tough day on the road

This was from Day 3 of the ride. Looks like the end of the day at the Yolo County fairgrounds in Woodland, judging from the looks of the trees and the rider. Bad helmet hair, skid marks, wrist tan line, smile, and all. A good day to have ended, and to reach a place where there were showers. I thought it might be quite nice to set up camp in the shower--it was a trade-off between being cool enough and having to stand up all night.

Photo courtesy of HMR. She knows how to make her subjects look their best. Imagine how I REALLY must have looked.

A 12-mile radius

These women and their recumbent tricycles own the road. I was thinking today I'd like to adopt a 10-mile radius biking policy, now that I have my old rack installed on Karla...though anywhere in this town is probably less far away than that. Though if a 55 and 86-year-old have a 12-mile radius, maybe I should set mine at least at 20. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), 20 miles from here still isn't really anywhere that I would normally need to go. The next biggest town I need to visit a couple times a month for work purposes is about 23 - 24 miles away. By freeway. A little further by bike. Though I could ride the bus to that town if I'm not going there for a court appearance. (I did ride my bike to court here once, but I also probably could have walked.)

Hot and cold

Made it!

Ten-year record high temperatures (or something like that) for the last three days. I don't think of myself as highly heat-tolerant. In fact, it turns out that I am physically pretty heat tolerant, but mentally, maybe not so much. The riding in heat (and wind, on Day #1) was really tough but I didn't feel like I was having a 'meltdown' until after we stopped for the day and the initial bliss of finishing and having a shower had subsided. The first evening we stayed at fairgrounds in Gridley (home of Continental Athletic Supply, by the way). The main building was relatively cool and well-ventilated and there was plenty of good shade and grass for our tents. In consideration of the record-high temperatures, our director Joaquin announced we'd be rolling out at 6:00 a.m. instead of 7:00 a.m. Which meant a 4:30 a.m. wakeup call. It had been so hot that day that people cheered when they heard this. I don't think I cheered, but I agreed it was a good idea.

On Day 2, we looped to the north through Oroville and Durham (within 10 miles of my home, and my pool) and then through blazing hot, shadeless rice and wheatfields to Colusa where a bank sign in the shade said 101ºF. We stayed at the high school that night. I think I summarized my impression of it in a previous post. The legal aid lawyer in me wondered about the demographics of the high school. Not only were the facilities in sorry shape (except for the kitchen, which was air-conditioned and made our caterers very happy, so much so that I think they slept in there) but the only shady places to pitch tents were so overwatered that the ground was like walking on a sponge. I hit kind of a low point but didn't stay there too long (I say 'kind of' because I think I felt worse for awhile on the third day).

One adaptive technique was to fill ziploc bags with ice and place them on different places. Reportedly, our 55 riders and crew went through about 150 pounds of ice and 150 gallons of water per day for the 3 full days of the event.

I tried to feel grateful for the hospitality of Colusa and the high school. I don't know if I quite succeeded. The idea of having to go to school there every day was too depressing. I'm about to go off on another build school vs. build prison tirade, but I think I've done that before, and I'm too tired to do that and keep discussing the ride.

I started coming down with a cold on Day 3, but the riding before lunch (lunch happened between 10:30 and 11:00 or so) was stunning through the Capay Valley -- and mostly downhill after a long climb up Highway 20. Not only that, but the organization that provided our lunch that day cooked up some Cajun hot links in addition to the standard lunch meat and cheese. I can't help but get excited about something like that. Even though it seemed likely that I'd regret it later.

Though we didn't have wind to struggle with on Day 3, it sure did heat up in the afternoon. But sometimes heat is helpful -- in the last ten or fifteen miles I had yet another pedal - clip related spill. My second such incident during the ride and bringing my grand total to 4 times in the last 3 weeks. My bruises are getting bruises -- it's almost as good as football! But I digress. I was approaching a stop sign where it appeared that I would in fact need to make a full stop, but my right shoe cleat jammed because it had a rock and some mud stuck in it from the last rest stop and I couldn't get my foot out in time. Here we go again, I thought, as I went over. The heat was helpful in that the asphalt / gravel was so hot when I landed that I bounced right back up, whereas I might otherwise have lain there in the dust for a few seconds for the full dramatic effect.

The Yolo County fairgrounds in Woodland were an improvement over Colusa High School (except for the lack of A/C in the main building) but I was pretty much cooked. The fairgrounds had booked a dance party in the building next to where we were camping and trying to get to sleep around 8:00 p.m. "Achy Breaky Heart" in Spanish is more danceable than it is sleep-able. Too bad I wasn't there for dancing.

I think more than anything else, the people made the ride. One of my fellow riders, Travis, was featured in the Sacramento Bee last week. And singing songs with Heather made some of the hot miles pass pretty quickly. I thought of the Pioneer Children Singing as They Walked and Walked and Walked and Walked. It's an adaptive trait. I also thought of ill-fated parties who attempted their journeys at the wrong time of year. Good thing there were plenty of snacks at rest stops. I thought, at least we're not running the Badwater Ultramarathon in Death Valley where it's so hot the runners have to run on the white line so their shoes won't melt. I probably mentioned that out loud a couple more times than was necessary. Whatever it took to get through.

We're getting a CD of photos from the ride, for which I'm grateful because I was too lazy to carry my camera around. I'll post some when they arrive.

I need to go slather on more Vicks and drink my juice. I originally planned to go back to work today but I was too sick this morning. And a bit tired.

California has many natural wonders.

California has many natural wonders. This high school in Colusa where I am not really sleeping isn't one.

So we get to wake

So we get to wake up at 4.30 a.m. and do it all over again. I guess this is why they call it a `Challenge.`

However, I rode the whole

However, I rode the whole 92 miles on my own power. And so did H! All that heat and wind just cooked her lung bugs. :)

If this ride were a

If this ride were a backpacking trip, it would be up there with the family deathmarches except that we have sag support.

Alright, off I go then.

Did I mention that I made my fundraising goal sometime late Monday night? I did. Thanks to help from many sources.

I have managed, I hope, to organize my stuff for the ride so that I won't have to fuss about it too much. They recommended 1-gallon ziploc bags for this purpose. I have each day's riding clothes in a separate bag, my extra clif bars and Gu in a bag, my toothbrush and sunblock and soap and pills in a bag.... I think this is the most organized packing I've ever done.

I got a brief lecture by the meek and kindly gentleman at the bike shop today about how it's really better to get a tune up about 100 miles or so before a big event, rather than within 24 hours of a big event. I had it coming though.

I'll try to do some phone-in posts from the road.

Am I ready for this?

It'll be just like we're riding in Morocco.

Well, not really, except for the Scirocco wind that is predicted to blow the 100 degree air at 25 mph or so on Thursday. Actually the Scirocco would be better because I think it blows from the south, and we'll be riding northward. A hot tailwind is still a tailwind but I think our wind is agin' us.

