more from the tea party

I wore my special folksinger shirt for the occasion but I realize that the multisport sunglasses sort of clash with it...like a cross between Joan Baez and Joan Benoit Samuelson.

The owner of a local cafe / coffeehouse was at the party and she invited me to come 'n sing there some time. I have been in there a couple times and both times the same ol' countryish singer was singing the same song, a pleasant tune about hearts never mending and memories never ending and teardrops never drying etc etc, and both times I left the place humming a harmony part that was glaringly absent from his solo presentation. Turns out the country singer is the partner of the woman at the tea party and she says he would appreciate the help. Similarly I would appreciate the chance to pretend I'm Emmylou Harris though I don't have anything even vaguely resembling the right clothes. I don't sound a bit like Emmylou either. Maybe the fact that I can't begin to imitate her causes me greater fascination with her voice. (By the way, why does iTunes not have "Wrecking Ball" fer hellsakes? During the last 10 years I have purchased that CD twice and it managed to walk away both times. If you happen to own Emmylou's "Wrecking Ball" album and want to make me very happy without spending hardly any money, copy it and send it to me.)

N.Y. Times today

In addition to the SHOCKING revelation from U.S. intelligence agencies that the war in Iraq is helping to create new terrorists faster than we can kill them, there was a piece on women soldiers in Iraq serving in combat support units. The article tells the story of 23-year-old West Point graduate Lt. Emily J.T. Perez who died two weeks ago when a bomb detonated near the Humvee she was driving south of Bagdad. From the N.Y. Times:

Despite longstanding predictions that America would shudder to see its women coming home in coffins, Lieutenant Perez’s death, and those of the other women, the majority of whom died from hostile fire (the 65th died in a Baghdad car bombing a day later), have stirred no less — and no more — reaction at home than the nearly 2,900 male dead. The same can be said of the hundreds of wounded women.

There is no shortage of guesses as to why: Americans are no longer especially shocked by the idea of a woman’s violent death. Most don’t know how many women have fallen, or under what circumstances. Photographs of body bags and coffins are rarely seen. And nobody wants to kick up a fuss and risk insulting grieving families. (H&C Sandwich Blog author's note: Nobody, that is, except for Fred Phelps & gang, who have been so busy insulting families of the fallen that Congress responded with a law just for them, but it's generally accepted that the cheese has slid off Phelps' cracker.--E.)

“The public doesn’t seem concerned they are dying,” said Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University who has closely studied national service. “They would rather have someone’s else daughter die than their son.”

What’s more, no one in the strained military is eager to engage in a debate about women and the risks they are taking in Iraq because, quite simply, the women are sorely needed in this modern-day insurgent conflict. As has happened many times in war, circumstances have outpaced arguments. They are sure to be taken up again at some point, only this time, the military will have real-life data on the performance of women in the field to supplant the hypotheticals.

Like most soldiers on the job, Lieutenant Perez, who will be buried at West Point on Tuesday, was focused on her mission, not on her groundbreaking role in a war that seems to have dispelled a litany of notions about women warriors.

For the first time, women by the thousands are on the ground and engaging the enemy in a war that has no front line, and little in the way of safe havens. In this 360-degree war, they are in the thick of it, hauling heavy equipment and expected to shoot and defend themselves and others from an enemy that is all around them. They are driving huge rigs down treacherous roads, frisking Iraqi women at dangerous checkpoints, handling gun turrets personnel carriers and providing cover for other soldiers.

Along with the article are links to profiles of the 65 U.S. military women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. (This link may require a NY Times Online account...it's free though if you don't have one.)

I also found this website with profiles of all the U.S. military personnel who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. To date, 3009 names are listed here.

Then there are those civilians. Problem is that they are much harder to count and less interest in counting. Total is estimated somewhere between 43,000 and 48,000 according to the website "Iraq Body Count."

While I don't see anything inherently more tragic in the death of one gender over another, perhaps the American people aren't being given much of an opportunity to decide whether they are especially upset about women vs men casualties since dead soldiers aren't getting much TV time. If I'm wrong about this (since I rarely watch TV news), please correct me. I've been seeing just enough TV to catch a few of the Army recruiting ads. I think at least there should be a quick disclaimer at the end of the ads, like pharmaceutical ads are required to do: "May cause premature death, or injuries requiring lifetime medical care that may or may not be covered by the V.A."

One thing that occurs to me looking at the names and faces of so many of these soldiers is that a lot of kids are paying for college with life and limb, and ya know, college was helpful but not necessarily literally worth a life or an arm and a leg as far as I can tell. I'll never whine about my student loans again.

Determined Ladies

I was invited to sing at a tea party today supporting four women who are running for local offices. The party was titled "the Determined Ladies' Tea" after a quote by Abigail Adams who wrote in 1776 to her husband John,

“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

A small but 'determined' PAC has formed with the goal of sending a mailing to every registered female voter in the greater Chico area encouraging them to vote and support these candidates. Two of them are running for the school board and, unlike the other current members of the school board, these two women are educators. The other two candidates are running for the City Council and county Board of Supervisors.

In preparation for my gig I thought it might be appropriate to research some suffrage rallying songs (songs other than that song from Mary Poppins which is one of the two songs many people tend to immediately associate with the word 'suffragette.' The other, of course, is not a suffragette rally song at all despite its status as a glam-rock classic.) During this research I thought about what it took for half of the citizens of America to attain the franchise, how the women at the forefront of the suffrage movement were no doubt seen as extremists, radicals, disturbers of the peace and the 'natural order' of things. Could they have succeeded if they were trying TODAY to do what they did 86 years ago? How would our government and society respond to militancy and organization and protest such as they demonstrated? As it was, a number of women during the suffrage movement were jailed, beaten and sent to workhouses for their picketing activities.

The search for suffragist music turned up a few little gems including a version of "Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be?" humorously addressing the various arguments against women's suffrage. Also found this piece written by Julia Ward Howe set to the tune of "America" (a.k.a. My country, 'tis of thee").

speedwork is relative

I set out to the track today intending to do 7 x 1 - mile repeats, thinking seven miles, no big deal, right?

Hah!

I realize that the kind of running I have mostly done, long slow distance or "LSD" as it is popularly known, is a completely different beast from trying to run around a track as fast as you can. I'll go for a long run in the park and periodically speed up for awhile, even sprint now and then, and fancy that I'm moving right along. I've done 5k and 10k races before where I run at a pace considerably faster than my normal training pace but I've never done much speed training. However I am supposed to be doing it as part of the Galloway 3:45 marathon program.

Recovering from the first 1-mile effort, at 7'30" the fastest of the 5 repeats I managed to do, I thought maybe I was coming down with the flu because in less than 50 yards my heart rate had soared over the training zone into the "High" zone between 170 and 187. My legs felt as light and bouncy as mud. It was a long recovery but I finally gathered myself up for repeat #2, trying a strategy of starting slow and increasing the pace for each of the 4 laps, and finished in 8'32". Another recovery walk around the track and much stretching of the touchy left illiotibial band which was already saying "what the hell do we think we're doing?" in response to the "speed" training. During the 3rd repeat, watching a few other people jog around the track, I wondered if there was anything I could change about my running to make it more efficient and naturally quicker...why am I so slow? how is it that I can run for 3 hours straight but it nearly kills me to run a mile in under 8 minutes?

A young guy trotted past and I noticed that his foot turnover was much quicker. I tried shortening my stride a little bit and taking quicker steps and it seemed to help. I tried to relax the rest of my body proportionately to how fast I was trying to run; that seemed to help too. Repeat #3 finished in 8'12" and I no longer felt like I had cinder blocks for feet. Tired though.

I decided that 5 repeats would be a more realistic start of my speed training. It took me 9 minutes to finish mile #4 but I bounced back for #5 and finished in 7'46".



Clearly it takes different muscles, or uses the same muscles in a different way, to run "fast"--whatever "fast" means. So just practicing running faster will no doubt help over time. But I think there's some gear shifting I need to figure out how to do as well. I need more spin and less torque.

I done seen the fyewcha

Drove into the hills beyond Oroville yesterday to visit an elderly client, we'll call her 'Liza. She couldn't come to the regular outreach location for want of a ride down from them hills. I was worried myself if my truck would make it up the road to her place...a two-lane highway turning into a smaller paved road turning into a gravel road turning into a strip of rutted red dirt as the forest closed in around the hillside. Ms 'Liza was a bit hard to pin down over the phone and I thought maybe if I went up there, she'd have some paperwork I could look at. Because I am always thrilled to have paperwork in contrast to somebody's disrememberings of what they wished had happened, but didn't. I asked 'Liza if she had any papers related to this issue she had at one time remembered well enough to call for advice about. That time had apparently passed. She thought she had a paper somewhere, though, so she started unloading the contents of her purse onto the table.

