Pedal on regardless

Inspiration

2012-01-11T21:50:00.000-05:00

What inspires you?

For me, it's easier to define what doesn't inspire. Prime-time TV. Fox News. Whiny people. Mean people.

The flip side -- what's truly inspiring -- is less easily identified. I just know it when I see it. Or when it hits me. (Yeah, sometimes it hurts.) Some things are obvious, like books or articles by my favorite authors, or art, or music. A zen koan that lands exactly where it fits best, when I least expect anything at all to fit. The taste of a new dish that I expect to be good, but that turns out to be blow-me-away, unforgettably delectable.

A color. A texture. A skein of variegated yarn that begs to be touched, worked, transformed into something useful.

A couple of weeks ago, I started idly noting the odd fixtures of my daily commute, and before I knew it, the notes and observations had begun to evolve into a poem. Who would think a person could be inspired by the stuff that comes out of the power company's waste-disposal smokestacks? But the color of that stuff just shouted a particular turn of phrase that wouldn't be quiet.

Real inspiration isn't just a good idea that takes root. It's an idea that locks itself onto your creativity and won't let go. Like a snapping turtle -- it won't turn loose until it thunders. You have to use it; you have no choice. If you don't, it will drive you crazy, like the stupid pop song that gets stuck in your head.

The big picture

2012-01-01T20:01:00.001-05:00

Several years ago, I quit making New Year’s resolutions. For me, they were just “to do” lists with all the time in the world and no accountability. However, the end of one year and the beginning of the next can be a time to reflect on where I am and where I’m going, evaluate my progress toward larger goals, and redirect as needed. This is the time to clear the clutter, decide what’s important right now, and commit to bringing that to life. It’s the time to discard what’s slowing me down and start fresh in living life well.

For years, I tried to build more structure into my goals. I wrote them down and posted them on mirrors and bulletin boards, created deadlines and to-do lists, and pushed myself to adhere – and inevitably, ended up frustrated, behind schedule, and mentally and physically drained. In recent years, I’ve learned I can only deal with so much structure before I start to feel boxed in and out of touch and seriously uncreative.

Let me explain: If you’ve had a child with ADHD, you know how intently teachers, administrators, caregivers, and mental health professionals all push the “structure” thing. Gotta have expectations. Gotta have accountability. Gotta have routine. But when the expectations, accountability, and routine become inflexible, you’re headed toward a major meltdown. If you focus exclusively on managing the ADHD, you stifle the child – and the end result is never pretty.

For me, the balance is the “big picture.” I have intended results and drop-dead dates on my calendar – and I try to ensure everything doesn’t come due at once! But I keep the day-to-day activity flexible. Once I start a project, I try to stick with it until I get to a good stopping point, but I know I work best if I have more than one project going. I need something to switch to, in case I get bogged down. I can work toward goals, but if the “pogo stick of thought” needs to bounce down a different sidewalk, both my intellect and my mental health absolutely require the flexibility to do it.

If I make a to-do list, it’s only to break out the steps involved in one short-term project, like updating all the email addresses in eight sets of documentation with five documents per set, or cooking a holiday dinner with minimal stress. (Yes, it can be done!)

The keys to making it all happen are, first, taking time to make sure the “big picture” is the one I really want in my heart of hearts – which takes time and careful contemplation, which is what December is good for – and second, accountability, which is the point of this note. I’m about to tell you what’s in my big picture. Once you know, in my mind (the part that belongs to the Recovering Preacher’s Kid who grew up in a fishbowl, always aware that everyone was watching), that makes me accountable.

A friend of mine, life coach Stacey Vicari, sends her clients and former clients a workbook toward the end of each year, and encourages us to use it to help clear out the clutter – mental and otherwise – and refocus on what’s most important to us. It’s an important exercise. When I look back at the one I did three years ago, I’m amazed at how far I’ve come in establishing my identity as a writer. When I joined Women Who Write, writing was something I did. Now, it’s become the center of who I am.

I haven’t finished this year’s workbook yet, although I’ve evaluated where I am now, in terms of self, spirit, career, family, leisure, health, and finance. And I’ve roughed in my calendar, which points me toward where I want to be when next year’s workbook arrives in my email. My goals this year – the “big picture” things – are (1) publication, (2) not just self-identification, but a degree of public recognition as an author, and (3) completing multiple challenging bike rides.

And getting the 2012 Christmas tree up before Dec. 24…

Happy New Year – here’s to productive “fresh starts” for us all!

Walking through

2011-12-20T22:34:00.000-05:00

Bear with me. This is one of those wild hares my hound-dog brain sometimes insists on chasing, and there's nothing to do but follow.

I ride because I can't walk. Yes, I can stand on my own two feet (literally, even), and I can ambulate up the hall to the bathroom, the kitchen - on good days, even up and down the stairs. But after 50-some years of repeatedly tripping over my own two feet, I'm long past having any cartilage in my left knee (why do we always land the same way?), and the next step is to replace it. Given that my current medical coverage sucks pond water, I'm resisting that option.

Walking more than half a block triggers pain. Not stiffness or discomfort - that's for sitting more than 20 minutes, or standing more than five. Put me on a bicycle, and I can go for miles. When I worked downtown, I commuted by bike, 14 miles each way, two or three days a week. Spring and summer weekends, I have 20 mile loops I love. No impact, no pain. But walk half a block and I start limping. More than that, and it gets worse. More than two blocks, and I'm hobbling. It's like I'm 95 percent middle-aged, and five percent 80 years old.

In September, I spent a day in San Antonio with my boys. Had a great time - it had been 30 years since I'd been there, and the place was better than when I left - but I left my cane in a restaurant Saturday morning. The rest of the day was great fun, except from the left knee down, which was pure hell.

The boys were patient - solicitous, even. I think if I'd cried, they'd have made a chair with their arms and carried me around town. Instead, I asked them to slow down, and we strolled where we could and rested a lot. Took the boat ride around the River Walk - it was lovely. Did early Christmas shopping and had lunch at El Mercado. Sat and rested some more. That night, I spent about an hour in the hotel pool, turning myself into a prune and gently working the psycho death pains out of my joints.

The next day was even worse. Note to travelers: If you have trouble walking, and you have to go through San Antonio, make sure you have a cane, or crutches, or something to make it obvious you need help. By the time I got through Security, I could barely stand, but apparently one has to be knocking on Heaven's door to get an assist to one's gate at SAT. (At Midway, on the other hand, the nice young people trip over themselves trying to get to you with their wheelchairs, electric carts, and good cheer. I love Midway.)

But then something odd happened. River Walk Day was Saturday; Airport Day was Sunday. Monday evening, I realized I was walking normally up my stairs at home. I mean, like a grown-up. Left foot on one stair, then right foot on the next - not left-right one, left-right two... And not, "I think my knee feels a little stronger - let's try this." Nope. More like, "Holy crap, I'm walking up the stairs! Wait - did I already do this once this evening? Holy crap!"

I decided against replacing the cane. If it's still there when I go back next month, well, happylooyah. If not, I'll keep chugging. But instead of taking it easy, I started making note of how things went. And I'm detecting a pattern or two.

First the obvious: pushing it is hell at first, but later, it seems to trigger a slight improvement. The "going-upstairs effect," so to speak. If I can keep pushing until I'm damn near dead from pain, the pain will give up and I win, at least for a day or two.

Then there's the lesson of moderation. My daughter and my sister are going to laugh at this - being good Episcopalians (to one degree or another), we share the Episcopalian credo: Moderation in all things, including moderation. You have to find the right balance between "no pain" and "no gain."

If I walk slowly - not easy, given my damn-the-torpedoes take on life - and stop frequently, I can walk a couple of blocks without agony. Pain, yes, but no agony is a start in the right direction. So I'm thinking, maybe if I take 30 minutes once or twice a week to walk a block to the cafeteria and a block back, I'll hate myself for the afternoon, but eventually, I'll be able to make it a little farther. Maybe to the cafeteria and back, and still be able to stop at the grocery store and not cry when I get home. (Concrete/tile floors are the worst.)

Maybe in a few months, I'll be able to walk three or four blocks before I have to give up.

Maybe by spring, I'll be able to walk the dog.

Of course, maybe I'll be halfway to Heine Brothers' next Sunday after church, and I'll have to call someone to come take me to the ER. Maybe they'll replace the damned knee sooner than later. Maybe it will just crumble in its socket, and it will be goodbye kneecap, hello titanium.

Either way, maybe by next Christmas, I'll be back in my Barbie shoes and dancing again. I think this is one of those "hell or high water" moments.

Either way, if it's too cold to pedal on, I think I'm going to try to walk through. Just to see how far I can get.

Well, hi there!

2011-12-14T20:49:00.000-05:00

Or - as my brother would say - "High! There?"

Not much time for blogging the last few months. Been busy with a few other things, like watching my nest empty out as the last kid left town to join the Air Force, beginning a home re-decorating project that will probably never end, evaluating my professional direction, and redirecting my career (less corporate BS, more real writing).

To that end, allow me to direct you to Amazon.com, where you can purchase for a mere $11.99 (plus shipping cost) the 2011 Calliope, the annual anthology of Women Who Write. For that matter, you also can get the 2010 edition - I have pieces in both of them! And coming soon, a cookbook with a first-prize winning entry consisting of the recipe for Grandma Lil's Genuine English Trifle and an essay about the history of trifle, as Lillian and I decided it must be.

Next stop: a couple of regional and national publications, and I'll keep you posted on the details! :-) And a couple more extensive projects underway. Again, details later.

In between - since those pesky Women Who Write (yes, I'm a member ... in fact, I edit the monthly newsletter) insist on noting my blog in my bio - I'll try to keep this space a little more current in the future.

And if you'd like to receive the Writers' Wire (newsletter mentioned above), send me your email address. Organization membership, being a writer, and even being a woman are NOT required!

Pedal on, y'all!

And now, a word from our sponsors...

2011-03-14T19:37:00.001-04:00

The dogs luv me. They luv me very much.

It's easy. Start with a basic peanut-butter cookie recipe. Mine is from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook edited by Marion Cunningham -- but any basic PBC recipe will do.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Substitute:
for shortening = oil or butter, 1/2 the called-for amount
for sugar = honey, 1/2 the called-for amount

Mix base ingredients (oil, honey, peanut butter, eggs) until thoroughly blended. Add flour about 1/4 cup at a time as you continue to mix. When it gets too stiff for the beaters to move well, add a splash -- maybe a tablespoon -- of broth (vegetable, chicken, or beef). If the batter gets too soft, add oat bran to stiffen up; if too dense, add more broth. When you're done, batter should be work to mix, but not extremely firm.

Drop by teaspoons full onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Blobs should be roughly 1 cubic inch. They won't spread much, so you can easily fit two dozen on a standard cookie sheet.

Bake 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove to a cooling rack; when cool, transfer to storage container. Makes about 4 dozen soft, fluffy cookies -- perfect if you have older dogs.

Lillie and the Daisies (Big and Little) say you won't have to worry about them going bad. They won't be around long enough. However, if you have very small dogs, or only one, you can freeze some and get them out in smaller batches.

Right now, Lillie is licking my pants leg to make sure I haven't gotten anything on myself...

Oh, and the picture you don't get (because I was the only one in the house at the time with functional thumb-things): Three dogs -- one 80-lb hound and two rat terriers, 24 and 16 lb respectively -- licking the beaters. How cute is that?!

A week later: the SF Adventure

2011-02-26T21:21:00.000-05:00

They say it may snow in San Francisco. Maybe it already has. Thank the Almighty I missed that!

The rain was quite enough, thank you. Granted, my favorite city is wonderful in any weather, but after getting into my cycling rain gear and hiking several blocks to the bus stop, I decided I was already wet and cold enough. At that moment, huddled in the bus shelter against a chilly wind, the thought of icy rainwater dripping off the back of a rented helmet and running down my neck was just numbing. So I picked myself up and headed back to the hotel.

Walking back down Lombard Street, I saw the doggies through a window. It was a doggie daycare -- and it hit me how much I missed my girlies. Had to stand a couple of minutes and watch the big dogs play. When I broke away, I ducked into the front door and introduced myself. (Didn't want them to think I was a doggie-stalker or anything...) Leaving, I noticed the small dogs had a playroom of their own; while I waited for the traffic light to change, a Yorkie and another little guy hopped up in the front window to watch me. The Yorkie barked, of course. If you ever need a true watchdog...

It was a neat little place -- check them out here.

Back in the room, I watched TV and crocheted a while, then decided to indulge in one of my favorite day-off pastimes: a nap. (Side note: basic cable in San Francisco is definitely nap-inducing. No HGTV that I could find, and no really good movie channels, either.) It was still raining when I woke up, but I only had one more night in the city, so I changed clothes, called for a cab, and headed to Fisherman's Wharf.

Flashback: On my 20th birthday, I had just moved to the Bay Area. Back in those dark ages, you could legally drink at 18, so I'd had plenty of time to get good at it. And I'd always loved good food in good restaurants, although at 20, my definition of "good" was a little looser than it is now.

So July 3, 1974, the First Ex-Husband (then not yet even the father of my firstborn) took me to dinner at #9 Fishermen's Grotto on Fisherman's Wharf. I had red snapper for the first time ever, and I had wine -- and I may have had a Mai Tai or two. Seems like those may have been my favorite back then. And last weekend, after reviewing online menus for several Wharf restaurants, I decided the time was right to see if Fishermen's Grotto was as wonderful as I remembered.

The Grotto hasn't changed, I don't think. In fact, I'm pretty sure they have the same wait staff as they did 36 years ago... I'm quite sure the menu is very close to the same. But this time, they did have a blackened red snapper on the specials menu, and I decided to get that instead of the pan-seared red snapper with lemon-butter sauce. Silly me. Blackened isn't bad, mind you, but it doesn't do anything special for the distinctive texture and flavor of the snapper. Next trip, it's back to basics for me.

The steamed vegetables were a little over-steamed (though the carrots were still right tasty), and although the menu said mashed potatoes, my fish came with the default side of pasta with a light Alfredo-ish sauce. The only Riesling on the wine list was a little far to the sweet side for my taste. Overall, not a bad dinner by any stretch, but being three dozen years older and having seriously redefined "good," my second impression wasn't quite as "WOW" as the first.

Nevertheless, the next table over was occupied shortly after my arrival by a dad traveling alone with two kids -- I'd guess the boy was about 6 and the girl maybe 8 or 9. It did make for an entertaining meal. The boy was intent on having lobster, the girl was having trouble making up her mind, and Dad was tremendously patient with both of them, and not at all condescending. He struck me as a right good fellow who clearly operated on the assumption that his kids were his intellectual equals, just in need of a little guidance to become remarkably civilized humans. As a matter of fact, they were very civilized for as young as they were -- no shouting, arguing, shrieking, or bad manners, which I've observed is getting rare these days.

We conversed briefly, and I learned they were on the way from Boston to Hawaii to visit Granddad, and they'd been delayed in San Francisco. It's a good place for an unexpected layover. Dad had the right idea -- he just reframed it as a surprise side trip, and they made an evening of it. Most of the time, hassles are hassles only if you define them as such. I hope the rest of their vacation went as well!

I walked from the Grotto back up to Ghirrardelli Square, got a cup of hot cocoa, and called a cab back to the hotel. And waited. And walked a little. And waited. I was huddled under the awning of the building next door to the Ghirrardelli Chocolate shop on Beach Street, still waiting, when a young woman walked briskly by. She was wearing jeans and a chunky cardigan, but the sweater was a wrap style and the belt wasn't holding it together very well. She had shopping bags, no umbrella, and she looked a bit cranky. I couldn't blame her -- I had on a heavy jacket, and I did have an umbrella, and I was still chilled a bit. She ducked into a restaurant a couple doors up, and I thought, "Okay." Then a couple minutes later, she came back out and started back the way she came. She still looked cranky.

I'd love to know what that was about.

But right after she paced past me, she turned and came back and asked, "Are you okay?" I was a little startled; yes, I'd walked farther than is good for my knee these days, so I was tired, and it was cold out, but basically I was fine. Maybe it was just that I looked like her mom, only wetter and colder. (I think she was probably around Mitch's or Hillary's age.)

I told her I was just waiting for a cab, and she said, "Is it coming?" Well, yes, I hoped so -- I'd called Yellow Cab, and the dispatcher had said they'd send someone, so surely they'd show up soon. "Well, maybe," she said. Turns out Yellow drivers pick up a lot of strays on weekend nights, and the call-in fares often end up waiting a while. She was about to give me another number to call -- a local cab company -- when she spotted one coming around the corner of Hyde and Beach.

"Wait," she said. "This is how you get a cab on a Friday night in San Francisco." She shifted her shopping bags all to the left, squared her shoulders, and charged between parked cars into the edge of the right driving lane of Beach, and waved a mighty wave. The cab stopped (Metro Cab, I think), and the young woman opened the back door, turned to me, and grinned. "That's how you do it!" she said.

I was tremendously grateful. I would have gladly shared the cab with her, but she said she was only two blocks from home. Whoever she was, she gets serious karma points from me. A completedl San Franciscan encounter.

Incidentally, the Marina Inn is only a $5-$6 cab ride from Fisherman's Wharf. I paid the Yellow Cab driver about $6.50, the other driver about $4.95. That's not including tip, but it's definitely an affordable ride -- another good reason not to bother paying for parking.

Even after a warm bath, I wasn't able to sleep Friday night. Reorganized my luggage for the flight home, put in a wake-up call as a back-up to the alarm, tried reading a boring book, tried watching TV, tried crocheting and reading some more... I was just too wound up. I dozed off and on for a couple hours total between about 2:30 and 7 a.m.

What a trip, though. What a city. I wish I could have bottled a little of that positive, adventurous energy to bring home; I could probably make it last until the next trip, if I was careful with it.

Thursday was exhausting...

2011-02-18T14:53:00.000-05:00

After driving all day Wednesday in high winds and heavy rain, we discussed the options and decided Sean would drop me at the San Francisco airport car rental facility and go the rest of the way himself. It's a relatively short hop from there to Redding, interstate all the way, and his buddy was meeting him there to drive the truck into the mountains -- since he has experience driving a truck in the mountains in hairy weather conditions, and Sean definitely does not! And I didn't want to attempt it in a rental car.

So instead, I checked in with Enterprise and got a cute little black Nissan Versa for the rest of the day. My only grumble is that the major rental companies (Enterprise just happens to be my favorite) is that they don't have hourly or half-day rates. I just wanted to drive back to San Jose, cruise around my old neighborhood, and come back. My downtown hotel didn't have parking, and the closest garage is about 4 blocks away. And street parking in the big city is something else I didn't want to do in a rental car.

But customer service was -- as usual -- great, and the car was nice. I've been wanting to drive one for a while, and I liked it. Handled very well, even in the weather, and had a surprising amount of interior space. Looked to me like there was probably room for long-leggedy boys in the back seat, even!

Thanks to the new phone, I have GPS now, so the old house wasn't hard to find. Not sure I could have done it without the lady in the phone, though; I don't think our old exit actually exists anymore. We used to come in from the west, driving down another north-south avenue to Santa Teresa Blvd. Yesterday, GPS Lady directed me to Bernal Road, which took me in from the east -- and there are about three more streets now on that side of the subdivision than there were 35 years ago.

Otherwise, the neighborhood hadn't changed much at all. Still small stucco houses, middle-class and well maintained. The development hadn't gone up the hill in the back, and after driving around for a while, I found out why. It's now part of a huge park and wildlife preservation area.

In downtown San Jose, I quickly found my way to the Museum of Art, which currently has an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe's portraits. It was late -- half an hour from closing by then -- so I didn't have time to sit and ponder on my favorites. Still, they were beautiful and inspiring. So many of them were taken with a Polaroid camera -- it's unbelievable what the man was able to do with one of those gadgets. Everyone has seen his portraits of Patti Smith by now, lovely images that show a softness Patti isn't exactly known for -- a Patti her best friends see, and probably not many other people. The ones of Madeline Kahn, Debbie Harry, and Isabella Rossellini are gorgeous, many of the others were striking in other ways -- but the one that touched me most deeply was the self-portrait from a few months before his death. Mapplethorpe was by then very sick from HIV, and he looked much older than he was. But he was still beautiful. And his eyes, staring out of his pale face against the dark backdrop, were direct and intense and unafraid.

After that, there was only a quick search for a gas station (with one adventurous excursion through was turned out to be a very deep puddle!) and then back to the airport to drop off the car. I headed for the Air Train dragging my suitcase (thank God someone thought of putting wheels on them!) and toting my purse, briefcase, and crochet bag, and quickly regretted not spending the four bucks on a luggage cart. Then, just as I collapsed on a bench to catch my breath -- there sat a cart, abandoned at the foot of the escalator! I snagged it, and the rest of the hike was much easier.

Quickly caught a shuttle into the city. If you have to pick a shuttle service in San Francisco, I recommend Advanced. The driver loaded my bags for me and the other passengers, took us on a very efficient route to our various hotels, and actually made a trip back from several miles up the road to bring me a bag I'd left behind his seat! The call to his dispatcher hadn't caught up to him yet, but as soon as he saw it, he knew where he'd dropped the passenger who'd left it, and he turned around and came back.

The Marina Inn, at the corner of Octavia and Lombard Streets, is charming. Definitely a "bed and breakfast" atmosphere, so if you're looking for upscale modern, go with whatever chain you like. But the location is good -- just a few blocks from Fisherman's Wharf, and with some interesting little restaurants in easy walking distance -- and the desk staff are very helpful and personable.

I had dinner at Silver Clouds, up the street a few blocks. The owners are Thai, and they do have some Thai dishes on the menu -- mostly specials. The shellfish tom yum looks really good, and I may have to go back and get some. :-) But last night, I was worn out, and I wanted protein. And the bulk of the menu is good old American protein! I went for liver and onions, which came with a nice little salad, wonderfully crusty, warm bread, and steamed vegetables and a baked potato.

Back in the room, I conked out pretty quickly, and I think I slept for about 10 hours, then dozed for a couple more. And now it's noon, and I'm off for my San Francisco adventure!

(Yes, I'll post those pictures! But not right now... Things to do! Places to be! YIPPEE!!)

Road trip!!

2011-02-17T02:22:00.000-05:00

Amazing. It's been three months since I posted anything here. Yes, I've been writing -- my fingers to the bone, actually. ;-) I'm several chapters into a novel, as well as a non-fiction piece I think my cyclist friends will enjoy. But blogging -- not so much.

So where am I right now? How about Stockton, CA? Last week, almost on the spur of the moment, I asked for six days off, starting two days after I made the request -- and I got a "yes!" My son was in the process of loading up to move to northern California, and I decided to help him drive. And it really was a quick decision; I think I considered it for about 30 minutes after thinking it might be a good idea and before hitting "send" on the request e-mail.

We spent Friday and Saturday running errands, tying up loose ends, and loading the truck. (I actually had very little to do with that. Procrastination worked in my favor. ;-) We left Sunday morning around 10, with a 12-hour drive planned for the first day.

Twelve hours turned into about 14, what with pit stops and weather and all. We had a good room with comfortable beds, though, waiting in Oklahoma City. Monday morning, Sean slept in for a bit while I had breakfast, rode the stationary cycle in the fitness room, then swam a few laps.

Monday through Wednesday were supposed to be 8-hour days on the road. All three turned out to be 10 or more. A word to the wise: If you find a discrepancy between your printed directions from Google Maps and the very patient voice from your GPS, go with the map directions. I'm just sayin'... Not that the GPS isn't great; our "nice lady who lives in the phone" saved us quite a bit of time and frustration this afternoon after we zigged once when we should've zagged! She got us back onto the correct highway in a matter of minutes, and I mean single-digit minutes.

(BTW, I got a new phone last month -- a "smart phone" that I think may be smarter than I am. I mean, it can get me un-lost in short order, and I still haven't figured out all the things it allegedly knows how to do. All I know for sure is that the GPS and internet access alone are worth the price -- I haven't used either that much outside of this week, but if you're going to be traveling much, a smart phone could be invaluable. Just remember: GPS works on the fly. Google Maps starts with the least stressful route available. You can always reroute from there.)

Monday was Oklahoma City to Albuquerque. Another long drive, another good room. (Another word to the wise: If you use it properly, Priceline can be a godsend.) Look for pictures on Facebook.

Tuesday was Albuquerque to Needles, CA -- a LO-O-O-O-O-O-ONG drive. And today was Needles to Stockton.

Tomorrow, we head north. At the moment, the plan is up in the air. Plan A was to swing by the San Francisco airport for a rental car, then heading on to northern California with Sean leading the way. If that holds up, I'll help him and his buddy unload the truck, then head back to San Francisco -- at least 8 hours on the road for me. But the weather is looking iffy at best, so we may go to B or C. Plan B is for me to follow Sean as far as Redding, with Josh getting a ride down to meet us and drive the truck -- and Sean -- the rest of the way in. Plan C is for Sean to drop me off in San Francisco and head to Redding and points north on his own. It all depends on the weather.

We'll leave Friday's plans for Friday. Right now, it's late, and I have work left to do.

A reminder: Check Facebook for pictures and details!

Urgent Care

2010-11-09T23:30:00.000-05:00

My first question was, "Have you called the police?"

I'd received a call from my husband - my daughter had been involved in an accident coming home from work. Definitive piece of information: I had the car. She was on the bike.

He didn't realize that until I answered his question, "Where are you?"

As it turned out, no one hit her. Thank G-d. She'd braked too hard in the process of missing a pedestrian on the shoulder (she was making a right turn) and gone "AOTK" - family shorthand for "ass over tea kettle."

So, all things considered, it could have been worse. No head trauma, no internal injuries, no hit and run reports. Just a trip to the urgent care clinic and a few pain pills and days off work.

And BTW, she did dent her helmet when she did that tuck-and-roll. We're retiring it. In fact, I think I may have it bronzed. It most likely saved my daughter's incredible brain.

She thought she'd dislocated her left shoulder. Turns out it's a 3rd-degree AC sprain. {Put another way: It could have been better. A broken collarbone is apparently preferable.) But she didn't break her neck, she didn't put her eye out, and she didn't hit the pedestrian -- what more could a mother ask?!

And here, for your edification, are the not-so-gory details of Urgent Care:

(1) I redirected the Parental Taxi from the ER when I learned the worst of it was a shoulder injury. Past experience tells me self-referrals to the ER earn bottom priority on the triage list. I was right. We were home in under an hour and a half -- had we gone to the ER, we'd have still been waiting to be called for paperwork.

(2) One more time (in case I haven't mentioned it lately) -- Dr. Bird at the Baptist East Urgent Care on Shelbyville Road is THE COOLEST. He doesn't get excited, and he doesn't get panicky. He applies exactly the right amount of concern to whatever the situation is, and there you go. And he talks to patients - even purple-haired punk-intellectual types and their marginally old-hippie moms - as though he assumes they know what he's saying. And when we ask him to explain, he doesn't bat an eye. He just does it. No condescension. Just the facts, ma'am. With a little bit o' humor thrown in.

(3) Fee-for-service is totally WRONG. Okay, cost of visit, not too bad. Cost of X-rays, less than I expected. Cost of sling for arm, $29. Cost for nurse to put sling on patient's arm -- are you ready for this? -- $122. That's one hundred twenty-two dollars for about 15 seconds of work. Okay, maybe thirty. Good thing I beat her to it... Jesus H. Roosevelt...

Ms. Tough-as-Nails has quite sensibly called in Wounded for tomorrow's work day. The bakery can probably do without her for a day or two, considering her mobility is down by about 80%. She's taken half a pain pill, and she's trying to sleep. (The Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie prescription probably helped as much as the pill, all things considered. We believe in the healing powers of chocolate.)

Betty the Bike is off to the shop tomorrow to confirm that there's no harm done to her considerably solid frame -- and that she didn't do anything bad to cause this.

Cycle Girl will be doing a few circles around the cul de sac on Trigger, the Palomino cruiser, as soon as she's able. Past experience tells me any kind of nasty spill requires getting back on the pony as quickly as possible. Even if it means riding one-handed. And Trigger is the perfect choice in this case, since he has old-school, back-pedal brakes.

I'm thinking I may institute a Purple Pedal Medal for those injured in the service of saving the atmosphere and keeping their butts skinny in the process. Design ideas welcomed!

October sun

2010-10-30T17:01:00.000-04:00

I've been slack this summer. After Memorial Day, things got busy, and then it got hot - boy howdy, did it get hot. A record number of days over 90 degrees this summer, and a few in the triple digits. With the humidity from the river, a heat index well over 100 wasn't uncommon.

I rode one Tuesday in June; the morning was balmy, but at 5:30 p.m. on the way over to Gilda's Club, the heat index was 108. Even my veteran cyclist friend Ben thought I'd lost my mind. Brother Bob allowed later as how I was apparently either suicidal or just plain stoopid.

So I've gained five pounds I didn't need, and my asthma is back - the symptoms had completely gone away when I was riding regularly, but I'm wheezing again now that allergy season has hit. I've been hitting the Zyrtec pretty hard just to keep breathing.

Yesterday, after going downstairs to get lunch, I decided to take the stairs back up - five floors. I had to stop on 3 for a minute, but I made it. I'm going to do it at least once a day this winter; by Christmas, I should be able to keep going and pick up some speed.

And this morning dawned chilly and clear, but turned into the most perfect day for riding. 60 degrees out at noon, with little wind and only a few high, wispy clouds - the kind that look like bits of Halloween spider-web fluff. So around 2 p.m., I took a break from cleaning the front closet and hitched up the panniers for a run to the grocery.

Unfortunately, my new gel seat has a loose nut and keeps sliding backward and forward. So instead of being set where I like it, with the gel part holding my weight, I rode uncomfortably with the metal seat frame under my bones... Gotta get that fixed.

And it makes a rhythmic thumping noise that makes me think one of the tires isn't quite right - the kind you'd expect to hear on a road with regularly spaced bumps, except it goes all the time. Need to look into that, too.

