Tales of Slow Brave Athena

April 12, 2008

motor vehicular breakdown

This has not been my week, transportation-wise.

Admittedly, I finally got my transit pass, which makes me insanely, insanely happy. I was losing hope that I would ever get it.

But, I've had two motorvehicles die on me in 6 days. I'm feeling a little superstitious at this point.

I was running out to Tigard to see a friend on Sunday when my clutch failed on Hwy 26. I got up the Sylvan hill, and up the Sylvan exit, and then the car stopped and refused to go any further.

Two days and a lot of money later, I had a car with a new clutch... that still isn't running right. I wish I had a mechanic that I could trust.

Today, I had thought I would be meeting my friend downtown ... but she wanted to meet at her house (not convenient to public transit). Okay, so I jumped on the scooter. We were going to get breakfast at a wildly popular place, and then go to the Farmer's Market, go to her favorite chocolate shop, REI, and then our favorite restaurant for some good yiddish soul food.

But first, I had to stop at the ATM about 15 blocks away.

And when I tried to start the scooter again, no such luck.

I had a big hill to walk the scooter up, and then of course, the rest of the way home. It took an hour and a half.

It was notable that black folks were the only ones to stop and see how I was doing, or if I needed help. I saw lots of people while I pushed the damn 350# scooter home, the vast majority of them white, but I had one woman commiserate and offer her phone; two guys on bicycles stop and ask how I was doing and if they could help; and a clutch of women on a house stoop commiserated, offered the phone, and offered to help.

Two of my neighbors (also african-american) scolded me for not calling them (if only I had had their numbers with me!).

Obviously I need a new plan of action. I'm going to:

1. get on a towing plan (AAA or BetterWorld)
2. get a new cellphone where I can actually hear the person I'm talking to

And right now I'm going to take a nap, because I'm exhausted!

permalink April 12, 2008 | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 19, 2008

the force of memory

It's so very strange how life is -- don't you think? Yesterday and today, I've gone off diet, so to speak, and eaten meat and dairy.

Now, I do think about meat and dairy all the time. I think several types of thoughts:
- gosh, I feel better since I'm not eating that
and
- gosh, that tastes so good, I hope I'll get to eat it again.
I always think that meat and dairy are going to taste better. No, they taste different, but not better. In fact, I have to say that I've felt a bit let down with each bit of meat or dairy I've had.

I remember feeling this way after the 6 week vegan detox last year, that this stuff was okay, but not the great fantastic thing that I had been expecting. So why do I keep going back for more?

For the most part, it's a social thing. Though today I just broke down and I have no excuses other than that I thought it would taste crazy good. And really, not so much.

++++++
Yesterday was fun. My sweetie had to work so I stayed home and got domestic. I made no-knead bread, veggie stock, and then red lentil soup; I washed clothes and did other unromantic things which made me feel all swell inside.

And to my great shock, I am continuing to lose weight very slowly. This weekend, I ate pretty much whatever I wanted, I got vegan cookies and desserts, I ate chocolate. And still lost weight. I spent most of the weekend on the couch, just lying around. And still lost weight. It's crazy.

permalink February 19, 2008 | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 28, 2008

doldrums

I seem to be in a holding pattern right now. A bit of the January doldrums.

This morning, I went to make myself a blended salad, which usually looks like a smoothie from the raspberries and strawberries in it. But I forgot, conveniently, that I am not supposed to be eating any seeds, which raspberries and strawberries have in spades. So I think I pulled the majority of them out, but who knows?

Anyways, the result was that my blended salad was light green in color—not something I want to take out in public with me. I need to find some way to color and flavor these now that I can't eat berries temporarily. I wonder how wildly expensive berry juices are?

+++
My sweetie is losing a lot of weight, and lately, his blood sugar has been in the ideal range. This is exciting stuff. I've been seeing other signs of him being in better health as well.

Me, if I'm losing, it's going very very slowly. Very not dramatic. But I'm interested in trying to improve my own health as well.

I'm eating almost vegan at home. The almost is the occasional package of ramen and putting butter blend on my slices of homemade bread. I'm still eating a couple meals out a week, and eating whatever I want when I do.

I've been wearing the pedometer religiously, but not so good about getting 10,000 steps in a day. Today I will make it. I will! Yesterday I danced while washing dishes and baking bread but I still came in with a lousy step count. Grumble.

++++
The biggest news in my kitchen has been baking almost no-knead bread. The hype is true -- it's easy, and it's tasty.

I've been using the Cooks Illustrated recipe, which includes some vinegar and beer for flavor. I started with the all-white flour loaf, which was really a bread I'd be happy to buy. Yesterday, I made the whole wheat loaf, which was even better.

The way this stuff works is:
one, dump all your ingredients in a bowl. Stir with a spatula to combine. This may take all of five minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm place for 8-18 hours.
two, roll your sticky dough out onto a floured surface and give it about 10 to 15 kneads. Plop it on a sprayed sheet of parchment and let sit for 2 hours.
three, about an hour and a half later, put your dutch oven and lid in the oven and let it heat up at 500 degrees.
four, when it's time to bake the bread, just transfer the dough on parchment to the dutch oven, leaving the parchment beneath. If you like something on the crust, add it now, and take a sharp knife and cut the dough's top. Now, put on the lid and let bake at 425 for a half hour.
five, take off the lid, put in the temp probe, and give it 15-20 more minutes, until the outside of the bread is a deep brown, and the inside is 210 degrees. Let the bread cool on a rack, and leave the house for 2 hours.
six, come back and enjoy. Your house will smell good and everything tastes better with with fresh bread.

I have never been able to bake bread outside of a bread machine, so having made two perfect loaves in two weeks just makes me feel like I've worked some kind of magic.

permalink January 28, 2008 | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 7, 2008

On grocery shopping and snowstorms

We just got back from a run to TJ's to pick up some vegan junk food. It would be really good to be eating homecooked food right now, but I spent a chunk of the weekend hanging with my college best friend and her boyfriend, and so soup was not made. But we did get a bunch of different things, some fruit, some brown rice, and some whole grain bread at the store, and we should be okay for the week at least.

There is something just delightful about buying food that's good for you. It's so damn virtuous. Of course, it would be more virtuous if I had a pot of bean soup on the stove right now, but one battle at a time.

I ordered two new pedometers for myself and my sweetie -- those arrived today. Tomorrow, our giant copy of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food (2000 recipes!) and Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes Without Drugs. Our ducks are getting ready to line up.

Yesterday I went out with K & R to the Oregon Coast. It was a typical winter day, ie, grey, rainy, icky. We got all soaked through, and then drove to Seaside and did it again. By the time we hit the road to come back to town, the rain had turned to snow, and the mountains passes became icky, and then, near Elsie, all traffic ground to a complete and total stop. And stayed at a stop for well over an hour.

The snow was gorgeous, outlining the tiny limbs on the giant trees, but boy it was making a mess of the roads.

We made it back to town without incident, but not without noticing that all of the vehicles that had spun out and spun off the road were 4 by 4s.

permalink January 7, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 12, 2007

So long, and thanks for all the fish, Anita

The first online journal I saw was David Siegel's. This was probably in 1996, or even possibly, in 1995. I spent a lot of time at David Siegel's web site, with his crazy photos and graphics and new layout technique involving these really complicated things called tables. I had a regular fangirl crush.

Likewise, I'm not entirely sure when I started my own online journal, called chezxx diary, but I'm guessing it was probably 1997. It seemed like there was a large community of journalers. That's funny when you think about it; there were maybe 100 or 200 nationwide who were journalling, compared to the gazillions of blogs out there now.

One of the first journalers I met in real life, and the few I kept in good touch with, was Anita Rowland. Anita started journalling in 1997, and just about everyone who journalled or blogged in the early days has a story about how encouraging she was, how positive, how generous.

Unlike a lot of us who journalled, Anita was not shy. She was outgoing, and she really wanted to share: community, resources, information.

I wasn't close to Anita, but we read each others journals, and would see each other a couple of times a year. I was lucky enough to have her stay with me twice or three times when she was down for a swing dancing event, and she was such a lovely guest. I didn't think anything about it at the time; that was just Anita, you know?

She even seemed amused when the cops pulled her over a block away from my house when she had forgotten which house I lived in. Unlike many of friends, she didn't seem afraid of my neighborhood, or think that my house sucked, and if she thought the house was dirty, she sure didn't let on in any way.

Getting to hang out with Anita was such a pleasure. I once went to a very small SciFi convention on her recommendation, and I felt totally taken care of. She'd introduce me around, and let me know that sessions that would be really good.

Sadly, when I stopped journalling, I lost touch with Anita. But when I came back in 2004, Anita found me again, and we began leaving each other comments. Soon, she was in my flickr feed, and more recently, my twitter feed.

Her twits and posts have been coming less frequently, and I've been a bit worried about her. I knew that she had been fighting ovarian cancer off and on since 2003, and I knew her prognosis wasn't good. Last friday, I checked her twitters and her blog, and I tried to find the link to her husband's blog (but couldn't).

On Monday, I was chatting with my boss when I remembered her stories of the Santa Rampage, and I told him about it, and her. She died less than an hour later in a Seattle hospital.

Jack Bell (her husband) has posted a beautiful memorial to her, and if you knew her, or were touched by her, leave him a comment.

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November 22, 2007

happy Thanksgiving

To those of you in the US, happy Thanksgiving. To the rest of you, happy Thursday. So far, it's been a most excellent day.

I woke up at 3:30 and was wide awake. So I got up. Within about a half hour, sweetie was up too. By 5am, we were talking about breakfast. So we went driving around looking for a place to get breakfast. I figured that Hot Cake House would be open (wrong), so after touring much of North and NE Portland, we ended up at My Father's Place when they opened at 6. We sat and read the ad circulars and then ate some underwhelming breakfast -- all in all, it was great.

Then we got home and went back to bed. I've been up for a couple hours now and we've putzed around. I've been doing some light cleaning along with some internet surfing; sweetie has given birdy its first bath and been doing some internet surfing. Right now I feel more relaxed than I can remember feeling in quite a while.

We have no commitments today. We do have some food to cook, but none of the crazy over-achiever stuff that usually marks my holidays (though honestly, I love the overachieving cooking). Food will get cooked when it's time. I'm hoping to do a fair amount of knitting and cleaning, and to haul the Omabike into the living room where I can work on it in the comfort of a heated, well lit space.

