Homecoming

It has been too long.

There's a point on I-26 East where the pavement changes from interstate-grade blacktop to the grainier, red-tinged stuff indigenous to the southeastern Coastal Plain. That's where I know I’ve hit the home stretch. From there, it’s less than an hour to Folly.

I came by one evening last November, so I know it still exists: the road, the island, the “downtown”–a double handful of shops, restaurants, and a motel or two where the road runs out right in front of the one big hotel–and Ashley Street, which runs the length of the island in both directions from Folly Beach Road.

In November, I spent 30 minutes on the beach, got a sandwich in town, and had to leave. It wasn’t easy. As usual, I didn’t get away before dark. This time, I have four days. And I intend to milk them for all the peace and regeneration they’re worth.

I park the car in front of the rented house on the east end of the island. (It’s really northeast, but let’s not quibble.) I get a lift to the bike rental place on East Huron, next to the post office, then ride the bike back. Three miles on a beach cruiser is a piece o’ cake, even as out of shape as I am after a winter of desk work and babying my arthritic knee. Without the bike, I’d be stranded at the house or forced to drive everywhere; I can’t walk more than a block or two, but I can ride for miles. Just as in my asthmatic, “don’t pick her, she can’t run” childhood, the bike is my salvation–my ticket to freedom.

It’s a writers’ retreat weekend, a working vacation. I know there’s not going to be a lot of beach time, and that’s okay. It’s just being here that’s important.

The second day, I do get away for a couple of hours and ride down to the center of town for a swimsuit. If I’d left my suit at home twenty years ago, I’d have been looking for a bikini to cover the essentials; at 5’6” and about 115 pounds, I was on the trim side of “not bad,” with only a modest quantity of essentials to cover. These days, not so much. I need a one-piece, preferably with a control panel. Chalk it up to the desk work, okay?

I don’t find a one-piece suit. I do locate two great sundresses that together cost about the same as the one swimsuit I try on. (It covers the essentials; it even has a skirt. Unfortunately, it comes in two pieces, and it doesn’t cover the part that requires the control panel. In spite of its lovely, tan-enhancing milk-chocolate color, I put it back.)

The sundress find is not the most remarkable thing about the ride to town and back. On the way up, I’m almost to the intersection of Huron and Folly Beach Road when I see a woman waiting for a dog to finish his business. She smiles, and I smile, and I almost say, “Bonnie?” And then I wonder why I didn’t. For another block, I debate turning around and going back to say, “Bonnie?”

Bonnie was the landlady, the owner of the house where my friend Sara lived. Sara had the ground floor apartment, and Bonnie lived upstairs. But Bonnie wasn’t just the landlady–she was one of us. There was a whole crazy tribe of “Folly Beach Wimmin,” a dozen or more who came and went: gay and straight, with and without kids, young and not-so-much, bone-skinny and comfortably pudgy. We stuck together, we stuck up for each other, we hung out on the beach and took turns greasing up each other’s kids with sunscreen. We set the boom box on the tailgate of Bonnie’s truck in the driveway and played Joan Jett and Bonnie Raitt, loud, half the night. We walked up Ashley Road to the Sand Dollar Social Club all together, in a comfortable, arms-linked, intertwined gaggle, and when we got there, we drank beer together, shot pool together, danced together or with the guys who lived on the island.

I think in all my life, that time and place–then and here–were the first I ever was able to just be. No pretense, no expectations, no history–just what you see is what you get. There is strength in numbers. It’s never been truer to me than in those days on Folly.

So I ride the same way the following day, hoping to see Bonnie again. I’d texted Sara 10 minutes after seeing the woman I almost spoke to; later, she’d respond yes, Bonnie is still here. But that’s not the street where she lives, so maybe I didn’t see her after all.

Still, I ride six miles. Not bad for an out of shape, arthritic old lady.

The third day, after the morning workshop, I ride farther still. I swing by the bike shop to ask the guys to pick up the bike tomorrow instead of this evening, and then I circle back down Huron, up 6th, and west again, all the way to the end of the island and all the way back. When I return to the main intersection, I cut to the right, over to the beachfront road. I find “my” beach house out there–my dream hideout. It’s painted a deep ocean blue, but uneven–faded in big patches, as though the wind and the surf and the salty air have caused the color to run in places. It’s on the beach side–bad for hurricane insurance, but perfect if, like me, you’re just about crazy from homesickness for the smell of salt water.