Nevertheless, it was a good ride. I went through the neighborhood out to Hounz Lane, then took Tiverton around to Aylesbury and Goose Creek. Had to cross Westport Road at the traffic light, which is no big deal - otherwise, it was smooth sailing on residential streets.

As I rode through the Kroger parking lot, I noticed another bike chained to a light post with a bubblegum pink cable lock. It made me smile.

Inside, I wound through Produce picking up ingredients for beef stew - celery, organic carrots. I knew I had plenty of onions. On the way to the potatoes, I spotted the kalanchoe display at the same time as another woman. She was tall, beautiful in a fresh-scrubbed, old-hippie way, maybe about my age. She was black, and she wore soft layers - a wide, long skirt, a big, loose sweater, a couple of bright scarves. And she was enchanted by the kalanchoe.

"What is it?" she asked. "I've never seen it before. Is it from some foreign country? Maybe China?"

I told her the name of the plant and what little I know about it: that it's easy-care, low maintenance, it's a succulent, and even when it's not blooming, the leaves are lovely. I didn't know where it was from. Central America, maybe. I need to research that.

She couldn't get over the colors. The display was a bank of reds, oranges, golds, yellows - all shades, many of the pots with two or even three small plants in mixed colors. It really was beautiful - it made me smile, too.

As we walked off in opposite directions, she called over her shoulder, conspiratorially, "We love that kind of thing, don't we?" Recognition of a kindred spirit.

"Yes, we do!" I called back.

I got the potatoes, the beef, and I found a new grater. (My old one has flown the coop.) I like grating by hand, using a four-sided stand-up grater, the kind my grandmother had. This one is like Grandmother's, only better; it's from OXO, so it has a comfortable rubber grip handle and a neat little box, about the size of a pack of cards, that fits on the bottom and has a tight lid. You can grate right into the box and then snap the lid on to store what you just grated; even better, when you're not using the set, the box fits top-down inside the bottom of the grater. I found a book of cryptograms - hard to locate these days - in the magazine section.

Then I checked out and went out to load the groceries into my panniers.

As I rolled back across the parking lot, I saw the owner of the bike with the pink lock coasting down the hill in my direction. It was the Kalanchoe Lady.

"Well, hi, there!" I called, and waved.

She responded, "Hello, precious one!"

I was passing through the intersection now, turning right to go back to Goose Creek; she was just coming up to the stop sign. "Enjoy your ride home!" I called back to her. And as I pedaled off, "Be safe!"

The world is full of little miracles - wispy Halloween-spiderweb clouds, bright kalanchoes, and kindred spirits in the most mundane places. And it's good to be back on the bike.

And now, a word from our sponsor (Daisy Lou)...

2010-10-11T20:51:00.000-04:00

I wrote this at about midnight one evening in June. I have no idea why I never posted it. I probably didn't think it was finished. But why would I need to say more?

*********

I have to tell you about this: beautiful Daisy, who is about 8 years old now, has just discovered fireflies.

For the last three nights, our lovely red and white hound has stood outside on the walk or in the grass, transfixed by the little blinky lights dancing in the dark. Last night, she stayed out for over an hour and never made a peep. (Usually, 5 minutes without human company is about her limit.) When I went out to get her, she was just standing and watching, not moving a muscle. Truly fascinated.

The night before, I needed to go to bed, so I tried to call her in; I finally had to put some shoes on and go out in the grass to round her up.

She just now went outside, her last trip for the evening. Tinkerbell and her friends apparently party late in these parts - unless I haul her into the house, I'm pretty sure Daisy Lou will stand on the walk and watch them until 4 in the morning.

Hope

2010-10-08T00:51:00.001-04:00

I've been seeing it everywhere, all this short month long. "Hope." Pink wrist bands, pink on shopping bags, pink on teddy bears, pink on all kinds of silly stuff every time I turn around. Last Saturday, cruising the mall after a visit to the Hair Lady, my sister finally asked, "Is there really all of a sudden all this breast cancer stuff all over the place, or is it just me?"

I knew what she meant. On a less goofy level, it's the same thing as, when you finally get pregnant, you start seeing pregnant women everywhere. Like every freakin' one of 'em decided if you were going to do it, they were, too.

I was moderately relieved to be able to say, "Nope. Not you, shug. Just October."

Of course, there's a month for everything. October is Breast Cancer Awareness. Translation: All you retailers, jump on the Intimidation Bandwagon and Cash In!! But who cares? If one woman thinks about getting a mammogram because some damn fool bought her a Belkie Bear in a pink T-shirt, it's worth it.

Me, I got my Belkie Bear. My sister has hers. We haven't named them yet, although I'm scrolling through Lynn Redgrave's most memorable roles for a name for mine. My sister bought the bears (white plush, pink shirts, very huggy). I bought the Chanel No. 5. Cut of the take to S. Komen. Works for me. It's all about hope, right? Hope for a cure, hope for the future, hope for lifetimes that go 'way past when they would have a couple decades ago...

This weekend, I'm headed for a women's retreat at a monastery in Indiana. The focus for the weekend is "hope," and we have a list of things to bring, all of which mean "hope" for us. A scripture, reading, song, whatever. A used greeting card. A story.

As I started packing, I found myself looking for the "hope" in what I packed. It started out as, "What am I going to take? What defines 'hope' in my worldly possessions?" After a while, though, I had to laugh... Here's the list:

1. my "ASsK me" T-shirt - the question being, "Who is Aang San Sui Qi?" - in the hope of universal justice
2. my "peace" tank top from the Norma Kamali collection at WalMart - in the hope it will happen (even at WalMart)
3. my Cubs T-shirt - in hopes of breaking the Curse (hey, Ed has the Redskins and I have my Cubbies - so you family members who want to blow your diet Pepsi through your nose about now, stuff a sock in it! Super Bowl, World Series, whatever... ;-)
4. my jeans, in the hope of someday seeing "skinny" again
5. my western boots, in the hope that my knee isn't so bad I can never hope to shovel out a horse stall or sit in a saddle for hours
6. my guitar - in the hope that someday I'll be able to play and sing at the same time
7. my notebook - a.k.a. my "brain" - in the hope of a flash of brilliance that will translate into notes that will translate into something that will translate into a "WOW" from someone with the authority - and the money - to say, "Publish that, and send that woman a check!"
8. that song...

There's a song by Rich Mullins called "If I Stand." It's been stuck in my head for a month. The chorus goes:

If I stand, let me stand on the promise that You will see me through -
And if I can't, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You.
If I sing, let me sing for the joy that has borne in me these songs,
And if I weep, let it be as one who is longing for her home.

Okay, I paraphrased a little. I doubt Rich minds. I'm sure the Almighty doesn't. Because that song is about my hope.

I'm clueless. I'm scared. I face tomorrow with trembling hands and knocking knees - every damned tomorrow of my life. Seriously. All I can hope for is what my gut tells me - that there's Something bigger than I am holding me up. There's a survival that has no logic to it, a quiet peace that has no reason but grace. There's a happiness that has no link to good sense - it's just there. And there is - I am sure - a place I've been, a place I started, a place to which I will return, where it will all make sense. So I don't have to think about why, or how. The Something that's bigger (and smarter) knows about all that and has it under control. Maybe not to change anything, maybe not to "make it all better" - but at least to be able to see the big picture. The "if this, then that." The logic, the karma, the all-comes-togetherness.

My hope and my trust are in the existence of the Something that can manage all of the above and then some. So I, in my anxiety-disordered, perfectionist humanity, don't have to.

Thanks be to G-d.

Flotsam and jetsam

2010-09-24T08:12:00.001-04:00

Wednesday night on Letterman: Joaquin Phoenix and Tom Jones. First Joaquin - beautiful, brilliantly talented, very vulnerable, with his frequent "and um..." and hesitancy in answering direct questions. Then Mr. Jones - still hot and bothersome at 74 and counting. (And in case you're wondering, Joaquin Phoenix was born exactly nine months ahead of my daughter.)

I wonder how many other women of my generation have been taken with such a maternal possessiveness toward the Phoenix boys. River broke my heart more than once, but the last time almost did me in; after his death, I couldn't watch my favorite movie of all time (Stand By Me) for three or four years. (I taught my youngest child to dance with that movie playing on the VCR.)

I think what hurt the most was that in his very evasion of public life, River pulled off a major lie. We moms truly believed he was the beautiful, calm, stable boy he made himself out to be - the serious actor, the one with a gift, the Big Brother of the other young Phoenixes. And as the eldest of four, I'd cast him in the role of Guiding Light: the one who set the example, just as I was expected to do; the one who played it safe because the little ones would follow; the one who was cautious in taking risks, so the little ones wouldn't follow... And then, dramatically, suddenly, right there on a street corner in LA, in front of God and everybody, he up and died - OD'd. And one of the little ones - Joaquin - had to be the one to call 911.

Damned if that's not a comeuppance to mark you for life.

Joaquin isn't as pretty as River was. He's much the middle child, the odd duck, the one who pulls goofy publicity stunts that may or may not be research for a new role. Every time I see him, with that "birthmark" on his face, the first thought in my head is that if plastic surgeons have a real calling, it's to fix harelips as well as his has been fixed. I mean, really... But there's something about him. Maybe it's the intensity, or maybe it's just the goofy approach to being serious.

Or maybe it's just - as Billie Holliday sang so perfectly, 'way before MY time, let alone his - "them there eyes."

Then Mr. Jones - white-haired, bearded, solid - even stocky. No tight pants and shirt open to THERE, no shimmying pelvis - no real drama, even. The old image of Tom Jones is out the window. But...

The directness - the no-nonsense, lay-it-on-the-line honesty - of the delivery constituted one of the sexiest performances I've ever seen on TV. I mean, be honest: live is always better. It's all relative. If I'd been in the studio audience, I'd very possibly have felt it genuinely necessary to throw some intimately personal object onto the stage.

The song was a bluesy, not-quite-gospel thing about "I don't know what's gonna happen when I die and it scares the living crap out of me..." The chorus repeats, building in intensity: "Maybe there ain't no Heaven, maybe there ain't no Hell. Maybe there ain't no Heaven, no burning Hell..." The lyrics are plain, flat: there it is, deal with it. And the blunt delivery sends chills down my arms.

Because that's the question. What if?

Believe all you want, but remember this: "Faith" requires accepting not just what you can't see, but what you realistically can't even believe. Anyone who tells you they KNOW the truth is either (a) lying in their teeth, or (b) lying to themselves in their teeth. Believe all you want - I do. But don't tell me you know.

A kid the age of Joaquin Phoenix - or my daughter - can't deliver those cold chills as plainly and simply. For all "that age" is officially "adult," a Western 35-year-old these days isn't a "grown-up." Hard knocks have nothing to do with it; Joaquin Phoenix watched his brother die, and Bri dealt with traumas of her own. (And yes, they were real traumas, not adolescent "mountains out of molehills.") But in spite of the hard knocks, the lost siblings, lost friends, fear and alienation, and the outright tragedy it took them to grow up, these kids mostly haven't yet woken up at 2 a.m. wondering if they're really going to see their Granddaddy and their Aunt Murial when they die, or if the "crossing over" BS is complete and total BS.

Whereas Mr. Jones senses reality: the truth of the matter is something we can't know. And he lays it out there on the line in his performance, hard and uncompromising: I don't know. I don't have a clue. I will pray, I will try, I will hold onto as much belief as I can - even if it's the belief that if I approach the church altar right now, with as little faith as I have in my heart, a bolt of lightning will find me.

.....

It's very late, and I'm very tired, but there is a point here. It's not so much that it escapes me at the moment as that my heart - my gut, my kishkes - knows the point, but that point totally refuses to travel to the logical, verbal side of my brain from where I can throw it out there.

But I think it's this:

The world is a bizarre place. A lot of what happens is a matter of being in the right place at the wrong time. Can you imagine, if either of these performers had taken one different turn? True, it wouldn't be as dramatic as "the end of the world as we know it" - because that would simply be the way it is.

But I'm convinced that art, creativity, music, drama, and even just flinging oneself out into the world - into life - is what keeps the world turning. It's us, at whatever level we are, wherever we are in our personal development, grabbing hold of that "love energy" that Glenn Henson defines as "God" and flinging it back into the universe, where it can build on itself and grow willy-nilly and attach to other beings and turn, again, into art, creativy, music, drama - beauty.

Gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, irresistible, undeniable, unflappable, indefinable beauty. The flotsam and jetsam that come together in an implosion of "love energy" and make us truly alive.

Disappointments

2010-09-18T23:46:00.001-04:00

There's the disappointment of not getting a job you know you're qualified for. On a lesser scale, there's the disappointment of going to the fridge with your mouth set for a pimento cheese sandwich, to find someone else finished off all but half a teaspoon of the pimento cheese.

And there's the disappointment of making plans for a new life, spending weekends looking at houses, spending evenings planning a wedding, and then having the rug jerked out from under you.

As often happens, it's not my story to tell. But my beautiful daughter is heartbroken, her erstwhile fiance is oblivious to the harm he's done, and we all feel betrayed. After four and a half years, you start to think you can trust a person. And then he decides he can't commit.

Two weekends ago, she and I sat in the shade of the patio of a pub on Bardstown Road, talking about music and houses and the possibility of having the rehearsal dinner at my house - or even at hers. This weekend, she's reeling, and I can't do a thing to help.

We all want things for our children. Even us old "anti-establishment" lefty types, who raised them to question authority and taught them well that there are more important things in life than amassing a fortune. As kids go, I think I did well. I have three young adults with strong principles, who won't give up those principles for convenience or profit. They're all compassionate, literate, articulate, and committed to what they believe is right. They share a strong - even intense - work ethic. They want to do work that will improve the world; if it pays well, that's just gravy. They are people of faith. Theirs may not in all cases be mainstream, establishment-approved faith, but it is theirs, and they are better people for it. And they're people of action; they don't sit and wait for good things to come to them. They roll up their sleeves and get busy making good things happen.

I think it's a positive thing that my daughter places a higher value on service, social justice, and the environment than she does on a big fat paycheck. Sure, the fat paycheck would be nice, especially since she graduated just in time for the recession (thank you, Dubya) with five digits' worth of school loans. So far, she's still looking for a job that will pay enough to live on AND make payments to the Student Loan People. But she's not sitting and moping - she's working two jobs, and in her vast quantities of spare time, she's applying for jobs that will cover both life and loans.

Other people raised their children differently. There's not anything inherently wrong about that - one of the hard facts of being a card-carrying liberal is that you have to grant people the right to do things in ways you wouldn't. But I do think there's something tragic about a family that rejects its children if they choose love over a higher income. It's a fate that's actually come about with one of the erstwhile fiance's cousins; he's apparently persona non grata these days, after giving up a high-paying job to move closer to the woman he loves. My guess is that the EF could see it happening to him, if he actually followed through with marrying a woman with high ideals and a big balance in the school loan department. And who refused to file bankruptcy to get out of paying the loans.

In the long run, it's for the best. Go ahead and get the heartbreak out of the way while there's no community property and no children involved. Deal with the disappointment while you can still move on.

But the disappointment is very real, and it hurts. My daughter hurts from the rejection, from being told, in essence, that she's inadequate. I hurt for my daughter. And I hurt for myself and the rest of my family, because we fell for it, too. We trusted him to love our girl enough to bend for her, as she bent at times for him. And he betrayed our trust.

I am deeply disappointed in both the EF and his family. They seemed so nice. I'm furiously angry to find they place more importance on financial worth than on commitment, love, and hard work.

Right now, she says she'd rather be single for the rest of her life than to get hurt like this again. I'm hoping there's someone not far off who won't betray her - who shares her ideals and her sense of commitment, and who wants what she wants and is willing to bend to meet her. And that when she encounters that person, she'll be able to believe him.

Because we need to have faith that there is love, and it can conquer all, if you let it.

Otherwise, the disappointment of living would eat us alive.

Movie reviews

2010-09-14T01:04:00.002-04:00

Every once in a while, I take a notion to have a movie weekend. Sometimes there's a reason - research for a project, or I'm feeling a little hesitant in my Spanish comprehension - but for the most part, it's just time for a movie weekend.

This week, I was looking for a melody - one that hovers in the back of my memory and tries to ooch forward occasionally, but will never quite surface. This week, I needed that melody. It's sweet and elegant, childlike and stately, one of a kind.

So Bri and I hit Wild and Woolly Video on Bardstown Road last Saturday afternoon and came out with an armload. And what an armload!

One of her picks was a French rendition of Bluebeard, the scary morality tale of the young woman whose blue-bearded husband warns her never to unlock the room with the little gold key. If you ever heard a fairy tale, you know how this one comes out. But this production is brilliant and eerie - directed by Catherine Breillat, it links make-believe with the recent past of my childhood and quite successfully builds suspense in spite of the obvious. This one goes in one of my "fantasy classes" on Cinema as Literature.

My picks included Coco Before Chanel, which I guess qualifies as fictionalized history, if not historical fiction. Having read the Wikipedia bio, I expect they got the basic facts about as straight as one can, without sworn testimony. But without a fly on the wall, it's anybody's guess how accurate the details are. Nevertheless, it's an admirable effort, a fun movie, and Audrey Tatou is (duh...) perfect. (Like she could be anything else.)

The Unknown Quantity - totally - was Avenue Montaigne. The synopsis sounded amusing: Jeune femme from le stiques comes to Paree, finds a job as a wait-person at a cafe' (where they don't hire women, merci' very beaucoups) next door to the theatre, and proceeds, via her engenuite', to solve the problems of all the overwrought soap stars and nouveau riche art collectors within range, not to mention a tormented concert pianist and a jackass cafe' manager. AND she makes her Grandmama happy.

Bottom line: If you love Cinderella, heroines with grit, happy coincidences, and happier endings, rent this movie. You will love it! Definitely goes on MY Favorites List.

The icing on the cake I saved for this evening, two days past due. (Yep. This is me. The Queen of Overdue Fines. Wild and Woolly lets me pay on the installment plan. Seriously.)

The icing on the cake was Babe.

This is the movie I went looking for. The Saint-Saëns melody that repeats throughout this sweet, lovely film simply haunts me. For several years, I struggled to write a hymn lyric to the tune. Watching the movie tonight, and hearing - maybe for the first time, for all I've watched Babe half a dozen times or more - Farmer Hoggett singing softly to the little pig, "If I had the words to make a day for you..." I realized my efforts were superfluous. The song is one of complete, unconditional, uncomplicated, WYSIWYG love, and there is none greater. I don't think I'll forget the melody again; it's imprinted now in my head.

And the take-away is this: the half-grown pig, nudging gently at his bereft adoptive mother, Fly, who's seen her litter of pups farmed out and lost her mate, Rex, to his own ill temper and jealousy, and saying, "Mom? Mom? Are you alright, Mom?" And the farmer, the man of few words, willing a sad little pig to live, and softly singing to him from some unidentified place deep in his own heart's memory.

No species-defined lines. No assumptions. No prejudgment. Just love. Wide-open, accepting - willing to be hurt, if that's what it takes (although not out actively looking for pain) - but mostly just knowing that it's in giving that we receive.

I finished the evening with a phone call from my sister. She's beautiful, and I love her. Life isn't easy right now - but that's just life. The good part is us. We have each other to lean on.

Hunting Houses

2010-09-05T00:48:00.001-04:00

My daughter and her fiance have decided it's time. They need their own place. Unfortunately, they both work such hours that it's difficult for them to look for houses together - which is why I've spent the last two Saturdays wandering around town looking at "fixers" with Bri.

Last week was with the realtor who helped us buy this house. She's also a friend, and she was willing to go out with us once for "window-shopping." Five houses, four of them "shotgun" style (originally three rooms, lined up front-to-back, so you could stand in the front door, fire a shotgun, and have the shot go straight out the back), although three of them had been added to. The remaining house was a two-story; we never left the ground floor.

Houses #1 and #2 were in acceptable structural shape but needed some updating. #3 was a tragedy: a beautiful, 100+ year old house with original, detailed, beautiful woodwork around the doors and windows, a front door that needed some gentle repairs to be restored to its original gloriously embellished state - and a ton of black mold, growing out of the mud room walls in huge tufts. Up to that point, we'd noted the floors needed refinishing, the fireplaces needed some work, the walls would have to be redone - but when we stepped into the kitchen and looked out the back door, we were horrified. And I was sick for four days after breathing mold spores for 10 minutes while we were there.

Bri was practically in tears. I could see why. Here is a lovely house, once a sweet home - one that could be again. But it's toxic. There's no way. They'd have to live in haz-mat masks for weeks, until they could get the back entry demolished and cleaned out. And if it was that bad on the surface, what's inside the walls? What's under the floor? What's living in the cellar?

We're all about "green." A big part of "green" is reusing, repurposing, and recycling. But I'm not sure that house is still in any condition to be repurposed or recycled. It may be too far gone for that. It's damn near criminal - a huge waste of resources and beauty.

The fourth house was the two-story. It took us a couple minutes to figure out it had been the scene of a rather nasty kitchen fire. It's going to take someone twice the mortgage amount to bring it back to a healthy standard of living.

The fifth was a charmer. Completely renovated, new kitchen, second bathroom, finished attic adding two bedrooms. Loads of natural light. All was well until after Judy, the realtor, had left. Bri and I were unloading my B-cycle (work bike-pool vehicle) from the rack so I could ride it back to the building to turn it in. We'd worked our way close to downtown, and in spite of the heat, I wanted to get a couple miles in. And up the street came a gentleman (I use the term loosely) with a brown paper sack grasped firmly in his waving right hand, shouting at the top of his lungs about what we could do to his hmm-hmm. And on and on. And on.

He never came more than about 20 yards from where we were, just stood in the middle of the street and bellowed obscenities and angry, drunken epithets, except for the seconds when he stopped for another gulp from the paper sack. But that was close enough. Our smittenness evaporated as I circled the bike around and took off up the street, with Bri in the car on my back fender.

She learned later from a friend who works for a mortgage finance company that there's a halfway house for recently released sex offenders a block up from the address. Um... no. Thank you.

This week was somewhat stressful. I was struggling to get a handle on an essential - but complex and very alien - process at work, I was sick for much of the week with evil allergy-related symptoms, and the young lovers were having some communication issues. (They're learning quite quickly to navigate those rough waters - it's one of the major advantages to waiting until you're old enough to know your own priorities before you commit to sharing a life with someone else!) We didn't have anything we needed to go back out with Judy, so instead, we girls struck out on our own this afternoon.

We viewed six houses from the outside. We found two keepers. One is another shotgun, in the Highlands - one of those charming neighborhoods made up of Victorian- to Arts & Crafts-period houses in a wide range of states of repair (or not). It's on a narrow side street, clean and bright, with sidewalks and beggar cats on the walk. It's blue, it has good windows and a cute fireplace (we could see it through the front windows), and a postage stamp yard. It backs up to an alley; there's room to park behind.

The other is a few blocks away from where I sit right now. It's one of those 1960s cookie-cutter ranches, and it's sad. The shrubs are overgrown, the flagpole is bent, the fence is falling in huge chunks of unfinished lumber. It's painted gray.Or putty. A non-color. But it has three beautiful trees in the front yard. The floors are bare plywood, some of the storm windows have come loose from their frames. The rail on the front porch is inexpertly constructed; it needs to be taken apart and rebuilt.

It has half again the floor space of the house in the Highlands. It has a garage - closed in now (apparently, someone had ideas of turning it into a family room) but easily opened back up. It has three bedrooms, two full bathrooms. It needs work, but they all do, in the price range of young lovers with excellent carpentry skills.

Mainly, that house needs love to break through its depressive state and bring it back to life. By the time we got home, Bri was thinking bright white exterior, red shutters, a cheery, welcoming blue front door; I was thinking a swing in the tree out front. Rocking chairs on the porch, azaleas in the yard, tomatoes and herbs by the kitchen door. I'd already made a list of the essential basic repairs - in priority order.

It's about green. It's about recycling and reusing. It's about giving new life to things someone else thought were worn out.

Both these houses have a lot of potential. I'm looking forward to next weekend.

The week that wuz...

2010-08-19T23:18:00.002-04:00

It started last Friday afternoon with a hasty flight from the office to - appropriately - the airport. SDF to MDW wasn't bad; in fact, the landing was kind of fun. The pilot gave us a heads-up that they'd assigned us the shortest available runway for landing purposes at Midway. Good thing Southwest flies short planes... From where I was sitting, I could just about feel the dude standing on the brake pedal. Seriously professional job of parking that plane, if you ask me.

We flew most of the way to Philly in the dark, then rode to NJ with the Beth and Hillary Show. You put Hillary and her cousin Elizabeth together in the same small space for a few hours, and it gets crazy. And loud. But fun. I, on the other hand, was dead on my butt, so I dozed through most of it.

Saturday was Joe and Damaris' wedding. Joe is Elizabeth's brother, and Damaris is the new Most Recent Addition to the Family. She's a lovely young woman, she was a gorgeous bride, it was a beautiful wedding, and the reception brought back memories of my first Italian Thanksgiving. (Short version: Between the fourth course - i.e., the entree' - and dessert, I found myself in the bathroom, praying, "Please, please let my stomach stop hurting, and I swear I won't eat another bite." And then, 30 minutes later, back at the table just in time for them to bring out the tiramisu, I prayed, "You knew I was kidding, right?" So you get the idea, right?)

Best thing about the reception: Chip Mergott's music. Not that the sit-down dinner wasn't fabulous. The salmon was especially perfect. (Can something be "especially perfect"? Yes, it can.) But Chip was great - the only thing that would have been better would have been Annie, too. Sadly, the Mergotts were unable to find a babysitter, so it was an Annie-less show.

Note to Chip and Annie: The next time we're invited to the same event, call me. I'll look out for Eli and you guys can play all you want.

Spent a good chunk of Sunday at work, thanks to the invention of the "remote desktop." Went online to check a thing or two, and ended up on for about 4 hours, basically being a perfectionist. Good thing I enjoy being a perfectionist.

Monday - a trip to NYC. Made a stop at the recently opened Forever 21 in Times Square, where we bought a gift for the pet sitter. (Hope she likes it!) Then walked about four blocks farther than my knee was willing before I demanded relief, which came in the form of a cab. Never rode in a New York cab before. Monday, I did it twice.

Destination: the studio where The Daily Show is taped. Yes, that Daily Show - the one with Jon Stewart! Trust me, it was worth every minute of the three hours we stood in line. (We had tickets. If you don't have tickets, don't bother. And even if you do, if you show up after 4:30 p.m., forget it. At 4:30, your tickets will become the prized possession of someone who showed up without tickets, but on time.) The guest: Emma Thompson. Among the thoughts that kept going through my head as I watched Her Gorgeousness mugging and cutting up with JS: "Kenneth Brannaugh was screwing around on HER? What a dope..."

Well, and we see whose career has gained serious altitude, and whose pretty much disappeared...

Cab to Penn Station, train back to Basking Ridge. Got in around 10 p.m.; dinner was a malt from the Dairy Queen. (Sadly, I cannot recommend the malts from the Bernardsville DQ. They were low on malt and tasted unmistakeably of skim milk.)

Tuesday, flew home. En route, picked up a New Yorker - fun reading - and a paperback by Alice Hoffman: The Story Sisters, which is classic Hoffman. Charming, bittersweet, fanciful to the point of being almost mystic - a beautiful book. Finished it last night. Not that short; just that engrossing.

Wednesday, back to work. Today, back to work some more. Tomorrow... yeah. That. (At least I have lunch plans.)

Saturday, I've signed up to help build a greenhouse at Brandeis Elementary School. Now, THAT is good use of a weekend!

Must be August...

2010-08-09T01:43:00.002-04:00

I should probably ride to work tomorrow. The high is only going to be 95, with hardly any "heat index" added on. It's the last day this week I should be so lucky.

Friday was actually nice, for the first time in over a week, but we had a lot to do that morning - Bri trying to finish up projects for Pennsic, the annual big-deal event of the SCA (that's Society for Creative Anachronism - Google it), Mitch getting ready to fly to NC for his dad's 60th birthday (OMG, my second ex-spouse will be 60 on Tuesday...), and of course, me, knowing I needed to get my butt out the door, like, an hour ago, but wanting to hang out with the kids for a few minutes more. Mitch, in particular, doesn't come around as much as he used to. That would be because (a) he's moved into his own place with a buddy over in J'town, and (b) he's accomplished that "separation" thing quite well. This is good, but when he does show up, it's good to see him.

So Friday, I didn't ride. Friday, I drove Mitch's Saturn Vue, because I could. Bri took my car to Pennsic, Mitch left me his keys - at least until he returns on Tuesday - and it's all good. My next Saturn is going to be a Vue (assuming I can find one still running that the owner's willing to sell), which will give us three in the family; both the boys drive Vues at present. It's a great vehicle - big enough to haul large dogs, small-to-medium-sized furniture, and/or any number of longety-leggity boys, but it gets about the same gas mileage as my Saturn LS2, which is a small sedan. In fact, there are moments I find myself wishing someone would rear-end the LS2. Not that I don't like it - it's a great, dependable, economical, and attractive little car. But I could use something with a little more room, if only for the dogs. (Big Daisy is coming in at about 80 pounds these days. It amaze me how she can fold her longety-leggity self into an armchair and not hang off the edges.)

But I digress. Friday, I didn't ride. Saturday, I did: to the bike shop in Westport Village to buy a new seat (got my skinny gel seat!), to the Crescent Hill library, which was closed, but I dropped off my overdue library book anyway, and to JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts for a zipper, thread, and beads. About 20 miles round trip.

Today, I meant to, but then I decided it would be rude to show up for Mai's birthday party all sweaty, so I didn't.

Mai is a story all by herself. She's Thai, and she has a little restaurant across the river in Jeffersonville, IN. It's the best - Thai home cooking. She's celebrating 9 years in business, and her birthday was August 2, so she had an invitation-only private buffet for regular customers. Usually, she's closed on Sundays - she drives to Indianapolis, I think, to the nearest Buddhist temple, after she closes up shop on Saturday nights. She has in the store a little shelf of curios that she sells not for profit, but for her ongoing temple-restoration mission - I've bought a couple of lovely pieces of cotton fabric and other things she's brought back from trips to Thailand - and she was accepting donations today. And the food was wonderful as always, and we shared a table with a great couple, Jim and Joy, who live in Jeffersonville these days and work in mental health, and who love to travel. Great conversation about healthcare, systems, and getting what you need. And finding new places.

