Marscat

2011-11-15T07:46:00.000-08:00

Preoccupied

After dinner last Wednesday evening, I walked over to Sproul Hall for the Occupy Cal demonstration. There were lots of really pleasant kids, giving speeches, holding signs, sharing pens to write the number of the Legal Guild on their forearms for when they got arrested. I felt like I wanted to be outspoken and forthright like these kids. I thought I might participate in a revolution once it got rolling. Once it was a little less dangerous, maybe. I could definitely see myself join in then.

So I was sitting there at the Occupy Cal demonstration, nodding and clapping and accepting fliers and not knowing quite when I would find enough time to read them all when this lady I used to work with here at Cal years ago calls over to me. I'm forty-seven and I know she's older, but I'm not quite sure how much older. So I have to be careful what I say. I mean if she's only older than me by five years, she certainly wasn't protesting in the Sixties. But she could look older than she is, the way some people do, setting off all kinds of false old age alarms. So I slid toward her on the cement steps outside of Sproul Hall. She started mentioning the Sixties, but I didn't know if she was mentioning them from personal experience or just as a historical perspective, like how I might talk about the Russian Revolution although I've not personally experienced it firsthand. So I tried to steer clear of Sixties talk and demonstrations, but it's hard in that atmosphere. Finally I just flat out asked her:

Were you here at Sproul protesting in the Sixties?

Yes, I was there, she snapped, as if to say, You ninny, I was a revolutionary!

So, now I know she's old. Older. Oldish. And as she's telling me about how she'd been arrested, cracked on the head with batons, raped and pillaged and all that, I couldn't help but think, but you look like a librarian. Not that there can't be any bad ass revolutionary librarians out there, somewhere. I'm sure they are all over the history books. But she just didn't look the type, you know what I mean? And then because we were close to being the oldest, poorest dressers at the demonstration -- beside the crazy man mumbling from the bushes -- two other old, poorly dressed woman came over wanting to form an old, poorly dressed communist group and meet in some condominium rec room filled with musty National Geographics and romance novels. One of them, the little one with the homemade knitted scarf wrapped around her head, neck, shoulders and knotted at her waist locked onto me with two brown slightly bulbous eyes. Hypothyroid, I thought. Or was it hyperthyroid -- I could never get it straight. She talked about some meeting that she'd been attending for months in preparation for that night's demonstration. She was very, very earnest. Every direction my gaze drifted, hers followed. And I felt bad for looking away because she was so very earnest.

And I shouldn't have felt bad, because I'd only just met her thirty seconds ago. I really hadn't formed any kind of real relationship just yet. But still I felt bad. So I told myself to focus on whatever the hell she was talking about. But then I'd reach the middle of a sentence: "We've got to create our own paradigm..." and BAM!, I lost track and wondered who ordered all those boxes of pizzas floating around the crowd and why weren't they passing them in my direction -- Hey! Hey! I'll take a slice!

Like, I mentioned, everyone at the demonstration was so nice. Sharing food, water. I just felt bad for wishing she'd put a sock in it. And then my coworker friend from the Sixties came back and said she'd just signed up for Security Duty. She'd been assigned to patrol the perimeter for cops. Really, I said, And then what? She didn't seem quite sure how to respond and I could see her digging around in her cerebral cortex, dusting off decaying synapses to recall what exactly she would do when she encountered a cop at the perimeter.

We'll whistle, she said.

Do you have a whistle? I asked. I couldn't whistle without one.

What kind of revolutionaries were we? So we went looking for cops on the perimeter. I was excited and a little afraid. And to be honest a little pooped. It was 8:30 and I usually went to bed around 9pm because I have to get up at 6:30 so that I can be at my desk by 7am. What I'm saying is it's a long day. I don't have lot of spare time for revolutions. Seriously, I don't. We saw a lot of cop cars from different counties. And then my old co-worker friend bent down to let the air out of one of the tires on the empty blue school bus which would shortly be filled with arrested revolutionaries.

I need one of those metal devices, she said.

She squinted trying to think of the name of it, making a phallic gesture with her hands. The skin on her hands was wrinkled and thin. Her wedding ring looked caked in soap.

You know, those gizmos, she said, sounding a little frustrated with me that I didn't know what she was talking about. You see them at the gas station. If I had one, she said, I could just pop it on the tire and walk off.

Can't we use a stick I asked?

I leaned down to give a push with my finger to try to let the air out. We walked on some more. We approached the corner where the tents were located. I'd never seen any of the occupy tents up close, but in my mind I imagined them a little skankyer , perhaps with strips of electrical tape sealing holes. And a lot smaller. Christ, these things could house an entire Tibetan village.

REI is donating them, she said.

No kidding? I said.

Then suddenly she reached out and looped her arm around mine.

Form a barrier around the tents! she shouted and grabbed the person to her right.

So, there I stood locked arm in arm, protecting new $800 REI tents, way past my bedtime. There was wet mud beneath our feet and I wondered if REI would want the occupiers to return the tents afterward. Would they take them back if they were all muddy like that? I asked my friend but she didn't hear me. She cupped her hand in a half circle kind of like she was short stopping my words and throwing them into her ear canal.

A couple of cops stood next to us. They stood stiffly with their arms behind their backs with their feet slightly apart. They had white twist ties looped to their belt buckles. My friend asked them how they were doing?

I feel for your situation, my friend said. You're stuck in the middle of this.

They nodded. I tried to imagine them without their riot gear. Say, shopping at Costco for 20lbs of chicken wings. In that situation, they wouldn't seem threatening in the least. I might even have a casual conversation about the great deal I got on kitchen bags. But here, with their gear and their riot faces, they seemed threatening and alien. Then a kid came up to one of them and tried to get them going about the real reason they wanted to remove the tents. Turns out the occupation is about poop. One of the cops had got pooped slung at him by the stadium tree dwellers. He'd had it with poop. These kids weren't going to poop in Sproul Plaza, not on his watch. I could see his side of things. I've stepped in my share of cat poop. You can only take so much.

It was getting to the point, I just wanted to go home and sleep, so I unlinked my arms and broke the human chain protecting the expensive tents. It closed quickly behind me.

Before I headed home, my co-worker friend asked if I'd seen the Free Speech Monument in the center of the Plaza. I hadn't so we walked over toward a circular cement plate in the ground. She walked in a circle and read: "This soil and the air space extending above it shall not be a part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity's jurisdiction".

When the cops come, we should all jump in the middle here, she said and jumped inside.

I left her there in her tiny bit of free air space. As I turned back to wave, I saw her sillhouetted against the lights of Sproul Hall, a sign above her head read "We are the 99%". A real revolutionary librarian.

Today you are Russians

2009-07-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

I went downstairs to the reception desk to check on the status of our guide who would drive us to Novgorod, an ancient Russian city first settled around 859 by the Vikings.

The front desk was on the second floor of our six storey hotel in St. Petersburg and was usually crowded with guests, but this morning at eight there was only one guest waiting. The sleepy girl as Linda and I called the receptionist appeared from behind a curtain to the left of the desk. She spoke only a little English and was patient with our limited Russian: hello, goodbye, thank you. Although I was practicing, Linda was braver. Sometimes she got it right, but often she would use the wrong word, saying thank you when she meant to say hello and hello when she meant to say goodbye.

"Yes?" the sleepy girl asked. She seemed to sway a little as if still half asleep. Her hair was slightly knotted above her right ear. I told her I was waiting for our guide to take us to Novgorod. "She is here," she pointed to the small lady seated in the chair to my left. I had seen the woman out of the side of my eye, but after meeting Natalia, our sophisticated Moscow guide, I had assumed this one was a hotel guest, perhaps one who had clogged up the breakfast line that morning taking extra scoops of boiled rice and pickled herring.

The lady stood up and immediately held out her hand for me to shake. "Good," she said, "I thought you would be two gentlemen."

I have sometimes been mistaken for one gentlemen, but never two.

"Sorry?" I said.
She pointed to her mouth to a gap in her teeth where a tooth was missing and said, "I am a little embarrassed by my tooth. That is why I am glad you are not two men."

Her explanation helped only slightly but I left it at that and we headed outside to find Linda.

I guessed she was in her mid-sixties. Her hair looked newly dyed -- a deep brown at the ends, fading to a purple tint around the scalp and roots. Her hounds-tooth print pants were tight revealing the contours of her underpants beneath. As she walked ahead of me to the hotel entrance where I could see Linda waiting outside she pulled her knit sweater down over her hips multiple times.

I introduced Linda and Emma, then we climbed into Emma's compact car. Linda quickly took the back seat which I knew meant she would most likely pass out, head back, mouth open, during the next two hours leaving me to do all the talking.

We took the same route out of St. Petersburg as we'd taken in that early first morning five days ago. Perhaps it was just that there were more cars on the roads at 11 am on a Tuesday, but I found the need to grasp the armrest tightly. I also felt my feet pressing against the floorboard on several occasions as if pushing down on anything -- an imaginary brake lever -- to make us not plow into the car in front of us.

"These drivers," Emma said shaking her head slowly. She turned and smiled at me. I smiled quickly then looked forward to monitor the approaching rear bumper of the car ahead of us.

"They're stopped!" I blurted suddenly when it appeared Emma did not plan to.

It felt odd to blurt this to a stranger, but Emma didn't seem to mind. She braked finally then began her guided tour, pointing to the Lenin statue outside a very Soviet looking grey building.

We talked for a while as we drove out to the main highway that connects St. Petersburg with Moscow. She told us she'd been a university professor, working with engineers as an interpreter. She'd got to travel quite a lot and enjoyed it. She'd lived in Cypress for almost two years and loved it.

"But I don't want to just sit around now, do nothing," she said. " I get to meet wonderful people like you ladies." she said. "But I must try to remember to make the right turn to Novgorod, or we end up in Moscow." She laughed a little revealing the gap in her teeth.

Yes, please pay attention, I begged silently. For the love of God, please pay attention.

She asked what I did for a job. I gave her my usual non-answer. Emma must have picked up on a hint of boredom in my tone because she said instantly that we should move to Russia and open a travel agency.

"You will become very rich. I will help you with contacts. Soon you will be very rich. Okay?" she said. " No problem."
"Really?" I said.
"Yes, no problem." I liked her confidence.

She had a habit of driving slowly in the fast lane. And fast in the slow lanes. Cars and semis blared their horns and cut in front of her, startling her each time.

"Oh!" she gasped. "Look how that guy drives."

I thought maybe there was no fast or slow lane on Russian highways. Maybe you could go any speed you liked in either lane and that was okay.
"Okay, okay I get over," she said and drifted into the right hand lane. I watched the car behind swing out suddenly to avoid her.

The freeway passed though a thick forest of tall thin ash trees. I thought of the stories I'd heard since we arrived of the Siege of Leningrad and imagined troops battling for territory in this forest. I mentioned to Emma how we had visited the Defense and Siege Memorial in St. Petersburg and how sad it was.

"Yes, the Fascists -- and I don't call them Germans, because I have met many lovely Germans -- destroyed much of St. Petersburg. Terrible, very terrible," she said. I figured she'd been born somewhere around the time of the German invasion and must have had relatives who had died during the Siege.

She successfully made the right turn into Novgorod and took city streets toward the ancient Novgorod fortress. Linda emerged from her coma and took out her camera.

"Pay no attention to all this," Emma said waving her hand dismissively at the the dreary outskirts. We passed Soviet era apartments buildings with laundry hanging from rusted balcony railings, statues of Russian fighter jets and tanks. There were banners strung across the road and I wondered if they were in celebration of some event. I'd read that Russians love their celebrations and will find any excuse to have one.

"What do they say?" I asked Emma.
Emma craned her neck and glanced up at the banners to read as we drove past. She read the words aloud:

"Nizhny Novgorod Bank. All kinds of lending for individuals."
She continued reading, craning her neck as we passed below the banners to read every last bit of promotion"...including mortgages and car loans"

Finally we pulled into the parking lot to old fortress. At the far end of the lot were a row of stalls filled with the usual tourist trinkets. I hoped we would park close to these and browse a little before heading into the old city.

"Okay," Emma said. "We are here at last!" She seemed proud of herself. I wondered how many times she missed the exit and headed toward Moscow. She turned off the ignition and set the handbrake.

I looked out the car window. We'd come to a halt at a few feet into the parking lot, directly over a white arrow pointing to actual parking spaces. I noticed Linda was peering out the rear window also. A car pulled up behind us and patiently waited for us to move as Emma reached for her purse and opened the car door.

"Emma, this isn't a parking spot," Linda said at last. I hadn't the heart to dampen her excitement at getting us here.

"Yes, yes it's parking see," she said and pointed to the several dozen other cars lined up in neat rows ahead of us.
"Yes, this is a parking lot, but this" -- Linda tapped on the window and pointed to the cement below the car -- "is not."

The car behind us honked, a short toot of incredulity at Emma's parking choice.
"Well okay," Emma said and put the key back in the ignition. "I move." She drove into an actual parking space and stopped halfway. The hood of the car aligned with the middle of the car to our right.

"Do you think perhaps our guide is blind?" I whispered to Linda as waved her forward from outside the car until she was aligned correctly.

Eventually the car was parked and we headed toward the gift stand to check out the trinkets.
"Do svidaniya! " -- goodbye -- Linda waved abd greeted the woman seated at the stall.

Novgorod turned out to be a huge bust. We walked inside the lovely redbrick walls past the palace towers surrounding the city to find nothing but scaffolding, cement trucks, students spreading cement and laying bricks, mounds of rubble and empty food wrappers the construction works had left behind.

Emma apologized and asked if we'd like to go somewhere else. Linda mentioned another part of the old city on the opposite side of the river Volkhov, but the bridge, too was currently under construction with workers laying a new surface of tar.

I was ready to call it a day. Put my life in Emma's hands and drive back to St. Petersburg but Linda opened her guide book and mentioned a site nearby, the Vitoslavitsy open air museum of wood houses. While we went to the bathroom, Emma asked a local for directions. We returned to find Emma studying a scribbled drawing on a napkin.

"I've got it,"she said. "We go here," she pointed with her finger to a wiggly line the man had drawn, "turn left here, then left here." The final left did not look like a left to me, but more like the man had changed his mind and scratched out the left. But Emma seemed certain it was a left turn.

"Yes," she said running her finger over the scribbled mess,"I can get us there."

We left the parking lot, made a left, and then another left until we found ourselves careening down a dirt road rutted with potholes. Linda's body bouncing up and down in the back seat. I knew this kind blind alley approach to driving drove Linda crazy and I was glad it was Emma at the wheel and not me.

I didn't mind the adventure of heading down a road to see where it might go and from the looks of it Emma didn't mind either. "Oh that's a big hole I hit," she said as the car rocked sharply from side to side. Still she forged on. I held onto the hand rest tightly. The road narrowed further. Tall grasses brushed the car's windows.

"Give me that napkin! " Linda said at last.

We found the open air museum. Emma purchased our tickets requesting the local, non-tourist entrance rate for all three of us.

"Here," she said, handing them to us, "today you are Russians."

The old wooden structures were collected from all over the region and brought to the museum for restoration and repair work. Fortunately for us, they were not still under construction. We walked inside the dark interior of one. I thought, I could live here.

On the drive back to St. Petersburg, I drifted off to sleep in the front seat and awoke just as Emma made a right onto a freeway on ramp. I watched in slow motion and horror as she steered directly toward an oncoming car.

"Oncoming!" I blurted.
"Trust me," she said as she swerved out of the car's path at the very last moment. "I drive seventeen years. No accidents. Not to worry."

I looked to Linda in the backseat. She put her head back down against the seat and closed her eyes. I thought, there is nothing I can do so I closed my eyes too. Images of the day floated through my head. The blue and gold church domes against the sky, the Volkhov river, the sound of the wind blowing through tall thin ash trees.

"If die, today, it will be as a Russian."

Moscow in a day

2009-07-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Moscow via the overnight train from St. Petersburg. We'd arranged to have a guide meet us at the train station to help us get to the sights quickly since we only had the one day before we had to take the train back to St. Petersburg.
As we disembarked, I gazed down the platform and saw a woman at the end of the platform holding a sign. The closer we approached I saw our two last names on the sign. She looked about our age, mid-forties, but was immensely more stylish. She wore a faux leopard skin coat, over sized dark glasses. She looked glamorous in a retro Rita Moreno kind of way. Her hair was streaked with gold tints. As we approached, I held out my hand. She wore white gloves and grabbed the tips of my fingers giving them a slight shake.

My name is Natalia she said. Where is your luggage?

I told her we'd just planned to stay the one day in Moscow. I felt like a tacky tourist just wanting to get in and get out, hit the main sites, write some postcards and leave. I quickly added that we really had wanted to stay longer but couldn't find a hotel. Which was true.

She didn't seem to care either way and quickly escorted us from the train platform to the Moscow metro station where she expertly cut in line at the ticket counter and purchased our metro tokens. She dropped one token in each of our palms and then turned and forged onward, her coat flapping behind her.

She guided us through the crowded subway as a thick stream of subway-goers spilled in from the bright streets above and pushed past us, a vacant morning commute expression on their faces. Natalia walked ahead with no apparent regard for our location behind. Several times I had to quickly push past someone to make sure I stayed in contact. I felt a sudden panic each time I lost contact with Natalia reliving a childhood experience of getting lost at Disney World. When I turned to make sure Linda was still with us. I found her, head down, fiddling with her iPhone.