***
Since the time changed, I've haven't been riding my bike. Mostly, it's been about simple logistics -- I don't know how to turn on my generator powered lights. It's probably really simple, but I just haven't figured it out.

Yesterday, we were going to have a short day at work, and I realized as I was getting ready that I could ride my bike if I want. Suddenly, I was flooded with irrational happiness, and even though I had a huge deadline to meet at work, I couldn't get the grin off my face.

So I go out to the shed, and check the tires. One is soft; one is all but flat. Ugh. So I get out the pump and I get the front tire, with its schrader valve, right about right. Then I go to the back tire, with its non-schrader valve, and immediate let all the rest of the air out. And I can't seem to get any air in.

This just about reduces me to tears. I thought about riding one of the townies, but I was having a temper tantrum in my mind. I wanted to ride the Oma. Damn it!

So I got to work and was just obsessed with the issue. I thought the valve was a presta, so I looked that up and read all the stuff about it online and just felt like crying again. Damn it, I had tried filling the tube the way they described.

I finally got to work on my deadline and that made me a bit more serene.

After work, I stopped at my bike shop, Clever Cycles. I hadn't been in the shop since they had expanded onto Hawthorne, and it is gorgeous. The front room is full of gorgeous natural fiber clothing for bicycling -- no spandex, indeed nothing sillily jocky -- and bike bags and baskets (this doesn't show all of what they have from Basil, but it will give you an idea. They also carry some other lines of bags). The back room is still citybikes and bakfiets and folders, and other beautiful accessories for your bike, like beautiful handmade bakfiets cushions.

I have a real bag/purse problem. I love a nice reasonably priced purse, and when I got serious about incorporating bicycling into more of my life, I got really annoyed by how ugly the pannier bags are, and how tiny the baskets are. If I have one of my Queen Bee satchels (eg what they call their Trucker bags), it won't fit into my basket.

Of course, what can you do? I have an ugly double pannier which annoys me everytime I look at it.

Anyways, Clever Cycles has beautiful wire and wicker baskets. They have gorgeous panniers in so many colors. And they have purses that work as a single pannier. I of course bought one (it was cheap, cheap, I tell you), and I am most likely going to go in and buy another, as well as a large wire basket on Friday.

I told my tale of presta valve woe to Dean, one of the owners, and Todd ran over and brought me a Woods Pump Connection Schrader Adaptor, which I can just screw on and pump the tire as per usual. Who knew: the valve was actually a Woods, so following the Presta directions would have just resulted in more frustration.

Then, I ran over to the scooter shop and picked up my scooter. Yay!!

Anyways, lazy day ahead. Yay!!

permalink November 22, 2007 | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 17, 2007

Trimming down

If you've been wondering what I've been up to, it can probably best be summed up as cleaning house. Literally and figuratively.

About 6 weeks ago, I innocently upgraded the software that runs this and my other blogs, and whoops, managed immediately to break commenting and search functions. This still isn't entirely fixed right now, though as far as I'm aware, the problems remain in the big "daily" blog.

When I had done the upgrade, I had about 40 indexes and probably around 100 categories. At this point, I'm down to 20 indexes and probably around 75-80 categories. This stuff is so amazingly time-consuming, you would not believe.

I've also been clutterbusting, thinning out clothing, redoing my tiny closet so only clothes that fit are in it, redoing my drawers so they are organized, and generally trying to make home a better place to hang out.

I am still bike commuting some, though not as much as I'd like. I need to address lighting on the new bike, and figure out how to quickly turn that off and on.

The rest of the commutes, I'm on the bus, and I've been trying to add more walking to the bus commute.

The weird thing, and unpleasant, is that I feel really really out of shape. The bike ride home is still arduous, and isn't getting any easier. I feel completely winded from walking a couple of blocks, or climbing a flight of stairs. I don't like this a bit, and I don't know what's going on, because I'm still being fairly active. Oh well, I'm keeping on keeping on.

Anyways, you've slogged through this boooooring entry, I must reward you. You will enjoy this, and then it will be stuck in your head, and you can blame ME! Mwah-haha-ha-haha-ha!

permalink November 17, 2007 | Comments (2) | TrackBack

on cats and cat littler

I was reading Kate's Ride my Handlebars, and she wrote about attending an event featuring Jeanne Roy. In it, she mentioned the whole issue of cat litter -- that it's heavy and expensive and difficult to get home on a bicycle, and she mentioned that she was going to ask Roy about the effect of housecats on the environment for her story in the Trib.

So I excitedly check out There’s more to it than recycling, and there's nothing about cats. Damn it.

Here at Athenaville, we have three indoor-only cats, four catboxes and damn, a lot of issues around cat littler. The stuff doesn't biodegrade!

I'd really like an alternative that doesn't involve letting the cats outside. We have one cat who leaves editorial statements about the litter when it doesn't meet her high standards. So when I think of feline pine or other products like that, I fear for how many editorials I'll have to endure.

I did learn recently, however, that Charles Mingus -- who wrote a book on cat toilet training, called the Charles Mingus CAT-alog for Toilet Training Your Cat -- shredded his own newspaper for cat litter.

Dear g-ds, what did our grandparents use? (Oh yeah, they prolly didn't have cats in the house)

permalink November 17, 2007 | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 10, 2007

September 10

I've been a way awhile, I know. It's just been that kind of summer. I feel like I've been running on empty since before June, and there's no stop in sight. Oh well, that's the way things go some times.

Right now I'm not riding my bike and it's driving me nuts. About three weeks ago now, I was riding the Oma to meet up with Sweetie for dinner, and I was thinking about dinner and not about the road surface, or the fact that there were old rails set into the road. You know what happened next. I managed to bruise, well, just about all of me.

At this point, my calf and foot are still swollen, but the calf is looking less and less purple as it drains into my foot :). The knee was very tender for awhile, but it seems to be getting better.

Unfortunately, this summer, I've had a few cases of heat stress (or quite possibly, heat exhaustion), so I don't dare ride when the temps are going to be scorching. So this means that I haven't been getting my favorite part of the working day in, which wears on me too.

Jeff asks about the scooter: I still have my blue Kymco Grand Vista 250, and I still love it, though I'll love it more once I get the right-side mirror replaced and my speedometer fixed. Someone backed into my scoot when it was parked maybe a month ago or 5 weeks, and so while I have the insurance settlement, I'm still waiting on the parts to come into the shop.

And to be honest, I haven't been riding that so much either, since hitting any sort of bump made my knee (the one with a bit, ahem, of road rash from the other day) really hurt. I actually had to drive my car the other day, and you know how I feel about that. The poor thing is 15 years old, and only the dirt is holding it together.

So anyways, I'm hoping that the heat will let up and my knee will heal and my life can go back to how it was when I was a carefree two-wheeler 24/7. Because otherwise, this is bumming me out.

On the knitting front, I am close to the end of the Summer Shawlette. Or at least, I'm close to the end of the ball of cashmere, so I'll have to switch out to Sea Silk. Oh, sadness. I'm loving it, it's gorgeous, and I'll be very sad when it's over. I just started to read Yarn Harlot: the secret life of a knitter by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and it's just the shot of hilarity that I'm needing right now.

permalink September 10, 2007 | Comments (2)

August 18, 2007

a post about knitting

It's been a really crazy week this week and I haven't been bicycling. I know, I know. Part of it was having the second incidence of heat exhaustion this summer a week or two back, so I've been really careful about bicycling in heat, bicycling hard, and anything that might set me back.

On one hand, it's a tremendous pain, not bicycling. But on the other hand, it's meant that I could be knitting on the bus, and that is a very positive thing.

I am going to bicycle downtown today for the Tour de Fat bike parade, and I'm looking forward to that.

But interestingly enough, I've really been ramping up the knitting over the last couple weeks. I started a summer shawlette (pictured above, taken a week ago) maybe two weeks ago, and in the last week, I've been making huge progress. I'm making it in my favorite 4-ply cashmere which will be delicious for my mother-in-law and is tremendously soothing to me.

I think cashmere might be the yarn equivalent to cheese. When I get stressed out, I turn to dairy. A friend of mine spelled it out for me: women get stressed and they turn to ice cream. Or lattes. And here you're having sweetened milk... just like being back at Mom's teat.

She's on to something, and I know it's obvious, but it really resonates for me.

Let's face it, cashmere is much better for me than cheese.

...
Last night, I went with my friend Kathy to see Cat Bordhi speak. She has a new book out called New Pathways for Sock Knitters, Book One. We were both a bit paranoid that the hall would be full to overflowing, so we tried to get there early. But between grabbing some conveyor belt sushi and getting to the hall (which was actually not in the World Forestry Center, but in one of the little round building surrounding it, tucked back in the trees), we showed up right about the time it was all supposed to start.

Strangely, the hall was not full, at all. We bought books, looked at and petted the display socks, chatted with Cat, complimented knitted things that folks were wearing, and nibbled on cookies and brownies. And, of course, we knit.

Kathy knew a lot of folks there, of course -- she's a knit blogger, there were a handful of knit bloggers there. And by handful, I mean a generous handful, making up a significant percentage in the crowd.

I think the location killed this, sadly. The World Forestry Center shares a parking lot with the Zoo, which had a sold out concert that night. Usually, the music starts early, like 6pm or maybe even earlier. So the lot was full. The encouragement to take MAX, our light rail, was ignored. The traffic on the highways was heinous, and that makes sense because it was almost at a standstill at 1 in the afternoon.

But those of us that were there sucked up as much Cat Bordhi wisdom as we could. She was great.

And it was wonderful for me to have an evening that really engaged me. Since this weeks crisis has ocurred, I've been consumed by it. I can't think about anything else. Significant chunks of time must be devoted to it every day, 3-4 hours. I feel like I'm cheating every other part of my life.

But to have a couple hours to just think about knitting, to think about restructuring socks, a strange and difficult concept to wrap ones mind around, was such a luxury and was so wonderful.

Kathy was totally in documentarian mode and will for sure have pics and commentary. My camera stayed in my purse

permalink August 18, 2007 | Comments (3)

June 28, 2007

the constant is change

Well, I've been keeping busy.