So today, I didn't ride, either. We came home, I took my Sunday nap, and then we went to Trivia Night at Highland Baptist Church, where we had friends raising funds for a mission trip. Our team came in second, which is respectable considering the questions stunk out loud...

And in about 5 hours, my alarm will go off and start pushing me toward the office again. Another day of building form letters from pre-written components; another day of checking the edits to make sure they contain everything the CMS-approved original says they should.

And it's hot.

Nothing out of the upper 70s - and that's for the low - the rest of the week. 90-100 degrees or more.

Ugh.

Making great days

2010-07-16T01:12:00.001-04:00

My outgoing voice mail message, wherever you hear it - cell or office - ends in, "Make it a great day!" They don't just happen. I learned years ago that when you have a great day, it's because you chose to make it great.

Against all odds - and possibly common sense - my family is coming together this weekend to make a great day. Those who can be there will be, and those who can't get to Sylva, NC, will be thinking of us (and waiting for pictures). Because two weeks ago, my baby sister decided July 18, 2010, was a great day to get married.

Without going into too much detail (and telling a story that's not mine to tell), I'll say yes, this is the same baby sister who is fighting cancer. She starts her chemo Monday or Tuesday - what a way to spend a honeymoon! But one of the things she's found out in the past two months is that her Mark is not easily scared off. He's held her hands and cried with her through painful biopsies; he's checked on her daily and tried to make her laugh when she just wanted to hide; he's listened to her fear and anger knowing he was helpless to change anything, but willing to slay dragons for her at the drop of a hat. Mark thinks in the language of "We." Cheri is not alone, and she's agreed that they belong together.

So we're having a wedding, three months ahead of schedule. Informal for the most part - no invitations, just phone calls and word of mouth - even though she's wearing her gorgeous fairy-tale white satin dress and Mark is wearing a tux. When Ed wanted to know how he should dress, she allowed as how "ties are evil," and said she didn't care if he came in his gym shorts. The ceremony and reception are in the church where we grew up, but she won the music "discussion," and our old friend Jay will be singing America's "Daisy Jane." (There are even less appropriate songs in the mix, but they're going to be instrumentals...)

Wednesday, she called me on the phone with a "quick question" - could my daughter and I take care of the cake? "Well, of course," I said. "How many people are you expecting?"

"Huh?" she responded. "Why?"

"Well, how big do you need it to be?"

She almost fell off her chair laughing - I could tell. She wanted us to CUT the cake for guests - she didn't need us to make it! I expect that will go down as legendary as my wedding story of Daddy and the nuts.

It will be a flying run at Sylva for those of us who can. It's totally worth it. I wouldn't miss this for love nor money!

Back to the trail

2010-07-04T23:34:00.001-04:00

Rockwood is a pretty little town with a quiet little Main Street - much of it residential - and a bike shop right next to the trailhead going on northwest. But that was for Sunday.

Saturday night, we rode to the store on the east side of the bridge and got sodas and ice cream sandwiches. I thought I might have died and gone to heaven when I discovered they had Diet Sierra Mist. I'd never been able to get it here. (Interestingly, right after I got back, Ed found Kroger had started carrying it.)I got a sandwich, too, but all things considered, I decided this was a night for eating dessert first. So I parked myself on the front porch of the store, in the dark, and ate my ice cream and rested my burning muscles for a few minutes. Then we mounted back up and rode, helmetless, up a couple of back streets to the Hostel on Main Street.

The hostel has a bike rack in the cellar, plus plenty of open floor space down there. They can accomodate at least a dozen bikes just in the racks, and if you have a kick-stand, there's more room than that. I was too tired to fool with the lock; I just parked Nellie Belle and walked out. As it turns out, there was no need to worry - everything was fine the next morning. (And there's apparently an alarm on the doors, as we discovered shortly...)

The shiny kitchen in back, with vintage coffee mugs and mixed china in the corner cabinet, was a quiet haven for eating my sandwich, drinking my "happy surprise" soda, and reading a book for a bit after a hot shower. Three showers in separate bathrooms ensured privacy and availability, and there was ample hot water for Bob and me, even though we were in adjacent bathrooms at the same time. No loss of pressure or hot. :-)

The front room had comfy old chairs, a whole wall of books - everything from Stephen King to romance novels to local history - and several puzzles, a card table, and a good ceiling fan to keep the air moving. The central, common bunk room had bunks for at least 12, and there were two separate "family" bunk rooms to sleep six or eight. Our one roommate for the evening was ready to crash about the time I got done eating, but I was able to go out to the front room and read until I wound down.

Unfortunately, the alarm on the back door kept going off at about 7- or 8-minute intervals. We tried resetting it, thought about smashing it, but before we got that desperate, Bob hit on the solution. Just like smoke alarms, apparently battery-operated security alarms start going off when their batteries get low. He popped the batteries out, and that was the end of that. (He put them back in the next morning, so the staff would be aware there was an issue and replace them. No problems at all on Sunday night!)

The train tracks run about 20 yards behind the hostel, which might be a problem for city folks. We grew up in Sylva, North Carolina, though. We never lived more than half a mile from the tracks from the time we moved there. (Sometime I'll tell you about the "No Trains At Night Motel.") And my kids grew up in Wendell, NC, in the same proximity to the tracks... My daughter and I were talking about it the other day, and we concluded that for us, trains at night are better than "white noise." It can take a night or two to get used to the rhythm of the schedules, but not if you're as tired as Bob and I were that night!

Sunday morning, we were the last out. Had a fun time visiting with the other guests who'd stayed Saturday night - a lone cyclist who hit it off with Bob (they shared an interesting philosophical discussion over coffee) and a family of five who were doing their first long ride together. They'd recently moved from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania and have a farm where they raise pasture-fed cattle.

We didn't hit our first snag of the day until we got to the (closed) restaurant where we'd thought to get breakfast. That's when I discovered my wallet was not in my seat wedge where it was supposed to be.

We'd decided to leave the bulk of our gear at the hostel, since we were staying there again on Sunday night, so we rode back to look there. I dumped out my panniers on the bunk, looked on the floor under the bed, looked in the bathrooms, the front room, the kitchen - looked in the refrigerator. We looked in the cellar. No wallet.

There was nothing left to do but backtrack. I was trying not to panic.

We rode back to the store the same way we'd come, scanning the sides of the road for my little red wallet. When we got to the store, I parked the bike, walked in, and said to the man at the counter, "We stopped in here last night, and I think I maybe dropped my..." and he was already reaching under the counter, grinning a relieved kind of grin. The night guy had found my wallet by the bike rack -- I'd dropped it in my helmet while I walked around the corner to eat my ice cream sandwich, and it had apparently fallen out. They'd checked the ID, so the morning guy knew who I was when I walked in. And everything was there - the cards, the cash, all of it. I could have hugged his neck, but I settled for buying some more ice cream and a cup of coffee.

Our Sunday ride was an out-and-back. I won't say this is the prettiest stretch of the trail, although I'm tempted, but I will say it's special. This is where we saw the most lush wildflower growth, crossed the most bridges over rivers, detoured around an abandoned tunnel, and got the majority of the best pictures. (See my Facebook album.) It was also a relatively easy ride - 21 miles out, an hour or more for a lunch break, and then back to Rockwood - with no really challenging hills. A good stretch for the second day.

Next up: the Sunday Lunch restaurant review (four stars), ice cream for dinner, and Monday thunderstorms and turtles.

Eventually

2010-06-30T00:44:00.003-04:00

I'll come back to the ride eventually. It was my first real three-day ride, after all. And there were more adventures. But not today.

Today, I decided around 3 p.m. that I'd had enough for a while. I needed a break. So I told my neighbor Andrew I had an errand to run, picked up my helmet and pocketbook, and headed down to the bike rack.

Nellie Belle rode in on the back of the car this morning. I was running late-ish, and Bri needed the car to make deliveries this evening. But that was fine. It meant Nellie was sitting in her spot in the loading dock, waiting. I strapped my pocketbook under the cargo net, put on my new red-and-pink tropical-floral helmet (fun!), and set out the four blocks to Creation Gardens.

I was back 25 minutes later -- and feeling like I'd had a two-hour break. Creation Gardens is a wholesale "fresh and local" restaurant supplier with a small retail operation on the side. Seriously on the side... The retail store is on a teeny little side street that looks like an alley, just east of the interstate overpass that's just east of Slugger Field. There are two ways to get there from where I work, three blocks west on Main: You can go south to Market, come back east past the interstate, and ride two blocks north -- or you can ride east to Slugger Field, north half a block, east another two blocks, and circle back to the block that's missing. I chose the latter route. It meant I didn't have to deal with any "main drags," and it took me right past the Louisville Extreme Park, which has some really good energy, anytime, day or night. Kids on skateboards and bikes - what can I tell you? Die, obesity, die! :-)

The retail store for Creation Gardens reminds me of nothing so much as Noah's Food Co-Op in Raleigh, back in the '80s when we "old hippies" were still trying to act like old hippies. (These days, we still do, but we're quieter.) They have open shelves, bulk bins, and the stock seems sort of randomly placed -- or at least, the price tags are randomly placed. But I found a couple things that made me say to hell with the price tags. Honest.

My mission was to find some fast salad makings for dinner at Gilda's Club. This is an off week for volunteers, so we'd all signed up for potluck - all of us friends and family and others with ties to cancer - and I was down for "green salad." So... a head of romaine and a head of red leaf lettuce; one red onion; one smallish {pretty!} yellow squash and two small {really pretty) zucchini; two medium-to-small bunches of broccoli; two pints of mixed heirloom cherry tomatoes. And a wedge of Brie - right at 4 oz. for less than $4. Unheard of.

They were going to give me a market basket, but I argued a box would strap better onto the back of the bike. The box they found - a plain white one - held my produce, my purse, and my bike lock, and it provided just enough tension on the cargo net that my rear light was quite secure. I'll use that box until it wears out.

Quality of produce? Well, I can tell you this: I came home with about 6 oz. of mixed chopped squash - maybe half a cup - and about half as much chopped broc. I only sliced about 1/3 of the onion, paper-thin, so the other 2/3 remains. The lettuce and the mixed heirloom tomatoes are all gone. I didn't even offer up the Brie.

And I think I may do a quick veggie stir-fry tomorrow evening with the left-over squash bits, broccoli, and a little onion. Maybe we'll have some tomatoes ripe soon.

Will it go 'round in circles? - Further Confessions of a Whiny Cyclist

2010-06-18T21:36:00.002-04:00

I neglected to mention I was starting to get a headache between Frostburg and the MadDog Line, in addition to the fatigue (which I was kind of expecting, having hit my recent max around mile 16). I also neglected to mention the banana was only the beginning. The second it hit my taste buds, I realized I'd eaten nothing except a dozen or so fresh cherries(at Frostburg) since leaving Roy Rogers several hours before. I was into Negative Calorie Zone - I'd burned more than I'd taken in already since getting up that morning.

So I had the banana, two Kashi bars, a handful of my Better-Than-Gorp trail mix (recipe available on request), and about a quart of water before taking off again. Come to think of it, that may have helped almost as much as Delbert McClinton on the iPod...

The summit was more than half the way to our destination for the evening. 24 miles down, 18 or 20 to go. And from where we were standing, it looked like it was downhill all the way.

Appearances can be deceiving. Granted, it was slightly more level than not for several miles, but there was more incline than decline when there was any "cline" at all. It didn't take me long to burn up the banana and the Kashi bars. And I'm slow anyway.

Along about 6 p.m., we were still several miles out from Rockwood, PA, where Bob had found a hostel. After giving me careful directions to follow the trail to Rockwood, turn right and cross the bridge, then turn right again onto Main Street, he went ahead to check us in before the staff left for the evening - and to see if he could find us a steak or something. He thought he remembered a restaurant...

Only a few miles - I could do that on my own! And I did fine, until I hit the construction zone (closed for the weekend, thanks be to the Almighty) with the big chunks of loose gravel on sand that felt like riding on boulders, immediately followed by welcome signs that listed mostly Rockwood businesses. There was a bridge, and there looked to be a Main Street down there, but I'd only gone about 2/3 of the distance Bob told me. So I located the trail connection on the other side of the road (no small feat) and pedaled on.

The next mile and a half was the worst of the entire ride. In addition to one goodly uphill stretch - again, on loose gravel over sand, short but steep and rough - the trail was pitted, rocky, unkept, with roots and limbs across the middle. I don't know who is responsible for maintaining the trail, but whoever has the stretch along there is falling down on the job.

About three miles out, I was starting to question my judgment. At about four miles, I became convinced I had ridden right past Rockwood. I finally parked the bike at a little bench with a shelter - they're all along the trail - and had myself a Swiss cheese and ginger preserve sandwich and another quart or so of water, and I prayed. I was pretty sure, I told the Universe, that I'd missed my turn. If I didn't locate myself before dark, which was coming fast, I'd be sleeping out here by this bench, getting myself a stiff neck and a nifty case of grass-itch. (Never mind what might break out on my nether parts if I had to go into the brush for potty.) There was no map, no direction, and no clue in sight, but I needed one. Just a clue - just a little hint I was going the right way. Or that I needed to backtrack.

Wiped my sticky, ginger-preservey hands with a towelette, lifted up Nellie Belle, and prepared to mount. And before I could push off onto the trail, three near-teenagers (on the upper end) came around the nearest past bend. Two girls and a guy.

"'Scuse me," I said, in my best Southern Lost Person voice. "Rockwood is back that way?" I pointed the way I'd come, half saying, half asking.

"Rockwood's up that way," one of them answered, and they all pointed up the trail in the direction I'd been going all along.

I thanked them most kindly. And I felt much relieved. No miles wasted. Whew!

I don't think I'd gone more than another mile and a half before I saw Bob coming back down the trail toward me. It was dusk by then, but I recognized his "gait" on the bicycle.

He hadn't found a restaurant, but he'd found the hostel. He had the passcode to the door, so we could get in even though the staff had left for the evening. And he'd found a general store right on the way, and they had sandwiches and sodas and ice cream.

I thanked the Lord for my brother (and his good raisin'!), tuned out the screaming coming from every muscle between my belly and my knees, and followed him the last three miles to Rockwood.

Stay tuned to this station for more Adventures of a (Whiny) Cyclist...

:-)

The Ride, Part Deux: Confessions of a Whiny Cyclist

2010-06-15T23:14:00.001-04:00

SO... (and BTW, pictures are on my Facebook page! If you can't open them, send me a friend request.)

The first few miles weren't bad - nothing worse than what I tackle on my commute to and from work. The grade was anywhere from about 1% to 2%, and there was plenty of shade. It was hot - mid '80s - but when you're riding, you kick up your own personal breeze, so you don't feel the heat until you stop. (When you stop, though, for a "hydration break," it does seem like the water goes down your goozle and straight to the pores...)

After we crossed over the highway, it got a little steeper. Gradually, at first, so I didn't notice I was getting tired until my upper thighs caught fire. Still, there was shade, and the trail surface is good, so I was able to keep on truckin'.

The trail follows the old railroad bed - some of it still in use for freight, some not - from Cumberland to Pittsburgh, so when there is an incline, it's gradual. The difference is this: Around here, I encounter inclines daily that are between 3% and 6% - but they rarely go more than a quarter of a mile. The Great Allegheny Passage between Cumberland and the Eastern Continental Divide probably never exceeds 2%, but it's a continual 24 miles at an average of 1-1/2%. In fact, the Website claims the grade never exceeds that, but I'm pretty sure some of those stretches were a little more - just not long stretches. Rarely, though, does it level off to zero. And after a while, it becomes a very LONG 24 miles.

Somewhere along the way, I gave Bob clearance to ride ahead, hoping he could get a phone signal and find lodging for the evening. Shortly after he took off toward the rendezvous point at Frostburg, I encountered a blast from the past: a real live, honest-to-God steam engine - in service. There's a tour train that uses the tracks - when I heard it coming, I knew what it was. I haven't heard that sound in at least 40 years, but what a beautiful noise. If you've never heard the vibrant crescendo of a steam engine whistle, you haven't any idea what you've missed. I stopped and waited - and yes, there are pictures.

Met Bob at the Frostburg trail head, where he was collapsed on the grass. Looked like a good idea to me - I stretched out and took a little cat nap, after shedding my shoes and socks. My toes resent being cooped up in hard shoes, and 18 miles out, my ankles were beginning to take serious exception to the hard edges of those hard shoes. After a bit, Brother Bob got on the cell and located a hostel in Rockwood, MD, with beds for the evening. Then we put our footgear back on and headed for the summit.

The Mason Dixon Line isn't quite to the top. Nevertheless, I found a lovely, big flat rock whereon to stretch my weary body and eat a banana. The two guys who were a ways ahead of us (after passing us around mile three...) were coming back down as we cooled off, and Bob heard them as they flew by. One said to the other, "Damn, that banana smells good!" It made me laugh.

And since I know banana peels are great fertilizer for roses (try it sometime!) and other flowering plants, I do not consider my next move "littering." The rhododendrons will thank me.

Almost at the summit, I chalked up Injury #2 when I came at the concrete pad next to the, um, facilities at an angle. In every fall, there is a lesson; the lesson for this one was, "Head on is best." The angle caused me to flip my bike, and I landed on the same elbow I'd smacked on the asphalt a week earlier. (Lesson for that fall: If you must ride in sandals, make sure your panniers are set well back, out of range of the dismount.)

I'll tell you a secret: Concrete has a LOT less "give" than asphalt. Who'd've thunk?

By this time, I was not only the proud owner of a still slightly bloody shin and a throbbing elbow, but I also had flames shooting out of my extreme upper thighs. I broke down. To this point, I'd determinedly kept the headphones in my bag, choosing to listen instead to the woods, the train, the breeze. That last few miles, though, it was only Delbert McClinton on the iPod that kept my feet pushing 'round in circles.

And with that, I'll say, "Nighty-night - more later, kids!"

2010-06-10T00:11:00.001-04:00

Monday, May 31, I achieved another milestone in my life as a cyclist. I rode 42 miles a day for three consecutive days - one of them mostly uphill.

And I only hurt myself twice!

On Friday, May 28 - Mom's 82nd birthday, by the way, and sorry I missed it, Mom! - I met my kid brother Bob in Cumberland, MD, for a three-day ride. Made it safely, in spite of heavy rain - and a rainbow that stood still long enough for me to get pictures, which to my mind cancels out the whole "bad weather" thing. The bike rack went in the car and the bike in the trunk about halfway there; the straps on the rack kept getting slack, and I was having scary visions of Nellie Belle flying off in the middle of I-64 and causing a wreck, thereby getting me sued and ruining my weekend.

Item #1 on the birthday list: a Saris bike rack. Don't need a 3-bike model like Bob's - a 2-bike model would be fine. Even a solo would do nicely.

We had dinner at a little Italian place just north of exit 40 on I-68. His lasagna looked yum. My spaghetti and meatballs was good, except it wasn't spaghetti. I know cappelini cooks up faster, but let's face it - something commonly known as "angel hair" just isn't substantial enough to stand up to a hearty meat sauce. That's okay - the sauce was really good, and I got what I was after, which was a healthy load of good carbs and protein.

Saturday morning was the beginning of a good lesson in packing light. I went through everything I'd loaded for the trip and pared it down by a quarter. My panniers, handlebar bag, and seat wedge already topped out at a total of 20 or 25 pounds, which Bob granted was remarkable - especially given that I hadn't really tried to keep it light on the first pack. Among the items I eliminated getting it under 20 lb:
• Two small notebooks (I usually carry three on trips - one for work-related flashes of genius, one for personal brilliant insights, and one for lists)
• About half of my first-aid gear - a major leap of faith
• And two bottles of Magic Hat "Wacko" summer brew, which I'd planned to wrap in my towel so they'd travel safely - just a little reward each evening on the trail

Things that made the cut:
• The current crochet project (cotton mesh cycling gloves, my own design)
• The "lists" notebook
• Two changes of non-cycling type clothes
• Paperback copies of books-in-progress:
o The Cider House Rules, by John Updike
o Blessed Unrest, by Paul Hawken
o and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
• My towel (refer to Hitchhiker’s Guide if you don’t get it)

Okay - technically, the towel is an oversized washcloth – about 9” square – but it turned out to be quite adequate.

Breakfast at Roy Rogers – I kept the tray liner for the guy in the next cube at the office, who has fond memories of breakfast at Roy Rogers when he was a kid. Roy Rogers now has wi-fi, as advertised on the tray liners. Ol’ Roy may not be spinning in his grave, but he’s mystified, I’m sure.

BTW, I’m not wild about Roy Rogers’ burgers, but I definitely recommend their breakfast menu. They have real eggs, not something out of a milk carton-looking thing. And their breakfast fries are recognizable slices of honest-to-goodness potatoes. With skins on. The croissants aren’t bad, either - all the way ‘round, if you’re looking for good carbs and protein, Roy definitely works.

Found our way to the trail head, parked and registered our cars, and then Bob convinced me to duck into the cycling shop and get a pair of gloves. (I have no idea where my old ones are.) He was right – it was worth the $30 in the long run – but I wasn’t expecting to spend that before we ever took off. I could’ve gotten a perfectly serviceable pair in Louisville for less than $15. Oh, well. Guess I need to crochet faster.

Leaving the cycle shop, we ran into a guy who’d been at RR earlier – Larry Brock. He’d been at the Del McCoury concert at the Cumberland fairgrounds the night before and was going back that evening. He was wearing socks with the Grateful Dead skull and lightning bolt emblem – fit right into our little family, he did. He assured me I was going to love the trail between Cumberland and the Eastern Continental Divide - coming back...

Right after that, I took a little spin around the shopping center and sustained injury #1: hit the loose gravel under the bridge, braked too hard, lost control, and tipped. As my feet came down, my left shin connected with the splash guard on the back of the front fender and made a not-so-neat 1 ½ inch gash right over the shin bone. Flashback to July 2009 ... But I knew exactly where my first-aid supplies were, and there was no fat or bone showing through, so no panic. Patched myself up and pedaled on.

(Definitely not pretty, though. It’s going to leave a scar.)

A bit past noon – later than we’d planned – we hit the trail.

To be continued ...

Co'Cola

2010-05-09T15:02:00.004-04:00

A few years ago, my son went to Thailand with a work group for a couple weeks, and he brought me back a treasure: a real Coke.

Remember what Coke tasted like before high fructose corn syrup? Sweet, but not sticky. In fact, it had the tiniest bit of a bite - just a hint of something, I don't know... spicy, or maybe even peppery. When you poured it into a glass and took a sip before it settled, the frothy bubbles tickled your nose. I know - they still do, but not in the same way. It was a delicate tickle, a light, icy sizzle, not the obviously bubbly pop-pop-pop you get now.

Back home, in North Carolina, we called them "Co'Colas." A coke - lower-case "c" - was any carbonated soft drink. (I expect it made the Coke people crazy, kind of like it does the Kleenex people when you refer to any facial tissue as a "kleenex.") The new ones, the ones they call "Coke Classic," aren't Co'Colas. They really are different.

Since Mitch's trip to Thailand, I've found if you look, you can get Co'Colas here in the States. You just have to know where to look.

Last week, my daughter took me on a field trip to an Asian market in the South End. I bought Chinese Five Spice blend - all the good Asian cookbooks call for it, but try finding it at Kroger, or even Whole Foods! I bought fat, crunchy bean sprouts, and I bought plum wine. And I bought Cokes.

Apparently, the Asian and Hispanic communities are not as susceptible to HFCS hype as we Anglos. I've known all along that high fructose corn syrup was (you'll pardon my saying) not the same as cane sugar, contrary to what the corn syrup marketers would have you believe. Yes, it has the same calories. Yes, it's sweet, just like sugar. But there's something about it - probably something in the process of condensing corn sugar into syrup - that gives me a blazing headache. So I've been drinking diet sodas for decades, ever since I made the connection using the doctor-recommended "elimination diet." Believe me, it doesn't take too many episodes of having your brain burst into flames and scorch your eyeballs from the inside to convince you that whatever does it is a Bad Thing.

But the thing is, there is also a difference in the taste. If you don't believe me - if you're absolutely convinced there is no difference whatsoever in corn syrup and sugar - get yourself to your nearest Asian or Mexican market and buy a Coke there. They still pack them in 12-ounce glass bottles, the kind we used to put a 3-cent deposit on, then got our deposit back or credited it to the next Coke when we returned the empty bottle to be reused. (Hey, we recycled in the '50s and '60s - who knew?!)

I bought two Cokes last week. They don't set my head on fire like the American-market kind, but they still have significant empty calories. I like to have them for treats when I've been working hard.

I just drank the second one. There's still a teensy bit of dark caramel-colored liquid in the bottom of the glass, under the ice. I'll sip Coke-flavored icy water for a few minutes more, as the ice melts and the flavor gets thinner and thinner.

And I'll wonder, as I always do when I have one of these fizzy, icy treats: How come we affluent, educated, diet-obsessed Westerners shrug off marketing hype and don't even question the corn syrup marketers when they lie to us? They lie about the taste - and there's real evidence they lie about the health effects. (I could get scientific here, but for the sake of brevity, I'll stick to the headache thing for now.) How come we turn a blind eye to the obvious? Clearly, enough people don't that the Coke people can continue to profit by making real Coke to sell somewhere.

Go figure.

The new digs

2010-05-07T22:40:00.002-04:00

The new job is going to be a challenge.

You who know me well know I'm at my best when I'm churning out words. I have never met a software application that could defeat me, but a couple have come close - namely, Access and Microsoft Project. Not that they're especially intimidating, but they do more than I've ever needed, and they require an equivalent degree of focus. My theory is that the software is supposed to make it easier, not harder.

However, I am process-oriented. I want to know the steps. Give me the directions from Point A to Point D, and I'll get there. And then I'll go back and look at the maps and bike the route and find a more efficient way.

This job is all about the process. Five different applications in at least three different platforms, with anywhere from six to 10 windows open at any given time, and you have to remember which is which and what the steps are as you zoom back and forth between this app and that. I sense a Six Sigma project to be worked up - which is great, because I've been looking for one for two years. After I learn the current route...

Meanwhile, I'm in a whole new space. To paraphrase one of my favorite heroines, "Toto, I don't think we're in Corporate anymore..." The building where I've moved has a beautifully restored, early-20th century facade, a hip, 1990s-industrial-materials-artsy lobby, and fabulous, Hitchhiker's Guide-worthy electronic elevators that shuffle people about from floor to floor in the most efficient way conceivable. Beyond the lobbies and elevators, though, it has plain beige walls, massive industrial columns stuck in the middle where you'd least expect them, and hundreds of cubicles - just like everywhere else, only more so.

My new space doesn't have the light my old space had, up the street in the Tower. There's no 9-inch glass panel at the top of the cube wall to create an airy feeling or a sense of awareness of one's neighbors. (There's also no piped-in "white noise" to mask the loud voice of the guy one row over.) And I have to walk halfway across the floor to get to a window.

On the other hand, that window has a river view - even clearer than the one from the Tower window. I have a wide-open shot at the Second Street Bridge, which is the central platform for the fireworks during Thunder Over Louisville, at the kick-off of Derby season. (The secondary platforms are two barges parked on either side of the bridge. It's pretty amazing. Fourth of July in D.C. can't hold a Roman candle to it. Honest to God.)

Up at the Tower, on West Main, we have the Kentucky Center for the Arts across the street. We have the Bristol a block up - a lovely mid-priced lunch, equally nice for dinner. Upscale casual. Two blocks up is the place with the red penguins... What is it? Oh, yeah. 21C. The 21C Museum and Hotel. Seriously upscale-but-casual. (I mean that in the most upscale sense.) Art to Be Reckoned With. Spendy drinks in the bar. I don't want to know the price of a room.

A block east of the Tower, there's Z's. They have "signature" martinis - need I say more? Great location for a Girls' Friday - where you sit in trendy upholstered chairs that don't let you get up 'cause they're so soft and squashy, set your martini on a glass-topped coffee table while you dish the dirt, bitch about whatever needs bitchin' about, and laugh for a couple hours - but not a particularly cozy hangout. Or one that fits into my budget more than once a month or so.

I'd never ventured much to East Main. When I was at Riverview Square (the Building That Time Forgot - and that Metro Louisville imploded to make room for the new arena) at the foot of the Second Street Bridge, there was nothing down there except the Marriott Courtyard, the sandwich stand inside the LG&E building, and a couple blocks of abandoned buildings that once were glorious. As far as I knew, there wasn't much to see at that end of the street. Even after I started passing through regularly a couple summers ago, when I started biking to work, it didn't look especially different. The businesses still mostly had that "old dive" look - bars and sandwich places, holes in the wall. My bike shop was down there, but on Market, a block south, and still surrounded by empty storefronts and second-hand stores.

Farther down, east of Waterside, were a few new buildings - sleek, windswept architecture between the old industrial places and Slugger Field - and businesses were moving in, taking over the old places and making them into antique emporiums, ad agencies, landscaping concerns. Some of them - the ugliest, most disreputable - were becoming luxury condos. Gentrification rules, right? But between Second Street and somewhere east of Slugger Field, it was still a mess - a falling-down, waste-of-space, could-be-wonderful mess.

This week, I've been settling into my cubicle in the Waterside Building. I've been establishing what I know, what I don't, what I'm going to have to work at. And yesterday and today, I went to lunch with other Tower expatriates on the east end of Main.

Thursday, Denise and I ate at O'Shea's, the new "Irish pub" in the 100 block of East Main. We've been there before - it's the new location of choice for getting-laid-off parties and crying-in-your-beer parties. Yesterday was the first time I'd had lunch there, and I promise you, the French onion soup is divine and the Caesar salad is ginormous. (And the overdose of fiber almost killed me later in the afternoon... but it was worth it. I think.)

