Verse un-Cursed

Thursday. They say power will be restored on Thursday, late Thursday. Really? On a warm, negative foot of snow, summer day?

What is this the Dark Ages? Why yes, yes it certainly is. And you'd be better off on foot, on bike, on horseback if you're trying to go anywhere.

I Got Da Powah late last night. Yippee. All is not lost. Very little was lost to be exact. Because I'm cheap, and take chances.

Let's talk ice cream. True enough, I tossed the milk; I typically have to on any given week. I didn't even try to pour off the smelly top trick. However, I savor the luxury of ice cream and I don't let go easily.

I'm not sure what they are making ice cream from these days, but it doesn't so much melt as deflate. I'm sure it's some form of cancerous plastic bi-product, but it's delicious.

The ice creamstic wasn't a milky mess in my freezer, more of a congealed cool whip variety neartastrophe. I can work with that. Just add Kahlua and Creme. Viola! A tasty beverage for human consumption.

Good Morning Electric! Yes, please, I would like a cup of freshly brewed coffee! Cream? We have cream? Oh yeah, we have CREME. Yeah, I can drink, I don't drive!

Dim Idea

I tole all'y'all. Now it's cooler outside the house and darker inside. The Unyverse is akilter--and it's all YOUR fault!

All because of a little AC. I was just fiiine without it. But noooo, you said, that just ain't right. It ain't normal. TURN.ON.YOUR.AIR.

And so I did. NOW, no one has it! BRILLIANT. GENIUS. Thanks for that!

Here I am with a misplaced headlamp, lost flashlight, and a fridge full of food. Yes! I even bought food. FINALLY. Tons. Just so I could throw it away. Nice.

At least now I have money to buy more, what with the money I'm saving on electric and all!

Frienemies

Did you pass my friend up there? Yeah, if she turns up missing...I KILT HER. She should naturally decompose by...Thursday.

Let's park here she says. Let's do something hard she says. Let's do Black she says. OMG.UHG. Pant, pant, pant.

Get out of my ear!

Look at the people with puppies. See Spot. See Spot on a leash. See Spot propel hisself forward without the aid of hoomans. Bike see Spot. See, Bike, take note.

Hi, I will give you $10 if you take my $1500 bicycle. No? Really, NO? I know an organization that CHARGES you $10 to TAKE your bike. I'm offering you an Alexander AND a bicycle. No? Please?

Get OUT of my ear!

Where's the road she says. I'm not going up any more she says. Are we there yet she says. I lost the ability to speak four trees ago.

EAR! I'm Gnot kidding.

Hey, here's a thought. Let's double back on the Black/Yellow trail. It's unanimous, home on the Black/Yellow! Follow the black trail with the double yellow blaze right through the center. TFG.

It's a Bike!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then...enough said.

Ears Looking at You Kid

Shoot. I just took a shower, and guess what--I don't wash behind my ears. It's true, I don't. It's all my fault.

I know, my Gma used to always say, if you don't wash behind your ears, potatoes will grow there. By Gosh By Golly...she was right! That is exactly what's going on...I've got potatoes in my EARS.

And my doctor doesn't know about this? It's been around since there've been ears I bet! Sweaty Ear Syndrome. That's what I'm calling it. Gross.

It's not really my fault. YES, I've been showering and NO, I still don't have a date. It's the puff. You can't scrub your ears with a PUFF. Admit it. You don't. You can't. You can't squish that thing through an external acoustic meatus. You just can't!

Can of beer in your ear, I've heard. Scrub with a puff...not so much.

Everything Is All Right Grandma

Doc, I've got this pain in my....ear. Anything else to tell you? No, just my ear hurts. Please help.

Turns out I have beautiful ears...on the inside. Pretty on the inside, figures. And they hear good too. Itchy? Did you say itchy? No, just painful. In your office? Sure, I can meet you in your office.

I gather my bag, my glasses, my h.e.l.m.e.t. Why are you looking at me like that?!? She glares at me and says, oh, now you're going to put that on...inflection, raised earbrow. This melon protector? Two weeks after I tried to put my head through the bike trail? HELL YEAH, I'm going to put THIS on Doc.

She is grasping at straws. She thinks my helmet is hurting my ears. I prove that it is not. Wind. Could it be wind? Sure, I suppose it could, but don't tell me you're one of those doctors blaming my latest pain on the bike. Why is it always about the bike?

"I'm so glad we had this time together
Just to have a laugh or sing a song
Seems we just get started and before you know it
Comes the time we have to say, 'so long'."

STOP tugging on it! Bottom line....Rider's Ear. Rider's ear? Really? You totally just made that up!

Hillacious

Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap brick walls in a single speed...They are indeed a different breed of rider....

Oh, I got my chain handed to me today. It's okay, it was D. And I'm not competitive. Or a SuperRider

I KNOW! Why would she want to ride with me??!!? She's just that kind of girl. And as I was lapped over and over again I never once thought, hey I SUCK. I mean she rode across the country! I just ride to work.

She stayed with me. And I thought I was doing okay. I mean I'd look up, watch her climb, look down (FOR ONE SECOND), and the next thing I knew, I was hitting a brick wall! Who put that there!? In the middle of the road! It wasn't there two seconds ago.

No, I'm good. I was hanging back here to practice my track stand. I think next I'll check in on Granny. You go on and take that business call while I drop back and lick the salt off my own face. I'm sure this cramp will pass. Maybe on the next hill.

Yeah, no. Apparently I don't have another hill in me. Could you point me in the direction of the nearest lemonade stand? Thanks.

Colossal Fossil

Does a GPS work inside a house? I got the semi-self guided tour. Like two kids living out a Night in the Museum we tore out of the movie screen, literally.

