If you are looking for a place to lose yourself, like the idea of a motel that still uses keys, is far off the beaten track on a marshy inlet near the bay, and makes little effort to draw attention to itself, then the Freeport Boatel is for you.
I slept poorly last night for no reason I can discern and was up till 4am. Slept till noon, which is rare, just woke up in a daze, dressed quickly, and went out to Seven/Eleven to get some coffee. I was checking Google News to make sure the world was safe enough for me to venture out when I saw a short and woefully uninformative little article about an automobile accident that took place this morning on Sunrise Highway, no more than a half a mile from here in which some poor person was killed. I often think about people starting their day with no idea that their time has come and when that day will come for any of us, and was overcome by a haiku...
Nobody wakes up
thinking today I will die,
but that's how it goes.
Nick came by around 2 pm, we went for lunch by the water a few blocks from the motel, then stopped off for a bottle of scotch, and drank and talked for hours. This was the view from the window of Otto's during a short rain squall during our lunch... which was just ok...sitting by the channel in the rain made it better...By the time we finished lunch it cleared.
We usually drink at his place and I happily crash on the air mattress I carry for such occasions, but tonight we ended up at the Boatel quite sloshed. Nick was almost incoherent by 11 pm, so I rented him a room, deposited him into a bed only partially conscious and hoped for the best. As always, very old friends are the best friends who knew you before you ever reinvented yourself.
Addendum Saturday August 27th:
The above haiku turned out to be quite prophetic and ironic. This morning at about 9:15, while walking from my car to the synagogue in Hewlett, I was stopped in my tracks by an intense, painfully dull constrictive tightness in both of my upper arms that was almost unbearable. There was some tightness in the chest, but minimal. The incident was accompanied by nausea followed by throwing up the breakfast I had at the Boatel. Unable to go any further, I was only 2 or 3 blocks from my high school and was able to get back to my car and somehow make it to the school parking lot where the symptoms continued for another 20 minutes or so and gradually subsided. Although the symptoms were atypical, I sensed that I had a heart attack, and although I had no idea what would happen next, I was satisfied with the thought that if this was it, it would happen in the parking lot of my high school which somehow seemed ok. As things progressed, I seemed to recover, made it back to the motel and googled my symptoms which confirmed my suspicions, and said I should go to a hospital, but being the idiot I am, I did nothing but carry on with the weeks activities. I should have been dead then and there, but I wasn't. 10 days later, the same exact symptoms happened at home. Jackie threw me in the car, drove me to Albany Med who confirmed I had another heart attack, admitted me, found a 99% blockage to my cardiac artery, inserted 3 stents, put me on 5 meds and eventually sent me home. I was given a second chance, and am more that lucky to be alive. Don't know why it took so long for it to sink in, but as time goes by I become more and more appreciative and grateful for my good fortune to be alive and not dropping dead on the sidewalk, which was a distinct possibility. I am sure Jackie and Devora feel the same. I can only marvel at my good fortune and the forces of good from above that brought me through this. In the future I should try to be less smug and not take things for granted.
Pablo
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