This morning, I ran into Alex, my urban-gardening friend, on the way in from the garage. (BTW, the garage where I'm now assigned is worlds better than the one up on the "upscale" end of Main. It has light, cross-ventilation - and no mildew.) Later in the morning, I shot her an e-mail asking if she had plans for lunch, and we ended up at DeVino's, one of those "old dive" storefronts a block west. Inside, DeVino's is spacious, funky, and the decor is - what? Industrial Euro-Punk Urban Country. Perfect. Real. I want a set of lights like they have over the counter - a string of purple and gold grape clusters. Can't you just see 'em encircling the patio I'm going to build when this old deck finally falls down?!

And incidentally, I'm no longer willing to swear on a stack o' Bibles that Boomer's Canteen, up on the west end of Main, has the best BLT in town. DeVino's is damn good, and I got it with a side salad that rivals the one at the Come Back Inn. And that says a lot.

In recent weeks, I've also experienced another place I knew was there all along, a blues bar called Stevie Ray's. I'd always wanted to check it out, and I finally had the chance last month. It's another "dive-front," with - as it turns out - a good bar, live music, and an actual dance floor. And of course, there's Slugger Field - a favorite of my son's and mine, and we're meeting there after work next Wednesday - and a block west of there is the original BBC (Bluegrass Brewing Co.) location, where I've also never been. (I have been to the newer location on Frankfort Avenue, and BBC microbrews are available in stores hereabouts. They're excellent.)

So given my experience so far, I'm looking forward to checking out some more of the disreputable-looking places on my new end of Main Street.

I guess what it boils down to, at the end of my first week East of Second, is I'm starting to get it: the west end of Main is uptown. It's trendy. It's hip. It's upscale-urban artsy. Down here on the east end of Main is downtown. Funky. Dive-fronted. And wide-open inside - expansive and homey in an eclectic, indefinable way. Uptown was good for wearing heels and making sure everything matched (but not too much) and California Club salads at the Bristol. Downtown, DeVino's has the new Best BLT in Town. Stevie Ray's is the best venue for Girls' Night Out All Night Long Until They Call "Last Call." The cafeteria in the Waterside Building doesn't have low-fat ice cream, but O'Shea's has a lunch menu to die for, if you want to die for a lunch menu.

And - bottom line - downtown suits me fine.

Regardless.

2010-05-02T08:57:00.014-04:00

I guess I can.

I can if she can.

I will if she will...

Damn.

My little sister - one of my best friends in this world - has just received a diagnosis of breast cancer. We've spend three days zooming from medical jargon to COBRA battle, from open vs. closed MRI to holistic treatment center vs. surgeon you know, from "fight" to "hide under the covers" and back again. Sometimes in the span of about 15 seconds, give or take five or six.

Oh, yeah - and from "there's the couch, there's the linen closet, you know how to use 'em" to "OMG, who cleaned the bathroom for me - I am SO embarrassed!" As if she had nothing else to worry about than what her siblings thought of her housekeeping.

To Little Sister - for the record:

The couch worked fine, and the linens were all of a highly acceptable thread count, which is more than I can say for some hotels I've stayed in.

The bathroom wasn't that gross, and whoever cleaned it for you probably just did it as a favor, not as an oblique criticism. One less thing for you to worry about.

And BTW, the fact that he (face it - it wasn't me, so it must've been your brother) cleaned the bathroom probably had at least as much to do with my toiletries and sundry items covering the vanity as anything else. (Not to mention my black pumps on the floor and the two options for Wednesday Wardrobe on the inside door knob.)

And if you weren't freaking out, I'd really worry. I'm freaking out, and I haven't been subjected to the Invasion of the Body-Snatching Mutant Cells.

Much of my sister's stress comes from struggling to reconcile her innate need for independence with her health-imposed need for assistance. Even more of it comes from the fact that she's known for more than two years that something was wrong, but she couldn't get any of the healthcare professionals in her local system to do more than shrug. Bottom line: They didn't do the follow-up. They didn't check the details. They assumed. And they were wrong.

And some of her stress comes from the rest of us.

She knew something was wrong – and now, she has to get her head around the idea that she was right. And that she's lost two of the years she could have used to beat this thing. That she may lose both breasts instead of a little chunk out of one. That the tumors might have invaded other spaces by now. That the delay could cost her life.

And she's getting flak about "how the rest of us feel." Please.

Screw that. The average – or even above-average – human being doesn't have enough brain cells to handle all that. The rest of us are on our own; this woman needs to focus on what she needs to survive. And if that's hard to do – if it means she's all over the map emotionally and intellectually – well, blame the idiots who should have looked harder two years ago.

Okay, deep breath... Pedal on regardless.

What's the point? For me, it's how to keep pedaling.

I start a new job on Monday. This morning, I had to leave my beautiful sister alone to tie up the loose ends of the work we did earlier in the week. I haven't been on my bike in about eight days. I'm emotionally drained, intellectually fried, and physically in bad need of a good stretch. And I have my own annual touch-base with my GYN (who, incidentally, reminds me of my sister) in about 9 hours, which is why I had to leave Thursday instead of next Sunday.

So where does my "Pedal-On Manifesto" fit into this kind of psyche-crunching, body-slamming week? Okay... another deep breath.

What goes down must go back up. Sometimes it’s tough. Deal with it. Life's a bitch. On wheels. And it doesn't stop. (See above.) You do what you have to do. You keep moving. One foot in front of the other. One pedal rotation at a time.

If you let the fear of getting hurt stop you, you’ll never get out of the driveway. It might be easier to pull back, to disengage. This is going to hurt. No matter what happens in the end, it’s not going to be a fun year. But if I disengage, I lose time with one of my best friends. That's worse than having to endure some pain. Honest to God.

Life happens. Circumstances happen. You choose the perspective. No matter how you look at it, this sucks pond water. But in the last three days, I have learned:

The immeasurable value of that classic Southern approach of "catching more flies with honey than vinegar"

The importance of going to the source to be sure your information is accurate

The essential nature of second opinions

And the healing properties of dinner with your buddies – complete with fall-in-the-floor-laughing, disgustingly funny, "it really happened to my friend Barney" stories about body functions gone awry...

Keep going. I don't know that I can handle this. I don't know that any of us can. I do know other people have made it through, though, and I know if my sister will keep going, keep fighting, keep pedaling, I will. And when she can't pedal, we'll ride tandem.

She’s my baby sister. And I need her to know I’m right behind her, all the way.

Drama

2010-05-02T08:31:00.002-04:00

April 22, 2010

I start a new job a week from Monday. New skills to learn - more technical tasks than what I do now, but still expanding on the writing and health literacy knowledge base.

I'm working from the road most of next week - loading up the computer and heading for NC. The bulk of what I'm doing between now and the office move is one-offs, anyway - editing short marketing pieces and letters to members. The big projects have been handed off already.

There's a threat of serious illness in the family, and I'm trying not to be scared. Success is elusive. I'm operating in gears B and D - Bargaining and Denial - with an occasional downshift to Avoidance.

The Tour de Cure is coming up in less than four weeks. It's great for Avoidance - lots to do, and I haven't done most of it yet... This week, for sure. Although I have been riding. Endorphins are better than meds.

And I'm scheduled for jury duty next week. The nice lady at the Jury Pool office sent me a duplicate Juror Qualification form and told me to request deferment so I could go to NC as planned. I really need to be there. I honestly don't mind jury duty - just not next week.

My desk at the office is a rubble heap. I only just got boxes today. Guess I need to go down there and start putting stuff in 'em.

Spring fever

2010-04-05T22:15:00.001-04:00

Neil Diamond's "Forever in Blue Jeans" is stuck in my head.

The last four days have been hot and sunny, a little stormy, cool and breezy, warm and humid, warm and sunny, sunny and breezy, a little stormy, cloudy and humid, humid and breezy, and what happens next is anybody's guess.

I want to ride my bike to work tomorrow. I want to ride Wednesday and Thursday. The weather should cooperate if the forecast holds up. The question is what time it gets daylight, and that's not as easy to find on the Weather Channel. I need to bookmark the Old Farmer's Almanac - it's more dependable all the way round.

Work gets done, as always - but I want new projects, and if they're not immediately available, I'll make them up. My living room office space is almost done - partitioned book shelves from Target turn on their side make a perfect set of cubbies for paper, sticky notes, blank CDs, library books, and the shoes I kicked off an hour ago. Yard sale shutters wait in the corner to fit into skylights and windows on the ovenish second floor. A delightful print - an Indian elephant, decked out in holiday finery and treading beautifully tiled floors - waits upstairs in the guest room to be hung; the neighbor put it out with the trash.

I bought a new mouse pad Saturday. It was in the 50-cent bin at Michael's Crafts - poppies. I'll go back to the Louisville Slugger one later in the summer, but now, I want poppies.

On the other hand, Cincinnati is kicking off their home season with a three-night stand against the Cubs. Wonder if Mitch could get two days off. I bet I could, if I take my computer and find a place with wireless internet so I could work after the game. I want to go to the Aquarium. I want to go to a baseball game. I want to see Soriano - somebody - anybody (as long as it's a Cub!) hit one over the wall.

I want to ride my bike tomorrow - in a skirt. My daughter calls it "channeling Copenhagen." I want to be one of those women who rides a bike day in and day out and always looks like a woman, whatever the weather.

Must be spring.

A quick update: Nellie Belle is alive and rollin'!

2010-04-01T22:55:00.002-04:00

Got her out this afternoon for the first longish ride in weeks. We went up to the credit union at Goose Creek and Westport to make a deposit.

She's a little squeaky, probably as a result of sitting in a dark shed for months on end. I'd protest, too. She needs to go see my guys at the Bike Courier and get her spring tune-up. But all in all, it was a lovely ride!

There's one hill on Hounz Lane that's pretty steep - 8%? Maybe a little more? But short. But still... I had to stop for a water break halfway up.

No big deal. Other than that, it was pretty clear sailing, five miles out and back. The breeze was warm, the sky was blue, and the fact of spring finally clicked in my head - and my heart.

What a glorious afternoon.

B-Cyclin'!

2010-03-30T08:11:00.002-04:00

Ah, spring -- that loveliest, most bipolar of seasons! Balmy, sweet afternoons and midnight tornadoes. And unlike hurricanes, tornadoes aren't likely to clear the air. The morning after a hurricane seems most often to be bluer than blue, bright and gleaming; after a tornado, it just rains some more. Hurricanes are temper tantrums; tornadoes are the psychotic break before a major depressive episode.

Sunday, they had tornadoes back home. From the looks of things on the Weather Channel Monday morning, it was still raining in North Carolina. Up here in Kentucky, yesterday was just -- how do I say this? -- bleh.

But I was at the office, and it was Monday. And right now, I don't do Mondays. At least not at the office. I was there because I had one project -- four pieces of Health Literacy revisions -- that I needed to run through the assessment tool, which I can't get to from home. I went in at 7 a.m. with Mr. Early Bird, and I'd hoped to be out by 9 a.m., on the way home to finish out the day at my desk by the window.

No such luck. The phone kept ringing, the Health Literacy pieces kept refusing to go below a 7th grade reading level (we shoot for 6th), and I finally realized I was going to miss the 10 a.m. bus home and decided enough was enough. I borrowed a helmet from my friend Kirk, who keeps a spare at his desk, and I checked out a B-Cycle.

We have bikes where I work. You can sign up for a B-Cycle card, get a helmet that's just your size (Kirk's took some adjusting...), and then when you need wheels for a short hop (or in my case, a longer haul), you put on your helmet, scan your card, choose a bicycle, and it's yours for 24 hours. They're good, solid bikes, heavier than Nellie Belle, but with great baskets and -- I have to admit -- somewhat more precise gears. They're a little harder to shift, because they're the dial-on-the-grip type; we old ladies with the beginnings of arthritis in our hands sometimes have trouble with the grip required to turn them. But they are more finely tuned than the little "thumb-clicker" ones like Nellie Belle has.

The weather yesterday was chilly. It was supposed to be in the 50s, but it didn't get there until almost sunset, after the clouds broke. At 10 a.m., it was foggy, damp, and still in the low 40s with a wind chill in the 30s. Actually, it felt almost exactly like it did in November, the day before Thanksgiving. And the route was much the same. Not bad -- unless you don't have gloves.

I stopped at the bike shop; all the winter stock was gone, and all they had were fingerless riding gloves. Better than nothing.

I rode four miles before the #15 bus caught up with me, and I took it to the end of the line, then rode from Holiday Manor out Brownsboro Road to Goose Creek. It's a nice ride, except that the shoulder is one continuous 6"-wide rumble strip and nothing else, and at least one driver in a white Lexus seemed to think that was where I should be. Ms. Lexus needs an education in bicycle law, but we'll save that for later.

Goose Creek to Westport Road -- four very civilized lanes. Yes, the traffic moves faster, but the lanes are wider, the shoulders are a good four feet across for the most part, and people aren't inclined to cut as close as on Brownsboro (or worse yet, Herr Lane, which is a cyclist's nightmare -- I'd rather ride on Shelbyville Road at the malls). Then down Frey's Hill past Tom Sawyer Park, over to Evergreen and down to the Middletown Breadworks, where my daughter was working. Last stop, both yesterday and last November. Then was for bread; yesterday was for the house keys.

When you're chilled at the extremities and slightly sweaty otherwise, you can make a great lunch of peanut butter and a multi-grain bagel with a glass of diet Sprite on the side. And it's just the right amount of fuel for the last four miles home.

16 miles altogether -- not a bad ride for the first real commute of the season.

Pedal on! WOO-HOO!!

Jazz in the dark

2010-03-28T01:21:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure how I came to love jazz.

Okay, let me back up a little bit. I'm not sure "love" is the right word. You probably need to understand the basis of this relationship to know what I mean.

I can kinda-sorta trace my musical history back to when I was very small and would borrow my mother's albums - real albums - to play on my record player. If you're too young to know what I'm talking about, let me draw you a picture:

These "albums" predated vinyl. Or maybe they were early vinyl, but having broken one or two, I can tell you they were two pressed layers with a thin piece of paper sealed between. So they weren't light, and they had NO flexibility. If you remember vinyl "boxed sets," you can visualize what I'm talking about, but the records in the paper sleeves that lived inside the box were heavy, clunky things that played at 78RPM, meaning one cut to a side - two, at most. An album might contain as many as 4-6 discs. And one disc probably came close to weighing as much as my whole Eric Clapton boxed set from the early '90s. (Or was it late '80s? I think '90s...)

Mom didn't have a lot of albums. She's a "Depression Baby" - ever frugal. She still buys only what she truly needs, whether the need is physical or spiritual. So I know these albums were precious to her. She had a radio/phonograph - a great, hulking thing that was actually quite compact for the time I first remember it, in the late '50s. It had the speaker in the front, along with the tuning and volume knobs; behind that, the top lifted to allow access to the turntable. [There's a comparable model on eBay, pictured above - get 'em while they last! :-)

When I got old enough to handle them carefully and demonstrated with my own little "kiddie song" 78s and 45s that I could operate the tone arm without dragging, Mother let me take her records to my room sometimes. I would spend hours playing "Begin the Beguine" and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," dancing with my imaginary friend, Manny Lee (don't ask - I have NO idea where he came from), and making up stories woven with music.

I took piano lessons in grade school and high school. The piano probably saved my sanity during those grindingly depressing years. I quit lessons at one point, for political and moral reasons (my teacher went off on a racist rant in the middle of a lesson, and I walked out), but I didn't stop playing. I actually majored in music one semester during my first trip to college. Loved applied lessons; hated theory.

I haven't played much in the ensuing years, but music still lives at the center of my existence. There's a radio, stereo, or CD player in almost every room in the house. In recent years, my iPod Shuffle has kept me going through wicked workplace toxicity; I can crank up Janis Joplin to the point where nothing can compete with "Piece of My Heart" and "Mercedes Benz," and the gossip just goes away.

I had my first-ever "contact high" in 1974 at a performance by the Paul Winter Consort on the campus of San Jose State University in San Jose, CA. The joint came down the row, and I obligingly passed it to the next person over without taking a toke - I'd never seen a joint before, up close and personal, and I had no idea what to do with it except pass it on. Turned out I didn't have to do anything. The air on our row was pretty dense, and I misplaced myself somewhere between the smoke and the music and didn't relocate the home planet until sometime the next day. Although truth to tell, when I listen these days to those old PWC records and think about how jazz affects me now, without "enhancement," I think it may have been as much the music as the weed.

Sometime in the '90s, I won a couple of tickets from a local radio station to see Joe Lovano at a little club in Raleigh. By that time, I'd been listening to jazz for years; my favorite way to spend a Sunday morning was playing hooky from church, sewing or writing and listening to Kitty Kinnen, the Sunday morning jazz DJ on my favorite mostly-rock station. Kitty was at the club that night; we chatted briefly between sets. The thing that sticks in my mind, though, is my epiphany.

As I said, I don't know when I really got into jazz. Maybe with Paul Winter; maybe even a couple years before, with Jimmie Spheeris. But I do remember that night, sitting at our table, listening to Joe and watching the percussionist. I love percussion, too; I wanted to play drums at one point in my merrily ADHD past. I love the physical effect, the reach-out-and-grab-you punch, of down-and-dirty percussion at close range. And I remember staring at the shimmering cymbals over the top of my glass of red wine - I only had one - and watching the light dance off the metal and knowing without even thinking (although I heard the words in my head, like a message from the Universe):

Music is a physical entity, and this is what it looks like.

It seemed, in that instant, I could see the sound waves emanating from the cymbals.

I told you that to tell you this:
A few years ago, I sang in a couple or three choirs conducted by Harry Pickens, a brilliant jazz pianist, composer, and educator. He's one of the most fun choirmasters I've ever worked with, and one of the most capable. He can pull a top-flight hour-long performance from a wildly multi-cultural (and multi-lingual) 50+ voice choir with only a handful of rehearsals, and have no one mad at him when it's over. He can fuss out the goof-offs and make them laugh at the same time. It's a true gift from the Universe, that.

Ever since that first choir, I've made a point of going to performances of the Harry Pickens Trio whenever I can. It's not as often as I'd like, lately; the best local venue - the Jazz Factory - shut down a couple years ago, and it's hit or miss since then. One night, I was determined to go to a concert Harry did with Voces Novae at Christ Church Cathedral downtown, but got lost and didn't make it until half an hour after the performance started. I went home rather than distract everyone by opening the street door in the middle of the concert.

But tonight, I got there. Harry and trio played at Second Presbyterian Church in St. Matthews, and in spite of almost being T-boned by a crazy Volvo-driver who ran the stop sign at St. Matthews Avenue and Napanee Road (and continued on oblivious for a couple more blocks - I resisted the temptation to follow and deliver a lecture), I arrived and found a seat before the concert began.

I was rewarded in the first set with several favorites, "What a Wonderful World" and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" among them. The lights stayed on in the beautiful sanctuary, and I was able to crochet musical prayers into the shawl I'm making for a young friend. (The acoustics, by the way, are unbelievably good at Second Pres. The sanctuary is a good-sized room, but at one point, Harry walked away from the mic while talking, then asked, as an aside, if we could hear him. And we could -- perfectly.)

The second set began with Harry asking who knew about Earth Hour. It happened this evening -- one hour set aside for everyone globally to turn off their lights, as a demonstration that we two-leggeds are smart enough to know how to conserve what we have. (I knew about it from the Lion Brand Yarn weekly newsletter that came in yesterday's e-mail, along with two lovely new free crochet patterns.) And then he said that, except for the ones that were legally required for safety, they were going to turn off the lights and play in the dark for a bit.

The next half-hour was a journey for me. I didn't have to worry about getting sleepy in the dark, because I'd had a good nap this afternoon. (Naps are sacred time. Seriously.) I couldn't crochet, because even after my eyes adjusted, I couldn't see enough to pick up where I'd left off. I can work without looking once I get started, but not right off the bat.

So there we were, suddenly -- just me and my brain, in the dark, us and the music, and nothing to do with our hands. And I realized, I don't do "still."

I do yoga. Once or twice a week, I take my mat and my wobbly self to class and I learn to focus, to zero in on a mantra or a pose as a state of being. I work at just breathing, just being. I learn to redirect my thoughts to non-thoughts. I use those two hours or so a week to turn off the left brain and give the right brain a little time to recuperate, if not heal.

But it's not the same.

No, it wasn't that hard. My right brain is in pretty good shape, especially for one whose owner is so into words. But it was enlightening.

Unlike yoga class, no one directed my attention. There was no voice telling me what to do, how to move, where to focus, what to align. No one instructed me how to keep my balance. There was the music, there was my brain, and there was my brain on music.

It took me a couple minutes to adjust to the fact that crochet was out. You need to understand, I use crochet as a way to pay attention during meetings. If I can occupy my hands, the right brain stands a chance of shutting up long enough to let the left brain absorb the discussion. I've pissed off a few Big Cheeses, crocheting in their meetings, but I assure you they were pissed because I distracted them, not because I wasn't paying attention. They had no way of knowing whether I was paying attention, unless they asked me afterward something about what they said - which they didn't.

But I realized tonight the vast difference between paying attention by making the right brain shut up so the left brain can listen, and paying attention by just letting the right brain do it all. Crochet is a work-around. Not-crochet is work. Not-crochet is true focus. In fact, I think it's what we reach for in yoga class, if we really reach. And I don't think I'd been there before.

Once, sitting there in the dark, the words moved back in. It was right at the end, with "The Shadow of Your Smile." It was one of my favorite songs "Back Then," along with "Windmills of Your Mind" and "Autumn Leaves" and a lot of Jacques Brel - back when I played the piano at 3 a.m. because I couldn't sleep, when adolescent anxiety almost succeeded in pulling me over the edge of the abyss. I still know all the words, and they came back.

But even then, that verbal brain couldn't take over completely. The visual brain was in control. And the image I saw was a skinny girl, sitting at a piano in the middle of the night, knowing her mother was awake and listening and not mad at all at being awakened. A skinny girl with sandy braids and green eyes too big for her narrow face, her long fingers reaching well over an octave, tentatively improvising between the written notes and singing softly the words she'd long since memorized. A skinny, wistful girl who had no idea about being in love, reaching for the emotion of love let go - as envisioned by her three-times-older self, who learned some decades back what letting go feels like for real.

It was a mind movie of the first order. If they gave out Oscars for that category, I think we'd have a good shot.

This isn't much of a concert review. It is a from-the-heart account of where my history with the jazz greats of the 20th century -- Gershwin, Hancock, Porter, and others -- has brought me. And how it feels, at the age of 55-and-a-half, to be transported back four full decades and be glad the music kept me alive so I could be here now.

So, see - "love" is completely inadequate. I love Toll House chocolate chip cookies. I love Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt. I love Anne Lamott, Barbara Kingsolver, and the Beatles. And Clapton, and Janis. And Dean Martin. On another level, I love my kids and my dogs and my husband - not necessarily in that order. I love my siblings and my mom. Across the Divide, I love my dad and my Uncle Paul. We can keep going deeper if you want.

Or we can just say "love" isn't enough. Jazz doesn't satisfy my emotional self or my intellectual self or even my crochet-brained self. Jazz, as it existed tonight at that ever-alive moment in eternity, doesn't satisfy. Jazz is. Jazz defines. Jazz writes the script, sets the stage, picks the cast, designs the lighting.

Tonight, I saw it again: Jazz, for me, doesn't reflect life. Jazz is a simple, almost tangible form of life. If you turn off the lights, put down the crochet (or the book or the phone), and let it carry you downstream - if you have the nerve, the courage, the daring to let go control of your left brain and allow the gut-level, physical, tangible Music to take over - Jazz is life.

Living Water

2010-03-13T21:52:00.002-05:00

Living Water

There’s a woman in the New Testament who encountered Jesus in his travels. She was a Samaritan, the first-century ancestor of a Palestinian, I guess – the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Even then, the Palestinians and Israelis couldn’t quite manage to get along. In fact, even then, they pretty much never even tried. The Children of Israel were the Chosen Ones, the Samaritans were the “red-headed step-children,” and they despised each other for reasons that were essentially flip sides of the same coin. Anyone who’s survived a stiff case of sibling rivalry will get it:

“Dad likes me best.”

“You are so stuck on yourself.”

“Yeah, well, you’re stupid.”

“Yeah, well, you’re stupider, ‘cause you think Dad likes you best.”

“Yeah, well, he does.”

“So? I can still beat you up, and if you tell, I’ll tell Mom you swung first. She likes me best.”

So there they were: Yeshua the Chosen on the road, passing through the back yards of the red-headed step-children, and this woman out doing her daily routine. She went up to the well to get water for her household, and there was this man – this clearly Israeli man – sitting there, apparently waiting for something. “Give me some water?” he asked.

“You’re asking me for water?” she responded. “I’m surprised you’d stoop to speak to me – you and your stuck-up, holier-than-thou Israelite self!”

“Yep,” he said, “I’m asking you for water. Please?” He didn’t have to. She was already drawing the water, and she’d already picked up the little cup to fill for him. But his mama taught him manners, so he did say “please.”

And then he told her some things about herself she’d just as soon keep under the rug, and he offered her living water.

Of all the characters in the Bible – and it’s full of characters, in every sense of the word – this woman is probably the one I most identify with. First, she’s an oddball even among her own townspeople. She doesn’t do things the way everyone else does, and they don’t approve. She’s pretty used to getting odd looks.

She’s been married five times, and she’s currently “living in sin” with some guy. I can’t quite match her there, but I’ll tell you this: as far as the Episcopal Church is concerned, I’ve used up my quota of church weddings. I have to say, I’ve wondered about this woman on that particular count. What happened to her husbands? Did the Samaritans not take quite as dim a view as other folks in those parts of women divorcing and remarrying? Had the husbands been brothers who died one after another and left her childless? If the Samaritans were going by the same rules as the Israelites, each “next brother” would be obligated to marry her upon the passing of his older sibling, in an attempt to keep the gene pool filled. And if that was the case, what was the problem? Why was she coming out in the middle of the day, when it was hot and dusty and no one else was there? Why, for that matter, was Yeshua’s tone a little bit condescending? I mean, when you read how he brings it up, it sounds like he’s calling her on it – zapping her for something she’d rather he not call attention to.

But I digress. It’s one of my favorite things to do, but there’s a point here, and it’s not the Samaritan gene pool.

Basically, this woman is an odd duck at best. She goes about her business while everyone else is taking their siestas. Whether it’s because they’re liable to throw rocks at her if she comes out when they do, or she just prefers her own company to that of her neighbors, she doesn’t hang out with them much. As a lifelong odd duck who has often preferred my own company to that of the jocks and “mean girls,” and who didn’t fit in with the “Pseudo-Intellectuals” I hung around with – yes, we actually called ourselves that, and I didn’t fit because I was shy about voicing my opinion, which is definitely not a Pseudo-Intellectual trait – and who usually felt a little ill at ease with the blue-collar kids because they seemed to think, as a preacher’s kid, I was a cut above everyone else and I knew I wasn’t… Well, you get the idea. I know exactly where this odd duck is coming from.

And we’ve both been married multiple times. Not even twice – multiple. Whether it’s about children or the company of someone with whom we can be on equal footing, intellectually and emotionally, we had to come back and try again more than once. We weren’t willing to settle for less than what we needed, and we bucked the norm in the process of looking for someone to fit the bill. In Samaria or in a small town in North Carolina, that will get you some funny looks, I guarantee. And on occasion, even a rock or two.

The other thing about this woman, though, is that she was looking for something. She thought it was water for her bucket. Yeshua saw past that. He saw someone who was looking for a truth she hadn’t yet defined, might not even know if she saw it, but was looking for it nevertheless.

I’ve been doing that all my life. In trying to fit in and in pretending not to care that I didn’t fit in; in the company of others and of just myself; in the books I’ve read, the music I’ve loved, the jobs I’ve worked at, the friends I’ve cultivated – few of those, but with bonds that, for the most part, are unbreakable – I’ve looked. I’ve known the truth wasn’t as simple as people made it out to be; that sometimes you have to struggle to understand it. And sometimes you can know in your heart it’s the truth, but your gut still just refuses to let you believe it.

So I can relate to this woman. Never mind the centuries and the cultural differences. We both come from the same place.

A few years ago, I was assigned to write a Lenten meditation using this passage. I fought with it for about a month; I couldn’t get my head around it. Everything I thought of was more of the same; the Woman at the Well has been preached to death. Everyone already knew the punch line – the one about “living water,” you know – and there was nothing new to say.

Then, in the week before I was to turn in my essay, we had a hurricane. This was North Carolina, where hurricanes sometimes blow in and retain their hurricane-force winds halfway into the state. And I was living in just about the center.

This particular hurricane hit with a vengeance. It went ‘way past us in Smithfield and Wendell and Zebulon. In fact, by the time it got to us, I don’t think it had even slowed down much. It was a lot of miles up the road before it started winding down. I remember standing in my front door around midnight, watching the rain blow sideways – literally sideways – and wondering whether the 200-year-old oak tree out front would stay vertical through the night.

When the wind died and the rain stopped, there was a whole lot of water in places there hadn’t been any. Dips in the road had become streams, streams were rivers, ponds now were lakes. We couldn’t go anywhere for a few days, because the roads were all flooded.

Late in the week, I finally was able to drive into Raleigh by way of Poole Road, the two-lane “back way” into the city. I made several stops to take pictures of the amazingly alien landscape, and then I came to the bridge at the Neuse River.

The Neuse runs between two ridges that are uncommonly high for that place on the border between the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont. In fact, Poole Road in general is pretty hilly, but the banks of the Neuse are steep even for Poole Road. The bridge sits a good 20 feet or more above the water as a rule, and that’s if we’ve had regular rain.

Not that day. I had to stop on the other side of the bridge and walk back. I stared, and I trembled. The rushing brown water, stained dark with loam and clay washed from far up the banks and bark from great, dense trees uprooted and swept along, was no more than two or three feet below the bridge where I stood. I was terrified and awestruck. It was like watching the proverbial train wreck: I was scared to death of what I was seeing, but I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t turn and walk away from it.

