muffin. But in retrospect maybe it was just the glaze of 16 year old first love syndrome that made his entire household seem special and glowing to me.

Recently, however, I gave in to the pleas of my sweet husband and both of my pet starved children. And we got a DOG. We tried a friend's on for size first, dog sitting Teddy for a weekend and then a week. Seemed to go ok. We signed up with Teddy's breeder but were disappointed when his parents struck out three times. So moved on to another breeder of the same type of dog and received the birth announcement of the litter on January 9th. So "teal" as in the color of yarn around his neck became Milo.

And something deep inside of me started to change.

We watched Milo grow over the days and weeks and finally he came home to us on April 1st. Thank god, my sweet husband grew up with dogs and has been an absolute genius at training Milo. No marley, this dog does what he is supposed to do outside and since we are much stricter parents to him than we've ever managed to be to our own kids, he hasn't ruined anything. now, I will say that in spite of the fact that he's a good deal bigger than originally planned (he is, after all, the unlikely combination of a toy poodle father and a golden retriever mother with the unfortunate name of golden doodle), i am mad for this dog.

i guess i knew it when one early morning (the 6:30 am walk is happily mine) some jogger said wow that dog is looking up at you with such admiration and my heart swelled. no one really comments out loud when you are having a sweet loving moment with your kids, so the last public commentary I have had on my parenting was when I was 9.5 months pregnant with my tiny daughter and people would say things like gee, you're so big you must be having twins. doesn't exactly warm the cockles of your heart.

but I really knew it when one day not long ago, as I was crossing the street with Milo and my sweet husband was walking along with me (yes, we leave our children alone in the apartment while I walk the dog. one reading, the other sleeping - feel free to call DFS!) and we came across one of milo's pals, a golden retriever pup named buddy. and, as if possessed, a high pitched voice came out of my very own mouth in a sort of yelp screech ohhh milo, look there's buddy, don't you want to play???!!!

my husband stopped cold in his tracks and looked and me as if I was nuts and promptly took off into the park as if being chased by a mugger. Naturally I went on about my business and took milo down to the section where all of his morning playdates are. hudson the boxer, prince the black lab, babka the havanese, the unnamed "unfriendly" dog help tightly by the man who for some unknown reason insists on walking him right through the off leash dog hang out early morning area. I could go on. And let me attest to the fact that in some 12 years so far of having playground age children in NYC, I have not once had an idle first name basis or made a friend with the parent of another child. I am not that mommy. I am the mommy huddled on the bench reading a magazine or conducting a phone call or posting some witty status on fb from my iphone. I am not chatty mommy. well, not a chatty human mommy. but with milo, it's different. he needs me to know these characters - morty, adrianne, oliver, meg, karl - the DOG PEOPLE. and I do.

It's even deeper than that. on my birthday, my sweet husband offered to take the morning walk so I could read in bed. he went, but only with 10 minutes of instruction as to where to go, how to stay away from the unfriendly dog and how to make sure he didn't get in to trouble. and every time I go to the pet store to pick up some necessary supply, I find myself like a grandparent unable to control the urge to buy milo a new toy. I have referred to myself many times as milo's mommy. and in the car, with a lifetime of sailing and long car rides under my belt, at age 43 I find myself with the onset of empathetic canine induced carsickness. helpful as if you can anticipate when the dog might lose it, you can contain it much more readily. so I am the dog puke canary in the coal mine in the family now.

