I thought I didn't like Red.

When we first moved here - we moved with Josey, packed full, and nothing else. I spent about $300 the first two weeks to outfit the house (from thrift stores, garage sales, used and antique furniture stores, etc) and have probably spent $150 more since then, on furniture for the entire house. Part of that first $300 was for a futon. I'd never really experienced a futon before - but it seemed like a good idea... it wasn't. We pulled off the mattress and used it on the floor as a bed until we finally bought a real mattress not long after. The entire set up was just too cumbersome to deal with, with the mattress on it - moving it up and down all the time.

Before that, when we had set up Josey as our house, we had two main issues to deal with - one was how to fit D's large bouldering crash pad into the car, the other was what to use on the plywood bed we'd built into the back, to make it sleepable. Luckily - his crash pad fit perfectly over 2/3rds of the bed. So we cut some crash pad foam from an old pad down to fit the remaining 1/3rd and all was good.

After I pulled the futon mattress off the frame, I discovered the cut down 1/3rd chunk of crash pad foam was just the right size to fit on the futon when it was in it's upright position - so I threw an afghan over it all, added some big pillows and called it a couch.

In the time since then we've debated getting a real couch. Often. The main issues being - furniture doesn't top our priority list for large expenditures - it will end up being moved shortly - and it has to get up one flight of stairs, as our place is built into a hill with the garage and storage space downstairs and everything else Up. Plus any couch that I'd like enough to spend the money to buy new would be above our current price range... I'm not spending $400 on some god-awful number from the local furniture warehouse... I can wait for what I want.

Recently D was expressing a renewed desire for a couch. So I'd been keeping my eye out for something suitable. The other night, I left for work a bit early so I could drop D off at a trailhead, from which he rode home. Which landed me in the main part of town about 15 minutes before I had to be at work... and about 10 blocks from the best thrift store for furniture I've yet to find in the state.

I looked around for a bit and while I saw many interesting and promising pieces of furniture, none of them were couches. Then - as I was leaving, behind a big desk sitting outside, a bit of red attracted my attention... hiding, one stacked upside down on top of the other - were these two matching love seats. Couch and love seat sets are common - but how often do you find two matching love seats??? As my business has thoroughly attacked the main room of our house, we don't have a ton of extra space - but we most definitely have room for two love seats... so I talked to the woman who runs the place - as the bed was in Josey and I had to be at work shortly, I didn't have any way to take them right then and there and they were closing up for the day... so after discussing various options, she said if I was back there first thing in the morning to take them away I could have them both for $10. How absurd!!!

D agreed to help me take the bed out of the back of the truck at 6:15 in the morning, so I could take him to work and then go pick up the couches - of course this was after I woke him up at 11pm when I got home from work and tried to talk to him while he was half-asleep and fully-disgruntled... note to self - do not wake people up to ask for favors - wait till the morning!!!

They both - ever so barely - fit in the back of the truck... ever so barely... I almost agreed to make two trips till the guy helping me at the store convinced me it would work - and we know how I feel about making two trips for anything - matching love seats included.

Then when I got home I couldn't help but want to bring them in - up the flight of stairs - all by myself - and get them into a natural position so D could immediately see what a good idea it all was when he got home (even the waking up in the middle of the night part).

Suffice to say, they want to be reupholstered - but at the moment they go perfectly with the coffee table we painted red way back, a year and a half ago.

And they'll look a bit better when there aren't the green and white pillows and afghan that were on the previous "couch"... but they amuse me to no end - and that's what's important.

(The little green table in the back is a side table that matches the red coffee table but was painted differently - the four little drawers you can see on the front of the red table hold our folded maps - we have an Arizona Drawer, Utah Drawer, California Drawer and Eastern Drawer which has various maps mainly from Colorado but also North Dakota (Maah Daah Hay trail) and other assorted places - and now we have the perfect place for multiple people to sit around pouring over those maps.)

Quote of the Day.

