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I’ve never liked to run. I’ve never been fond of jogging either. Running a marathon? Few things sound worse. But as I watched my second New York City Marathon run by today, I felt as I did last year — I want to be in this thing! Yeah, that’ll never happen. But it should demonstrate how much I love being a spectator at this event.

I’m ready to declare the marathon my co-favorite NYC event of the year (it shares the honor with the U.S. Open).

What’s better than waking up on a cold November morning, grabbing a local pastry and coffee, stumbling a few blocks away and cheering on thousands of strangers as they strive to complete a Herculean task?

One of the best parts is that the cheering spectators aren’t the only ones with huge smiles and high spirits. The runners — even those who are obviously struggling mightily — are jogging along grinning, cheering, high-fiving and waving. They’re fathers and daughters running in tandem. They’re handicapped and tackling the marathon with the help of a guide or a wheelchair. They’re dressed in costumes. They’re dressed in almost nothing at all. They’re wrapped in their nation’s flag. No matter how they do it, they’re doing it — and that’s more than most of us can say.

Another great marathon in the world’s greatest city. I love New York.

One of the greatest yet smallest joys of New York is that no matter the weather, there’s always a sidewalk vendor to help you get some relief.

Last night we were out and about until after the sun went down, and there was a chill in the air — one of the first cool evenings of the season (yay!). I was obviously unprepared, and had nothing to cover my goosebumped arms. After only a few blocks of chilly walking, I was wrapped in a $5 pashmina.

When it starts to really get cold, there will be pashminas, gloves, hats and scarves on almost every corner on the busy streets of Manhattan. All summer long, vendors sold $1 bottles of water to thirsty tourists. And most mysterious and wonderful of all, any time it rains (or might rain), there are people selling cheap umbrellas just when you think you’re destined to be drenched.

I guess disposable weather-related goods are in high demand in a city where people are always outdoors and the weather can catch you off guard. Nice for a pampered California gal like myself.

We saw Patrick Stewart as Macbeth at the Lyceum Theater last night. It was the best live production of any kind that I’ve ever seen.

What interested me most was a theatrical layer that the director inserted — the metaphor he chose wasn’t one I picked up strongly from reading the play.

The biggest theme I remember from the play was that of nature. Macbeth creates his own path rather than passively yielding to fate, which is an unnatural act. Lady Macbeth asks to be “unsexed” so that she may have the courage to craft the king’s murder. Macduff was “untimely ripped” from his mother’s womb, etc.

But the director picked up on a more obscure idea: food.

In Act III Scene 4, Macbeth says, “Now, good digestion wait on appetite.” This is the spirit in which this director staged the production. Most of the scenes take place in a kitchen or dining area, and a sink remains at stage right for the entire duration of the play. When I thought about it, I was excited about how perfect this was for setting the tone: Macbeth’s appetite for power is reiterated by scenes of actual food-based appetite.

One of the most vivid applications of this metaphor comes just after Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have first discussed murdering King Duncan. The scene opens with kitchen staff at Macbeth’s castle hacking and chopping and banging around, making preparations for the king’s arrival. There is no dialogue at first, only the sound of cleavers and knives. That really hammers it home.

Later, after the murder is done, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both end up at the kitchen sink trying to wash their hands of the blood. And in one of the most enjoyable scenes I can recall ever on stage, Patrick Stewart (sorry, Macbeth) makes a sandwich (with a good number of ingredients) and eats it while ordering the murderers to slay Banquo and his son. He literally devours the food of his craving while he plots to consume another life that threatens his power.

On a more disturbing note, at the infamous dinner where Macbeth hallucinates the ghosts of Banquo and Duncan, the audience sees the castle servants bustling around the dinner table with kitchen knives clinched behind their backs.

We all knew that Macbeth was a bloody and terrible play, but this interpretation added a level of sheer creepiness.

The scenes with the witches take place in a morgue, where the three weird sisters hover around three body bags that convulse and writhe. Video projectors shot terrifying images of horror and static onto the white walls behind them, adding a sort of House on Haunted Hill effect. When I read the scenes with the witches in the play, I thought of them as eccentric and otherworldly, but not scary. I guess I imagined them as the Shakespearean-tragedy version of a character like Puck from Midsummer Night’s Dream. But this rendition made them downright terrifying. They were more modern-day horror flick than a dark version of Puck.

Through all of the director’s fascinating interpretations, one thing remained constant: Macbeth. I didn’t find anything unconventional or jarring about Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth, and I liked that. He was apprehensive, impressionable, determined, guilty, cocky … his appetite was insatiable. Stewart’s voice was so strong and sure that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such justice done to Shakespeare’s lines. Although I have always liked Kenneth Branagh in Shakespearean roles.

Anyway, Stewart’s stage presence was, well, fitting for an actor of that caliber. I’ve just never seen something like that live before. And Lady Macbeth held her own. She was never dwarfed by the amazing performance taking place across the stage from her. She was terrifyingly determined and pushy, then pityingly guilt-wracked.

I’ve seen Shakespeare underperformed and overperformed, but this iteration got it just right. I was so glad to be able to see one of the greatest actors of our time in the best production I’ve seen to date. I just hope something else matches or exceeds it eventually, or I’ll have peaked a bit early.