Milo is away just now - last week I taught him how to swim at the beach - he made me so proud. he's off with my sweet husband and the girls for a week of camp daddy in the mountains so I can have the dream of working as long as I want with no interruptions, eating my cereal standing up at the counter and actually reading a book. but when I came home tonight and there was no goofy puppy pawing at his crate wagging his whole body waiting for me, it was hard.

maybe, just maybe, tomorrow at around 6:30 I will go for a jog in the park and just amble through the dog area to see who's there.

bourgeois dilemma #35: honey this coffee is cold

in case you didn't get it from the country club post, I have been a beneficiary of The Good Life. a prime example is spending summers in a small town east of new haven - every summer, for the most part, in a little town where both sets of my grandparents as well as my paternal grandparents "summered" back in the day. in fact, my grandparents first met in this town on a beach where a sort of chuck wagon had pulled in to provide changing rooms for the day and the girls had honking huge white bows in their hair and the boys were in full on suits. my parents met here at a dance, and my father swears that he knew at age 15 that he would marry my 13 year old mother, flat chested freckled and mouth full of braces. knowing what it all meant, my sweet husband was good enough to propose to me here and we celebrated our perfect union on the lawn between grandma's house and the neighbors.

things are different now - we are renters, theirs a starbucks/cvs/subway in the mini strip mall and mcmansions are supplanting the third generation beach houses along the shore.

But some things never change and thank god for those things, such as the lawn bowling league. 25 or so old men (and I say that with the utmost respect, but these guys are bona fide old like "Yale class of 1944 dear" old). who turn up at a pre-appointed destination every sunday from may -october to lawn bowl. boules, petanque, no matter what it is called it seems that many cultures have a version of old men hanging around tossing bigger balls to reach a smaller ball and uttering their linguistic equivalent of "beh".

Here in our little town it's a ritual of course and the ways of the tradition are not clearly communicated in any way. I will never forget the first time that my "parents" (as in my mom) hosted the event 15 or so years ago. There are very clear patterns: the old men arrive at 9:15 (so exactly at 9:15 one wonders how they synchronize), drink coffee from an urn which is passed on week to week along with a basket of mugs and eat sweets. They then bowl. Then there's a "minor lunch" involving min sandwiches, vodka and rum among other libations. Mom probably had to wrestle this general protocol out of my father (he's never been much on hostessing details) so she was left to figure out when the minor lunch would be served. given the booze aspect, she assumed it would come at the end. Au contriare, that course arrives mid-bowl at 10:15 am. On that particular weekend, thank god, we had a dear friend of mine as a house guest - one of those girls/women who has managed to maintain their 16 year old figure and the corresponding bikini well into her 40s with very little effort. So, the grumbling of the old men who charged on to the porch at 10:15 looking for their mini sandwiches and vodka tonics was mitigated by my bikini clad pal passing cubes of cheese on a platter.

Just last weekend, we had the honor of hosting this event. Mom died last summer, so it was a stake in the ground of normalcy for dad, who has his own problems, to host it. Luckily, in my mother's recipe box was a slip of paper with the set shopping list for "lawn bowling" and we were able to procure what was needed at the stop n shop. I admit to cheating by procuring pre-made salmon cream cheese rolls, but other than that I stuck to the list. A few emails with one of the bowlers, a 90 year old urologist with whom I am friends on facebook, naturally, to fill in what booze was needed, and I was ready to roll.

8:00 AM: cut coffee cake, arrange donut holes, arrange mugs, ice down lemonade.

8:15 AM: plug in urn to brew. In kitchen as the cord doesn't reach the plug on the porch, will move later.

8:20 AM: someone finds an extension cord so we move the urn to the porch.

8:30-9AM: arrange baskets of sweets, set out milk/cream/sugar and spoons

9:00AM: await arrival of bowlers

9:15AM: bowlers begin to arrive, striding, ambling, and/or creeping across the lawn and on to the porch.

9:16AM: very short old man with huge thick round spectacles comes into kitchen with coffee mug: "Honey, this coffee is cold."