So. And one of the bright stars of the ride has been fighting bronchitis and / or aggravated asthma for the last couple days. She's worked SO hard over the last five months, even before that, to get to Thursday, and apparently the universe didn't think she was being adequately challenged by the experience. Please say your best prayers, in whatever idiom you prefer, for her to have healthy happy non-inflamed bronchia at least by the time she wakes up early on Thursday morning. A friend will drive us to the start in Folsom in my truck and I think we have to leave at 5:45 or something. So that's a good 30 hours or so for us all to perform a big collective faith healing. She's doing everything she can too, having spicy soup, taking nasty herbs, regular old cough syrup, humidifying the room...Pulling out all the stops here. I think she'd have to be strapped down to a hospital bed not to ride, but she'll have a much better time of it and hold up better if she can breathe while she's riding. Though I'm thinking when it's 100 degrees out the air-conditioned sag wagon will sound pretty good.

Are you or is someone you know an effete snob?

I don't think this would be news interesting enough to repeat at this point, because it seems that Rush is a bit past the peak of his influence and popularity, much like the Canadian rock band of the same name. However, when I read his recent comment that Obama "can get effete snobs, ...wealthy academics, ...the young, and...the black vote, but Democrats do not win with that," I had to look up effete because I think I knew what he meant by it but I wasn't sure if that was really what it meant.

ef·fete (-ft)

adj.

1. Depleted of vitality, force, or effectiveness; exhausted: the final, effete period of the baroque style.

2. Marked by self-indulgence, triviality, or decadence: an effete group of self-professed intellectuals.

3. Overrefined; effeminate.

4. No longer productive; infertile.

---

[Latin efftus, worn out, exhausted : ex-, ex- + ftus, bearing young, pregnant; see dh(i)- in Indo-European roots.]

But then I was even more perplexed. What definition did he mean? That tired snobs will vote for Obama? That overrefined, decadent dandies will vote for him? Or perhaps he meant infertile snobs?

I just want to know where I fit into the Obama voting pool, because I know I'm not wealthy, and not formally an academic. I suppose I'm young, though very solidly into my full-fledged adulthood. And I have a lot of freckles, but I seriously doubt that I'm black, barring further discovery of the activities of an ancestor who reached Jamaica and made a stop, shall we say.

I suppose I could be considered a snob in some respects. I have a postgraduate degree and I won't shop at WalMart. I don't believe that pink is a legitimate wine color. And I am often tired, and sometimes a tiny bit dandy when the occasion calls for it.

Mighty Mormon Muscle Mama!

This NY Times story and the video clip embedded in it was quite moving and provocative. I think of myself as a little busier than is really manageable sometimes, and I've had some aches and pains and an injury requiring surgery as a result of my athletic endeavors, and sometimes I wish the cat wouldn't meow so forcefully and so often for no reason I can determine (though having that little tiny screaming puppy for a few days gave me some perspective). But Melanie Roach...shown here training in her gym...holy cow. She is really driven. Talk about perseverance. And triceps. I hope she makes it to Beijing.

Go team!

Yesterday I got to see the Redding Rage play the Santa Rosa Scorchers, and though the final spread was unfortunately kind of, well, big, I got to see my girls score. They've scored several times since the last game of last season but this was the first TD I was able to witness. And it was the result of a spectacular Favresque pass completion. I jumped up and screamed at the top of my lungs. I've waited so long to see this. And I have a lot of hostility toward the Scorchers, call it irrational if you want, since it's not like they're the ones who made me play football, and the season / career-ending hit I took last year was clean. Not even one of the numerous dirty, late, illegal hits that they seem to get away with quite often. I admit that was wishing them some harm yesterday. If there was one game I would like to have been suited up for, this was it. They're lucky I wasn't. And probably so am I.

climbed a mountain and turned around, pt. 1

I had my digital camera but no cell phone (about mile 10, I heard the dread low-battery-turning-off beep), and I don't have the cable with me to upload the photos. So they'll have to wait. But I can start off with a map of the route. Slightly altered because there was one stretch of road toward the end that I would not want to encourage anyone else who might look it up on Bikely.com to use. My route today was about 50 miles; the revised route is 56. Next time.

I went looking for some hills to climb and I found some. It seems like I went down more than I went up, but maybe the downs were just more concentrated. I had to stop partway down that great big one to let my rims cool off and stretch the cramps out of my hands.

I don't think the photos will really capture how amazingly beautiful the scenery was. St. Helena Road and Franz Valley School Road were stunning. Or maybe the climbing made me oxygen- deprived and I was delirious. Ha. Not that I'd want to go out and ride the Rockies tomorrow, but being from a state with real mountains I can't help but think California mountains are sort of cute and furry. In retrospect. I didn't necessarily think that today during some of the climbing though. I only felt a little bit like barfing once. That's a pretty good day of riding.

To be continued.

This time 2 weeks from now...

I'll be in my tent, hopefully asleep, at the Colusa fairgrounds, with about 180 of my 330 miles behind me.

Our household has had a bit of a stir recently. My roommate found a teeny tiny puppy...teeny tiny because it's a chihuahua...wandering around in a parking lot in some non-residential part of town. And brought it home, of course, because what else can you possibly do with a lost puppy. We're providing foster care for now. And having to practice some tough love as the puppy-wandering-around-the-house method was not having any really desirable results. I had a small animal playpen in the closet and he's been in it for about half a day now, periodically screaming like a peacock being boiled alive (I imagine).

If I got a medium sized handlebar bag and teeny tiny Doggles for him to wear, he could come with me on the bike ride.

He's pretty funny to watch with the cat (and vice versa). The cat is surprisingly tolerant of him. Though I could tell the cat wasn't thrilled with the screaming. He's a very expressive cat but I've never before, so clearly, understood his meaning to be "How long should I expect this to continue?"

Sooner or later

I had defied the odds by having gone my entire clipless pedals career--spanning the better part of a decade--without falling over due to failure to get my foot unstuck in time. Had some close calls, but never fell down. Until Sunday in the Wildflower Century, climbing the first hill. My friend H was having some kind of really frustrating derailleur problem that kept her from being able to shift into the big gears, making climbing not much fun at all relative to the joy that it typically is. I wanted her to pull off and stop so I could fuss with her bike and see if I could possibly make it work better. So finally we stopped. But I guess I thought about stopping more than I thought about the procedure of stopping, as I found myself with my right foot still stuck on the pedal (and my new pedals are a lot stickier than the old ones), and my bike suspended upright for what seemed like a long second before I tipped over.

In a way I was glad it happened because I'd been so afraid of it happening before, and it turns out it didn't hurt very much at all. A bit embarrassing, yes. I didn't put my hand out to catch myself, which is one way people actually do get injured from this kind of fall. Just rolled right down. Have a couple nice bruises to show for it. Since I stopped playing football I've really missed the bruises.

And after I got up and collected myself, I managed to make her derailleur work right, so she was free to climb the two much bigger, nastier hills after that one. Maybe she'll forgive me some day.

