life

I went on a run this evening. It was the first run I've gone on since the begining of July, I think. Usually, I take Annie and we're done with the neighborhood loop in 20 minutes. But I have a lot (as in a lot) of ground to make up, so I dragged Annie around the neighboorhood for a longer run, instead.

I knew the run was going to hurt. I have bad shin splints in my left leg (made worse last week by tripping over a chicken wire fence that keeps the dogs out of one of my gardens). I have steel bands for achilles tendons that all the stretching in the world hasn't seemed to help. And I have a some sort of random pinched nerve in my left glute that's causing bizarre pains and muscle weakness in my left leg.

Can I just get a new left leg, please?

The worst part is that I have no freaking clue where all these injuries came from. It's not like I've been overtraining these last two months. No, that was in January and February.

They have, however, made me more clever in my training. How do you train for a high impact, running and quick turning sport without running?

(Quick answer: you don't.)

So, in an effort to let my achilles tendons warm up, we started out slowly. Think snail's pace. With the twang of the tendons snapping on each step, I managed to run the first half mile as a pace Annie could practically walk.

I managed to finally stretch out into a good run, which Annie kept up.

Until the first cat.

Instead of my dragging Annie, she scented a cat "somewhere up ahead", and sprinted in front of me, dragging me along behind her. We passed the Cat Smell™ and managed a block before the next cat came tearing out in front of us from under a parked car.

Zoom!

Eventually (where that's one pee, four cats, three couples and eleven dogs later), we made it home, with my knees aching only slightly.

Considering I made the run on the snack of champions (9 Pringles), we did okay.

Kris' first loss was in high school. His friend was driving a Miata and managed to flip it. He died instantly with a broken neck, while his companion walked away with scratches. Kris said the passenger who lived was absent from school for a month, and things were quite awkward when he came back.

Heidi's friend was driving her Mustang home from having tea with another friend, having skipped out on going out to the bar with the rest of the crowd Heidi spent time with. At one point, Heidi's friend lost control of her car, and spun out, coming to a stop on the road. An older couple in a second car, following Heidi's friend's car, witnessed the spin out and stopped to see if she was okay. The wife got out of the car, and walked up to talk to Heidi's friend, when a truck struck the car, killing both Heidi's friend and the good Samaritan. The husband witnessed the fatal crash. Heidi, driving home later along the same road, commented to her friends in the car that someone must have had an accident and it looked like a bad one.

Mark's first friend lost killed himself by rolling over his own head. Mark had already experienced the death of a family member, but not someone his own age. The group of boys were out four-by-fouring when the truck stuck. The driver, as Mark says, "though the best was to fix the problem was to open the door and stick his head out. Yep, it's slipping. Oh, look, it's sticking." The kid was pulled out of the truck, which then rolled over him, killing him instantly.

My first experience with the death of a human was at Christmas one year when I was 11 or 12. We were over at my grandparents when a woman came up to the door, frantically calling for help. The house was two doors down the block from the corner where she was pointing. One aunt called for an ambulance, the other rushed to help the woman's husband. Turns out, he had had a heart attack while driving and managed to pull over losing consciousness. Several of my aunts were nurses, the youngest of which was at the house, and ran over to perform CPR. The man was in his truck, leaning back, looking up, mouth open when they opened the truck door. Several people pulled him out to put him on the ground to perform CPR, and he vomitted all over the place, making CPR almost impossible as they were unable to clear his throat to help him breathe.

The next death I was more aware of was that of a classmate from Indiana. Her death happened, however, when I was in Arizona, I believe my junior year in high school. She was the star of the basketball team when I went to school with her in junior high school, ninth grade. She was the passenger in the front seat of a car driving around Dead Man's curve out near the big Catholic church and the golf course. There were four people in the car, all high school students. A drunk driver struck their car around the curve. My classmate's head went through the boombox in her lap. She and two of the other three occupants died. The one who lived went on to compete (relatively successfully, I believe) at the state swim championships three weeks later.