While serving at The Wine Bar tonight -

Customer to me - "If you were a book, you would be the sort of book I would read, in public."




And then I essentially called another guy a bad husband - at which point his wife hugged me... she hugged me.

And we were busy and I said to another guy - "I'm so sorry for neglecting you like this." to which he replied "Oh no worries, makes me feel like I'm at home."

And another customer left this tip for me: "Don't bet on horse number five in the sixth race."

Then there was the guy who, as he left, said to the owner at the door "Well I never got my check, but I left some cash on the table that ought to cover it." He left me $60 to cover an $18 bill...


Weirdos. All weirdos, myself included.

A long way.

I was just thinking - we should really go visit Missoula sometime soon, get an idea of the town, areas where me might want to live, etc. We go to Colorado, and Utah, and California, all the time, no big deal - go visit Montana... so I Google mapped it...


View Larger Map

Just 17 hours away!!! 17 Hours!!! Idaho just doesn't exist in my mind the way it exists on a map... funny that. Montana is really far north. Like - Canada North... and Missoula is at only 3,000 feet - but is like - right in the middle of a bunch of Mountains... I think they're called The Rockies. Funny that.

Did I really sign up for this??? Is there a clause in the contract I can somehow exploit, to reverse this potential action???

Better get that block heater installed in Selma...

Quote of Last Week.

Driving through the desert in Eastern California.

M - Mind if I turn the radio on???

D - Look at the rocks and the flowers and be content.

Here we come -

Bit of scrambling in Joshua Tree - cause that's what you do when you can't climb.

The sign says - High Wings Ahead. Small on the middle horizon are a very large number of very large wind turbines.

Waves. This is right after I called my sister and left a message that included the sounds there-of. This is California.

California is green. Arizona is not. Me cycling up a big hill. It was eight miles of hill. All hill - all the time. Later they told me Mountain Lions enhabit this here stretch of green. It was good this information was imparted after my ride - as D kept going ahead and I was alone a lot - which would otherwise have left me nervous - even though Mountain Lions usually don't eat people in the middle of the day.

It also happens that a seamstresses who works for me, moved to Arizona from Ojai - but I didn't know that until she came today - which was funny. She lived in Ojai for seven years - I should have asked her for the local scoop - but alas.

Thanks to our Yorba hosts - it was invaluable for D to have a solid base those few days before the race to relax and do nothing (and cook and drink good beer).

Why Arizona can't manage to have fresh fish and interesting foods (we got this great Irish cheese while out there) amazes me... Arizona is so close to California but yet - so very far away.

Malaise.

Between the sound of waves crashing and the molasses (humidity) in the air - I believe I've discovered why surfers take such a slow approach to life.

Southern California can really sap all the motivation out of a person pretty quick.  Not that - ya know - I had a lot to start with...  but gosh there it all went.

All I want to do is sit in one place and not move.

Plus - my hair is starting to look more and more like Carol Ann's dog - Fluffy.  I realize I grew up in humidity - but after living in the desert for so long I didn't realize how accustomed I'd become to it's absence. 

This is a good reminder for TransIowa - as Iowa's April humidity hovers around 65%

:)

Outside.

If we get things together (including making some adjustments on my bike so it will be in TransIowa arrangement) we'll be leaving for California something this evening... though maybe tomorrow morning.

We were suppose to leave yesterday night - but the AZ Spring Fling stole the weekend. We had a bit of a slumber party at our place Saturday night and it's hard to sit around with eight other people excitedly talking about the rides they've done and the ride they'll be doing and not want to ride yourself. After determining that Sunday's ride wasn't really technical and there was a 60% chance of rain with highs in the 50's - it seemed like I should go. (You don't get weather like that a lot around here - so it's a great chance to test TI clothing arrangements).

When everyone went to bed I asked D a little more about the trail and decided I'd go - D and I also talked a bit about what we wanted to do during this coming week in California and about my riding and plans and TransIowa - all things we should talk about more but don't.


