Go Molly Go!

This morning having woken up around 6am, I took a walk to my favorite neighborhood spot on the corner of First and First- Little Veselka. On this corner you find the most eclectic group of New Yorkers- those with the tattoos, those in the suits, those trying to be more fashionable than they can really get away with and the crazies that still have hospital bracelets on. I did, as my Ex would say, the “walk and coffee”, which for some reason, in his mind, meant my age was to be calculated in dog years. I am admittedly a huge fan of the “walk and coffee”, especially around 8am when I’m wearing sweats and Ugg slippers and get to watch the suit wearing East Villagers, a paradox unto themselves, rush to the F train on that very corner.

While flipping through my AM New York paper, I read that Molly the cow, who had escaped from the Musa Halal slaughter house in Queens, was now to live out the rest of her days peacefully in a Long Island sanctuary. Yay Molly- you did it, you risked head on traffic and busted through a fence to go after the life you deserve to live… A sanctuary on Long Island?

I often had the thought, when I lived at Columbus Circle and would commute from the 1 train to the Shuttle at Times Square that would take me finally to Grand Central where my office was located, that we commuters on the Shuttle train seemed oddly reminiscent of cattle being herded for slaughter. By the looks of the Shuttle passengers’ faces, I think I was right. No one on that train seemed happy to be going wherever it was they were going to. And, at the end of the day, they looked even worse. I grew to abhor Grand Central and the Shuttle. It was indeed so awful that Holly and I would wait to leave together so that neither one of us had to ride alone.

As I sat there on the corner drinking my coffee and listening to my Tom Petty channel on Pandora- which rocks- I felt a kinship to Molly. I had in some way escaped the slaughter house. I have to wonder though, if there’s a sanctuary waiting for me somewhere.