Now when I arrived there, 'Liza was following behind in a neighbor's car. He was giving her a ride back up to her house after she'd hiked down the mountain to get her mail. 'Liza walks slowly and with one of those canes that have a platform and four legs on the bottom. So she had packed her purse for a voyage of uncertain length. She pulled out two waterbottles (at least), two cans of Ensure, a package of soda crackers, several small apples or pears from her tree, and a series of small seemingly nondescript rocks. And then she got to the normal purse stuff, like three or four different wallets with different cards and scraps of paper in them (but no money I could see).

I asked her what the rocks were for because I saw she had many more rocks in a plastic bag on the table. She instructed me to turn on the lamp and look at them in the light. I saw that some of them were sparkly with bits of pyrite or silica. She sees them sparkling in the sun along the road and can't resist putting them in her purse.

I have a hard time going places without my current bag of life's necessities but I allow a lot of crap to pile up in the bag that I haul around for weeks or months until I realize how dumb it is to be carrying this particular pile of papers or that old magazine or last week's lunch dregs, and I purge them. I might as well pick up sparkly rocks and cover my minimal food and hydration needs if I'm going to pack the bag around anyway. You never know where you might end up needing a light meal and something pretty to look at.

How is Ensure? Anybody out there tried it? Dean Karnazes says that Pedialyte is the ideal sports beverage. I'm thinking similarly that Ensure may be the ideal warrior's liquid meal replacement. I may have to test it on the road.

Anyway I see where I'm headed and it's not all bad. I know that confusion and memory loss can be very distressing to the individual experiencing them, but on the other hand I was able to give the same piece of good news about 3 - 4 times to another client last week, and she was delighted every time.

new topic

While I learned in law school that almost any subject is at least kind of interesting when examined closely, I'm thinking that this line of discussion about my heart rate monitor watch has perhaps been adequately explored and I'm starting to sound like I fixate on very mundane details. Well, I do. A three-hour or longer jog gives you plenty of time to fixate. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I do it.

Also--one more thing about the watch--a side effect of fixating on whatever is that I space out. When I space out, I slow down. The HRM watch fulfills the role of that skinny bleached-blond woman in the restaurant in Strasbourg who was always saying "Depeche-toi, Emilie, hein? Tu reves?" which roughly translates as, "There are many cigarette butts on this patio and you must sweep them more rapidly." And she said all of this while sucking on a Gaulois--or was it a Gitane?--either way one of the foulest smelling tobacco products known to the western world.

So you can see why I have this compelling, complex and ambivalent relationship with my watch. Thanks for your indulgence.

technological advances

I figured out that my watch will count down two intervals with beeps at the transition. So I was able to do the run 4 min 30 sec / walk 30 sec routine today without looking at my watch all the time. It will run up to 50 cycles of the two intervals which was more than enough to cover my 20-mile run. One 8-mile lap of the park and two 6-mile laps. About a quarter of the way into my second loop I was considering whether I really was up for all 20 miles today, thinking about cutting it shorter, and some old guy on a bike rode up alongside me and said, "How far you going today?" and I said, "20 miles." I explained that I'd already been up to Horseshoe Lake and back (the 8 mile loop). He told me about his run up to Salmon Hole yesterday, etc etc and how I was looking "really fresh" considering I'd already been running for over an hour. Well then I HAD to do all 20 miles. The last 6-mile loop was not so fresh. The whole thing took 3 hrs 15 minutes and my watch told me that I burned 1400 or so calories in the process. Fortunately C made her special Cafe Beaujolais black bean chili today and there was a hearty dollop of sour cream atop my bowl.

over the top

Still sore from my Branscomb Road challenge on Sunday. I wanted to see how far up the road I could get in an hour. Started near the 1.28 mile marker and climbed to the 6.00 marker on the hour, but decided to keep going to make it an even 5 miles out. However some of the mileage markers were missing or I didn't see them, so I ended up running another 10 minutes to the 6.82 marker. By that time I had crested the summit and started down the other side. It's a good thing there were people waiting for me back at the ranch; I had to make myself turn around and by the time I got home my brakes were starting to smoke. Things were smoother with the heart rate monitor this time. Running down the 10% grades it was hard to exert enough effort to keep my heart rate in the training zone. It dropped to the low 130's and I couldn't run any faster because of the grade. I developed sort of a funny long, low stride that reminded me of a telemark skier. Seemed to decrease the pounding and increase the aerobic effort without sacrificing too much speed.

Next time I'm going to run to the town of Branscomb (about 12 - 13 miles) and have somebody follow along later and pick me up, so I won't have to run back. Eventually I'd like to do the whole road from Laytonville to the coast. We're not quite there yet though. Just before the 6.00 marker I came across an older gentleman picking up trash along the roadside. He asked "How're ya doin?" and I said "Great!" and he said "I don't think so!"

I meant to thank him for his work, whether it's a paid or a volunteer position, he's making the world a better place. Hopefully I'll run by him again.

oh yeah, we got it

If you haven't happened to be following C's blog where the updates have been a bit more prompt, we're on the short road to real property ownership. A few details to work out and perhaps a nail or two to bite and we'll be moving across the parking lot at the end of the month. I brought home some boxes from work today to start a-packin.'

needles, pins, and paperclips(?)

Just trying to hold it together while we wait for a response to our condo offer. I'm hoping the fact that my cellphone has been strangely quiet all day means that the sellers are at least CONSIDERING our offer, which is more than has happened heretofore. If they want to keep us waiting another 24 hrs and 40-some minutes to see if they can do better, I guess they are allowed to do that.

recent siting at Loch Snag

Non-indigenous(?) life form viewed from western shore. C snapped this on the Lassen trip. Snag Lake was a beautiful swimming spot. Nice volcanic cinder beach, not too marshy, and the north end of the lake is bordered dramatically by the Fantastic Lava Beds. Temperature probably mid-60's.

prevention of heart rate monitor chafing begins at home

I'm almost on schedule with the Jeff Galloway 3:45 marathon program--I was supposed to be running 17 - 18 miles this week and I did 15 yesterday. 18 on the calendar for next weekend. 15 was a little bit of a leap but it felt pretty good except for the nasty welt at the base of my sternum caused by the HR monitor transmitter. Maybe the strategy is that if this weird device is making a hole in your skin, you are distracted from other issues like foot or knee pain. It was interesting though to be able to look at my watch and see whether I was tired or not. HR stayed in the 150's for most of the 2 hr, 27 minute run unless I was spacing out (causing it to drop), climbing a hill or trying to speed up a little. I also tried the Galloway run / walk method. It varies depending on the pace you are trying to achieve but for a time of 3:45 in the marathon Galloway suggests running 4'30" and walking 30". So, thirty seconds out of every 5 minutes. This is supposed to help you maintain a faster pace. 30 seconds goes by in a flash but during my run yesterday these tiny intervals probably added up to about 15 minutes of walking. My only complaint (other than the chafing) was that between timing the run / walk segments and checking to make sure I still had a pulse, I was constantly looking at my watch.

HR monitor training is highly recommended. Why, Dean Karnazes trained with one so long that he eventually could tell exactly what his heart rate was at any time without using the device. Probably because it wore a hole all the way through his ribcage and he could just look down and count. For the record I have owned my HR monitor for well over a year, just haven't used the transmitter strap much. I would never have gone out and purchased a monitor just because Dean Karnazes mentioned it in his book. Well, I guess we'll never know for sure whether I would have done that, but anyway it's irrelevant since I already have one and I have just chosen to start using it at this time.

Use only as directed

Kids, stay away from yogurt covered pretzels. Just don't even start. It's too late for me; I bought a bag yesterday at the co-op kidding myself that I would be able to eat a couple here and there as a treat; they are made from unbleached enriched flour and evaporated cane juice so they practically radiate healthiness (the picture of a quaint farmhouse on the package helps too). After munching the first one, though, I realized they might as well have been dipped in heroin. Something about the sweet outside and salty inside. They are evil; stay away. One 8 oz bag contains 1140 calories; 42 grams of saturated fat, 162 grams of carbs (108 grams of sugar), and 18 grams of protein. 24 hours later I'm only halfway through the bag though; maybe there is some hope.

On the other hand, the Greek word for "remedy" and "poison" is the same: pharmakon. It is all a question of dosage. These yogurt covered pretzels may be a fine remedy for something; I'll just have to experiment with the right dosage.

They are made by Woodstock Farms and retail for between $4 - $5 a bag, just so you know what you're being warned from.

there, and there, and back again

Wednesday, August 9: Left Chico at 7:00 pm, starting to feel like we'd never get away. Good thing I got off work early. Arrived at the house in Westport about 5 hours later at midnight. It shouldn't take that long but there was a layover for construction on Hwy 20, and I think my driving slows down considerably at night. I'm tired and I feel like I can't see that well. Ok, it's dark, no wonder. I always take Hwy 20 all the way to Fort Bragg rather than heading up to Laytonville when traveling after dark; I need a road that has shiny lines down the middle under those circumstances.