In the morning we drove down to the Black Canyon Trail and on the way - D told me he was going to give me his back wheel for TransIowa... PomPom is a three speed 29er with disc brakes, the only other wheel we had that fit that and was geared was the one on D's Lev (which he planned to use extensively in southern Utah during the time I'm in Iowa). While I've made improvements both with my knee's strength and my cycling style - the extra three gears D's wheel gives me will make a difference I certainly won't entirely appreciate until I'm out there - but what means so much right now, is the awesome show of support his offer embodies. And it really took me by surprise.


So we got started on the Black Canyon Trail. About a mile in we took our shoes off to cross a very cold, calf deep stream, and that was the last I saw of the rest of them as they climbed the big hill, up out of the stream bottom. It's a very hilly region and the trail has some stiff switchbacks from time to time and a decent number of long, slight uphill or downhill, side-hilling stretches.

Going up that first hill my shifting kept acting up and wouldn't let me get into my easier gear, but I said Heck - and pushed up it in the middle of the three- I quickly realized I was tweaking my left knee too hard and ended up finishing the hill with some walking to keep things reasonable. On the second big stretch of hill I finally managed to get it shifted and rode the rest of the ride in my easiest gear to make up for what I'd already done to the knee. I rode almost seven miles in - and then figuring my speed, the happiness of my knee and the speed the rest of the group would presumably be going at - decided to turn around.

I actually managed to get up to 14 mph during the ride - which is somewhat unheard of for me on single track (besides on the J.E.M. which is so smooth and sweat). Plus - despite some serious clouds and a bit a minor precipitation - the weather was wonderful the rest of the day - and really didn't help me evaluate a thing clothes wise... but I'll take the nice weather anyway!!!

In the last two miles - as I came back around the ridge, up above the stream bottom, I ran into three other riders, waiting for their forth to catch up - we chatted for a second and then I started down the long sidehill descent to the river. As it was downhill I started picking up some good speed. The trail is reasonably smooth there - though it's only about three feet wide and then slopes away several hundred feet to the river bottom. I thought - I'm going a little fast, I should slow down. And I slowed down. And I thought - this is a good speed - then I fell.

I didn't fall like I tipped over, I fell like my front wheel hit too close to the edge of the trail and I must have hit the brakes or over corrected or Something - but I don't actually remember anything besides riding and then realizing I was falling.

The next three tenths of a second went something like this.

My Mind: You're going to cartwheel two hundred feet down this very steep hill.
My Body: There's a ledge right there, the ledge with stop my fall.
My Mind: Not if you fly right over the ledge like you're doing right now.
My Body: Point. Just don't let me hit that cactus.
My Mind: Fine. But by the way - you're going to cartwheel two hundred feet down a very steep hill - action might be in order.
My Body: Yes - okady - feet down, head up - no rolling - grab something!!! Not the cactus!!!

At which point I lifted my head uphill and tipped onto my stomach and came to a halt about 10-15 feet below the trail - with my bike to one side, between myself and a pointy plant.

I laid there evaluating the security of my position - what hurt - and how much it hurt. Then I stood up to see three little heads looking down at me in shock... the people I'd passed had watched the whole thing unfold - aghast. They waved and yelled and I waved and yelled back that I was fine - no problem.

I looked around at where I was and where the bike was and realized that I couldn't just sit there hurting or those three people weren't going to believe me that I was really alright. So I grabbed the handle bars and dragged the bike back up to the ledge - and then finally dragged it from the ledge back onto the trail. The back wheel was squeaking oddly - but I eventually figured everything would be fine and got on and continued down the trail.

Crossed the river again - and in the one mile between the river and the trail head the rest of the group caught back up to me. The ones in front had stopped for a minute to wait for the others and ran into the three who'd watched me tumble - and heard the story from them.