I knew if I slipped and fell into that wild torrent, I would panic. I would surely struggle, and I would surely drown. There’s no telling where I might wash up.

And I got it.

This is what Yeshua offered that woman. This was living water. It was crazy, it was scary, it was too powerful for words. To accept it was to be swept away, to be changed forever. To dive into the living water meant to understand she might be giving up everything. The Samaritan woman had no way of knowing what would happen after this. She could only hope to ride the current and come out alive.

“Living water,” he said. “You’re giving me water from your well, but I can give you living water, and you’ll never be thirsty again. You’ll be transformed, you may be scared to death – your life will never be the same. You take this living water I’m offering, and all I can promise is that you’ll be thrown off the deep end, right there. No turning back, no matter how terrifying it becomes.

“But you’ll know. You’ll see the truth, and you’ll be able to believe it. Your heart and your gut will meet, and you'll find the answers to your questions. You won’t be thirsty any more – you’ll be swept downstream in the massive, raging current that is the Almighty, and you’ll wash up wherever that current washes you. And you’ll know. You will know.”

It’s a terrible, awful, frightening thing he offers us. If we have any sense at all, we know enough to quake in our boots. This isn’t rowing your boat “merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily.” Life isn’t “but a dream.” This is stepping out of the boat onto the fiercely choppy water and trusting – hoping, anyway – we won’t drown.

This is real. It’s beyond intimidating. And if we want to know the truth, and we want the truth to make us free, we have to do it. We have to step off the bridge into that living water and let go.

Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy.

And about those socks...

2010-03-10T23:27:00.002-05:00

No, I didn't crochet them. (duh...) Bought 'em a few weeks ago at Whole Foods Market in Louisville. Actually pretty reasonably priced for knee socks - eight bucks, maybe?

I call them my "mantra socks." I wore them to the office the day we got the Big News. And besides helping me stay "grounded" in an oddly tangible way, they're exceedingly comfortable!

2010-03-09T22:36:00.004-05:00

A friend recently pointed out to me – more than once – that the title of my blog has potential beyond the title of a blog. Expanding on that theme, I'm stepping out a bit and posting, for your edification, what it's really all about.

My friend Curt is right. "Pedal on regardless" has become my tagline because it means something to me. Yes, I love riding my bike. Witness the posts from last summer after The Accident, and consider that I'm still riding – you do the math! But my beautiful Nellie Belle, the blue Bianchi I bought because I know I'll never be able to afford an Italian sports car, symbolizes more in my mind than a nice ride, a good workout, calories burned, or even great times with friends and family. The time I spend on the back roads of Kentucky, Indiana, New Jersey, and anywhere else we might be are reflections of the times of my life.

I think Nellie Belle and I have picked up a thing or two along the way that may be important. We'd like to share, if you're interested. These thoughts will be posted here for a few days, anyway, until I decide where else they should go.

Pedal on!
:-)

Pedal On Regardless
Manifesto

First – regarding hills: What goes down must go back up. Sometimes it’s tough. Deal with it.
Second: You can ride alone if you like, but the hills are usually easier to pull if there’s someone to cheer you on.
You’re not going to get anywhere if you try to coast all the way, but there’s nothing wrong with coasting sometimes!
If you fall off, get back on and keep pedaling. If you’re afraid of looking foolish, you’re clearly not yet a true cyclist.
If you let the fear of getting hurt stop you, you’ll never get out of the driveway. (Want to see my scars?) Trust me, it’s worth the risk.
You won’t get lost. You might get momentarily misplaced. Think of it as an inadvertent side trip and enjoy yourself – you’ll find your way home after a while.
If you can’t go as far as you wanted today, add a couple miles tomorrow.
Never head out without a little cash and a fully charged cell phone.
Life happens. Circumstances happen. You choose the perspective.
The point is, keep going. You can do it!

Working from home

2010-03-06T19:50:00.001-05:00

I've been laid off before. It was scary as T-mortal hell. No idea how I was going to pay the bills, pay the rent, feed my kid(s) [quantity depending on which time we're talking about]. So if you're there and you're scared, I know how that feels. Please don't take what follows as instructions for how you're supposed to respond. Although if you can find some truth or a little bit of a deep breath in it somewhere, that's a good thing.

The point I want to make is that taking a deep breath helps. Whether you know what you're going to do next or not - whether you have time to think about it or not. Stopping and breathing deeply is good. It helps you calm down.

It also helps - when your workplace in those last few weeks is a nest of disgruntled people, some because they're about to be out of work and others because they're not happy about being left behind, stuck in the mire - to have a manager who believes in you in spite of it all. One you can go to and say, "May I please work from home a couple days a week? I have to get out of here..." and who responds, "Sure - you work wherever you want. I know it's going to get done, and the finished product will be good, wherever you do it."

(On the other hand, it does once again beg the niggling little question, "How did they decide who was getting let go and who was staying?" And then, sometimes there's no answer, and you just have to move on.)

So for the duration - middle of May-ish, until the agency they've hired to take over for us is ready to take over - I'm home two days a week. Maybe more, by the time it's all said and done. Mondays and Fridays, I can sit in my kitchen in the sunshine, or in my home office once I get it moved back upstairs, and work in peace. No one complaining about having to be there, no one in a panic about what they're going to do when 2/3 of the staff is gone, just me and my assignments and my e-mail account and in-house IM, if I decide to turn it on. If people use it too much for what they perceive as emergencies - things that consume their whole being for the moment but actually fall much lower on the scale of "Grander Scheme of Things" - I'll turn the IM off.

The company will still get its 40 hours out of me each week. As always, it will in fact probably get a little more most weeks, simply because I still love what I do, and I'm notoriously NOT a clock-watcher. But two days a week, I will have the freedom to break when I want, to play with the dogs for a few minutes, to walk outside to the garden for a stretch. I will be able to walk away for a whole hour or more and ride my bike as far as I want, then come back with my brain untangled and be able to focus better, longer. I'll be able to play my music as loudly as I want, sing out loud and dance in the kitchen and not look foolish, and walk around in my bare feet without raising eyebrows. (Let's face it, some of us think better if our feet aren't cooped up. A couple managers back, one of them caught me dashing to the printer - about 4 yards - in my stocking feet and asked where my shoes were. I told her they were under my desk where they belonged.)

And if I work from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., then 3 to 5, then break to cook dinner and eat and then come back and work from 7 p.m. to 9 - or 10 if I feel like it - there won't be anyone walking out the door at 6:30 or so, calling back over her shoulder, "Why are you still here? Time to go home!" I won't have to explain I'm still at it because I'm having fun, doing it right, and I'll leave when I get good and ready.

Doing differently

2010-03-01T21:24:00.003-05:00

The response to that last comment on my previous blog is, "Okay until..." I got a tad bit cranky when the nice young men minding the door of the KY Center for the Arts wouldn't let me cut through the lobby, even though it's the closest route to my car. And even though I always go that way. And even though I'm old and decrepit and could be their auntie, if not their grandma...

It was a private function, they said. Not that there haven't ever been private functions - but I've never before been stopped at the door and told to "walk around."

My first thought was to argue. I did protest, but I didn't argue. As I went (okay, hobbled - it was 6:15 p.m. and I'd been wearing heels all day) back down the steps out front and circled 'round the long way to the parking garage, I breathed deeply and said to myself over and over, "Face of God. Face of God..."

As I descended the stairwell to the ArtsCenter garage, which is the next shortest route to Riverfront garage where I park, I considered taking the elevator back up to the lobby level and ducking out the back door. I figured it would fit nicely into a "humorously passive-aggressive" kind of response.

Instead, I took the elevator to my level, went to my car, and headed home.

I figure sometimes the "face of God" has to just walk away. What's the point of getting the last word?

And the young men were nice. Their mamas taught them manners. Good for them!

Lent again

2010-02-28T22:41:00.002-05:00

FYI - I don't do "giving up for Lent." My God is not a God of "Don't."

Years ago - 1998 or so - I worked about four steps down the food chain from a man named Tom Vitaglione. He was the director of Women's and Children's Health for the State of North Carolina, and he was loved. Tom personified "servant leadership" before the phrase was coined, let alone became the buzzword it seems to be these days.

The first week of Lent that first year in WCH, I ducked into the breakroom to heat up my lunch, and Tom was sitting at a table alone, eating a PBJ and reading a book. I asked him what it was, and he told me - Henri Nouwen's Life of the Beloved. He said he read it every year during Lent, because it reminded him of his purpose.

Since that time, I've sought out opportunities during Lent to do. Do read something challenging or joyful. Do start seedlings. Do encourage a friend who's never had a garden - and help get one started. Do sing at the top of my lungs while driving down the expressway.

Fast forward to February 28, 2010: The gist of the sermon this morning was seeing the face of God in everyday things. The challenge was to be aware of that face as we go through the week.

It's easy to see God in people like Tom, who are conscious of the fact that there's a reason they're here and who work at fulfilling that purpose. It's not so easy to see God in the faces of harried co-workers, tense executives, or people who are so angry because someone in the world doesn't subscribe to their definition of "right." It's not easy to see God in the idiot who cuts me off as I'm trying to merge onto the highway.

But maybe that's because I'm not aware of the presence of God in my own being at those moments. It's so easy to snap back at someone who's frustrated and short-tempered, to shrug off the high muckety-mucks as being "oblivious," to let my blood pressure go up as I drive. I don't see the face of God because I'm not reflecting the face of God.

This week, here's the #1 "to-do" on my list: I want to be conscious. I want to be aware of the gifts I've been given - the gift of humor, the gift of words, the gift of music - and I want to reflect those gifts out into the world as I walk (or drive) through it. With the help of the Almighty, and in honor of Tom V (who still has - and will always have - my respect and admiration), I will try to see God throughout each day, and reflect the face of God back out to others I encounter.

We'll see how that goes...

Inedibility

2010-02-24T00:25:00.002-05:00

My friend Kirk (of PedalAround) said the other day that "change is inedible." After a little good-natured ribbing, I forgot about looking for a snappy comeback and moved on. But not until after I laughed - and that's good.

It's been a trying week. Last Wednesday, several hundred of us - me and my husband included - got the news that our positions were being eliminated. Nothing personal, of course, but it smarted. Still does, a bit.

Nevertheless, it comes to me over and over again that this is a gift from the Universe. This is a gift. From the Universe. Really.

How often does one get the chance - at the age of 55 - to step back and, with the cushion of a few months' severance pay, evaluate where one is, where one wants to be, and how to get from here to there? How often is that restless sense that there's something more one should be doing met with the chance to find it?

One of my friends is collecting cliches. I'm totally with her; if one more person says to me, "God never gives us more than we can bear," or "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade," I'm gonna have to snatch 'em bald-headed. Not because of the attitude (although I don't think God had a whole lot to do with any of this), but because they're clearly unoriginal, unimaginative people who live in boxes and couldn't "think outside" if their lives depended on it. (Although I have to confess to using "waiting for the other shoe to drop" more than once lately.)

My outlook has nothing to do with lemonade. I don't believe God has a plan. I do believe God has a purpose, but that's the difference between being process-oriented and goal-oriented. The Universe has a rhythm, a rightness, that will always find itself. It doesn't matter what we do to gum up the works or "throw a spanner in the hole" (as in "Industrial Disease," one of my favorite Dire Straits songs) - whatever we do will fit into the purpose.

Be that as it may, I do see something cosmic in this. For both of us - Ed and me - to be laid off on the same day, getting the news within 30 minutes of each other, sounds to me like Reveille. It sounds to me like the Universe dropping a book on the floor, like Mr. Clark used to do in Algebra class to wake up the nappers. It sounds to me like The Great Favog saying, "Right. So how's that workin' for ya?" (Don't remember the Great Favog? Google it. Saturday Night Live, first season. I'm dating myself, and I love it!)

Yes, change is inevitable.And - as Kirk said - inedible. Can't digest it sometimes. Leaves a knot in your stomach. But sooner or later, you have to decide how you're going to deal with it. Do you take more antacids and hope it will go away? Do you cry and fight and rail against the decision-makers? They've already decided, and you're not going to change their minds. Do you snipe and complain and vent, thinking maybe you can at least take someone down with you?

I choose to use it. I'll digest what I can, when I can. I'll have my moments of wanting to fight or snipe or vent, but I hope for the most part I can let those impulses go. And I'll be eternally grateful for the friends who let me vent in private and don't repeat anything I say, because they know it's just venting and I'll get over it. And then I'll go back to being the dogged Pollyanna I am, and looking for something in this mess we call "life" that might work for me.

No, the world's not perfect. No, there's not always a "bright side." But it's possible to find a positive lesson in even the worst that happens. And the worst hasn't happened. My family is well. The dogs are alright. There are possibilities waiting out there. I just have to go find them.

Techie stuff...

2010-02-15T00:56:00.000-05:00

Posted a great post-vacation wrap-up. Pictures came out all wonky. Sigh...

Will re-post when I get the tech stuff figured out. In the meantime, I just want to find out whether we're having work tomorrow -- and if so, whether it's going to be on time.

Snow days

2010-01-09T18:46:00.004-05:00

I know everyone in the higher elevations and the Frozen North figures we're wimps and wussies down here. Seriously - it's only in the 20s, with lows only down in the 'teens, and we're calling snow days. To which I can only say, "Yeah, yeah, whatever!"

It started snowing early Thursday morning, and it hasn't stopped since. Sure, most of what's fallen in the last 24 hours has qualified as "flurries," or even just "spitting snow" - not much to speak of, and we only have 3-4 inches accumulated - but I could do with a bit of sun at this point.

It does this once a winter, maybe twice, so there's not much call for spending big bucks on snow removal equipment. We have some, sure - more than we had in eastern NC, where there was even less need - but we don't worry so much about clearing the roads and keeping the schools open, because we know it's not going to go on all winter. Give the kids a break - they can make it up at the end of the school year and complain then.

Of course, we "big kids" still have to go to work, unless it's actually icy and they do close down business. That's happened maybe two or three days in the almost 10 years I've lived here. (And I believe they were all last year.) So out I went Thursday morning, dutifully skating my way up the hill in the little Saturn, and finding it was not so easy getting started again after stopping at the second stop sign. And even less so, stopping at the third... It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get to work, even though the interstate was clear, but I did get there.

As the day wore on, the snow continued coming down, but all reports were that the streets were improving. I didn't worry - met my friend, Paige, for margaritas and a mini-bitchfest after work (that's "margaritas" - plural - because I had one and she had one and that makes two!), then drove over to the public library branch at Mid City Mall for our monthly meeting of Women Who Write. Four of us actually made it, where we usually have 10 or 12. Ms. Emily wins the Nanook Award - she walked several miles rather than take her bicycle out in this weather. She's an adorably hardy soul!

We made short work of the meeting - even with critiquing a short story by one of the members, we were done by 8. I decided we didn't need groceries, stopped instead at Feeder's Supply for dog food and treats, and was home by 8:30.

I'd sent work home via e-mail Thursday afternoon, guessing that I might not be able to get out on Friday. Too much to do to be able to really relish an enforced day off... To get to our house, you have to go down a short but fairly steep hill, then back up a shorter but steeper one, and the driveway takes another sharp up-tick. I made it in, and I had no intention of even trying to make it out unless things were vastly improved. Our neighbors - none of whom has as steep a drive as we do - had wimped out and parked randomly around the culdesac, which is a little tight in the best weather. And since our drive is one car-width, we had to do the Vehicular Shuffle to get everyone in the order they needed to leave, which was a tight squeeze, what with about 40% of the street space taken up with two sedans, a station wagon, and a long-bed, king-cab pick-up truck...

I got a lot done yesterday, though. I'm usually more productive at home than at the office, to be honest - I pace myself better, and I don't have the distractions here. And when Ed got home, we went to Perfetto's for pizza.

They thought it was funny that we'd thought they might not be open. "We're from Wisconsin," Cindy laughed. "We're going to be here!" We knew that, but pointed out that most of their Friday night regulars aren't from Wisconsin, and we'd thought maybe business was slow and they'd decided to pack it in and cut back on overhead. But no, she said - Thursday night, they'd had two carryout orders and no dine-ins, but they were there. It's a family shop, so I expect the overhead for staying open in spite of the weather doesn't extend much past utilities.

Today, I've worked a little more - it was here, so I might as well make some headway on a couple of those projects - and done laundry. Youngest Child is moving in with a friend in a couple of weeks, and we're trying to get him organized so he can load his Vue and get moved with some degree of efficiency. Puts a damper on my plan to have the house back to pre-holiday order by mid-month, because I'm having to focus instead on his space and the rubble therein - but it will all happen. I just need to maintain my focus and hold my intention, even when I have to adapt the master plan. The thing is, my office space and the family room are now his staging area, which pretty much precludes any more organization in there until we're done with the moving thing...

I've been to the door in the past two days to let dogs out, let dogs in, put the cat out, bring the cat in, and only once to go anywhere. I've done three handbook revisions, a third revision on a "how it works" presentation, and written this one blog because I've been gone for weeks and I have to get back in the swing of it. The snow is lovely, and I've enjoyed sitting for a few minutes here and there by the back window, watching it fall while I drink my coffee. But more than ever, my muscles are twitching and my mind is racing, up the road and into the wind on my blue bicycle, which sits in the cold shed waiting for a warmer day.

Christmas Heart

2009-12-15T21:09:00.003-05:00

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Not to mention Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, and whatever else you might celebrate. I'm not picky -- I love 'em all!

My recording of Handel's Judas Maccabeus has gone missing this year, and I'm feeling a little off-kilter, musically speaking. The "alleluia" from that work has the "Hallelujah Chorus" from The Messiah completely whupped, as far as I can tell. Every time I hear it, the hair on my arms stands straight up. In fact, if memory doesn't fail me, I believe I had it played as part of our wedding music.

Nevertheless, I have all my favorite carols and dippy 1940s and '50s (and '60s) Christmas pop songs, and Dar Williams' "Christians and the Pagans," which makes me smile every time I listen to it.

I will never forget the first time I heard "I'll Be Home for Christmas." I was 10, and it was my mid-year piano recital. The recital was held in the church where the teacher's husband was assistant pastor, in the evening. All the candles were lit, and it was lovely.

My teacher's oldest student was a young woman who was taking voice lessons. I don't remember playing, but I remember this beautiful woman standing up and saying, "My husband just came home from Viet Nam. This is for him." And then she sang. Tears were streaming down her face and many others, but she didn't waver, didn't crack -- she sang her heart out. I have loved that song ever since. (Karen Carpenter helped "lock it in," I'll confess.)

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" -- in context -- is another heartbreaker. It's WWII-era. The lyrics have a not-quite-bitter edge: Through the years, we all will be together -- if the fates allow..." But it's also another wish for love and peace and family, in spite of the distance and the sadness.

For the record, I cannot stand "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Those other reindeer are sorry snots, and Rudolph himself is something of a wuss, running off and sniffling (if not sniveling...) until Santa comes to the rescue. I used to love "Little Drummer Boy" - the traditional version - until I worked retail for a few years. By the time I left Piece Goods Shop, I swore if I ever again had to listen to Burl Ives butcher that poor kid, I was gonna hurt someone.

(Incidentally, I generally love Burl Ives. It's just that one song... And also incidentally, did you know ol' Burl's middle name was "Ivanhoe"? Honest - would I kid you about a thing like that?)

My hands-down favorites are (1) the third verse of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," which I've never seen anywhere except the Episcopal hymnal, and which is a whole 'nother blog, and (2) a recording of "Little Drummer Boy" done in the '80s by a regionally semi-famous North Carolina band called Arrogance. It was a one-take deal, I'm sure. They kept trying to play it straight. In fact, every time one of them would crack up, another one would yell something to the effect of, "Get serious!" They finally made it through the first verse, and then the drummer --

The drummer broke away and ripped into this absolutely knock-your-socks-off, high-school-marching-band-drum-corps-eat-your-heart-out solo riff and just basically tore it up. And I figure that's the whole point.

The whole point of Christmas - the whole point of any birth, but especially Christmas - is to have as much fun as possible and then do your dead-level best to do your dead-level best. Don't look back, don't think about it, just do it. Throw your heart into it and play.

Pedaling on

2009-12-13T02:37:00.013-05:00

Nellie Belle, the blue Bianchi, has been in the shed for a couple of weeks now. By the time the earache got better, it was colder than cold (not to mention raining), and I haven't ridden in a bit. Maybe Sunday - it looks like it might be a little better out.

But in the meantime, I finally downloaded the pictures I took on the way home two weeks ago, as I came through downtown Louisville.

On Market Street, as you're coming out from the West End, you pass a couple of places of interest -- like the Glass Factory, where they used to have the world's greatest jazz club before it gave up the ghost, and where they still let you make your own glass ornaments, in addition to watching glassblowers as work -- and then you pass under the highway and you're downtown.

The incredible thing to me is that, looking back over my shoulder as I waited for the light, I could see roses still blooming in the post-Thanksgiving chill.

Of course, the big thing on Thanksgiving weekend is "Light Up Louisville," when they turn on all the Christmas lights in the courthouse square. This year the big deal was that they switched everything over to LED lights to save money, which is good. Beats the heck out of a few years ago, when they were bringing in the big tree via helicopter and they kind of dropped it...

And there were roses in the square, too.

Balance

2009-12-03T23:22:00.003-05:00

Today was a first. I got up at 6:15 and rode to work with Mr. Early Bird - in the dark - voluntarily. Not because I had to be at a meeting and needed to be sure I got there earlier than usual. Because I wanted to.

I've said many times, I don't do "early." I've been a night owl all my life, resisting sleep as long as I could, making up for it well into the morning. In fact, I haven't had to resist since about 1969 - my brain is just set on Night Life Standard Time, and hauling my butt out of bed before dawn is ugly, if not downright traumatic.

But I hadn't been able to make it to yoga class for over a week, and there was a class scheduled for 7:30 a.m. at the fitness center. So Ed dropped me off at Java Brewing Co. at 7 a.m. on the button - I think the "open" sign had just come on - and I was upstairs, sitting on my mat, barefoot with almond-hazelnut latte in hand, at 7:22.

I've decided I need to do Thursday mornings more often. There were only two of us and the instructor, and apparently, that's how it usually is in the early morning class. It was different - there are usually 15 or 20 in the afternoon classes - and it was easier to get centered and go deep into the practice. We got 1:1 help lining up body parts: I found once I learned what it feels like to have my hips squared, it wasn't hard, but I hesitate to plant my feet as wide apart as I need to, and apparently, that's why I wobble a lot of the time.

This is part of my training for next year's long rides. In fact, at the moment, it's the only halfway-consistent part of my training... People keep scheduling me into unduckable meetings at noon, for God's sake, on Body Sculpting days. And - all apologies to y'all who ride in Flagstaff and Wasilla - I just have a real hard time getting out on the bike when it's black as night and 31 degrees with a wind chill of 22! So I try, but yoga is as close as I get to a sure thing most weeks.

Part of it is the core strength training. You don't know until you've done it how much work it takes to go from a Runner's Lunge to a Downward Facing Dog to a Plank to a Baby Cobra, and in between, stretches pulling knee to chest with the opposite hand reaching far out in front of you. I'm not talking about stretching muscles you didn't know you had. I'm talking about breaking a sweat.

For me, though, it's just as much about balance - something I've never had much of. I've always been flexible; before the arthritis set into my knee, I was pretty much "rubber-band girl," and I can still bend from the hips and put my palms flat on the floor. But I always kind of figured most people had one or the other - flexibility or balance - and my gift wasn't balance. I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was almost 10, and it took me five months from the time I got the bike to the time I learned to stay upright for the width of the back yard. Walking curbs or stepping stones was always a challenge. Even now, I sometimes turn too quickly and go down hard. (Which, BTW, is the reason for the severe arthritis in one knee but not the other. I always land on the left one ... and kneecaps can only tolerate so many full-body-weight whacks on blacktop or terrazzo before they start to fall apart.)

I learned a couple of things this morning, in addition to keeping my hips squared while holding Pigeon pose. The first is that, contrary to my gut feeling, I'm not more stable when I plant my feet a comfortable distance apart. When I pushed my limits - when, at Ashley-Brooke's insistence and even (gentle) physical prodding - I stretched the right another four inches forward and the left another two or three inches back, then I was able to rise and stretch from the Runner's Lunge to Warrior pose and not tip over like a little teapot.

The second thing I learned in conversation as we ended practice, and it grew in my consciousness the rest of the day. My classmate commented that she liked it better when there were only a couple of us, and I agreed. For some people, it may be more awkward; they're more conscious of what they can't do, more anxious about everyone looking at them. For us, it was easier to quiet our minds with not as many people in the room. For me, it was easier to turn off conscious thought and just feel - a very right-brained kind of practice.

I work with words all day, every day. Even at home, when I have time to sit down, I'm writing. (Okay, except when I'm crocheting, which is not nearly enough with Christmas coming!) When I get to yoga class, I need to turn off the words. When push comes to shove, I am a right-brained person, and even though I love writing, I get overwhelmed by all the words much of the time. My friend Georgianna laughs about that - when we get together, she talks and talks and I nod and nod - but that's part of why I love her. It gives me a chance to turn my words off for a bit. Georgie talks for both of us. ;-)

But turning those words off isn't easy. As much as they wear on me, I love them, and it's hard to let them go even for a little bit. And in a room full of people, the "collective consciousness" can be intense. An intuitive person can be bombarded with everyone's anxieties, everyone's self-consciousness - all that intense focus, even - and the right brain can get shouted down.

So even going to yoga class a couple times a week, I spend a lot of time off balance. Not just physically. And as the day went on, I became aware of what the psychic "off-balance" was doing to me.

Later today, I encountered a couple of situations where I was suddenly angry. The anger was justified in both cases, but it seemed out of proportion, at least from where I was sitting. (That would be the "I" who was sitting back watching "me" feel angry.) Why? Because words weren't helping me. In one case, my words were being requested, but then rejected - an editing job that was apparently just for show. I had to ask the client, "If they're going to blow off all my edits, why am I doing this?"

In the other situation, I was acutely aware of the disconnect between what was being reported in a meeting and what was actually going on - but I couldn't say anything. It wasn't the time or place for pronouncements or argument; it would have made things worse instead of better. I had to step back and let it go.

The words let me down, and I didn't know what to do. I haven't been working my intuition enough. I'm off-balance.

Here at the end of an old year, I'm intentionally evaluating and plotting the course for next year. There's something very important about this whole "balance" thing - I need to let the idea marinate for a bit. I think it may have a lot to do with the new year.

PS: The new picture

2009-12-01T23:34:00.003-05:00

Up there at the top. The socks with feet in them. Woolies.

Crocheted 'em myself. They're made of hand-dyed 100% wool purchased at last year's International Livestock Exposition at the Kentucky Fairgrounds, the same day I killed my previous cell phone by slamming it in the car door. (Yep. Seriously.)

Looked for the Wool Lady at this year's Expo, but she wasn't to be found. Sad face...

This is the first pair of socks I ever made, and I love them. They're great for cycling, and the colors are cheery and uplifting, especially in gray November. I quickly learned that, even as fast as socks go along, I get bored by the time I get to the end of the first one, so it helps to switch things around a bit for the second. I've made a few pairs now, and not one pair consists of two identical socks. Mostly, the differences are a little more subtle than this, though.

Thanksgiving

2009-12-01T21:08:00.010-05:00

After a while, four-day weekends start to feel kind of like the fifth or sixth really good downhill run on a long bike ride: it finally dawns on you that what goes down must go back up, and you stop saying "woo-hoo!" and start focusing on gathering steam for what comes after. It's not a bad thing, just not the wild, unfettered jubilation it started out to be.

I mean, hills are good. They're where you feel the strength you've gained since the last ride. They're where you push and test yourself, where you build more strength still, where you feel it surging up through your calves and thighs and lungs even as you wonder whether you'll make it to the top. They're where you learn your limits, and where you learn to bull your way past those limits. There aren't many things as potent as cresting a hill that scared the crap out of you when you saw it coming, and realizing that you did it, and you never once had to get off and push the bike.

Which is a similar feeling to that which comes on the second day back at work, when you get tossed a project that's big, requires a total rewrite -- with imagination thrown in, because the business owner doesn't even like the format as it exists -- and has a two-day turnaround request attached. It takes two hours to beat it into a form that's workable. The Word file is uneditable because it's in a fragmented table format that refuses to be converted to text; the PDF has to be exported and sorted out first. By the end of the day, it's starting to make sense, but now you've got to figure out what to do with it.

I love what I do -- translating "corporate-speak" into real, everyday language so our customers can understand it. Much of it's legalese, and almost all of it's obscure and jargony, and I take pleasure in wrestling half-page paragraphs down to a few concise sentences that actually make sense.

But Wednesday, I had other things to do. I'd ridden the bike to work, and I was grateful to have the only director to show up in our department declare the holiday to officially start at 1 p.m. instead of 5. It gave me time to ride home by way of Spring Street (Clifton Community Garden at left), Frankfort Avenue (the Wine Cellar), Shelbyville Road (Breadworks), and Evergreen (Anchorage -- big hills and bigger money). By the time I arrived at the house, my panniers were loaded with two bottles of wine, two large loaves of bread, and of course, my shoes and dress clothes from the office. We stopped at Paul's Vegetable and Fruit Market on the way back to church.

Thursday, I shared the kitchen with my daughter. In summer, we share space in the garden -- in winter, it's the kitchen. We work around each other very well, and when called for, we collaborate effectively. Mostly, though, she has her areas of expertise and I have mine and we negotiate timetables. Briony bakes, I do sides, Ed smokes the turkey on the grill (a charcoal kettle grill that's about three feet tall, 18 inches in diameter, and has more versatility than you could ever imagine). Bri mixes, I wipe counters, Ed brings the turkey in after two hours to finish up in the oven. I chop, Bri rinses mixing bowls and implements to use again for the next project, and Ed goes to watch a football game.

Eventually, my daughter always saves the day, because eventually -- inevitably -- I sustain some kind of inadvertent injury and have to take a break. This year, it was the finger that found itself under the knife blade as said knife was slicing through the whole-grain cranberry loaf that went in the stuffing. Not sure how it happens, but I always manage to NOT bleed in the food. But bleed I did...