We reached the metro platform at last just as a train that would take us to Red Square approached and the doors opened.

Natalie put her hand out for us to stop. We will wait for the next train, she said. There are things you need to know first. You are not ready to board just yet, she said.

I appreciated her caution and found it comforting -- she'd show us the ropes, give us valuable subway tips, protect us from pickpockets and dangerous Muscovites. But then as soon as she'd said this, she jumped onto the waiting the train. We quickly followed.

I grabbed a pole inside the train and waited for her to tell us the things we needed to know. But she said nothing and stared ahead, her eyes hidden behind her dark glasses.

She was an efficient informative guide and took us directly to Red Square the way, a guide in San Francisco might head directly to Fisherman's Wharf.

Instantly I pulled out my Blackberry to take photos, holding the red rubber encased device at arm's length to capture all the magnificent history. Linda looked down at her camera checking her photos. Natalia stood apart from us and waited. I wondered, did tourists secretly annoy her with their constant picture taking?

I'll give you the standard tour, yes? she said finally.
Yes, we said. I wondered what the non-standard tour was.

She pointed out St. Basil's Cathedral, the GUM department store, the lovely Kremlin domes with their golden crosses. She gave a brief history of each. She talked about how the hill and the surrounding river gave the area a strategic advantage.

The wind blew strongly and she pulled her coat close to her. I asked if it was always windy like this. Always? she asked, cocking her head slightly in the universal sign of that's a dumb question. No, not always, she said.

She pointed out Lenin's Mausoleum and we decided to go inside.

Again she cut past several people and moved directly toward the front of the line. I wondered what Natalia said to the man in uniform as she waved for us to follow her past the waiting crowds. But the guard stopped us. We could not enter with our backpacks and cell phones.

We went to the bag check. She cut to the head of the line there too.

Inside Lenin's Mausoleum it was cool and dark. Guards stood at attention around the walls. Natalia walked quickly around the glass case that held his formaldehyde-soaked body. I turned to look where Linda was and found her groping along. Her progressive lenses hadn't adapted yet to the dim lighting inside the tomb. I laughed and stopped to wait as she walked slowly feeling the wall to guide her path.

A guard ordered instantly, No stopping!

I turned and looked up into his eyes. He had a cold, slightly bored stare. I ditched Linda to find her own way around the dead man.

As I circled the glass case, I gazed at Lenin's face. He looked fake like one of those wax figures at Fisherman's Wharf. His skin was a bluish grey color. I tried to grasp the reality of the situation. I am looking at Lenin. That's him, there in this little glass case. But it's funny how you can get used to looking at the bizarre until it feels normal.

Natalie waited outside in the bright afternoon light. Linda emerged after me, her progressive lenses slowly darkening again with the bright sunlight.

Weird, I said out loud. To think he's been in there all these years. Weird. Really Weird.
I could not stop saying weird. Natalie slid her sunglasses back over her eyes, and checked her watch.

He's very grey, she said. I don't know what they do to him.
I noticed that too, I said. He looked the color of a shoebox that's been left out on the sidewalk in the rain, I thought, but I didn't share this. I thought it might come across as disrespectful.

Natalie led us outside the gates through the Alexandria garden. She'd seemed to have exhausted her standard tour speech and commented casually on the flowers and birds.

A nightingale, she said and stopped to listen to a bird's song. Do you hear it?
I paused to listen. Sure enough a distinct birdsong stood out from the hum of voices, the distant roar of traffic. So that's a nightingale's song, I thought.

Do you smell that? she paused and leaned in toward a tree blooming with purple flowers. Lilac, she said. Isn't it wonderful? Linda and I both stopped and inhaled. It did smell good and I imagined the next time I smelled it, I'd be reminded of Moscow.

I liked that our guide knew so much about the city, the culture, its plant life. I wanted to tap her knowledge while we were on the clock and find out as much as possible.

What flower is this? I asked crouching to sniff a row of newly planted orange and blue flowers.
Well, I really wouldn't know, she said without pausing.

She talked about her dacha -- her country house -- that her grandfather had left to her and her son.

It's in terrible condition, really she said, but I go there and plant flowers. I relax. I read books. It's very peaceful. I tried to imagine Natalia in gardening clothes, dirt in her fingernails but I couldn't.

She walked us to a bridge with a view of the Kremlin. She pointed to a church to her left at the far end of the bridge. It looked fabulously old and historic.

This church, Cathedral of Christ the Savior was fully rebuilt in 2000 after Stalin destroyed it in 1931. I love this church she said. I know much about it. Shall we go?

Give me old. I want old, I thought to myself. Not, new old. Old, old. My stomach started to growl. I also wanted some good borscht, not a 21st century church. Still, we didn't have much say in the decision, as Natalie headed immediately back along the bridge toward the church. We followed.

On the way, we stopped at a public toilet. A lady with a doughy face sat at a table inside the doorway at the entrance to the stalls. Half a sandwich lay on a piece of paper towel in front of her. Linda quickly pulled out thirty rubles to pay for the two of us and Natalie. I headed inside stopping first to roll off a wad of brown toilet paper hanging from a roll on the wall.

Please to not throw papers in toilet. Put into bucket! a sign taped to the inside of the stall read.

I looked at the basket by my feet. The lady at the entrance eating the sandwich either was very efficient or people were not obeying the sign as the basket was empty. I made a mental note not to flush the toilet paper but a habit such as this is very hard to break. It becomes simply automatic -- wipe, drop, flush.

We walked toward the church. I asked Natalie about the Arbat district as I'd seen pictures in our guide book of a quaint street closed off to traffic.

It's just some kind of tourist place this, filled with restaurants, and cafes, she sniffed.

It sounded wonderful to me.

We headed to the church and entered. Sure enough it looked old , but I couldn't get past that it was a replica. Unlike Lenin who looked fake -- and whom I could have stared at for hours -- I couldn't get into this replica church.

Natalia walked slowly toward the center of the church and stared up at the high painted ceilings. Linda and I followed and looked up too. I was in Russia, replica or not, this was history, I told myself. I waited for Natalie to begin to tell us all the things she knew and loved about this church. But she said nothing. She turned and walked outside.

You pay now, she said outside on the street.

Linda quickly dug inside her money holster -- the one she wore strapped to her torso like Magnum PI, the one that was giving her a rash by her armpit -- and handed Natalia her fee.

Thank you, Goodbye, Natalie said. I turned to shake her hand but she was gone, walking up the sidewalk, heading away from us, her coat flapping in the breeze.

bad mondays and good mojitos

2009-07-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Cesars is our let's not cook or drive anywhere far dining choice. It's a tapas bar on Shattuck that we always seem to end up at on Mondays. Since I am not so fond of Mondays, I think of Cesars as the bad Monday place while Linda thinks of it as the good pour place because they make a good Mojito.

I told Linda that the whole kidney experience had got me thinking about things.
"Well," she said while she paid close attention to the bar tender, "it should get you thinking."

We talked of Joe, our friend who'd crashed at the track and was in the hospital with a spinal chord injury.

"That could be anyone of us," Linda said.
"It sure could," I said.
"Maybe now I'll get my Harry Potter," Linda said. She wanted me to write a book like Harry Potter so that we could buy a house and say goodbye to our landlord who wants to rip out our kitchen.
"Perhaps," I said.

She sucked on the last of her drink then tipped water into her glass and squished the mint with her straw. I thought about my kidneys for a moment and made a vow to take better care of them. I thought about all the free time I would have now that I didn't have to train and traipse all over the central valley on weekends. I was thinking how easy it is for life to get away from you, to veer onto some course you never imagined it would. It took strength to get where you wanted to go. And clearly I wasn't strong. I was feeling pretty weak these days in fact.

"Shall we get the the fries?" Linda asked
I didn't like the fries. They reminded me of crispy brown shoelaces.
"Sure," I said.

The bartender was also the manager. He was mis-fifties, an ex-bike racer who liked to talk about how in his younger, glory, non-bar tending days, he'd go to Central Park and just rip the legs off the other guys. Every single time we went to Cesars he'd tell us this story.

I'd just put it in the 53x12 and just go, he'd say.

He'd get this wistful look in his eyes then snap out of it suddenly and say, "Getting old isn't fun, huh?"

I didn't like that huh one little bit. In fact it disturbed me so much I felt like doing a ten minute seated uphill interval right then. Maybe that was my problem. I ricocheted off people. I was a bumper car kind of a person.

I got the feeling Linda was bored with his chit-chat too and would prefer if he hobbled his old self over and made another round of Mojitos.

I think he sensed our non-interest because he pushed himself up, did an old-guy kind of double-pat on the counter with his palm. Jeez, I thought, this is a bad Monday.

"Maybe I will do the crit this weekend," I said.
"Whatever," Linda said.

I felt I deserved that whatever so I just let it hang there. I was such a mess. I sensed Linda was thinking I was a mess too, but when I looked over she was craning her neck to see where the fried shoelaces were.

The waiter, his hair gelled into a peak in the middle of his head like a wave about to curl, walked slowly with our fries so they didn't spill to the floor.

Should there be so much food on one plate, I pondered.

I thought of poor people in Africa scrambling for whatever they could find -- one squirmy maggot -- and here we were having to balance our food so it didn't fall off the plate. Surely that wasn't right. Then I started extrapolating because the bartender did give a good pour indeed and I was starting to feel it.

What if I couldn't make a decision because I had too many choices? What if i was simply a product of this food balancing society? I felt like some kind of social scientist which is what a good amount of rum does to a person.

Next to us there were a couple of regulars, a midget and an old guy with eyebrows from here to San Carlos. I kept wanting to trim them in between my deep social scientist thoughts and sips of Mojito.

Linda was hitting the fries, removing them gingerly as if she was playing a game of Pick-up Sticks. The pair next to us were talking about the latest news -- the swine flu that was killing off people in Mexico and making its swiney path around the world.

It's in Pakistan, the midget said.
Just might become a pandemic, the eyebrows said.

The midget knelt on the stool, his little feet propping him up so that he could reach his drink on the counter, some ghastly looking brown liquid in a highball glass. A real drinker's drink I thought. We weren't quite there yet. We still liked something besides booze and ice in our drink a little mint, kumquats, perhaps.

Pakistan, I thought. Didn't they have enough to deal with with the Taliban going around lopping off people's heads. Where was the fairness in the world? I lowered my hand over the fries like one of those claws in a seaside arcade and lifted a wad into my mouth.

Shall we order another Linda asked. We'd learned not to try to enhance heaven by ordering two drinks, but in light of what was going on in the world, a second Mojito didn't seem like such a bad idea. Besides, I was weak and this was a bad Monday.

Linda tapped me on the knee and nodded to a different bartender making our second Mojito. Now that's a good pour, her eyes seemed to say. The second bartender was a little guy with a square face. He held the rum bottle high above our two glasses, a steady stream of rum sliced the air.

The Flomax commercial came into my head. Do you suffer from weak flow?

We asked the bartender about one of the tapas items on the menu.

"Pickeeled anchovy," he said in a thick accent of some sort.
"Are you Spanish," I asked.
"No, Serbian," he said.
"Ah," I said because I simply had no Serbia small talk from which to draw.

I said to Linda, "I feel i should know more about Serbia. I sort of missed that whole war thing. I don't know why. Maybe I let my Chronicle subscription lapse that year."

We ordered a $15 fava bean salad that came on a plate the size of Daisy's cat dish, a manchego cheese and greens bocadillo which was my second least favorite item, after the fries, as it reminded me of lawn clippings.

"Let's get out of here," I said when we were done eating and surrounded by empty dishes.
"We better walk home," Linda said

We said goodbye to the sad-sack ex-pro bike racer and the Serbian not-Spanish bar tender and headed out into the bright late April Berkeley evening. Across Shattuck the sidewalk was teeming with people waiting for a slice of the Cheese Board pizza.

"Hey there's Sheila!" Linda said.

We'd run into Sheila and her dog about a month ago. She was a little lady with a thick mustache and glossy red lipstick. A small black dog sat by her feet. It had an incredible under bite. Shiny white fangs poking out nearly parallel to the ground. I thought the dog might be put to good use on a farm, plowing up the fields. I looked at Sheila's cardboard sign. "Donations welcomed."

Mojitos bring out Linda's charitable nature. Last year she bought a homeless lady two nights at a local hotel.

"Can we buy you some food?" Linda asked Sheila this evening.

Sheila said we could: "I'd like a whole chicken from the deli, and some of that barbecue sauce, not the little packets. Ask them for sauce in a container, not the little packets. And maybe some potato salad."

Sheila paused at this point. She put a finger to her lips. I could see her laying out the table. What am I missing?

"...and bread, I like the buttermilk bread it's $4.99, I think. Some soda too. Root beer, A&W, not the diet. I don't like the diet."

So we went shopping on our two Mojito buzz for the homeless lady with the mustache and her plow dog. When I asked for barbecue sauce the lady behind the deli counter handed me three small packets of the stuff in her gloved hand.

"No," I said, "I'd like a small container, please, not the packets. It's for the chicken." I held up the chicken steaming in its tiny plastic coffin.

The deli lady looked at the packets. I looked at the packets.

A deli standoff. No time for weakness.

"You don't want the packets?"
"No," I said. She sighed, tossed the packets aside and reached for a ladle and filled a small plastic container with barbecue sauce.

Now that's a good pour, I thought.

surviving kidney failure

2009-07-07T12:44:00.000-07:00

I was seated in conference room 200 along with about sixty other employees, listening to the directors explain why they needed to lay off 27 people on Monday. Fortunately, I was not one of them.

More workers showed up at the entrance to the room and were spilling out into the hallway. The CIO waved for them to come in and take the few still empty seats up front.

"I promise you won't be laid off if you sit in the front row," he laughed.

Indeed it was comforting to know he still had a sense or humor. and hearing the guy next to me giggle, I guessed he still had his job too.

Another director began speaking. He was a small man in an over sized suit and punctuated each sentence with a flick of his wrist as if cracking an invisible whip.

"We feel we have met expectations within an organizational framework."

Crack!

What on earth does that mean, I asked myself? Was I the only one in this room that thought he was talking gibberish.I looked around. People seemed to get what he was saying, or they were real good fakers.

My Blackberry rang and I quickly hit ignore. From the number I could tell it was the doctor's office. I hadn't been feeling well and they'd given me some routine blood tests. I would call as soon as the meeting ended, which I hoped would be soon. The air in the room was getting stuffy and thick with the smell of doom.

"Thank you all for coming," said the little director with the large suit. Who did he think this was, some kind of rock star or something?

Thank y'all for coming. I love you. God bless.

After the meeting I walked toward the Juice Bar Collective for something to eat. It was a beautiful spring afternoon. The kind where colors are distinct and separate like blots of paint on a artist's palette. The yellow mustard in the fields, the green weeds, the blue sky. It gave me a good, clean happy feeling. I checked my voice messages as I walked.

"This is Dr. Yu's office." a woman's voice said. "It is important that you call us back as soon as possible." She left her number.

I stopped walking. I was okay with the first sentence. they were calling to let me know my blood and pee tests came back and everything was okay. But that second sentence -- that was a stunner.

as soon as possible.

What could possibly be the rush, I wondered. Maybe they were closing early for the day.

I kept walking and called the number.

She put me on hold while she searched for my medical record number. Apparently your name is not sufficient these days. She returned to the line and told me she'd left my number with the doctor's office and they would give me a call. There was nothing for me to do but wait.

I bought some lentil soup from the Juice Bar. I ate it walking. It was cold and needed more salt. I thought about death.

Finally as i walked home along Hearst the phone rang. Here it is, I thought, whatever it is, and it'll probably be nothing. I made my voice light and cheery, disease free.

The woman on the other end repeated my name. I still couldn't hear so I walked down the side of a house, at the entrance to someone's open backyard. There was a swing set, a kid's doll in the dirt, and a brown paper bag with an empty bottle inside. I put my hand to my ear and sat on a tree stump.

"Your blood tests came back," she said. "The results show severe kidney damage."

My pulse jumped. The traffic on the street was loud. I cupped my hand around the phone. The voice on the other end of the phone continued speaking. She was reading the results of my test. my numbers where low when they should be high, high when they should be low. I felt a sudden pain in my gut, from where I thought a kidney might be.

"Have you been taking Motrin or Alleve lately?" she asked.
"Yes! yes I have!" I said. "I took two extra strength Tylenol the other night." I had. It was true. Even as I read the instructions, I thought two tablets was a little excessive.
"No that wouldn't do it," she said. "How about drinking. Do you drink?"

Do I drink?

"Yes," I said. "why yes I do."
"How much?" she asked.
"A lot. One drink a night sometimes two. Maybe a half a bottle of wine."

This was no time for my usual "in moderation" response I gave nurses as they took my vitals. These were my kidneys. My poor little kidneys where ever they were, whatever function they performed in my body. It's gotta be the booze, I thought. please let it be the booze.

"Hmm," she said. "that wouldn't really do it. Let me call you back once I speak to the doctor," she said. "I will call you back this afternoon."

I was only two blocks from our apartment. I walked the distance in a daze. a severely damaged kidney daze. What's a kidney do, I wondered? And why wasn't mine doing it? I felt blindsided.