My sweetie is back taking care of his dad again, and I miss him something fierce. My mood has plummeted since he's been gone. I just don't seem to do very well.

Here is a picture of the object of my affections since sweetie is gone. I've been spending a lot of time with her. She wants to take it slow. Sometimes I'm fine with that, sometimes I'm not.

I've been interviewing like crazy. I'm moving on to the second interview for the job I really want, and have just been culled on the one which would have a one hour commute. Yay!!

Changes are happening at work. It's exciting and also sad.

Every day, I ride my bike. It's the one constant, and it makes me happy.

permalink June 28, 2007 | Comments (1)

June 15, 2007

keeping busy

Well, I'm succeeding in keeping myself busy, that's for sure.

Last night, I had an appointment downtown, so I rode my (new!!!!) bicycle over to that office, and parked it in the underground parking garage across the street.

It was a very small parking garage, and there was only one other bicycle parked there. So as I was locking it up with my 6 locks (the AXA lock, and AXA chain come with the bike; the other 4 I brought with me because I'm just that way), the attendant starts asking me all about the bike.

It turns out that he lived in Amsterdam for a couple of years and is pining for an excuse to go back, and he keeps speaking dutch to me as if, if he keeps doing it, I'll give in and speak it too.

I didn't mention to him that I did take dutch classes in Germany (hey, way to screw up my german, yeah!), and that I do know a couple words: yes, no, beautiful, and the very important, we are in the garden. Realistically, it's about as useful as knowing the Russian for what is that? It's a church.

But let's face facts: I wasn't much into studying when I was in Germany, and I had a hard time with dutch.

I went to my appointment and once I got back, there were more compliments, and questions, and one-sided conversations in dutch. It was really nice.

I rode home as fast as I could, and swapped bikes, so I could take a Townie to the Master Plan meeting. The idea there was that I would be significantly less heartbroken if the Townie was stolen than if the Oma was stolen. And then I hopped on the bike again, and made it to the meeting.

The meeting actually was very pleasant. We sat at smallish tables and marked on a map where we lived, where we worked, where we bought groceries and ran errands, and where our friends lived, and what types of transportation we used for each type of trip. We chatted about what we liked and didn't like about bike lanes and multi-use paths.

This morning, I managed to leave the house early enough that I could have a sit down to cool off before running up the office. This is a big improvement from recent mornings.

It was chilly and drizzly, and I rode the Townie again (I have a couple postwork appointments), and I have to say, it was a lovely ride. I love this sort of weather!

As I was coming down onto the Eastbank Esplanade, I remembered that today was Breakfast on the Bridges, and I was actually early enough to stop. So I took the Esplanade rather than crossing the pedestrian bridge. I prefer to cross the bridge because there are less hills to climb—sad, but true. I wish these things didn't hold me back, but they do.

So, I get to Breakfast on the Bridge, park my bike, and I'm happy to recognize a couple people. However, the people there were all in a clump, facing inward, surrounding the coffee and pastries, and no one even looked up and smiled, nonetheless, greeted me. I thought about trying to say hi to one of the people I recognized, but then I wasn't certain that they would remember me, and it just didn't seem worth it. So I grabbed my bike and left.

But I did get a paper once I got to work, and I sat outside and read part of it while I waited to stop sweating. By the time I got upstairs, I no longer felt like I was red in the face.

permalink June 15, 2007 | Comments (2)

June 14, 2007

masa fina

What can I tell you? I'm loving my bike. And I got my first unsolicited compliment on it this morning.

Yee ha!

I feel like I'm moving slowly, but since I don't have a computer on this bike (and don't intend to get one), I really have no idea whether I'm slow or not. I just feel so good riding it. It is such a pleasure.

I've been trying to keep myself busy since Sweetie is away. I've been housecleaning, and last night I went out to a restaurant to meet one group of folks, and a tavern to meet another. It was very nice to have some social time, though I got home really late, for me: 10:30! I slept hard last night, though I woke up and felt like I needed some more.

I had hoped there would be lots of bike riding, and there may still be. I haven't been in a pedalpalooza event since last Thursday when I did the Kickass kickoff parade, which really was fun. But, tonight, I go to the PLATINUM BIKE MASTER PLAN PUBLIC FORUM for NORTH/NE Portland. I have no idea what to expect, I just hope it's interesting and that I recognize some people there.

permalink June 14, 2007 | Comments (0)

June 7, 2007

about the Rose Festival

Misty pointed out that there's some 'xplaining to do.

Okay, right now it's Rose Festival, a two-week long extended party in Portland. There are two parades, there's a fun center (read amusement rides and carny food), and the military come into town on their giant ships.

So, it's a time when people who live in the city limits try their damnedest to not come downtown (because the traffic is even worse than usual, and the bridges are frequently up) ... and folks in the suburbs with kids, or single women hoping to get lucky, swarm the city.

The fun center is in Waterfront Park, whose paths are usually used by human-powered commuters to get to their downtown jobs.

Anyhow, the outlined green areas are the route that I, and thousands of other bicyclists and pedestrians use to get to and from work.

~ + ~ +
There's a great photo essay in Time Magazine online right now, called What the World Eats. If you haven't been already, you'll probably want to check it out.

I found it tremendously frightening. Look at all that soda and all those processed foods! Look at how little fruits and veg! As a friend pointed out, in the first world, processed food costs less than whole food.

permalink June 7, 2007 | Comments (2)

June 6, 2007

mercy!

I have a cup of (decaf) coffee. I have a smoothie (a really good one with lots of strawberries). I have a container of cut-up fruit. I should want for nothing, nothing, I tell you.

It's full-on rose festival now, so I haven't bothered riding my bike. My entire downtown commute would need to be rerouted onto streets that have no bike lanes. And that would be fine, except everything is crazy now: suburbanites come into the city and obviously don't know what to do with bicyclists.

For example, last week, I had someone apparently try to back over me (when I had traffic behind me and couldn't go backwards), because she wanted a parking spot. Hey, she was obviously bigger, in her giant SUV, but she can't claim she didn't see a fat woman on a pink bicycle. Grrr.

That, and it's raining. Which is good, because it's been a really dry spring, but...

Work stuff is bringing me down. Nuff said on that.

Tonight, I go look at dutch bikes. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I've been wanting a dutch bike for well over a year, and now that I'm on the verge of trying one, I am so nervous. Nervous mostly that it won't live up to all the excitement and expectations I've had about it.

permalink June 6, 2007 | Comments (2)

May 12, 2007

long, good day

I had a bad day yesterday at work, the second or third bad day in one week. To make matters worse, I underate at lunch (because I worked through lunch, and I didn't think I could take the extra five minutes to walk to the soup stand), so I was hungry most of the afternoon.

By the time I got myself home, I was mad at myself for not taking care of myself, as well as for expecting that my coworkers would communicate with me when there was a huge project that they were very late with.

I had planned, and indeed, looked forward to seeing T. Colin Campbell, author of the China Study talk about plant-based diets. I thought I had got my sweetie's buy-in, that he would go with me. But by Friday morning, he was making lots of "you'll have a great time" type statements.

Anyways, I couldn't bare the thought of doing alone to the talk, and I wanted a friendly face to commisserate (sp?) in case I started to cry again. Indeed, my Saturday plans seemed suspect too.

I had planned to go to the St Johns parade. I had wanted to go to VegFest. I had a giant beer tasting party to go to at 2pm, and I expected that I probably wouldn't get out of the party in time to go back to VegFest. And now I was unsure that I'd even want to leave the house come Saturday morning.

Anyways, Saturday morning came, and Sweetie volunteered to go with me to the parade, so up to St Johns, we went. First stop was Adam's house, where the whole scooter club were busy decorating their scooters with stuff from the dollar store. It was clear immediately that I had not taken the whole decorating thing seriously enough... and I kept thinking about how I could apply these ideas to decorating my bicycle for bicycle parades.

We spent another couple of hours waiting for the parade, in the parade line, and at Sandie's house. I chatted with other scooterists, with bicyclists, and for the most part, anyone who would talk to me. I knit compulsively on my project, a cashmere moebius cowl I had been hoping to finish in time for Mothers Day.

Then, the parade started. Then, we find out we've won best vehicle group, which can't be because the vehicles are attractive: we've a mix of plastic scooters, motorcycles, and mopeds. We don't have a single vintage in the group, unless you count a fifty-something BMW. Maybe it's because we're a mixed race group in a mostly segregated city? Or that we're maybe 40% female?

Or maybe it's the fact that we're huge hams, we don't organize or coordinate any of our antics, figure 8s and loops, and that's obvious. We almost hit folks in the crowd, and they love it, we ride with some skill and obvious joy, and dagnab it, we really like each other.

Anyways, we had a great time. A great time. No collisions, no one dropped a bike, no children hit.

Then, we headed across town to go to Fred Fest. Basically, this was a fundraiser for a sick Brew Crew member, celebrating Fred Eckhardt's birthday. We were immediately overwhelmed by the length of the lines, and number of people there, but once we got into the beer line, time went pretty fast, or at least fast enough. We chatted with our neighbors in line, and others too. Beer luminaries were there. We had some incredible beer, luckily in very small quantities, with some really good food.

By the time we got home at a little after six, it had been a really long day. But a good one.

permalink May 12, 2007 | Comments (1)

February 20, 2007

Day 1

So it begins.

My day was crazy, but I felt good and focused. I ended up working through my lunch, so I munched my fruit, and I was able to present at my second meeting of the day (sheesh). I was hungry, but it wasn't the end of the world. That's a new sensation for me.

After that meeting, I rode the bike home, and got caught in a sleet storm. Brr, brr, brr! It's amazing how long 3 miles can seem when you're freezing.

Dinner was this excellent black bean soup that Cheesepuppet had mentioned and a big salad of gritty lettuce and a bunch of veg. I used a little dressing from the American Vegetarian Cookbook, which is all about oil. I'm told that at some point, my taste buds will adjust and lettuce without dressing will taste sweet and good. We're not there yet.

So, one day down... 41 to go!

permalink February 20, 2007 | Comments (3)

February 18, 2007

more on this veganism thing

Today is day 4 for caffeine-free. We went out for breakfast this morning, and I wanted to order coffee -- out of habit -- but I was fine without. The second day was the worst, especially combined with coming down with the flu. Bad idea.

