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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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

say again?

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."

another day, another training ride...

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...

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...

why have this?






when you can have this!

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

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.

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.

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

best viewed with the sound off.