Hey you kidney -- what's this all about?

I thought about how I used to love the steak and kidney pies my mother bought from the butchers in Scotland. How there were never enough pieces of kidney in them. Sometimes I would take more than my share, dig around in the pie for those dark chewy morsels. I tried to picture my kidneys.The nurse had mentioned something about a filtration rate that my kidneys weren't filtering properly. I pictured my poor chewy kidneys soaking in booze.

Didn't booze affect the liver, not the kidneys? How could it be that I'd lived in this body for 45 years and had no idea how it worked. Maybe if I survived this, I thought, I'd go into medicine become a doctor. I imagined my future.

A sixty year old doctor with a slight drinking problem. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in student bills. Maybe I'd Google kidney instead.

I turned onto my street and headed toward our apartment. Our landlord was in the front yard. He had a shovel in both hands swinging it fiercely at the base of a tree in our front yard. the tree quivered each time he made contact.

I climbed the stairs inside our apartment and stood at the entrance to the bedroom. Linda was in bed with the iPhone held inches from her nose. Daisy jumped down and headed for the kitchen for her afternoon 1/4 cup of kibble,

"They say I have kidney damage," I announced. I dumped my backpack and climbed up on the bed next to her.

Usually when she has the iPhone in her hand there's a huge delay in her response. She puts her hand in the air for me to halt what I am about to say. I am put on pause while she completes the her Facebook post or finishes reading a Cycling News article. This day, she stopped sliding her finger across the screen and immediately looked over at me.

"How can that be? What did they say?"
I told her. I mentioned the part about drinking. "I knew we drink too much," I said.

"That's the liver dumb-dumb," she said. She looked back at the iPhone, the little finger poised to resume its tapping.

"Don't you Google anything," I said. "Don't!"
"I'm just gonna look," she said.
"Don't!" I said.

I thought that maybe in my newly diseased state I might have some influence over her obsessive iPhone usage. She shifted the pillow to get more comfortable, sat up and started tapping.

I climbed up onto the bed and lay flat on my back with my arms at my sides, like one of those luge athletes in the winter Olympics ready to plummet down the icy chute.

"This is like one of those awful made for TV movies," I said to Linda who was reading intently. "Hmm," she said and made a disturbed looking face.

"Don't make that look," I said.
"Is there a "y" in dialysis?" she asked.
"Stop! They'll call me and give me more information. I just need to wait."
"You need to stay informed," she said.

My cell phone rang then and I rushed to answer it.
"Yes," I said, "This is Erika."
"This is Dr. Yu's office. We'd like you to go to the ER immediately."

Again with the bad second sentences!

"Now?" I asked though I pretty much knew what immediately meant.
"Yes, now."

I hung up and told Linda what they'd said.
"This is just crazy," I said. "How did I mess up my kidneys?"
Instantly she snapped the iPhone off and threw the blankets off her body. "You better pack for overnight."

This was worse than a made for TV movie, I thought. It was an after school special made for TV movie. The kind where a fluffy Labrador dies.

I opened my messenger bag. Inside was a package of GU, an old bike racing number and a pump. I dumped it all out. would I ever ride my bike again. I looked around for my snowflake pajamas. As I packed, it suddenly hit me -- were these the last days of normal two kidney me? Would there even be a me in the future?

Linda stood in the doorway dressed and ready to go. A backpack hanging off her shoulder. she is the fastest dresser and undresser I've ever known.

I turned to her, "Am I going to die?"
"You're not going to die," she said, "but there's a chance you might lose a kidney."

Her bedside manner needed much work.

When I checked into the ER, I asked for the results from my blood test. The nurse wrote the numbers down on a little piece of paper. My creatinine was 2.81 when it should have been below 1 and my GFR was 18 when it should be over 60.

"Doesn't look good," I said.
"Your kidneys aren't happy," she said. It was a kind way of putting it. Linda could learn from her.

While we waited to be admitted a man pushed a woman in a wheelchair into the waiting room. Her right leg was outstretched with an improvised splint made of cardboard. She groaned softly, little painful whimpers of despair. Across from us a man sat with his arm in a sling. Linda said she'd heard he'd been hit by a car. I gazed at them with longing and envy.

Give me your broken bones! Take my sick kidney!

I drifted in and out of denial floating between terror and distraction. At one moment I saw myself in surgery, my torso cut open, my poor chewy boozy kidney exposed. I saw the surgeon cut it out and drop it in a bucket. It bounce a little. The next moment I simply stared at a TV commercial mesmerized by the sparkling clean swath left by the Quicker Picker Upper.

Finally they called me into a room and put me in a gown. The doctor came in and asked me if I was on EPO. Linda and I both laughed at that. Then he said he'd take more tests and we'd go from there. If my potassium was high, they'd admit me.

Linda left in search of food for us. While she was gone, I laid down on the gurney listened to the sounds from the hallway and thought about death. I am not afraid of being dead so much as the process of dying. You will be okay a voice said.

Outside the room there was a fight going on. "Don't you touch me," someone was yelling.
"Trust me i don't want to touch you lady." The machines made their repetitive hospital noises.

beep. beep. beep. beep

The blood guy came into the room and took seven vials of blood. I thought, how could they not find something in all that?

Linda returned. she'd bought me goats cheese, rice cakes, tangerines, and my favorite ginger snap cookie. One of those large ones that I never finish because it would simply be wrong to each a cookie the size of a dinner plate. We laid it all out like a picnic on a fresh blue pad -- the kind the blood guy had me rest my arm on -- and i ate with no regard for calorie content, like it was my last supper. I ate that damn ginger cookie dinner plate. Then we switched off the light and laid down together on the tiny bed. Linda, napper that she is, fell asleep and snored softly.

And then the doctor entered the room and flipped on the light.
"You're an interesting case," he said. "All your blood work came back normal."

If this was a made for TV movie, we'd all hug, and upbeat healthy kidney music would play. The dying Labrador retriever would return to health, let out some barks and we'd all laugh. As it was, all I could think was holy crap. The doctor shook my hand and suggested I make an appointment with a nephrologist to double-check the blood work. And that was that.

I was set free to go about my life. I got out of my gown and we packed up what was left of the food Linda had brought. Outside it was a lovely spring evening. We walked down the sidewalk toward the car. Linda talked and I half listened, feeling light as air. Just damn glad to be alive with two good kidneys that I hadn't messed up yet. all is good. All is so very good, I thought.

the paper lady broke our window

2009-06-24T12:59:00.001-07:00

Yesterday the paper lady broke the glass pane in our front door when she delivered the Chronicle.

I got in my truck and chased her down after Linda shouted, "get in your truck and chase her down."

I tracked her two blocks over. She saw me approaching and waited. I wanted to be nice about the whole situation because she had always been nice to us. Always made sure our paper was right on the porch and sometimes if we headed out early before it was delivered, she'd slow down in her Suburban and hand it to us from the window.

Every time I was ever unemployed, which has been often, I'd always try to get one of those delivery jobs. I thought they'd be easy to get but they're not. Turns out they're very much in demand. People get on wait lists for them and the lists never seem to get shorter. I'm probably still four from the bottom on some paper delivery list somewhere.

I reached over to the passenger seat to roll down the window. It took me a few cranks. as my arms are short. I could see she was getting impatient, she had papers to deliver, so i cranked more quickly.

"The window," I said finally, "it shattered when the newspaper hit." I thought maybe I shouldn't cast blame on her directly, but rather blame the Chronicle.

"Did it?" she said.
"It did," I said.

The Chronicle broke my window. The dingo stole my baby.

The situation just hung there for a moment, no one taking responsibility for what the Chronicle did. I felt I had to press the point.

"You busted our window," I said just in case she wasn't following where I was going. I mean the Chronicle has enough problems. It is close to bankruptcy.

"I'll write you a check. I'll leave it tomorrow," she said. That was good enough for me and I should have just left it at that but I felt the need to appear not as someone who would take money from a poor delivery person who probably bumped me out of line for a delivery job.

"Or i could get the landlord to fix it," i said.

A voice most likely Linda's said, you said what?

"You could do that," the paper lady window breaker nodded.

She gave me her cell phone number. I was to call her once the window was repaired and tell her the cost. I searched for a piece of paper, something to write on. I had some weird water leak on the passenger side of the car. When it rained, the front of the car became one big dirty puddle. Last spring, a blade of grass appeared sticking out of the carpet. The automotive guys quoted me $300 to fix the leak but I found it more cost effective just to just toss down the occasional Chronicle to sop up the rain water.

I tore off the corner of the front page. the headline read -- The Next Great Depression?

She gave me her name and cell and home number. I scribbled the numbers across Tim Geithner's forehead.

I got the window fixed for $115 dollars. It seemed high to me, but like the leak in my car, these kinds of repairs generally are three times what you expect to pay.

The next morning we heard her truck pull up outside the building.

"Get dressed! We gotta get her!" Linda shouted and rushed to get dressed. I didn't rush because I was fairly certain the woman would leave a check. She'd been so nice and understanding, especially since I'd suggested the landlord option.

"Hurry. We gotta get her," Linda said pulling on her shorts quickly. She slid into her shoes and headed down the stairs.
"You get her," I said, "I got her yesterday. You get."

I went into the kitchen to divide up our breakfast oatmeal into plastic containers. With blind trust in the window breaker's good word, I didn't feel the need to rush.

I spooned out the oatmeal, sprinkled some raisins on top, poured a little soy milk over it. We were shelling out $3.75 each for this pile of roughage down at Betty's Bake shop on 4th street. But that kind of extravagance had to stop, especially if we were facing the next Great Depression.

Linda re-appeared in the kitchen with her hands on her hips, her shorts inside out and backwards.

"You could'a helped me get her," she said. "Now she's gone. No check. nothing. You deal with it," she said. She sized up the two oatmeal containers I'd prepared and took the one with the most oatmeal and left.

I felt miffed that I was getting chewed out because the paper lady was not only a window breaker, but a deal breaker too.

Besides, what was the woman thinking? Did she think we wouldn't wait for her when she delivered the Chronicle the next day? Of course we would. We'd keep the lights out, stand by the front door and peep out waiting for her. Or maybe one of us -- Linda -- would wait outside in the car, to act as a backup in case she tried to make a run for it. I could feel the anger rising in me. the nerve of that Chronicle delivery paper lady.

Damn it it, I wanted my $115 dollars back! $115 dollars these days was a lot of money. It was 153.333 Chronicles. Half the cost to fix a puddle in a 94 pickup truck.

I went into work. my co-worker Raul came up to me and I was just about to launch into the story of the window breaker, when he pointed to a yellow envelope in his hand and said he'd just got laid off. We knew layoffs were coming but here they were right in smack in our face. he was the only person I really talked to at work. We'd gone to a couple of poetry readings.

"Raul, no," I said. I wasn't sure what the proper protocol was for situations like this.

Do you hug the newly laid off? Or, was that too much?

So I sort of rubbed his elbow. He'd lent me a camera lens the day before to try out. I reached into my backpack to give it back to him.
"Keep it," he said but but I could tell he really wanted it back. So I gave it to him and he left.

I went back to seething over my $115. The mind is like that sometimes. It latches onto one thing and will not put it down -- or mine is. Let it go a voice said. Think of Raul. I thought of Raul.

Then I thought of eggs and throwing them at the lady. A bucket of water tipped on her head.

We waited again the following morning. This time she wouldn't slip away. When I saw the lights approaching I called up the stairs to Linda to hurry. The lady walked slowly up the stairs and held out the paper for me as if I always waited outside on the stoop at six thirty in the morning.

"I'd like a check," I said. I handed her a copy of the receipt the repair man had given to me. It was still early out. Linda came down the stairs and stood next to me. I reached over and pointed to the total in case the woman hadn't seen it clearly.

"$115," I said.
"Yes, well I can see that," she said. "But what I don't see is a breakdown of the charges. I really need this to be itemized. A piece of glass costs ten dollars. And this says here $115."

I saw the eggs again. A dozen extra-large.

She refused to pay until she received an itemized receipt. So we called the glass guy again. Since it was early. there was a long pause filled with a rustling as if he were digging out from under blankets and clothing, beer bottles and pizza boxes. We explained the situation while the delivery lady waited. He said he'd fax me a new itemized receipt.

I went to work, received the fax, found out more people were laid off.

The next morning we waited again but she didn't appear.

"Call me if she comes back," Linda said. I waited with the receipt in my hand on the front porch -- or what was left of it. Our landlord had torn up the brick stairway and built his own interpretation of stairs from what looked like driftwood and old packing crates.

And then she appeared. She got out of her truck and handed me a release. It was something she'd got off the Internet. All very official. I called Linda and told her to come back quick. I have a profound fear of forms and small print.

"I'm calling Linda," I said. "wait here." I tried to dial Linda on my new Blackberry while the woman watched.

But I suffer from sudden onset performance anxiety. Simple tasks become impossible when I'm observed. I punched the wrong button, brought up the browser, turned on Pandora. The woman huffed, shook her head and opened the truck door.

"Wait here," I demanded. "You wait here."
She looked me up and down. I was wearing red pajama bottoms with white snowflakes and a Tour de France tee-shirt. Very threatening.

She climbed up onto the car seat and put the truck it in gear.
"I ain't waiting here. I got a job to do. I'll come back." The car slowly moved passed me.

So I kicked it. I kicked her Suburban.

The minute I heard the thud of my foot against the side-panel, I saw myself standing before Judge Judy, the TV judge. I saw myself trying to explain the situation to Judge Judy. But she's very black and white, that Judge Judy.

I kept interrupting her saying, "but the Chronicle delivery lady was leaving and she hadn't given me my money" and Judge Judy was repeating the question over and over,

"DID YOU KICK HER SUBURBAN?"

There's no explaining to Judge Judy when she gets like that.

But luck of luck, thanks to the ridiculously enormous size of a Suburban, the delivery lady never felt or heard a thing. Linda appeared, we chased the woman down and finally she coughed up the dough.

Cash.

Linda's decided to cancel her subscription. One more nail in the coffin for the poor old Chronicle. It's not the paper it used to be, not that it ever was much but still I think i'll miss it.

Especially when it rains.

i miss the little guy

2009-01-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

i miss the little guy...

2009-01-04T18:38:00.000-08:00

High Horse

get off your high horse
my mother said

as she laid three
silvery sardine
carcasses
across my sandwich bread

outside the kitchen window
the snow fell like ashes
upon the hours
lined up as hurdles

she stabbed the butter
slit a tomato
smacked the salt shaker
to get it to deliver

my dear she said
you’ve got another thing coming
don’t you

did I?

I saw a horse with ribbons flowing
my arms stretched tight
around its neck

mark my words
one day you will come home
and I’ll be gone

she said

but everyday she was there
and the sardines too.

2008-12-04T08:06:00.001-08:00

i´m having fun playing with the camera, wandering the city and finding fun places to eat. today we wanderered around girona and went to the jewish museum and the city museum. then we walked along the acient wall. then it was time to find a fun restaurant.

yay!

this so far is one of my favorite restaurants in girona. we´ve eaten here twice. it´s morocan. we´ve had couscous and beef tanjine with prunes...staying regular.

followed by a deliciously sweet mint tea and tiny cookies.

gratuitous cat pic.

it´s very hard to get a pic of linda. she darts behind cathedrals to get away from me.

a pic looking west over girona.

tomorrow, we´re renting a car and driving around. then we´re staying at a b&b owned by a woman linda knows who lives in girona. i swear everywhere we go, linda knows someone.

2008-12-03T09:40:00.000-08:00

el raval in barcelona...side ways

then today we went to figueres up north of girona to the dali museum.

what an odd interesting man

2008-12-02T07:43:00.000-08:00

pics in no particular order....

two doggies in girona. there´s a bike
attached to the front two...i think the
riders are on some european tour for
a doggie saving venture

montserrat...benedictine monks live here...we drank some of their liquour. the lady who gave us the four samples was in a bit of a rush so you had to chug them. tastey

beautiful girona at sunset...

she did not want her picture taken...

too hard (we´re no susie) to type comments by the picture with one eye on the clock...the last three are from girona.

2008-12-01T11:17:00.000-08:00

i flew without the aid of zanax and it was good because i had the aid of a margarita, a shot of tequila and shortly after that with my airplane meal, a glass of red wine. the flight was uneventful except for the moment when a man from first class walked down the aisle and bent to ask a question of several people as he made his way toward me.

are you a lawyer, he asked finally.

no, i said, but i play one on tv.

he eventually got in a fight with the steward and then the airmarshalls locked him up in handcuffs.

so here we are in spain. we´ve seen lots of fun things in Barcelona. we did the picasso museum, the joan miro museum, toured the Ramblas and the Bari Goti, which is wonderful at night with the lights. we ate a lunch at a 222 year old restaurant, the second oldest in spain.

i´ve had paella three times now and think it is most delicious. tonight we had a three course meal. i had paella again, and linda will soon turn into a roasted chicken as she´s been eating them once a day.

we went to Monteserat ( two r´s¿) (and sorry, i can´t find my way around this crazy euro keyboard)

we love our included breakfasts at the hotel of cheeses and meats and pastries. i almost burned the place down just the one time by forgetting my toast in the circular crazy euro toaster.

i am sleeping on the average 2 to 3 hours a night. last night i listened to about 34 podcasts.

and i am taking an amazing amount of blurry pictures. we´ll post some soon.

linda is doing the speaking and pointing for both of us.

right now we are in an internet cafe in Girona. there is a lovely old section of town here with narrow winding cobbled roads. tomorrow we will wander around and visit cathedrals and museums. we plan on renting a car and hope to not take out the left side-panel as we did the last time we rented a car in Scotland.

and i have not lost anything yet. i still have my wallet, my passport and both gloves.