Our Sponsor and his fine catch, best we could do with the cellphone camThursday, August 10: Rose at 5:00 am, with just a little prompting from Mom, to get down to the harbor for the fishing expedition. The boat with its crewmembers and cargo of sport fishing enthusiasts, including me, Ce, Dad, Uncle G, cousins, and several strangers took off over into choppy waters and roller coaster swells, heading northwest for about an hour until we arrived in the happy fishing grounds near Westport. Ce & I held up fine during the ride out but some of the other passengers fared not so well. They brought new meaning to the word "wretched," with their tormented moans and no apparent relief until we pulled back into Noyo harbor four or five hours later. I was hugely proud of Ce; though she would surreptitiously dash to the other side of the boat now and then, she continued to fish with gusto and reported feeling pretty good between episodes. Even I, who have never before been seasick, barfed once. Otherwise the trip was very successful; our freezer will be restocked with rockfish fillets.

I have debated in the last few minutes whether the barfing scenes in this story are TMI or not. However, Dean Karnazes discusses barfing in considerably greater detail in his book. Yep, we endurance fisherpeople / athletes, we barf now and then. It's just the right involuntary thing to do.

By Thursday night our appetites had recovered sufficiently to devour some of the catch. Big family chow-down at the campground. Uncle G at the grill did justice to those fillets.

Friday, August 11: The Team Fisher photo shoot. Followed by a bike ride from the house down to Ft. Bragg, just over 19 miles of riding bliss down Hwy 1. I understand now why so many people will play chicken with the logging trucks to bike that road. For the most part all the passing vehicles, big trucks included, were cautious and respectful. But it's not something you'd want to bet on. Being on the road without a steel and glass cage around you is as close to flying as you can get without leaving the ground. Motorcycles must feel the same way traveling the clifftops of the 1. I have found motor - bikers to be very friendly even if they are secretly (or not) shaking their heads and laughing at me as I toil up a long grade. It's us vs. the cagers, except that my bike runs on fish fillets, spaghetti, peanut butter sandwiches and homemade granola (in addition to numerous other renewable fuels).

Meanwhile...Ce discovered that she was quite interested in my Dean Karnazes book so she picked up reading it aloud where I had left off. In the book, "Karno" was running the entire Providian Relay (Calistoga to Santa Cruz, 200 miles) by himself as we ourselves drove down to Santa Cruz on Friday night to attend the wedding of our friends Darcy & Aimen. I think the point Karnazes tries to make finally sank in; it really isn't that he has superman powers or anything. Maybe some good running genes and biomechanics, yes, but mostly it's sheer will that keeps him going. We decided that his story has made us think about whether the limits we set for ourselves aren't a bit, well, too limited.

NEXT: Visiting the "Land of Medicine Buddha" in Soquel, and a debate on the efficacy of prayer-sending technologies.

me and Karnazes, Karnazes and I

I'm reading his book, Ultramarathon Man, for some inspiration with the marathon training. He describes almost mile-by-mile his experience doing the Western States Endurance Run for the first time, how his toenails fell out, he went temporarily blind, and he crawled part of the last few miles on his hands and knees.

I was curious about whether / how many women participate in the WS100. Turns out that this year, a woman named Beverley Anderson-Abbs from Red Bluff, a town 30 miles north of here, finished in 9th place overall. 9th out of 210 finishers, in 20 hours 10 minutes 36 seconds. She is 42. In 2005 she finished the WS100 just an hour behind ol' Ultramarathon Man himself. A week ago she finished 26 minutes behind him in the Vermont 100 to take second place overall. Reportedly, horses compete in the Vermont race as well, and she beat all of the horses too. Not bad.

I was thinking about the ultra subject this morning on my fine little 6 mile jog, thinking that if I ever reached the end of a marathon and thought to myself, 'hey, I'd like to just keep on running another 24 miles,' then maybe I would consider the American River 50 miler. I think I'm safe for the time being. But on the other hand, I'm awake in the middle of the night writing about ultramarathon runners so maybe I share more of their pathology than I realize. It just seems like everything starts to seize up and / or fall apart around miles 17 - 20. Hard to imagine that stage being the beginning or even middle of a race rather than the final third. Seems a lot more sensible to cross the continent on a bicycle instead. You can sleep at night, and eat in restaurants along the way, and maybe keep all your toenails intact. The sheer luxury of it.

Dean Karnazes quotes Lily Tomlin in his book--her statement merits a stint as the official Hamartia & Cheese Sandwiches subtitle.

¿O cuándo te vimos enfermo, ó en la cárcel, y vinimos á ti?

I wanted to share the winning essay from the ABA e-journal Ross Essay contest. The author (a law professor at the U. of Missouri-Kansas City) said a hell of a lot in 600 words.

Photo is one I found of San Quentin.

18 weeks!!

Been kickin' around the idea of doing the California International Marathon, even said out loud that I was gonna do it. So if I'm gonna, I need to get going on the training schedule. Jeff Galloway's program for running a 3:45 marathon has me starting at week 9...I'm not sure my running legs are really at week 9, but 3:45 is probably an utterly unrealistic time for me anyway so why not just pretend that the past 8 weeks have prepared me to jump in right where I am. Save all the disillusionment for the race itself, I always say. It's more dramatic that way.

ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury

I have returned from the trial skills sweatlodge experience, where my skills were either forged or fired in a kiln. Can't decide on the right metaphor except that the building where we were all supposed to sleep and work felt like a big clay oven. The climate in that place is usually milder in the summer. But we need not discuss climate change at the moment.

The daily routine started at 8:00 am with breakfast in the Presentation Center cafeteria, located in a brand new and much cooler building. Some people didn't find the food to their liking but I thought it was A-OK in comparison to any quasi-institutional food I've ever consumed. Generally very fresh, if a little too obviously recycled and/or experimental at times but I've been known to cook that way too, so I felt at home. Breakfast was pretty standard though. Always some kind of hot mush, fruit salad, yogurt, muffins, and either pancakes or eggs, bacon, etc. Then at 9:00 we would start practicing the skill that had been demo'd by the trainers the night before until lunch at noon, then more practice from 1-4, then a break from 4:00 - 6:00, then dinner, then demonstrations of next day's skill, then at 9:30 pm or so we were free to start our homework.

The trainers were experienced attorneys both from within and without the "legal aid" world who completely volunteered their time during the 8 days and 7 nights we were all there. I include nights because no one got much sleep and the trainers made themselves available at practically all hours. I did pretty well the first two nights getting to bed by midnight, but it was downhill after that as the assignments and sense of pressure to perform got more intense. On Friday night before our big mock jury trial, the culminating event, I was up until 3:00 am with my "co-counsel" trying to get prepared. The previous night I had stayed up until 3:00 a.m. writing an opening statement. All this for a pretend client. Our trials were held at the San Jose courthouse. Our judge happened to be a real judge (or court commissioner) from another county. After the trial the judge, the "jury," our "clients," and our "witnesses" gave us feedback. We were videotaped as well. Apparently I got away with all kinds of objectionable leading questions in my direct exam of our client. Cross-exam was a lot easier; I guess it's easier to poke holes in something than to build it right in the first place. The other side was not so lucky because my co-counsel was definitely the bad cop. I like objecting when I'm sure there is something to which I should object but I don't think I've got the killer instinct.

A couple days before the big trial we were practicing our closing arguments. Mine was praised for its content but word on the street is that the words are only about 20% of the communication. Apparently a Buddha-like stillness is not the affect the trainers thought most effective with a jury. It happens to be more or less my default position, especially when I'm nervous. One of the trainers asked me to try a few lines from my argument again, "this time, go completely over the top!" I said, "that WAS over the top!" However, I think with some practice I could learn to change my affect at will, as needed to persuade, entertain, or just communicate, and I think it might be fun to expand the repertoire. I remember as a teenager being afraid of yelling in a crowd of other people yelling, and I remember being afraid of singing if anyone else was in the room with me. For someone who secretly (or not) craves attention the way I do, being so reserved and internal can be frustrating. I still fear any real or perceived threats to my dignity, so whatever spontaneous act I perform will have to be carefully thought out first.

I almost didn't go to this training. I was feeling deeply resistant to it and I would have let it slip by if the director of the Benchmark Institute hadn't personally called our office and asked me if I was going to sign up. In my mind this was a very scary thing to do, sort of like going to a training to prepare you to jump out of airplanes. However, when I was interviewed for my job I answered the question "do you see yourself doing a lot of litigation?" with "no, but I would like it (litigation) to be tool I can use when it's needed" so I went down to the trial skills slowcooker to follow through on that idea.

Glad it's done and I'm home again. I missed Ce terribly, along with highspeed internet access, my cats and my bicycle, roughly in that order. It's bloody hot in Chico right now but at least there is such a thing as air conditioning in these parts.

