Marathon Sunday

 The NY Marathon got me coming and going today.  The marathon passes through Bay Ridge early in the route but even hours later when I left the police had every intersection roped off and patrol cars blocking the avenues.  Later, when I left Dad’s house to head to work, the surrounding streets were full of people leaving the marathon, which ends in Central Park.  The ones wrapped in bright orange ponchos were easy to spot, the ones just wearing medals around their neck more subtle.  Then there were the supporters, groups of people lugging homemade signs, and the marathon volunteers in their matching sweatshirts.

A bunch of marathoners were on the 9^th ave bus when I got on.  The driver, who came down 9^th Ave so fast he almost missed the stop and had to suddenly stop several feet away, didn’t bother to lower the steps, which I can manage these days, but then an old man getting on further down fell flat on his face.    Before anyone could react, he said “I’m OK,” and got to his feet, but once he sat next to me, I noticed that he was rubbing his knee.  As the bus kept erratically accelerating, jerking to a sudden stops, and accelerating again, one woman joked that the driver was in such a rush he must have a hot date planned.

While I was at Dad’s, a bunch of supplies – boxes, and bubble wrap, and packing tape – got dropped off, so now the packing can begin.  Looking around, trying to think about where to start, I came across a large, unopened bottle of wine.  Dad wasn’t much of a drinker, though he would have a glass or two at a party, so I’m not too sure how this bottle wound up there.  

We’ve been talking about wine for the upcoming fundraiser, so I googled it to see if it might be something we could serve.  To my surprise, this 1981 Pinot Noire was classified as a red wine, although it did not look red at all to me.  Then looking closer, I saw bits floating in the liquid, which turned out to be the tannins, broken down over time.  The other odd thing was that the bottle was sealed but not full,  the neck was empty down to the shoulder.  Consulting google once again, I discovered that over time wine evaporates through the cork and that this level is considered excellent for a 44 year old wine.  In fact, the wine sites classified this as a rare bottle, and gave complex directions for decanting it properly – not something we can do at a fundraiser.  It’s one more item in Dad’s apartment that I have no idea what to do with.

It was 4pm by the time I got to work, so I went right to the basement instead of going up to my office.  We were having a day-after-halloween celebration for the clients so Danny, whose height has made him the unlikely go-to for hanging decorations, was balancing on a chair while taping things to the wall.  The volunteers had put the candy in huge mixing bowls and stuck it in the fridge either to keep it from melting or to keep it from being poached.  Michaela’s mother sent bags of homemade cupcakes, but nobody got around to making the oreo dirt with gummy worms.  

It was a crowded evening –  breakfast for dinner, so there were scrambled eggs and turkey bacon, sausages, and potatoes - kind of an odd thing to serve with cupcakes but the clients ate all of it.  It’s not unusual for street homeless clients to nod off at the table, once they really feel safe and let their guard down.  When the other clients go up to group, we just let them sleep and the staff cleans up around them until ten minutes before closing.

One of our frequent nappers is a trans woman.  She’s quiet and never comes to case management, so we don’t know her that well but she shows up every Sunday dinner and always falls asleep.  This week, when Kevin went to wake her, she would not wake up.  Mo tried too, with no luck.  She was breathing, but completely unresponsive, so I called an ambulance.  The fire dept. arrived first and tried a sternal rub, which is painful enough that it will wake anyone who is not deeply unconscious, but they got only a minimal response.  When the paramedics arrived, they strapped her into a stair chair and carried her out to the ambulance.

One of the hard things about situations like this is that we have documentation that lets us follow up with hospitals for some clients, but not for the ones who don’t come for case management, so we have to wait for the client to either tell hospital staff to contact us or for them to just show back up.  All we can do is hope that we see her on Sunday.