2008-11-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

we drank wine before we got out of our chamois again.

it's getting to be a habit.

a lovely lazy sunday afternoon habit as the sun goes down.

2008-11-23T09:47:00.000-08:00

my sister is having a baby. she's 49.

woa!

this is baby daisy.

she's not pregnant.

and here's linda doing what she does best.

that's all i got -- facebook one liners

2008-11-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

here i sit on the lovely deck surrounding perseverance hall at lbnl for the second day of the this big policy meeting. what i have learned so far is that i know very little and these people know a lot and the one guy in the corner ate three pastries this morning and the lead council for UC just went to the bloomingdale's site and that guy in the corner has a very long mustache that i keep mentally trimming and the old guy across from me makes me think of a line from Annie Hall whenever i look at him and that woman across the table from me has really cool shoes on and jesus i wish i was outside running and do any of these people exercise and that guy there would definitely be one of those old guys on a pinarelo who would try his damdest to pass me on hill then die doing so and maybe i can check facebook without anyone seeing my latest status.

2008-10-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

we go for little walks now that linda's off the crutches. we walked in fairfax the other day. and then huckleberry trail and strawberry canyon in the berkeley hills. huckleberry is where that guy burried his wife for a couple of months and that kind of wrecked it a bit. and strawberry canyon is the possible site of some new structure and then it'll not be so nice to run in or walk.

so i try to stay focused and enjoy the moment. not think about the body that once decomposed just a few yards from us. i try to read the fuzzy little drawings off the free guide map at the trail head. every dang plant looks the same -- a little like a weed or something you might rip out of the soft soil so you can dig deep to really hide your dead wife -- but i try to identify the little plants as linda walks ahead carefully.

that's a western sword fern i announce.

i stand looking at the little plant. so that's what you are, i never knew all these years. and to be quite honest, knowing the name of the little guy kind of ruins it too. puts a human stamp on it. i want it to be separate and removed from human doings and buryings but there it is ruined with a dumb human name. and the latin one is longer than its little pointed leaves which do not remind me of swords.

linda says, you think he buried her far from here?

i fold up my trail guide. i look around. now if i had to bury a body, i definitey would chose huckleberry. it's thick with body hiding potential. all ferns and tight twisty bushes. in fact i bet there's still remnants of a few divorces, and bad break-ups lying around.

perhaps i tell her and stop and exame a little bushy tree thingy.

it's got tiny purple berries that could possibly be poisionous. i pick one and squish it between my fingers. the juice is a pale pinkish color. a little disappointing, i might add. i was expecting a dark Welch's grape juice color to stain my fingers. i sniffed. no smell. the other day when i went for a jog along this trail a couple had stopped at this very narrow spot and seemed to be picking something. so this is what they were after. these little purple berries with the not so purple juice. they were very intent on picking them. so intent in fact that they did not move one iota when i said -- and very pleasantly -- on your left. but then maybe that's just a biking term. maybe it makes no sense to hikers. anyhow, they did a fake knee bend kind of move that still left their REI clad butts sticking out, in my way.

i'm sorry, i said as they picked, picked, picked the little berries, i still can't get by.

and so they moved. i ran on, they picked on. i told this story to linda perhaps four times. this time, while on the trail at the very spot the pickers had picked, showing with my body how they would not move out of the way.

they did this i said and pretended to be picking the berry. wouldn't move.

linda walked on, not really interested in my vivid reenactment. she was walking carefully, making sure not to trip and rebreak her pelvis on a root poking out of the ground. i was careful to point out the roots and to trip over them to alert her to their presence. linda doesn't like walking very much and sometimes after our walks she'll describe it as the walk from hell, which ruins it a bit for me. but i think she liked this walk along huckleberry.

2008-10-06T15:25:00.000-07:00

be very afraid

2008-09-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

a daisy chain

2008-09-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

2008-09-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

we did errands this morning and made use of our disabled person's placard. six months of easy access. it makes life a lot easier. i don't mind seeing half the parking lot taken up by blue parking spaces anymore.

things really seem to be falling in place like that. it makes you think, hey the system does work -- if you happen to be lucky enough to have health care.

we had Babe the PT guy sitting and chatting with us for a good two hours at home. he excused himself and used our bathroom. i asked linda what all the banging sounds coming from behind the bathroom door were. but, linda, who is pretty much deaf, said what banging sounds. i said those banging sounds, and she said what banging sounds.

somedays this kind of conversation goes on much too long.

anyhow, Babe, reappeared. i said nothing about the banging sounds -- maybe he was regrouting the bathtub. turns out he was fixing the height of the portable commode. then he showed linda how to walk up and down the stairs on the crutches. he gave her little tips on how to hold the one crutch against the other. remember, he said when she went to step up, "Up with the good, down with the bad". we liked Babe. we'll see him again next monday.

then there was the little guy from Johnston's medical around the corner who delivered and assembled the electric bed. he too gave us tips. always put the brake on before getting into the bed, he said kicking a black pedal down and folding it safely out of the way.

"i want your business, but not that way," he laughed.

he brought over one bed, that didn't rise on one side, took it back and brought back another. he swapped out one mattress and let us try two more. always pleasant. he knew his stuff too. the first day i showed up at Johnstons's for the commode, i tried to describe what we'd used in the hospital. he took the pen from behind his ear and handed me a piece of paper.

"like this", i said. it was a little bucket with measurements on one side.
"you baking a cake?" he smiled and went into the back room and came back with two green buckets that looked identical.
"what's the difference," i asked.
he held the one with a handle out wide and turned his head to one side.
"ahh, i see."

i went back the next day for a wheelchair. remember he said, push this down before she goes to sit down. "i want your businees but not that way." he filled out the receipt and handed it to me. "see you tomorrow," he said. nice guy.

next up, is yolanda. she called friday night and left a message on the answering machine.
"who's that?" linda said sitting up in her electric bed eating prunes.
"yolanda. she says she want to come tomorrow."
"ronda?"
"yolanda"
"who?"

all these people you never knew existed until you need them. it's like like some healthcare underground railroad, moving you along to a healthier place.

up with the good. down with the bad.

2008-09-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

linda wants no part of tonight's hospital fare -- salisbury steak, and soggy veggies. the potatoes aren't bad tho.

she's been nibbling on pieces of pineapple, cottage cheese and sipping water. her little bandaged arm rises in the air and i pass her the sippy cup with the bendy straw.

we're stuck here for another night. at least we've got the window side of the room not that i've really enjoyed the view much.

been busy with bedpans.

i was curled up on the right corner edge of linda's bed around 3 am last night trying not to bump anything fractured bruised or missing skin, when linda says, i gotta go. i really gotta go.

so i get out the wretched bedpan and then i close the curtain cuz she says it helps her concentrate and override 49 years of socialization not to pee in bed

how's it coming?
it's not
is it coming now?
no
now?
ssh

finally she breaks down around 3:30 am. she wants the evil catheter.

really? i say. a catheter? i'm not even sure how it works but it sounds awful and medieval. or like something out of that sally fields movie where the mother pounds the piano and shouts

hold your water! hold your water!

plus, i was in that weird sleepy daze, like when you're on an international flight and you wake up and it's light out and the person in the next seat is eating breakfast and you realize you're so far from where you were when you fell asleep.

you really want a catheter?

get elvira, get celia, she says, i want the catheter.

so i pad out in linda's blue hospital socks to the nurse's station. they're so sick of the sight of me.

she can't pee i tell the lot of them. she's been trying to pee for hours. and she can't.

is that your little assistant one says to Elvira as she gets up and comes over to me.

how long has it been since she peed, Elvira asks.
forever.
well we can't call for a doctor unless it's been 10 hours.

it has, it has i tell her. the last time was like 9 o'clock. she glances up at the clock.

okay, okay, i want to say -- so addition isn't one of my strengths -- can you please
drain her bladder. she's gonna blow.

Elvira follows me into the room where Linda lies on her back.

poor linda is rubbing her belly. Elvira puts on a rubber glove and rubs linda's belly. i reach over and rub linda's belly so as not to be left out.

how long has it been, elvira asks linda since you last peed. as soon as i see linda chew on the inside of her lip and look up to the ceiling, calculating the precise number of seconds, minutes, hours since her last piddle, i know she's gonna blow it.

and i am relieved.
unfortunately, linda is still not.

but, it's a day full of progress and now we've got her dangling her legs over the bed then sliding onto a four wheeler toilet with little handles. we fricking love that thing -- no more bed pans.

we may just double it as a walker and really get this show on the road.

2008-07-30T13:09:00.000-07:00

i like to walk at lunch with my ipod listening to podcasts then head to Andronicos -- Astronomicals -- grocery store for a little grocery grazing.

first up, to the right of the entrance is the bakery section which always has a couple of good offerings. i like to start off with a couple of chunks of olive bread, or walnut raisin, depending on what they're offering. then i head around the corner to the cookie section and their plate of cookie samples. i like the peanut butter cookies best.

in the produce section, i try some cherries, a nectarine slice. i pass on the cantaloupe. most unappealing. and i always use the toothpicks, though sometimes i spin them around and go for a second helping. is that wrong, i wonder?

sometimes i get looks.

next up, the deli section and a quick scan for their sammy samples. these are a little disappointing. i think the deli staff could be a tad more creative, perhaps egg salad one day, maybe a little salami -- enough with the eggplant pesto! and why must they announce these samples over the intercom bringing the hungry herds. i can find them without a public announcement, why can't they?

survival of the fittest, i say.

i nab a cornichon from the olive bar. sometimes two. but not often. the deli staff are protective of the olive bar, i notice. or maybe they are just staring into space between turkey sandwich making.

then there's the old ladies offering up samples of risotto, or tiny crackers with never enough humus on them, or hot wiener slices. cooking them right there all hot and straight out of the toaster oven. but the problem with the old ladies is that you have to act like you're interested in buying what they're offering which is a bit of an appetite killer. still if it's worth it, I give them the old i'm considering it up and down head nod while i chew and swallow and then make my way to the bulk bins.

so today after grazing while listening to my podcast which i tend to forget is playing so there's just this chatter going on in my head beside the normal chatter, i thought maybe i outta buy something, maybe veggies for dinner since if we go out and fine-dine one more time this week i'm going to be down to about $4.35 in my bank account.

we had salad last night so i thought gotta try something new. mix it up a little for the wife. so i search the magazine section for a good foody rag for a recipe. i found one of several closed check stands next to a long line of customers and layed down the magazine and had me a look. i flipped pages looking for something good. it was a little uncomfortable having to lean like that and the bag boys kept banging me with their carts. i thought a seat someplace would be nice -- you know to sit and have a really good read but they don't have chairs much in grocery stores. perhaps something i'll bring this up with the management.

anyhow, i looked through all the pages and found a good picture of asparagus and mushrooms. i considered -- i said considered -- tearing out the page, but then memorized the recipe instead.

i rounded up the veggies. Andronicos likes to misalign their price labels. somehow the price of regular old crummy white mushrooms ends up under the portabello basket. oops! so you have to beware. they're out to get you, i swear. or so the voices in my head say so. finally, i took my purchases to the register.

for a bag of asparagus, a handful of mushrooms and a can of tomato puree, they want $10.10.

a voice in my head said, screw that.

until lunch tomorrow, anyways.

testing, testing

2008-07-25T13:54:00.000-07:00

this is a new post.

2008-06-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

while the presenter and the organizer and the guy from the front row
fiddle with the projector,
a big woman in a small metal chair
by the exit
holds a slice of pizza
it hangs limp and sweaty
like a tired dog's tongue

the black olive
lodged on her chest
rides the wave of her contented
exhalations
i am pretty certain
she'll be the first to bolt
once the pizza's eaten.

and i
i am putting on my best show
of interest
loading up my paper pad balanced on my knees
with chunks of wisdom, sage cutlets
of technological insight
but the fan above is unimpressed,
it will not clap
just whirs,
shuffling the air, knocking
listless flies off course

i wish these chairs would screech
but they just emit a dull low rumble
and the beige carpet only sighs
when it's trodden on

i think of all that i have not done
and will never do
the hours wasted, the days torn
like the calendar beside the light switch
june ripped in half

as i
place big black bullets
beside a list of next month's
topics

the sun strolls in late
slides down the wall
and collapses
by the garbage can.

2008-06-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

we had a lovely party at the track -- thank you!

and here's hoping Rick heals up quickly.

picture courtesy of linda's iphone and the MOMA.

2008-06-17T08:35:00.001-07:00

i think i want to live up in nevada city.

the riding is fabulous, the temperature divine (at least last weekend)
and the swimming holes are spectacular.

the mocha fudge ice cream cone dipped in chocolate wasn't half bad either.

(pic by bunny)

2008-06-14T20:29:00.000-07:00

there is no putty for this,
no nudge to change the shape of life.
there is only steel, hard iron
and grit to seal the hole.

but i've loved our days,
fruit falling at our feet,
poppies orange as the sun
to devour at our ease

we have been as light as cotton candy
as heavy as rum
walking in the sun with only our thoughts
skipping around us like children, peeking
through the cracks
to the ocean below

sand is hot and the ocean roars
stay, play, time is short
but the barker calls,
step up! step up!
and freedom is lost
in a ticket's ride.
oh but i've loved our days.

2008-06-13T07:53:00.001-07:00

linda says she's putting all my annoyances in her mental garbage can. it's a trick our favorite therapist, Eike, taught her.

she thinks i don't listen, i don't pay attention.

that i don't wear my thinking cap enough.

on our ride last night in the beautiful balmy evening warmth as we were sailing down tunnel i said to linda, "i thought we were going to ride to Grizzly?"

she shouted, "it's filling up!"

"where's the cap?" she asks. "always, always wear the cap."

reminds me of my conversation with a certain sanchez. we were discussing our habit of losing things, getting lost, etc that happens with a frequency that we're used to but others are not.

"i make mental notes," she said. "but i lose them."

i do too. i try not to. i think put the note there. remember the note is there. and while i'm thinking hard about where the note is, i lose my keys.

my mental notes read: the cell phone is under the bed, check you turned on the burner under the kettle, not the empty saucepan, if you leave that wheel behind the back of the truck like that, you're gonna drive over it.

"why's that woman waving at us?" i asked linda as we were backing out of the parking lot after watching a crit a few weeks ago. "she's awfully friendly."

cccrrunch!

"it's filling up!" -- linda and her garbage can. starting to wear on my nerves.

she says i'm not normal. and how does one defend one's normalcy? shouting, "i am normal!" just sounds crazy.

but what's normal? is linda's habit of saving every box, packaging container, plastic baggie normal? i don't think so.

"we might need it," she says of the box from her Giro helmet purchased in 1990 that i found stuffed in the back of the closet.

"for what?" i ask.

"for something," she says and takes the box and puts it back in the closet.

Normal?

i got dressed quickly this morning. i pulled on my fabulous orange pants that have traveled up and down the central valley and a white polo shirt with a Tour de France emblem. kinda dorky but the shirt is comfortable and, i think, goes with the orange pants.

i was walking to work, trying not to drive the one mile, wearing the back-pack that linda gave to me, when i caught a glance of myself in a window.

the back pack is from our trip to France. Big old Tour de France logo on it matching my shirt.

some kid seeing me might think who is this crazy old Tour de France lady?

but it was an accident, the TdF overload. a freakin accident. these things happen, we don't plan them. yeah from a distance they might look a little looney, but they are accidents!

"hey kid, it was just an accident!"

and that's my point: accidents happen. mental notes get lost. bike wheels get run over.

too much Tour de France shit gets worn.

2008-06-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

we always go to sattley a day early and do our prep out on the course.

cows stared at us while we fidgeted with our tt bars. i have a new giro tt-helmet and i tried that on. we did our efforts. we stopped fifteen million times to tip our tt bars a little up, a little down.

it makes no difference. we are so not aero. but we try. we really do. still it's so nice out there.

i really love sattley. the blue skies, the green, green fields, the brown barns about to topple, the quiet, the wind.

last year we stayed in loyalton.

"the most depressing place on earth," linda likes to say of loyalton. we ordered a margarita the color of engine coolant at the loyalton inn last year. i remember the bartender patting the outside of the jug before making our drink. "sorry, a little warm," he said. and i remember the restaurant menu splattered with spaghetti sauce finger prints like a crime scene.

so this year we booked a room overlooking a river 15 miles up 49 from sattley in sierra city.

we got a beer and a glass of wine and sat out listening to the river. "i like this place," linda said several times, which made me happy. i liked it too. i especially liked leaving the glass door to our deck open at night until i began thinking about carey staynor who killed those three women on vacation a few years back.

so i was torn. i really liked listening to the sound of the river. but i was also rather fond of having my head attached to my body.i mentioned to linda that i'd seen a guy with a scraggly beard carrying a paper sack about the size of an ax enter the room next door to ours.

