Don’t watch. Don’t sit. Don’t play. Don’t stay.

Begun: Sunday 9.a.m., somewhere in Sullivan County

I am writing this, or rather speaking it, as I begin the final leg of my drive ending these past three ridiculous days of my life, so forgive any typos that make it past the editor. He’ll be tired when he finally gets in.

I kept to my plan to hit the road Friday after taking care of some business in Buffalo and Rochester during the day, timed so I'd finally get halfway to New York at the end of the day Friday. All that was fine. I kept a client out of serious trouble, made progress on a couple of cases, even got a new referral in and a case settled.

Finally,  close to 5, I hit the road. I tend to forget that there is such thing as “rush-hour,“ because I rarely drive in one, living very close to my office and going downtown usually after the peak hours. But I had one in Rochester at the end of the day Friday. It was also a reminder that there’s something called “construction"- a bridge was out, a detour was posted, and before I knew it I was halfway to Geneva before actually getting on the 90.

Then the rain came. It was never bad, but it slowed things enough, both by slowing the car itself and by me wanting to experience what I was seeing. All the way down 81 from Syracuse to Binghamton, there were rainbows. I even caught one on film, descending from heaven on a beer truck; you can't really see it above the trailer, but trust me, it was there:

I wound up making it to my sister's over an hour later than I expected, and she wasn’t having a good day either. It had been windy. I’d seen all of the wind advisory signs on the way down, and even though it didn’t seem that bad in the car – and this car will tell you if it’s windy, I assure you– it apparently knocked her power out, and also took out her television.

This took some troubleshooting, because she still had Internet through the same service, so I knew it wasn’t anything on the outside of the house. I discovered her rather old television, with a big cathode ray tube in the back, was not connecting right to the cable box. A very small RCA to headphone jack cable was all she needed, but it’s virtually obsolete – naturally, we have several of them back home– and in two trips to stores between 8 and 10 PM, we were out of luck. I did get it rigged another way with a different set of RCA cables, but the problem is clearly with the television itself.

It wasn’t even that old, even having a DVD player built into it, but it was pre-digital, and now every time you turned it on, it went in search of over air channels which don’t exist anymore. We resolved to make another trip to Wally World in the morning to find a replacement television, and I figured I’d have enough time to do that, run one other important errand, and still get to where I was going in time to claim my gnome bling.

Then life did what it does.

——

The call came in close to 7 a.m. Eleanor was very upset:  Ebony had had a bad episode while she was out at work during the day Friday, and whatever had been turning the past week or so was now clearly turning for the worst. She wanted it over, and she wanted my blessing. Of course she had it. She’d already talked to Emily, who agreed. There was no point waiting for me to get back today, and even if I did turn around and go back at that very minute, it would’ve been too late.

This did explain all the rainbows I saw the day before, though.

Our vet very kindly got her in first thing Saturday morning, Eleanor put her on the phone for final goodbye, and although she was a little shit at the end not standing still, when they pushed the pump she fell in a second. That was the confirmation something was wrong all along, along with the mass they suspected had been filling up her stomach.

The other animals know, of course. Eleanor got the shot of Zoey cuddling with her on the floor in her final moments before leaving the house for the last time:



She was licking the puppy's muzzle. I hope it’s a long time before she goes to join her.  Another friend of ours also lost a long time cat yesterday, so there were sads all around.

I still had to keep my promise to help Donna pick out the new television, but first I knew we needed to make one more visit. Last year around this time, I went up to my mother's cemetery on my own, and couldn’t find where she is buried. This time, I had both my sister with me and the cheat sheet from the cemetery office pointing to exactly where the plot is. It hardly helped. I was so upset, and my sense of direction was pretty verklempt, but after close to an hour I finally figured it out:

 

I now have clear markings on the cheat sheet for how to find it. It’s near one family's major plot, and it has a direct line of sight to the strip mall with the Staples store. I think Mom would’ve liked that.

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The deeds all done, I returned to the road with a Plan. The last time I drove during the day to a big-attendance Mets game, the traffic in the Bronx and Queens was horrible, the parking even more so. So I resolved to do it my other way: park at a station north of the city, then take a leisurely commuter train trip into Manhattan and then a subway ride out to the ballpark.

This would’ve worked fine, except for a bizzarre traffic jam on the bridge going into Beacon (or as we now call it, BACON!). Another one was waiting on the road leading to the station itself. I got to wave bye-bye to the choo-choo, missing it by probably three minutes. I took my lump, got back on I-84 and began the scenic drive down the Taconic. Scenic,  that is, except for having to see signs for the Donald J Dump of a state park, which it really is.  Eventually, I crossed the beautiful Croton reservoir, but that got me thinking, hmmm, there’s a big train station near Croton. isn't there?  I asked Siri how far- she said 15 miles- and I asked when the next train was - she said 25 minutes. This one, I made.

I told friends I hoped to be on holy ground by 4 PM, and I stepped on it at 3:57 PM.