Speaking of parts, I need to find a makeshift bearing cup press to install my headset. The guy at the bikeshop said he would loan me one he used before he became a bike shop owner, made from a long threaded bolt, some big washers, and nuts to tighten the whole thing down and push the bearing cups into the head tube. I told him I had used a PVC pipe to seat the crown race onto the steer tube and he was impressed by the amount of banging this obviously had required. I guess plastic is not the way it's usually done. I had wondered that myself while I banged away at the top of the plastic pipe with the flat side of the hammer.

wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'

A big box arrived today containing wheels and tires I ordered for the new bike. 34-spoke Rhyno Lite / Deore, dubbed the "Brutal Beast" by the folks at Harris Cyclery and reportedly resilliant against small arms fire (I probably won't try to test that claim, hopefully no one else will either). Perfect. The rubber is Conti TravelContact. Should be just the thing for when I suddenly run out of pavement. The inventory of parts to date is the frame & fork, wheelset, tires, rear cassette (9 spd 11-34), and silver Cane Creek S3 headset. Tubes, a headlight and a couple rolls of handlebar tape I've had on hand awhile. Coming soon are the Sugino crank & triple chainrings (24/36/48, or something like that), a Soma threadless stem, and an IRD bottom bracket.

Still need: chain, derailleurs (front & back), bar-end shifters, handlebars (drops), brakes & brake levers, pedals--I'm thinking of a nice big flat touring pedal with Power Grips instead of SPDs or other clipless...I find my feet get really uncomfortable on the roadbike after 2 or three hours of being trapped in the same position, in bike shoes. This bike aims to be an equal shoe opportunity bike. Waterbottle cages. A low-end bike computer to tell me how far I've gone, maybe an inclinometer to tell me the % grade of the climb or descent. Fenders--the fat SKS ones. A Yosemite Sam "BackOff" mudflap (if you see one of these, please tell me, otherwise I'll have to make it myself). Long pump because I have a peg for it on my frame. A seatpost, a saddle. Debating on whether to try a Brooks or just stick with the saddle I know and love on my roadbike. A handlebar bag with a mapcase. Eventually a rear rack that is more touring-sturdy, though the current Topeak rack I've had on my road bike hath borne heavy loads upon its slender shoulders. I brought all my Barbri Bar Exam review books home on it one day in the Spring of '04...a good 40 lbs at least.

sisters of the presentation

On Sunday morning I'm off to the Presentation Center in the Santa Cruz mountains for an intensive week of trial skills training. Since starting work at Legal Services I've been to a couple trainings / retreats there. I'm feeling way behind at work and anxious about being gone for eight days, like the mass on my desk might go critical while I'm gone.

On the other hand, I think the Sisters might have fixed the swimming pool since the last time I was there, and the end result of this training will likely be that I'm freshly pumped up about the whole idea of being a lawyer. We will have a mock jury trial at the end of the week. I didn't do moot court or trial advocacy in law school so this will be really good for me and some of my feelings of fear and reluctance about doing some of the things lawyers traditionally do.

new civilizations

This sign was indeed a welcome sight on Saturday when I rode up to the little community of Cohasset, an elevation gain of about 1800 feet over a 10 mile stretch northeast of Chico. I felt welcome at the "Cohasset Country Store," gas station / grocery store / video rental shop where they offered for sale my favorite sports drink "Recharge," sweetened with fruit juice and made by local beverage company Knudsen (note that the K is not silent). They had a nice bench in front of the store on which to sit and drink my Recharge as well.

penny a point, ain't no one keeping score

I recently played cards with an old man in the Amtrak club (aka lounge) car, and in lieu of passing the paper bag that holds the bottle we split a can of Mountain Dew. He taught me how to play Gin Rummy somewhere on the stretch between Winnemucca and Elko. I seemed to take to the game pretty well because I kept beating him, though when I made dumb mistakes he insisted that I take my cards back and do it right, so I can't take a lot of credit for my victories. He was more interested in teaching than winning. Crazy old guy.

I feel that I received a valuable skill in exchange for willingness to hear his stories of fortunes and loves found and lost. He said he deeply regretted letting other people talk him out of a great idea he had for a human cloning business. I decided not to probe into how he had worked out the legal and bioethical issues. When I grew too tired to play cards or converse, I loaned him my iPod for awhile and he enjoyed some tunes until the battery died. I could tell that he was listening to "Only the Good Die Young" at one point because he sang along with the earphones.

He said he didn't know why he chose his current appearance, long wild white hair and beard, biker-style skullcap...he said this wasn't really him, and he knew it invited others' judgment, but it also allowed him to pass through the rougher parts of towns unmolested. He said he thought it was part of his mission to help other people practice their religion, or in my case, their card-playing skills. To every thing there is a season. Maybe he was one of the Three Nephites.

where it began...I can't begin to knowin'...

For the second time in 2 years I made it out to the park by 6:00 pm for the takeoff of the "Fast 50" ride (a name that doesn't necessarily apply to the ride I did in speed or distance, but so it's called). Even though everyone is dressed weirdly at these events it was exciting to ride through town in a group that was about a block long and a lane wide. It was a lycra parade. I really like the clicking sounds of all those shoes detaching from all those clipless pedals at the stoplights.

No doubt I've made some kind of cycling progress since I did this ride last year...heck, last year I didn't even have clipless pedals. I sure feel like I'm faster. But everybody else must have felt that way too. I was dropped in pretty much the same place as last time, shortly after we got out into the orchards. The "péloton" moved ever farther away, then around the next bend and out of sight until I had turned back onto the River Road and saw a bunch of the Tri Group women showing solidarity for a sister with a flat. At least it looked like somebody was fixing a flat and everyone else was standing around. So I felt free to pass by on the other side and they didn't catch me again until we were back in town.

The high point of this ride, and other rides I've been on in these parts lately, is the smell of the fields and orchards in summer when there are sprinklers going or as today, it was threatening rain off and on during the ride and the air was muggy. Muggy but about 10 degrees cooler than the past couple days (only 94 instead of 104--felt like heaven). It's a smell that seems natural and cultivated at the same time. It's almost a food smell--which makes sense--sort of the primeval food smell. Here and there are undertones of fermentation, decay and manure which add complexity. It's also a homey smell. This is what a place with open fields and irrigation smells like in the summer, and my hometown smelled something like that in its pre-stripmall & subdivision days. I think most of these really good smells have since retreated north to Idaho, perhaps with a few remaining outposts south of the border. I never expected to find myself in Chico, and I never expected to be so pleased by the landscapes and smells...orchards, fields and a river to the east with an outline of the Coast Range in the distance; rolling buttes and Sierra / Cascade mountains to the west. While the heat isn't easy to handle, it brings out some of these good smells. Slow-cooks 'em.

Along the route there is one stretch however that is a bit too complex in fragrance. The water treatment site. It's almost completely hidden behind big flowering hedges but it smells like shit, and not in a happy California cow sort of way. Well, when it happens, it has to go somewhere.

strange dilemmas of our time

We saw Al Gore's film today and I am just about ready to move to the Arctic to build rescue rafts for the polar bears. It's one thing for humans to screw up our own existence but we have to make other species suffer with us. We are incredibly lousy stewards of this planet. To use a metaphor from the dominant paradigm, if the planet were a business God set us up with, we have been "running" it with all savvy and sensitivity of, say, G.W. Bush. No wonder he's our president.

It's weird...it's not like much of the information in the film was news to me, but perhaps the presentation and the visuals gave it more impact. I was / am so upset that after the movie when I rode my bike to the Co-op, to post an agenda for our next board meeting and buy a few things, I picked up a hand of bananas and put them down again because the sticker on them announced they had come from far, far, away.

So here's a dilemma: these bananas are certified fair trade and organic. These particular bananas were from Peru. After all the damage U.S. foreign policy has done to South America in the last several decades, does the good I can do by supporting fair-trade organic agriculture in those places outweigh the bad pollution generated by shipping bananas from Peru to Chico, California? Coffee poses a similar problem. As far as I know, the nearest coffee plantations are in southern Mexico. I can get "Triple Certified" coffee which is 1) organically grown 2) shade grown, so as not to ravage the rainforests and leave the songbirds homeless, and 3) fair-trade so that the farmers get a decent price for their beans and hopefully can support themselves and their families. I feel like this is the least I can do if I'm going to drink the stuff. BUT, the shipping! There's the rub.

At the Co-op I also purchased a package of spicy veggie dogs (on sale) only to read the fine print after I got home and learn they came from Canada. Closer than Peru, but not exactly local. I just don't know what level of emission-conscious orthodoxy I can maintain. If I abstain from bananas and coffee on ecological grounds, it would be a personal ethical statement as opposed to an action likely to have any measurable impact, and I like the idea of my American dollars supporting organic farming in other lands. I also really like bananas and coffee, and no doubt countless other things that have been shipped halfway 'round the world. However I am also lucky to live in California where in theory we could feed ourselves pretty well without crossing oceans or continents. If I wanted to, I could be well nourished on things that came from within 100 miles of Chico. (20 miles, if I switch to a diet of rice and almonds.) I could even have decent cheese and some of the best ice cream on earth if I extended that to 200 miles or so.

