Archive for November, 2015


Suddenly a shot rang out! Yes i stole that. I’m visiting my best friend this weekend, she needs help sewing a coat so i came up today. She cut out the pattern then left to go to church with her husband leaving me with the pattern pieces and fabric. Being the careful seamstress that i am i looked at the instructions to lay out all the pieces before i began cutting. There was a front, a gusset, an upper and lower sleeve, side panel and back, i picked up the last big piece of tissue paper, it wasn’t the back. The back wasn’t there. Her daughter came over from the couch to help me look for it, in the pattern pieces, the pattern envelope. We got crumpled pieces out of the garbage, no back. I wondered if the pattern company had forgotten to put it in, then i remembered she had held the back up to her to measure it. 

At this point i became convinced i had somehow lost the pattern piece and would have to leave not just her house but the country and berated myself for not learning Portuguese before having to move to  Brazil. 

Her daughter remained optimistic, with ideas and scenarios, “Maybe it fell on the floor when mom was carrying it over here.” So we started looking under things, she picked up the couch and i checked, no pattern piece. She found another piece of crumpled  up tissue paper the cat has been playing with and started to uncrumple it. “This isn’t it, too thin.” I stood next to her as the 9 became visible, “That’s it, that’s the pattern piece. Go get the iron and ironing board.”

Piece found, ironed out, and placed on the fabric. Now we can drink banana smoothies and laugh at ourselves. 

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Back to running

Last Friday (October 30) I started running again, it was a good idea badly executed. I decided to run at night on the path by the East River. Going through a dark spot I didn’t notice the path was broken up and down I went. On my face, ouch.

This was supposed to be my first run after my ankle healed. My ankle was feeling good and now my face, wrist, and knees were not. My Friday ended with a trip to the Emergency Room, where the doctor looked at my face, ignored my knees, ordered a tetanus shot and had the nurse give me some bacitracin. I was sent home, no cat scan, no x-rays, not even a bandaid for my open bleeding wounds. Just instructions to see my doctor in two day.

So I made an appointment with my Doctor, he checks me out and says “Don’t stop running.” What? With my knees hurting? “Give it a few days.”

Today I went out to run, a few more days than he suggested, in addition to my knees hurting my ankle decided it wanted to hurt also. At 2K I decided my doctor is insane. My knee told me it was quitting. “No” I said to my knee (actually to myself) we are running 4K. My knee whimpered and wobbled. I walked for a minute and decided if I couldn’t run, I would walk very fast. Except that cramps my shins so I had to run, my knee shut up and I went to the diner when I was done. I run this body, my friend says that and I was never sure what it meant. Until today.

My time was pretty good, which is good considering my run is next Sunday. I hope to do great, by great I mean finishing without puking, fainting, or dying.

There is no place like New York and nothing like the NYC subway system. I have determined there are three types of people that talk to me on the subway.

There are the people who ask for money. From what they say, none of them do drugs, none of them drink, all have suffered some unimaginable tragedy and can’t get government assistance.

There are the people asking me for directions. “Do I look like Google maps?”

There are the people offering to help find your train, this is usually followed by a request for money, so they could fall into the first category. What is really annoying is some of them feel they need to lead you to the correct train and “STOP TOUCHING ME”. I should get a medal for not stabbing people.

Then there is your random crazy person, like the tall skinny black man that told me I was “a white whore and you’re going to die of AIDS and cancer.” And the woman who offered me oral sex. She was convinced I would love it and I was just, “Ew no, germs.” Like I said, I should get a medal.