----

That gets us through the south-and-east end of the journey, and the “don’t watch” part of the title. (That referred to the broken television- it was fitting that the last thing I saw on it before it finally went into Death Mode was the end of the previous night's Mets game. This team even causes televisions to suffer career-ending injuries.)  I had friends I knew would be in attendance, but as soon as I got off the 7 train, I had to queue up for one of the gnomes, and wound up next to some guys from Jersey, one of whom was carrying this placard referencing the sudden release of Matt Harvey, the team's best pitcher as recently as 2015:


 

You know who Tom Seaver is. The other guy he references was a phenom of a pitcher in the early 1960s for L.A.'s expansion team, who also burned out rather than turning to rust.   In time, I got a text from the friends I usually visit with - they were at the head of a much shorter gnome line and would I want to come over?

Of course I would. Here they are with their banner encouraging the Gnome himself to hit a home run to them-



 and here are the three of us-



Yes, that's the counterfeit shirt's debut. Its lawful owner gave me his blessing to wear it, so it's all good.

Other friends, and new ones, came along, and we are among the first to be, I don’t know, knighted?, gnomed?,   and I acquired a new seatmate who will honor the garden spot Ebony will be buried in:




We then split up for the two hours we had to endure before the game would actually begin, but vowed to meet up again in the seats my friends mostly had together.

This is where the "you can’t sit with us" part of the title became relevant. This ballpark is beautiful, the food greatly improved over the previous dump, and the staff for the most part is friendly and helpful, but they’re absolutely rabid about enforcing restrictions on tickets and sections. Mine, secured for under 40 bucks two days before, gave me plenty of access to inside club seating and food options, But Kevin and Sharon and their crew had seats in a super-special section right about the outfield wall, which is patrolled by only the finest of the team's ticket-scanning stormtroopers. I Mind-tricked other ushers to make my way to the top of the stairs nearest them, but there was no getting around their restrictions, literally or otherwise. I even offered to buy a second ticket to the same game, just so I could sit with my friends, and while they all hung out with me on the staircase while we negotiated, I finally got only one final offer from the ticket office- of the rack rate of 180 bucks for a seat in their section for three innings. I graciously told the team what to do with their seat, and went back to mine.

And I’m glad I did. I was still plenty close to the man of the hour, if only up a little higher-



- and I got to see this moment of a family together, raising their kid right by teaching him to keep score.



He’s only four years old, and his grandma was also there to his mom's left, helping with the lessons.

We really are one big family in that place, and except for the stormtroopers (and I even respect them), we all look out for each other.

The team, on  the other hand seemed to want to take the night off. The Mets had given up 19 runs in the previous two games – and yes, to answer a question famously asked once about that score, they did lose – but on this night the problem was not giving up runs but getting them. Their young pitcher only made one mistake the whole game, and it only cost him one run, but when you can’t even get a runner to third base the entire night, that one run is going to hold up. Still, we had moments of suspense, we sang along with what we always sing along with- and the crowd was genial all the way back to the 7 and the commuter train.

But. Just to break my heart a little more, it turned out it was also bark in the park night, with everybody allowed to bring their puppies onto the warning track around the end of the sixth inning. There were even a couple of pups with their mommy and daddy on the 7 train as I headed back into Manhattan to start the trip home. We still need to mourn some, and adjust some, but I don’t think Ebony will be the last dog I ever accompany to a park or a warning track.   We've found homes already for some of her leftovers- the biggest being five pills from a six-month supply of heartworm meds, which we're donating to friends who foster pitties and their pups, but Ebony's kibble has gone to the sweet yellow lab who owns our new neighbors at Betty's house.

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Finished- Sunday 3 p.m., Home Sweet-if-Somewhat-Sad Home

The only other failed command was "Stay." Not knowing if I would be having to make an emergency return, I hadn't booked a room on the road home, but I've never had a problem just dropping in at late hours.  Until this time: the place I usually stay is on one of those corporate center cul-de-sacs with a ton of chain hotels. Mine was full, and Expedia said there were rooms at a second, but when I drove over I immediately saw the problems. This must've been a big wedding weekend, and the happy couples' drunken friends were all congregating outside the lobby. I was not going to get hosed paying rack rate for a last-minute arrival  and then have to sleep through loud stupors, so I kept going up 17 until I found a much quieter place, got a just-enough four hours of shuteye, and then came home in a straight shot and have been here since 2. 

I lost it all over again as soon as I saw Ebony's empty bowl on the kitchen floor.  It is going to be more difficult that the previous five trips. One, she was just so sweet and had been with us so long, but Esmeralda was with us even longer and it won't be as easy as it was when she passed after 17 years. Why? Because this is the first time we've lost all of a species. We grieved when we lost Tasha, but we still had the routine.  Still a dog to jump up on the sofa with us, still one to let in and out of the yard, still one to walk. I felt the emptiness even before I got home, and only the kind words of so many online and in person at the game, along with Eleanor's efforts to make it happen when it needed to, have held me together.

Hopefully, THAT will be the last meaning of the word "stay."