Diary

I wanted to have more bullet points, so here they are:

• 4:50 a.m. or so: woke up, kind of
• 5:25 a.m.: went to spinning class at the gym (a little late)
• 8:00 a.m.: breakfast meeting with a Chico city council member to talk about ACLU LGBT committee project(s) and any other letters of the alphabet
• 9:10 a.m.: arrived at work
• 1:30 p.m.: case review meeting, decided that welfare fraud cases and clients who act like they may have personality disorders should be recurring soap opera themes to complement all the comas and cases of amnesia.
• 3:30-ish: done with case review
• 5:00 p.m.: went to General Plan Citizen's Advisory Committee meeting to discuss preferred land use alternatives for eleven study areas in the unincorporated vicinity of Chico. Spoke twice in the meeting. One of my proposals for a 500-acre cluster of high density zoning in a 9,400 acre area, next to existing dense development in urban Chico, and pending a Specific Plan & City oversight, with the remaining 8,900 acres designated Resource Conservation, actually got two other votes besides mine (out of about 18...that's 16.6%! Wa-hoo!).

Worried that I sounded too meek or conciliatory and perhaps uncertain when I talked; decided it was just because the people who did most of the talking talked loudly, and a lot, and sounded like they believe they know quite a lot about everything. Coincidentally they were all white men over the age of 45. Occasionally a few white women over the age of 35 would say something too. You'd think that there were no people of other colors living in the county. I guess they didn't want to be on the Citizen's Advisory Committee. I wonder why?

• 11:00 p.m.: meeting adjourned
• 11:20 p.m.: came home, watered cat and fed plants.

Decades come and go, but a century is a long time

Lessons learned over the weekend:

• 100 miles of biking doesn't hurt as much as 26.2 miles of running.
• I arrived at the rest stops at pretty much the same time as everybody else from our group, regardless of how fast I tried to go, because they were smart enough to stay together and draft while I was riding off into a headwind.
  
• It's a bad idea to schedule things after a century ride that make you feel like you need to hurry up and finish it already, because:
• people think you're showing off (and then it's harder to get sympathy when you're tired);
• you are in danger of missing the things scheduled afterwards unless they're happening at the place where the century ends.

• The fun of riding as fast as you can for as long as you can keep it up (relative concepts; my all-out 'fast' would be a leisurely spin through the orchards for others) is costly, but the fun of having friends with whom to ride, through the good stretches and rough patches, and with whom to go to In 'n Out after two days of riding, is better than finding a sushi polka-dot jersey on sale.
• I can go farther than I ever thought. A nice motorhome with a fridge, or even a motorcycle, would be more comfortable, but there's probably lots of time to spend being comfortable.
• You can't bring too many snacks. A rider in our group said that her heart rate monitor said she burned about 2600 calories in the 8 hours it took us to finish (about six hours of actual riding and two hours of rest stops). Maybe I'll start wearing mine so I can calculate the number of In 'n Out menu items I can consume and still be in a calorie deficit.
  
• That would be some clever fast-food marketing...to hand out free heart rate monitors to people that track their exercise and how many calories they've burned, and for every 10,000 calories burned, you can get free stuff. Energy trading.

So next Sunday I've got a chance to apply some of what I learned. Maybe I'll start working on the Energy Trading project too...hello, In 'n Out Headquarters?

The most awesome jersey ever, and on sale!!

Do you ever walk into a store thinking you're looking for one thing, but then you see something else that is clearly the reason destiny brought you to that place at that moment?

For the record my skin is not oompa-loompa orange. I'm just lazy about taking pictures with my cellphone and I think it was overwhelmed by all the sushi polka-dots, so it turned me a nice shade of Uni. Mmmm.

cellphone photos wouldn't have cut it

The good news about the Wildflower Century ride is that the scenery will be fantastic, especially Table Mountain. The not quite as good news is the climbing you have to do for the fantastic scenery.
Table Mountain is that last big bump. I rode it for the first time today--and visited it for the first time as well. I'd like to go back in a motorized vehicle sometime. People were up there flying kites and driving their vintage cars back and forth, and perhaps looking at the wildflowers. I didn't take this picture but it looks a lot like some of what I saw (in the places where there were no kites or vintage cars).


Next time I'll bring my real camera and I'll try to have fresher legs. Or at least stiffer shoes.

O me of little faith

I offended Karla a little bit by suggesting to her that I didn't know if we'd be able to ride all the way up to the house from the bottom of the hill where the road turns off from Highway 1. Yes, I talk to my bicycle. Since she survived the dragging-behind-truck-on-freeway experience she is quite interesting to talk to. And every moment we have seems more precious.

I have apologized for doubting and for just plain forgetting that I put Karla together with this hill specifically in mind, along with the idea of towing a tent trailer or small RV, or perhaps a few sustainably harvested logs. She reminded me. Though I'm glad we didn't have to tow anything up the hill at this time. She wants to do it again tomorrow.

Cruisin'

I rode my road bike to the bike shop yesterday to have the wheels swapped out, and then realized I would have to walk home. I realized this out loud and the owner asked me if I wanted to borrow a bike. Sure, I thought. He went to the back and then reemerged with this 3-speed cruiser with coaster brakes. I tried to conceal my ambivalence as best I could, he was loaning me a bike, after all. I said, "This will be my first cruiser experience." The owner said "Watch out, you might get hooked."

I pushed it down to the corner so that nobody in the bike shop would be able to see my first attempt to ride it. Right away I noticed that the pedals don't go backwards. The bike seemed very high, and much heavier than I was used to, though the seat was about the right height for pedaling. I managed to jump on and start pedaling and didn't fall down. The shifting is some kind of internal hub system controlled with a grip shifter. It even tells you where to 'start.'

I can't deny that the seat was mighty comfortable. But I had to talk myself out of being embarrassed all the way home. I have nothing against other people riding cruisers...I'm all for it. Just not quite right for my idiom. Maybe this is how some dogs and cats feel when somebody dresses them up in a Halloween costume.

mama needs a new pair o' shoes

Really quite hilly 54-mile training ride yesterday (if you click that link to look at the route, please go to the 'Show' menu and select 'Elevation Profile' to see what I mean by 'quite hilly.' Coming down one of the longer hills, where the road was nice and smooth and free of traffic, I got up to 41 mph. A new speed record. (Maybe my next road bike will be the Mach 5).

My feet topped the list of parts that became especially sore during the ride (though it was a close contest). I've been riding with SPD clipless pedals with a fairly small platform, (just like these) and stylish but somewhat too flexible 'touring' style bike shoes. As a result, my toes tend to go numb after 20 miles. Having consulted the experts it looks like I need to upgrade to road pedals with a bigger platform and much stiffer road shoes (like the Pearl Izumis shown here). This will help the 'hot spot' problem that makes my feet sore and numb and also use my pedaling energy more efficiently, especially on all those climbs.

Got some good deals on both. Shoes will take a few days to get here and then I can set 'em up.

Six weeks to go until the NorCal AIDS Challenge and two century rides in April.

I was only laughing a little bit on the inside

In the process of completing a form recently, a client told me that she decided to keep her married name after getting divorced so that it would be the same as her son's last name, because she didn't want him to have astigmatism.

Kitteh is my BFF: The Historical / Social Context of Abbreviated Speech and Intentional Misspelling

I became suddenly curious today about the origin of the word "okay" and, in reading the Wikipedia entry on the subject, discovered that there have been previous fads not only involving "comic misspellings" but fads of rampant abbreviation, even abbreviation of the comic misspellings.

