January 17, 2004

This Day in My History

TODAY's QUOTE

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its joy.

~ Anonymous

Yesterday's Entries

2001: Alphabet Soup
2002: I Am Woman, Hear Me Scream
2003: Why Medical Staff Goes Grey

TODAY's READ

Rubyfruit Jungle

TODAY's DVD

You'll be happy to know that I'm finally into Seasion 3 of The Sopranos.

TODAY's WEATHER

Dunno. I've been at the computer all day and never bothered to look outside.

A GOOD LOSS

17 January 2004

It's an ill wind that doesn't blow someone some good. We lost the car, and I think I’ve lost something too.

It wasn’t stolen. In fact, this "loss" is something that I’m happy about.

I think I’m in the process of losing my fear over riding my bike, finally.

When Jeri was here, we went for a ride. I wrote about that. I hadn’t been back on the bike since then. I’d thought about it, but always found excuses for not doing it.

Wednesday Walt was going to take the car to San Francisco and I would have to ride my bike to work, but when he realized I would be home at 3 p.m., he decided I could take the car and he’d still have enough time to get to San Francisco for dinner. So I drove.

But that was the fateful night that the car was stolen and the next morning there was no way I could take it.

I decided I’d walk to work, because I just didn’t want to get on my bike.

But I got involved in stuff here and even though I was going to be alone in the office for the first hour or so, I still didn’t want to get there late, and there was no way I could do the nearly two miles to the office in 15 minutes. There was no other choice -- I had to ride my bike.

It was terrible. I had no idea how out of shape I was. I was huffing and puffing and kept shifting to lower and lower gears. And this is in a town which is basically flat. I was angry with myself for losing all that momentum.

But what happened was that I was concentrating so much on just breathing and keeping the bike moving that I forgot to be scared.

By the time I realized that maybe the reason I was having such a hard time wasn’t necessarily my out-of-shape-ness (though that is definitely part of it), it was because I hadn’t pumped up the darn tires in weeks!

When I finally got to the office (on time, thankyewverymuch), I felt the tires and they weren’t just "slightly soft" they were very soft. Well -- no WONDER!!

Going home was better -- it was the "downhill" part of the trip (unnoticeable up and down hill, until you are on rolling wheels!) So it went easier–and I realized when I was struggling that at least part of the problem was that the tires were too soft.

I also realized that by the end of the ride, I was riding like I used to -- somewhat fearlessly.

Yesterday, Walt woke up and announced that he felt he was grieving the loss of the car. Well, we do know about grief in this family. One thing that I will forever associate with grieving is ham. So naturally, since Walt was grieving the car, he needed ham.

I also needed a lot of other groceries, and I decided that even though I hate the car, I’d take Dave’s car (the prototype Toyota, with the stone wheels made by Og the Caveman back before anybody had heard of automatic transmission).

Only, as it usually does -- or doesn’t do -- Dave’s car didn’t want to start for me.

That meant I could either walk to the supermarket, or ride my bike. I decided to walk, but then thought about carrying a heavy bag with my sore arm (I’m so pathetic) and decided -- the hell with it. I’d take the bike. I dug out my old canvas bag again, hooked it up to the bike, grabbed my helmet, pumped up the tires, and took off.

What a difference! I didn’t feel like riding through mud any more. I was flying again. I was banking into turns, I was going between tight squeezes.

I went to Albertsons, made my purchases, loaded up the canvas bag, hopped (ok...crawled...) onto the bike again, and back home again, easily negotiating the tight turn from the bike path to the sidewalk, which I refused to do when we went riding with Jeri.

It was fun.

Now all I need to do is (a) raise the bike seat a bit, and (b) get my strength back up again. I’m on my way to being back in the saddle again.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Pennytree.jpg (35146 bytes)

Our friend in Australia -- Penny (on whose farm we stayed)
took this with her new camera. I think it's a great photo!

For more photos, please visit My Fotolog and My FoodLog