An Unexpected Manhattan Walkabout, Part 2

I couldn't even finish all the bacon.
It was that kind of breakfast.

I'm writing this post late tonight. I tried writing it in advance last night, but I was too zombiefied after being up since 3:20am or so.

Yet, as awful as it is to rise a couple of hours before sunrise (and less than five hours after going to bed), it was still a breeze compared to when I was dealing with my kids when they were infants.

It was a plus that when I returned home at around 3pm, I also didn't have to deal with infants.

So, I'll continue my tales of walking around the city while Dad was having his routine and successful mitral-valve surgery.

By the time I returned to Mount Sinai from my initial walk, my legs were burning from the approximately 1.5 miles (thank you, MapMyRun) and the fact that I was wearing a very loaded backpack (probably about 15 pounds based on my crude measuring methods).

So I sat in the family waiting room wondering whether I would go back to Barking Dog once it opened at 8am, and I realized that I would have to eventually eat something. Plus, it would be my last chance to enjoy this kind of meal until I don't know when.

(And yes, this is where my life is, where the highlight of my year is having the best breakfast I can find.)


ONE IS THE HUNGRIEST NUMBER

I took this photo during my initial walk. I'd love to
live in an address with a "½" in the house or apartment number.

Since I'd left my last Manhattan-based job in early 2009 — after spending the previous 14 years commuting, during which I went no more than 10 consecutive days without entering the city limits — I've returned to the Big Apple a total of two times prior to the Mount Sinai excursions for Dad.

I haven't been truly alone (or, I haven't had people wondering where the hell I am if I'm out of sight for like 10 minutes) since I was 19, so I have a hard time doing things by myself. Though I'd never stroll into an IHOP without anyone else in my party, I don't feel as self-conscious about dining alone at most places in the city.

I finally summoned the energy to begin my walk again. This time, I began on the Fifth Avenue side of the hospital.

On that side, you get a nice view of the top of Central Park.

Along Fifth I saw more of the fish-themed chalk street graffiti that I spotted on Madison. There's probably some kind of meaning to the drawings, but I didn't feel like trying to interpret them.

Barking Dog is known as a "dog friendly" restaurant. There's a little drinking pool for your pet (or, if you're thirsty and desperate after a long night of drinking, yourself), and canines are permitted to hang out at your table. Since I don't care much for dogs, so none of that mattered to me, as long as no one's pooch came over to swipe my toast.

Even though I walked all that way (again) to the restaurant, I almost bailed on getting breakfast there. Part of me was feeling so antisocial that I didn't want to have to deal with probing questions like "What would you like to order?" and "Is everything OK?" and "Would you like something else, or just the check?" I actually ordered my legs to walk inside...

...and I sat at the bar. Fortunately, there was only one other customer, seated a couple of stools over, and he was human. A waitress who was attractive but to whom I wasn't attracted, with blond hair and a young face that would cause surprise when you heard her Russian or similar-because-they-all-sound-the-same-to-me Eastern European accent (I think her name was Natasha) handed me a menu, and I ordered French toast, plus over-easy eggs and bacon, and, what the hell, an English muffin.

I was disappointed that they didn't have lattes, even though the menu said they did, so I ordered a tea. I quickly changed my mind and switched to coffee, even though I think I ordered a regular coffee maybe two other times in my entire life. I was so tired that I didn't want to even deal with steeping and removing a tea bag.

I was feeling really out of it until my food arrived...

...and holy shit did it look good. I can't remember the last time I was that excited to see a plate of breakfast items, and I'm someone who is easily excited by breakfast. Usually when you order bacon you receive three stiff pork-slice rejects infected with rigor mortis. In this case they delivered a pile of cooked-to-my-liking heaven that almost seemed alive...in a good way.

I sat and quietly ate, and focused as best as I could on that meal, not on having to walk back to Mount Sinai and wait a few more hours for surgery to complete while hoping that things don't go wrong (so far, they haven't) and then having to drive back home and pick up my son at the bus stop then bring him with me to get the daughter at preschool then come home and feed them and deal with them until bedtime while Mrs. The Anthony Show is at night school and try to go to bed myself at a decent hour and return to my job that eats pieces of my soul like termites on a slab of tasty pine.

So yeah, it was a good breakfast.