According to the late etymologist Allen Walker Read:

"The abbreviation fad began in Boston in the summer of 1838 ... OFM, "our first men," and used expressions like NG, "no go," GT, "gone to Texas," and SP, "small potatoes." Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, "oll wright," and there was also KY, "know yuse," KG, "know go," and NS, "nuff said."

No doubt that some folks circa 1838 were more amused by the fad than others. It also seems to serve different purposes now in the era of the txt msg. In between 1838 and the event of instant messaging, we've had candy conversation hearts, vanity license plates, and the song titles of the artist previously and currently known as Prince (i.e., Nothing Compares 2 U).

So, icanhascheezburger.com is a resurfacing of an old trend. In 1838 I bet it was a lot harder to come by winsome photos of marine mammals holding plastic buckets, though.



In memory of Minazo the seal, 1994 - 2005.

Venture philanthropy

I confess to sometimes agreeing with David Brooks, "conservative" op-ed columnist for the New York Times. He actually seems to use reasoning and logic rather than just gobbling down the whole Republican enchilada without asking what's in it. Several years ago he wrote a piece on why same-sex marriage should be promoted rather than opposed by conservatives, as he felt that supporting people--any people--in their desire to make serious commitments to one another would actually be good for, rather than detrimental to, the fabric of society.

So this piece on the social entrepreneur movement got my attention. Having just come back from New Orleans where it is obvious that the government didn't just screw up at every stage of the disaster, but willfully, criminally, disregarded what was happening (if you didn't believe that before, you oughta try to see this movie), it is the private foundations and the non-profits who are getting the work done. The public school system hasn't even been able to get going again in most of the city. Charters are the only ones who were able to open their doors.

While we have a government absorbed by corporate interests (which tend to be inherently antisocial, since a corporation is legally a 'person' who is compelled to act in its own self-interest at all times), and we have a big swath the electorate who have been easily manipulated by fear, we simply can't expect the government to be all that helpful unless we're white or at least wealthy. The best possible outcome of the next election might help but it won't help overnight. But the social entrepreneurs Brooks talks about--and so many others--are harnessing the awesome power of capitalism for good. I take exception to his disparaging remarks about ponytails and crunchiness (maybe he's not spent much time in Northern CA) but otherwise he's really on to something.

I would still like the government to be really helpful for something besides putting people in prison at home and creating new terrorists abroad. But I'm interested in anything that works. It seems that attempts to overthrow capitalist systems have been largely self-defeating and created years and years of suffering. Much more effective to find ways to bend capitalism to the good of the People. To make it a tool for social progress--which has to include everybody, or it doesn't count.

Minor misquoting of Faulker, otherwise great speech.

I thought the Faulkner reference Obama made in his speech was from Absalom, Absalom. Certainly could have been: "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." I was sure I'd read that line before which meant it had to be from Absalom, or As I Lay Dying (one might naturally think it could have been in there, too), the first half of Light in August, or one of several short stories. If Yahoo's Answers.com is credible, however, it's none of the above, and Obama changed it slightly for better rhetorical effect, perhaps, or maybe he just remembered it incorrectly and nobody cite checked it for him.

Please understand that I do not want to detract from the extremely important, timely, serious messages of Obama's speech. I think this is probably the best speech given in a political campaign in my lifetime. But since we've so long languished under the dangerous rule of a man who most likely doesn't even know who Faulkner is and definitely doesn't care, I think Obama may have successfully tapped into the little-documented but no doubt influential "English major vote." Despite having taken some liberties with Faulkner. As long as he doesn't take too many liberties. Just because all our sensibilities have been offended for eight years doesn't mean we have to throw our standards out the window at the first sign of literate leadership.

I also wonder what might happen to Clinton if she tried to address gender inequality in a similarly direct way. Huh. Guess that's why she hasn't.

Powered by pretzels

Yogurt pretzels, that is. By Sunday afternoon the remaining handful had melted and re-congealed together in a big crunchy ball (imagine this picture without the empty spaces), having been both in the truck for awhile in the sunshine, and in the back pocket of my bike jersey. I think they were trying to evolve into a new snack.

I found this yogurt pretzel image online and I'm a little disturbed by it, actually. The pretzels look unhappy. They remind me of the Edvard Munch painting, or that silly horror flick of the same name (only ever saw the first one), or of the Stay-Puff'd Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. My pretzels had a less haunted look (at least before they melted).

I am sore in various places, but it's appropriate since I rode a total of 110 miles on Saturday and Sunday, climbing many a hill on the way. Both rides, Winters on Saturday and Sonoma County on Sunday, were graced with beautiful weather and scenery. My friend Lisa mapped out the Sonoma ride for me, having toured most of the back roads on her motorcycle, and she tried to pick a route that wasn't too hilly. The Winters ride was supposed to be the hilly one. However, I don't think it's possible to ride 67 flat miles in Sonoma unless you're dragging up and down the freeway, and even then I'm not sure you can do it. In fact that is one of the appealing features of riding in Sonoma County. Anyway, Lisa tried, and some might say she did not entirely succeed. But it was an awesome route that I would love to ride again (but not again tomorrow), up through the Alexander Valley from Santa Rosa to Cloverdale, and down through the Dry Creek Valley west of Highway 101, to River Road where my sag support (i.e. Lisa in her truck) came to get me since continuing to ride would have made the ride about 77 miles and most definitely quite hilly. Maybe sometime I'll try the whole loop when I have no interest in trying to find a not-too-hilly route.

I took my second rest stop around mile 50-something to eat a bagel (also in the back pocket of my jersey...I just love how you can put so many things in those pockets). I parked my bike in some landscaping outside the big gate to some or other winery, and happened to notice these among the woodchips. You might be saying to yourself, 'what's the big deal, those aren't even an edible variety of morels.' To which I would answer, 'I don't know what kind of morels they are, but I know they are the first morels of any kind that I have ever found in the wild (or at least in the landscaping) so, to me, it's a big deal.'

The not-so-fast 50

It's that time again when daylight lasts just long enough to get a 25-mile ride in after work. A small group of us started about 15 minutes earlier than the rest of the pack so we'd have time to finish before dark. A little over an hour into our ride, the sound of many wheels, like the west wind, rushed up behind us and flew away again in their lycra of many colors. Up until then I thought I was going along at a good clip, averaging about 18-19 miles an hour and taking gallantly long turns at the front of my little péloton. The riders that passed us gave me a feeling of standing still. But they were glorious to behold, filling up the entire lane on the River Road, like a semi truck made of bicycles.

We ran out of steam in the last 20 minutes and slowed down to about 15 mph while the other group was probably already home, showered, dined, and moving on to dessert. Some day I'll have a speedy speedy bike that weighs less than my cat, and speedier legs to go with it. For now, I'm doing fine.

Maybe I like this one better. Can't decide.

I guess being one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century doesn't mean that you always make good decisions about facial hair. Well it's alright, it's alright.

American Tune

The brilliance of this song is that it captures the spirit of America at her best while acknowledging somehow we got on the wrong road, that there are times of great despair and loneliness, life batters our souls, we're uncomfortable, weary to our bones, good times come and go...but it's alright, it's alright, it's alright. And it gives us a charge: we come in the age's most uncertain hour, and sing an American tune. What's your tune?

