MARRED MY THONG, AGAIN

These past two years things don't work out between me and the NYC Marathon.  In 2012 of course it was Hurricane Sandy that ruined everything for many people.  In a way, it worked out better for me that the Marathon was cancelled.  I got my $200+ back, slowly, but it came in handy while I was unemployed.  I exercised financial diet and had no plan to run the 2013 NYCM but I still wanted to be a part of it.  I signed up to volunteer at a aid station in Queens.  As the big day approached, I learned that my son will have a music audition at LaGuardia High School the very same day.  OK, no volunteering then, but since LaGuardia is mere blocks from the finish line or the last mile of the Marathon, maybe I can go watch it and cheer my friends from the Prospect Park Track Club (PPTC), no?  Sometimes things just wouldn't work.  The audition finished way before even the elite runners would finish.  I had a long lunch with son to kill the time.  It was too cold to be outdoor, at least for my son, so perhaps I'd meet the PPTC folks at the post-race party at P.S. 87.  What was I really thinking, trying to find a free parking spot on the street?  I think the whole Central Park West was closed and there wasn't anything free on the street.  To make things worse, I was under the weather on Saturday, perhaps from over-exertion in the swimming pool and the sharp change of weather from afternoon to evening.  I was sneezing frequently most of the morning of Marathon Sunday.  After many minutes of driving around the block in the Upper West Side, I gave up and got onto the West Side Highway to head back to Brooklyn to spend the rest of the day resting.  There will be other events.

The only thing I am happy to report for Sunday was that while waiting for my son I did something good.  I had a few hours to kill and found a parking spot across from an outdoor food bank.  When I first parked there, across the street from the food bank, there were only the people queuing up for the food.  Some parking spots were reserved with traffic cones, but on my side of the street there were many empty spots with just me and one or two other cars.  When I came back with breakfast from a purposely long walk, the food vehicles arrived and there were not enough parking spaces so some cars started to park on my side of the street.  The last car of the caravan found no space and had to park at the fire hydrant at the corner.  I was going to offer to move my car, since I know just a block south there were plenty of other space, but then the driver from the last car approached me.  Her son was among the volunteers and she wanted to be near him but didn't want to risk getting a ticket at the hydrant.  I gave her the spot and made a few U-turns and found another spot just across from the studio of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  One good deed deserves another!