A Very Chinny Day
I didn’t really hear my alarm this morning. This was evidenced by me waking up to “Don…..Don…….DONNNNNN!!!” I guess Sage didn’t enjoy hearing Ryan Innes that early in the morning. I actually feel rested today. It’s kind of a difference from normal. I like to burn the candles at both ends for some reason. I love to stay up way past when I should go to sleep, and I also love to wake up much earlier than socially acceptable. Needless to say, sleep and I have a complicated relationship.
The dogs were super excited for their walks this morning. I give them each separate walks so I can give each of them individualized attention. (Also, Digby is super strong and Chevy would run away in a heartbeat if he saw a chance.) I was reminded of a quote by Charles Spurgeon when walking with the dogs this morning. “A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind’s face would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is next best.”
Chevy, twitchy and finicky as he is, has started to adapt to life in the big city. He has had to get used to not having a patch of grass every time he needs to relieve himself. I believe he reached a new milestone today because he without warning or pretense stopped in the middle of west 81st and proceeded to take the world’s largest doggy poo. It was pretty awful. I think I heard someone scream it was so bad. After he was done, I stopped to let a few people take selfies with the huge pile and promptly cleaned it up.
Digby’s walk wasn’t nearly as interesting this morning. When it came time for Digby to do his business, he gave advanced notice and shimmied out of the path of normal foot traffic. Like a good Christian bulldog. (It also didn’t instantly make you think of what an alcoholic’s morning must look like.)
I had to shave my beard for fit testing. It’s the first time I’ve had to shave for a fit testing. Usually they allow me to test and see if I will fail wearing the appropriately sized mask. (For those unfamiliar with fit testing, I’m referring to hospitals testing the fit of n-95 masks and their ability to seal against your face. This protects against airborne sicknesses such as tuberculosis.)
Needless to say, I was not happy about shaving. I kept the mustache though. I’m not really even sure why. I caught a glimpse of myself this morning in the mirror. I looked like I played for the 1986 US Men’s Olympic hockey team. (minus the mullet obviously) There was a lot more chin under that beard than I remembered. Sage has definitely enjoyed poking at my chin.
The water smells weird when you turn the shower on in the morning. I like to think that the recycled urine aboard the international space station has much the same odor. The water is also very hard.
Sage doesn’t really care for it which is crazy seeing as she’s all about some vitamins and minerals. What’s about 50% more iron in your water, right? As she has pointed out, the water typically comes out of the faucet cloudy until the water settles. I haven’t measured the PSI coming out of the faucet, but I can tell you confidently that it isn’t bubbles causing all that cloudiness. It’s likely a healthy dose of heavy metals. This would explain a lot of New Yorker behavior.
We have got to remember to get a Brita water filter.
I rode the train today. It hasn’t happened a lot lately. It’s been easier for me to take buses on my daily commute thus far. Today I was headed downtown for EPIC training. (I mean it was really midtown/hell’s kitchen area, but if you live anywhere uptown everything south is downtown.)

Sage has been getting more confident and gaining skill in navigating the city via public transit. However, she still has some things to learn. She tried to drag me onto a Queens express train yesterday with no stops near us. She huffed when I objected, but quickly understood that there are regular service changes on different trains throughout the day. So even if she took X train downtown, that doesn’t always mean that X train will take you back up time especially during certain times. (It might take you back uptown, but you may end up at a stop 1.5 miles from your intended station.)
I didn’t have to rush this morning and was able to enjoy my walk to work. 59th street has the underground market, and even though I didn’t stop to buy any overpriced BS vendors were selling it was a cool vibrant concept. A market, located underground. Columbus circle is pretty cool too. Not very conducive to rushing, especially if you’re on your feet. The way the circle is set up there are 3 or 4 crosswalks you have to navigate to get where you need to go as the statue of Cristoforo Colombo looks down from his pedestal. Columbus circle is also home to The Shops at Columbus Circle which is a mall that has an Amazon brick and mortar book store. In my mind, a brick and mortar store defeats the whole purpose of Amazon. Especially considering that I have ordered and gotten things delivered to me here in NYC with free same day and one day shipping. (You read that right.)

I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the mirror windows of the sleek buildings on Columbus circle. I looked like Tom Sellick’s nephew. Shaving really messed me up.
Commuters in NYC come standard with some kind of listening device in, on, or around their ears. I don’t want to be the weird one here, so I follow suit with my cheap $15 amazon earbuds. Unlike experienced New Yorkers, my earbuds are constantly falling out. Another rookie mistake I make is that I find it hard to pay attention to the podcasts I generally imbibe on my way to work. There’s just too much going on around me. The hustle and bustle draws me into its flow. How am I ever going to learn how to ignore people like a good New Yorker if I can’t listen to my favorite podcasts?
**Plook** One of my earbuds dropped out of my ear as I rounded the corner onto 57th. I just kept walking. A Starbucks was annoyingly located between me and the training building. I obviously abstained from entering because I want to support local businesses, right? Well, I mean technically this Starbucks is local, and the $15/hr minimum wage did just come into effect 12/31/18 for workers in NYC. Armed with this logic, I moved towards Starbucks. The glass door mocked me as I approached the store from 57th. I look like an overweight NYPD detective that finally quit smoking using Chantix.
The coffee was decent, but the “breakfast” (the term breakfast here is used loosely) I had selected left much to be desired. What was supposed to be a chicken sausage and bacon biscuit with a bit of southern style gravy ended up being a corn meal-based disappointment garnished with broken dreams and thickened skim milk. A real, made from scratch, buttermilk biscuit hustle would turn this city upside-down. Not to mention some decent gravy. Geez.
All things considered, it was a good day.
………….except for the fact that I looked like business casual Teddy Roosevelt.