Walk This Way
Hello World,
Well, there's certainly nothing to be said about the weather in the local area this week, because as incredible as it might seem, it was a mirror image of the exact same weather we had last week, with the same low temperatures, pouring rain, gray skies and dank, clammy conditions more suited to October in Seattle, rather than the honeymoon month famous for brides and graduates. This is no one's idea of June in New York, and I ought to know, believe me. In fact, when we were at the diner last week, one of the staff mentioned that relatives were staying at their cabin in Lake George, and reported that they were having snow there, and don't forget, this is in June. It's times like this that you realize that you just don't know what to expect next, but there's a pretty firm chance that it won't be good.
Speaking of things that are not good, a former member of our church recently went on to their final reward, and I received several different obituaries from different people, who all wanted to make sure that I found out about it. In what can only be described as mass hysteria, or perhaps a widespread mathematical hallucination, all of the obits listed the key dates as 1929 - 2009, and reported the deceased as 70 years old. I don't mind saying that I personally have trouble with math, and yet even I can tell that's wrong without even trying. Somehow I expect better of the people who are putting together obituaries, but it's really true that there are no standards anymore, heaven knows.
Speaking of church, the wife of our pastor has been working at the United Nations in New York City for many years, and was recently re-assigned to Beirut, Lebanon, which couldn't help but make a person wonder if they weren't trying to tell her something. (I'm thinking, this is sort of like your boss coming up to you and saying something like, "Why don't you climb inside the trunk of this car, and we'll have this Mafia hit man shoot some ventilation holes in it for you?" I mean, getting shipped off to Beirut cannot be seen as the plum assignment of the diplomatic corps, like Buckingham Palace or the Vatican, for instance.) Our pastor has plans to follow along right after her, and will be leaving at the end of June, and while I would normally say that our gain is Lebanon's loss, this time I'm not so sure. The pastor is so enormously boring, I'm thinking it can only help to reduce tensions in the Mideast, just by virtue of him being there, and all he has to do is open his mouth. If they would just put him in a room with the political negotiators, everyone would fall asleep instead of arguing with each other. Personally, I think they should send him to the Palestinians to travel around with the guerillas, who I believe would all take vows and go live out their lives in a convent, just so they wouldn't have to listen to him anymore. It could literally change the cultural landscape of the region at a stroke, after centuries and centuries of violence, because there is no antidote for the stultifying dullness that radiates around him like a fog of soporific stupor. I always said that our church could have been much more successful if we had used this to our advantage, by inviting people to events at no charge, but then making them pay to get out, once the pastor started talking. Sure, we're going to send the pastor over to Lebanon for nothing, but just wait until they want to send him back, and we can name our own price and get whatever concessions we can think of. We'll have the entire Arab world over a barrel, and there won't be anything they can do about it. I'm thinking that 25c for a gallon of gasoline sounds pretty good to me for starters.
Of course, everyone knows that I have a well-deserved reputation as a non-psychic, always last with the story, and I was only kidding in a previous note where I said that this year could be a "reverse Triple Crown" in horse racing, where the three big races are all won by a different horse each time. And yet, that's exactly what happened, and I don't pretend to claim any credit for seeing it coming. The TV listings describe it this way: "If a Triple Crown hopeful manages to overcome the packed field of the Kentucky Derby and the short rest leading up to the Preakness, it must next surmount race distance in the Belmont Stakes. The race's 1-1/2 mile length has proven to be the undoing of many a Derby-Preakness winner, including Big Brown, who finished last in the 2008 Belmont, a first for such a horse." The big story at the Belmont this year was jockey Calvin Borel, who was trying for a personal Triple Crown, by being the winning jockey at all three races, on different horses. Having already won the Derby on Mine That Bird, and the Preakness with Rachel Alexandra, he was back on Mine That Bird for the Belmont with high hopes of success. The newspaper said that he would be the first jockey in history to accomplish this feat, making it even more rare than a horse winning the Triple Crown, which has only happened 11 times, with the last being Affirmed in 1978. This could have been a Cinderella story for the ages, with a fairy tale ending to go down in history.