The next death was the suicide of a football player at my high school. He was good friends with a cross country running, whom I remember seeing as she walked by nearly crying the morning after her death. Mark and Kris both commented that the somber mood of a school the day after a tragedy is what clues the rest of us not intimate with the deceased, that something bad has happened. The cross-country runner's body language was my first clue, though I didn't know until the end of the school day what had actually happened.

I remember years before noticing in passing some airline crash on television. I was over at the Klein's house, passing through the living room following Jenny, when Ken asked me what I thought about the tragedy. I shrugged it off, "I don't know anyone on the plane. Why should I care?"

Years later, those words would smack me in the face when I learned of the death of Ben close after high school graduation. He died on the crash of Northwest Flight 255, out of Detroit. Wind shears. And a pilot who had turned off the cockpit alarms.

Ben's death was the first one that I truly felt. The first one I truly cared about. The first one that forced me to question my own mortality. I remember crying my eyes out at his memorial service, and being so confused why no one else was crying.

18 years later, it still hurts.

And not just Heather. Her daughter Leta (rhymes with pita!) and her husband, Jon, were there, too. Where "there" is actually "here," making all of this terribly confusing for me.

When I saw Heather at Blogher she seemed very unexcited to be at the conference. Mostly because she was either scowling or looking perplexed every time I saw her. Turns out, she was having a grand time after all, and all was well.

But, when I saw Heather in my dream, where she was actually at my house, she was terribly sad. WTF? She asked about various things, none of which I remember, of course, having not written them down.

At this point, however, I just want to know why I am dreaming of a woman I don't know, and projecting overwhelming sadness on said woman? I woke up confused and desperate to help her and her whole family.

Given the set of friends and people I do know who are having troubles and do need help, I'm perplexed as to the message my unconscious mind is trying to tell me.

Of course, it just might be saying, "Write more! Get this crap out of your head already!"

I had decided to stay and work, because I had an index card check list of about forty items, some big, some small, some trivial, some monstrous, all needing to be done now. My boss' house doesn't have any fast or easily connected Internet connection, so staying at the office seemed like an easy choice.

I continued to work until around ten, when I figured I better call before my boss was too tired to pick me up.

Well, I miscalculated.

By the time I called, my boss was too tired, could I take a taxi home?

Images of the taxi cab driver from Seattle when we went to Potlatch started running through my mind. The one where the cabbie walked up to Kris, grabbed his bag, and exclaimed in the thickest Arabic accent, "What are you doing? You are just standing there!" Since he had grabbed Kris' bag and thrown it in his trunk, we hopped into his car for our ride to Bainbridge Island.

So, taxi ride it was last night.

After 35 minutes of hemming and hawing, calling Kris to complain of the scandalous imminent taxi ride-can-you-believe-it, talking to a coworker about the local taxis - did he have a number I could call, inquiring with the nearest hotel I know of about room availability (none), looking around for a good place in the office to just sleep the night, and another 10 minutes of IMing with Paul about this taxi-predicament, I finally worked up the courage to head out, and find me a taxi.

Unbeknownst to me, you can now pay for taxi ride with credit cards. Last night, however, I was cashless and (I thought) in need of cash, so I went across the street to the local marketplace, the one thronging with late night socializers (there were at least 20 people hanging out at the grocery strore - of all places!). I managed to hit the wrong ATM buttons, but still get cash out, which did little to encourage me for the night.

On my way out the door, a cute blonde held the door me, and smiled as I said thanks. There may be a lot of these socializers, but at least they're friendly.

Yay cellphones, I thought, as I dialed for the cab and walked down the street to the nearest big intersection. I thought an intersection would be an ideal place to pick up a passenger, but, as with most things this evening, I was wrong.

Taxis nowadays have GPS units, as well as direction generators, so street addresses are preferred. After figuring out the correct destination address, which actually took me more rummaging in my cell phone than I would have expected, the operator asked, "Cash or credit card?"

"Huh?"

"Cash or credit card?"

"Uh, I can pay by credit card?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Cash, please."