"i think you ought to shut the window now," linda said.

to take my mind off the ax murderer i tried to think positive thoughts about racing the tt the next day. i saw myself aero and fast. i broke the course down into segments.

once you get to the forested section, you'll be at mile four, only twenty miles to go. once you get to the slight rise after that, you'll be at eight miles. only sixteen more miles to go...

i went back to thinking about the murderer. more pleasant.

we survived the night and woke up with our heads intact. we ate breakfast at a cafe up the road.

"you all going on a hike?" the waitress asked.
"no there's a race in sattley."
"oh, how long?" she asked
"twenty-four miles,"
"oh, not so bad, then," she smiled.

and then we headed out onto the winding road, fifteen miles to sattley. it was lovely and calm and i thought how i might like to just have linda pull over and let me off with my bike so i could go for a nice ride instead of doing the tt when something caught my eye.

a lone Sidi shoe lying off the side of the road in the gravel.

"look someone's shoe," I said.
"oh wow. we should get it, it might belong to someone," linda said and pulled over.

i trotted down the road and i picked it up. i examined it. it looked strangely familiar -- my size, my color, speed play cleats.

"you know this shoe looks just like mine," i said once i got back in the car.
"check the back seat," linda said.

sure enough this was my shoe. i must have left it on the back ledge of the truck and it had flown off yesterday and had spent the night alone on the side of the road. and the other was missing.

oops. my bad.

so while linda estimated the shoe size of every possible NorCal Nevada District Time Trial 2008 entrant, I was pleasantly thinking -- whoohoo, no time trial for me!

when we got to the course, however, Marsha Kirschbaum had my other shoe. she'd found it lying out on the course where we'd warmed up. and when linda checked her iphone once we got into range there were several messages, all with the same urgent theme from Nancy:

we have your shoe. don't worry. we've found your shoe. call us. we have your shoe.

so, in case anyone was wondering -- it is possible to out laura laura.

2008-06-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

a pic from last friday's hoedown at hellyer.
linda's familiar riding behind peter bohl's moto.

she says she likes to bump the rollers once or twice -- just to feel it, so it don't scare ya.

Ken Conley (http://kwc.org/cycling/)

2008-05-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

Insanity has company, they are called teammates and they all show up to race Kern.

Lilly is so right.

i love my insane teammates. our 35+ group just keeps getting better and better. we will be back again next year. did i just write that? the other teams will see us and know they have their work cut out for themselves. if they were smart they would copy our style. they'd start getting sillier and insaner and funner and winninger -- like us.

we slayed the kern beast...no, i don't like that metaphor. bellas don't kill animals. what do bellas do? we tame the beast. we make the beast purr and roll over and then we put pretty shiny flair around its furry neck and say, can i get you a beer?

but it takes a team to soften up the beast and we each played our part.

we all let the beast roar and howl at the TT -- whatever beast. do your bad beasty thing. we'll see you in a bit.

lilly faced down the beast at Walker Basin. she attacked and attacked. chased after time bonuses which would help her and take away from the other teams. the pack was closing in after lilly and i moved over to andrea to suggest she might get ready for a counter attack.

"Andrea," I began...
"Yup," she said. and off she went.

oh we are so good.

and there was linda with the water bottle to cool riders down. getting up to the front on the hill sprint to help me get back on. shutting it down when we realized we weren't all there. and then in the last lap linda, sabine, and Andrea moved up the side as we approached the 1K mark. the field strung out and we had it.

the hill climb was key. last year we didn't know the course so we rode at the other teams' pace. but this year we knew we had to go from the gun if we were going to make the time we were down from the TT.

and so sue and I went. we looked back and the beast was chasing. we rotated taking pulls. and soon the beast was nowhere in sight. silly beast you have to be fast to catch us.

and you're so gonna look cute in flair.

on to Woody. we had a 34 second gap between first and 2nd. and a 1.43 (?) gap to third. our main objective was to hold the 34 seconds and secondarily to move Sue into second. the course this year suited us very well. since it started on the rollers followed by the steep downhill and then more flattish rollers. we kept watch on the Protech TT'ers and any moves by the Kalyra gals who had nothing to lose by going out and trying to get away on the descent and rollers -- which they tried! But no luck. And having the teammies there calmed me immensely because i always fear that section as i'm no tt'er and if the other teams worked together they might just possibly get away taking Janet with them and our 34 second lead.

Purrrr...pretty, pretty beast, pretty baby.

Linda and Andrea patrolled the descent and then on the rollers Sabine and linda set pace in the wind going up the hills. Linda worked so hard. resting and recovering. And sabine gave 110 % coming back for more and more...and more. Sue and I sat in. We knew our part was coming. I kept seeing Maryanne and Janet whispering and it made me edgy. But then I would see Sue with her game face on and I felt better and I just had to remember how we'd drilled it on the hill climb. And i couldn't help but notice that Janet was in a big, big gear and i wondered if she would be fresh for that steep finish.

and then linda and Andrea hit the rollers. Sue and I had discussed that we might go at this point and I really should have been ready for it, but when it happened it threw me into shock. I thought perhaps Linda and Andrea were going to be given a little freedom to fly, but Janet was going with everything. EVERYTHING. I waited for the initial acceleration to ease. but it kept going. Linda was like the energizer bunny. I wanted to shout "I'm getting dropped!" but of course I knew tactically this was like shoving raw meat under the beast.

so I did the only thing I could. "LINDA!" i shouted in that special loving married couple voice.

but then Andrea was going strong and Sue was jamming and Janet was covering EVERYTHING. aw jeeze.

And then we looked behind and Maryanne and the professor...i mean Sonia were coming up. Sue attacked. Janet covered. I attacked, Janet covered. So finally it was the five of us hitting the final hill. I marked Janet until the end though I was never certain if she was going to jump me create a gap and get the bonus finish points -- and possibly the overall GC.

But it was not to be. we had the beast feeding out of our hands. it rolled on its back. Lilly removed its beast's mask and we slung bella flair around its neck.

we will be back.

2008-05-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

a magical weekend with the bellas and fellas.

2008-05-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

"your shirt matches your mug," the kid at the coffee shop this morning noticed. she peered at the velo bella logo on my jacket as she pushed my velo bella coffee mug across the counter.

"it's a team," i said.

she nodded slowly, uninterestedly, probably imagining some lawn bowling team.

i bring toast to the coffee shop in the morning with a little bit of almond button on top. but i have to hide it because i feel bad for not buying their artery clogging scones and croissants. i take a bite out of my toast then wrap it back up in the paper towel and wait till it's clear before taking another bite. old lady behavior without a doubt. i'm not so fond of some of the counter help that work at this place. why is it so hard to smile? why is it so hard to say hello? i mean i'm pleasant when i come to the counter, or pleasant enough with my secret wad of toast tucked under my armpit.

the other morning someone mixed up the non-fat with the half and half jug. i knew something was terribly terribly wrong when my coffee turned a ugly grey color. coffee is like $1.70 a cup and is a big daily money drain so i was certainly not going to drink it. i went back to the gal with the evil blank stare and odd bleached hairdo. it was smashed flat to her head on the left side apparently from a deep, unmoving sleep on that side of her face and yet she'd clamped a hairpin over the flatness. i would have put the pin somewhere that might move, but anyhow.

i said "there's non-fat in the half and half." i pushed the grey liquid toward her. "see," i said. "i can't drink non-fat. i have to have half an --"

splat! she tipped it in the sink. "try the non-fat jug" she said. problem solved, except she never went over to the jugs to switch the evil non-fat with the half and half. and i was a little afraid of her and her hairstyle to suggest she might make the switch.

i sat down and unfolded my paper towel and took out my toast. it's very tasty. but it's sort of unsettling when i look at the almond butter jar that is almost empty to think i've eaten a whole jar of almond butter. so i crunched on my toast and all the while felt guilty for not warning others as they approached the jug section and tipped non-fat in their coffee. i was going to get up and warn the smoker guy who sits outside everyday and is friendly enough but then i recalled how he always spills sugar everywhere and never wipes it up.

so i sat there and watched him pour. watched him bring the the cup close to his eyes to examine it. yep, that there fouling up your coffee is non-fat messy smoker guy.

2008-05-11T22:25:00.000-07:00

2008-04-29T09:18:00.000-07:00

this is from the first Kern i ever did. I think it may already have been linda's fourth or fifth. this is from the randsburg stage. a very weird old cool ghost town in the middle of nowhere at the top of a long straight road up into the hills. we stayed in the cottage hotel. i recall that stage was miserably difficult with debbie allen pulling the two of us in the field through the wind until she'd had enough of us and rode off. then the other woman took off and i was alone in the mojave. just me and my drool thinking i will never do this race again. then linda appeared and we rode together. i was so freaking happy it was over. i remember seeing the finish line beneath my wheel and praising the almighty that it was done. seems it's always like that.

2008-04-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

i received this photo in my inbox from linda.

now tell me, is this normal behavior?

now she wants me to push it down with this

2008-04-23T07:38:00.001-07:00

i've been having crazy dreams lately. i'm in russia. i'm sitting on a hill in russia thinking, wow, russia, i want to wander the streets and go to deli's. i told this to linda in the morning. how i was so excited to wander the streets of russia and find deli's. she said russia wasn't like that. russia was falling apart, she said. no deli's. but this was my dream and there would be deli's. last night i had this dream that i was in this wonderful building, a rambling old rickety place. i was looking out the window to rolling green hills covered in mist. i like those kind of hills. and i thought, this is where i want to be. i could live here. it's small, but i like it. and then i noticed there were Bellas in the place. they were chatting and sitting at the table in this cozy room. someone came in with an armful of food supplies and put them in the refrigerator. i liked that too -- food in the refrigerator. it was comfort food. macaroni and cheese. pop-tarts. i wandered down the hallway thinking this is the place i want to be. it had a harry potter feel to it. tall ceilings of carved dark wood. dimly lit with candles. in another room there was a fireplace. it was a bit messy with crumbling bricks but the fire glowed and was warm. i could sit in this room all day, i thought. and then i noticed in the corner all by himself was a man reading. i didn't know who he was, but i didn't mind him there because he was obviously enjoying the place too. i went back to the kitchen with the views of the hills. i think i told someone how much i liked the place. and they said it's for Bellas only. it's a bella place.

2008-04-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

i think this is the most fun i've had at madera ever. we got to do it all.
a little port tasting on friday.

chit-chatting on a pale blue blanket under almond trees on saturday.

a major, major clown sighting at dinner.

after-dinner port and chocolate (er, sorry about that lead) on a hotel comforter probably last cleaned in 1973.

searching for pigs on sunday and finding none.

getting locked out and looking for ex-cons to break in.

calling lilly's cell phone and getting the message that Laura is not available and hearing lilly say "that is because I am sitting right here."

finding infinite lilly logic in that.

i even got to do my bucking bronco interpretive dance upon the bike.

thank you Linda and Soni for instantly turning around to check on me and Pam Davis who I took out when my front wheel hit a pothole. Pam was very gracious and rode off (with one very firm butt cheek exposed) with linda and Soni but their races were over.

so sorry ladies.

other bellas raced on and did very, very well!

2008-03-31T19:50:00.000-07:00

we went to L.A. this weekend and of course i left something behind. it seems i must lose one item a day. and that's a good day. i left behind the power supply for my work computer. i had no juice left in the machine and the computer store on campus wanted $75 for a new one.
no way jose! i'm getting linda's 96 year old stepmom, faye, off her easy chair and down to the post office tout suite.

she's 90 frickin six and still drives. she drove us to Baker's Square. she's got a pontiac or some such soul sister kind of car. it's in perfect condition except for the roof fabric that hangs in big bulging blisters above your head. there's not much room in the back seat with her walker and AARP mags. i read a very interesting article about michael j. fox during our drive to baker's square which we all fortunately survived considering she says she just aims between the yellow and white lines.

jeez, i hope she makes it to the post office okay.

we bought her dinner. fettucini something. looked okay to me. i wanted a sample but i feared faye might immobilize my hand with a fork if i poked at her plate like i did with linda's chinese chicken salad which was okay except she wanted crunchy chinese noodles and got rice. still it went well with the chilled cabernet and faye's foot abscess talk.

but i do like faye. she's got a good sense of humor and a great memory. but boy can she let 'em rip. not a little pufffft like my dear aunt margaret. no these are big nor'easter farts that blow from the bedroom, down the hallway and finally die out in the kitchen. the kind that woke me from my Jeopardy stupor on the couch.

earlier in the day faye told linda that she'd had a dream about her father. she saw him in the bowling alley, walking in with his bowling ball. and she started to cry in front of linda. we took her out to her favorite messican restaurant for a margarita and a wet burrito. we wanted a good top shelf and got a shot of grand marnier on the side which she didn't want and which we quickly drank. she didn't talk much through dinner and i felt maybe she was still a little sad.

"how's your dinner faye?"
"better than last night's."

she ate it all. we got ready to leave. i offered her a stack of napkins which she snapped up instantly. she stuffed them in her purse, then reached for the tortilla chips and lifted them by the wax paper and tipped them in her purse too. i just might love this lady.

i hope she sends my adapter soon.

2008-03-20T07:31:00.000-07:00

we rounded up all the loose change in our place and exchanged it for bills. $120 smackers it was. linda poured it into a machine at the bank that does all the counting and sorting for FREE.

driving out of the bank parking lot, i was admiring the pretty blossoms drifting across the ground like a flurry of snowflakes, when i noticed something even prettier -- a twenty flapping in the wind.

get out! get it! i cried. look for more! look for more! i shouted. greed is not pretty.

i did an interval along a beautiful winding road and asked myself for twenty minutes why am i doing this? i thought it'd be much more fun just riding along admiring the beauty but the legs kept going do it! do it! intervals are not pretty. however, there is something i like about them. the finite pain. the sense of accomplishment.

the gnocchi with brown butter sauce and mushrooms as a reward.

i found linda further down the road with the iPhone -- when is she ever without that thing? she holds it inches from her nose at night, runs her fingertip up and down the screen. she reminds me of Tom Cruise in that movie where he moves screens back and forth in front of him like he's conducting. only it's just linda's one index finger that does all the moving. it moves very fast that little finger.

i'd like to drop it in the toilet. did I say that? why yes i did.

on we rode. we sprinted for county lines. we inhaled the scent of cut grass in the wind. she talked to me from two bike lengths ahead, as is her way. i can't hear you, I shouted but she didn't hear that either. she rambled on. farm trucks and Cadillacs roared past us.

life is so very pretty. aged manure, even if it's free, is not.

2008-03-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

what a lovely surprise came in the mail today from Flandria!

cute little wrapped samples of her raw foods. tasty granola bars, kong cookies, a garlic pumpkin seed mix, crunchy crackers.

thank you!

2008-03-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

we were going to go to Bariani and Landpark. it just didn't happen.

so we suited up and took advantage
of the beauty around us.

oh my god, it's like a big nature competition out there with trees trying to outdo the next. they're throwing out their very best blossoms. you can do that? okay well look at this.

come here little bee. come here little buggie.

take a look at what i got.

that's nothing, take a look at this!

we had to stop on our bike ride several times just to try and capture all the beauty. and we never quite could. the iPhone cannot do nature justice. and in the back of my mind i was thinking some people never got to experience this day. this very day. it makes me sad, but i'm trying not to be sad but to appreciate.

corny but it's really an art, i think, being happy, enjoying life.

and it takes effort like intervals. focus. focus on the good. let the bad stuff go. and lots of practice. and you can't just go sit on a beach and stare out at the ocean and think, i've got this happiness thing down. no, no, no you gotta test yourself.

go shopping in the Berkeley Bowl at lunch. perfect test. try and feel happiness as a woman jams up the produce aisle sniffing a melon. not so easy. try and feel the wonder of the universe as you watch a kid pick his nose then stick his fingers into the olive bar. no walk in the park on a sunny day.

and sometimes life has a funny way of tricking you into lightening up, relaxing. the horn on my toyota pickup went caput a couple of weeks ago. i can't tell you how many times i've wanted to lay on that thing and couldn't. and so yesterday, there i sat while this bozo in a Volvo -- always a freaking Volvo -- sat at a green light not moving. we both just sat there in the glorious sunshine, bees a buzzing, trees showing off, still as can be. perfect test. i exhaled. i waited. finally we moved. who knows. maybe if i'd a honked my horn we would have moved off faster and got rammed by a semi. see -- there's a happy thought. i'm getting better every day.

for dingo

2008-03-02T17:04:00.001-08:00

say again?

2008-02-28T07:45:00.000-08:00

Bush at a White House news conference:

"I know there's a lot of, here in Washington people are trying to — stimulus package two — and all that stuff. Why don't we let stimulus package one, which seemed like a good idea at the time, have a chance to kick in?"

Asked about American consumers having to pay $4 for a gallon of gas once the summer driving season arrives, Bush said:

"That's interesting. I hadn't heard that. ... I know it's high now."

2008-02-20T15:26:00.000-08:00

2008-02-16T22:04:00.000-08:00

another day, another training ride...

2008-02-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

it's amazing what crap people put up for sale on craigslist and the crappier pics they take of them.

caption reads: NO SCRATCHES. WHITE BOARD SHOWN IN PHOTO ON THE LEFT

$150 smackers they want for the white board on the left, not the right, the left.

better move fast before this one goes!