So in my mind, I like to call this the geek detox, because I learned about it online.

First, I heard about it in November in Wendy McClure's blog Pound who refers to it as This Thing I’m Doing.

Then, in January, I saw a mention in BoingBoing that Xeni Jardin was doing this vegan bodyhacking thing that Joi Ito was writing about. About the same time, several friends mentioned that Joi seemed to be really digging this new detox.

So finally, I went to Joi. His first entry starts thusly:

Almost like clockwork, hitting 40 years old seems to have triggered a series of alarms that I need to watch my health more. Blood tests show various things that I need to watch out for and I continue to be fatter than I should. I used to do low-carb diets when I got overweight, but it seems like a fat/meat diet right now wouldn't be good for my heart and other things.

That intrigued me, because I usually look at diets as a vanity thing -- I don't like how I look, so I'll lose weight. And it's been my repeated experience that I gain it back and more some, so while I'd love to lose weight, let's face facts -- what's the use?

But in reading about the Eat to Live diet, it seems like it's less about weight loss and more about improving your health.

I'm 44, and I've been falling apart, it seems, for the last 7 years. I've had awful heartburn and high blood pressure, and lately I've been freaking out. It's great that I'll be able to retire early, but what if I don't live that long? What if I retire just to have heart attacks or be diagnosed with cancer?

So I read two of Dr Joel Fuhrman's books, including Eat to Live. ETL is your typically badly written diet book, but unlike most, his claims have citations attached to them, indicating serious medical studies. He refers heavily to the China Study, a huge study which suggests that medical woes like autoimmune diseases, cardiac disease, and cancer are linked to the Western diet of frankenfoods, refined grains, dairy, and meat.

As I read it, I started actually getting hopeful that I could get healthier. And there you are.

So, for the next 6 weeks, starting Tuesday, this will be how I'm eating:

Eat to Live 6-Week Plan

UNLIMITED (eat as much as you want):

* all raw vegetables, including raw carrots (goal: 1 lb. daily)
* cooked green vegetables (goal 1 lb. daily)
* beans, legumes, bean sprouts, or *tofu (minimum 1 cup daily in total of these)
* fresh fruit (at least 4 daily).
* eggplant, mushrooms, peppers, onions, tomato and other non-starchy vegetables, cooked and raw (unlimited)

*Beans should be eaten daily; tofu should be eaten less frequently.

LIMITED (not more than one serving):

* cooked starchy vegetables OR whole grains--Maximum 1 cup per day (butternut or acorn squash, corn, sweet potato, brown rice, cooked carrots, whole grain breads*, whole grain cereals*)
* raw nuts and seeds (1 oz. or 28.5 grams a day) or 2 ounces avocado
* ground flaxseed (1 tablespoon a day)
* soymilk, low-sugar preferred--Maximum 1 cup a day

*avoid breads and cereals as much as possible

OFF-LIMITS:

* dairy products
* animal products
* between meal snacks
* fruit juice, dried fruits
* salt, sugar

I have to say, just having increased the amount of fruits and vegetables, and having kicked caffeine, makes me feel so good physically. As I go through these last few days of "gosh, I won't be able to have pasta, I have to have pasta", I can really tell the difference in how I feel between when I eat a plant-based meal, and when I eat something else.

So I'm excited.

permalink February 18, 2007 | Comments (4)

February 15, 2007

Mark this, day one

Today, I have given up coffee. I've been awake now for 6 hours, and I don't yet have the headache, but I am insanely hungry. Insanely. And so hungry that I wonder if a salad will sate me.

You see, in the last couple weeks when I've been away, there have been huge work deadlines, long days, work brought home, coming in early, coming in on weekends. And also, maddenly, it's sucked all of the life out of me outside of work.

I've still been bike commuting, and its still almost always the best thing in my day.

Riding home is still a test, but I am trying to let go of my tremendous anger at anyone I have to share the road with who will endanger me by speeding past me and almost connecting with me. You can see why I have a hard time with this, no doubt. And the ride home is all about bike lanes and quiet streets. Could ya ring a bell, already?!

But on top of all of this, I've become obsessed with veganism. (Misty, stop laughing.) I've actually started eating fruit. I've eaten more fruit in the last week than I did in the entire last year. And I can't stop obsessively thinking about vegetables.

So as I've been trying to eat better, I've been surprised to realize that my favorite foods aren't actually all that good. I mean, they're not that good. And then there's the stomach distress.

My plan is pretty straightforward. I'm going to eat way low on the food chain for six weeks. And see what happens.

I saw my doc yesterday, and had fasting bloodwork done this morning. So I'll have baseline numbers to compare: blood pressure, pulse, blood sugar, thyroid, cholesterol.

The problem is, I want to begin already. I can't begin before Saturday. And our anniversary is Monday, which probably means going out to eat...

But even if I can't go vegan formally yet, I can abandon coffee.

permalink February 15, 2007 | Comments (2)

January 30, 2007

sunrise

There is something so very lovely about biking in the early morning. Certainly, a huge part of it has to be the lack of humanity.

This morning, I left the house a little before 7. The sunrise was just beginning to lighten the sky.

This morning, I said hello to all pedestrians and bicyclists. The pedestrians almost all said hello. Drug dealers are especially cordial. Bicyclists, eh, not so much.

By the time I got to the Steel Bridge, the sky was the color of a robins egg, and the river looked incredible, with its currents of lazy ripples and mirror-still sections. Ducks and geese were leisurely coasting, and the city was golden in the morning light.

There's stuff like this that brings me so much pleasure in biking. If I were on the bus, crossing the river is just a geographic marking: I'm closer to work. But on the bicycle, it's an element that I interact with. The breezes, or should I say winds, that drive south through the river valley. Feeling the chill from the water. Watching the currents.

To my tremendous pleasure, I was in my building at 7:20, and back at my desk after a shower at 8:00. A shower. How humane!

permalink January 30, 2007 | Comments (2)

January 29, 2007

The City that Never Walks

An interesting story from the New York Times Op-Ed Desk today:
The City That Never Walks, by Robert Sullivan

And yet, here in New York, we even have the debate over bicycle traffic backwards. We focus on drivers’ complaints about the bicycle commuter who races through red lights, rather than on the concerns of the mother biking her child around organic-food delivery trucks that idle in bike-only lanes. In December, the police say, a bicyclist was killed on the Hudson River Greenway by a drunken driver speeding along a bike lane that was completely separated from the road. Asked what was being done to improve safety in light of the biker’s death, Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested that bikers “pay attention.”

“Even if they’re in the right, they are the lightweights,” he told a reporter.

nytimes.com/2007/01/29/opinion/29sullivan.html

permalink January 29, 2007

Chilly clear morning

I rode my bike today, I rode my bike today!!

It was a nice ride, though chilly. I actually overdressed. Not a bad thing to complain about.

I stopped and took some pictures of the Willamette, and then continued on. At one point, I saw a seagull flying overhead, with a bagged sandwich in its beak. It was a whole sandwich, 2 slices of bread, in a ziplock baggie.

It's nice to get into work early and with an endorphin rush, which I'll definitely need later today.

permalink January 29, 2007 | Comments (3)

January 16, 2007

snow day!

There's been so much hysteria around here about the SNOW and the ICE and the COLD, with the snow part never happening, that I've quit even paying attention to the weatherman. We've just been keeping the outdoor cat inside, and we've decided that she will remain inside, clothes be damned*.

So this morning we are puttering around, getting ready for work, when sweetie opens the front door and sees snow... all over the ground! And falling from the sky!

After I established that I wouldn't be going to work today, I decided to go for a bike ride.

I thought of all my years in Kentucky and Michigan, where there was lots of snow -- and I never rode in it. I don't have a single memory of it. I loved ice skating and I'd do that whenever I could, but bicycling was for good weather, and good weather only.

So I did the only reasonable thing: I suited up and went for a ride. I decided to ride down to Grand Central, which is about a mile away, nice and flat.

I come off the driveway, and one of the guys who lives in my neighbor's backyard (don't ask, I don't know) waved, smiled, and started to say something in Spanish. The back wheel would slip, and I was getting nowhere fast, but it was fun.

By the time I got to the first main street, there was an SUV breathing down my tire tracks, so I moved over so they could go. When they got beside me, both the driver and passenger gave me a big friendly smile, which I think meant crazy white girl.

A man was walking along with a cup of coffee. He was gorgeous in this wizened, wrinkled sort of way, the sort of face that has seen a lot of living and is still around to tell you about it. He told me he was off to his ex's house, cuz he had some excellent cocoa. Good idea!

The snow dampens the noise. And truth be told, nobody's really out at all. I ride in the car tire tracks and in the virgin snow -- it doesn't really matter.

All the pedestrians -- whether they were just out for a walk or were heading into work -- just seemed happy, and would respond when I said hello.

Good morning, I said to one nicely dressed man. Yes it is!, he replied.

So I went to the bakery, and I sat there and drank coffee and read the paper and just felt really and truly lucky for the first time in a while. And then I rode back home.

*The outside cat is Daphne, who went into internal exile after demolishing a great deal of my clothing and linens. One day I was getting dressed for work, and I couldn't find anything she hadn't chewed a sizeable hole in, and that was the morning she came to live on the back porch. But she is the world's sweetest cat, and now getting on in years, and I am a softie. Clothing, what is that?! I can still use towels when they have holes in them!

permalink January 16, 2007 | Comments (8)

January 9, 2007

(holding out for) that teenage feeling

This morning, I got a fair amount of housework done. I vacuumed up dust bunnies in the kitchen & hall, and I generated about a bag of recycling from crap laying around the living room & bathroom.

I also scrubbed the bathtub. Note to self: baking soda might be mildly abrasive, but it's too mildly abrasive to clean the bathtub.

Meanwhile I debated whether I should ride the bike. And whether I should wear work clothes, or exercise clothes.

I'm always obsessed with carrying less. Maybe my desire to declutter is another form of this? I'm not compelled to declutter, that's for damn sure. Anyways, the compromise of riding to work in work clothes and being sweaty versus wearing exercise clothes and bringing a bag of good clothes is one of those things that I can't seem to resolve.

I rode the bus. Every inch of me hurts. I can't, no, no more complaining.

My chiro says that I'm having shoulder pain reoccurance because of the seat to handlebars ratio. Is there such a thing? Basically, I think that translates into "buy a new bike". But I think everything translates, at least in my mind, to buy a new bike.