What happened instead was a surprise to everyone, as 11-1 shot Summer Bird (ironically, another colt of Birdstone, just like the favorite Mine That Bird) ran away with the thing by nearly 3 lengths. Suddenly, Calvin Borel became a non-story, and it seemed like nothing interesting was going to come out of the race. Not so fast! In what turned out to be even more of a Cinderella story, the winning jockey on Summer Bird was none other than the veteran Kent Desormeaux, who was on nobody's mind this year, but that wasn't always the case. It seems that last year, the racing world was agog for Big Brown, and sure enough, it was the very same Kent Desormeaux, who rode the horse to big victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 2008, setting the stage for the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years, and considered practically a foregone conclusion at the time. We already know that Big Brown finished dead last in the Belmont, owing to a foot injury, which must have been a bitter disappointment, especially to the jockey, who had already won the Kentucky Derby three times in his career, and the Preakness twice, but never the Belmont. So of all the long-shots to come out of nowhere and snatch the last jewel of the Triple Crown right out from under the nose of Mine That Bird, it turned out to be the horse's half-brother, and ridden by the jockey who lost the Belmont last year after winning the first two races. I'm telling you, you just can't make this stuff up.
In other sports news, the hospital invited us to join an exercise group they call Around The Sound Walkers, which they said would walk outdoors from 12:30 - 1:00 in good weather, and walk indoors when the conditions were unfavorable. I had already been walking around the hospital campus by myself during my lunch time, but I thought I would check out the group and see what it was like. The first day, I went to join them in my usual work clothes and with what I considered my sturdy sneakers. I was thinking this would probably be a ragtag group of older women, out for a meandering stroll, and easily thwarted by cold, heat, wind or cloudiness. Instead, I found 12 young ladies in workout wear, who set off at a blistering pace around the neighborhood, so that I had to trot to keep up with them. When I walk around the hospital, I stick to the perimeter of the campus, so that I don't have to cross streets and take my chances with the traffic. But these girls went marching off blocks away in every direction, regardless of motor vehicles in our path, which made it critically important for me to stick together with them at all costs. I figured that even the most homicidal driver wasn't going to run over all 13 of us walking ladies, especially the pathetic little runty one at the back, trotting to keep up with the rest. Every time we got to a corner, they turned even farther away from the hospital, making me wonder just how far we were going to end up walking in 30 minutes. When I explained to people later where we had walked, everyone said the same thing: "Oh, you couldn't have walked up the Second Street hill!" which is apparently locally famous for its steep incline. I had never heard of it before, but I do know that I thought I was just going to drop dead, and it's a wonder that I didn't. When we finally got back to the hospital, they expect everyone to run up the 15 steps and clap, like we've just won some sort of prize or something. As for myself, I felt like I had been hit by a truck, and everything I was wearing was just sopping wet. My face had gone from being bright red, to purple, to a color that can only be described as not being found in nature. My sturdy sneakers, which had started out zipped to the top, had unzipped themselves along the way, as I stamped along with the group, trying not to get left behind. The leader of the group, who runs marathons for the heck of it, said that we went about 3 miles in 30 minutes, and I really felt every bit of that. It was certainly not the walk group of sissy old ladies that I was expecting, that's for sure.
Once I knew what to expect, I got better prepared for my next outing with the walk group. First I changed into some spare clothes that I brought from home, and sneakers with sensible laces that wouldn't unzip as I was going. Since I knew the route, I was better able to pace myself the whole way, and did a better job of keeping up with the group, rather than trotting to catch up from the rear. Even better, the marathon lady wasn't there, so even though the pace was still fast for me, it was at least 10 minutes slower overall, which seemed like a big improvement compared to that first time. After just a few times out with the walk group, over the last two weeks, I noticed that my stamina had improved so that even when the marathon lady was in charge, I was still able to keep up the pace better and better each day. But it's still very challenging, and a lot more strenuous than anything I would do on my own, if I wasn't terrified of getting run over by myself, if I don't stick together with the rest of the walkers. I've been telling people in my office that I expect the walk group would be a great way to lose weight, if it doesn't kill me first.
Yesterday I was surprised when the marathon lady jogged up to me and said something about how I was the resident professional in the group and putting the rest of them to shame, and I had no idea what she was talking about. It was only later that it occurred to me that the spare clothes I had brought from home included one of many promotional T-shirts for the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge 5K Run, which they would hand out as freebies every year at the Secretary's Day Luncheon, and I have at least one of them for each year, in a dizzying variety of colors and designs. This well-known race attracts serious runners from all over, and somehow she must have thought that I was one of them, and not just a secretary taking advantage of a free handout under false pretences. I obviously had to set her straight, although I would have thought that turning purple on the Second Street hill would have been enough of an indication that I was no one's idea of a serious runner, if not the unzipped sneakers. I'm sure I could get the pastor of my church to vouch for me, but then I'd have to find some way to wake the poor woman up again.