This is the only song about America that honors the myth, the ideals, the symbols, without glossing over the pain of living in the America we've made. 35 years after it was written it seems to fit better than ever.

Still tomorrow's gonna be another working day and I'm trying to get some rest. That's all I'm tryin' to get, is some rest.

blowin' in the wind

I was invited on a spontaneous roadtrip to the central coast this weekend so naturally I wanted to bring my bike (my old KHS road bike, not Karla) Unfortunately, when I loaded it in the truck on Friday after work to meet up with my friends Lisa and Anita and Syd the dog, I left the front wheel in the parking lot. Didn't realize that's where it was until three hours later when I arrived in Santa Rosa. A friend of Lisa's had a spare wheel I could borrow though. A much nicer wheel than the one I left at home, in fact. So it all worked out.

We stayed in Watsonville in a somewhat funky motel chosen for its alleged pet-friendliness. Yesterday around 4:00 I set out riding south to Monterey. Didn't figure on how strong the wind would be blowing off the bay. As you can see in the picture, I got there, and my friends met up with me for dinner just a little bit before hypothermia set in.

Today I rode north to Santa Cruz in the late morning sunshine and not nearly so much wind. Made it all worthwhile. Rode out to Lighthouse State Beach and watched the surfers paddle out, ride in, paddle out, ride in.

I've been having some sinus issues...without wanting to go into an unnecessary level of detail, I just really wanted to spit at one point on my ride today. While this behavior is not culturally inappropriate for distance runners and bikers, it's not something I tend to do. But sometimes even a young lady of good breeding (and not such good breathing) can't take it any more. So I spit, as daintily as possible when pedaling at a good clip, over my left shoulder. Only seconds later two guys passed me on the left. Either I didn't hit 'em or they didn't pay it no mind.

Total bike mileage for the weekend: about 50 miles. With several good refueling opportunities. Hoping to finish it off with a spinning class tomorrow night before I get on the plane for New Orleans on Tuesday.

Set up, part II

Sometimes the NY Times has interesting timing. Here's an article for my right-wing gentleman from last night, all about the problems of government-subsidized housing.

I've actually not discussed, or really heard discussed this issue with someone of very conservative views. I would like to know what (or if) they think about it. They're always ranting about big government, lamenting the 'welfare state' created by the government's provision of social safety net...everybody should just work hard and take care of themselves, or at least go to church so that the church can help them if they really need it. I've just never heard any of them complain about spending more and more money on prisons. Is it because more and more prisons are privately operated? Maybe next we'll have a prison voucher program. Also, the more people there are who go to prison, the fewer are eligible for public benefits. Ex drug-felons can't get food stamps because we want them to be punished not just for their prison sentence but forever and ever. The character of a convicted felon would probably suffer if it were too easy for him / her to find economic alternatives to crime.

Funny that I'm saying all this here...considering that my readership mostly, if not entirely, consists of the proverbial choir. Maybe some inflammatory key words would help...somebody from the Alliance Defense Fund or the Pacific Legal Foundation or the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute might be googling along and run across the phrase "why are many conservatives so xenophobic and short-sighted and hateful of poor people?" Or the phrase "why don't conservatives argue for more government spending on education and less on corrections?"

Set up like a bowlin' pin

Went to a county General Plan Citizens Advisory Committee meeting tonight. First presentation was on sustainability. What it means, how it should impact planning considerations, and so on. No information or ideas that were new to me but I knew as soon as I saw a particular powerpoint slide that the presenter, a geology professor from CSU Chico, was likely to catch hell from somebody for it. Little grumbles of concern and disapproval rose from various corners of the room. The offensive comment was "Capitalism concentrates wealth and power." Other than that I didn't hear anything I thought would be controversial. Wrong!

Several times in her presentation I was pleased to hear her talk about poverty as an environmental as well as a social problem, and that racial and economic equity (thank heavens she didn't suggest gender) are key components of sustainability...that environmental justice issues (i.e. the historical tendency for heavily polluting industry and poor people / people of color to be sited together) must be addressed in sustainable development. Yep. She even talked about affordable housing and ways of increasing the supply of it, such as by adopting inclusionary zoning ordinances. I love it when people use those words in public places of their own free will. Hmm. I suppose I wondered if somebody would take exception to the inclusionary zoning reference too, as I've been in other public meetings where it was an inflammatory idea, but she didn't dwell on it very long.

Listening to all this I felt like I should try to think of a question to stand up and ask her, or some way of saying "Hear hear! Jolly good!" when she was done, or some relevant comment that would galvanize all this in public consciousness and make the Committee to go out and demand affordable housing or something. I was having a hard time formulating a question, and a couple other people had already stood up mostly to comment, not to inquire. Then a gentleman stood up and said, "In all your talk about protecting minorities I didn't hear you say anything about protecting religious groups." Ah, here we go, I thought. Because medical waste incinerators are so often opened next door to white people's churches. He had taken many notes and was going over them point by point. "And illegal aliens? Are we going to protect THEM too??" My eyes started rolling uncontrollably. "And you said Capitalism concentrates wealth and power! Capitalism is what made our country great!" Duh. Absolutely great, in wealth and power. That's why slavery was / is a hard habit to break. "Our traditional values are being destroyed by all the liberalism!" (Dang, no more slavery.) "There's no such thing as affordable housing because somebody always has to subsidize it! Doesn't equity just mean SOCIALISM?" Oh please, don't let it mean that. Etc. etc.

He was just on a roll, all but accusing the poor geology professor of advancing a godless Communist agenda, and I felt it was my duty as the legal aid lawyer with the little ACLU button on my bag to stand up and at least express some support for the speaker. I don't feel good about impromptu speaking. I had a few things I was rehearsing in my head, and hopefully they came out making more sense to other people than they did to me. I got up and said I found her presentation quite timely because it happened that I would be attending a summit in New Orleans next week on Regional EQUITY and SOCIAL justice. (Hmm...) That regardless of one's political views or preferred coping strategy, poverty is an environmental and social problem that we have to address. I recommended some books on the synthesis of capitalism and sustainability. I misspoke, though, by saying that capitalism and sustainability can "coexist." It would have been more correct to say that since capitalism is the economic reality of the world, it has to adopt the principles of sustainability or it will put the world out of business. All the externalized costs (such as the inner city kids with asthma from the medical waste incinerator) are really bad accounting in the long run. Maybe he'll read Paul Hawken's books and learn all that anyway. Ha.

And I realized that all my buttons, including the ACLU button, had been pushed by some ignorant fool, and I was annoyed that it was so easy to do. But it was a good exercise for me to stand up and try to say something, and I might not have done that if I hadn't been all riled up and eye-rollin'. At a Buddhist retreat center I visited a couple years ago, a sign said that the person who is the most irritating / difficult for you is your greatest teacher. So many great teachers in the world.

I don't know why I think this is funny

Open to any suggestions though.