"Very useful space efficient, real wooden shelf($29)"

and what's with that price?

this is craigslist, not Macy's

i may just have to get this bar cart for ippoc.

i could wheel our mojitos down the hallway to her.

how about that background?

oh lordy, lordy what's for sale in this mess of a photo?

i'm guessing it's the big blue thing.

something white and thin.

in case you're not clear on what you can put in a storage cabinet...

there's always,

always a few sideways pics.

luv them!

maybe not the best way to advertise a couch...

2008-02-12T08:02:00.000-08:00

linda sent me these pics to post...the pics arrived numbered in my inbox.

soon after their arrival (7:40 am) i received a call that i should post them.

okay.

i will stop working (a rare moment at work)
and blog for linda.

(just got a call from linda asking why these photos are not up yet.)

And here is the caption that I am to put with photo #2

"A walk in the park on a beautiful Tuesday morning..."

linda's nicer than me. I would have put:

"A walk in the park wearing my bright pink comforter on a beautiful Tuesday morning..."

photo #3 in my opinion is a wee bit...er...dark.

i'm very suprised linda is not in front of one of those cameras

linda loves to be on camera.

see our militant anti-military neighbors greet the new day.

Sorry, linda's caption:

"I love Berkeley!"

when Bellas go on a training ride...

2008-02-11T07:11:00.001-08:00

why have this?

when you can have this!

2008-01-29T08:01:00.001-08:00

i've been thinking a lot lately about the joy of just riding my bike without considering heart rates, intervals, racing.

just riding along relaxing like i did in college. escaping from the frisbees banging against my door, my roommate's ever present sorority sisters, my suitemate barging in, spoon in hand, requesting access to her tub of frozen cool whip stored in our frig because she didn't trust herself to store it in her own.

i would take the back stairs down to the bike rack and ride the nice long winding path from Isla Vista to Santa Barbara with my headphones on. i'd listen to al jarreau

mornin little cheerios, mornin sister Oriole, Did I tell you everything is fine, in my mind.

i know -- very gey.

and everything was fine and gay as long as i was rolling along on my old bike with the worn leather saddle that fit my rump just perfectly.

carbo loading

2008-01-18T16:45:00.001-08:00

here we are carbo loading for the training camp.

this is margarita #1

and this is margarita #2

and this is what we ate.

oy

we didn't recommend the food to Andrea and Patrick.

After margarita #2 we suggested to Andrea and Patrick a couple of other places for dinner including

The Luffa Farm.

We showed Patrick the tiny flier from the hotel. He opened it up and looked at it.

I don't think this is a restaurant, he said.

Turns out the Luffa Farm is some kinda spa. Okay, don't go to the Luffa Farm for dinner.

Go for a bath fizzler, don't go for food.

p.s. we're in 129.

2008-01-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

i am pre-menstrual. i can feel it.

i just threw a hissy fit. linda likes to use the washer as her personal laundry basket. she gets undressed in the kitchen and tosses everything inside. by the time i get to it, it's 3/4 full, no room for my shit. well i would have none of it today. i yanked her stuff out and threw it on the kitchen floor to make room for my stuff.

"this is coming out!" i said.
"and this!"
"and this!"

(a truly good fit requires plenty of good narration.)

she told me to put it all back in. she thinks i put it all back. well, i did not. and it feels good.

and i feel like eating everything in sight right now. did you know that when you are premenstual you can eat whatever you want and you won't gain weight? it's true. my sister said so.

scientifically, it's cuz your body is working hard and doing all this extra shit. it needs whatever it can get. scones, just f-ing eat'm. don't even worry.

although sometimes after my second cornmeal cherry scone from the cheeseboard i think, woah, steady there. if i'm at work when this voice of moderation hits, i'll scrunch up the scone in its wax-paper sack until it returns to its origninal dough state. and then i'll toss it in my wastepaper basket by my desk. smack my hands and be done with it. i'm in control.

then i'll eye it, just sitting there.

of course, you don't want co-workers seeing you eating from the trash can. although, i think mine would take it in stride.

"oh there's what's her name, eating from the trash again."
"what is her name?"

and while i'm at i want to add that i hate o.b. tampons. hate'm. hate that little plastic wrapper that gets some fierce static charge and will not let go. let go little wrapper. away with you. be gone! but it just clings on to the tip of my finger no matter how hard i shake.

okay, the little woman is up. the laundry is done. time to make dinner.

oh, that's a good one.

2008-01-04T07:32:00.000-08:00

looking out the window by my desk this rainy morning.

i wish it would stay like this, dark and quiet, but soon someone comes in and switches on every light in the place.

and then i have to start looking like i'm working, which is very exhausting.

so happy it's friday.

daisy's 2008 resolution: part 2

2008-01-02T20:07:00.001-08:00

best viewed with the sound off.

2008-01-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

me and linda playing in the park.

pic by my sister, deney.

we look like a couple of trolls.

2007-12-31T09:13:00.000-08:00

i have 30 mins to write this post. gotta go pick up linda at the laundry.

our beloved orange cat left us a present on the bed.

a round moist circular present and being the overly fastidious people we are, we left the pee infused blankets in a pile on the floor for, oh, a few days.

daisy even took to napping on them. but one cannot start the new year with cat piddle smelling up the place.

i'm also making a trifle for the new year's eve party. i've never made a trifle. my mother has and i asked her how to make one. she started giving me directions over the phone.

"For the first layer.." she began.

i found a video online. i made some custard but it didn't thicken so i called her. turns out i was using british custard. brits don't like their custards hard.

i told her how i was making it.

"only one layer, huh?" she said.

"just the one layer." we've got cat piddle to clean, mummy.

i'm a little sad the vacation days are coming to an end. time to go back to the yob. the wonderful yob. ack. i've been having dreams, bad, disturbing dreams where i punch people and find myself wandering through china town naked, wearing nothing but a long scarf and holding a purse. a purse -- very disturbing stuff.

but i must go now, because linda's waiting.

happy new year!

2007-12-20T12:40:00.001-08:00

linda likes to say that Daisy is president of the math club and i'm the secretary. same for the geography club by which she means to say that i'm no good at math and finding places.

i'm not sure i entirely agree but what do i know? not a lot.

the other day on our ride with lilly the clouds were starting to turn dark, we felt a drop of rain and so linda started calculating: speed over distance divided by velocity multiplied by circumference.

i was thinking pastry divided by butter multiplied by two, let's keep going. and besides, i thought the clouds looked pretty the way they were swirling, streaked silver and gray.

linda said, let's calculate how long it'll take to get back.
lilly rode up along side me.
she said,what's she asking?
i said, she wants help calculating
we looked at each other. we don't do calculations we said.

we could hear her up ahead "that's half an hour plus twenty, if we go at..."

Daisy can be president of the math, geography and whatever else club she wants. i'm declaring myself officially dense. there you have it, no more working on the bright look, no more hiding.

i don't get what you're getting at and i'm gonna let you know.

like the meeting i was in yesterday. put me in a terrible funk. it was a small group of three people, myself included, meaning i was part of the three people, so there weren't four, just three.

oh sorry, i'm dense not you.
i forgot.

i told linda how i got lost in the conversation. couldn't follow what they were discussing.

"well what were they discussing?" she asked.
this stumped me. should i know this?
"right," linda said, quickly, "sorry."

is this contagious?

anyhow, during the meeting, which i vaguely recall was about copyright infringements and student downloads of music, i sensed a general turning away from me, a kind of who invited stupido sensation as they were talking directly to one another, avoiding me.

sensing this, i would awake from my stupor and interject what i thought were meaningful interjections.

"Excuse me, is that Catherine with a 'c' or a 'k'?"

i had my laptop open which i hoped would make up for my dissociative state, the drool pooling in the corner of my mouth.

i tried to stay focused. DMCA someone said. i typed the letters into the laptop. I should know what DMCA is, i thought to myself.

was it a rap group? my head began to bob in my white-girl imitation of dancing. don't do that a voice said. perhaps linda's.

then, one of the three of us, certainly not me, stated, "a non-resident, non-student, using a non-wireless connection, in the resident halls..." which just completely threw me.

too many nons for this brain. nons make my brain do yoga. i have to take out the nons, make them non-nons and, well, fuck it. it was time to cover my tracks, announce my presence.

think. think.

"DMCA -- Digital Millenium Copyright Act!" i said.

now that got their non-non-attention.

2007-12-04T18:29:00.001-08:00

this picture just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy!

2007-12-04T09:11:00.001-08:00

need something to make me smile today.

here we go:

believe it or not, that's ippoc in there!

okay, i feel better.

can i go home now?

2007-11-30T08:40:00.000-08:00

linda took this picture last night in walgreens. i didn't know dwight yoakam was into packaged food items but then i don't know much about him.

i read sharon stone said that kissing him was like eating a dirt sandwich which is a pretty nasty thing to say, i think; but i've never kissed him.

and i don't think i will be eating his chicken lickins anytime soon. sorry deewight.

my food du jour is pumpkin muffins. i'm growing little ones on my hips.

linda and i had two drinks apiece last night which wasn't smart. one drink is good. two is like trying to enhance heaven. we watched the tour of cali when we got home. somehow the whole crash thing in santa rosa and giving everyone the same time never really sunk in before.

last night i wouldn't shut up. i was annoying myself. "that's just so pathetic," I kept saying. that's reeediculous.

i'm slow to catch on. i sometimes see it in peoples eyes. they look at me like, "ooh you're not as bright as you look," because i've worked very hard on my bright look.

i'm working on it right now.

i had this task at work to add photos of people's mugs to our staff site. click on a link, you see a different mug. i was dreading the part about going up to strangers and asking them if i could take a picture of their mug. i think the fact that i refer to co-works as strangers says a lot about my not so rapid ascent up the corporate ladder.

hey, has anyone seen a ladder around here?

so i made myself do it. i hung my camera around my neck and set out. i avoided bigwigs and people who i generally avoid in general...which is about 75% of staff.

i have a few problems.

they got very serious about which mug they wanted me to shoot. they explained the history of their mugs, decided on one mug then swapped it for another, dug around in drawers for better looking mugs.

i went up to this one guy and asked if he had a coffee mug that i could take a picture of. "nope" he said and turned away.

asshole i thought and strode off. ( increasing my percentage to 76%). then near the end of the photoshoot, he appears in the hallway walking toward me, four mugs hanging off his fingers. apparently, he'd been confused by my request ( been working very, very hard on his bright look too). and he wants me to shoot them all.

his mugs are all pretty boring. this was the best.

this is my favorite.

2007-11-06T18:09:00.000-08:00

they've moved people around at my job. purchasing has been moved to banway. the service desk is down on shattuck.

the business and finance team has been moved to my floor.

and, lordy, lordy, they're really smelling up the place. i don't mean a subtle touch of perfume on the neck, a delicate dab on the wrist. no, what i'm smelling wafting from the breakroom to the distribution center appears to have been applied with a leaf blower.

i passed by business and finance the other day and couldn't believe my eyes. a woman spritzed herself in her cube creating a mushroom cloud of perfume rising upward and onward, moving off to rain its smelly fallout across the floor.

isn't this kind of behavior illegal in Berkeley?

later, i walked into the bathroom and caught a whiff. a horrid floral sweet odor like gardenias dipped in caramel then sprinkled with chocolate morsels. a tooth hurting odor. i suspected the heavy applicator from business and finance. so i peeked under the stall. muddy tennis shoes with mis-matched laces -- Bernie from Application Services. not really a perfume sort -- perhaps a little Brut aftershave under the pits, but not this.

When she left, I went about my business, leaving my own devastating bouquet behind, washed my hands, and then saw the source of the stink sitting above the paper towel dispenser (which is always stocked so tightly and you have to tug so hard that the paper towel gets torn into tiny bite-sized pieces -- which is whole 'nother blog.)

there it stood. a tiny glass vase, no bigger than my hand, filled with a honey colored oil with long thin tooth-pick like things soaking in the stuff. I removed one toothpick thingy and ran it under my nose. the scent was as delicate as a sledgehammer and brought back memories of every Motel Six room between here and Fresno trying to pass itself off as non-smoking.

how foul, i said to myself which i am certain is not the response Susie (or any of the other business and finance natural odor haters) probably expected.

my hand twitched to chuck that stinky thing into the waste along with the mounds of damp and shredded paper towels, but i thought no. that would be wrong. people's feelings will get hurt. and the stench will surely soak into the paper towel and spread more easily. best to leave it where it is.

that night while linda was tapping on her new iPhone (the cause of our near breakup, but that too can wait) i said, "business and finance is stinking up the place".

"hmmm," she said which is her standard non-response. she didn't look up. continued tapping with her fingertip. tap. tap.

"really stinks"

tap. tap. tap.

tap.

i have paranoid tendencies, but ever since the iPhone came into the house, i've been feeling a little less interesting. i mean, who can compete with all that?

anyhow, i went on about the stink and such. i may have touched upon my issues with the jammed paper-towel dispenser. and still nothing. tap. tap. tap.

finally, i just said "i'm gonna fucking chuck that thing in the garbage."

of course meaning the perfume dispenser in the 2nd floor toilet. not the iPhone

"do it," she said.

tap. tap. tap.

our daisy

2007-10-20T22:48:00.000-07:00

aka: ~~fatness~~ fluffy

2007-10-18T00:04:00.000-07:00

i saw this ad in Australia.

supposedly, it's very effective at making men ponder their driving habits.

and now on a completely other note. i hate those stupid fliers one finds rubberbanded (new verb) to one's front door knob. just as i was leaving the house after lunch one of the rubberbanderers was walking down the steps having left his little deposit of waste for me. a free slice of pizza with a carpet cleaning or something or other.

"don't leave this junk on my doorstep," i said to the man. he had a depressed way about him. it showed in his clothing. no consideration to color or style or elastication. loose shorts hanging low on the hips. tube socks up to the knee.

"hey, i make $5 bucks an hour," he said, "don't give me any of your shit."

well, okay. go on your merry way. peace be with you, my brother. and your rubberbands.

ordinarily, though, i don't mind a good fight with a stranger. gives me a chance to let off some steam, open up the lungs a bit.

plus i find, if i don't swear at people on a frequent basis, i get rusty and out-of-date. i catch myself saying things like "piss off you wuss" or "stuff it doofus."

old lady swearing. that's what that is.

gotta keep sharp. practice, practice, practice. that's my motto.

one time i jumped the gun at a four way stop and a woman in a brand new mustang blared her horn at me.

i hadn't been in a good fight for a while so i flipped her off and drove on towards Bettys to get one of their berry scones. i like them warm, just out of the oven.

anyhow, she tailed me all around 4th street, up Oxford, down University. i tried to ditch her in a parking lot. slide in and be all inconspicuous in my 1994 pick-up next to the rows of 4th street SUV caddy's and beemers.

she pulled up behind me. I locked my door. she slammed her door and headed my way.

i took out my cell. i hoped she couldn't see it wasn't charged.

"i'll kick your skinny white ass, bitch," she said and hit my side window. i pretended to dial. poking at the keys elaborately until she walked away. i watched her in my rear view mirror. she was dressed up, like she was on her way to work. so was i but it wasn't so obvious from what i was wearing.

as i drove off, i kept checking for the mustang. i drove around and around, making sure no one was following me.

a good fight gone terribly wrong.

i knew it was just a figure of speech -- skinny white ass -- but it made me think maybe i really didn't need the scone.

sierra point silliness and sufferage

2007-10-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

lauren looking pretty at ease before the beebeebees race.

sabine gave me excellent pointers
and felt up my tires.

hi steven!

and hi there katrina.

bunny is focused.

Linda's first cross race!

go pete!

Linda "I-don't-like-dirt-and-hills".

a little flower power.

2007-09-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

bought some lovely pink gel tape to re-do my bars. ippoc sweetly offers to redo my tape.

here's one view...something look a little odd?

here's another angle

i think she's slightly wacked out from her massage today.

am i right?

a day at bondi beach

2007-09-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

we took a ferry out to this bay and sat and had a coke and a coffee. on the ferry ride back into Sydney it poured and was so windy i had to remove my Paris Hilton glasses.

a little fun with cameras mirrors and weird bathroom art at Bondi...

for your Friday viewing pleasure...

2007-09-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

Tasmanian weather is a bit like Scotland

Port Arthur in Tasmania...not a pretty story to tell of this town.

Oldest bridge in Australia located in Richmond another town with a not so nice history.

Nice walking and mountain biking trail on Mt. Wellington near Hobart in Tasmania

This looks like a rat, but it really is a kangaroo...

There is a baby in that pouch

Baby wombat not fond of the rain and she looks a lot like Daisy

Two little baby devils

The Sydney Opera house and us

For the doggie people out there...turn your heads please...

please may i have some more....

2007-09-07T12:31:00.001-07:00

pics all out of order...i have 3 mins 52 seconds...

i like these little buggers.

this restaurant needs to hire a new ad agency...the ants just don't work for us

can you spot the kuala? did you know that they are not kuala bears, they are just kualas which mean "don't drink"...which must be an awful awful thing...and ippoc who is hovering tells me they are not spelled kuala...oh well, now they are

and the KOALA with the baby was so dang cute...

koala paparazzi...not so cute...but we are in there too

and we would have taken pics of the little penguins too but that was not allowed. we went on the penguin plus tour and got to sit on a private platform out by the beach until the sunset. it was very cold and we were all huddled waiting for them to appear out of the water. they wait until darkness and band together in a little groups for protection. they are the smallest penguins in the world at a foot high. there can be hundreds. and they are so wiped from all their fishing and feeding and penguin swimming that they waddle along the sand and trampled grass (from their endless commutes) to their burrows that some just fall flat on their penguin faces. then they get right up and waddle some more.

south pacific holiday

2007-09-03T07:32:00.001-07:00

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

clearly daisy's diet is not working.

