Monthly Archives: February 2018

Race report: Prospect Park Track Club Cherry Tree 10 Miler (February 18, 2018)

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710BB4E2-3CA6-46E2-81A2-DA2A35CA7295This race, sponsored by the best running club ever, is a President’s Day weekend tradition. Its official name alludes to the legendary honesty of Brooklyn battler (and father of our country) George Washington. Its unofficial name – “the race for the hardcore” – alludes to the fact that mid-February can be a pretty miserable time of year for three full loops of Prospect Park.

Not yesterday, though. The snow that had fallen overnight was already melting in the bright sun and 40-something temperatures, and the park roads were mostly – but not entirely – clear of slick spots by the race’s 10 am start. Conditions, in other words, were perfect: comfortable, but just sloppy and slick enough to justify taking it easy.

More races should come with built-in excuses. Continue reading →

A bump in the road

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MRI-speak

This is a continuation of my walk down cancer’s memory lane. Ten years ago today, I was sitting in a meeting to plan another meeting when my phone vibrated with a call from my breast surgeon’s office.

An observation: trying to follow the discussion in a work meeting when your phone holds an unopened voicemail from your surgeon is a great focusing exercise that I pretty much failed.

I’m not sure where I listened to the message – did I duck into the bathroom? a stairwell? I very much doubt I waited until I was back in my office – and I don’t remember the exact words, only the gist.

MRI results. Suspicious. More tests.  Continue reading →

Rainy day wisdom

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Seen (in front of my own nose) along Flatbush Avenue

Rainy days like today call for a warm blanket, a hot drink and – street art. This is a continuation of a series of posts capturing wall posters with cryptic – sometimes unsettling – sayings slapped up around Brooklyn. One reader commented that they look like “humongous fortune cookie fortunes, but with disturbing messages from a dystopic society,” which is an apt description.

Here are some new (or newish) examples that I’ve come across on runs over the last few months. Continue reading →

Ten years out

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B5F3050A-E52C-4F14-973B-9530ABCE1C9CI’m back.

Having allowed this blog to lie fallow for an embarrassingly long time, I was struggling with bloggers’ block; each day that passed simultaneously raised the stakes and worsened my paralysis. Surely I owed readers an explanation, or at least an especially insightful post. Something, you know, about the passage of time, good-bye-and-good-riddance-2017/you’d-better-be-better-2018 – why else had I staged that photo with a glittery “Happy New Year” tiara in a pile of dirty snow? – but it couldn’t be lame and trite, it called for a light touch and wry humor and blah blah blah.

And so a week went by. And another. And another.

Then, on January 15, an extremely kind and thoughtful reader sent me an email message congratulating me on my 10-year “cancerversary.” She had read my 2015 post on the topic of cancer anniversaries, and remembered both the date and that this marked a decade for me.

I had forgotten.  Continue reading →