What to do. Maybe I should start with the things that seem easier. I can ensure, at least, that the final stage of the journey of my food and drink is not gasoline-powered. Eventually when I get a trailer for my bike I will never really need to drive to buy groceries again; as it is now, only the 20-lb bags of cat litter and occasional large water jugs are an obstacle. We can buy more food from the farmers' market. And I'm on the Co-op board, so I can try to give the "buy local" campaign more of a push. Our patio / yard in the current location isn't gardenable; maybe I could borrow a piece of someone else's yard until we have our own. Anything to absorb a little more of the CO2 I create. Anything to help the polar bears hang on a little longer, and the local farmers while we're at it.

On a related topic: in a recent post I mentioned that our emergency roadside assistance company is not AAA. Here's why.

don't take no cutoffs, part II

After my last posting I went out for a bike ride, thinking I'd like to ride somewhere new with maybe a little hill climbing to make it interesting. I looked at the map and decided to ride down to Durham and then out to Butte College. Which I did, though I hadn't really established my return route. I ended up riding from the college to Lime Saddle Rec Area on Lake Oroville. While I was refilling my water bottles at a drinking fountain I overheard some boaters say they were going to drive 5 miles up the road to Paradise. I thought, well now that's not so far, I've already dragged myself up this great big hill to the lake, might as well make a loop of it.

About that time I started nibbling on the Clif "Nectar" Bar I brought along, noting that it didn't seem to be sitting well as I ate it, but I needed something with carbs. Also when I left Chico at around 5:00, the temperature was somewhere low-90's. I shoulda put some gatorade in my bottles.

When I got to Paradise I called C, secretly tempted to ask her to come and get me. Since I'd been gone almost 3 hours by then, I thought at least a check-in was due. All I had to do from that location was point my bike downhill (but for the tendency to shift into those really high gears you can only pedal when you're going downhill). Half an hour later I rolled up to the door, reflecting that the only parts of me free from pain were my earlobes and nose. I way overdid it. I lost the Clif Bar soon after I got home. While this may not be good timing in this post to recommend a food product, the nectar bars are actually really good. Made of dried fruits and nuts.

46 miles in 3.5 hours. Feeling much better now, thanks, except for being a little too wide awake in the middle of the night. I need a snack.

don't take no cutoffs

We just returned from two nights at Donner Memorial State Park, a spot selected less for its quiet mountain solitude than for its accessibility from Sacramento (some of C's family met us there) and the fact that the Legal Services picnic was in Auburn on Friday, not to mention Donner Lake, where I was eager to test the waters. We had a good campsite though...plenty of open space around us, so we weren't aware most of the time that we were up there with the masses.

Naturally a visit to this area invites many tired references to the lore of the ill-fated-you-know-who, and of course we had to squeeze the limbs of C's nephew and tell him how tasty he looked. We toured the little museum and watched the 1970's-era 20-minute "documentary" (closeups of paintings of pioneers trudging in the snow with a maudlin soundtrack). Even so, the story provoked some reflection. The will to survive is as powerful a force of nature as any. Whenever a story comes along with a really bad ending, people try to make it into a morality play so that they can detach themselves from it: they were in a hurry to get to California and get rich, they took bad advice, they weren't prepared, they left too late, they fought with each other on the way...and look what happened!

By no means am I suggesting that we can't learn from other's mistakes...sometimes a less painful way to learn than from ones own. My beef (or boiled oxhide, or...other protein source) is that more emphasis is not given to the fact that despite the bad planning, bad luck, disaster and death, quite a number of men, women and children in the Donner party actually survived. That is the only part of the story that captures my imagination at this point.

The nearest brush with disaster we had on our camping trip was when I locked my keys in the truck--with that evening's cache of marshmallows trapped inside! I called our roadside assistance (NOT AAA, but that's a story for another post) and a man in a big towtruck came and plied his ingenious devices to the door, eventually unlocking it and freeing our imprisioned supplies.

Donner Lake and Donner Pass is an historically rich area in ways not related to the Donners. See this from Anthropology.net

lost in mapland

I may have mentioned this before...but I love maps. I LOVE them. I have spent the last two hours or so researching the Bartlett Springs road. I am fascinated by the Mendocino National Forest because rumor has it that there are no paved roads that cross it; our camping excursion to Anthony Peak in October 2004 supported that theory. I was hoping maybe Bartlett Springs Rd was paved because the squiggly red line was slightly darker than some of the other squiggly red lines on one of my maps. However you can see in this quadrangle (click on it and it will be easier to see) that the road (roughly in the center) looks suspiciously rustic. I couldn't find the legend to go with these maps on the website but I think it's just slightly better than a ========= jeep trail. The reason for the interest in Bartlett Springs is that it looked like it might be a way to avoid the scarier, fast-cars-no-shoulder stretches of Hwy 20. You ride from Colusa through Williams, see, and then just before 20 heads into the hills, you branch off to the right and head for Indian Valley Reservoir (reputed as a bass fishing paradise). Eventually you're on Bartlett Springs Rd and it lands you in Lucerne, aka the "Switzerland of America." I wonder if Lucerne has copyrighted that nickname, or if I could start randomly applying it to other places that bear equally no resemblance whatsoever to Switzerland.

When my touring bike is built, it will not require pavement due to its suitably fat tires. I will ride it to the Switzerland of America and beyond.

la paleta mas fina

Little did I know that my favorite paletas are the subject of an intellectual property controversy. Since the arrival of warmer weather, an ice cream truck playing "Music Box Dancer" drives past my office almost every afternoon. The driver's name is Kyle; he is a poet as well as an ambulatory dealer in fine frozen treats. I discovered La Michoacana paletas de coco a couple months ago. Since then, the only time I have picked a different ice cream was when I was a four-bits short of the $1.25. Two-tones (orange and vanilla) are seventy-five cents so all was not lost.

To summarize the controversy, the California company that makes these delights helped itself to the name and perhaps the logo of the Mexican paleteria that started it all. This is apparently O.K. under US law, though the article above is a year old and I haven't been able to find out what has developed since then. Not sure how to feel about this...perhaps my normal sense of fairness is benumbed by "milk, cream, sugar, skim milk, corn syrup, coconut, stabilizers, and natural & artificial flavors."

brrrrrrrr!

The Sycamore Pool is open for the summer so I'm back to my Friday "open water" swims. The water temperature isn't quite "summer" just yet. I lowered myself down the ladder and spent the next few minutes gasping and doing the dogpaddle. It was achy-cold. After about eight minutes I felt acclimatized enough that I could put my face in the water without having the gasp reflex. I swam about twenty minutes by which time I was starting to feel like a small iceberg drifting around in the North Atlantic. Unless we have a heatwave this week and the pool gets a solar charge, I think it may be a great opportunity to practice with the wetsuit.

'snew?

I was not brought up to preach in sports metaphors but I have to say that now and then my derailleur needs adjusting; from time to time I feel that I am stuck between gears or not quite centered. Climbing up a hill on Hwy 1 this week I thought I would be very clever and try to shift my front and back derailleurs simultaneously. Maybe if a bike is adjusted right, this should work. No harm done, just a brief pause to verify whether the chain had fallen off.

In the spirit of welcoming shifting attitudes, paradigms, North American and other assorted plates, fortunes, and whatever else tends to move with or without our wanting it to, whether the shifting be smooth or not so, I have selected a new template for this blog. I'm not used to it yet but in a few weeks we'll all scarcely remember how it was different.

Who put the ham in hamartia, part I

I have been asked before about the meaning of the title of my blog. It arose in the context of that group bike ride I went on last summer in which I was immediately "dropped," or in other words, left to enjoy the solitude of the open road, with time to contemplate how physical / athletic endeavors have periodically served as a fine antidote for my hubris. And as every literary geek knows, "hubris" is one of the classic types of "hamartia." Of course nowadays you don't have to be a literary geek at all to know this; you can read it in 30 seconds on Wikipedia. However you still can't read *Oedipus Rex,* *Antigone,* *King Lear,* Tony Morrison's *Beloved,* or even watch the film version of Edith Wharton's *The House of Mirth* in 30 seconds to get a more complete idea of how a tragic flaw can really ruin your whole day. When they talk about a "tragic flaw" in the literary canon it is usually writ quite large, something that results in the hero eventually getting vaporized in his / her own personal mushroom cloud.

I don't view my sometime delusions of Olympic grandeur on quite so dramatic a scale. But I can't resist a pun, especially one with some bite to it.

However, I've also been interested in the broader interpretation of hamartia as suggested in the Wikipedia reference: missing the mark, error, or sin. Seems less grandiose than some overriding tragic flaw. A tragic flaw can also be the underbelly of a redeeming virtue. It is such a miracle to be human, and such a mess. So many opportunities for juicy paradox.