Turns out the plug on the porch did not work. How did I not check this? I go into a free fall of panic. I have approximately 1/2 a coffee maker pot of my own high grade brew, so I reach in to the basket of mugs and offer Mr. McGoo some of my own hot coffee. "I don't like that mug." Shit. I am ruining lawn bowling with my ineptitude. He gets his own mug, and I fill it up. "That's too much". I pour some back in to the pot "I need more." At this moment, I am squelching the urge to pour the coffee over his head but I just smile. The coffee urn has been moved back in to the kitchen and is audibly perking away, thank god. The porch is now crowded with men and while technically speaking it's a no fly zone for anyone of the weaker sex, I have a hall pass on account of the coffee fiasco (oh, and the man who needs tea). this means I have the illicit thrill of listening to the announcements which amount to a necrology as well as the introduction of a guest - in fact, the guest of my fb friend who gleefully explains that he and his colleague, a fellow urologist, are "pirates of the perineum" and declares it's better to have foreskin than hind skin. I am not even sure what hind skin is but naturally I don't want it and am overwhelmed by an urgent need to get off of that porch as fast as I can. There are several more roars of laughter from the assembled group in that hale fellow well met modality. they totter off to bowl and at 10:15 on the dot clamber back to the porch - lemonade, vodka, the salmon cream cheese pinwheels and mini ham and cheese sandwiches seem to go over without incident. the bowling continues and as it's about 95 degrees I am ready to offer more lemonade after but that's not how it goes. as each team finishes, they pack up their balls and get back in to their cars and that's it 'til next week. not even a goodbye.

some might suggest that a gathering such as this should be busted wide open. at one point, a splinter group of wives was going to start a cultural get together to prove that the womenfolk could have their fun too, not that the pirates of the perineum would care much. but the truth is that there is something hapless and even sweet about these geezers with their bags of balls and the sneaky mid morning v&t. who knows, maybe the rest of the year they are forced to go to church or something.

next year, I will be sure that the coffee is piping hot.

bourgeois Dilemma #19: I covet my hostess's clothing

This morning, a guest dilemma from R&S some wonderful friends with whom we had the pleasure of dining (mexican in soho) this week.

we all know and love our friends who are not only outright members of the aristocracy, but generous too boot. royal or not, they have luscious offerings like empty beach houses (please feel free to use the house in sag harbor while we're down in st. bart's - such a shame to have it go empty) and seasons tickets to the met or even the mets. R&S recount just one such friend who's real estate holdings include the perfect top floor apartment in the rue du bac. rarely used and always available to r&s, it's owner is a fashion designer of some note. so, this free place to stay for a romantic week in paris also comes with a closet full of clothes and a twice weekly housekeeper. Just perfect.

r&s go for a week of biking and strolling around gay paris, enjoying pain au chocolat, fine wine, art and food. tuesdays and thursdays (that's mardi and jeudi in case you aren't up on your francais) they return home for the requisite nap before dinner to find the house clean. I am not sure but it's likely that the femme de menage even left the loo paper with that nice little folded triangle so that you would know she'd been there.

so rather than feeling the need to scurry around in the afternoons straightening up the place (even though the owner is a continent or two away, one never wants to risk the femme de menage giving a bad report (oh, madame, the guests, they were horrible, degolas!) r in particular felt comfortable checking out the clothes in the closets. she and her absentee hostess were long time friends and since r conveniently wears the same size, some trying on was in order. one pair of jeans was just so and r came out modelling them for s. s, an art historican specializing in design, demurred that they were nice and so they because a go to for the trip. when in paris, after all, even the most put together american can feel so frumpy. how do they wrap their sweaters around their necks so that they are both completely flat and twisted without looking lumpy or giving a hunch back? Try as i might it just never works the same way. and I am not even going to get in to the discussion of scarves and scarf tying or belts.

one afternoon after a lovely stroll through in the marais, r&s returned to the rue du bac to find the femme de manage gracefully wiping down the marble top counters. trust me, if i could import her to train up carmen a bit, I would. r, naturally was wearing the jeans and had a momentary panic that madame femme de menage would relay the purloined pants episode to the hostess. and the panic came true. femme de m approached r in a vigorous pantomime, pointing at the jeans. had their been a lazy french fly going by, it might have gone right in to r's mouth.

again, femme de m pointed at the jeans, and then just as vigorously, pointed at her self. repeat. and again.

you see,the just so jeans actually belonged to the femme de menage.

and this is why we all need to move to paris. the land where even the cleaning ladies know how to dress, no less clean.

