Patriots’ Day in Boston is Boston Marathon Day. I work literally within walking distance to the marathon route, so I enjoy coming into work today and every year. Besides the fact, where I work is a major charitable player in the race, so there are always tons of people with our logo running for the hospital for which they work or they know people who were treated here.

I just walked down there, and I saw my boss’ husband, a woman whom I regularly see at meetings and a friend of mine from comedy. With her was another comedy friend, but I’m not sure if he did the full 26 miles.

If you had a gun to my head and absolutely made me choose death or marathon, I cannot say for certain which I would pick. Looking at all those folks, drenched in sweat and run/walking in awkward painful looking jolts, like every step equals an ouch somewhere on their body, I think I would take the gun to the head.

Interesting note about marathon day and my recognition of it, it’s pretty inextricably linked with good old Pat in my head. She AVIDLY watched it on TV every year. And, she would call me to talk about who won and how people looked and the weather and the annual characters, like the Hoyts and Johnny Kelly.

So, you might think that Pat was a runner at some point in her life, given her fanatic view of the big race. But, you would be so wrong. I think the only time I ever saw my mother run was once when she thought one of us was drowning off the coast of the “Irish Riviera” (well Boston’s anyway. It looks like there’s a few from an Internet search. I guess wherever the ancestors of the old sod vacation is a mocking Riviera.) Anyway, that was a pretty big day, not only did she run, but she swam. (She was fabled to be Red Cross certified, but apart from splashing some water on her arms, when “the cure was in the water,” the legendary Esther Williams within never emerged (or submerged, I suppose).

One might even speculate in regard to Pat that she was so unlikely to exercise (at least in the years when I’m fully cognizant) that any means necessary to avoid a sweat were best employed.(Actually, horses sweat, men perspire and women glow, and don’t ever, ever tell Pat, when you’re a little girl, that you are “sweating like a pig.” The consequences were dire.) I digress, but my point being that one could speculate that five kids were born (in those innocent days before remote control), so that there’d be someone around to change the channel on the TV.

Nonetheless, for one day a year, she was a veritable jogging enthusiast.

Oh, in regard to the Hoyts, I think she made it pretty fucking clear to me once upon a time — if ever I was wheelchair bound, there was no way in God’s green earth that she’d be pushing me 26.2 miles. I’m pretty sure I would have replied, “Right back at you, Pat.” (Some families have a different sense of togetherness. For mother/daughter bounding we favored sarcasm over breaking a sweat.)