2007-08-23T14:34:00.001-07:00

this is pretty much me in meetings...

2007-08-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

today i went running up at strawberry canyon. it's a quick hop skip and a jump from my cubicle to my car to the trails.

very dangerous in these tedious times in the ol' yob.

before i went running, i worked on a little short story. i've been working on it for some time now. i keep saying oh f-it, it's as good as it's gonna get, then i take it out and read it and think, oh no that will never do. i date each version. some versions go back to 2005. can't say i haven't tried with this one.

after my three hour creative writing session, i thought, my car needs a wash. so, i walked home, tried to get daisy out from under the bed by throwing some kibble her way but alas no, she stayed there crouching by my rollers.

gave the piece of shit (the car, not our lovely Daisy) a good scrubbin. i think, like the story, it was last polished in 2005. i like washing the car, and wonder why i don't do it more often. still, it's never comes out as shiny as i expect it to after all the hard effort...such is life.

so up to the trails i go. there's a nice small parking space at the bottom of the trails. enough for about ten cars. i'm lucky today and get a spot. i undress in the front seat of the car and pull on my running gear: linda's WNBA shorts that could use some elastic around the waist, a velopromo tee-shirt, i think from 2005, and a pair of running shoes that are probably better suited to a basketball court or a nursing ward. linda think's they're ugly and i agree, but for 14.95, you don't get style and functionality -- you get ugly.

i'm not in running shape. i feel my ass jiggle instantly. not a good feeling. but i love running. well, i really shouldn't call what i'm doing running. it's more like trotting, or slopping. i make no attempt to kick up my legs or pump my arms. i just sort of chug along. and unlike bike riding i don't give a hoot who passes me as long as they do it quickly and leave me alone to the quiet of nature. and unlike bike riding i find myself nodding off, losing sense of time and space and i become completely relaxed. it's a great feeling. sorta like being stoned but without the cravings or the dry mouth.

but then i'm enjoying it so much, i start thinking how can i make this even better. maybe i'll go and buy myself a nicer jogging bra, perhaps a tank-top...i'm almost starting to envision myself entering a marathon when i have to tell myself -- stop, cuz I know all those things will change this. pretty soon i'll start timing myself, picking up speed when someone passes, carrying (egads, linda's garmin). no, that'll change everything. somethings i don't want to work at.

2007-08-13T14:26:00.000-07:00

so so bored at work lately...

around this time of the day, i often find myself looking at kitties up for adoption at the various kennels around town. i would like to save them all and take them home with me.

i think I would definitely like to go out drinking with this one. your basic party cat.

uh-uh.

i would probably confess my sins to this one.

and i would be forgiven instantly.

this one scares me just a wee bit.

reminds me of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

i don't know about this one. i think he's smacked his head into one too many walls. there just might be some brain damage going on in there. don't you think?

Battle at Kruger

2007-08-10T08:00:00.001-07:00

he's bored and out of netflix...

2007-08-02T08:41:00.001-07:00

2007-07-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

after the race today me and some Bellas were sitting on some rocks eating burgers. we got to talking about underpants. seems a certain Bella sometimes puts her leg through the wrong hole and ends up wearing the underpants that way till she notices something's not quite in order. and then linda announces that i flip my underpants inside out to get extra mileage --which is so not true and i wished she'd stop telling people this. then linda tells us how she was at a meeting one day and looked down at her cargo pants and wondered how come the back pockets were in the front, sitting on her belly. so from there we naturally started talking personality types and how bike racers are pretty much Type A personalities. very focused, driven to perfection and perhaps slightly overly aggressive. at this point, the Bella with the misaligned underpants announced she wasn't a type A which, not to be unkind or anything, wasn't a stop-the-presses kind of statement. and i have to admit i'm not a type A either, more of a Type P, or perhaps even a W, far from the A action, near the alphabet rump. linda's more of a type A and she definitely gets things done. we travelled to Rome a few years ago. we toured the sistine chapel -- let's just say, i got a little winded from the pace she was setting. but i like this about her. and it's good for me. but still sometimes, i think my P-ness doesn't fit well with the bike racing. i mean i can be aggressive and fight for a wheel and all that but come May (which is usually the end of my season which starts late April) my feeble A imitation starts to crumple. the round edges of the P start to appear and pretty soon, i'm thinking wouldn't it be nice to go right at the bottom of this hill where the man in the orange vest is flagging everyone to the left. and that's where i'm at right now. i want to put the heart rate monitor away, stuff that damn trainer under the bed with the dried up cat barf and call it a season. i want to go on long lazy bike rides and not think about competition or placings. i want to be one with the P.

2007-07-26T11:01:00.000-07:00

this post has a lot to do with cat barf, and nothing to do with the TdF

i'm just gonna say it. i am fed up with the stuff. it's rampant in our home. just when i think i've cleaned it all up, there it is again -- a chunky gob in the middle of the carpet, a runny, sticky sliminess on the bottom of my foot. we have a rule, linda and I, "you see, it you clean it." but she's not much help in the matter.

"did you get that spot over there? and there? and there?" she asks lazily as i am down on my hands and knees with paper towel and lysol.

what to do? i don't really know. i mean is it really possible to stop cats from barfing? even if i catch minnie mid-hurl and toss him off a newly cleaned bedspread to the safety of the hardwood floor, he'll still go right on barfing. and once he's upchucked a perfectly good 1/2 can of organic salmon and caviar wet-food and you say, "no, minnie! no! don't barf. barfing is bad!" he doesn't get it. he'll go right ahead and do it the next time underneath the bed where i can't reach it easily. and sure i could clean it up right then, but why, why? when it'll dry up on its own. does that make me part of the problem? i wonder.

so maybe, there's really no stopping them. i suppose i could monitor them all day long and make sure they don't barf. i could follow daisy from the bed to the chair, from the chair to the bed, from the bed to the chair but that's not right. and dull. or, i could hide around the corner and sneak up on them when they least expect it, to catch them in the act - gagging, drooling a little pre-barf spittle (as is their way). but daisy is delicate. so very delicate. fluff scares her. and minnie is old and pissy. he's likely to latch onto my leg if i jump out at him unexpected like that.

i suspect there's just no way to stop the barfing. it's a shame really.

Enablers?

2007-07-24T18:56:00.000-07:00

"Well he's wonderful isn't he?"

"He is riding like a man possessed today."

"A very popular man - everybody loves a fighter."

"That's not knowing him. Not knowing the courage that he shows."

"He did everything right for the Tour de France this year."

"So dedicated has been his approach this year; that's why he won't give up."

"They care about what this man has done for the sport!"

"The man who refuses to die."

2007-07-17T20:26:00.001-07:00

linda and I had a hard, hard ride today. We did three, six minute hard efforts up hill. five four minute flat efforts. seven 30 second sprints into the wind and then....

ha, right. we got on our bikes, rode half a block then said let's go have a mojito.

it's that time of the year. for me at least. so hard to think about training.

August and all the next months are my all time favorite months of the year. there's a moment when I can feel fall coming. it's the way a jet sounds in the sky, or the shadow on the pavement...love, love it.

I know, it's only July.
Linda was zonked out cold tonight. C-O-L-D. snoring her snores. but all I had to say was "Vino!" and she got her little kazahk ass out of bed and stumbled to the tv. she wanted to see him cry.

boo-hoo.

i ate half a bar of chocolate in little tiny bites tonight. i think it's better if you eat it like that. it gets dispersed more evenly then. doesn't go all to the ass. some's gone to my elbow. i can feel it.

what else?

I made fava bean pasta sauce last night. What a dreadful meal. Linda was so hungry she ate it and then put her plate in the sink and said, "you trying to kill us?" and walked off.

now there's gratitude for ya.

2007-06-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

i'm sitting here with my coffee while linda reads blogs. no racing for us today. she's out-loud thinking and flying high from the coffee so it's hard to write with her endless blib-blabbing. but i'll try.

there she goes,

"Hmmm..hhh, that makes sense...Oh, that's funny..."

i don't even pretend to listen.

when she posts a response her lips move as she writes. kinda cute.

it's grey and foggy out and i really kind of like it.

"Anyhooo...." that's Linda again. the laptop is balanced on her belly. her hands are curled over the edge.

i went to Andronicos this morning for cat food. i really didn't have any choice because linda wasn't going and minnie was plopping his emaciated orange carcass on my head to get me up.

"oooh...she's got a link..."

no more coffee for Linda.

i pulled on yesterday's (or was it Thursday's?) old clothes and drove me and the manwig down the block through the mist to Telegraph. One car in the parking lot. my eyes were so puffy and caked in eyesnot that it was hard to see all the obnoxious Andronico prices that can stop me in my path and make me say, "you've got to be fucking kidding?"

"The fifth anual West Coast Festival for Highly Sensitive People" she reads "...now there's a fair for you"

so anyhow there i was too gorgeous for words -- commando in last weeks dirty clothes -- and i see this guy at the deli section getting a sandwhich made. who eats a sandwhich at this hour?

i can't help but think to myself, what a buttag shirt that guy ordering the sandwhich is wearing. really pretty hid with pineapples, and hula girls, palm trees, surfboards, leis.

i've got some nerve. i mean i have some clothes that i think of as my "good" clothes simply because they don't have food stains on them. and one shirt, the only way i can only tell the front from back, is by looking for the hole on the right shoulder.

so where do i get the nerve to judge a guy wearing at nicely ironed Hawaiian shirt at 8:00? who knows? probably the same place andronicos gets pricing bing cherries at $4.99 a pound.

anyhow, the room has become oddly quiet now. i think she's coming down.

2007-06-14T20:52:00.001-07:00

i'm in cafe trieste on San Pablo right now. it's 8:53. way past my normal bed time and now that i've dranken me a coffee and eaten $1.25 (bloated Andronico price) worth of chocolate covered cranberries i'm totally whacked out on sugar and caffeine and will surely be up until midnight. Linda is probably out now, sleeping off her $5 margarita as the hookers prowl around her Extended stay retirement home. this is a pretty good cafe. it's got wireless and usually they have a nice band playing jazz or some earthy crunchy accoustic stuff. last night, i liked the music a lot. and so did this guy in the audience. he liked it so much he clapped in the middle of the song. one of those really loud claps from cupping your hands together. the old lady in me wanted to go over and ask him not to clap so loud. but you can't really do that can you?

but now they have some light rock playing and it's way too loud and I might have to leave asap. the lady sitting next to me keeps banging her clog against my foot. her foot really is in my airspace and I don't know why she can't just sit in the middle of the table instead of hanging off the edge of it. she's reading a book that's filled with pictures and she has a really annoying laugh. "HA!" like she has something stuck in her throat. "HA" if she does it one more time i'm doing the Heimlich on her whether she likes it or not. did she just say something to me? don't look up. keep typing. i wish to hell they'd change the radio station. maybe i don't like this cafe. maybe i don't like cafes, after all. tho i do find the noise and distractions good for the writing. if i was at home right now i'd be danging string in front of the kitties or standing in front of the refrigerator wondering, "do i really want a pickle?"

okay, she's talking outloud now. "WOW, Intense. that was just fabulous!" out of the side of my eye, i can see her gazing at the book cover, shaking her head in amazement. "so good," she says. how do people get that way? i mean feeling so free, to speak outloud, say whatever the hell crap they feel like in public? did they learn it at home? did she come from a family of out-loud thinkers, all walking around the house saying whatever came into their heads?

maybe i'm hung up. but in my family, just asking someone to pass the salt at the dinner table could stir up all kinds of shit.

she closes the book, whacks me one more time with her clog and takes her outloud thoughts with her out the door. AND she doesn't even take her plate and cup to the dirty plate tub. i can't imagine just getting up like that. they sell wine here. maybe i want a wine. $8 a glass. i've been watching my pennies. going home for lunch eating dinner at home since Linda's been in Fresno. Suddenly coughing up $8 for a glass of wine seems kind of extravagant. pretty sure that'll change tomorrow.

okay, i'm going home to dangle some string for the kitties. and maybe eat a pickle.

2007-06-12T22:25:00.001-07:00

minnie is blue
he misses you

daisy hasn't a clue
why minnie is blue

i think he's just gonna sit and fret till you come home.

and daisy is just gonna eat.

2007-06-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

i love this picture. it capture all of the sweetness of linda. she did me a big favor this weekend by joining me up at Sattley right before her bidness trip down to Fresno today. she didn't want to go, told me she didn't want to go but I kept trying to register late. finally, she helped me by looking up the right number. i'm so pig headed.

she hates time-trials more than i hate them and i hate them a lot. so it was a stressful trip and really no fun at all. it didn't help that we stayed in the Great Western Saloon in Loyalton about 12 miles from the course. what a stinkhole of a place, tho the people were friendly enough. we ordered two margaritas as soon as we checked in. "do you do top shelf?" linda asked the guy behind the bar who looked like he was the owner "with a splash of Cointreau," she explained. "kwan-what?" he asked. as he poured in some coolant colored mix he felt the bottle with his palm " kinda warm" he said. couldn't wait.

the restaurant had a brownish greyish moldish colored shag carpet covering the floor and a stone fountain that looked like it had been plopped there because whoever was carrying it outside (where it belonged) ran out of energy. no water flowed in it. it just was there, in the middle of the dining floor. perhaps a previous owner's good idea gone bad and forgotten.

we ordered two beers because we weren't feeling anything from the warm margarita engine coolant.

"this place is depressing," linda said.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I wanted to say. tho it's usually no good to say sorry once you're already in purgatory. best to wait until things look up a little. but with a 40k tt the next morning and then a 4 hour drive home before her 4 hour trip to fresNO, there wasn't much looking up on the horizon.

I'd chosen my seat so as not to face the restaurant's far wall/shed area -- the final resting place of empty boxes, aerosal cleaning cans, dusty plastic flowers and a boom box from circa 1973. instead, i stared at the poster on the far right wall. a picture of a hunk of chocolate cake and a can of diet coke. "Eat American" it said.

"remember that poster from last time we were here?" i asked linda who looked small and forlorn sitting across from me. she glanced over her shoulder. "maybe," she said and then, "we're never staying here again."

the menu was a binder of odd pictures of food clipped from magazines like some seventh grade art project. and if any crime had been committed by a customer at the Great Western Saloon in the past twenty years, i would direct detectives to this thing. no need to dust for prints, i turned each page with the tips of my fingers.

"Best dang food you ever had" read a caption beneath a picture of spaghetti. who'd ever clipped the picture must have been in a rush because they'd chopped right through the top of the meatball.

"is the spaghetti sauce homemade?" linda asked the waitress.
"no it's Prego," she said.

later, in our room, i tried not to let anything i'd brought touch anything. i would have put kleenex boxes on my feet and rubber gloves on my hands if i had them. i noticed linda had put a plastic bag under her toiletry bag on the sink counter. and i'm 100% certain there was semen on that bedspread cover, no fibre analysis required. the blinds wouldn't open, the window wouldn't open. it was like we were in an acquarium floating in shag carpet fumes. linda took a shower and went to sleep immediately.

i turned off the lights and turned on the TV, strapped to the ceiling. and we still had a 40k TT to do.

outsourcing my time trial

2007-06-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

any Slovenians want to do it for me?

2007-06-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

I found this article "Outsource Your Chores, Save Your Cash", exceptionally disgusting. Here's a little snippet. Just the thing for lazy ol' Americans:

"When David San Filippo decided to create a tribute video in honor of his sister's wedding, he could have gotten a recommendation from a friend or looked up video editors in the phone book. Instead, he did what big corporations have been doing for more than a decade: sent the work offshore.

On the Internet, Mr. San Filippo located a graphic artist in Romania who agreed to do the whole thing for $59. The result was a splashy two-minute video with a space theme and "Star Wars" soundtrack. It won raves at the wedding.

Offshore outsourcing has transformed the way U.S. companies do business. Now, some early adopters are figuring out how to tap overseas workers for personal tasks. They're turning to a vast talent pool in India, China, Bangladesh and elsewhere for jobs ranging from landscape architecture to kitchen remodeling and math tutoring. They're also outsourcing some surprisingly small jobs, including getting a dress designed, creating address labels for wedding invitations or finding a good deal on a hotel room, for example."

What next?

"Er excuse me Mr. Romanian, can you wipe my butt?"

2007-06-03T22:31:00.000-07:00

if only she hadn't had that budino...

2007-05-22T07:08:00.001-07:00

Women 35+ 2007
(Velo Bella Team: Sabine, Soni, Laura, Sue, Linda)

TT:

In general I consistently suck at TTs. Madera with camelback over the skinsuit -- case in point. I usually have not set my clock, or have forgotten my HR monitor, or have a loose bolt on my tt bars, or i ride off the road into a ditch, or go all out and fry up in the first ten minutes. i have tried listening to my breathing but it's not the best gauge, I find, because usually it tells me to pull over and get off the bike. i like the idea of having someone up ahead of me by thirty seconds. i think that this rabbit might make me go faster. but the rabbit just gets smaller and smaller until a new rabbit appears ahead of me which in turn gets smaller and smaller. but i got me this new light bike this year and glitterboy slapped on some TT bars and tipped them so my back was flattish. and for some unknown reason i managed not to completely suck. i'll take it.