Bri's fiance, Rob, helped me with bandaids. We got four on the cut, and it immediately soaked through and started dripping blood onto the floor. I held a paper towel over the cut, tightly, but every time I let go, it started running down my hand again. We put on four more bandaids, tighter. It dripped. They were talking stitches, I was arguing that it would be ridiculous to go to the ER for a cut finger on Thanksgiving Day. The cut was a whole quarter of an inch long, on the side of my finger between the nail and the pad. You wouldn't think that much blood could come out of such a teensy slice.

Finally, Ed called the urgent care clinic at my request. I agreed I'd go there if they were open. They weren't, so Rob wrapped the finger in several layers of gauze and tape. It soaked through pretty quickly, but it didn't drip. I sat down for a few minutes to catch my breath and manufacture a few replacement red cells, Bri finished constructing the stuffing, and life went on.

The turkey was perfect. Early in the day, we'd had Lynne Rosetto Kasper on the radio with her Thanksgiving Day "Turkey Confidential," and she'd inspired me to try something I hadn't done before. I'd loosened the skin from the bird's chest and thighs and rubbed butter and seasonings densely under the skin -- parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. A Scarborough Faire turkey. More butter and seasonings in the chest cavity, two hours on the grill, two more in the oven, and I don't think we've ever had a more perfect turkey. It was juicy, tender, and actually even easy to carve, a task that's always been a challenge for us.

The key ingredients in the stuffing were Andouille sausage and the cranberry bread -- rich, dark, and spicy. Bri made spicy sweet potatoes, I made Brussels sprouts in cream. (I was the only one to eat any of them, but the rest went into a vegetable chowder last night, and it seems to be something of a hit, at least!) I'd found a recipe for cranberry-citrus chutney, but forgot to get the lemon and orange it called for. Fortunately, I still had half a box of clementines, three of which went in the chutney. It was probably sweeter than it was supposed to be, but still lovely. There was a savory pasta salad that had been marinating in the fridge for two days -- the perfect amount of time for something like that to gather flavor -- and apple pie and ice cream for dessert.

The best part of the meal came when I asked for an opinion on the stuffing (the recipe called for cornbread, and I'd just decided on impulse to substitute the cranberry bread). There was praise for the modification, and then Rob said, "It's all good. I mean, you remembered to put the sugar in the cranberries this year!" Bri started giggling and said, "Yeah, and the pies are actually cooked!" They were recalling Thanksgiving three or four years ago, when they'd only just begun dating, when I had indeed missed putting the sugar in the cranberry chutney, so it had "pucker power" that couldn't be beat. And Bri had pulled some diced pumpkin out of the freezer and made pies, only to discover the pumpkin had been put up raw -- when the pies came out of the oven, the pumpkin was still frozen in spots.

I think it was last Christmas -- or maybe it was Easter -- the kids were suggesting we pack the rolls up and send 'em to the Marines. The yeast hadn't done its job, the dough hadn't risen, and the rolls were basically the consistency of artillery shells. This holiday, the rolls didn't come until Friday morning -- I didn't start them early enough, and they didn't have time for their second rising -- and they weren't a whole lot better, although you could at least bite into them without risk of breaking a tooth. Eventually -- someday -- I will locate that good recipe I used to have, and we will have rolls again. Until then, I think I'll stick to my fallback position, which is a third stop on the way home, at Plehn's Bakery in St. Matthews. It's right on my way, just a couple miles east of the Wine Cellar, on the bus route to Middletown in case the bike and I decide to ride, and they have rolls that can't be beat!

Friday, the kids were off to work and Ed and I sat around and digested, for the most part. Saturday, I actually got out for a ride with the Louisville Bike Club, from Waterfront Park to Shawnee Park and back. I only rode as far as Shawnee Golf Course -- a couple miles shy of the round trip -- but between that and the ride home, I put in 30 miles altogether. Unfortunately, I left my fleece headband at home. The damp chill and the wind settled in my left ear, and it's been aching ever since.

But it was a wonderful weekend. I've felt rested and glad to be at work this week, and I'm thankful. As I said at church Wednesday night, when the mic came around to me, I'm thankful for music, for laughter, for my garden, and for people to share them with.

And, I might add now, for my bike, my kitchen, my family, and Lynne Rosetto Kasper. For Andouille and for cranberry bread. For brussels sprouts, heavy cream, and clementines. And for sweet potatoes, apple pie, and Breyer's ice cream.

For every good gift and every perfect gift, thanks be to God.

Slogging through

2009-11-17T22:35:00.004-05:00

It's November, and it's raining.

I haven't written a word of the novel in about a week. I knew all along it wasn't going to get finished in November anyway -- I started it over a year ago and hadn't touched it in months, and it was getting really complicated before October ever got close to ending -- but I really meant to push this month.

Well, water under the bridge and all that. Will write tonight, before I go to bed. (It's not like I haven't done anything. The story is several pages farther along in my head -- it's just a matter of getting it down in black and white.)

Work is strange. I've decided to just put my head down, work my tushie off, and not think about the "what ifs" and "maybes." So far, so good. Except that I keep getting interrupted by anxious people -- and by people who (a) don't know what they want, (b) think they do, and (c) keep missing their own deadlines by a week or two. To date, I have not slapped anyone, although the thought has crossed my mind.

Yoga class today was wonderful. Our little yogi, Ashley-Brooke -- she who appears to be barely out of her teens but with a very old soul and a kooky sense of humor -- reminded us that the rain is the Earth's way of cleansing itself. Reminded me of sister Murial, who used to laugh when I would miss Friday night meditation for weeks, then show up just as the rain started: "Oh, here's Cynthia, and she's brought us a cleansing again!" So I felt connected to Murial from the beginning. But then Ashley-Brooke suggested that, it being the new moon and all, we might want to use this time to cleanse ourselves of something that was weighing us down.

I decided to let go of my crankiness. That's not to say I won't still snap at people who are too dumb to live. Or too mean to die. It just means, if I can do something productive to remove the obstacles in my path, I will do that instead of just sitting at my desk and gritching. So...

Two hours later, I was confronted with a communication from one of those people (never mind which), and I decided to stay calm, be rational, and discuss instead of react. And what happened? This individual got defensive, testy, and actually almost combative.

Geez Louise.

But now, another six hours after, I'm wondering if that's not just a knee-jerk reaction on her part. Or maybe even a perfectly reasonable reaction, if she interpreted my opening remarks as being somehow preachy or smug. So tomorrow, I'll go back and go at it from another direction.

This reminds me of the Lent several years ago, when I decided to give up gossip. It was kind of an amazing transformational experience. You should try it sometime. :-)

Meanwhile, I'm going to keep slogging through the rain, churning out words and looking for the USB connector so I can download the pictures I took last weekend. One of these days, there will be pictures on this blog...

NANOWRIMO

2009-11-05T21:17:00.002-05:00

It's here! National Novel Writing Month - the month of November, when ambitious writers all over the world compete to try and knock out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

I'm about 5,000 words in, so I'm running behind schedule at this point. If I'm not around much for the next 4 weeks, that's why. I'm finally getting that best-seller down on virtual paper!

It's really quite a challenge. Not the words so much as just doing it. Sitting down and committing to writing three pages before I get up - six on the weekends - typing and thinking and typing and thinking and (here's the scary part) not self-editing.

I can't do that yet. Or not do it, as the case may be. I'm getting better, but I still have to back up and correct typos as I sense them falling out of my fingers. I still catch myself reading over what I wrote last night to see if it makes sense. That's not the point. The discipline is the point. Finishing the first draft is the point. Learning you can go back and fill in the holes in your plot later is the point.

Right now, I have about a quarter of a story, woven in and out of three really good character sketches. Well, two really good ones, one pretty good one, and one really good accidental one that turned up in the middle of one of the really good ones about another character. Oddly, it's turning into a mystery, which is a genre I love but didn't really think I could write. And I have no idea where it's going. I haven't a clue how it's going to turn out. In fact, I don't know what these characters are going to do tomorrow morning when they wake up and realize their lives just did hairpin turns and tripped over things they didn't know were there. Never mind the end - they've got to get through tomorrow first!

And don't we all. God, I love writing!

A Modest Proposal

2009-10-18T20:55:00.014-04:00

I started a long blog about how negativity in the workplace feeds on itself and poisons the atmosphere, and I decided it was getting too involved. So for now, I'm just going to say this about that:

Save your drama for your mama.

I'm serious. I love you guys, but I can't work in an atmosphere of anxiety and perpetual worry over gossip. I'm going to have to start working from home a lot more, because I keep being interrupted by the latest scoop, the newest rumor, the most recent update on how we're getting screwed, either at work, at the bank, or by our insurance coverage.

It's not that I don't care. I do. But I'm distractible anyway, and what I'm doing requires me to focus. And your anxiety and negativity exacerbate the knots that weren't in my stomach until you started going on and on and on.

Instead, let me propose this: We form a team. We're already allegedly that, so let's act like it. Let's enact a few rules, and police each other to see they're followed. The rules I propose are these:

If you can't say something positive, shut your pie hole. Go to your desk and write a journal entry if something's really bugging you. Or schedule a meeting with your manager and vent in a private room. And close the damn door. Schedule "services" for Our Lady of Consumption down at Proof on Main or Los Aztecas, meet your “bitchin' buddies” for a beer after hours, and complain all you like – then leave your complaints at Our Lady's altar and come back to work with a more positive perspective.
Participate. We're having a chili cook-off, I hear. If the first thing out of your mouth wants to be something snide about "fiddling while Rome burns" – stuff a sock in it. Pull out your chili recipe and your Crock Pot and get cooking. Plan to be there, taste everyone else's chili, and make a point of bringing your new, positive attitude. If you come to share the camaraderie, we'd love to have you. If you come to complain, we're going to ask you to leave. The point is, some of us are trying to foster a sense of unity and cohesiveness and positivity in a somewhat anxious world. We'd love to have you join us, but only if you're really going to join us.
Make fun. That's partly to say, if you can think of something more fun than a chili cook-off, let's see if we can get it off the ground. I personally think we should have some kind of a low-budget party every week for the duration. Create something to smile about. But it's also to say, if Mr. and Ms. Negativity show up at our parties and try to bring the mood down with their own gloom and doom, laugh them out the door. Stop playing into it. We don't have to accept the status quo.

The bottom line is, things get bad, then they get better. We can stew in our juices and get more and more depressed (and less and less productive), or we can get off our butts and seek out something to feel good about. Sink or swim, kids.

I prefer to swim. If you want to sink, go right ahead. But do it quietly, and do it somewhere else. If I can actually help, by all means, ask me. I’ll listen, I’ll offer suggestions, I’ll give you a pep talk, I’ll go to bat for you. But if all you want is to share your negativity so I’ll see and believe how shitty your life is and get on board the Doom Boat with you, forget it. You’re on your own.

Pedal on, regardless

2009-10-14T00:10:00.004-04:00

Day 1: Flash flood watches, in addition to heavy thunderstorm warnings. First day ride was called off. Eight hardy cyclists went anyway, and the rest of us worried about them all day.

Day 2: Bro. Bob convinced me (easily) to take the short route, which picked up at the first SAG stop and thus shaved 20 miles off the total ride. Then, at midpoint, he suggested I take the SAG truck to the next rest stop and resume the ride there, to make sure we got in before dark. By the time we reached said stop, my front tire had gone totally flat, and despite all efforts from the young man driving the SAG van from Lindsay Wilson College, it would not hold air. Not for nothin'... So it was back on the truck for me and Nellie Belle. I completed about 30 of the intended 90 miles.

Camp Acton: Great lasagna, good beer, excellent new friends and old relations! Enjoyed the evening immensely, and am eternally grateful to everyone who got the bike back on track: the anonymous donor of the appropriate tube, the guy whose name I can't remember who got it properly installed and aligned, and Nancy, who found a tube donor and coordinated the whole thing! I have to say, I've never met a Nancy who wasn't up to any challenge!

Day 3: Skipped the first leg on the advice of Nancy, who planned the route. She said, "If you aren't sure you can do the whole thing, go for the second part. It's beautiful." She was right.

I started from Lindsay Wilson College, after brunch. Bob left ahead of me -- totally fine, since by that time, we were each on our own agenda. I ended up walking about the last third of the very first hill, before ever even leaving town, and the second. Rode the third in low gear, but walked the fourth. Somewhere about half- to two-thirds of the way up that hill, Ed Stodola passed me. Ed is the "founding father" of this ride, and I'm not sure whether it was just my second wind kicking in or my latent competitive streak, but something gave me a kick in the butt at that point. That was the last hill I walked!

From there on, Nellie Belle and I rode the hills. The first few were tougher than advertised, but then they began to ease up. Not so obvious at first -- it was easy to say, Oh, I was ready for that one, or even, Gee, that wasn't as bad as it looked! I still had those 'Anne Lamott moments' -- the ones where I'd see a hill coming and start praying, "Help me, help me, thank you, thank you," before I ever even hit the incline. And the ones where I'd see the hill and the first thought in my head would be, "Oh, shit."

Not far into the first day, I stopped greeting great downhill runs with a reflexive "WOO-HOO!" It didn't take long before I learned that what goes down must go back up -- and after that, when the "down" came, it came with a caution. I did have one reprieve: the downhill run about 2/3 of the way to the second rest stop on Sunday. I wish I'd stopped to take a picture or two! The road surface was horrible, the route twisted and turned like nothing I've seen since we drove across Chunky Gal in western NC years ago... The limestone loomed on the right all the way down, the woods dense as midnight on the left, and when I shot out into daylight, into that long valley of meadows and cows and sunshine at the bottom, it took my breath away.

And before that -- flying down that mountain -- oh, my God. It was flying. Even though I had to keep tapping my brakes, even though the surface kept wanting to throw me, in spite of the sense of being a runaway train, all by myself... This is it. This is what it's about. For me, this is the essence of cycling: sitting on the seat, hands on the bars, leaning into the wind and flying. Just flying.

Altogether, I rode about 20 or 25 miles before the SAG van came back for me. I'd told one of the other riders to tell them to wait for me, and I was about a mile from the rest stop when they came over the ridge. "Get tired of waiting for me?" I asked. "Yep," the driver answered.

So there you go. I was bringing up the rear and holding up the show. I rode about half of the last two-thirds of the course for day 3.

But that is beside the point.

No excuses. I wasn't prepared. I hadn't trained hard enough. I didn't ride the whole route.

But -- these are not excuses. These are statements of fact.

There's no way to know what you're getting into on a ride like this until you do it. I had no idea, and I STILL did the best I could.

One of the women who does long rides regularly told me I had "more balls" than anyone she knew, because if this had been her first ride ever, she'd never have done another one. Can't say as I have any balls, other than balls o' yarn, but I appreciate the sentiment and I'll definitely do it again!

The route was a bitch on wheels. Bro Bob allowed as how, if he'd done Day 1, he might not have been up to Day 3. I dunno. But now that we know what it looks like, I'm committed to keeping up with him next year.

I'm back on Weight Watchers, as of today. I've scheduled a fitness assessment at the gym, and I've requested a personal training program.

I don't care if I'm the first one with "front wheels in" in 2010. But I have every intention of being there!

Countdown

2009-10-07T23:13:00.002-04:00

Friday morning. Liftoff...

Back in February, my kid brother (who's only 50-ish, as opposed to being MID-50-ish) overheard me talking about an organized three-day bike ride and told me if I'd do it, he would. Since it entailed my driving from Louisville to Carrollton, KY, and having Ed pick me up around Bowling Green, KY, and Bob driving from (and back to)the D.C. area, I thought -- what the hell, it's his gas money! And promptly found myself, shall we say, "in the soup."

All summer, I've been riding my bike most of the places I meant to ride, not nearly as often as I intended. I've probably racked up about a third of the miles on my "wish list," which is going to send my friend Stacey screaming if she reads this, because it's supposed to be all about commitment, but as far as I could figure, the commitment was to do the ride. In between then and now, I had to give my best shot to getting ready.

Last Sunday, I rode from home, in the Lyndon area of Louisville, to the St. James Art Fair, down in Old Louisville, south of downtown. It's an annual event, one of my favorites, and it was a great ride besides. I rode to church, then down Frankfort Avenue to Nancy's Bagel Grounds for a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee, then took back streets to St. James Court.

One of the delightful things about riding -- as if I'd never mentioned this before (or assuming you've never read my blog before) -- is that you get to know your surroundings in a whole different dimension. By mid-summer, I knew the best back streets to get downtown or home, and I knew a couple of alternate routes for a really good workout. Sunday, I rode through the Highlands to Swan Street, then over to St. Catherine. It's not the upwardly mobile part of Louisville, but I love it. In the Highlands, it depends on where you are -- really, which side of Bardstown Road you're on, I think. By the time you get down around Lynn's Paradise Cafe', made semi-famous on Bobby Flay's "showdown" show, it's already starting to lean to the funky side of bohemian, and beyond that, well, skip the boho. It's funky. Period. This is a good thing.

Perhaps, when I am old and gray, if I happen to be living alone and don't feel like messing with this house any more, I shall buy myself a shotgun house on St. Catherine Street on the easternish edge of Old Louisville, near Third Street, kind-of-sort-of in the general vicinity of St. James Court.

But I digress. (Pogo stick!) Friday. Oh, yes, indeed...

Friday morning, we depart Carrollton, KY, at 8:30-ish a.m. (BTW, I live on "ish time." In case you hadn't noticed. And I don't do "early.") The first day is about 60 miles. I can do that. I did 40 last Sunday, by the time I got done going in circles around the Scenic Loop in Cherokee Park (got on the loop and couldn't get off...), and I know I can do 60. The question is, can I do 90 the next day?

We shall see. Oh, yes, indeedyroo, we shall definitely see. I am getting ever so slightly anxious, but not so much as to call it panicky or anything. Just a little edge of self-motivation going on.

Tomorrow, I go to the office for one more day this week. Yesterday I was there for 10 hours, today about 11. I have two major projects and one that's not as "major" as the business owner would like to believe that must be nailed down before I leave tomorrow evening. And so they shall. Tomorrow morning is Project #1, from noon to about 2 p.m. is #2, and then I shall devote an hour or two to #3 -- the one that's not so much all that. And then I shall come home, pack my paniers, and ponder the importance of this seismic shift in my identity.

Friday morning is liftoff. Friday morning I make the official transition from Weakling, Slug, Sorriest Specimen the Gym Teacher Has Ever Seen, etc... to Athlete. Sometime in June or July, I became an official cyclist. In August or so, I decided to shoot for the Senior Olympics next year. But this ride makes it official. Makes it real. Makes it inescapably, irrevocably, absolutely, documentably true: that I am an athlete.

T-minus 19.75 hours and counting.

The Last Tomatoes

2009-09-28T20:03:00.004-04:00

I was going to dig up the tomato vines yesterday afternoon. I took a nap instead - it seemed like a better idea. There are still tomatoes out there.

They need to come in, sure - it's getting down in the 50s in the evenings now, and they're not going to get any riper out there than they already are. In the house, in the basket, they'll turn red and be reasonably tasty, although not so much as the earlier ones that ripened on the vine. Still better than your average supermarket tomato.

Tonight, I used up the last of what's already in the house. It's just me on Mondays - Ed is off playing Dartball, Mitch is either at work or with Ed, Bri is either at work or across the river at her "home away from home." It's quiet here - me and the dogs and no one else, and I can talk to them or not. They don't care much either way, as long as I'm not yelling. Monday is my evening to do as I please.

That's not to say I don't get to do as I please the other six days a week. When we dine out, it's this inevitable skirmish: "Where do you want to go?" "I don't know, where do you want to go?" "I picked last time. You pick." "I always pick. You pick." And usually, I end up picking (although I really don't know, at least half the time).

And we have way too many TVs in this house. The upshot of it is that Ed usually ends up watching a ball game in the bedroom, Mitch watches Comedy Central or the Cartoon Network downstairs, and I sit in the kitchen and either watch one of the handful of shows I watch or don't turn the TV on at all. "Big Bang Theory," "Criminal Minds," "NCIS," "Cold Case." Rachel Maddow, if I'm in the mood. "House Hunters International" when I think of it. Otherwise, the computer is set to streaming on WFPK or playing one of my playlists on Playlist.com.

So, yes, I do as I please a lot of nights. But Monday nights, I just do. I don't have to think about it, don't have to consider what the others will eat - or when. I don't get lured away for a run to the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen... (Yeah, I know. It's a hard life - what can I tell you?)

So tonight, I had the luxury of spending nearly an hour peeling, seeding, and chopping the last really fresh tomatoes. I had time to separate them by variety and seed them into three different bowls, each labeled for next season. We have Joe Thienamans, Hungarian paste, and what I've decided to call Volunteers of Amerika - the hardy, small but meaty little guys that came up in between two of the varieties we planted on purpose.

Then I chopped them and threw them in a skillet with their juice, a little olive oil, and a whole onion, peeled and quartered. Let them simmer for about half an hour, and I'm eating them over 5-cheese ravioli with a chunk of French bread left from last night's beef stew. The first bowl had smoked gouda layered between the pasta and the sauce. This bowl is just pasta, tomatoes, and onions. Oh, and about a teaspoon of minced garlic and a splash of Malbec from the bottom of my wine glass before I poured a fresh glass.

Later, I'll prop up my feet, sitting crossways in the armchair that's in the corner by the big window, and I'll crochet while watching "Big Bang." Right now, though, my taste buds and I are going to enjoy one more nearly-autumn wallow in the glory of September tomatoes.

Eggy

2009-09-19T10:49:00.005-04:00

I've said many times in my life that if my doctor ever tells me I have to give up eggs, I will tell her to just shoot me now.

I can't think of a way I don't like eggs. Scrambled is good; an omelet is even better. Sunny side up is lovely. Runny yolks are fabulous if you have toast or biscuits to clean the plate up; firm yolks have a savory substantiality* that's filling beyond words. Poached: a childhood favorite that still can make me feel illogically, happily serene. Hard boiled (or even better, medium-boiled, so the yolks are firm but still golden and not crumbly), piping hot and mushed in a bowl with butter and pepper: comfort food.

Egg salad.** (Tuna salad.) French toast. Boiled custard. Somewhere around here there's a recipe for a disgustingly yummy baked egg casserole with sliced boiled eggs, a creamy sauce, and a crushed potato chip topping. Deviled eggs... I used to embarrass my mother at church suppers, sampling a deviled egg or two from each of the six or eight or ten plates from various kitchens. The deviled eggs were a whole course, as far as I was concerned. I could eat a dozen at a sitting. And I'm not saying a dozen stuffed halves. I'm talking about a dozen eggs, each split and stuffed.

A woman I know has grandchildren who love eggs. She left two dozen in the condo refrigerator when her son and his family stayed there this summer - and the kids ate all of them in less than two days. But when she bought a special treat - fresh eggs from an actual chicken-owner - they complained that the eggs tasted "too eggy."

Eggs that are too eggy. Sad. Pass 'em over here, kid. I can take care of that.

We get our eggs from the Egg Guy. I can never remember his name, although eventually, I'll learn it. He has a booth at two different farmer's markets here in town - one on Wednesday afternoons and one on Saturday mornings. He also sells local, pasture-grazed meat and poultry, fresh garlic, and garlicky stuff like a wonderful garlic-scape pesto - but the eggs are the main thing. He has several different breeds of chickens, and he packs out his eggs in clear cartons so you can see the colors of the shells - everything from a dark-brown-sugar color to a pale minty green, and always an even mix of four to six colors. The carton labels are printed on a home computer color printer; they have bright-pastel chickens grazing in grass, and rainbow-colored type.

A few weeks ago, we started hearing a rooster in the morning. We already knew you can have livestock here in the city limits - my daughter has a friend who keeps chickens, and we've spotted two different addresses with goats in the back yard - but a rooster was a little bit of a surprise. For one thing, the rule is that you have to have at least an acre to keep a rooster.

Then one morning as I left for work, I noticed a chicken pen in the far back corner of the next-door neighbors' back yard. I still didn't connect it with the rooster - all I saw was two hens, one brown and one reddish. Pretty cool, I thought.

The rooster was never a bother. We'd hear him when we were already up, getting ready for work, and he'd generally crow once or twice, and that would be it. I was curious about the chickens, but not enough to go out of my way to find out.

A couple of Saturdays ago, Tammy - the mom next door - waved down my daughter and me as we got out of our car. She wanted to know if the rooster was bothering us.

"Oh!" we laughed. "Is this where the rooster lives?" We assured her that we hadn't been bothered at all - that he apparently slept in relatively late for a rooster, and we were usually up before he was.

Turns out, her youngest son, a high-school senior, had come home from the state fair with three chickens. They were keeping the rooster in the garage, but Tammy was having a tad bit of distress over the potential for ticking off the neighbors.

Now I will grant you, my dear husband is a little mystified at the notion of livestock next door, but it doesn't really bother him as long as (a) it doesn't smell and (b) he doesn't have to look after it. For me, it's just one step closer to where I'd love to be sometime before I die. I have my garden, I have my dogs and my big yard and my roses, and I have my kitchen with plenty of counters and a farmhouse-style sink. All that's left is a view of something more than other brick houses and neighbors' landscaping, and a driveway long enough that it makes more sense to get out the bike than to walk all the way to the mailbox.

I don't know that I want chickens. In fact, I've never liked them, up close and personal. My great-uncle took me out to feed them once when I was about three or four, and the rooster - who was almost as tall as I was - thought I might make a nice lunch. I was traumatized, and ever since, I've said the only way I like chickens is dead on a plate. Having them next door, though, isn't bad at all, and I may offer to feed them if the neighbors go out of town for a weekend.

Now, goats - that's different. Goats and dogs get along famously. Goats are personable, and although my experience is that you'd probably do best to keep them well away from the clothesline and the rose bushes, there's only a hair of truth behind the idiom, "smelly as a goat." The bucks do smell pretty randy after they've reached puberty, but the only reason to have a buck is for breeding purposes. And the best way to do that is to pay someone a fee to keep your doe for a few days and let her get acquainted with their buck.

Some people don't care for goat milk - I'll grant you, it's pretty rich - but most of the negative reviews I've heard are along similar lines as saying local eggs taste "too eggy." My youngest child lived on goat milk from the time I stopped nursing him (right after the second tooth came in) until he was about three. Cow's milk and milk-based formulas shredded his digestive system, but we had friends who had friends who had goats, and we traded garden produce for milk once a week. I don't remember what we traded in the winter, but there was always something that worked.

Goat cheese is soft and creamy, savory but not tart or sharp. Goat's milk yogurt is less sour than cow's milk yogurt. And they both mix nicely if you want to put them in your scrambled eggs.

There's not much can compare with an eggy-milky omelet.

________________

*Substantiality [sub-stan-chi-al-i-ty]: My blog, my vocab, and if necessary, my word coinage. Remember? :-)

**Super Easy Eggy Salad
6 eggs, hard boiled, cooled and peeled (fresh from the egg guy are best)
1-1/2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
2-3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish (I'm currently using Sweet Dillies from CC's Kitchen in Crestwood, KY - contact info available on request - but if you love it, it's perfect!)

Dump in bowl. Mash everything together with a fork or egg-chopper until it's a soft, moderately lumpy mess. Heap on slabs of whole-grain bread and stuff into your face. The sweet pickles, zingy mustard, and savory eggs balance each other to make the most comforting, flavorful sandwich imaginable.

Navigating

2009-09-14T22:45:00.005-04:00

Hit Cherokee Park this evening for the first time since back in the early summer. I'd made a round of Seneca Park (they're adjacent) a few weeks ago, but coming home from work tonight, I decided to go for broke.

Cherokee Park has some hills that are - at least to a relative novice like me - somewhat challenging. In fact, the last time I attempted them, they were seriously challenging. In fact... when I rode part of the loop from Seneca the other week, they were still pretty serious. And being under three weeks out from the big 3-day ride, I need serious hills.

So yes, they were still serious tonight. But you know what? I have now done that Maryhurst hill twice. The second time, I didn't even have to shift all the way down. I made the top in 1:4. I rode home that night the long way, up the long hill on Dorsey Lane, through Owl Creek, up Wade to Evergreen, and up that long hill back to LaGrange Road, and I only stopped twice. And had a drink of water and then rode from where I was to the top of the hill.

This evening, I had my route mapped out, but I hadn't visually memorized it. I made it up Baxter to Cherokee, but I missed Alexander somewhere and ended up wandering happily around Cherokee Triangle for some time. Cherokee Triangle is a lovely old neighborhood full of "Aunt Tot" houses - I know, if you're not related on my dad's side, you won't get that, but if you are, you know exactly what I mean! Well-maintained homes, at least 3,000 square feet each, original Mission style or maybe "pseudo-Tudor" from the same general period, with well-tended, gracious lawns and lots of space between houses. After a while, though, I began to notice that it wasn't getting earlier, and that I wasn't entirely sure where I needed to go from where I was. Sadly, I'd ridden those same streets, many of them, a few weeks ago when I branched out from Seneca Park, but in spite of those fairly frequent flashes of "oh, yeah!" I wasn't quite sure how they fit together anymore.

But then I rounded another curve and - oh, yeah! - there was Scenic Loop, which meant that I was officially In The Park. And I rode.

It's roughly five miles from the office to where I realized I was where I wanted to be, except that I'd probably put in an extra three or four exploring the neighborhood. What I'd mapped was a whole lot of Cherokee Parkway and Pee Wee Reese Road, not so much Scenic Loop. I took a wrong turn a couple of times and had to double back, and there were moments when - even when I knew I was in the park - I wasn't sure where in the park. But the really bitchin' hills, I remembered. They were the ones that almost did me in back in June.

Today, I made it to the fountain without ever once getting off to push. I stopped twice halfway or more up a hill and had a long drink of water, then knocked my gears back to where they felt right and took off again. I stopped when my front fender, which had come unhitched on the left, started dragging badly on the right against the tire. Another thing about commuting regularly and paying attention to how your gears feel is that you also learn how your tires should feel - and my front tire was feeling really sluggish. So I stopped at the fountain, checked my 20 with a lovely woman out for a walk, and called my daughter.