In the end PomPom seems fine - I have a good scrap on my ribs where they hit the edge of the ledge in their attempt to arrest my fall - my left knee got beat and bruised (which is making it difficult to determine which percentage of hurt is over-use and which is bruise) and a few other scraps - but I'm in pretty good shape, I think, for having fallen like that.


D has taken a couple good falls in the last few days and isn't being very sympathetic... I believe the phrase "Baby's First Crash" got used :) Despite the fact that I have crashed before - and it was worse... but I wasn't going very fast that time and I was on perfectly flat ground, and I was knowingly attempting a rock garden in a stupid and conceited manner. So when I look at that crash I see what I did wrong and I know it couldn't have been any worse. When I look at this last tumble I have no clue what I did - so I don't know how to avoid it in the future - and it could have been much worse - which I think always leaves us feeling unnerved.

So now D and I are both aching and packing and retooling bikes - and we'll be off on Spring Break in the next 24 hours!!! D's got the Coyote 2 Moons 100K at the end of the week - we'll be in Joshua Tree tomorrow and hopefully do some nice biking along the way as well.


If only there had been a Llama on the trail - the day really would have left nothing to be desired!!!

Jj and my Mother.

Jj keeps trying to scare me with references to Iowa wind (which averages around 12 mph in April) - to which I respond, I spent 21 years in Iowa, the Iowa wind and I are buddies, chums, like This...

at least that's what I tell myself in the deep dark of night.


What looms as a larger specter in my mind's eye right now is TransIowa v.2... ya'll remember - the year no one finished.

This years huge snow dumps alternated with odd warm weather has not only swollen Iowa's rivers but also played havoc with her gravel roads. My Mother reports Iowa counties in a fit over where they'll find the money to re-gravel their roads... which means - regardless of the weather immediately preceding that weekend the roads are starting out in less than ideal condition - and if things don't shape up fast we could be in for a patented Iowa April SnowStorm.

They don't only happen in Colorado.

April in Iowa can range from 90 degrees to 15 degrees, plus that wind... plus more days with precipitation than without... well, almost.

Anyway - what worries me most right now are those roads. Riding 300+ miles of gravel and dirt roads is one thing... riding 300+ miles of mud bog is... well... messy.

And if I remember correctly, Iowa mud just does not exfoliate - think of my skin!!!

It worked in Macedonia.

"he kept the animal away by buying a generator, lighting up the area, and playing thumping Serbian turbo-folk music."

A potential strategy if we move to Montana???


Also - the Air Horn (or Sports Blaster, as the label identifies it) Strategy for Puppies during TransIowa is primary so that I won't have to scream and possibly harm my throat even more than I presume it already will be from the riding... I'm hoping the Air Horn will be just as disconcerting to possible Puppies. I don't like Puppies.

100% Pure Iowa Puppy - don't they look ferocious!!!

It weighs 2.6 ounces and will be zip-tied to my stem. If all else fails - I will throw it at them.

I don't like Puppies.


Also - does no one know what a China Marker is??? I had to ask three different people at the store today before one of them showed the smallest sign of recognition. Alas - the guy who knew What they were, didn't know Where they were... and after a serious solo search... no China Marker for me. Anybody know a store that carries them???

OMG!!!

First let me just say that every time my sister posts a comment on this blog where she uses those NetSpeak letter-abbreviation thingys - I usually have to Google them to figure out what she's saying - however after reading the most recent "indexed" I'm driven to using things like OMG...

I'm not going to link to it - because not everyone who reads my blog would find it as hilariously funny as it is - but yeah.


P.S. It wasn't Drug Abuse so much as Drug Pushing that the Vatican definitively called a Mortal Sin... but I guess she makes up for that slight in other ways.

Things I don't eat.

We got home from our favorite local restaurant - Giovanni's - and D starts chopping up veggies, and it took me like five minutes before I realized he'd just eaten, what was going on???

