So, Friday evening was an early stop night for me. I had decided I needed to make a visit to the parental units to offer some input on the in-process kitchen renovation. With the visit to Queens, my mother asked me to pick up a New York City-themed gift for a friend she will be visiting in England at the end of the coming week. And since the last bus out to eastern Queens from the Financial District (the "FiDi," as the realtors have styled it) was at 7:30, to get to the souvenir store and consult with my Marmy about the appropriate purchase meant leaving the office at about 6:45 - unheard of! Justified, but unusual, which means less was billed that day than usual.
Saturday was spent kitchen concepting and shopping. And, while ultimately my Marmy decided against some of the space-eeking steps I suggested, I do think my and Sissy's being out there helped her to crystallize some good decisions. So there was something accomplished. I also managed to snag some photos of the Mother Garden for a "draft" post that has been in draft for far too long - back-up content for a time when there is no other content of note. And, since a home improvement store was sure to be on the Saturday destination list, I had planned to pick up a new hose attachment to replace the leaky one for the terrace jungle. Marmy gave me one she was not using instead, having found a different attachment in her stash before. So a little something new for the plants came out of this weekend. (A trip to Costco yielded some almonds to replenish the breakfast supply too.)
All this goes to show what low a bar was set for "accomplishment" this past weekend. Sometimes, that's just as good as it gets. But I had high hopes for the Sunday.
Didn't work out to be so. I think the stress of thinking of what I should accomplish that day, the dread of picking up some of the work assignments that I had dutifully dragged to Queens in order to drag home, were a bit much. And so I tried to salvage the weekend with a run - early evening through Carl Schurz, my usual route.
But today, as I ran on the paved river path northward, to the east of Gracie Mansion, I heard a low creaking. Remarkably, not unlike the cliché creak in a bad horror film just as the evil tree is about to drop its branch. And I looked up. And in slow motion, a giant tree actually DID drop its branch. And I saw and heard and had time to process and think whether I could outrun it, and somehow concluded that running to the edge of the path, by the fence overlooking the river (where there would have been no place to run farther) seemed the better idea. Of course, I would have been crushed if it had fallen my way. Fortunately, it fell inside the Gracie Mansion fence line - a quite large limb, actually. So, I reacted, along the lines of "Holy sh-t!" and with enough of a start and jump toward the fence by the river that the man on the bench right there jumped up too and turned, and the few people nearby on the other benches turned, to witness the branch making a rustling landing behind the tall fence separating this mayor from the rest of the city. It settled, there was no other creaking I could detect, so I resumed my run.
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| Tree map from the Carl Schurz Park website. |
And as I ran past the security booth at the entrance to Gracie Mansion, reported the fallen branch, and suggested someone go out to check the tree. So that was my civic accomplishment for the weekend. And, hopefully, someone will or has. I am not so keen on my tax dollars going to settle suits from victims of park tree branches falling - especially if reported in advance, and therefore preventable.
That was it, as much as I could manage for the weekend. Sometimes the body and mind just want to rest.
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