Elle
Well, there's certainly nothing to be said about the weather in the local area this week, because as incredible as it might seem, it was a mirror image of the exact same weather we had last week, with the same low temperatures, pouring rain, gray skies and dank, clammy conditions more suited to October in Seattle, rather than the honeymoon month famous for brides and graduates. This is no one's idea of June in New York, and I ought to know, believe me. In fact, when we were at the diner last week, one of the staff mentioned that relatives were staying at their cabin in Lake George, and reported that they were having snow there, and don't forget, this is in June. It's times like this that you realize that you just don't know what to expect next, but there's a pretty firm chance that it won't be good.
Speaking of things that are not good, a former member of our church recently went on to their final reward, and I received several different obituaries from different people, who all wanted to make sure that I found out about it. In what can only be described as mass hysteria, or perhaps a widespread mathematical hallucination, all of the obits listed the key dates as 1929 - 2009, and reported the deceased as 70 years old. I don't mind saying that I personally have trouble with math, and yet even I can tell that's wrong without even trying. Somehow I expect better of the people who are putting together obituaries, but it's really true that there are no standards anymore, heaven knows.
Speaking of church, the wife of our pastor has been working at the United Nations in New York City for many years, and was recently re-assigned to Beirut, Lebanon, which couldn't help but make a person wonder if they weren't trying to tell her something. (I'm thinking, this is sort of like your boss coming up to you and saying something like, "Why don't you climb inside the trunk of this car, and we'll have this Mafia hit man shoot some ventilation holes in it for you?" I mean, getting shipped off to Beirut cannot be seen as the plum assignment of the diplomatic corps, like Buckingham Palace or the Vatican, for instance.) Our pastor has plans to follow along right after her, and will be leaving at the end of June, and while I would normally say that our gain is Lebanon's loss, this time I'm not so sure. The pastor is so enormously boring, I'm thinking it can only help to reduce tensions in the Mideast, just by virtue of him being there, and all he has to do is open his mouth. If they would just put him in a room with the political negotiators, everyone would fall asleep instead of arguing with each other. Personally, I think they should send him to the Palestinians to travel around with the guerillas, who I believe would all take vows and go live out their lives in a convent, just so they wouldn't have to listen to him anymore. It could literally change the cultural landscape of the region at a stroke, after centuries and centuries of violence, because there is no antidote for the stultifying dullness that radiates around him like a fog of soporific stupor. I always said that our church could have been much more successful if we had used this to our advantage, by inviting people to events at no charge, but then making them pay to get out, once the pastor started talking. Sure, we're going to send the pastor over to Lebanon for nothing, but just wait until they want to send him back, and we can name our own price and get whatever concessions we can think of. We'll have the entire Arab world over a barrel, and there won't be anything they can do about it. I'm thinking that 25c for a gallon of gasoline sounds pretty good to me for starters.
Of course, everyone knows that I have a well-deserved reputation as a non-psychic, always last with the story, and I was only kidding in a previous note where I said that this year could be a "reverse Triple Crown" in horse racing, where the three big races are all won by a different horse each time. And yet, that's exactly what happened, and I don't pretend to claim any credit for seeing it coming. The TV listings describe it this way: "If a Triple Crown hopeful manages to overcome the packed field of the Kentucky Derby and the short rest leading up to the Preakness, it must next surmount race distance in the Belmont Stakes. The race's 1-1/2 mile length has proven to be the undoing of many a Derby-Preakness winner, including Big Brown, who finished last in the 2008 Belmont, a first for such a horse." The big story at the Belmont this year was jockey Calvin Borel, who was trying for a personal Triple Crown, by being the winning jockey at all three races, on different horses. Having already won the Derby on Mine That Bird, and the Preakness with Rachel Alexandra, he was back on Mine That Bird for the Belmont with high hopes of success. The newspaper said that he would be the first jockey in history to accomplish this feat, making it even more rare than a horse winning the Triple Crown, which has only happened 11 times, with the last being Affirmed in 1978. This could have been a Cinderella story for the ages, with a fairy tale ending to go down in history.