I'm trying to remind myself, my life is good. Today, my sweetie can't bend his arm. No, we don't know why. My colleague in the next office has her infant in daycare for the first time. I can't imagine how that must feel. Life is good. Life is good.

permalink January 9, 2007 | Comments (3)

December 21, 2006

what's happening

I realize I haven't been crossposting. I've posted a lot about the accident aftermath on vj.vox.com, though it could be easily summed up as: I hurt, and it's all I can talk about. And unfortunately, it does dominate my thoughts, and it's really bumming me out.

I know that at some point I'll be okay again. And I know I almost got myself killed, or fate just decided to spare me this time.

The other morning, waiting for the bus, I got to watch a woman (well-dressed, seemingly normal) pace between two bus stops on two sides of a corner. First to the #33 bus stop, then to the #6 busstop. Rinse, repeat.

Have you ever had the scary realization that that's what you look like? Mind you, I try very very hard to quell the pacing by, say, reading or knitting or walking to the next bus stop. But sometimes I just can't help it, I just can't position myself so I can see both roads, and so I pace. Oh dear g-d.

She was very nice, and once she was on the bus, she was just another person going to work.

This morning I somehow forgot that the 15 minute walk to the chiropractor had just about rendered me into a walking zombie twice, and thought it would be good to walk to work. Ha!

First, a half a block from the house, I slipped on some black ice. Back home, we just called it ice. Ice being what happens when roads are wet, and then it freezes. Anyways, here, it's black ice, I guess because regular ice is self-evident whereas black ice is sneaky. It's duplicitious.

Anyways, I didn't go down, I just made a note about it. About at that point, I noticed that my legs were hurting. From walking.

I've been a little daffy lately, and there was no bus in sight, so, for whatever reason, I kept walking, even though I was in pain. Stoopid.

I slipped again, and this time, almost hit the ground. And finally, I stopped walking and then I really needed to sit down. Luckily, the bus came then too.

permalink December 21, 2006 | Comments (2)

to the white guy who sat in the middle of a three-seat bench on the bus -

Yes, you, with your hemp and recycled rubber, your oh-so-hipster garb! Why are you too good to move over and share a three-seat bench? It was so kind that you let me squeeze in beside you, it just filled me with the Christmas spirit. Bah, humbug. What is wrong with you people?

I don't get it. Are you entitled to a three-seat bench because you're white and middle-class and male? Because you buy groovy expensive recycled things that advertise how groovy and expensive you are? My mother would back hand me if I acted like you did. And she'd have reason.

And what was my crime? That I dress like a social worker, going to work? That I'm middle-aged? That I'm fat? That I walk with a limp? What sorts of assumptions were you making about me?

You know, if you had moved over, we both would have had a bit more room. You wouldn't have had to lean into me as I fished into my pocket for a tissue. But you seemed to want to punish me for sitting down with you, one white guy, on a three seat bench. As you noticed, I do fit into one seat. As do you. You could have made this a pleasant experience for both of us. And you would have seemed like less of an asshole.

I hope Santa brings you coal.
VJ

permalink December 21, 2006 | Comments (4)

December 18, 2006

the grace to go slow

There is nothing like commuting to work on a morning where it's 30 degrees out there to make you feel like you can do anything.

I rode Pinky, my three-speed. I had a lot of stuff to haul today: christmas paper, gifts to be wrapped, my usual cache of clothes to change into, etc. So I felt rather festive, riding around with christmas paper rolls sticking out of my pannier. And since it was cold, there weren't so many folks out on foot or on bike.

I read something over the weekend that has reverberated over and over again: Grant me the grace to go slow. Especially at this time of year, everything seems feverish. But does it need to be?

Riding Pinky is one way of going slow. It's also just a fun bike to ride, as it's pink with lots of chrome, and a big front basket that I've attached silk flowers to. And the ride in went without much happening. No one threatened me with their car, I chatted with lots of folks as they were on their way whereever it was they were going, and I managed to not fall over on the ice. That last thing is huge, really.

I just had a bad day on Wednesday, who knows why, and so I am cycling home, and I am still fairly miserable. The ride home is a maker or breaker: usually, I feel better after the ride, but there are just some days, infrequent, where I feel much worse.

Where we begin our story, I could really go either way. I'm on Wheeler Ave, which is a bus-only road with a bike path, heading up the hill. Wheeler always has a lot of debris in the bike path, and while I have the number to call, and I have a cell phone, I'm always too wanting to get home to actually stop the bicycle, find the number, and find the cell phone.

I'm riding, and I hear my keys hit the ground. Wha? So I go to stop the bike, and somehow manage to get a tree branch in the chain, and then somehow I end up on the ground, still on the bike. It was one of those slow motion falls, so I have a few bruises but it didn't really hurt anything really but my pride. And of course, there were a number of people who saw it, so I could feel good and mortified.

So I get my keys, I zip up that pocket (honestly!), and get started again. And there, 10 ft later, is a big pile of glass. I look over my shoulder to see if I can pull out into the bus lane, and I see the cops, barrelling up the hill. So I stop again.

From that point on, I felt kinda shakey on the bike. I brought it in to the bike shop on Friday for its annual maintenance, and they fixed it all up, but they adjusted the seat, and I tried riding with the seat as they had set it. Way too high, I could barely reach the pedals! It took several tries to get it back where it was supposed to be. And that whole ride home, I was cautious; not because of others, but because I was afraid my balance was just off.

But on Sunday, I finally went for a long ride on Pinky. It was good, and I regained my confidence.

As I think about going slow, it seems I should also think about going small. I've got so much stuff, I'm overrunning the house. And there's only two of us there. It's nuts. So I've been slowly tossing things. I filled a couple bags over the weekend, and I've spent the morning cleaning the office. I just want to get the slate clean, is that too much to ask?

permalink December 18, 2006 | Comments (1)

December 7, 2006

Walking

Am I already suffering from the post-school blues? All I know is, I feel tired, and I have an awful headache this morning.

In the hopes of shaking that, I walked to the MAX train this morning. It's about a mile and a half, a nice leisurely 30 minute walk.

It was good. It felt really good to feel the cold air, and to look at the changes in the neighborhood. A few blocks from my house, someone had a sign in their yard. If I had been on my bike, I never would have stopped to look at it, because I'm in too big of a hurry. Still, after all this talk of slow, still in a hurry.

So I did walk over to see it. It said that they were sad to announce that their cat had died after 20+ years of roaming the neighborhood. The sign had lots of pictures of said cat, who was obviously quite beloved to them and probably to the neighborhood as well.

It made me very thankful that my outdoor cat, Daphne is still around. She has been nothing short of adorable lately: coming over to the shed in the mornings and when I get home to say hi. In the early mornings, when she's waiting for me to bring Echo outside, she lays beneath her quilt with only her head sticking out.

The thing that occurred to me as I was walking is that while I enjoy bicycling -- obviously -- I feel like an outsider there. I'm not sure whether I'm a bicyclist. But even while I'm not doing much walking, I am a walker. I feel like I've fought for that title and earned it, even if I'm not doing it as compulsively as I have in the past.

...
Last night was the last night of presentations for the sainted, beloved GIS class. There were lots of really good, detailed presentations. It is quite clear that mine was neither good nor detailed; at least, I didn't dig into the ArcGIS toolkits as much as I could or should have. What I would have needed was to do all the labs and have them be past tense by a month ago, and then figure out how to really analyze the data.

That said, I'm determined to do it right and on my own time... and hopefully the ArcMap licensing I have at home won't run out too fast.

permalink December 7, 2006

November 30, 2006

hello.

Do you ever have one of those moments where you suddenly feel awake after weeks or months of sleeping?

I'm awake, and back amongst the living.

Actually, I've been back amongst the living for about three weeks now, but I've been so overwhelmed by the amount of work (work and school) that I needed to get done, that I've been offline to a huge extent.

For better or for worse, my big school project is over. I still have the final and a couple of labs to do, but I feel like a tremendous weight has been lifted off my shoulders. There is going to be plenty of franticness at work over the next couple weeks, but none for the next couple of days. And I need to start the holiday blitz of knitting and shopping. But today, I am happy. Hurrah!

By the way, I am writing more frequently at vj.vox.com. If you join Vox, you don't necessarily have to blog there, but you will have the ability to leave comments on my posts, and for me to okay you to see private posts. Doesn't that private post idea just fill you with glee? Anyways, join, drop me an email so I know who you are, and I'll add you to friends and family.

...
As you might have heard, it's been raining in Portland. Unendingly. Well, I exaggerate. I haven't gotten caught in the rain in a couple days at least.

It's made commuting interesting, to be sure. I've been trying to stay on the bike, but I have given in some days and taken the bus. Monday was quite cold (the weather folks were predicting snow), and I bike-commuted, and didn't wear enough clothes. Damn, that was cold. On Monday night, I could not get warm again, and ended up going to bed with long underwear and flannel pjs on, and then I only warmed up once Sweetie got to bed.

The next morning, I felt like I was on the verge of a headcold, and I'm still trying to stave it off.

So the last couple days, I've been taking the bus. So I was really pleased this morning to hear the busdriver say, when we stopped on the Hawthorne bridge, to watch for bicyclists. Yeah, way to be proactive!

We took a slight road trip for Thanksgiving: we and the Texiles had rented a cabin in ZigZag, which is on Mt. Hood on National Forest land. It was great. We brought too much food, they brought too much food. We stoked fires and hung out. For the first time in several years, I didn't cook on Thanksgiving. Truth be told, I didn't do anything but read the stack of books I had for school.

No internet. No television. I'd just sit myself on the couch between the woodstove and the fireplace in about a dozen layers, and peel them off as the room warmed, and read and read and read. Very frequently, the rest of the couch and the chairs would be filled with Texiles, reading, or some of them would be at the table, 4 feet away, working on a puzzle or a board game. It was quite convivial and genial. And it was just so enjoyable.

It totally fed my desire for community, for hanging out semi-autonomously. We'd make meals, but everyone was on their own for snacks, so there was always someone foraging in the fridge to make breakfast tacos with leftover crepes (delicious, yum!). And we all took naps -- some more than once a day!