To shorten the long story:

Nellie Belle is off to the shop again tomorrow, to fix the fender and check the tire and assess her actual, realistic road-worthiness for a three-day ride.
If it turns out Nellie Belle is not up to the three-day ride, Plan B is to retrofit Bri's bike - Betty - with the appropriate gears, handlebars, and road wheels and start learning how Betty should feel going uphill.
I guess I'm driving tomorrow after all.
I now have yet another route home from work.

And I'm hanging in there. My navigation skills are still a bit suspect, but I'm getting a lot better at hills. Beginning with my "driving in Louisville" philosophy - there's always another way to get there - I'm learning my way around some places I'd never see in a car.

I've lived a lot of places. I've loved several of them. I don't think I've known one this well since San Jose - because this is the first time since then that I've navigated on the ground, through the neighborhoods, up and down the streets, learning my city at eye level. Navigating in a car, you watch for traffic, for lights, for street signs. Navigating on a bike, you watch for traffic, for street signs, and for friendly-looking people. For landmarks. For "oh, yeah!" moments.

I'm working on Daddy's trick of knowing what direction he was going depending on the angle of the sun. (The season is slowing me down a bit - the angle seems to have shifted somewhat abruptly a couple of days ago.) In the meantime, I'm learning the hills, and I'm learning Louisville better than anywhere I've lived in over 30 years.

Healthcare

2009-09-08T21:09:00.008-04:00

Spent the weekend down at Mom's, not talking about healthcare. Probably just as well.

Actually, she wanted to discuss. Mentioned to my spouse on the phone that she wanted to know what was going to happen to her healthcare. Short answer: not a thing, Mom. But she's concerned, and I understand that. And I apologize, in case anyone mentions this blog to her, for failing to open the discussion. Next week, maybe? Will that work, Ma? Call me!

What I don't understand is the hysteria - the downright psychotic ravings - of the Right. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure a good bit of Mom's concern is fed by those ravings, from friends and (God help us all) relations all too ready to jump on any right-wing conspiracy theory that waves at them.

On the other hand, I'm also frustrated and annoyed at the political rhetoric and blame-laying that targets only the insurance companies. There's plenty of blame to go around, guys. And we've got to stop pointing fingers and figure out how to work together, or we're not going to solve this - not really.

Here's what I know:

We need medical professionals and institutions. But we also need them to be in it for something other than the money. Yes, I know, a lot of doctors chose medicine so they could do good in the world - the paycheck was gravy. But these days, we have a shortage of family practitioners and other primary care professionals, because medical students are choosing to go into specialties instead. And I'm sure some of them are becoming specialists so they can save the world, one joint or kidney or cervix at a time. My educated guess, though, is that the paycheck is a bit more than gravy. How about a little humanitarianism, kids? And how about hospitals not padding the bills they send insurance companies to make up for the bills they know they're not going to be able to collect, even if they do put liens on people's mobile homes? (Anyone remember that story? It was reported in that radical left-wing publication, the Wall Street Journal, a few years ago - a VERY few years. I want to say 2006.)

We need pharmaceutical companies. We need research and development, and we need medications that fight cancer, flu, and vertigo. We need vaccines so we don't get smallpox or polio or chickenpox. What we don't need is new prescription drugs rolled out regularly, marketed like they're God's Gift, with doctors being pressured to prescribe them and people being persuaded to beg for them - with R&D quietly being carried on in the meantime because, in a few years, the patent is going to run out and the cash cow is going to stop producing. Have you ever noticed that every time the previous God's Gift from the Chem Lab goes generic (or worse, OTC), it's either closely followed or else actually preceded by a "new and improved" version? One that is marketed even more intensively, priced even higher, and - it turns out - may or may not actually work better...

We need insurance companies. Face it: the majority of Americans who have insurance actually like the coverage they have and don't plan to change any time soon. Most insurance companies, honest or not, have some decent plans out there. There's even at least one U.S. medical insurance company with a CEO who's been preaching healthcare reform for years. And he's not just talking about "cost-shifting." He's talking about freedom of choice, 21st-century electronic record-keeping, cost transparency from all players, evidence-based medicine, and even (brace yourself) personal accountability. And his company is trying to shift its focus from being the fallback position when people get sick, to rewarding people for finding ways to stay well - and then being there to help when they get sick after all. But I digress... What we don't need is actuaries rejecting people out of hand or charging them exponentially more for coverage because they have chronic health conditions they need help managing, or because they once had a condition that left them in a wheelchair. And for the record, we need a public option. Yes, we need to level the playing field, but let's really level it. Let's all accept our share of the responsibility, instead of just pointing fingers at an easy mark.

Finally, we need personal responsibility. We need to wake up and smell the coffee: The fact is, the vast majority of healthcare dollars go to pay for treating preventable conditions. Most of the things that kill us come from doing things we chose to do, knowing they were bad for us. Heart conditions, type 2 diabetes, obesity... We need to get off our fat butts, turn off the TVs, and start walking to the bus stop instead of driving two blocks to the grocery store. We need to find a buddy and quit smoking. We need to demand that the nutrition information on foods be printed in a font big enough to read - and we need to read it, and use it. We need to knock off the sodas and drink more water. We need more cookbook authors like Holly Clegg (shameless plug there), who publishes the complete nutrition info per serving for every recipe in every book she publishes.

The other thing we need to do - we left-leaning believers in healthcare reform who know darn well there's more than enough blame to go around - is get over our anxiety about being yelled at and start talking back. We have to stop just rolling our eyes at the paranoid conspiracy theorists and talking about them behind their backs, and tell them to shut up. Ask them for documentation of their claims. Don't accept hysterical ravings and meandering rants that mean nothing. Just push them to clearly, logically, factually back up their arguments.

I betcha money they can't do it.

Nuts

2009-09-03T21:36:00.003-04:00

I've mentioned my dad several times in the last few blogs, and it occurs to me that I miss him. He's been gone a year and four months, but there are still moments when I forget that.

Tonight I figure the world could use a laugh, so I'm going to tell you the story about my last wedding.

First, yes, I've had more than one. In fact, I've had more than two, and they all come with stories attached. For one thing, this most recent was the first one I was on time for, but that's another blog or two. And as a point of fact, I usually refer to it as "the last one" rather than "the most recent one" because I'll be damned if I'm going to go around this particular mulberry bush again. When my dad realized Ed and I were "getting serious," as they used to say back in the Dark Ages, he asked me how many times I was planning on doing this marriage thing. My answer: "Daddy, I'm gonna run this play 'til I get it right."

So this is the last one, 'cause I nailed it, as far as I can tell. And if I find out later I didn't, I'm surely not going to set myself up again!

Be that as it may... We got welded (as my old friend the Rev. Geoffrey St. John Hoare used to say) on Saturday, November 3, 2001. It was small, but madness nevertheless: planning a wedding in the month after 9/11 was stressful, to say the least. Migraines abounded.

My family started wandering into Louisville on Friday evening. My sisters arrived first, but missed their exit, ended up across the river, and called from Indiana at about midnight. Bri and I were still putting buttons - about 50 of them, I think - on my dress, and we had a really punchy conversation with sister Paula about Barbie's physiology. They gave up trying to find us and got a motel room over there, and we did actually get a little sleep.

Mom and Dad came in the next morning, and my elder son, a U.S. Marine, arrived on a red-eye flight from California or somewhere in mid-morning, and we all went to lunch and then caravaned to the church, because even though it was a straight shot from where we were, I was afraid to try to give anyone directions at that point. When we arrived, a couple hours before the wedding, my sisters were there and we girls set up camp in the parlor, while the boys and my parents went upstairs with my friend Georgianna to set up the reception.

Started getting dressed and we realized we'd left the jacket to my dress in the closet back at the apartment, along with my daughter's suit. My daughter, Bri, and younger son, Mitch (who lived in the apartment with me but is monumentally directionally challenged), headed back to fetch them.

Meanwhile, my younger sister, Cheri, who was supposed to do my hair, had left her hot curlers, round brushes, hairpins, and other do-dads and necessities in North Carolina. She didn't have time to go back for them, so I plundered in my tote bag and found a couple of barrettes and a comb, and we decided to wing it.

After a while, my friend Janet came downstairs from the reception area with a lack-of-progress report: "Your mother says you don't have enough sandwich fillings. And she wants to know why you didn't make the sandwiches ahead of time."

"Because I didn't get to Meier until 11 o'clock last night, is why. And I still had to help Bri put buttons on my dress. Tell her there will be enough." Janet dutifully went back upstairs with my reply.

It's a 10-minute drive on a Saturday morning from the church to the apartment; the kids had been gone close to an hour by now. I was a little anxious, particularly since my daughter was supposed to be my one attendant.

After a while, Janet - who is, incidentally, the pastor's secretary - came back. The cake had arrived, and my mother and the Cake Lady wanted to know where to put it. "On a table," I suggested. "Geez, Janet - you work here! You figure it out!"

Back upstairs went Janet.

A little bit later, Janet again: "Your mother wants to know where the makings are for the punch." Well, duh... The makings for the freakin' punch were sitting in their freakin' cans, thawing in the freakin' sink in the freakin' kitchen in my freakin' apartment. Where did she think the makings for the punch were?

At this point, the kids had been gone an hour and ten minutes, and I was getting really antsy. I called the apartment, hoping they were still there - hoping they weren't wandering lost in the wilderness of the East End, hoping they could snag the juice and ginger ale and other ingredients for the fabulous "Baptist Champagne" I'd planned, hoping they were going to make it back for the wedding - but there was no reply.

"Don't worry," said Janet. "We'll think of something." Okay, kiddo - not worrying. Also not thinking about a white horse. (Old joke from my grade school days - if you're not older than dirt, you won't get it.) Also not thinking about a train wreck...

Five minutes later, Bri and Mitch returned with my jacket, her suit, and no punch makings. "Don't worry," Bri told me, skinnying into her silk pants. "Where's the kitchen?" Five minutes after that, she and her brother passed by with their arms full of random partially full juice jugs and packages of frozen fruit and a few cans of soda - we had punch coming up. The girl is the world's greatest Crisis Chef - throw her into an ingredientless surprise dinner party, and you will dine in style.

45 minutes to kick-off. The groom had arrived, thanks be to God. (I'd even panicked about that.) Everyone was dressed. Paula had found me a "something borrowed" and a "something blue" to go with my new dress and shoes and my old pearls: she tied her small daughter's Barbie comb around my ankle with a length of the blue crochet thread she was using to make Barbie a dress. (The comb is long gone, but the thread is still tied around the handle of my best hairbrush.) And... here came Janet.

"Your mother is upset." Okay. And your point is...? "She says there are no nuts."

I looked at her for a second, opened my mouth, and let out the first thing that fell from my brain: "Janet. Look around you. We're surrounded by nuts."

She shook her head and left. Five minutes later, she was back. "It's okay," she said. "Your father has gone to get nuts."

At this point, "geez Louise" went out the door. I started with my high-school-favorite string of expletives and rolled downhill from there. My dad always got people lost with his directions - he'd invariably give you two or three alternate ways to get there, and somewhere in the middle, he'd start crossing them up. And he couldn't follow them, either. He'd forget the name of the street where he was supposed to turn, he'd confuse right and left, he'd eventually find his way back because he made a point of keeping the sun in the right position in relation to himself (honest to God), but he'd be late and he wouldn't have - or even remember - what he went for.

We were going to be cleaning up after the reception at six in the evening, and my dad was going to get back - without the nuts.

30 minutes to kick-off. Janet (who had beat a hasty retreat after the previous encounter) returned with more news. "Your mother is going to kill your father."

"Okay," I said. "At this point, she's probably looking for someone to kill. Might as well be Daddy. But I'm curious as to why."

As it turns out, my dad had been given directions to the Kroger on Brownsboro Road. It's easy, really: go west on Frankfort to Ewing, right on Ewing, left on Brownsboro, and there you are. However, he'd gotten as far as the intersection of Frankfort and Ewing, spotted a Walgreen's drug store, and decided they'd have nuts.

Which they did.

My dad had returned with about 50 single-serving packages of Planter's peanuts. They were on special.

The bottom line: My mom did not kill my dad. (Parkinson's did that several years later, but that's another blog, and I feel like laughing tonight, so we'll leave it.) The wedding happened, and the groom stayed for the whole thing - and he's still here. In spite of it being November 3, the weather was like April - or May, even: 75 degrees and not a cloud to be found. Georgianna finally got to sit down and rest her feet, Janet was impressed with the punch, and everyone thought the cake was gorgeous.

And eight years later, we're still telling the story about the nuts.

Pedaling

2009-09-02T23:22:00.005-04:00

It took me a while to get the hang of the gears.

My first bike was a Catalina cruiser, teal green with rainbows on the fenders. I was ten years old when I got it, and I'd wanted one for years - my brother was six, and he got his first bike the same Christmas. That did not please me, but the rainbow fenders made up for it, mostly. Not that the sibling rivalry disappeared, then or ever. And not that that's a problem...

In the 70s, I had a 10-speed, which I never did figure out. I finally set it in the gear that felt most like the cruiser and left it there. Rode it for quite some time - took it to California with me, and rode it to my doctor's appointments in San Jose when I was pregnant, up through the 7th month. Stopped when someone stole it out of the bushes one night while we were in the movie theater.

Rode for a little bit 10-15 years ago, in eastern North Carolina. Had a couple of close calls with good old boys - in combination with trucks and beer, I believe - and one nearly-nasty incident with a couple of really bad dogs, the kind that don't bark. You know, the ones you realize are about to attack when you feel their breath on your ankles. After that, my range started shrinking, and I quickly gave up riding the Carolina back roads.

Thanks to a friend who's been commuting on his bike for several years, I started riding again two years ago, and fell back in love with the speed, the motion - the freedom. This year, I kicked off the season with the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure in May, and I haven't looked back. I did 14 miles on the Tour before I had a flat that wouldn't hold air any more. I'm now up close to 30 miles at a stretch, and I'll be at 60 by October, when my brother (remember him?) and I do a three-day ride from Carrollton, KY to the general vicinity of Bowling Green, near the Tennessee border. I was thinking about it, until he said, "If you'll do it, I will." That's where old sibling rivalry becomes a good thing: when your kid brother offers to drive from the D.C. suburbs to Louisville, Kentucky, if it will get you off your ass and get you moving.

Pedaling I could do. But shifting was a bit beyond me until about mid-summer. My friend Kirk, the bike commuter, noted during the Tour de Cure that I wasn't using my gears "efficiently." He kept telling me I should be using the higher gears to build up to hills, and I'm thinking, "Yeah, sure, and then what?" He told me that day to work with them, learn the feel of each gear, and after a while, I wouldn't have to think about it.

By July, I knew, at least in theory, that it was kind of like that Volkswagen Beetle I learned to drive in 1970: You start out in first gear, or you don't get going. You shift to the middle gears for cruising. And the high gears are for going downhill without burning out your brakes.

July 7, I got a heavy-duty lesson in first gear: I tried to start off going uphill on an unfamiliar rural road in New Jersey (yes, they have rural roads in New Jersey, and they're beautiful!) in too high a gear - around 6 on the second derailleur - and my foot slipped off the pedal. Three days later, we figured out it was the metal brace - actually a heavy-gauge wire - holding the fender to the axle that caught my shin and ripped it from about midway above the ankle almost to my knee, and nearly to the bone. What I learned there, in the order of learning:

The inside of the human leg is not attractive in the least.
It is possible to get a very nasty injury on a bike and never hit the ground, or anything else, as far as one can tell.
New Jersey emergency service personnel are absolutely the bestest!
I get talkative and even witty when I'm in shock. (There's now a whole dark comedy routine surrounding the incident. I drag it out at parties and meetings when I'm wearing a short dress and my scar shows.)
Those metal braces that hold the fenders to the axles are supposed to have rubber caps, and you should always check them when you do your ABC Quick Check.*
And when starting off going uphill, the best gear is first derailleur, somewhere in the neighborhood of no higher than 2 or 3. Your foot may spin, but it won't slip, you won't wobble, and the worst that will happen is that you'll have to stop, shift up a notch, and go again.

It took me a week to get back on the bike after that. We came home to Kentucky and the doctor who checked my stitches - 21, in case anyone wants to know - said I could ride again any time I felt like it, but I was scared. I didn't realize how scared for a few more days, when the shock finally wore off and I lost it completely. Then I nearly panicked. Here I'd finally found I was good at something physical - me, the girl who was not only picked last for teams, but over whom there were arguments about who had to take her - and I loved it, but I was afraid to do it again.

I told Ed - told him how scared I was, how scared I'd been, how I'd stood on the side of that road, holding the edges of my laid-open leg together, and I'd thought, "I could die out here. I could bleed to death on this day, in this park beside this road in New Jersey." And God bless him, as nervous as I know it makes him for me to be out there riding around in traffic (even with a helmet), he said, "Well, then, you have to get back on."

After that, I started getting it very quickly. I had a couple of "instructional moments" with Kirk and - second-hand - with a guy who works with Ed, who I've never met but who does a lot of distance riding, and I started taking off in lower gears and paying attention to how they felt, and it didn't take long at all.

When you're pedaling, you hit a point where it feels easy. Not just good, but almost too easy. The pedals are going fast, and you're flying along - but you're not moving any faster. You learn where that point is, and then you learn to shift up just before you get there. That's the magic: It isn't supposed to be hard most of the time, but it's not supposed to be coasting all the way.

You learn the sensation - the tension in your calves, the mild pressure in your thighs and hamstrings, nothing difficult, but definitely there. If it's missing, you're giving up power. When you get that push going, it's easier to throw yourself behind a hill - and when you hit a bitch of a hill, it's not impossible anymore. Then you shift down, and you can keep going.

This evening, after four days down with mild flu-like symptoms, I came home from my second day back at work - rode in with Ed this morning - and got the bike out of the shed. It's Wednesday, which is the day I take my crochet bag over to Maryhurst and spend an hour with the teenage girls who live there. Maryhurst is at the top of a hill that's at the top of another hill, and I'd never tackled either of those hills before. And they're both bitches.

I remember thinking back in the spring that I might never be able to ride all the way up the Maryhurst hill. This evening, I had to slow down as I made the corner into the drive, so I lost some push there, but I was nearly halfway up before I had to shift from the second derailleur to the first, and I made it to the top. I was in 1:1 mode, but by God, I did it. Okay, we did it - I was praying Anne Lamott's favorite prayer, "Help me, help me, thank you, thank you," from right after I shifted the first time, all the way up - but a few feet from the crest, I took a quick break from prayer to say, "Woo-hoo! HAH!"

There's a three-day ride waiting for me in October. Little Brother has already said he's in it for the ride, not the competition, which is okay by me. The second day is about 90 miles, and I can see it taking me 10 hours easily. And I may have to push Nellie Belle up some of those mid-Kentucky hills.

But not until I've hit 1:1 and she won't go any more. Because I can pedal, and I get it. I feel the gears now, and I know how to work them. And it can only get better from here.

Pedal on!

*ABC Quick Check:

A - air: Check your tires - preferably with a gauge
B - brakes: When you hold your brake handle and push the bike against it, does the other wheel come off the ground? It should.
C - chain and crank: Are your pedals stable? Do they wobble on the crank? (Not good.) Is your chain lubricated and looking good? AND - as of July 7, 2009 - CAPS: Are those little rubber cap thingies on your axle braces where they're supposed to be? And if not, is SOMETHING covering the ends of those heavy-gauge wires? A serious layer of electrical tape will do - just make sure they're covered!
Quick - quick release levers: They hold the wheels and often the seat, handlebars, and various other parts onto modern bikes. Make sure they're (a) down tight and (b) facing in a direction where they won't catch your clothing or anything else and throw you.
Check: Take a spin in a circle around the parking lot or cul-de-sac and see if you feel something you might've missed in your visual check.

Tomatoes

2009-09-01T23:24:00.004-04:00

It's the annual onslaught.

Dad tried to warn me. He told everyone else to tell me, too - don't plant more than five tomato plants! I compromised (again this year) with five varieties: two Kentucky heirlooms, a Hungarian paste tomato, and I forget what others, but they're good 'uns. One plum, one smallish round - mixed with the Hungarian plums, dark red with black-green markings, they'll make wonderful pasta sauce for this winter. And of course, I don't even count the cherry tomato bush in the herb bed, between the driveway and the back door. We pick those in passing and eat them as we walk, still warm from the afternoon sun.

The Kentucky tomatoes are special, though. Joe Thienaman - named for a native son - has round fruit, fiery red and weighing in close to - even over - a pound apiece. If I try to carry more than four cradled in my arms, I start dropping them. Grandfather Ashlock is one of those meaty, deep pink tomatoes, not quite as monstrous as the JTs, but big. Double-globed, with the stem end set low in the center, so the only way to slice them is to cut the stem out in a V and split them at the crease, then slice the halves. The seeds are compactly placed, so the fruit is mostly just fruit, sweet and dribble-down-your-chin juicy.

The garlic got away from me. I didn't know until into the summer, talking to a local farmer at the farmer's market, that I should've clipped the sprouts - scapes, they're called - trimmed them back when they got 10-12 inches high, to force more energy into the bulbs. I also didn't know you can chop those scapes and use them like you would chives, but I reckon I'll weed the bed, mulch it down, and see if they come back next year. Bulbs will be bulbs.

We had beautiful zucchini early on - two varieties, one with dark green and yellow striped skins that got big without getting tough or mealy. It was a short season, but it was nice while it lasted. Zucchini boats stuffed with a mix of cornbread, almonds, mozzarella, and peppers made a lovely supper in July. The Japanese eggplant is just now starting to bloom - guess we'll see how that goes.

Missed out on the okra season, so I'm saving those seeds for next year, too. I figured it needed to be hot as Hades for okra, so I waited until August, and then - derned Kentucky! - August turned cool. Never would've happened if I'd had something in that needed cool...

On the other hand, I jumped the gun on the broccoli and cauliflower. Couldn't figure out why they got big and bushy and did absolutely nothing else, until a friend from up in Michigan pointed out they're winter crops - they aren't going to do anything until it gets down in the 40s at night! So I pulled those out, and we're going to replant them in October. See what happens then.

Potatoes - too wet this year to bother. Parsnips and carrots - later. They'll do for fall and winter crops. We have beans and a few peas, enough to freeze but not enough to can. But tomatoes...

My favorite summer lunch is a tomato sandwich - just sliced tomato, bread, and a tiny bit of mayonnaise and some pepper - and a tall glass of ice water. Last night, we had the perfect summer supper: baked chicken (Holly Clegg's Dijon Rosemary Chicken, with paprika added for fun - 10 minutes of prep, 50 minutes in the oven, and SO good), a little cornbread stuffing, and sliced tomatoes. I cut up four big fruit, and there were three small slices left when the four of us left the table.

Of course, the best part of the perfect summer supper is having everyone at the table, sitting down, eating slowly, talking and laughing and passing the plates again. No TV, no phone ringing. Just family. But even the talk comes back to the tomatoes this time of year. At one point, my daughter remarked that since we've been growing our own, eating them fresh from the garden and chemical-free, she has to ask the folks in restaurants to hold the tomatoes - they're no good any more. Once you've had a season of tomatoes fresh from the garden, ripened on the vine rather than in a crate on a truck coming in from California - and in season, not forced in a hothouse in mid-winter - commercial tomatoes just don't seem quite right. It's not that the commercial tomatoes have changed, just that once your mouth knows how a tomato is supposed to taste and feel, it gets right picky.

Maybe girls from Minnesota and Wisconsin get misty-eyed over broccoli or parsnips. I don't know, but I guess it could happen. I'm from North Carolina, and my dad was from Mississippi, and my mom is from Alabama, and for me, it's all about tomatoes.

Pruning

2009-06-05T22:15:00.006-04:00

Ed was going to cut the grass this evening, so I volunteered to get out and prune the low branches on our three little trees first. I managed two.

The first one was easy -- the Japanese smoke bush I planted shortly after we moved in three years ago. It's supposed to get 12 to 15 feet tall, which was going to make it perfect for the spot where I put it, in the center right, directly in the path of the mid- to late afternoon sun that blazes into the kitchen and heats the whole room to a near boil. But what had happened was that it formed an odd, somewhat scraggly little bushy section at the bottom, up to about five feet, then sent three gangly shoots straight up from the center. There they were, three giraffe branches, sticking up in the air, pretty much buck-naked except for a fluffy cluster of leaves and smoky foliage at the top of each. It was downright goofy-looking, in spite of the beauty of those leaves -- dark, dark green on the tops, deep, plummy, velvety red on the undersides -- and the blossoms that honestly do look like puffs of smoke.

About three weeks ago, I lopped off the giraffe branches, and the scraggly bush unscraggled itself. In the last week, it's reached a good six feet, plus a few inches, I think. It's fat and full, and the formerly blossomless limbs are becoming a soft cloud of soft, silvery plum. It's also put out shoots at the bottom, making it almost impossible to get the lawnmower up underneath.

So I trimmed back the really rangy branches, and then ducked under and snipped everything green that was less than two feet from the ground. My smoke bush is still fat and sassy, and none the worse for the haircut. I even had some gumption left for deadheading the roses (which were in desperate need of deadheading, I promise you).

[That reminds me -- I need to add self-rising flour to the grocery list. It's a great non-hazmat insecticide. Sift a light coating over the roses in the late morning, and the beetles blow themselves up by evening.]

Then I headed out to the side yard to trim the little tree there. I don't know what this tree is, other than a real piece of work. It's pretty, I'll grant you -- all over white blossoms in the earliest spring, clusters of dark green leaves and red berries later in summer -- and, okay, it's not really that little. I'm pretty sure it tops out over 15 feet already; I know it has a good six-foot radius, at least.

All Ed really wanted was the lowhanging branches trimmed back, especially where they hung over the property line and made life difficult for the back-door neighbor when he mowed. When I got into it, though, I found many of the low branches were dying from lack of sunlight. Additionally, it was sprouting from the bottom, putting up gangly tendrils that wound pale and anemic-looking around the trunk, and the grass was thick between the small growths.

It took me an hour. I made two full circuits, first whacking anything that hung too low or was obviously dead. The second round was in search of sickly limbs that were drawing energy from healthier ones. This wasn't a haircut. It was surgery.

Pruning, for me, is a very right-brained activity. (Okay, I'll admit it: I can make almost anything a right-brained activity. But anything garden-related, especially.) I look, I assess, I snip or whack or pinch. The only words that run through my conscious mind, at least for the first 30 minutes or so, are "good" and "ick" and "out."

After about half an hour, though, the poor left brain is rested up from its stressful, overworked week at the office, and it wakes up. That's when I start thinking about other things. That's when the right brain takes the left brain exploring.

A woman in my writers' group last night read us a poem she'd written about weeding. She put it in the context of herself as conquerer first, but then as alien invader -- like, "Who's the bad guy, really?" I thought of that, and I saw myself snipping and pinching and whacking, and I thought, "Merciless."

Then I thought, "But."

The branches I cut from that tree were sickly. Or they were baked -- dehydrated. Some of them looked scaly, almost crusty, their leaves brown at the edges and thin. Maybe four leaves and one grayish-whitish berry per stem. Farther down the branch would be clusters of greener leaves, pinkish berries, struggling to make more but unable to succeed because the others sucked up their nourishment before it got all the way out, and then pissed it away. Too puny and light-starved to get better, but too greedy to die back.

So.

The tree hangs not so low now. Some of the branches visibly gained altitude the second I cut their dead-weight growth and let it fall. Some I just thinned or trimmed a little, so the inner leaves could get more sun. Amputations were required.

My back hurts now, from all the bending and reaching, and then lifting and stuffing branches into bags, and hauling them to the trash. The tree's revenge, I suppose. That, and the sharp, tangy-harsh smell of the sap on the cut branches, on my hands -- stained pale green when I went inside -- in my hair, clinging inside my nostrils and making me sneeze and then stinking still.

Living Lent

2009-04-16T23:19:00.004-04:00

Seems to me the folks who think Lent is all about deprivation and doing penance and gloom and doom and sackcloth and ashes and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth are maybe overdoing it a bit. In fact, it seems to me they might have wandered off the path and got lost in the woods -- the Dark Side of spirituality.

And before you say it, I know Lent is over. It ended last Sunday with ringing bells and waving banners and -- in our congregation, at least -- the Grand Finale of the End of Lent: everyone, and I mean everyone, singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Seriously. We do it every year. The choir comes up to the balcony, and anyone else who wants to sing comes along, at least until there's no more room or we run out of battered, dog-eared scores, and we belt it out. Every time during the service someone says "alleluia," whether it's in a hymn or during the sermon or in the middle of a prayer, everyone who remembered to bring a bell with them rings that bell, and when we sing at the end, all the bells go crazy.

So cool. Otay, Spanky. Lent is over. Kind of.

Here's what I think: Lent is about thoughtfulness and deliberateness. Lent is about paying attention to the health of your soul, which is probably feeling somewhat neglected after a year of being ignored while slogging through this crazy life. And don't tell me you don't ignore your soul. I think the only people who don't are monks and nuns -- and maybe not even all of them.

Someone I deeply respected told me years ago that Lent was a time to take something on, not give something up. This guy was one of the most giving spirits I've ever encountered, but he found even more to give during Lent. We had this particular conversation when I came on him in the breakroom, eating a PBJ and reading Henri Nouwen's Life of the Beloved. I asked him what he was reading, and he told me -- and then he said, "I read it every year during Lent. It reminds me of who I am."

This year, a group of us decided to read a book after Lent, and after Easter -- a post-Lenten study, if you will. The book is called Living the Jesus Creed, and it's basically 50 daily readings -- seven weeks' worth -- focused on the Shema, what Christians often call "The Great Commandment." If you're Jewish, you'll know immediately what I'm talking about. If you're Christian, I hate to break it to you, but Jesus didn't think it up all by himself. When he told that young man the greatest commandment was to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might," he didn't just pull that out of a hat. Check out Deuteronomy 6:5.