We took a little bacon and we took a little beans

I found out a few days ago, but I'm only now (that I have flights and hotels and conference registration all set) believing that I'm going to New Orleans in two weeks. Slightly less than two. For the "Third National Summit on Equitable Development, Social Justice, and Smart Growth." The managing attorney of our Sacramento office called on Friday and told me about it. Our office will be able to send two of us, and it turned out that by flying to NOLA a day early we got a much cheaper flight. I'm going to ride a streetcar and hopefully not have to depend too much on the kindness of strangers, though kindness never hurts. This will be my first time visiting a place that has always captured my imagination. A little bit like San Francisco, but much older, sultrier, scarier. And a place that pointed out to everybody that poverty is alive and well in America, maybe a much bigger issue than we wanted to think, and that race is a factor as much as some would like to believe it doesn't. [So much for your colorblind society, Heritage Foundation.]

New Orleans is its own character in so many stories, not just a place where the story happens. Figures so enormously in so much creative work. Not the least of which is Johnny Horton's classic. Not that I've ever been a fan of Ol' Hickory. He probably would have belonged to the Heritage Foundation if it existed in 1814. Or the John Birch society...hahaha...hickory, birch...ahem.

Anyway. I will arrive there early evening on March 4. Conference starts gearing up late afternoon on the 5th, but isn't full swing until the 6th and 7th. Saturday there's breakfast and apparently some opportunities to work on some service projects. Flying home late afternoon on Saturday.

I Have Confidence

What would this day be like...I wondered.

I headed out to my first official group training ride for the NCAC this morning wondering if I'd be able to keep up or even keep going for 43 miles. Before the ride there was some not so reassuring talk of the hills on the route. With Karla still at the shop (I picked her up this afternoon, though) I was riding my skinny-tire bike (Billie, the blue KHS Flite 300 that survived some very heavy loads while I was in law school) with clipless pedals. Can someone can explain why they're called "clipless pedals," but we "clip in" when we ride them? Anyway, I haven't ridden "clipped in" since before the knee injury and it took a few miles into the ride to get over that fear of falling over if you forget to unstick your foot from the pedal before you stop.

The ride took us through the countryside southwest of Winters (about 30 miles west of Sacramento). Here's a map of the route. Except for a little bit of the first big hill that I had to hike after I stopped and couldn't start again because it was too steep, I kicked some hill butt. I didn't fall behind. Rather the opposite. I surprised myself. I guess those 5:30 - 7:00 a.m. spinning classes twice a week at my gym have paid off. I think I'm going to be a bit stiff tomorrow but so will a lot of other people. Felt good to know that there's nothing at all deficient in my bike legs.

Plus, when I picked up Karla, looking good as new (or perhaps even a bit better since the person who wrapped the handlebars knew what he was doing) at the bike shop, all the bike shop people said how super neat she is. Gosh. Kind of like when I take my cat to the vet and everyone compliments his glossy fur and linebacker physique.

Assalaam Alaikum

I am about 100 pages into the book Three Cups of Tea. Already I'm finding it to be one of the most inspiring and interesting books I've read, yet I doubt whether I would have, of my own volition, ever picked it to read. I admit that the story of an American mountain climber building a school in a remote mountain village in Pakistan sounded like it could be interesting but was not at first much of a hook. And now I wonder why. Was it because I was reluctant to spend my free time reading about poverty in some corner of the world I knew nothing about? Was it because the news has seemed so saturated for so long with Taliban this, Al-Qaeda that, etc. etc. that when I saw the words "Pakistan" and "Afghanistan" on the cover I just didn't think there was more I wanted to know? As if I knew much of anything.

Fortunately for me, someone else in a new little reading group I'm in decided it would be our first book. It is making me wonder if I would / could ever be so committed to and focused on a goal...any goal, whether a charitable or entirely selfish one...that I would choose, as did Mr. Mortenson, to sleep in my car and be hassled by the police for appearing to be homeless, for a whole year, so that I could save as much of my earnings as possible toward the goal. Now there's some faith and commitment. It seemed to come not from any outside mandate on how he ought to live his life, but from inside him. In addition to all the other things the book is about, this seems to me to be a story about true religion and the genuine practice thereof. The something that transcends culture and theology and "isms" of all sorts, that is, hopefully, the common root of all beliefs and practices aimed at promoting human well-being. It seems that a person rooted in this way would be pretty much at home wherever s/he goes, and be able to recognize everyone as a neighbor. As family.

Karla update

I got a call from the bike shop in Sacramento where Karla is getting fixed up. Frame is fine, wheels are fine (though probably will need some adjusting), hubs are probably fine. Just need a new front axle, a new left crank and pedal, and new brake levers. This shop, Bicycle Chef, offers a 10% discount to participants in the NorCal AIDS Challenge, so I feel fortunate about that too. Some of the parts have to be ordered and could take a couple weeks to arrive, but Karla is on her way to recovery. [Special thanks to the medical transport service...]

Meanwhile I discovered this today. Maybe my next truck will run on bananas, oatmeal, tofu, squash, broccoli, salmon, cupcakes, and the occasional cheeseburger and fries from In 'n Out (In fact this would be just the thing for a drive-thru). To name a few alternative energy sources. It even has an electric power assist motor to help out the carb motor out a bit.

When bad things happen to good bikes

Karla (my Surly touring bike, just to make sure everyone knows I'm referring to a beloved object but not a living being) is a bit roughed up from being dragged behind a truck for several yards on the freeway. Surprisingly intact though. Found a small dent in the top tube but otherwise no visible damage to the frame. Brake levers all messed up, quick releases scraped off, and one pedal bent and scraped. Wheels look fine though. They were advertised as "bombproof" and I can almost believe it.

So what happened. I was taking my bike down to Sacramento for a ride this weekend (that turned out to be canceled due to rain). Rain? I thought maybe I should put a raincover on my bike in case it rained on the drive down. I have a bike cover...not specifically made for car transporting, but I tied it down really well. My rack attaches to the bed of the truck, near the cab, with a tension bar. I happened to have a cinch strap tied around the rack and tied to a tiedown in the truck bed.

I got on the freeway in Chico and noticed the cover was flapping a lot in places, but like I said, it was well tied down. I thought the worst thing that could happen was that the cover would come loose...I was thinking I should pull over and check it at the next exit, when in the rearview mirror I see the whole BIKE come loose and fly up and out of the bed. I saw in the side mirror that it was dragging behind. I thought it was destroyed. I was all the way over in the left lane. Nobody was behind me (whew) so I pulled over to the right and off into the shoulder. I saw then that the bike was still attached to the rack. The wind resistance with the tarp was enough to pull the whole rack off the truck. I've had this rack for at least five years and ever had a problem with it. Never had a cover on any of the bikes though.

I'll be able to ride my old bike for awhile until I can get the replacement brake levers, etc. and have a shop check out the frame to make sure it's okay. If it had been aluminum instead of steel it would have been trashed. Maybe the Surly company would like my story for their website (provided that the frame is really okay). Most bicycles don't crash at 65 miles per hour. Or 70 miles per hour, either, though I probably wouldn't know.

Better news is that with help from friends and family, my fundraising for the NorCal AIDS Challenge in May is off to a great start. I'm a over a quarter of the way to my $1,600.00 goal.