It was so relaxing and enjoyable, and I thought about how I usually live: eating a meal while watching TV while researching something online. Multitasking to an extreme. I want to start being more conscious about this stuff.

I always claim and truly feel like I have no time to read. But it's quite obvious that I can make the time, and maybe I need to.

...
But first, I have been online this morning and I've found some great things.
-Scentzilla's TV and classic painters mashups
Oh my gosh, she is brilliant.
- Vintage Vespa Menorah
That's right, take two unrelated things and combine them. Huh? I think I have to have it though.

permalink November 30, 2006 | Comments (1)

November 22, 2006

test post

This is a test post. This is only a test. If this had been a real emergency, you would have been directed to radio stations in your area with news and announcements.

(altportland appears to be having some digestive problems, and I'm curious if they are happening here as well)

permalink November 22, 2006

November 17, 2006

bike luv

On the heels of the foreign lady in Beijing story, I have to share some unexpected bike love.

I rode home tonight, as I do four nights a week. While the ride to work is relaxing and invigorating, the ride home can be a bit of a test. For a while, I was trying to get to the point where I would not yell, mouth, or think, motherf*^&%^r when a car would buzz me or another bicyclist would sweep by with no warning. I'm still trying to get into that lovingkindness place. The hills aren't so bad any more. No one's offered to push me up one in maybe a month or more.

So today, I'm riding up the hill by the Rose Quarter. It's not too bad of a hill, though it does come right after climbing the hill from the river. I'm relaxed, hell, I'm even enjoying the rise. A trimet bus goes by, and, gasp, gives me lots of room. Doesn't pull one of those, you're in my way, so I'm gonna go by you really fast. We pull up at the light together. The light turns green, and again, the bus driver is graceful, respectful. He pulls over to let some one off, then looks very carefully to see where I am, to see if any other cyclists have ridden up. He crosses back into the lane he needs to be in, and we both stop at the light.

I'm just floating in this warm bath of endorphins. Someone didn't try to scare the crap out of me! He opens his door, and thanks me for having lights on my bike and wearing a reflective jacket. I thank him for being a considerate driver, and say that I don't envy him his job. My g-d, it's a friggin' love fest.

He pulled through the light, and that was the end of that. But it was such a nice experience that I needed to share it.
...
There's not a lot to tell for the last couple of weeks. I feel like I've been on a dead run lately between work and school. Bicycling back and forth has been a consistent high point, even when it rains. I've been riding the 24-speed, figured out how to keep the panniers on the bike (it's so simple it's embarrassing that I hadn't figured earlier), and actually added lights and a bell. All I need is a basket and I'm all set.

permalink November 17, 2006 | Comments (3)

The foreign lady in the Beijing bike lane

I have been completely buried under between work and school and my ever-changing moods, so if you've seen this, sorry. However, it's a great story.

It appears some roads in Beijing have a dedicated, separate, bike lane. And it appears cars try to use those bike lanes to get around traffic. Somebody took that whole partying at the literal bar too serious, and actually thought that bike lanes were, gasp, for bikes. Crazy!

I love this story, with lots of pictures. Go, foreign lady!
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20061027_1.htm

permalink November 17, 2006 | Comments (2)

November 7, 2006

Go, Statistics Canada!

A moving finding — commuting isn't so bad after all
SCOTT DEVEAU
7/11/2006, Globe & Mail
http://tinyurl.com/snhnl

"In 2005, 19 per cent of workers who rode their bicycles to work reported that their commute was the most pleasant activity of their day. This was true of just 2 per cent of workers who drove to work.

However, 2001 census data showed that only about 1 per cent of commuters rode a bicycle to work, whereas 81 per cent used a vehicle.
...
Public transit users were less likely to enjoy commuting than drivers."

permalink November 7, 2006 | Comments (2)

October 30, 2006

chilly!

Nothing like the time change to bring it home. Summer is over. It's done.

Last night, as we drove home from an early dinner, it was pitch-dark outside. Tonight, that's what I'll be riding home in.

This morning, it was in the 30s. Whoa. So I am back in my winter outfit. Long underwear, top and bottom. Thrifted cashmere sweater. Wool scarf. Windbreaker. Wool cycling cap under my helmet. Wool skirt. Wool socks.

It's always a little daunting, the first really cold ride of the season. Am I going to be warm enough, or too warm? I was actually warm enough, though my face was pretty cold. I think it's probably balaclava time.

I have my poncho in my pannier, so I'm ready for the rain too. Last time I wore it, I had a huge puddle between my arms that never leaked through to the inside.

...
thanks to everyone who wrote me expressing concern. I don't know what to tell you, but I'm feeling a bit more positive, and hoping that will stick around for awhile. I really appreciate your concern.

I am going to try to get a little more exercise, without an expectation that it should be achieving anything, and I'm going to try to remember why I exercise in the first place: it's fun. So I need to just remember to keep it fun.

With this thought in mind, I rode home from work Friday, and I realized if I just didn't try to get home as quickly as possible, it was a lot more fun. I stopped for cars, I slowly inched up hills and I decided I was going to go slow because it's more fun, rather than feeling like I go slow because of my weight and fitness level. Keep my head up. Fun. Gotta keep it. fun.

...
Over the weekend, I went to the Film Celebration of Portland Transportation at the Bagdad. It was rather bike heavy, in spite of a very nice intro by Chris Smith of Portland Transport about Portland's original streetcar system, and how it influenced the shape of Portland. Clarence of BikeTV was there showing his films, including several that aren't on his web site. Dan Kaufmann of Crank my Chain also had one. There was one scooter flick, which someone I know, catcalled. Tacky.

Anyways, I really like Clarence's work and it was great to see it on the big screen. He filmed a great interview with Enrique Penalosa, the former mayor of Bogota, Colombia, who talks at length about deciding what you are supporting on a city level. It really got me all revved up.

It's interesting. Here, when you have a discussion about transportation, at least at the level I'm at, you are talking about bike commuting, and public transportation. Pedestrians are mentioned, but the radical pedestrianism that was here in the early nineties seems to have entirely dissipated. Or maybe there are so few radical pedestrians these days that we don't know how to organize our voices?

And, why isn't the motorcycle and scooter communities interested in this in a huge way? I mean, if parking is an issue, motorcycles take up much less space. If pollutants are an issue, modern motorcycles are cleaner than cars.

I saw my first bakfiets cargobike there, and I talked to its owner, who is going to open a dutch bike shop in town. I for one can't wait. Hurry!

permalink October 30, 2006 | Comments (3)

October 26, 2006

...

I finally have the 24-speed back in my greedy hands, so I've been using it as my regular commuter. It really makes my life that much easier. Yes, I know I could just got off my three-side and walk it up the hill—yes, I know that would be faster. Sigh.

Lately, I've really been struggling with body image. I mean, I haven't been happy that I've gained back the weight that I worked so hard to lose, but just in the last couple months, I've been feeling a brand new sense of self-loathing that is really hard to shake. Especially since my body really doesn't seem to care what I eat, or how much, or what times: it just wants to pack on some more weight.

Shessh. I still commute most days by bike. I still make neighborhood trips by bike. I still do a lot more walking than the average bear. No matter.

Last night, I walked up from work to school. Now, some back story: I didn't get any lunch until 3:30, and had no dinner. I was running entirely on adrenaline.

The distance from work to school is about 3/4 of a mile. In other words, nothing. But it is uphill.

As usual, I was late, I had a heavy satchel, etc, so I was hustling up to school. Totally out of breath.

Sheesh. A year and a half ago, I did the Columbia Gorge Marathon. Now I get out of breath not even running up a hill?

I hate that. I can't even tell you how much I hate that.

Climbing the 3 stories to get to class or lab is more of the same. It is so embarrassing to be the fat sweaty out-of-breath woman, that I walk up one flight of stairs, then walk across the building to another staircase, up another flight, repeat. I'm really dedicated to not taking the elevator, but ugh.

I know I didn't get here overnight, and I won't get out of here overnight, either. I've been trying to ramp up the exercise: making sure I walk the stairs at work, walk a little more, ride a little more. But it feels like I'm making no progress at all.

...
Anyways.

The 24-speed had lived on someone's front porch for over a month. In that time, everything that could quickly be stolen, was, and somehow the bike computer got screwed up.

So, I haven't even been looking at the computer. Why bother? And then today, as I was cursing out some drivers who were trying to run me off the road, I saw that I was going 17mph. Huh? Suddenly, the computer was working! And of course, now I'm even more pissed because, damn, I'm moving plenty fast.

I stop at the light, and then when I get the green, proceed... and on the computer, there's nada. Zip. Then I'm into the downhill by the Rose Quarter, and suddenly, it's working again, and I'm going 24mph (it's a downhill, that's about right).

So who knows what's going on, really?

permalink October 26, 2006 | Comments (3)

October 15, 2006

Vegas, baby

I'm back from Vegas.

One thing is clear. Before I go back, I need to train. Walking around with women in their 70s wore me out. We did manage to see a lot of the Imperial Palace, Caesar's Palace, the Mirage, the Venetian, the Wynn, the Flamingo, and the Bellagio. In one day.

I was fascinated, and still am, with the civil engineering involved in Las Vegas. Indoor canals, outdoor lakes, unending waterfalls, S-curving escalators: how do they do that, really? The whole imposition of fantasy upon the desert. The idea that if you wish it, you can make it so.

And that could be a good way of describing my experience. I had a fantasy, but in the end, it was a desert. It was a buffet where the fish was old, and nothing tasted good. It was just crumbling infrastructure, a lot of flashy exterior and not much real.

I'm glad to be back. But I've been in a funk ever since. My dreams are all Vegas, baby.

...
Yesterday was my darling's birthday, so I was going to save a long walk for today. Great idea, except today is seriously blustery and rainy. We need the rain, heavens knows we need the rain, but I need the walk too.

So I'm stuck with indoor activities. Cleaning, trying to get the evil smokey smell out of all my clothes (there appears to be no smoking laws in Vegas. People smoke everywhere. Even clothes that stayed in my luggage and never saw the casino smell like smoke.), knitting, doing homework. Yes, I know the homework should come first. I know. I'm just not there yet.

I'm still working on a gift for Velogirl and her peanut, and I started making a cowl/gaiter out of the gorgeous Cherry Tree Hill yarn I got in Coos Bay at My Yarn Store. The cowl is going slowly, as you might expect with #2 needles and a 25 inch diameter, but I love how it's knitting up.