So this is actually for tomorrow when he's leaving straight from work to ride in Sedona... so I guess that makes sense... for a minute I really thought he'd eaten a 12 inch Mediteranean Pizza with Artichoke hearts, olives, spinach and feta, just to come home and make a salad.

Anyway - he filled this cute tupperware with all sorts of things I don't eat.

Start with half a cabbage, chopped -
Add shaved carrot-
Cilantro-
Shredded beats (Chad - he'll be forever indebted) -
And Extra Firm Tofu marinated in Orange Juice, Sriracha, and soy sauce for four days - then sauteed.

Yuck!!!

My bicycle loves me.

I had a special package with a little extra bag accessory for a loyal customer that I wanted to get out in the mail today, but no carrier pick-up scheduled.

D left this morning for work and then straight to the canyon with Josey - so what was I to do...

I rode my bicycle!!!


It's absolutely Too gorgeous here. So I headed to the post office to drop off my package, then over to the grocery store to pick up wine, corned beef and toilet paper - managed to talk a guy at the deli counter into buying the local Chompie's Jewish Rye bread, instead of the national brand he had in his hands, after I caught him squeezing a loaf of the Chompie's and looking at it hesitantly.

Then met a nice lady in the check-out line from Madison County, Iowa, she'd already been to the grocery store once that day - but forgot a bag of apples that her husband always takes to work in his lunch - so she needed to come back.

I finished by heading over to the library to drop off an almost-late book, and got an up-nod from a couple teen-aged boys on ridiculously small BMX bikes after I flew by them on the bike path home.


I love my bicycle. And my love is most definitely reciprocated.

Nothing Lost - Everything Found

The number of hours D's huge Princeton Tech light really will last on the highest setting - 7.5 hours. (50+ hours on the lowest)

TransIowa Necessities - on the left, my nutrition plan - on the right, my Anti-Dog plan... I will eat the Ice Cream and not be eaten by the Farm Dogs.

Use an AirHorn - Be a Winner - it says it all right there...

Together at last!!! (Okay - yeah I probably need new ones - but the cosmic significance of finding them can not be dismissed lightly).

I would include a photo of The Plum - which was recovered from the floor of Josey (the very recently and thoroughly cleaned floor) - but D ate it already.

Lost and Found.

Found. Both my bike gloves at the same time. Previous to now I've found either of them independently, on multiple occasions, but not at the same time in maybe six months - maybe longer.

I knew I was getting close when I found one when we were traveling and put it someone in the truck where I would remember to take it into the house.

Then I found one in the house, but outside of my room - where I thought the other one was. I didn't know if the one I'd found was the one from the car which I had thoughtfully brought into the house, or the one in the house - leaving the bedroom for a stroll.

So I searched both the car and the house and still only had one glove.

Two days ago I did the first major vacuum overhaul of Josey in too many years. Both gloves are happily reunited. This obviously is fate saying "Let me do what I can to make TransIowa go well."


Lost. When I got home from work plus gym plus grocery store and attempted to get out of the car with six shopping bags, my purse, gym bag, server apron, left-overs from my restaurant and three new books from the library (I don't make second trips) I opened the passenger door to have a bag fall over sideways and a couple Thumps where heard. I recovered an Apricot I sandwiched between my feet. When I unloaded the bags upstairs I had only one plum - I put two in my shopping cart... I returned to the cold with D's huge bike light and failed to find any produce in the driveway, I even checked the drainage ditch... as rolling was not improbable.

D - if you hear something Swash when leaving for work in the morning - I'm sorry, that's your second plum.

Company

We've had visitor's this weekend - one we broke, the other, we've done our best to insult.

He can clarify the success. Or not.

And the weekend's only half way over...

Officially.

Not only is New Belgium's seasonal - Springboard Ale in stores...


but the windows are now open.


And won't be shut again till October, when we probably won't be here anymore, anyway...



sorry to all you crazy kids getting snow - but after a week of perfection, weather-wise, I'm declaring it spring.

Officially.