Countdown to Triathlon - 243 Days, 34.71 weeks to Race Day (See Installment 27 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!  ~Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1836

The Journey - Installment Twenty-Eight

(Barb is writing this again.)  

        While Cindy was running in the marathon, Patti and I had been eating a bagel breakfast with Marilyn and Lynda.  After Lynda had told her story about her experiences on September 11^th,  Lynda had to be somewhere so Marilyn accompanied Patti and I to Macy’s to Herald Square.  We figured we had time for breakfast and even a short subway ride to Macy’s before we headed to the rendezvous spot to see Cindy running.  Marilyn was an old pro at taking the subway, compared to Patti and I,  so she got us to Macy’s without incident. At Macy’s, the decorations were beautiful and we enjoyed looking around the store.  Marilyn convinced me to buy a pair of shoes as my feet were still hurting from the day before.  AND... as an added bonus – you got a free Macy’s cloth bag.  What a deal!  I really have to say that Marilyn talked me into the shoes and convinced me that they were cute.  Well, they’re NOT!  Here’s a picture of me the next day with the shoes on.  Not as stylish as the boots, but a whole lot more comfortable.



The shoes look so good with the skirt, don't they?  (I'm kidding, don't you know?)
See the free Macy's bag?  I still use it today. This was taken the day after the marathan; we went back to Macy's with Cindy.


          (Since I began writing about those shoes, two days ago I went into my closet and dug them out.  I hadn’t worn them since November of 2001 and it’s now December 2010.  They’re still comfortable and I have been wearing them this week with my jeans.  I wonder what happened to that jacket.  I really loved that jacket and haven't seen it in years now that I think about it.)

        Patti and I looked at our watches and decided that we’d better head out if we were to catch Cindy and her team in the Bronx/Brooklyn.  At one point in the trip I was standing in the subway car looking at their map on the wall.  I saw that we might be going near where the Trade Center had been and I said to Patti, “Maybe we will be able to see something.”  Patti looked at me with a funny look on her face and said, “Barbara, we’re in the SUBway.  ‘Sub’ means ‘underground’.”  “Oh, yeah!”  I replied.  “I forgot!” Did ever feel like an idiot! Even if we had been above ground, we couldn’t have seen anything anyway because the subway was closed near the Trade Center due to collapsing tunnels and intense fire.