Bourgeois Dilemma #22: my kid freaked out at the country club

Summer is a time for fun by the pool, tennis in whites and sailing lessons. At least it always has been for me. though most would expect it, i don't golf except the mini kind, and not so well. having been raised in a very "posh" town i spent a great deal of time in my childhood at country clubs (in fact, on the once night a week when the pool was open late and the fathers would come straight from the train to dine with their families pool side, when they turned the spot lights on my water logged eyes would create enormous halos around each light giving me an 8 year old trip of sorts) and while I don't belong to any in my real grown up life, I know the drill. in fact, about a year after my parents left my childhood home and moved to another city, i spent a weekend in my hometown for a friend's wedding and invited some gals to have lunch by the pool the day before the wedding. we sauntered in, took the little towels and dined on salads, diet cokes and relaxed and chatted all afternoon. after the weekend, I was catching up with my mom on the phone and told her we'd had such a nice lunch and that she should just send me the bill when it came so that I could reimburse her. "But honey, we aren't members there any more" was her response. Who knew? They seemed perfectly happy to take the order when I confidently signed "S-611" on the chit. I've not followed through on the subsequent temptation to crack the member letter number code at some completely random club and see if I can hang out for a while. maybe it's not so easy now that the world has gotten so fancy but who knows.

since old habits die hard, my parents joined another club in another town years later so as to be able to play bridge, tennis and entertain their grandchildren. one summer day when annie was about 4, we were enjoying labor day weekend at mom and dad's condo and happily went to the club "family festival" closing weekend party and award ceremony. all was well, annie played in the baby pool, we sipped iced teas and had chef salad for lunch. round about 2, we suffered through the presentation of "awards" given of course to each and every little muffy and timmy who had survived a rigorous summer of tennis, swimming and golf "camp." and then the bell rang and we were invited to play in the bouncy castle, slippy slide and similar games that had been tempting annie all afternoon. always an independent child, she strode off, "walking with purpose" as opposed the the illegal poolside run. she got about half way around the pool and in an instant was streaming back to me screaming her head off with blood seeping out of her second toe. Now, I know better than anyone that "we don't scream at the club." I snatched her up and ran into the lifeguard's room doing everything short of putting my hand over her mouth in an effort to get her to stop screaming. "you have just stubbed your toe. stop crying. calm down." over and over again in what i thought was a calm but clear voice that might just cut through the screams. this went on for a full and endless five minutes until a perfectly lovely woman in a skirted bathing suit ran into the room with a stunned expression on her face and said "you might want to turn this off". This being the PA system that had been left on after the awards ceremony, emitting it's screeching broadcast of my dulcet joan crawford tones.

I held Annie down while the 16 year old sunburnt to a crisp lifeguard put a band aid on her toe and we got out of there as quickly as humanly possible. 30 or 40 minutes later, i noticed a trail of blood making its way from the tv room to the porch where annie was being read to by my angelic and ever patient mother. i am not good with blood at all and forced my sweet husband to inspect. I won't go into the details since it's just past lunchtime somewhere, but the dr. at the emergency room had a medical term for "your toenail was totally ripped out of it's bed" - just searching for that has rendered me on the verge of passing out so you will have to see if you can find it yourself.

thank god, she was forbidden from getting her foot wet for the rest of the vacation week so we didn't have to turn up there again until a full year later. if the members of the club had any memory, they didn't let on. annie, needless to say, could recount the story to you verbatim even today 6 years later and never fails to remind me about the trauma.

oh for a rum punch by the pool.

Bourgeois Dilemma #16: my husband is training for the marathon.

