OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING...

21 February 2003

After getting yesterday's journal entry posted at 2:30 a.m., I went back to sleep. I thought about setting the alarm to wake me up at 5:30, as I planned to do, and then just decided I'd sleep till I woke up. Dr. G was going to be out of the office and I didn't have any hard and fast deadlines.

I awoke at 7, to the sound of Walt in the kitchen making coffee. A full night of sleep, more or less! Certainly the best way to start the day.

But it only got better. The sun was shining. Sun. When was the last time we saw sun around here? What's more, when I stepped outside, I didn't feel like rushing back inside to put on a jacket.

I got some work finished at home and packaged a box of promotional material for The Big Voice, to send to the Stages Repertory Theatre in Houston, which is producing it in April.

The post office is on the other side of Davis and I decided it was such a beautiful morning, there was no way I was going to drive there, so I put the box in my carry bag and set off on my bike.

This is necessary practice for me. I may have been talked into doing something totally insane. Haggie is encouraging me to do the Cinderella ride next month. This is a "metric century" (63 miles) for women only. The path is mostly flat with the hills, she tells me, "rolling," (meaning she thinks I can handle them--she's seen me try to get up hills). I've never ridden more than 40 miles before, so if I really do this, it may kill me.  (She tells me to think of it as three 20 mile rides, since there are rest stops along the way.)

Dr. G started giving me training tips. "You have to make a couple of 50 mile rides a week from now until then," he told me. Uh....I doubt it. Cindy tells me that it's a 3 hour ride out to Winters and back (the farthest I've ever gone before), and I can't see finding 4 hours a day to ride 50 miles. But I am going to ride my bike as much as I can.

So I took off for the post office and it was delightful. I took off my light-weight jacket because it was too warm to wear. There was a nice breeze blowing-- enough to give me some work to pedal into the wind, but not enough to make me shift down more than one gear. The trees are all in blossom now and it's just beautiful riding in areas where there are blossoming trees.

There wasn't even a very long line at the post office. Be still my heart!

From the post office, I went to the office, making a slight detour through the cemetery to say hi to the kids, and then on to the office.

With Dr. G gone, I always get a lot done because I can start a job and end it without being interrupted in the middle. I made my way through several jobs that I'd been putting off for awhile and organized work so it should go quickly tomorrow as well.

One thing that needed to be done was that a package needed to be FedEx'd. Unfortunately it was too big to carry on my bike (I could have done with two bungee cords, but I only had one). It was also 1:30 and I was starving. I was either going to run next door to the supermarket and get a big specialty sandwich or I was going to find something "legal" to eat. The solution to both was to take my bike home, make a big zero-point soup, and then get the car to return to the office for the package.

I rode my bike over the overpass. I'm getting better at this. I still arrive at the top out of breath, but I am not in the lowest gear any more and I think today I was going 8 mph as I approached the top. That's not bad for an old lady. What I love about doing that hill--even though I hate the hill--is the feeling of strength in my legs. I've never had muscles in my legs, but the more I do this, the more I am aware that my legs are getting stronger.

When I crossed the overpass and went through the park, there are a couple of small hills there and I didn't even have to downshift at all to get over those.

Now I have a kitchen full of food (just went to the supermarket), an evening to transcribe--and a full night of sleep under my belt so I can stick with it longer. The special article I wrote last week was published today and read much better than I thought it did at the time, so I'm pleased with that. I've also stayed on my diet all day and that is a very empowering feeling.