Walker Basin:

i wanted to puke on the drive over to the course. nothing too magnificent. just a few diced carrots, perhaps. it was going to be such a long day, with two stages, requiring much intensity and focus, two things i try avoiding whenever possible. i figured the firestone girls were going to be feisty and aggressive, try something and get away. "uh-uh," Sabine had said the night before, "they're not getting away, uh-uh"
She was so right. in fact it was quite the opposite. they were reacting to our moves all race long. While I sat on Sonia's wheel and did my best dingleberry interpretation, the Bellas attacked and attacked. Soni, followed by Laura, Linda. I never once was in the wind, unless Sonia cut some. I was relieved of all responsibility, all pressure and free to focus on one thing only, preserving the 10 seconds between us and perhaps getting a few more in the sprints. Andrea from Left Coast (soon to be a Bella) would let me in to follow Sonia. Or move to the right of me to protect me from the wind. Linda would ride up next to me and remind me to move up. I'm not great at seeing the big picture in races. At one point, Soni was up the road with Laura Perdew on her wheel. I was riding along, eyes focused on Sonia's ass, when i noticed Janet from MVV was to my left sort of stuck between the center line and me. I thought she wanted Sonia's wheel. "Let her out," Sabine said, and so I let a gap open and sure enough Janet attacked which allowed Sabine to get pulled up to the Soni and Laura. It was so perfect. So every lap while the Bellas attacked and chased, I got pulled along and was set up fresh as a daisy (not ours) to do my bit.

On the last time up the hill, Sabine put in a massive attack and Sonia's ass slipped out of my vision just a bit. I saw an opening up the middle that seemed to be my only chance. Things got a little dicey at this point and I remember thinking, "wow, this is sort of like the last lap diciness." not realizing until I crossed the line that the race was over. I thought we had one more to go! (See above about the big picture). So a splendid team effort.

Hill Climb:

I loved this hill climb. The temp was beautiful, and we were many miles from a dump. The plan was to stay with Sonia, stay at her pace and then when the time was right to have me or Sue get away. I could tell from Sonia's heavy breathing that she was having a hard climb. Still her teammates were setting a steady pace and I just sat in. I looked to my right and there was Triki and looked behind and there was Chechu. What a very nice sight. All around was heavy breathing from the Firestone girls. I listened when Sue came alongside me and not a sound. Oooh, it was going to be a good day. A very good day. And when the road pitched up a bit, Sue smoothly came to the front. She was riding so effortlessly. I said, I'm here. And so she picked it up a little. And then a little more. It was so beautiful. It was like one of Linda's Tour videos (except for the icky Lance part). Unfortunately when I looked back Chechu was gone. Only Janet (MVV) was left. Triki bumped it up a little more and POP she too was gone. I was so delighted. This was Sue's stage and we were going to drill it to the finish. But then she told me to ride on, get time. And that Sue can be VERY persuasive. So I went on. There was Bob blowing his clarinet. Lovely. And then there was the "1 to go" sign. One 'what?' to go I thought and soon discovered it was 1 hundred fucking miles to go -- or so it seemed. I came in first, followed shortly by Triki! So much fun.

Woody:

Excellent riding by all. I had 3mins 45 seconds going into the stage over Sonia Ross in 2nd so I felt a little bit of the pressure was off. I just needed to get through it without any mishaps.

It was so good seeing Linda get over those climbs and be there to help slow the descents. Soni and Sabine did some great pacing up the climb, hard enough to get the Firestone girls to breathing deep but still keeping the group together. On the second lap before the dirt right turn, we were all chit-chatting and being nicey-nicey. I was looking forward to finishing, having one of Miss Mary's boiled eggs and maybe some totellini when WAM! Julie Kaplan blazed to the front. My first thought was no! don't make it hard! Then, WAM Sabine was gone with her. All the Firestone girls were at the front and the nicey-nicey went out the window. I folded up my napkin and put my head down to make sure I wasn't dropped. Poor Janet had her work cut out for her and strung it out. I didn't know about her seeing Ryan and Tracie up ahead, but the pace slowed as Janet was surrounded by Firestone. On the rollers to the finish I was happy to see Sue get a gap and keep it going. And Janet too. I watched Sonia put in a super hard effort to close the gap on Janet but it wasn't to be. (There's some Karma in Janet getting back those 11 seconds, I believe.) When I crossed the line I rolled down the hill to find out that Sabine had won the stage and Sue took second place (and moved to fourth overall). Aaah, a perfect ending.

2007-05-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

i have no photos but a gazillion images in my head.

Jeff out by the car changing my casette, slapping on time-trial bars, and riding on my small 49cm frame by the La Quinta parking lot lights. Miss Mary outside by the truck unloading something heavy in the wee hours of the morning while i slowly made my way to room 326 to consume breakfast foods she'd prepared and laid out for all of us to eat by 5:30 a.m. Tyler with a purple spritzer before the hill climb spritzing whichever body part we offered to him, pinning numbers, setting up trainers, loading bikes back into the truck. Michael massaging rider's legs, running through the parking lot for spare wheels, offering race tactics, taking photos of results with his camera, cruising by in Sputnik and telling the team to bring back a dangerous break in the last lap.

you gave us the winning edge. THANK YOU.

2007-05-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

yeah, well...Linda's gonna do Kern for the 11th year in a row!

2007-05-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

that garzelli sure is pretty...

but does anyone else see a certain similarity...

2007-05-09T12:40:00.000-07:00

Lauren got me thinking....

sunnyvale 1973. meryl and i would practice the art of stealing. i'd go over to her house on Ticonderoga. her dad was usually outside leaning against the car having a smoke while Meryl's mother , Bobby Bernstein, was somewhere in the house screeching "Meryl have you picked up the dogshit in the yard yet?" Seemed like everytime i visited Meryl, she was out back picking up dogshit as her mother, tethered by the phone cord, wandered up and down the halls with a drink in her hand watching Meryl as she picked up the dogshit. They had this big black dog with long fluffy hair that produced an awful lot of the stuff, it seemed.

Meryl liked to point out the really disgusting turds with the worms. "Meryl stop playing with the dogshit and pick it up for Christ's sake!" her mother would screech from the kitchen.

after picking up dogshit we'd go in her bedroom and lay out things on her bed and practice stealing. she'd play the shopkeeper and pretend to be ringing up items at the cash register by her tv at the end of the bed. i'd wander around the edge of the bed and when Meryl pretended to be helping a customer, i'd grab a pen, or her hairbrush and try to shove it in my pocket or up under my sweater before meryl looked back.

if she caught me she'd holler "thief! call the cops! she's stealing!" so loud her mother would hang up the phone and come pound on Meryl's locked bedroom door,

"Meryl Bernstein open this door at once!" her mother shouted while i ran around her room putting things back in place. and man everything had a place. "not there, stupid!" Meryl would mouth and i'd scramble to place her hairbrush next to the mirror on her nighttable.

"Come on in Bobby," Meryl would say finally when we were both seated on the edge of the bed.
"You want me to call your father?" her mother would ask, hands on her hips. her hair big, so big. ice tinkling in her tumbler.
"No bobby, i don't want you to call my father," Meryl would say and then turn to me and ask. "Do you want Bobby to call my father?"

on my way out the front door, her dad would still be there smoking, leaning against his car. "see ya," i'd say. he'd just nodd, not saying anything, blowing smoky air from his lungs like an exhaust pipe.

i got fed up with meryl and her mom. i didn't see how our practice sessions were helping. in the real world people didn't pretend to be looking away then suddenly screech their heads off for the cops if they suspected you were stealing.

no, in the real world, like at the pharmacy on the corner of Mary and Washington if they thought you were stealing they'd come over to you and say, "Can i help you find something, miss?" or "Are you ready to pay for that keychain i miss." a whole lot kinder than meryl and her mother. and a lot less noisy.

my brother, fraser, really perfected the art though. he was in advanced placement classes and i wasn't, even though we were only eleven months apart in age.

"Look right over there," he told me one day, as we were standing in Safeway by the checkers. "Tell me what do you see?"
i wished i was in advanced placement right then. I could feel my face burning with not knowing the right answer.
"Look!" he said and yanked my head to the right toward the produce section. I looked.
"I dunno, cabbages?"
"No dummy. Can you see the candy rack from here? Can you see the kid in front of the candy rack?"
"No, just cabbage."
"Exactly!" he said. "It's all free for the taking,"
"But I don't want any cabbage, " I said.
I really didn't. But that's exactly why i wasn't in advanced placement and he was.

Out of view of the checkers we loaded up: Abba Zabas, Big Hunks, Charleston Chews, Red Hots, Pixy Stix, Lemonheads, Snickers, Chunkys. we stole and ate it all.

ah, advanced placement.

2007-05-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

a quick race report about Madera.

the drive down was good. no barf, just a few spit bubbles and strings of saliva swinging off minnie's chin, no inappropriate peeing in the truck. And i didn't leave my wallet or glasses at a gas station. all very good signs.

The Crit: We didn't have much talky-talk besides the good stuff Michael posted on the forum. Before the race, Monica said she, Stella, Heidi, Tracie and Kim had gotten together and decided they'd attack in pairs. "And since you weren't there, you're the floater." Hmm, I thought, my role is to be a turd. Okay.

During the crit Tracie attacked and attacked. Stella shot off in a stellar syle and Monica got a gap with another rider. I thought I'd try and bridge but as soon as I stuck my turdiness into the wind I could tell I wasn't going anywhere. It was going to come down to a sprint finish. So, I made a point to pay attention to Trish Bell as she usually sits around and balances her checkbook in a crit until one lap to go. i stuck on her wheel and decided to go if she goes and not to bother if she doesn't bother. she's a smart rider and usually gets it right in the end. I was feeling all smart and cagey staking her out when i looked up and LO there was Trish -- to my left. who the hell had I been following all this time? with two laps to go, i finally found her near the back blowing her nail polish dry and tried again to stay with her. Cindy M wanted Trish's wheel too and just plain ol took it. Right turn, sprint, sprint, sprint.

TT: i wore a frickin camelback OVER my skinsuit -- a gazzillion straps flapping in the breeze, little birdies latched on for a free ride. a picture of not-aeroness. with five minutes before my start, i moseyed on up to the start and saw #856 waiting in line and thought, well, I'll just move in front of her because I was #853. TT starts are like the only place where it's totally okay to cut in front of someone. i love it. so i was cut, cut, cutting my way to the start of the line when the official calls out "853? where's 853" why that's me, I thought and his clock is way off. I was about to suggest he double-check his time, when he said "10 seconds" and someone grabbed hold of my bike. well, no time for an argument, off i go. not much else to add really, except an "unnamed" sports drink when poured over the head will cool you down immediately AND is a pretty darn good hair gel for the manwig.

RR: It was like the longest Sunday afternoon ride EVER. La-La-La, speedy downhill. Right turn. everyone CHARGE! Bump. Bump. Bump. Roller, roller, roller. Water, water, water. Linda what are you doing on the ground? Right Turn.

Repeat 3 times until complete exhaustion.

Not much to add. Stella and I got in a break for about 4 mins. Then it was back to business...bump, bump, bump. It's too bad Monica took a spill. We'd just been mentioning the sketchiness of some of the riding. There was a lot of jerky pedalling, looking back and swerving, and that ridiculous "this is my wheel and i don't care if i take the whole field out, i'm not letting you have it." Oy fricking Oy. I mean maybe in the last lap, but we're talking 40-50 miles from the finish. There was also a lot of pointing. You know like when you ride with your friends and there's a truck back and you point to your very good friend that you'd like to move into the small opening in front of them so the semi doesn't roll over you. Everytime I see someone point in a race I think of Judy Senzer in the Light House crit when I pointed for her to let me in when the field was strung out. "Uh-uh, Honey, this is a race." Okay, so I thought she was my friend. Whatever.

after it was all over, sitting by the pool with Linda and the breeze blowing and the sun setting and the buzz from the beer...well, that was just a fabulous, fabulous feeling.

2007-04-29T19:23:00.000-07:00

Linda raced so hard today, she raced her face off.

for lilly bella

2007-04-29T17:36:00.000-07:00

one of linda's precious (frickin') napkins that are never to be used, under no circumstances (except when she says so)...becomes the official Madera Feed Zone napkin.

madera day 1....pics from the women's crits

2007-04-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

2007-04-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

two cats and a nut in Madera

for flandria...this is why marscat was calling around the bike shops...we need a nut for this

2007-04-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

me to a guy at a bike store this morning:

"Do you have recessed nuts?"

um...let me rephrase that.

2007-04-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

skipped out of the office for a ride at 9:30 today.

a misty morning with a lovely tailwind that made me feel supah strong. i found myself looking down at my heart rate monitor out of habit tho I wasn't wearing one. look up, look up, i kept reminding myself. look at the mist blowing through the trees. look at the city appearing through the fog. sometimes, all this training gets in the way of a good bike ride.

years ago, before all this bike racing my favorite joy was to get up early on a saturday morning and go for a ride on my old green three speed with the totally worn in brooks saddle that felt like buttah.

this was when I lived in SF. i'd wake up at 6:00 and be out the door. I'd wear stretchy tights (no padding, with visible panty line) tennies, a lightweight jacket, a walkman (about the size of an encyclopedia) and a backpack with a book inside. the book was for the cafe that I would stop at out on the pier. i was into John Updike at the time and was loving the Rabbit series. the cafe was never at the end of the ride, but right smack in the middle. I'd stop and get coffee and read and then when I was good and ready (sometimes a couple hours later) I'd get back on the bike, fire up U2 (or is it UQ?) on the Walkman and ride and ride, to the next cafe. i never ever thought about heart rates, but I did like going up hills and in SF it's pretty easy to find a hill.

today was kind of like that: my schedule called for a 2.5 hour easy ride. but I found myself thinking about crits and TTs and checking the clock, making sure I completed my workout (and also got back before sundown). But sometimes I wish that I was just out in my stretchy tights and tennies, riding around town with a book in my backpack.

but I shouldn't complain. am I complaining? It's rather nice to have a job where I can take off and no one notices i am gone. (maybe I should worry about this?) and sometimes when I do go for a ride during office hours I hope and pray that I am not side-swiped by and SUV. I mean how would I explain that?

Just what, people might wonder, was an SUV doing in your cube.

2007-04-23T09:26:00.001-07:00

ouch that hurt.

the whole goddang time i was thinking about my sammich in the car. peanut butter, marmalade and golden raisins. yum.

i discovered pretty quickly that my breakpads would screech everytime i squeezed them -- a lot like the terrified squeek Daisy makes when we go to pick her up:

"Eeeeech i'm scared, you're getting too close!"

i'll just use the front brakes, i thought. no problemo.

along comes the decent.

"eeeeech, i'm scared, i'm going too fast! "

sideways looks from proman.

"eeeeeech, i'm scared, i'm going too fast!"

sideways looks from Tibco.

"sorry," I say, "i took the bike in on Monday and they swore that they'd fixed them. i even tested them on Tuesday, or was it wednesday, well anyhow, sometime last week. and they worked fine."

She's really not interested.

as we cross the overpass, i want to hop off my bike and quietly toss it over the edge.

on we go...i get popped the third time up that hill. the follow motorcycle tries to get me to dig a little harder.

I want to hop off my bike and take his. see him dig a little harder...but really he was so sweet.

after the race i got that feeling. you know the one where you're whacked out on endorphins and you freaking love everyone.

"Good job, good job, you can do it," to a bystander zipping up their jacket.

"Way to go, way to go," to a man emerging from a port-a-pottie.

"Looking good, looking good," to a cow on the side of the road chewing grass.

post race. that's why i race.

2007-04-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

2007-04-12T10:40:00.001-07:00

gotta post something because the longer i don't, i won't. i'm getting my hair cut today.

i'm really not fond of my hair and don't know what to do with it. i think i inherited this from my mother who has always been obsessed about her hair. She's been known to take a plastic Bic shaver to her bangs and reduce them to shreds. in fact she has been known to carry a plastic Bic and take it out for emergency trimmings in restauarnt bathrooms.

she used to practice hairstyling on my head: pixie cuts in the bathtub, the surface of the water coated in trimmings.

Eric Dibble who lived up the road called me a lightbulb after one of my mother's ventures into bathtub hairstyling.

"Tell him," my mother said, "Well at least I'm brighter than you."

Which I did, like a fool.

When Linda and I were travelling in Australia, we got sloshed while wine tasting. By 10:00 am we had visited four or five wineries and the tour ended at 1:00, or sometime later that day. We started refusing wine samples if you can believe that. On the way home, the tour guide turned on a video in the van. We let the headrests support our heads and watched. He played the movie "Shakespeare in Love" with Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow who dresses up to play the part of Romeo.

She's wearing a wig, I pointed out, a little manwig.

I truly regret making this observation all those years ago because now linda likes to refer to me and my hair as "Manwig".

Does manwig want to get a video tonight?

Does manwig want to go out for din-din?

She can be merciless sometimes, that Linda.