"OK. Are you ready to go now?"

"I will be shortly. I'm about two doors away," I exaggerated.

"Your cab will be there shortly."

"Great! Thanks!" I repled, as I hung up and started walking the block and a half (as in 12 doors away) back to the office address I had given.

I had made it all of 4 doors down when a yellow cab shot by me on the street. Whoops. I started running towards it. Right by all those evening socializers in front of the local grocery store, who started laughing as I ran by (though, of course, not at me).

The cab went flying by the office and kept right on going up the street.

Great.

At some point, the driver must have seen the crazy lady running down the street after his cab, as he stopped and turned the car around.

Yay!

As I ran up to the car, I asked if I could sit in the front seat - the back seat seems so much like a chauffering that I cringed at the thought. I was already uncomfortable about taking the taxi ride in the first place, so I wanted to be in the front where I perceived I would have more control over the situation. "Sure!"

I walked around the car, hopped in the front seat, and turned to look at the driver.

To be startled by the blonde haired (I have no idea the color of his eyes, it was 11 o'clock at night), slender, young, cute driver looking back at me. He looked all of maybe 25, and that is being generous.

He was very personable. We started talking about all sorts of things, starting with his question, "Is that out [that highway] to [this street]?"

"Yes. Have you become a walking map book with all this driving?"

"Yeah. I thought I knew [the town] before I started driving a taxi, but now I know all the little streets, too."

We talked about how I had never seen so many cops out before (5 police cars in a little over a mile as measured by the meter), which led to a discussion about the local college. No, he didn't go to college there. Yes, the college kids were coming back soon (a week or two).

We talked about how he was the first non-minority taxi driver I had ever ridden with, to which he replied, "And probably the youngest, too."

Yeah.

Did I mention the cutest? No? Well, that's really not saying much.

We talked about types of cab drivers, how most of them are ethnic minorities, though he did say he knew of one woman driver, who he had met during training.

Training?

We talked about cabbie training, which amounts mostly to learning about the in-cab computer and a few lessons about defensive driving. He said "defensive driving" with such derision, I couldn't tell if he thought the lessons were crap, or the whole concept of taxis driving defensively disdainful.

I noticed at the beginning of the ride, he drove like a crazy taxi driver. He cut off a car or two, ignored the pedestrians wanting to enter the crosswalk, looked at me more than the road, and drove way over the speed limit. As the ride progressed, however, his driving tamed and he started driving sanely, almost old man like, to the point where he apologized for the bumpy car ride over a bad part of the road.

I commented, "I know there is a legal limit to the number of people you can take in a car. " He smiled, and said, "Yeah, the legal limit is I think 5, four in the back and one in the front." He smiled.

"And you've had?"

"Eight."

"And how drunk were they?"

"Quite."

Somehow we managed to arrive on the topic of people stiffing him, and not paying, runners as he called them.

He had one, though, "he wasn't too smart." Turns out, the runner had called from his girlfriend's phone (you know, completely traceable), which was logged into the taxi company's records. When the cab slowed down, but hadn't stopped, the passenger jumped from the car and ran. My taxi driver chased him to see about where he lived, then called the girlfriend to browbeat the runner's phone number from her. With the guy's number, the driver went to the police, and somehow managed to get the guy's address. Eventually, the parents paid his taxi fare.

At one point I managed to kill the conversation by asking if he or his customers caused the awful smokers stench in the car. "A little bit of both, I think." A lotta bit of both, I thought.

We talked about my job briefly, and that I didn't actually live in the area.

We talked about his driving shift (7:30 to late), and how he sleeps during the day, and how was he doing in the heats, and how did he keep the sunlight out during the day (three towels over the bedroom window).

I tried very hard to keep the conversation about him. I was never quite comfortable taking a taxi home, a concept probably foreign to most men, and certainly all New Yorkers. Most women would probably know where I'm coming from though.

At the end of the ride, I commented, "This has been the best taxi ride I'd ever had." He must have thought I was the best fare he'd ever had.

He gave me his phone number.