In the Bible, Jesus' discussion of motes and beams seems basically an illustration of hamartia / hubris though I haven't done any research to verify if this is linguistically supported by the Greek text. Maybe it isn't. But it makes sense that the "beam" is a big ol' dollop of "overweening pride" that warps one's vision of self and others. Jesus says cast the beam out of your own eye first, then you can see clearly to remove the mote in your brother's eye; but this is one of those easier said than done things. Seems that the phenomenon of seeing the motes could itself be symptomatic of having a beam in your eye. Maybe there is a secret in the analogy, that once you can actually see "clearly" the only "motes" worth worrying about are your own.

With this in mind, I can't claim to view or judge so-called "Christian" Dominionist politicians with any particular clarity or enlightenment. However I sure as hell don't trust them to extend me the same courtesy, because they are a bunch of flaming hypocritical nazi wannabes. And then there are the "Christian Reconstructionists." Not to point fingers but these people are straight out of Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale." They are the Taliban. It's true, I heard it on NPR!

A tragic flaw of liberals is their desire to be fair-minded even when they are enraged to the point of irrationality. One of those paradoxes I was talking about.

photojacking

The watermarks on these photos indicate that they were not exactly purchased. Having spent $50 to enter the race I don't feel like spending another $60 for two JPG files. However the company offers a dazzling assortment of products you can purchase yourself if you simply must have that mug, keyring or mousepad featuring me and my lycra.

One of the things I just realized I really like about triathlon is that each stage has its own hat.

just keep swimming

Overall results from last Saturday's event. I have been telling anyone who asks that it was all fine except the swim. I'm already getting tired of hearing myself tell the story about how once the swim started, I felt that nothing worked, I couldn't get my breath, and I thought about bagging the whole thing. But part of the story that I haven't told is that, while having a small panic attack 50 yards from the shore, I also thought, Well, you're giving yourself a good scare here, aren't ya. I thought about the trial my co-worker had a couple weeks ago, an eviction case featuring this bloated bully lawyer on the other side who objected to every question she asked and yelled at her witnesses on cross-ex, all the sort of thing that was NOT one of the reasons I wanted to be a lawyer but which I will likely get to experience now that I am; I thought about a hearing I have coming up with the Housing Authority; I thought about a presentation I had to put together for this week; I thought about all the opportunities for a good scare that were coming up, and none of them seemed all that scary compared to what was happening right then.

After a couple minutes I had enough composure to start feeling self-conscious about looking like I apparently had never learned to swim, or had never practiced until that day. After several more minutes, after rounding the second buoy (the swim course was triangle-shaped), things were a lot smoother but I just never felt like my position was right. I wore the wetsuit after all, so in a way it was true that I had never practiced until that day. My swim training was like practicing for a walk on the moon by walking back and forth to the mailbox over and over again. Did not translate well. I was toasty warm though.

The bike and run quenched my hill-climbing appetite. I had to walk my bike a few steps on one of the last hills. The start of the run course--all on a singletrack dirt trail, my ideal running environment--was uphill for about half a mile. A 48-year-old woman (all participants have their ages written in magic marker on the back of their leg) was walking up the hill ahead of me and although I was trying to jog, I was unable to catch her until we got to the top. The advantage of getting so far behind in the swim is that I was able to spend the bike and run catching people.

If I had been in the age 60-99 division, my finishing time would have put me in second place. Well. No sense getting ahead of myself.

Bits & pieces

I stopped by Lake Oroville to check out the race site on Wednesday. I didn't take this picture but I think it is of the boat launch we will take off from (except the boats won't be there tomorrow).

I wanted to take a picture of all my gear laid out for the big event in the morning, to post here, and have spent the last hour or so wandering room to room, rummaging through every tote bag and suitcase I've used in the past couple weeks, looking for my digital camera, and found it not.

My keys were missing for four days this week. On Tuesday I thought I had put them in the bag I take to work every day, but at the end of the day I couldn't find them. Twice, I completely emptied the bag (so I thought) looking for them. I called the coffee shop and the Co-op, searched under the seats in the truck, lifted up every stack of papers on my desk at work and at home, and no keys. Today while running down the sidewalk in the town of Red Bluff trying to get to the clerk's desk to file some papers before the courthouse closed, my keys suddenly FLEW out of my bag (or else dropped from the sky, I'm not sure) and landed with a melodious jingle on the pavement. I am grateful to have them back.

So the things that would be in the picture, if I could find my camera, are:

1. Wetsuit (doubtful that I'm going to wear it, the weather's been hot and Lake Oroville is warmer than expected)
2. Swimcap
3. Goggles
4. Tri-suit (basically biking shorts with less padding so you can swim and run in them, a special overpriced sports bra, and a sleeveless top with a zipper and back pocket that I'll wear for the bike and run)
5. "Bodyglide" anti-blister / chafing stuff for feet, armpits, etc. Supposed to be good for wetsuit removing too.
6. Bike shoes
7. Socks
8. Helmet
9. Sunglasses
10. 2 towels--one for sitting & laying stuff out in the transition area, one for drying
11. Sunscreen
12. Running shoes
13. Running hat
14. 2 water bottles
15. 2-3 pkgs of carbo goo (I prefer Clif Shot but I'm trying another brand as well)
16. Bike gloves
17. Flipflops for afterwards + something comfortable and not sweat encrusted to change into.
18. 2 Clif Bars
19. Bike (added it even though it wasn't going to be in the picture, just so no one would worry that I was forgetting it)

Forgot to acquire: banana and bagel, my preferred breakfast for race mornings. Maybe can get them on the way out tomorrow.

Last minute repair: I overhauled the front wheel hub with new grease, now it feels a lot less like a pepper mill when I rotate the axle.

Main creative visualization of the past couple days (other than trying to visualize where my keys were): Walking calmly down the boat launch, swimming calmly for half a mile in soothing, not too cold green water, goggles fitting perfectly, the swim only lasts a little over twenty minutes no matter how far away the course buoys look...

Wave departure from the boat launch: 8:10 AM

Next trick: falling asleep tonight

Spicy extruded snacks banned in Pasadena!

Well, not the whole town of Pasadena, just one elementary school. You've got to listen to this clip from yesterday's NPR archive to believe it.

Even stranger was my discovery, in googling "flamin hot cheetos," that someone in Arkansas is selling them on eBay, two bags at a time--BuyItNow for only $7.00! The seller describes them as follows: UP FOR AUCTION IS 2 9 1/2 OZ BAGS OF FLAMIN HOT CRUNCHY CHEETOS WITH 0 GRAMS OF TRANS FAT A VERY HOT CHEESE FLAVORED SNACK BRAND NEW NEVER HAS BEEN OPENED AND VERY RARE 7.00 PLUS 6.50 FOR SHIPPING.

Ergo, it is possible, if one is willing to pay and wait for the shipping from AR, to have cheetos delivered to your door.

An obit to aspire to

This isn't quite "new" news, due to the unfortunate 2-3 month lagtime in my reading of the San Francisco Daily Journal (a newspaper for Northern California legal folk). But my effort to reduce the stack of papers paid off today. I found this awesome tribute to Tanya Neiman, who I think I met (or at least saw) at a public interest job fair in SF at some point, without knowing that she was a superstar of legal aid. The message to me is that either I need to hope for a much, much longer life than she had, or I need to make more of the time at hand (meaning NOW--so back to work!).

Escucha la musica

I have listened to this a couple times and I fail to understand why it's offensive to anyone. May not be everyone's style of music, but I think the guitar sounds great and it has a marchy, but not overbearing, drumbeat that seems appropriate. I realize that none of the arguments I've come up with are likely to convince any of the English-Only crowd to listen with more open ears, but here's what I came up with:

1. Canada's national anthem is officially in two languages. (But that's Canada, their anthem is about pine trees or something, we surely can't put it on the same level as OUR anthem.)
2. When I was in Jr. High we recited the pledge of allegiance in French at the start of every French class, and nobody complained, that I know of.
3. It seems there may be works of even greater religious significance than the Star Spangled Banner that have been translated into a whole bunch 'o languages, even English.
4. I guess it boils down to whether the national anthem is meant to celebrate our white Anglo heritage, or to celebrate the people who comprise the entire "republic for which it stands," referring to said Spangled Banner.
5. Considering I have listened to Nuestro Himno two or three times today and even I felt some sentimental stirrings of patriotism about it, thinking about all America has the potential to be despite our many, many failures, maybe this tune could actually do some good...maybe it could help more current and future Americans feel like they have a place here and important work to do.... Oops. That's why the song is offensive to conservative sensibilities. Now I get it.

Escuchamos nuestro himno.

I been everywhere, man

Home after a tour of 4 different airports in 5 days and a total of nine airport visits. I was in Sacramento three different times, Phoenix three times, Las Vegas once, and Atlanta twice. No wonder I was starting to feel like I'd died and gone to hell by the time I arrived in Sacramento last night at 11:30 pm.