Coincidence?

I'll try not to mention American Gladiators again for awhile after this (maybe), but I found out today that Ms. Jennifer Blum of the New York Sharks football team and recent Gladiators victory fame is a lawyer. And after hearing her pre-competition comments detailing the injuries she's sustained playing football, I hope she is the sort of lawyer who has really good health insurance coverage. That might be one way that we differ (apart from my never having carried the ball in a game vs. her being the scoring leader for her team, and her being on Gladiators vs. my watching her on Gladiators).

If you want to see her in action but would rather not suffer through the ads and first couple minutes of the show, her bit first comes up at about 08:11 on the counter for this video. Unfortunately the show is just a little too silly to be very interesting for more than two minutes or so. But I liked the fight with the giant Nerf gun.

How I Spent My Long Weekend

Tough gig.

A month or so after I started my job here in Chico, I was sent to a week-long residential training for new legal services attorneys, advocates, paralegals and support staff. The organization that runs these trainings and recruits the all-volunteer faculty of trainers is the Benchmark Institute, founded in 1989 by Rosemary French and Marie Contreras. Benchmark provides a number of other trainings including a week-long Trial & Hearing Skills program culminating in a mock jury trial, and trainings on substantive areas of legal services practice.

So Rosemary and Marie invited me to attend Benchmark's annual planning retreat again this year, which traditionally occurs over MLK weekend. It occurs in rather a lovely place on the coast between Santa Cruz and Monterey. We get to do good AND feel good at the same time. What a novel idea.

We had a few hours' break from meeting and planning on Saturday afternoon, so I went for a bike ride here (started and ended at a different point than is shown on this map, however). We'd been talking about ideas for mobile learning (podcasts, webinars, all that) and I got re-inspired to do some audioposts from the bike route. This 49-cent per pound squash was for sale at the Gizdich Ranch. Unfortunately I didn't have a way to transport it conveniently on my bike. I settled for a small apple-ollalieberry juice that I chugged before riding the second (much harder, it turned out) half of my ride.

Strawberry fields forever.

They must be something to see (and smell) when all the plants are big and the berries are ripe. Not just strawberries though. Maybe these are the Ollalieberries that got mixed up with my apple juice.

Tour de squash

From the site reluctantgourmet.com:

Squash was introduced to the colonists by our native Indians when they first arrived in America. In fact, there is evidence that squash was eaten in South America more than 2,000 years ago. The English name for squash comes from the Narragansett Indian word askutasquash, which means green-raw-unripe, which was the way the Naragansetts ate it.

I don't know if it's a little-documented side effect of medication I've been taking, or if it's just what my body needs and I'm listening a bit better, but I have been craving squash. Since Christmas Eve or thereabouts when there was a big bowl of buttery peppery bright orange mashed-up butternut squash with the buffet-style family dinner. I looked at it that night, and I thought, "I want that. I want a lot of that."

Then on New Year's Eve I had baked acorn squash. It was just the thing. And I thought, you know, there are so many kinds of winter / hard squash, and I encountered so many in a previous career but didn't eat them very often, I want to sample every available kind. I want to have squash for dinner and lunch a few times a week.

So here are the squash(es) (see, I'm not even sure whether the plural of squash is squashes, or just squash--and I don't know anyone who speaks Naragansett) I have consumed in 2008:

Acorn (technically not 2008, though I had a bite of some on January 4)
Spaghetti

Butternut
Kabocha
Delicata
Red Kuri

So, you may ask, what's the favorite? They're all tasty, and the spaghetti squash is unique, but maybe the good ol' butternut is my favorite. The traditional mashed-up-with-butter (or olive oil), salt and pepper way is good, but baked, chopped into cubes and fried to garnish lentil soup was really good too.

Age-appropriate activities

I had a checkup with my knee surgeon today. He has a good reputation for his work, and is not unpleasant, though his affect is...warmly robotic. However, today he greeted me with a hearty handshake and asked what I'd been doing (with my knee, I reckoned he meant). I described my activities thus: "Well, I went for a 30-mile bike ride yesterday...I've been doing some weights at the gym...I've started jogging a little (described the jog 3 minutes / walk 2 minutes routine that I might kick up to a total of 15 minutes this week)..." and he seemed fairly impressed. Got a little raise of the eyebrows even.

He said, "let's see, you're 4 months out? If you were on an accelerated program you could go back to full activity now, but I'd rather you waited two more months...are you going to play football?" I said no, I wasn't. Then he said "it is probably best if you stick with the age-appropriate activities if you want to extend the lifespan of your joints and your ability to participate in athletics as long as possible. Women are much more prone to this type of injury." Okay, I know all that, but age appropriate? What exactly does that mean? He hasn't met the elder half of my football team, I guess. But I realize that in NFL years I would probably be about 62.5. Maybe that's one of the reasons I love Brett Favre. He's older than I am.

Then he did his usual knee bending and pushing to see how much sideways movement there was in my knee, and seemed nearly...dare I say...delighted? with whatever he found. "Oh! That's Super!" he said. "I'm going to cut you loose, unless you have any trouble," he said. He shook my hand again and headed for the door. So I don't need to go back. I'm glad we ended on a such a happy note.

Gladiator Redux

I got some email news from the IWFL (Independant Women's Football League) today announcing that a player for the New York Sharks is going to compete on Gladiators.

Lucky.

I guess I'll have to watch it again.

I-am-a-robot-that's-all-I-can-say

I think every time I've seen my nephews in the last...oh, two or three years? at least one of them (if old enough to talk) has repeated this phrase, sometimes repeating it a great many times (because it's just that kind of a phrase). They seem so taken with it.

I was originally going to title this post "Need more reps," and I was thinking about the body as machine, and that naturally brought me just now to the robot mantra. I was thinking of machines because I worked on some leg extensions at the gym tonight and tried to figure out the approximate difference between the amount of weight my right quadriceps (as my sister would say, my "withered leg") and my left quadriceps can move. Seems to be about 20 lbs difference. Or perhaps more, because I'm not supposed to be doing full extensions with the right (only for purposes of that exercise), and in fact it's kind of painful to extend too far with weight. Ten pounds with the right leg, in a shorter extension, let's say from 60 degrees to 135 degrees, felt about the same as 30 pounds with the left from 60 to 170. (I'm fishing for someone to impress me with his or her math and physics skills here.)

It was a good reality check, to see that even though stairs are feeling better and better, and I'm riding my bike, and I can jog 2-3 minutes at a time without any pain, there is still a big difference. I need more reps. I need to do a lot more of those exercises the physical therapist said to do. That's all I can say.

The Arena

I have to confess that I watched the first, oh, 20 minutes of the new American Gladiators show last night. And a little bit more tonight while I was at the gym. It's even possible that there is some correlation between having watched American Gladiators and being at the gym tonight. The show has some flaws and doesn't seem to have been all that well thought out in places (you're saying to yourself, 'Oh really? Not that well thought out? Hm).