The bedroom ceiling....oh you had to be there. The baby grand in the sunken main room. The wooden beams in the sitting room. The pool designed as a fountain. The guest shower faucet with a list of numbers...70 80 90 ....I am NOT kidding.

The kitchen: which one? The self described 'presentation kitchen' that had knobs on every cabinet? The one across the way lined with refrigerators? Or the one when you entered that looked like it served a fancy booth very ungreasy spoon?

Movie Theater: Uber-plush chairs lined up as if they were mocking the American movie house. I mean for the price of a ticket today, you should really get ALL THAT.

Alack...I have buried the lead again. I mean a home theater is nice, but middle class common. Let's talk about the candy counter and popcorn machine flanking the lobby. Yes, this home theater has it's own lobby smack dab in the middle of the house.

Oh, I could just live in the stairway! No really, you could put my house in the actual stairway. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but you could put my living room there for sure!

Oh hell, if I lost a cat in that joint it'd be dead before I found it. Guess I'll keep my spare 17mil and stay put. For the sake of the cats, that is.

She Moves Me

Oh yeahhhh!

Maybe I'm the Shayne of the bike world? I haven't met a frame I don't love to ride!

Oh, this one rocks. When I hop on, the Wizard of Oz ditty plays in my head. But it's deceiving. It feels like my '65 Duck but it mooooves.

Hiding beneath it's cloak it an actual road bike. I think Duck, but it moves, it manuevers, it's tough. I mean I feel like a mennonite on a bike, but I sure as shit ain't.

Today I was surprised the roadie behind me never caught up and I wheel sucked the one in front before I just had to pass. I felt bad about it, but I had no choice.

I feel like I should apologize. I sure wouldn't want to sit on my $800 road bike and have this free old lady bike with ONE gear passing me! Ding, dong, the bitch is on your LEFT.

Ridden Locally, Built Globally

I am the self proclaimed Angelina of the bike world. When I'm not sending bikes to all corners of the world, I take them in.

Today I was passing time putting bikes together. Removing the M.I.C. stickers first and foremost. Every single frame coming from the box is adorned with one of these. Every s.i.n.g.l.e. one.

Apparently they own the bike building industry, among others. Oddly enough, I have not one single bicycle Made In China. I'm fairly certain. Taiwan: close, but not Cheenah.

England, America (I know!), Canada, Spain, and Japan round out my ethnicity collection. I've got my eye out for a Motobecane. That is, if I were still taking bikes in. I'm not. I swear.

NICE

I thought the Svn Trvst had a problem. It often does. I thought it was so hot the temperature wasn't registering. Oh but it was.

When I stopped to snap a photo I figured this out. (Of course I was on my bike. I LOVE THIS WEATHER!)

OMG! What does that say, C? That is cool...well you know....

102. One Hundred and two. CII. However you write it, it's HOT.

C2: I LOVE it!

But Can You Cook?

Fuschia? We were beyond the color of red, we hit fuschia. I can attest to that, my skin started dripping off my skeleton.

When the stories on the news involve a heat thermometer gun and really hot surfaces. I'm surprised no one tried to fry an egg.

"Slightly warmer than hell," I think the m.o.s. said. Yes, yes it is. My ex-husband always said I'd end up there. Damn him.

Can't See Good

When I was but a wee tot, I sat on the floor of our trailer and ate my supper of butter noodles in front of the teevee. Buttered racing wheels to be exact.

In a style of humor I still don't understand, my father used to stand between me and the television completely blocking my view. I would say, "Mr Dada: Can't see good," or so I've been told.

But this entry is about glasses. Sun glasses. And how mine came to be lost. Not so much lost as left. I know exactly where they are. I believe it was Highway 160.

It went like this: I got a text. It said, You look cute in sunglasses, however, I can't see your pretty eyes. I then proceeded to stick my head out the window and phwawmpt they were gone.

I watched them tumble right off my head, onto the road, like desert tumbleweed bouncing through the wind. I pulled myself back into the house, sat down, and sent a reply. Okay fine, glasses....gone.

And then I made myself a plate of buttered noodles.

Bike Go Boom

Since you mentioned perpendicular... I'm not sure if I should be impressed or frightened that I didn't notice the handlebar was no longer forming a right angle with the front wheel.

For several yards. I never noticed. And I think I steered the bike straight! But straight is all relative and up for personal interpretation when it comes to me anyway, as you well know.

Bad journalist. Look at me burying the lead--and you can good and see it's definitely bleeding. On with it! Today on my way to work, I put the bike DOWN. Hard. Boom!

And to think I've been entertaining the thought of mounting sans helmet. All the kids are doing it! I put the hat on, put the hat off, I put the hat on, and I bounced it off the ground, that's what it's all about! Thank sweet Biking Jesus.

Here's the sequence of events as I can best remember them: I drifted off trail, in slow motion. I counter corrected in real time. I spilt in double time, one eye filled with approaching asphalt. Just as my head was about to meet the pavement, time stopped....

Like Wyvie Coyote I froze a centimeter above the road, turned, looked back at the camera, and back at the ground. I saw my melon meet the asphalt splat! I collided with a concussion head on tee hee. meep meep.

I collected my brains and other personal items and retreated to the side of the trail. I tried to form sentences and solve complex physics equations. The force was so jarring it actually fixed my broken cell phone (that is no lie).

I should have maybe gone to the hospital. I was nauseous, the headache is starting, the whiplash waiting its turn. But there was no blood running from my ear and I was thirsty. Perhaps pour me a pint from the pub, at least there I can get a burger.

Just maybe call me later. To see how I am. Please. Thanks.