Right now I'm obsessed with creating a felted satchel. On the MAX train coming back from the airport, I meet some folks that I instantly wanted to adopt. They had come to Portland on an elderhostel, to do a cruise up the Columbia-Snake rivers, from Astoria (OR) to Lewiston (ID). They were adorable. They could have taken the elderhostel shuttle to the hotel, but instead, they chose to take the MAX. They had been boning up on Lewis & Clark Expedition history in preparation for the trip. They were just so excited.

When I pulled out the in-progress cowl, the man mentioned that his wife was quite a knitter, beaming. And she was beaming too. She had made her carry-on bag, which was the apple-green color that is in now, felted with some slubby-shiny-viscose-y yarn knitted in, and she had trimmed the bag with upolstery trim. It was adorable, and she was adorable.

So I think I could recycle the yarn from the Olympic shrug which was gorgeous but so itchy, and make a satchel of it. That's the plan now..., subject to change like everything else.

permalink October 15, 2006 | Comments (2)

October 9, 2006

pretrip neurosis

So I have this trip to Las Vegas coming up in, well, minutes, it seems. Usually, I spend the week before the trip trying to deny my need to go shopping for a whole new wardrobe, which takes up a lot of energy.

This time, I decided to go resaling, and see how things go. Just embrace the neurosis. I haven't been terribly happy with my clothes lately, which I think is more about my self-image than anything else. But I've been noticing that alot of the work clothes have stains that aren't coming out. It's time to just set them free.

So I drove down to the Dig in Milwaukie. I've still got this stoopid flu bug so I decided not to tempt fate by scootering. Like any thrifting, I ended trying on about 5x more than I actually got, because clothes had the sizing ripped out, or just the total lack of sizing continuity.

Anyways, I came away happy. I got two wool skirts, both relatively lightweight, one grey, one black. Both have pockets! I got a pair of jeans that's a size or two too big, so I can layer on the long-underwear and wools when winter scootering. And I got three tops, all work worthy, with two of them really Mom-worthy. $15

Next stop was Savvy Plus, a plus sized consignment shop. Again, I brought in a pile to try on, and came out with some winners. The real score was a lined cocktail dress in a gorgeous pattern. I also got two blouses and two tops, all Mom-worthy. This was quite a bit more expensive than the Dig, but well worth the money.

On the way into SP, I decided I would stop into the bicycle shop next door. Outside, I saw a lovely 8-speed Raleigh that looked so very sweet. I wonder who in town sells Raleighs? Then I stopped into the store to say hi to my potential future bike, the Breezer, and I ran into Hollie and her sweetie. I got to check out her very sweet project bike, which was cleaned up, repainted and absolutely gorgeous with its new Brooks saddle. We chatted bikes for a little bit--it was so nice to see Hollie!

In the evening, we got together with some of the Texiles and had dinner and some theatre. Dinner was great, theatre, not so much. The theatre actually could have been really funny, but the actors seemed so earnest and overacting that it would have been cruel to laugh.

I was reminded, too, that community theatre seating means unforgiving, tiny seats. Yikes.

permalink October 9, 2006 | Comments (1)

October 6, 2006

I'm just sleeping

Sorry I've been away so long. I've decided that I'm trying to limit the whining on this blog, and if I haven't got anything good to say, I should just shut up. Novel idea.

So it hasn't been the greatest of times, but when things would be heading back up, I'd get too frantically busy to be able to write.

Certainly part of this has to do with deciding to take a graduate class. And getting the flu. And knowing that I'll be seeing my mom next week.

Anyhow. I've been bike commuting, and loving that, even the commutes back home. The last couple days, I haven't bicycled and I really miss it. It's so humane. Taking the bus is fine when I get a seat and get to knit or read, but that doesn't happen so often. Yesterday, I waited for 45 minutes for a bus that was supposed to run every 15. That sort of thing wears on me, especially knowing that there's a little pink bicycle in the shed just waiting to get me to work in 20 minutes.

My graduate course is GIS, geographic information systems, a software that allows you to build maps with all sorts of embedded information. If you use MapQuest or Google Maps, you use a GIS. I have been less than enthralled with it, but I've loved the lectures, and last night, I did my homework in the lab, and that was great.

I walked out of the lab, and I just felt so good. I remember that feeling from graduate school, of really working hard, thinking hard, and getting something accomplished, and just feeling so great. Part of my reasoning for taking the class was that I haven't been feeling so smart lately, but school makes me feel smarter. Oh yeah, baby.

I cheered on my best friend and thousands of others this last weekend at the Portland Marathon. I figured it wasn't going to be big deal, but I got all excited when I got there. And then, as we're riding up the course, watching people streaming down the other side of the street, I just wanted to be there amongst them. I saw lots of folks who looked really bad, who didn't prepare for the day, or just through the luck of the draw were in bad shape.

It's funny. I thought the long distance urge was past me. Maybe not? I have no desire whatsoever to do a 5K. But a 20K or half-marathon sounds great.

I've been really excited listening to the buzz around Electra's new Dutch-style Commuter bike. Today, in the Wall Street Journal, there's an article about the new commuter bikes that it appears everybody's putting out. Usually, WSJ articles are behind a pay wall, but this appears available.

As I read these things, I think a Breezer or a real dutch bike is in my future. I want 7 speeds, I want a hub generator lighting system, I want it to be road-ready. The only thing a Breezer is missing is the coat/skirt guard. Which is very important.

Portlanders seem a bit dutch bike obsessed. I just found this blog just now. Man.

Here are a few more bike related sillinesses that I found via the Bike Hugger:

• Yay! Who doesn't love Free Bike Day?


• Chick Magnets!

permalink October 6, 2006

August 31, 2006

vox redux

Hey. Neca asked for more information about Vox.
I learned about Vox reading Matt Haughey. He wasn't anyone I followed, but I just came across that post, and I just had a big uh-huh moment.

Here's what they say:

Vox is a new blogging tool from Six Apart, Ltd.. This is a unique and extraordinary type of blogging tool because we've put together the knowledge from TypePad, Movable Type, and LiveJournal and created a great new way to blog, with options for connecting to people and managing privacy at the same time.

Vox is a self-contained blogging system put together by Six Apart. They host it, they serve ads on it, you write it. They don't charge for the service.

You don't need to know any HTML to use it. In fact, you can't use HTML. Some people may find that frustrating, and I was one of them at first. But given that I code HTML for a living, I'm happy to just write and find multimedia, rather than spending time trying to get some great effect.

So essentially, initially, it's similar to Blogger in that its free. It's different from Blogger in a couple different important ways:
1) if you choose to put ads on your blogger blog, you earn that money; with vox, it comes with ads that support the service. You can't turn them off.
2) Vox is a community. You can read anything that's posted for public consumption, but if you're not a vox member, you can't comment.
3) Similar to LiveJournal, you choose your degree of revelation with Vox. We all are complicated people: we may want to write about a new opportunity, problems at work or home, or things that only your family would care about. With Vox, you can add people to your neighborhood (which is just a way of easily being able to read their entries), you can have friends, and you can have family. You decide who is what. And so you can write a friends only entry, and only your friends can read it or respond to it.

Mena Trott, the CEO of Six Apart, doesn't actually mention VOX in her talk at TED, but her banjo story talks about the painful difference of writing for the public vs writing for friends.. If you'd rather not stream the video, here's the short version:

In July of 2002, during the height of my traffic I wrote a weblog entry about wanting to purchase a banjo. The punchline being that I don't know how to play any musical instruments and that it was the sort of purchase that characterized my impulsiveness. And, in this weblog entry, I painted Ben as this overbearing tyrant of a husband who controlled my life and finances and couldn't understand that I just needed a banjo.

...

For those who knew me personally and those who had read my weblog since the beginning, the humor in this post was clear. Ben is as much an overbearing tyrant as I'm a professional banjo player.

...

So, back to the banjo post. I wrote it, turned on comments and sat back expecting the usual accolades that made this egoist tick. But then something different happened. In my comments and in my email inbox I received a different sort of comment. The tone could be summed up by this comment:

"Being married is about respecting each other. If your husband won't let you spend your collective money on a purchase you want, you should consider if this is the sort of man you want to spend your life with. After all, how much does he spend on beer in the course of a year."

Anyways, the offer is still open. I have invites. Just ask.

permalink August 31, 2006 | Comments (1)

August 28, 2006

vox

I've been doing some writing at Vox lately. It's interesting. Some of the interface works great, and some of it is frustrating, but by and large, I like having this interface that I don't have to code. I like the fact that it's all out of my control.

It does multimedia really well. You can easily post photos, videos, and books -- audio, I suppose, too, though I haven't tried it.

It lends itself very well to both short, spur of the moment posts and longer ones. And, like livejournal, you can set the level of privacy, so there are entries everyone can read, just friends, just family, etc. It's not as good as the LJ filtering system but most of us don't need that.

So. I have a handful of invites to give away. Want one? Write me!

And check out what I've been doing there at vj.vox.com

permalink August 28, 2006 | Comments (1)

August 25, 2006

music meme

it works like this:

You reply to this post and I give you a letter of the alphabet. Then you drudge up 10 songs that start with said letter and put them in your journal (with these or similar instructions).

Cheesepuppet gave me the letter B, so here's my list!

1. Baby, I can't please you, Sam Phillips


2. Bad News from the Stars, Stereo Total


3. Ballad of a Comeback Kid or Broken Beads or Bleeding Heart Show, The New Pornographers


4. Believe what you're saying, Sugar


5. Birdhouse in your Soul, They Might Be Giants


6. Birds or Bon Voyage, Quasi; Field Studies


7. Birthday Cake, Cibo Matto


8. Bole Chudiyan from the film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham


9. Braided Hair, Speech & Neneh Cherry (from 1 Giant Leap)


10. Brazilectro, Zuco 103


11. Broken Ship, Immaculate Machines


12. But I'm different now, the Jam


13. Butts Wigglin, The Tragically Hip

crossposted at vj.vox.com (with videos of some of these)

permalink August 25, 2006 | Comments (3)

August 22, 2006

Yeah, whatever

I hate the fact that my mood can shift so suddenly.