I ride through deep puddles I’m sure are tidal pools. Some nights, the tide does push to the top of the dunes, only partly regenerated after hundreds of years of hurricanes and only a couple of decades of real concern about beach erosion. That erosion has been slowed now, by careful cultivation of native flora–gaillardia, palmetto, beach roses and scrub pine that burrow into the satiny sand and stand firm against the tides. But the ecosystem is still fragile, like most of them anymore. One good, solid smack from a Hugo or Irene, and we’d be back in 1989, staring at naked beach instead of low dunes and tall houses.

So ten miles on the third day, with all the looping back and cutting over, on a moderately heavy one-speed cruiser with fat beach tires; I know I’ll feel it in my legs tonight. In fact, I’ll feel it in every muscle I own from the hips on down–and that’s a good thing.

Back at the house, we have a workshop session on the deck. We have our own pier over the dunes–walking on them is no longer allowed–and down to the beach. It’s a great place to sit and watch “Pelican TV.” The pelicans that nest here, on the east end by the lighthouse, lumber across the threatening sky–an early tropical storm has been hovering just a few miles out for three days, not budging–and occasionally drop to skim the air just inches above the cresting waves where there might be fish. When a pelican spots a target, he takes a massive nosedive, straight into the water–graceless, goofy, inelegant. Pelicans are all business. They aren’t made for “pretty,” they’re built for getting the job done. They’re live-action comedy on the wing.

Our group has dinner at Locklear’s, at the pier beside the one largish hotel on the island. We dine outside, watching the wedding party that comes and goes down the pier, the bride in her off-the-shoulder gown (not too much of a meringue) and the groom in a white oxford shirt, khakis, and flip-flops. They all look comfortable, and it seems quite appropriate to me. If I ever go to a wedding on the pier at Folly, I’ll expect the groom to be wearing flip-flops. (In fact, I notice after a while that she's wearing flip-flops, too. Smart girl.)

Three of us walk out on the pier after dinner. Martha and Calvin go to the end; I stop a little over halfway to rest. It’s close to sunset, and there’s one last surfer this far out. I see several closer to shore, catching waves as they break, but this guy wants one that will lift him up and carry him farther–carry him, I think, all the way in. He finally gets it just before we leave the pier. I look back over my shoulder and see him skimming the crest, maneuvering gently to the right or left to stay with the wave’s momentum as one section breaks, then another. It looks to me like the most beautiful applied physics–like you have to know where the power is behind your wave, and you have to be able to track it, or you’ll be lost.

There will be one more workshop tonight, one more discussion in the morning.

One more night to turn out the porch light so the loggerhead turtles can dig their nests in the dark at low tide, in the wee hours of the morning. One more night of sleep on the couch, where I can listen to the surf and be awakened by the sun coming over the lighthouse point.

One more morning to sit on the deck and watch the darting, glowing tropical-green lizards with their vivid orange throats.

One more short bike ride, this one to the lighthouse point; when the sand gets too loose to pedal, I park the bike and climb a nearby dune to see the structure standing off the island, on a rock jutting from the water.

This last morning, the breeze is light. The storm has finally shifted, developed a little circular motion and moseyed south to go inland over Savannah instead of up by us. The sun is out, the air still cool but warming fast. It all smells bright, washed–green.

I’ll grab a sandwich and a beer at Woody’s. Then it’s back to my other world, back to the highway and the traffic and eventually (Tuesday) to the daily commute.

But I have a new story started, three more critiqued and edited almost to where they need to be–and my hunger for the smell of salt water has been sated, at least for a little while.

I can carry this with me: the work, yes, the progress and accomplishments, and also the sensation of my muscles stretching, pushing a heavy bike’s pedals and making it move down a beach road, the heat of sun through clouds canceling out the chill of a 15-mile-an-hour wind on my skin as I pedal east, the little start of almost-recognition of a stranger who might actually be a friend.

The tranquil, impulsive, breezy, humorous, determined but unpressured spirit of Folly: I think I have enough bottled now to keep me going for a little while.

Walking through

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.

Urgent Care

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!

Must be August...

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.

Back to the trail

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

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

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

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!"

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 ...

Spring fever

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'!

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'!

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!!

Snow days

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.

Balance

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.

Thanksgiving

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.

Navigating

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.

Pedaling

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.