This weekend, as a nation we celebrate our independence from the rule of british monarchs. In my household we are indeed free from taxation without representation, but are now ruled by an obsession. Amidst the annual kids red white and blue bike parade, fireworks and the like, we are focused on a key future date: November 7, 2010. The running of the ING New York City Marathon. Timex tells me that there are some 125 days, 22 hours 4 minutes and six seconds remaining until the big day, but if you want to live the journey along with us until the race feel free to track it for yourself here: http://www.ingnycmarathon.org/.

As the wife of a middle aged white man (and no, I don't want to get in to the whole 40 is the new 30 so middle aged is 50 argument. My husband may look 35 but he is on the downhill from 45 to 50 and that is middle aged), I know I am not alone as a marathon widow. After all, Marathons is officially #27 on the list of Stuff White People Like http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/26/27-marathons/. But this marathon thing is just the latest in a string of time intensive and all consuming athletic pursuits that "we" have taken on over the last 10 years or so. Before that, we were simply fat. Our marriage was one not only of two people, but of one family that ate dessert but never hor d'ouvres, and another that was the other way round. Naturally, we joined in our perfect union and sat down each night to a full on cheese and cracker platter, three course dinner and dessert washed down with a bottle of wine. Give yourself a few months or years of that diet followed by team pregnancy and all that follows and you too can be 20-30 pounds heavier than you should be. Thank goodness, somewhere along the way it was decided that a group of our friends would join forces as a team in the Nantucket Iron Teams Relay race - each member taking on a leg such as a paddle board across the harbor, a 3 mile run on sand with a 20 lb. pack of sand on your back, etc. (White enough?). Tim owned the 13 mile bike leg and to keep him motivated his teammates spray painted FAT BASTARD along the route at key milestones. He was motivated and the lucky thing is that this started a trend of races and runs that seems to keep on going. 10Ks lead to half marathons and two years ago NY. Since it's a good idea to do it more than once, last year ran the requisite 9 NYRR races, volunteered at one and now has a number for 2010.

So here we are in July and the training begins in earnest. Just last night, as we stood by the bbq, chardonnay in hand with a gorgeous sea side sunset as a backdrop, my sweet husband turned to me and said "from here to the street that Jen and Mike live on is exactly one mile. And to the point where the road turns up away from the water is two. And...." not sure if it was my yawn or the glazed over look in my eyes that prompted him to cut off his romantic soliloquy "distances from here to there". Training for the marathon or any race involves longer and longer "long runs" on a weekend day as well as several runs during the week. As the runs get longer, the preparation and the post run activities also increase in duration and intensity. Somewhere around August, I will routinely be awakened at 2 or 3 am to the sound of crinkling energy bar wrapper and chewing. Can't run 15 miles on dinner from the night before and of course you can't eat just before a run. And while an "en suite" bathroom is supposed to have some sort of cache, when it comes time for him to get up at 5AM in order to head out and run 10 miles on a wednesday morning, I make no bones about the fact that the best place for the pre run toilette is the doorman's bathroom in the basement. Luckily, we spend a lot of time out of the city in the summer, and I am free to relax and read the sunday new york times on the beach looking up every once in a while to make sure that my kids aren't drowning. It's september back in NYC that I am wondering about this year, when he will spend dawn til dusk one day each weekend busy with carbo loading, hydrating, eliminating, running around the island of manhattan, hydrating, stretching, showering, eating, stretching, hydrating, eating and resting in front of the TV while I makethebedsfeedthechildrenwalkthedogcleanupthekitchenshowerwalkthedog

gotosoccerpracticewalkthedogentertainthechildrenmakelunchcleanuplunchshopforfood

answerworkemailsprocurekidspartypresentwalkthedoggotopartyandpreparedinner.

Don't get me wrong, come November 7 i will ride all over the 5 boroughs and provide goo at the right places and wave signs and scream and run along. And maybe, just maybe, on november 8th i will start training for a 24 endurance race in costa rica.