But one part that was personally quite interesting and / or distressing to watch was the female competitor who appeared to have blown out her ACL and maybe a few other knee ligaments in the first event. "Powerball" is quite similar to football in that you're trying to run around with a ball and some big scary Gladiator chick is trying (quite successfully, in the case of poor Jessie Adams of Donahue, IA) to flatten you. The article doesn't say exactly what injury she sustained, but it was classic: she got knocked down with her foot sort of out sideways, got up limping and tried to keep running on it, then it just buckled under her and she fell the next time she planted her foot to stop and turn around. Something like that. A few minutes later they showed her on crutches with a knee immobilizer. I couldn't find a Youtube video of it yet. Maybe later.

Football seems like a much simpler way to...gladiate. I don't understand why I find the idea of these combative games so appealing, and the reality of them (to the degree I've experienced it) so scary. Maybe when it comes to appetite for warrioring, my eyes are a bit bigger than my stomach. However, if not for my knee and the expenses arising therefrom I would definitely have gone back for another season of football, scared or not. I was less scared at the end than I was when I started. That's something.

How I Spent My New Year's Day Vacation

On the American River Parkway bike path. Found out, to both my delight and muscle fatigue, that I can manage a flat 20-mile ride at a pace averaging maybe 13 mph. It felt so good to be hungry enough from riding that I was willing to eat someone's partly eaten Clif Bar at the halfway point. Someone we were riding with, though...I have in the past been in other distance events (SF and Avenue of the Giants marathons) when I was hungry enough almost to consider eating one that was smashed on the ground. A sign of inadequate aid stations. I trust that the organizers of those events have since corrected that inadequacy.

Anyway, it was a beautiful, sunny day, though cold enough that I was glad for long tights and a jacket. Nothing like the weather we've had here just lately. Funny how fast everything can change.

Hjälp!

Inspired by my sister's recent acquisition of an affordable, attractive bed frame, I ventured into an Ikea store today for the first time EVER.

My favorite thing was the bin of plush, cuddly giant mealy bugs with big mouths that zipped open, perhaps so that they can devour and/or store small children and pets.

I liked the mac 'n cheese a lot. The meatballs were okay but I should have had the vegetables with my mac 'n cheese instead. Next time. Next time I'm going to take someone with me so I don't get lost and totally overwhelmed by all the stuff, and then maybe I'd be able to consider actually buying something besides the mac 'n cheese and 15 meatball special. At least if you get too lost there you can always just move in to one of the little model apartments / compartments they have set up.

It pays to take a long lunch sometimes.

This is where my truck was parked about 45 minutes earlier...where it's been parked for hours and hours at a stretch...where I nearly always park. I'm glad it wasn't parked there at around 1:30 today. The people who usually work in the offices on that end of the building weren't at work either when branches came right through the roof and into the floor. Lucky day.

On the other foot?

I seem to be wearing mismatched running shoes today. Similar in style and color, but from two different pairs. On Monday I accidentally put on one of each and went to the gym, then I accidentally left them at the gym, so this morning before I went to the gym I had to put on the other two. I then retrieved the original two at the gym, but I forgot to bring other shoes for work (very casual though they likely would have been), and forgot all day to switch my running shoes so that at least I had a matching pair.

I don't think anyone noticed, or even blinked that I came to work wearing running shoes, and I wasn't seeing any clients today. I like my office.

Plus the whole knee thing gets me some extra slack. I wore my brace yesterday because (drumroll...) I Rode My Bike to Work! Otherwise, for general walking around, no brace!

I drove today but I think I'll ride again tomorrow. The doctor said on Monday that it's okay for me to ride a bike, it's just not okay to fall off.

football on my (subconscious) mind

I dreamed a few days ago that I was on the field with Brett Favre. The "old" guy has been on my mind since I saw the Green Bay / Dallas game last week, in which Brett went down with an elbow injury and local boy Aaron Rodgers got to step up. "Young" guy did a decent job even though he looks like he's about twelve years old compared to Brett's grizzled mug. Sadly, though not really unexpectedly, Dallas won. Not by a lot. Anyway, in my dream, I was suited up, and I don't think we were actually playing in a game but I ran up to Brett and chest bumped him a couple times, all the while thinking how I could hardly wait to tell my friends (especially some lifelong Green Bay fans) that I chest-bumped Brett Favre! For those not familiar with all the forms of celebratory behavior among football players (and players of other sports, I've heard), the chest-bump is performed by facing the co-celebrant and jumping up and forward, perhaps even with a small running start, with your shoulders back, so that you hit your numbers together. And yes, women football players do it too, and no, it doesn't hurt. Demonstrated here by some USC Trojans. (This photo is intended for demonstrative purposes only and is not an endorsement of the Trojans.)

For free

Imagine there were a God who did nothing but make the world amazingly beautiful every day, in a variety of short-term and long-term creative projects, even finding interesting ways to incorporate our refuse and exhaust (and dirty / cracked windshields) into some of the set pieces.

Home improvements

Aren't they pretty? I can't stop staring at them, and how nice objects look sitting on them. And I can look at them and think about building them with my dad, and putting them up today with my friend Lisa. Or, more accurately, watching her put them up and offering a third hand here and there. They are the nicest built-in feature of my kitchen. There is a fourth shelf that we...um, Lisa...put up in a corner of the living room, which is also lovely. She asked me if I wanted to do it since I'd watched her do the other three, and it just seemed like by then she was so good at it, it was a more efficient use of resources if I let her do the fourth one. I made her dinner though.

Word Wars

I just saw this documentary about the Scrabble tournament circuit...which I recommend with the caveat to some viewers that there's some pretty rough "street" language and a bit of illegal drug use. For one thing, it was comforting to see a film about people who are so odd in such a benign way. For another, it made me want to start reading the dictionary. Not necessarily to improve my Scrabble game. I learned that there is at least a 200 point average difference between me and people who do nothing but play Scrabble. Not long ago I had an informal tournament with one of the smartest people I know in the whole world and beat her in very close matches by taking advantage of her nurturing--motherly, if you will--nature (though it's true I was taking narcotic painkillers at the time) so I think that's really as, um, high as I need to climb in the Scrabble world. But in the universe of words known and unknown I'm feeling like I barely know a few that I tend to repeat over and over.

Here's one I learned in the movie: exordia.

I, and many of us, may be a bit more interested in the meanings of the words than a ranked Scrabble player tends to be, apparently. They have to memorize too many words to bother with definitions most of the time. Also there have been relatively few female Scrabble champions and in the film some of the women interviewed speculate that this may be due to the fact that women just can't bring themselves to care about Scrabble with quite the same obsessive intensity of some of the menfolk. I smell a thesis or dissertation here. Anyone? Anyone?

where have all the muscles gone?

Or more importantly, when will they return? They were here last Thanksgiving for this run in the park. Maybe if leave a dish of kibble, or some cookies and milk, on the balcony for them I can entice them back. Heeah, muscle muscle.

Coprinus comatus(?)

aka Shaggy Manes. These are new arrivals and haven't melted into the black goo that gives the Coprines their nickname "inky caps."

Shown here growing along Branscomb Road. Supposedly edible if one catches them early in their lifespan, though anything called an inky cap isn't all that edible-sounding to me. [Reminds me of Shel Silverstein's Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book wherein he asks the children, "What rhymes with Ink? Dr---"]