Still, my final destinations in Flagstaff AZ and Atlanta GA and Sacramento CA (and home, of course) made it worth enduring the noise and bad, stale air and lack of edible food. I underestimated how wearying the travel would be. AmericaWest / U.S. Airlines features the world's least comfortable airplane seats (especially on their Canadair jet, the seats make you feel like you're being swallowed by a giant clam) and a landing gear motor that sounded like it needed some WD-40. If not for the likelihood of visiting my friends in Arizona again, I would probably avoid AW in the future, or I'll just try to spend the whole flight in the lavatory where the seats are more comfortable.

Now that the snide complaining is out of the way I will try to get around to discussing the purpose of the trips, and what I learned. Just like a human to dwell on the physical discomforts at the expense of exploring the deeper meaning. But I'm in some serious sleep debt and I'd like to doze off sitting next to Ce while she watches one of the NFL films she lined up on our Netflix queue to fill the void of my absence. On Sunday I'm driving to Oakland for yet another conference, but it's on elder financial abuse prevention / litigation and I didn't want to miss it. I don't know why, but I love going to conferences, because you can go and learn without the pressure and there are lots of snacks and free pens and stuff. It won't involve visiting the inside of any airports so I think I can handle it.

Menu le 18 avril 2006

Bienvenue à "Emile's Tavern"

I. Pain artisanal au romarin

II. Salade de romaine aux câpres

III. Asperges au four à la sauce déesse

IV. Coq au vin

V. Earthquake Carrot Cake (ceçi n'a pas de bonne traduction) -- think edible visualization of plate tectonics and liquefaction.

Bon appetit!

Sleep revisited

I was awake at 5:30 a.m. this morning. What's up with THAT? Overall my sleep has been much better, however. My last refill of Ambien ran out in February and since then I've been learning about sleep-promoting herbs. Catnip (shown here) is one of my favorites but I have to protect my stash from Kato or else he starts rummaging through my bag for it. I have also stopped drinking coffee for awhile. I had some kind of 24hr flu about 10 days ago and didn't feel like drinking anything besides water and ginger ale, and I couldn't tell the difference between any caffeine withdrawals and leftover flu symptoms, so there was no grandiose battle of will involved.

Farcical aquatic ceremonies

King Arthur; I am your king.
Woman: Well I didn't vote for you.
King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Woman: Well how'd you become king then?
[Angelic music plays... ]
King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king.
Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Speaking of aquatic ceremonies, I been thinkin' about this Lake Oroville thing next month. The pond down at Rancho Seco where I did the Luna Bar tri last summer was scary enough...the water all dark and green...and it was easily 72 - 75 degrees. Lake Oroville is, well, big, and predicted to be about 62. I've paddled around in the ocean with fins and a mask and snorkel and a float tube, but that seems very different. I have a farmer john-style wetsuit I'll wear for the swim but I haven't been able to practice with it. Hmm...just remembered that the pool in our complex is unheated...I could practice with it in there. The big creek pool in the park would be better but it's been a raging torrent for the past couple weeks. Jumping in would be a quick ride to the Sacramento River.

She's 37 (almost), she's not old!

This Tuesday, April 18, on the centennial anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake, someone in our house is having a birthday. Let us eat cake.

A visit to Middle Mountain

Celia discovered an organization that leads hikes in the Sutter Buttes, aka "the world's smallest mountain range," or "Esto Yamani" in the language of the Maidu people, meaning "Middle Mountain." We put our names on a waiting list for the hike up to the North Butte summit and found out yesterday that there was space for us. So we went. The land is all privately owned and a lot of the Buttes area is used for cattle ranching. The happy California cows are rough on the terrain but it appears that for the most part the landowners / ranchers are conservation-oriented and the Middle Mountain Foundation has a good working relationship with them. The photo here is from MMF's website but it looks almost exactly like where we were today, including the weather. Very steep climb up about 1000 ft to the top, or at least to the foot of the pinnacles thrusting out of the top of North Butte. The summit elevation is about 1800 ft. At the top the sun came out while we had our lunch, then it started to drizzle again during the hike down. Considering the rain we were threatened with for today the weather was great.

We are also on the waiting list for a bat-viewing hike in May. Some 11 of the 24 known species of bats in California can be found in the Sutter Buttes so biologists have regular gigs there every year to check them out.

On clearer days one can see the Buttes from the Yolo causeway between Davis and Sacramento. Today I could see the Sacramento skyline from the Buttes. I preferred the latter perspective. The view of mountains (however small) in the distance is a restless view for me, sometimes causing me to feel some dissatisfaction with where I am at that moment, while the view of a city 45 miles away is just an interesting view.

counting chainrings before they're attached

As the bidding clock ticks down on that Surly Long Haul Trucker frame, I've been exploring the world of components that will eventually be necessary unless I want to practice some kind of Zen biking-without-bicycle. I have been learning about gears and for the first time ever I counted the teeth on the granny gears of my road bike. Well no wonder riding uphill has been so much work. The smallest front chainring has 30 teeth and the biggest ring in the back has 24. This means that even my granny gear is kind of a tough ol' granny. I think it should be the other way around: smaller ring in the front, bigger in the back. Then I can haul over hill and dale without first developing the musculature of Lance Armstrong, which for a number of reasons isn't likely to happen. I have wondered, struggling up some of my hill rides, how in the world people tour with a load up hills like this. While it's likely that many such people have built up their climbing legs beyond my current ability, I think they are also enjoying better living through physics.

new species found in bike bag

This unidentifiable, yet apparently cat-like, creature was found peering out of a rolltop bike pannier. Game warden has not been notified. You saw it first here.

albino deer is SO busted

Maybe the photos were real, whenever and wherever they were actually taken, but I have perpetuated a rural legend. Just feel grateful that I posted it here instead of emailing it to you all.

Votes for the Monkey

Feminists claim that the personal is political, which leads me to shamelessly promote our cat Amonke whose baby picture is maybe not as endearing to the whole world as it is to us. We uploaded it to the Kittenwar website where at last count Amonke was winning only 29% of her battles for the cutest kitten.

OK, I admit, she was a cute kitten but in sort of a scary wild animal way. Others may have a different "cute" aesthetic in mind. There are kittens on the website that are hopelessly fluffy and sweet-looking. However, Amonke has matured into a very striking and surprisingly-well-behaved-with-a-couple-exceptions young lady.

an SUV for the post-oil apocalypse

or a part of one, at least. If the ebay bidding doesn't go out of my range then this bit of steel will be mine in about 3 days. I am so in love with the color. It must be all those shopping trips to the Army Surplus store I went on as a child.

day of infamy

I became angry and made an impolite gesture at a young man in a large pickup truck today. I was riding my bike home and apparently I interfered with the free-flow of his vehicle. The main road I was riding on (in the bike lane) veers left and a little-used side road continues straight ahead. He wanted to be on the latter road but had to slow down due to my presence. This must have upset him terribly because he honked and yelled, and stopped his truck. I stopped my bike, briefly, and gave him my regards from about 30 yards away.

I've never done that before and I was kind of shocked by my own behavior as may be obvious from my use of euphemisms for a euphemism. Seems out of character for me. Normally I would want to consider all the possibilities before deciding whether or not I'm having feelings of deep hostility and whether or how I should express them, and by then the opportunity has usually passed. Maybe I was far enough away that it seemed not too risky. I know that is unwise cycling policy to escalate any situation with a the driver of a larger vehicle even when the driver is an ignoramus without theology or geometry. A blowgun with a tranquilizer dart would be nice to have on the bike sometimes. Take down that bad boy and give him a little radio collar so we can track his range and migrations, maybe transport him by helicopter to some other rural community...OK, I'm still feeling a little hostile.

IN OTHER NEWS, found an interesting article on Beginner Triathlete.com about exercise and weight loss (or lack thereof). Don't read it if you're having a bad day or feeling down though...it might not help you feel better. I just can't keep myself from sharing the love today.

not exactly funny

I'm figuring out how to do links on my Mac WITHOUT help from blogger and Safari, thanks. Check out this Ben Sargent cartoon.

something to look forward to

Attempted a ride to the little community of Forest Ranch (I don't think it quite amounts to a "town") about 14 miles east of Chico yesterday. 14 miles east and about 2000 feet up. I didn't understand that it was 15 miles away when I started though and just after reaching Crown Point Road I decided to turn around. Someone had told me it was easier to ride to Forest Ranch than to Paradise. Maybe that's true since I never felt like I had to stand up in the saddle in order to keep pedalling forward. The grade was less severe but the place is farther away. Here is where I got: Driving Directions from Chico to Crown Point Rd & State Hwy 32.
It took me about 1.5 hours to get there and half an hour to get home again. Next time I'll know that just a bit further up the road is...I don't know. Maybe they have a small gift shop or a phone booth there or something.

Happy Birthday WSH

My great-grandma Winnie's birthday today. I have a little story that I thought I'd posted before but looking back it appears that I left it out--maybe I just couldn't find it and I'm repeating myself, but it's probably a good life strategy to get over the fear of repeating oneself.

