My plan was to spend yesterday reading and watching Dark Crystal and the Mets. Then I looked outside, saw it was a beautiful day and I decided to take a walk, get some exercise, and be out in nature. I scheduled enough time to walk to Van Cortlandt Park and walk a short way into it. I’d walk for half an hour then turn around.
Once I was in the park it was so nice, I decided to start the clock when I entered the park. I have never explored Van Cortlandt before. I found the eastern shore of Van Cortlandt pool and thought it would be nice to circumnavigate it and then go home. I went south, reached the end, hooked around and headed up north on the west short. That’s when the plan went awry. The path veered from the shore and now the golf course was on my right. I figured I’d keep walking until I found a way to cut back east. It started getting late and looked at Google Maps. There was no way to head east. I would have to retrace my steps and it would take forever to get home. The only other choice was to keep heading north until I reached not only the northern border of the park, but of New York City. Google said I could pick up the 4 bus in Yonkers and take that most of the way home. That became the plan. To make things even tougher, once I entered Yonkers I found myself in another park and still no way to head east. When I finally reached an exit I then had to head south to get to the bus. I was lucky and didn’t have a long wait for the bus. It runs less than once every half an hour. My “short” walk ended up being 5.18 miles.
I’m by no means in shape, I don’t exercise other than walking, but like my parents I can walk forever. The only part of me that was stressed was my arthritic back. I’m having another bad stretch with it. That reminds me that I have to put the ice pack on it. That helps quite a bit.
Because of the bus I still had time to make dinner before the Met game started. Sadly the game did not go well. I was right and the Mets management wrong, the Mets are mediocre, not a team that can contend for the World Series. The actions of the Mets’ front office suggest that the owner’s goal is to have a team that can get a wild card if they get lucky. Becoming a team that is consistently a challenge to win would require rebuilding and then spending more money than the team is willing to play. They chose Brodie Van Wagenen, a player’s agent with no management experience, to be GM, because he was the only candidate that thought they shouldn’t rebuild. His plan was the opposite, give up the few prospects the team had to get players that he represented, in the hopes of winning this year. The Mets are 69-67 despite the fact that Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil are performing at the very top end of their expectations, far better than the median projections. Will the Mets now rebuild? No, they had the chance at the trading deadline and decided to go for broke and win this year. They had a hot streak and felt like geniuses. That’s the worst thing that could happen as the streak brought them to mediocrity and when it ended left them short of contention. Even if they reached the post-season they’d have only a small chance of success. They are not in the same class as the elite.
After the Mets I got my reading in. I’m making slow but steady progress in A Clash of Kings. The important thing is that it’s not a chore, it’s a pleasure. The book is so long, and the series even longer, so I’ll have no shortage of reading material for a long time.
Now to make breakfast. I’m torn between matzoh brei and French toast. I’ll go with the matzoh. It’s been longer since I made it.
Wise Madness 