Then go back and check out verse 4: "Hear, O Israel -- the Lord is One. The Lord thy God is One." That is a sermon all by itself, and one of these blogs, I'll hold forth on what the rabbi at Congregation Sha'arei Israel had to say about that.

The second part, the Gospel addendum, is of course "love thy neighbor as thyself," which most of us are still trying to figure out. Are we assuming "love" is defined as a self-preservation kind of thing? Are we saying we must end every conversation with "I love you," like the goofball in the Arby's commercial? What? Most of us have come back around to the former, I think -- it's safer that way. Means we don't have to be nice to the a--hole next door whose dog gets ours wound up by wandering up our driveway just for fun and whose kid rides his riding lawnmower around the yard at 10 p.m. We don't have to be friendly, we just have to not kill him, because that wouldn't be a loving thing to do.

But I digress. (I love saying that. It puts such polish on the old ADHD!) There's the book, which breaks down the whole commandment (New Testament version) and encourages us to focus on it every day, all day, whenever we think of it -- to make it a part of our lives.

There's also my own quest, which has been going on for years to one degree or another, but finally kicked into gear last year with the diagnosis that changed my whole view of who I am and why I do things the way I do. Once it was confirmed that I've been struggling with ADHD for probably close to five decades, I was able first to get a prescription that would sharpen the ability to focus and keep the synapses from firing off too willy-nilly. Second, once I saw what I'd been missing, I found a life coach who could help me figure out what to do with all that stuff.

So in the past four months, I've made commitments on a weekly basis. I've set goals for each day -- and I've had to learn what a reasonable expectation looks like, because I was previously the Queen of the Eternal To-Do List. You know, the kind where you start one morning with a really great list of 10 things you're going to do that day, and by the end of the day, you've finished four of them, bagged three as being either redundant or obsolete, and bumped the remaining three to the next day's list. Eventually, you have a list 40 items long, 20 of which have daily been bumped to "tomorrow" for months. This month, I've been on my own except for a monthly phone call to report my progress, and things are starting to click. For this month, I've made two hard and fast commitments: to write something every day, and to ride my bike outdoors every day the weather permits. Everything else is pretty general, and it's going to get done. It just doesn't have to be on a tight schedule. I've learned to break the work up into zones, if it's physical, or blocks, if it's more intellectual, and just do it for a few minutes at a time, and it gets done much more efficiently than I'd ever have expected.

The Pogo Stick of Thought has just jumped off the sidewalk again...

So here's the point. It's actually three commitments.

I'm getting up early each morning for the next 49 days (we started today) to read a chapter of the book with Ed. I want to do this with someone, to keep myself on task and aware. Part of it's the accountability thing -- I have to finish the study if I'm sharing it. Part of it is the family thing -- Ed and I are the core of this family, and we need to share some core beliefs, or at least understand each other's interpretation of those beliefs.
Getting up early gives me at least an hour more than I've had before to get ready for work and get out the door. This means I can leave in time to catch the bus. This means that, unless the weather is really ugly, I can ride. I can bike to the bus stop up the hill, take the bus to Crescent Hill, and bike the remaining 4-1/2 miles to work, and then I can bike home. By the end of the summer, I'd like to be able to do the whole 15 miles each way, but I don't have to, at least until I commit to doing it. Right now, it's a "like to."
I am a writer. Yes, I write all day at the office. But I've committed to writing something each day that is important for me to write. That means either posting a blog entry, or working on a story, or doing an article or other project I've assigned myself.

Between now and the end of May, those are my commitments. That's my Living Lent. We went through the 40 days and 40 nights of the official season, and now I'm making a commitment to move forward with the same deliberateness, the same care, the same attention to the health of my soul and the realism of my expectations.

Not sure where it's going to get me, but I feel pretty positive about it.

Achievement

2009-03-10T23:33:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow is my second day teaching high school.

Okay, not entirely - it's a once-a-week gig for the next seven weeks, one class every Wednesday morning. A Junior Achievement pilot program called "Real Jobs, Real World," intended to introduce high school freshmen to the concept of career planning.

I'm thinking back to when I was 14, like most of these kids, and my brain is going off in 19 directions. (Nothing new there.) The main ones: (1) Who cares about planning anything at 14? (2) I wish someone had told me 40 years ago that a plan might help. (3) I wonder if I'd have listened. (4) Probably. I was dumb enough to listen when they said I should forget being an architect because I was no good at math.

Last week, I blew the curriculum all to hell. We were supposed to focus on how you need to go to college, although trade school is okay and graduating high school is okay, but you need to go to college, and by the way, only about one-third of one-third of one-third of Kentucky high school students will even make it to their second year in college, and incidentally, you can't bomb out like that, because you'll never get the career you want if you do. To which I said ...

Never mind. This is a family blog. I won't tell you exactly what I said. My meaning was, essentially, "What a crock of crap."

Yes, the statistics are true. What they leave out, though, are the very things that 14-year-olds won't be able to "abstract out" (as my old friend Bill used to say). First, there's no such thing as an "average" student. Everyone is different, and there is no norm. Second, if there were such a thing, it wouldn't look like you. And third, anyone who tries to tell you that your dream is unattainable is The Enemy. Trust no one who tries to take your dreams away from you.

So I followed the curriculum outline, but I don't think my class of 21 heard much of it. What they heard - over and over - was if you don't have passion for what you're doing, you're wasting your time and making your life miserable, whether you realize it or not. And follow your dream - success is a lot more than what kind of car you drive or how many bathrooms you have in your house. And I don't care where you live or what your family is like or what anyone else has told you - you can have any dream you're willing to work for.

I did also say that having a plan helps - that it took me 30+ years to attain my dream because I didn't plan for it - and that it's also a good idea to have a Plan B, so you can keep the lights on, the cable working, and ice cream in the freezer while you're working on Plan A.

Somewhere in there - I think while getting sidetracked by a young man who speaks Albanian at home and a bilingual Hispanic young woman - I also mentioned Dr. Ricky L. Jones, head of the Pan African Studies program at the University of Louisville. None of the kids had heard of Dr. Jones, so I gave them a thumbnail sketch of his bio. (If you're interested, google him. Good story. Also an excellent writer and an engaging speaker, not to mention a rabble-rouser par exellence, which for a Question-Authority Mama like me is the finest kind!)

This week will be a little closer to the book. We have videos of employers in the immediate area, and we're supposed to talk about what you can do close to home. And we will.

But I'm also going to send them to their next class with a copy of my IDP (Individual Development Plan), which aligns my professional goals and personal dreams and enlists my workplace manager and others to help me accomplish both, and an interview with Dr. Jones from the Courier-Journal a couple of years ago. I want these kids to see what dreams can do for you if you work your plan.

I wish someone had shown me that.

Sprouts

2009-03-02T21:30:00.004-05:00

About a week and a half ago, with two inches of snow on the ground, I made the trek from kitchen to compost bin out by the garden. As I was leaning over the fence, dumping the contents of the compost pitcher into the bin, I looked to the right and saw...

Green.

I stepped out on faith last fall. I've never planted garlic before, but everything I read said late fall was the time to plant it. Made sense - it's a bulb, after all. They said it would grow until the ground froze, then go dormant until spring. So I planted a couple of heads, the decent-sized cloves - probably 18 altogether. Covered it with an extra layer of potting soil and a goodly thickness of mulch, crossed my fingers, and walked away.

And there they were, lined up neatly in my little checkerboard rows: garlic sprouts about six inches high, green as they could be against the snow.

This is part of why I garden. It's the hope of green sprouts in the snow. It's the heat coming off the compost in the middle of an ice storm. It's the tiny, delightful flash of smugness as I rinse my eggshells and toss them in the pitcher with the potato peels and apple cores instead of throwing them in the garbage. (Okay, so it's also the laugh I get - in spite of having to clean up the mess - when the dogs turn over the kitchen garbage thinking they'll find goodies and come up with nothing but cans and wrappers. The little rotters.)

The larger reason, the philosophical reason, is that it helps me believe we're going to keep this ball turning one more year. As long as there's garlic sprouting, compost cooking, and a seed catalog in the mailbox, we haven't killed the earth yet. Not completely.

But that's not all of it, either. The historical reason is that my dad was a gardener. He grew up on a farm, and we had a garden from the time I was five, I'm sure. For a few years, it was grape vines in the back yard, but mostly, it was a vegetable garden.

I never turned up my nose at a vegetable on the table, but I hated the garden. I was convinced that weeding was legalized child abuse. I detested being stuck in the heat, pulling weeds and getting blisters on my fingers, digging holes and working up callouses, when my friends were free as birds - no responsibilities all summer long. Their mothers threw them out of the house right after breakfast, and when they came back inside, sent them out again. "Go play," they'd order. "I have things to do." My mother said, "Weed first." And so I would slave under the North Carolina sun, my fingers aching and my back stiff, and feel sorry for myself, at least until supper time, when there were tomato sandwiches with the sweet tea.

My appreciation, the first buds of it, came when we lived in California for a while, three decades ago. I had a small house, a rental, with a jungle of dry weeds for a back yard. No garden for me, thank you! Didn't need one: The produce at the Alpha Beta was cheap and beautiful, and if I couldn't afford meat, I could still get tomatoes and beans and potatoes and corn, and we could eat. But there was talk in the news about the United Farm Workers and a man called Cesar Chavez, and it dawned on me that people - grown-up people - had to do this backbreaking, finger-shredding work day after day for not much more than I made in my dad's garden (nada, in case you're wondering), and then couldn't afford to buy back the tomatoes for those luscious, dripping sandwiches. I still didn't want a garden, but I started to care where the stuff in the supermarket came from.

In the '80s, we had a little house in rural NC, south of Raleigh. It had a big yard, and we did have a garden there. It was the first I'd had as an adult. I can't say I really loved working it, but I didn't hate it like I did when I was a kid. The only thing I remember growing was soybeans - edamame. We loved them; they were like baby lima beans without the mushy element.

When we moved back to my husband's hometown, it was to a house with a tiny yard. He traveled the six blocks to his parents' home to work a shared garden with them, and I grew flowers. I had hydrangeas on the east side of the house, cow-itch vine on the west side, and daylilies in the front yard. I learned to deal with deep shade; this tiny yard had two oak trees, each of them at least 100 years old. I grew periwinkle and crocus and daffodils - so I should've known about garlic. I've had a little bit of experience with bulbs. And I still loved the vegetables, once they were grown. (Kind of like kids between the ages of eight and eleven... It gets better!)

Years of gardening, lots of water under the bridge - and into the hydrangeas - and here I am, in Kentucky. Been here nearly nine years now. The first year and a half, I was on my own - me and the last teenager - in a rented townhouse with a patio. It wasn't like I'd never been away from home. Hell, I'd lived in California and the Republic of By-God Texas and a bunch of other places. I was hardly tied to the Old North State.

But I missed the tomato sandwiches. The Middletown Kroger just didn't have the caliber of tomatoes the Alpha Beta did. Paul's Fruit and Vegetable Market did sometimes, but still... It wasn't just the tomatoes. All of a sudden, the smell of dirt reminded me of home. And I was homesick.

My townhouse had two little patches of dirt, totalling maybe 48 square feet around the edges of the patio. That first summer, I had a couple of tomato plants and a bunch of flowers. The next summer, more tomatoes, not so many flowers. By the time Ed and I had been married a couple of years and we'd moved to a bigger townhouse, I was up to mostly tomatoes. The new townhouse had almost twice as much dirt, and I was able to fit in six tomato plants, plus flowers and herbs. My neighbor used to come over and pick basil leaves to use instead of lettuce on her tomato sandwiches, and I thanked her for the help. After the first year, the basil kind of started a revolution and crowded out the sage. I ended up separating them to stop the fighting. I learned the healing properties of lavender: I had a plant by the back gate, and if I was feeling stressed or anxious, I'd grab a stalk and rub as I went by, then breathe deeply with my fingers to my nose. The scent of lavender is God's own anti-anxiety medication.

We bought this house three years ago come July. It has a big yard, and my daughter and I have a garden. We started last summer - the first full summer, I'd just finished school, and I was finally getting around to unpacking boxes. Last year, we made a plan, and we were ready as soon as the first thaw came.

My daughter, by the way, was born while I was in California. She's beautiful, and in some ways, I think she's the quintessential California girl - just not the Southern California Surfer Chick variety. More the Northern California Tied-to-the-Earth variety. She worships the smell of lavender, memorizes the seed catalogs when it's still too early to order, and cultivates and honors her callouses.

Last year's garden was planned and the seedlings were almost ready to go in the ground on Derby weekend, the local "don't plant before" date. But life happens, you know?

That was the weekend my dad went into a coma. We thought he'd be gone before we got there, that Sunday night. But he rallied, and we had a good few days with him. And then a week later, he died, and we were back in NC for the funeral - and it was nearly three weeks late that we put the seedlings in the ground.

We couldn't keep up with the tomatoes. Daddy said, "Only plant five. No more than five." We had no idea what he was talking about, but he kept insisting, until I finally agreed. When I put the seedlings in the ground, three weeks behind schedule, I told him over my shoulder, "Okay, I'll only put five per row, but I have to have at least three rows." Now I know what he was talking about - there is NO way two people can manage the yield from more than five or six tomato plants.

And we had beans, which ran away with themselves, and zucchini as big as my arm (now I know, you don't want to let it get that big), and corn that did not much of anything, but we had to try. Pumpkins - yes! Broccoli, not so much. Peppers - I've had better, and I've had worse.

And what did we do, after the digging and the weeding and the harvesting and freezing and canning were done? After we'd given away all the tomatoes we could? After my friend Ilona, nine months pregnant, ate about a pound of the sweetest cherry tomatoes on earth, and a couple days later had the easiest labor imaginable and gave birth to the sweetest Lola on earth? (Ilona still says it was the tomatoes that made Lola's arrival so easy.) What did we do?

Well, we doubled our garden space. This year, we're planting garlic, onions, and carrots. I plan to have three varieties of potatoes, just to see if I can. (Never did potatoes before - but then, I never did garlic or onions before, either!) And we're planting beans again, and broccoli - yes, broccoli! - and squash and pumpkins and, of course, tomatoes. Six plants. That's all.

Philosophy and ecology and laughing at the dogs aside, why are we doing it? I can think of two reasons off the top of my head.

The first is history: In spite of myself, I am my father's daughter. He knew that; it's why he left me his Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. It's why he told Mother and my sister and anyone else who would listen to tell me not to plant more than five tomato plants. He knew I'd get crazy and overdo it. He knew I couldn't stop once I started. He knew once the dirt in my blood got moving and made it to my heart, I'd dig and plant until my arms fell off.

He was right about that. After his funeral - after we planted my dad at the top of one of his beloved North Carolina mountains and went home - I dug until I ached. When I had to stop, I turned to face the sun, and I stretched as high as I could, and I talked to him. Last summer, I gardened because I missed my dad, and in the garden, I could still touch base. I could still touch his heart, and that of his brother, my precious Uncle Paul, and his parents, Yancey and Mary Lela. In the garden, under the hot Kentucky sun, I could still talk to my family.

The other reason is pre-history - and I am the "pre." I am my daughter's mother. In our garden, we are women together. There is no mother, no daughter - we are friends. She knows things I can't even guess; I sense things that are just hints to her. My daughter is an herbal healer, a kitchen witch. I am a gardener and a maker of tomato sandwiches. Together, we make magic of a deeply earthy kind. She cultivates the seeds, I water them. I weed, she harvests. We plant, she cans. She digs, we stake. And while we dig and plant and stake and harvest and can, we talk. We're friends. We're sisters.

Someday - if we can keep this ball of earth turning a few more cycles 'round the spoke of the sun - she and her daughter will be friends in the garden. I will feel blessed indeed if I can be there to help them. Maybe, like me, my daughter's daughter will resent the weeding, hate the digging - but maybe, like me, she will grow from resentment to an understanding of hard reality, to a deep love of the smell of dirt and tomatoes and lavender that gets embedded in the skin sometime around August.

Meanwhile, here in February and early March, with the wind chill in single or negative digits, we have the memory of the smell of our hands in August, and the hope of an August just around the corner.

One from the Vault - originally posted February 12, 2008 on MySpace

2009-02-27T23:49:00.005-05:00

en espanol, por favor

First, someone needs to clue me in to how to insert Spanish characters here.

Now.

I've been watching a lot of movies lately. I used to have a Blockbuster Online membership, but I realized after a while that I was spending 'way too much money per movie. I had the basic $10-a-month plan, which doesn't sound bad - you get a movie, you send it back, they send you the next one in your queue, and if you're watching movies as soon as you get them, it's a real deal. Unfortunately, between school, the new(ish) house, work, other projects, and whatnot, I was frequently keeping a movie two or three months before I watched it, sometimes longer. That adds up when you look at it realistically: $30 to keep a movie three months? I could've bought it for less!

So I cancelled that and signed up at Wild and Wooly Video, a local venture that has all the odd-duck stuff I love. It's on Bardstown Road, in the Highlands -- if you know Louisville, that will tell you what sort of place it is. If you don't - well, the Highlands is a neighborhood not far from downtown, where the houses are old, the population is exceedingly diverse, and the businesses lean well to the left of "funky." It was among the businesses of the Highlands - and the main drag, Bardstown Road, in particular - that the locally popular slogan evolved: Keep Louisville Weird! And trust me, W&WV is about as weird as they come, and darn proud of it!

So here's the thing: I did not exactly excel in foreign languages in school. In fact, at one point, I changed my major from Sociology to Psychology to get out of having to take any more language credits. I can mimic accents flawlessly, but when I get through reading a page of text and I'm asked what it means, my response is usually along the lines of, "Ruh?" However, last summer, a group of us convinced our translation team and a few others to start a lunchtime conversational Spanish class, and I actually started catching on. So I set myself a goal of becoming comfortable, if not fluent, in Spanish, and one of the ways I figured I could do it would be to watch Spanish-language movies.
It's working. Along about movie # 7 or 8 -- Vacas, a fascinating little piece of Basque historical melodrama - I realized I was only looking at the subtitles about a third as often as when I started, right after Christmas. I was starting to understand the dialogue. And besides the redeeming educational value, I find many of these movies are simply like nothing I've seen before.

I know a lot of people have seen Pan's Labyrinth. It's a fairy tale in the truest sense, dark and violent and frightening, and it almost seems, just before the end, as though evil has won. It's stunning - haunting, powerful, exceedingly well-done in every aspect.

That was one of the first. Since then, I've watched so many movies, mostly from Spain, some very recent and others going back to the early '70s. I've found out what Geraldine Chaplin's been doing since Dr. Zhivago - Spanish cinema! I've learned a good bit about Spanish history and culture in addition to the language, and I've also seen several really good movies from Latin America, running the gamut from romantic to bizarre (that would be Vera, which I watched a couple nights ago and still haven't figured out). I've discovered a favorite actress, Ana Torrant, who couldn't have been more than 5 when she did Secret of the Beehive, and is now probably in her mid-thirties. Vacas is a few years old; she may have been in her late 20s when she made that.
One weekend, I rented both Volver -- very recent, with Penelope Cruz cast pretty much against type -- and Cria Cuervos, the first of Torrant's movies I saw. (Geraldine Chaplin was in it, playing both Torrant's character as an adult and, in the flashbacks that made up most of the story, her character's mother's ghost.) I had to watch that one twice.

They're both ghost stories in a sense. Volver means "to return." And there were many returns: the return of a lost parent, the return of a woman to a place she'd run from, the return of relationships that had been dead. Cria Cuervos is set in Franco-era Madrid. Ana Torrant plays a middle child among three daughters, who blames her father for her mother's death. (Although the cause is never specified, I'm thinking ovarian or cervical cancer, given the scene that takes place just before she dies.)

It took me a while to figure out the title. It means "raising crows," and it comes from a Spanish proverb that says, "If you raise crows, they will scratch your eyes out." I finally ran it past my daughter the other night, completely out of context - she hasn't seen the movie and didn't know what it was about - and she got it immediately. If you raise your children to be demanding and selfish and self-absorbed, they'll make you pay for it.

Little Ana is not a bad child. She's not really homicidal, in spite of the fact that she believes she's killed her father and has no regret for having done so. She's about 8 years old, and she figures he deserved it. In fact, I'd have to disagree with the two or three reviewers I read later, who thought she was depressed and suicidal. I think she was a take-charge kind of kid who basically saw what was wrong and tried in her own odd-duck way to fix it. There's one scene where she fantasizes jumping off a rooftop, but it was pretty clear to me that she isn't imagining killing herself - after she jumps, she flies, dipping and swooping around her neighborhood. She's imagining being free.

She's not a demanding, selfish little "crow," but she does prove out the proverb. She also proves out my favorite definition of a spoiled child, made by one of the umpty-eleven seminal psychologists whose work I studied, and I've forgotten which (Maslow, maybe?): A "spoiled" child is one who' s been taught that she needs something to survive, and then has it taken away. Except for the housekeeper, and her mother, who is dead, Ana is either ignored or treated more harshly than either of her sisters by the other adults in her life. She was her mother's favorite, the most like her and the most loved. And now, her mother is gone, and since she believes she's the only one who knows the truth, she takes it upon herself to correct the situation. With great, dark eyes and a solemn affect, she goes about the work of repairing her world as best she can, and the movie as a whole is alternately darkly hilarious and gently sad, but still hopeful.

After all, she does grow up to look like Geraldine Chaplin! And she doesn't appear to be in prison, so I'm guessing it all comes out in the wash.

So there's your movie review for tonight. Remember this name: Ana Torrant. She can act circles around every Hollywood beauty I can think of. Go rent Cria Cuervos or Vacas or The Devil's Backbone (a whole 'nother cast, and another review for another night) and work on your Spanish!

One from the Vault - originally posted August 2, 2008 on MySpace

2009-02-27T23:12:00.014-05:00

How I clean house

Day 1: Invite some people over for dinner.

Seriously. There's nothing like the threat of public humiliation to motivate action. The trick is to allow the exact right amount of time. Less than a week, and you won't get it all done. More than a week, and you'll end up putting off starting until it's too late, and you won't get it all done...

Day 2: Inventory.

Walk around the house - all the rooms where anyone might conceivably go, either on purpose or accidentally-on-purpose - with a notepad and pen. (Assuming you can find them. If you can't, take a break, run to the Kroger, and get pens, notepads, some chicken chests, some Laura's Lean beef patties if they're on sale, some olives, some fresh produce that looks good - as long as it's not something you have in the garden, and if you're not sure, use your cell phone to call home and check - and some milk. Oh, and some ice cream, and maybe a six-pack of Goose Island pale ale.) Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah - walking around the house with a notepad and pen.

So walk through every room and carefully list everything - I mean everything - that needs to be done. I mean details. I mean ALL the details. I mean, imagine it's your mother coming over, and your mother always did think you were Domestically Impaired. List everything from mopping the floors and dusting and cleaning counters to swabbing toilets and doing laundry and cleaning your closet (just in case anyone should peek) to organizing the bookshelves and making sure all the thread in your sewing box is sorted by color.

Everything.

Get a bowl of ice cream.

Sit yourself down at the dining room table (after you clear a spot by putting all the kids' stuff on their dining chairs) and start sorting your list into three categories:

Emergency (i.e., someone will die if this doesn't happen),
Important (really needs to be done if you ever want these particular guests to speak to you again), and
Would Be Nice (no lives or friendships in the balance, but you'd be happy if you could get to it).

Day 3: Start cleaning.

The objective on Day 3 is to beat into submission as many Emergencies as possible. Tackle each one with as much vigor and focus as you can muster, and whomp on it until it's down to the size of Important. Then move to the next one and whomp some more. With luck, some elbow grease, and as long as it hasn't been too long since the last time you invited people over, you could potentially get all the Emergencies down to size on Day 3.

If not, that's what Day 4 is for.

Day 4: Step back, take a deep breath, and reprioritize.

Sit down with a bowl of Cheerios and your list and re-sort. At this point, you'll need to escalate some of your Importants ahead of the former Emergencies - after all, they've had three days to spiral out of control.

Start whomping. You should have the hang of it by now.

Day 5: Don't panic.

You'll look at your list on Day 5 and realize there is no freakin' way in hell you're going to get everything done in time. Reprioritize again, this time marking the things at the bottom of the list for possible delegation, elimination, or restructuration. (Note: This is my blog. I can make up words if I want to. And if I like them, I may use them again. Get used to it.) For example, you may be able to persuade your spouse or some handy offspring to install one of those toddler-proof cabinet-clippy things inside your closet door to throw off snoopy guests. They'll get nervous about getting caught with their fingers inside the door trying to trip the clip, and they'll leave the closet alone.

Then clean some more, until you either run out of steam or run out of focus or run out of Soft Scrub. Or ice cream.

Or Goose Island.

Day 6: Panic.

Seriously, hon. This is going to be an all-nighter. That's why it's better to extend the invitation for Saturday evening rather than Friday. However, if it's for Friday and today is Thursday, you can still handle it. Just plan on taking a quick nap in one of the ladies' room stalls tomorrow afternoon.

First, start early. Use your lunch break to plan the dinner menu and figure out a schedule so you can multi-task. You know, things like, "While meat is marinating, mix salad." And, "Start meat in oven 1 hour before dinner; set timer for 30 minutes and put beans in when it goes off; reset timer for 30 minutes." (Make sure everything that goes in the oven can cook at the same temperature.) Make a shopping list. Then when you get home, work on your cleaning list as long as you can stand it. When you reach the breaking point, break. Go to the Kroger and get everything on your list, plus more ice cream and some Diet Cokes. (And none of that "unleaded" stuff. You're going to need the caffeine!)

Go home, fix a bowl of ice cream and a Diet Coke, and sit down with your list. Reprioritize. If you've applied enough elbow grease and you've been reasonable in your expectations, you'll find all that's left is a couple of Importants, a handful of Would Be Nices, and half a dozen or so potential Scratches.

Get on it. At this point, you can start moving back and forth from Important to Would Be Nice, just for variety. Just make sure you don't cut yourself short on the higher-priority items.

When you don't think you can clean anything else ever again in your life - stop. Take a shower to wake yourself up, then go get another Diet Coke and start pre-cooking. Anything that can be cut up, marinated, mixed, seasoned, and/or refrigerated in advance should be cut up, marinated, mixed, seasoned, and/or refrigerated in advance before you pass out from exhaustion.

Day 7: If this is a Saturday, you're in good shape. Get up around 10 and go for the gold.

However, this being "my way," there's no way it's a Saturday. You wouldn't make it that easy on yourself. So...

Come up with a really good reason you have to leave work an hour or two early. If you have a really good boss, "I have people coming over for dinner and I'm so nervous I could throw up," will work fine. If you don't, get creative. You're smart. You can think of something.

Go home and start the first items on your cooking list. Then go over whatever's not yet checked off on your cleaning list and reprioritize. It's acceptable at this time to start marking things off from the bottom - you can, without guilt, now say, "That ain't happenin'!"

About midway through the cooking list, take a break to set the table. (By the way, if one of the Importants on your list wasn't "wash the table linens and fold them so you don't have to iron them on Friday," then you'd better have put a new tablecloth and napkins on your grocery list.) Work back and forth between cooking and cleaning until about 40 minutes before your guests are due to arrive. (If you're really smart, you've figured the "working back and forth" thing into your to-do list/timetable.) This gives you time to shower, dry your hair, slap on some mascara and lip gloss, and hide whatever clutter you didn't get to yet before the doorbell rings.

Then take some ibuprofen for the aching in your back, your feet, and your head, pour yourself a glass of wine, and sit down and look around at your apparently clean and really quite pretty house! Enjoy it while you can - there will be a mess to clean up after dinner!

(Next time: How I prepare a holiday meal...)

The First Blog

2009-02-22T19:56:00.004-05:00

I've had a blog for a while - on MySpace - but I figured it was time to grow up and get a real one. For one thing, I want people to be able to read my blog without having to join anything. For another, I'd like a little more... what? range? scope? Hard to define, but I supposed MySpace has a "friends and family" vibe. "Range" is good. I'd like my potential audience to have a broader range.

What's this blog about, then? Well, it depends on what day it is. I don't like limits. Boundaries, yes: I consider good manners an essential part of being human. But limits, no. I have a lot of interests, and what I'll blog about depends on what's closest to the surface at any given moment. I jump around from topic to topic; my daughter calls it the "pogo stick of thought."

Learning to manage the pogo stick has been an interesting proposition. I finally realized, after years of struggling with an overloaded plate, that I had no idea what a "reasonable expectation" looked like. For the past two months, I've been working with a personal coach - Stacey Vicari of IdealLife - to work that out, and it's coming along. Bit by bit, I'm getting a handle on that "girl thing" we all learn, the inclination to spend my days "putting out fires." And my house, my job, and my life are all becoming more predictable. (I mean that in a good way.)

Putting out fires. It's what we're taught to do, you know. In our culture, at least up through my generation, boys are taught early on to be goal-oriented. Get one job done before moving on to the next. Girls are taught to view the big picture, focus on the worst trouble spot, and beat it into submission. When it's no longer the trouble spot, we look for the next trouble spot. Remember that old bit of doggerel, "Man may work from sun to sun, but Woman's work is never done"? Well, that's why! If we focus on one job until it's done, someone will want to know why we're neglecting everything else.

I've had friends who believed they got it all done, actually. I had one friend whose house was always spotless. She did it by locking her kids out at 10 a.m. and not unlocking the doors until 3 p.m. Other friends have had beautiful, well-adjusted children - and housekeepers. For women of my generation, "getting it all done" is actually picking what's most important and hiring the rest out - or locking it out.

I'm learning another way: deciding what's most important and then doing the rest of it 15 minutes at a time. You should try it. It really works! I've stopped calling myself a "clutter magnet." I'm actually a person who loves order, just not to the point that maintaining it takes my whole day. That's not order, it's OCD.

So what's important? Family. The environment. Justice. And food. Books, movies, music. Biking. Friends - old and new. Respect. Good manners. A balanced spirit. Laughing.

No limits. This blog will undoubtedly be a lot like my life - I'll make it up as I go along.

Thanks for stopping by - come back any time!