I had a nice ride into work, and as I'm in the right turn lane, ready to turn the corner into my building, I see a guy who works in the building. It's not that I recognize him: I recognize his bike, this sweet matte black and shiny red Trek.

So I say, "Sweet bike!"

And he says, "Yeah, whatever."

And I say, "I was serious."

And now I'm pissed. I'm all $#*()& you, &Y*@, though he's long gone.

Why can't people be nice? Now my day is shot.

permalink August 22, 2006 | Comments (0)

August 8, 2006

a good day

It's been a good day. I rode the new bike into work today, and, while the getting started from a stop thing is hard, it's getting easier. I'm getting a little better about trusting that I can balance. It's a weird thing, feeling like I'm learning how to cycle again. Amazed how far my leg can reach and how tight the ball of my calf can go.

I had a good day at work today too. I learned something new, on my own. I broke something and then fixed it. At lunch, I went someplace new (yuck) and strolled and took pictures.

My knee still hurts a lot of time, though not when I'm cycling. It's hot to the touch and still firm and swollen. But I suppose as long as I shaved my legs, I could wear a long skirt to work.

The ride home was a trial, but I made it, I did it, and then I got to eat an omelette that my sweetie made along with some homebrewed hefeweizen. It was good, too. We've spent the evening reading with all the animals on hand. The dog has been especially devoted this evening.

I just got The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women who surrendered their children for adoption in the decades before Roe v. Wade from the library. It's good. I think it'll make up its own entry.

permalink August 8, 2006 | Comments (0)

August 6, 2006

more sidelining

Well, this last week or so sure has been dull.

I've written out my whole sob story, but you're not really here for that. I have housemaid's knee (a goose egg size bump out the side—attractive!), and the last four days have been marked by some sort of rolling illness involving breakouts, feverishness, severe headache, muscle and bone pains, and stomach flueyness. I initially thought I was allergic to the antibiotic for my knee, now, well, can you get a severe headache from a virus?

I was hoping to be starting the week fresh, but I'll be lucky if I can make it to work tomorrow.

And then there's my stoopid knee. I don't have full range of motion yet, nor, obviously, without pain. I'm walking without a limp. I'm dying to bike, but I don't want to screw up what I've already screwed up plenty well, thanks. Bridge Pedal next week looks entirely unlikely. I'm so bummed.

permalink August 6, 2006 | Comments (3)

July 22, 2006

an evening on the river

Misty, of Athena Diaries, was in town the last couple days, and I was finally able to catch up with her last night. She is just as you might expect: a razor-sharp wit, very focused, funny and self-depreciating, so it was wonderful to hang out with her and her husband for a couple of hours.

We ended up at the waterfront, at Riverplace, at a restaurant called Three Degrees. They have some outside dining seating, and also some outside bar seating, where we ended up. They had these wooden rockers out on the deck, facing the river, very nice. I sat working on some fingerless gloves, looking at the river, drinking a decent beer, and some water that some shadowy figure miraculously kept refilled, and even though it was insanely hot, it was quite humane.

I always have a smidge of trepidation about meeting someone that I know online. I've become good friends with people I've met online, and the vast majority of folks I've met have been cool. All the running blogs have been great. But there are some freaks out there and I admit I've been burned.

I had no reason to worry about Misty, and we hit it off like old college chums, with no problems finding things to talk about. I appreciated that Misty kept asking me about some of my favorite things like bicycling in Portland, and the city of Portland, and social services in Portland. And Portland was on: everyone was out in the park, walking along the pathway: punk rockers, young people on dates, people dressed to the nines, muslim women with kids, folks coming from dragon boat practice with their paddles, and every possible "type" of bicyclist. It was beautiful. Too bad it was so damn hot.

I hope they come back soon!

permalink July 22, 2006 | Comments (1)

July 11, 2006

Dump!

I've had a good run of days lately. I've been bicycle commuting every day, and it's getting better. Really.

All the hills this morning: I never sank beneath 10mph. The Hawthorne Bridge, also never below 10mph. May I just say I rock? So maybe things are getting better.

I got asked this morning if my bike was an electric bike. People ask this because it says Electra on it -- the manufacturer of the bike. This morning, it was early on in the ride and I was not wearing my fat-slow-person chip, and so I was able to chat amiably about no, it's not an electric bike.

But there are times, too many times, where I get that question after I've been riding hard for 40 minutes and I'm running late, I'm trying not to pant because there are other cyclists there, and I get stopped at a light, and someone will ask. The fat-slow chip is big and mean and easily offended, because of course, this is all about me.

If nothing else, if I get another bike that isn't an electra, perhaps I won't be getting that question any longer.

...
I did go and look at the next-in-the-running bicycle over the weekend. I had a bit of sticker shock -- the bike was almost a thousand bucks, which was a quite a bit more than I had been planning to spend. It was a nice bike to be sure, and it rode well, but it seemed oddly compromised between the straight up style of the Townie, and the more aggressive bent-over roadie style.

....
I have been going through lots of stuff at the house. We did two dump runs over the weekend! Talk about invigorating! I love going to the dump, and I especially love hurling things off the truck. It's brilliant!

There is part of me who just wants to get stuff out of the house as soon as possible, and another part of me that thinks: Vj, you could sell those books, you could sell those CDs, you could consign that furniture. I'm caught between my old self, who would be looking to squeeze every penny out of this stuff, and my new self who just needs it gone NOW before I can change my mind.

permalink July 11, 2006 | Comments (8)

July 5, 2006

weekend warrior

It's the day after the 4th of July, and you know what that means. I went back to work after listening to firecrackers firing all night, the animals freaking out, and I'm just not that into it. To make matters worse, I need to have my ears pressure-cleaned as everything sounds like it's happening in a galaxy far far away.

I had a good long weekend where I was a bit too much of a weekend warrior. But still, there appears to be no permanent damage, so hey.

Thursday, I did go to the gym and I did a double circuit on the lifecycle weight equipment. I did a couple of chin-ups too, and I figured I might ache a bit for a couple of days. That actually lasted through Sunday!

Friday, I ended up going into work in the morning to finish up some stuff. I walked in, which was so humane, so very pleasant. Though it was odd: as I was crossing the Steel pedestrian bridge, I came upon a wounded rat. It was still alive, and it couldn't move.

I left work shortly before noon and rode the bike into Hollywood and got my hair done. Then I rode into Irvington to see Career Dude. and then home.

Saturday morning, I decided to walk 9 miles. I thought about doing it with PFit, but it just didn't thrill me, so I ended up walking from the house through Irvington, Lloyd, Buckman, Ladd, and Brooklyn... basically from Williams & Fremont to Holgate & Milwaukie. It started off wonderfully: no one was out, the air was cool, there were lots of trees, but I made the mistake of stopping for breakfast on the way back, and time ground to a halt. Suddenly it was hot, there was traffic, and I was tired. I made the whole distance, and I happily took a cold bath, and then I slept the whole afternoon away.

Which is my body's way of going, WTF were you thinking, exactly?

The rest of the weekend was a little lower-key: cleaning, decluttering, hanging out with my loved ones, some biking around. It was pretty great.

permalink July 5, 2006 | Comments (2)

June 29, 2006

what a difference

I'm finally back to normal. I woke, and had energy. Wuhoo! I did some cleaning, and then I jumped on the bike and rode into work.

I decided to take the Eastbank Esplanade rather than the path in Tom McCall since it's a smidge more difficult. It felt good. I felt strong. So strong, indeed, that I crossed the Hawthorne Bridge at 9mph.

Now those of you who are strong cyclists, who are at the recommended weight on the insurance charts, I know this is no big deal to you. Sheesh, yeah, why would anyone celebrate 9 piddly miles an hour?

I usually cross the Hawthorne Bridge at about 4mph. I can walk faster than that! But by that point, I'm starting to tire.

This morning, I was starting to tire as well, but obviously not as much as previously. I've got to celebrate that.

...
I have two immediate goals, and one short-term goal. The immediate ones are to visit the gym today, to exercise over my lunch rather than working through it, and to get a hair appointment (Okay, I guess that's three, but the first two are really combined).

The short-term goal is to fit nicely into my favorite jeans. They fit over the weekend... hopefully when I try them on tomorrow, they'll fit even better.

permalink June 29, 2006 | Comments (3)

June 27, 2006

stealing inspiration

I'm feeling kinda low energy today, so I can use all the help I can get. I was reading Brent's Poignant Irrelevance, and I came across this from an Outside article about Floyd Landis:

There's only one rule: The guy who trains the hardest, the most, wins. Period. Because you won't die. Even though you feel like you'll die, you don't actually die. Like when you're training, you can always do one more. Always. As tired as you might think you are, you can always, always do more. --Landis

The phrase that Brent took away is Feed the Goal.

keep walking past that crap and chew some gum. feed the goal. that is my new mantra for the summer. very simple. focus on the goal, and feed it appropriately. both must be in sync. http://metrxman.blogspot.com/2006/06/feed-goal.html

I'm gonna try to keep that in mind.

permalink June 27, 2006 | Comments (2)

June 26, 2006

Bike Fair!

Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's my psoas. Either way, I've been moving slower than I'd like since Saturday.

The Bike Fair was fabulous! Sweetie and I went and got brekkie, and then dropped off the water and sunscreen at the park about 9:30 am as volunteers were just beginning to raise the tents.

I made it to the park in record time, 15 minutes. (And yes, I wore the schmatte)

By the time I got back at 12:45, things were starting to look like they were going to happen. Jeff was all set up, ready to size folks for helmets. Jonathan had the craft area up. The pedal-powered smoothie stand was in process. Everyone was working on their area: beer, the stage, the food, the bike portraits, etc. Bike clubs were starting to set up their club houses.

A volunteer area was already set up, next to the t-shirt sales. After a quick walk-around, I stationed myself there and the volunteers started streaming in.

People came in early. People came in late. People showed up for the wrong shift, or just showed up. Everyone was astounding patient with the process, which inevitably involved some waiting, and then some frantic needs all of the sudden. All my volunteers were troopers.

Early on, it was clear that my psoas was not happy. I'd try to find some out of the way place to stretch, but stretching seemed to be just a momentary relief, and anyways, people would kinda freak when they'd see me stretching. Are you okay? So, I just tried to be as comfortable as I could be, and make other people happy.

I had invited some cow