Grandma Winnie had some very practical remedies for upset or "sour stomach" as she put it, which I did not always appreciate. One night some 23 or so years ago I was staying at the Ranch, as Grandma & Grandpa's home was called (because it was, in fact, a ranch). My tummy hurt. Grandma informed me that I needed to drink baking soda dissolved in a glass of water and I'd be fixed right up. I didn't like the idea. Furthermore I was certain that no way in hell would I drink baking soda. I believed that I might possibly barf if I drank it and I have always been very barfing-averse. I refused to take her advice and just stewed with my stomach acid for awhile.

So a few months ago when I had been taking all that vitamin-C loaded Airborne to fend off germs, and was awake in the middle of the night with "Flaming" as opposed to merely "Sour" stomach, and had ransacked the condo looking for Tums but couldn't find any, I thought, What Would Winnie Do? Sure enough, right on the box of baking soda in the cupboard were the instructions for mixing up a not exactly tasty antacid beverage. I drank it, didn't barf, and almost instantly felt much better. I also purchased more Tums the next day.

kick

My swimming routine this morning: swim 4 laps, kick 2, swim 4, kick 2, swim 4, kick 2, swim 4, swim 2 for something wild and different at the end. As recently as last week I was deeply irritated with the kicking drill since it seemed to be producing so little forward propulsion that I could have drifted to the other side of the pool in the wind currents in about the same time.

THEN on Monday I started to stretch out and tilt forward more, and it seemed like the kicking produced detectible motion. And THEN, today, during the last kicking round, a little voice said why don't you kick about twice as fast as you have been? and I said, can we really do that? and instead of going kick...kick...kick...kick... I started going kickkickkickkick, and my feet made a very satisfying paddlewheel steamboat-like sound. The little voice said "Toot Toot!"

My inner librarian

I'm trying to get in touch with her because she seems more accessible than the inner filing clerk.

We helped some friends move this weekend and it inspired me to attempt (yet again) to cull my book collection. People who have helped me move in the past have been deeply impressed by the number of boxes of books that they had the opportunity to carry up flights of stairs on my behalf. The question to ask is: do I love this book enough to ask someone else to carry it up a flight of stairs? Another question to ask is, have I even looked at this book in the last five years? If I never finished it when I was supposed to read it for that class in college twelve years ago, why do I still have it? Or the reverse: since I slogged through it for that class, it is now a paperback trophy on the shelf, a literary taxidermy project.

I have argued with the inner librarian about the need for me to keep these many quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore as potential references for writing my post-post-post-modern epic, etc. etc. I'm not sure who is arguing which point of view but I have a new hypothesis that having too many books is actually preventing me from reading because at any given time I can't find the right one, and possibly inhibiting production of the masterwork as well. So while I didn't find very many books that I was ready to detach from on today's sweep, I did empty a box left over from the last move and I alphabetized the poetry section. I also found a book about dowsing that I had forgotten I had. Maybe my epic will have dowsing in it.

Blogging may also inhibit production of the masterwork. On the other hand it has some value as a writing exercise. Blog writing is generally accused of being quick and sloppy, but my #1 writing obstacle--whether it be email, blog, memo, letter, poem, scene from novel--is obsessively overthinking about it. Ask Celia how long it took me to write a note to our landlord once. So if you ever read anything sloppy on my blog, consider it a sign of progress.

something different

The parents of a friend in Sacramento found and rescued this albino fawn in Oregon, mistaking it at first for a stray baby goat. According to the email forwarded to us, baby is doing fine as far as they know (though isn't staying at the rescuers' house any more).

In other news, it seems that some wacky liberal activist judges in D.C. decided that the Bush EPA can't gut the Clean Air Act without help from Congress. After all that work this administration has done to educate people on the harmlessness of air pollution, this must feel like quite a discouraging setback. It's just not fair and reasonable to expect industries to update and improve their technology in ways that help non-stockholders. What, is government like "for the people" or something?

Visit the earthjustice.org newsroom to learn all about new source review, and even find a link there to a PDF of the court's decision.

Happy 76th Birthday RBG

Some highlights from her Wikipedia bio:

Born Joan Ruth Bader in Brooklyn, New York, the second daughter of Nathan and Celia Bader. Ginsburg's older sister died when she was very young.
Ginsburg's mother called her "Kiki" (which her father found objectionable) and took an active role in Ruth's education, taking her to the library often and applying for scholarships that would allow her to attend college. Celia struggled with cancer throughout Ruth's high school years and died the day before graduation.
She married Martin D. Ginsburg (later a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and an internationally prominent tax lawyer) in 1954, and has a daughter, Jane, and a son, James.
Ginsburg received her B.A. from Cornell University in 1954 and attended Harvard Law School (before moving on to Columbia). Her husband, upon graduating from HLS accepted a job in New York City and she transferred to Columbia Law School, where she won a spot on the law review, becoming the only person ever to have been on law review at both Harvard and Columbia; she earned her LL.B. degree at Columbia, where she graduated not only first in her class but with the highest grades in the history of the law school, a trait she shares with Justice Stevens (who graduated with the highest grades in the history of Northwestern's law school). She finally accepted an offer to serve as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1959-1961. From 1961-1963, she was a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure, for which she learned Norwegian and Swedish in several months and became an intellectual leader in civil procedure. She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963-1972, and Columbia Law School from 1972-1980, where she became the first ever woman to earn tenure and authored the first law book ever to be written on gender equality law and served as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford University, California from 1977-1978. She served as the chief litigator of the ACLU's women's rights project and argued in front of the Supreme Court numerous times, winning cases that reversed centuries of Court precedent that reinforced gender inequity and attaining a reputation as an extremely skilled oral advocate and equality litigator. After nominating her to the Supreme Court, President Clinton referred to her as the "Thurgood Marshall" of the women's movement.

And this excerpt from one of her dissenting opinions back in 2000:

'The Court assumes that time will not permit “orderly judicial review of any disputed matters that might arise.” ... But no one has doubted the good faith and diligence with which Florida election officials, attorneys for all sides of this controversy, and the courts of law have performed their duties. Notably, the Florida Supreme Court has produced two substantial opinions within 29 hours of oral argument. In sum, the Court’s conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court’s own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States.

I dissent.'

dawn of the tri season

Haven't quite got up the guts to register for this event yet but I'm planning to do another triathlon on May 13. The "City of Gold" in Oroville. "City of Gold" rhymes with "Lake Swim is Cold" (about 62 degrees). I will have to practice swimming in my wetsuit. While I'm at it, need to practice swimming. I need a training schedule. The women's tri club has started up again but there are two obstacles to participating with them (well, two I will mention): they usually work out in the evening, and they want $140 or something like that for the privilege of contributing to my insomnia and robbing me of my domestic prime time. Celia and I have many, many episodes of our favorite TV shows from Netflix that we are trying to watch. Also, Tuesday and Wednesday nights I have dinner-cooking duties. Every other Monday night is a Chico Natural Foods Co-op Board meeting. I am VP this year. The Co-op doesn't currently offer wild poultry products, though I'd argue that it doesn't get more "natural" than quail.

Anyway, I'm not making excuses for why I can't train for the City of Gold, only for why I can't join the training group. I will have to make my own schedule.

the dream team

I had a dream a couple nights ago that I was on a pro basketball team, somewhat to my doubt and confusion, as I have never felt especially compelled to play basketball of my own free will. Wasn't a WNBA team either; it was a team with a bunch of guys. In my dream we were having some kind of mixer with the fans. People were greeting me and telling me they were glad I was on the team, though I couldn't imagine that I was a very impressive player. Then while chatting with one of my teammates I happened to recall that there was one other woman on the team. Sandra Day O'Connor.

I guess Justice Ginsburg hasn't worked her way into my subconscious mind yet, despite her now unique position as the only woman on the Court and the second female Justice since the "team" started 216 years ago. I agree that the average of one woman per century seems pretty high, at least in geologic terms.

Before going to law school I confess to general unawareness of who was currently sitting on the Court other than Justices Thomas and O'Connor. I did not mention that detail in my application for admission, but don't think I even realized that I had that gap in my civic education. Once they're appointed they don't make the news very often until they retire or die, or go duck hunting or something. I don't remember ever having read a Supreme Court opinion other than very brief quotes, or for that matter any court opinion, before law school. You can see where the "well, how did I get here?" element of my dream could have come from.

In fairness to myself, though, the vast preponderance of judicial opinions are way, way off the radar of English majors and other people who consider themselves English speakers. However, it still might be nice if kids in public schools and undergraduate institutions were briefly required at least to try to read some Supreme Court opinions, as it might lead to realization that, not only are there three branches of government, but the branches are intended to prevent and/or undo one another's grotesque errors and abuses of power, and when they don't do that we're supposed to be upset, even if we may not all agree on what we're upset about. We can dissent and still be on the team.