What happened instead was a surprise to everyone, as 11-1 shot Summer Bird (ironically, another colt of Birdstone, just like the favorite Mine That Bird) ran away with the thing by nearly 3 lengths. Suddenly, Calvin Borel became a non-story, and it seemed like nothing interesting was going to come out of the race. Not so fast! In what turned out to be even more of a Cinderella story, the winning jockey on Summer Bird was none other than the veteran Kent Desormeaux, who was on nobody's mind this year, but that wasn't always the case. It seems that last year, the racing world was agog for Big Brown, and sure enough, it was the very same Kent Desormeaux, who rode the horse to big victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 2008, setting the stage for the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years, and considered practically a foregone conclusion at the time. We already know that Big Brown finished dead last in the Belmont, owing to a foot injury, which must have been a bitter disappointment, especially to the jockey, who had already won the Kentucky Derby three times in his career, and the Preakness twice, but never the Belmont. So of all the long-shots to come out of nowhere and snatch the last jewel of the Triple Crown right out from under the nose of Mine That Bird, it turned out to be the horse's half-brother, and ridden by the jockey who lost the Belmont last year after winning the first two races. I'm telling you, you just can't make this stuff up.
In other sports news, the hospital invited us to join an exercise group they call Around The Sound Walkers, which they said would walk outdoors from 12:30 - 1:00 in good weather, and walk indoors when the conditions were unfavorable. I had already been walking around the hospital campus by myself during my lunch time, but I thought I would check out the group and see what it was like. The first day, I went to join them in my usual work clothes and with what I considered my sturdy sneakers. I was thinking this would probably be a ragtag group of older women, out for a meandering stroll, and easily thwarted by cold, heat, wind or cloudiness. Instead, I found 12 young ladies in workout wear, who set off at a blistering pace around the neighborhood, so that I had to trot to keep up with them. When I walk around the hospital, I stick to the perimeter of the campus, so that I don't have to cross streets and take my chances with the traffic. But these girls went marching off blocks away in every direction, regardless of motor vehicles in our path, which made it critically important for me to stick together with them at all costs. I figured that even the most homicidal driver wasn't going to run over all 13 of us walking ladies, especially the pathetic little runty one at the back, trotting to keep up with the rest. Every time we got to a corner, they turned even farther away from the hospital, making me wonder just how far we were going to end up walking in 30 minutes. When I explained to people later where we had walked, everyone said the same thing: "Oh, you couldn't have walked up the Second Street hill!" which is apparently locally famous for its steep incline. I had never heard of it before, but I do know that I thought I was just going to drop dead, and it's a wonder that I didn't. When we finally got back to the hospital, they expect everyone to run up the 15 steps and clap, like we've just won some sort of prize or something. As for myself, I felt like I had been hit by a truck, and everything I was wearing was just sopping wet. My face had gone from being bright red, to purple, to a color that can only be described as not being found in nature. My sturdy sneakers, which had started out zipped to the top, had unzipped themselves along the way, as I stamped along with the group, trying not to get left behind. The leader of the group, who runs marathons for the heck of it, said that we went about 3 miles in 30 minutes, and I really felt every bit of that. It was certainly not the walk group of sissy old ladies that I was expecting, that's for sure.
Once I knew what to expect, I got better prepared for my next outing with the walk group. First I changed into some spare clothes that I brought from home, and sneakers with sensible laces that wouldn't unzip as I was going. Since I knew the route, I was better able to pace myself the whole way, and did a better job of keeping up with the group, rather than trotting to catch up from the rear. Even better, the marathon lady wasn't there, so even though the pace was still fast for me, it was at least 10 minutes slower overall, which seemed like a big improvement compared to that first time. After just a few times out with the walk group, over the last two weeks, I noticed that my stamina had improved so that even when the marathon lady was in charge, I was still able to keep up the pace better and better each day. But it's still very challenging, and a lot more strenuous than anything I would do on my own, if I wasn't terrified of getting run over by myself, if I don't stick together with the rest of the walkers. I've been telling people in my office that I expect the walk group would be a great way to lose weight, if it doesn't kill me first.
Yesterday I was surprised when the marathon lady jogged up to me and said something about how I was the resident professional in the group and putting the rest of them to shame, and I had no idea what she was talking about. It was only later that it occurred to me that the spare clothes I had brought from home included one of many promotional T-shirts for the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge 5K Run, which they would hand out as freebies every year at the Secretary's Day Luncheon, and I have at least one of them for each year, in a dizzying variety of colors and designs. This well-known race attracts serious runners from all over, and somehow she must have thought that I was one of them, and not just a secretary taking advantage of a free handout under false pretences. I obviously had to set her straight, although I would have thought that turning purple on the Second Street hill would have been enough of an indication that I was no one's idea of a serious runner, if not the unzipped sneakers. I'm sure I could get the pastor of my church to vouch for me, but then I'd have to find some way to wake the poor woman up again.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 9:49 PM
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