Miscellaneous Missives

"To the cyclist, and the sailor, there is never simply a 'wind.'  It's either a headwind, crosswind, or tailwind.  A headwind is worse than any mountain.  The mountain delivers tangible rewards:  a view at the summit and a downhill on the other side.  A stiff headwind drains you out of spite, simply to show you who's boss." Today my goal was to ride at least ten miles, so I could reach my goal of 2,500 miles by the end of summer (August).  It was difficult trying to figure out the difference between the headwind and crosswind since the wind was gusting at 25mph.  I was prepared for the 15mph wind, but the gusts were unfriendly.  It doesn't matter; my ride is complete as is my goal.  By the time winter comes, I should have 1,000 more miles than last year.

Have you ever taken a moment to read the Chipotle bag?  If you haven't, go to Chipotle and get take-out, so you have a bag to read.  Yesterday when I grabbed my burrito to put on my plate, I left the bag on the counter thinking I should take a closer look.  There's a story, Two-minute Spanglish con Mami , by Julia Alverez.  at the bottom is a link to their cultivating thought page.  It seems as though I'll need to eat at Chipotle more often to read all of the stories.

When my cycling pal and I were looking for an August cycling event, we found one sponsored by the Minneapolis Jaycees.   The beneficiaries of the ride were YouthLink MN , Art Buddies , and Bolder Options .  Before the ride started and during the ride, we had an opportunity to talk with people from these organizations.  It is nice to participated in an event that gives back to the community. We chose the 30 mile ride knowing that our ride would be 40 miles since we were biking in to Darby's Pub from my house.  Most of the ride was familiar because it includes the trails that we typically ride.  As we headed west, I told J that we were riding the circle backwards.  We had followed the arrow giving us direction.  I was referring to the fact that we typically ride in the opposite direction.  Five miles down the trail, we came upon the final stop and decided to check the directions.  It seems the beginning of the directions were incorrect...

Although this video has little to do with my post, I'm a fan, and I think it's intelligent. As I walked into Whole Foods tonight, Black Lives Matter was protesting in the front of the store and its aisles.  They were loud and unintelligible.  I, of course, support Black Lives Matter, but I had no idea why they were at Whole Foods or what, specifically, they were protesting.  I thought that someone would hand me a paper or stop and explain what was happening.  If their message had been supported with some intelligent conversation (written or oral), I would have been supportive.  Unfortunately, I left confused at their purpose.  It also reminded me of how black stereotypes continue because of the actions of a select few.  When I arrived home, I googled to find answers.  It seems their protests in Whole Foods stems from an incident at a Whole Foods in Baltimore .  When I talk about the importance of English Language Arts this year, I will me...

Today was the first day back at school.  It's workshop week, and it really stresses me out.  Honestly, today shouldn't have been horrible because we had a lot of time to work in our room, but I still was crabby to quite crabby.  The good news is that I bought hard candy yesterday when I stopped at Candyland .  It sat on my desk.  I took candy after candy.  As five or six wrappers piled up on my desk, I went to the garbage can.  Repeat!  I even have some left to get me through tomorrow.

I'm getting zero accomplished.  Next week I'll need to work my ass off because I haven't prepared my self for the school year.  What have I been doing?  Well, today I've been drinking coffee and watching the Today Show.  Seriously?!  Yep, it's a ridiculous waste of my time.  Quite frankly, I could be working on my Google presentations while watching, but I'm geeking on the internet.  They showed this great video of a cockatoo singing the "ooooh" part of Nelly's Dilemma .  Although I've tried many Google searches, I haven't been able to find it.  They also showed a video of bears in the pool.  Perhaps it's time for me to get ready for my lunch date.

I don't need to try on last year's jeans to know they won't fit, so today I went to the outlet mall to buy jeans and clothes for school.   I hate shopping.  Last year my jeans from the previous year fit, so I did't buy new clothes. Although I am buying a larger size of jeans, I'm not throwing the others out.  MyFitnessPal and I are going to start hanging out September 1st.  Anyway, I bought a couple of skirts, a couple new shirts, and a couple pairs of jeans while I was at the outlet mall.  Later in the day I stopped by Target to see if I could save money on jeans.  I bought two pairs which means the others will need to go back to the outlet mall.  Plus, I bought a bag of Sixlets from the dollar shelves.  It seems they're almost gone, but it's OK since it's not September 1st yet.  Ignoring a bag of Sixlets for a dollar seems downright wrong.  Plus, I found a cute dress at Target.

I know this is bizarre, but I started drinking coffee (for the first time this summer).  It started this past school year when I started adding espresso to my chai latte (dirty chai).  From the dirty chai I moved to lattes and then finally coffee (with cream).   Starting with a cup (five) of coffee sitting on the deck relaxing looking at the interweb has been my habit this summer.  It does, however, pose a problem.  The only thing I accomplish is looking blogs, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,  Scrabble, Trivia Crack and my Feedly feeds.  For instance, my goal was to start working on converting my Notebook files to Google presentations this morning.  At 10:54 I've only accomplished blogging about one YA novel for school.  Well, I've also been able to drink four of my five cups of coffee.

The Powderhorn 24 is officially complete. -24 hours of cycling... relay style... taking turns (kind of...) -6 women in tutus... with numerous compliments -little to no sleep for most of team's participants -ice cream, potato chips, Gatorade, water, sparkling San Pelligrino... -volunteer opportunity to punch cards of other riders at check point two... some people are too competitive -another volunteer opportunity at Freewheel cycle that fit our group perfectly... we merely needed to check in with them -a tent and numerous conversations -heat and humidity -trying to rest in the shade... as much as possible -people in the yards with hoses and sprinklers comforting riders -one of our teammate's mom who made muffins for group -free breakfast and free popsicles being carried around on a bike dummy (I whined to get the last one at the checkpoint). -wonderful volunteers who put together an amazing event -unicycles and one unicyclist that allowed me to follow her up th...

Tonight was a rehearsal ride (fun ride) for the Powderhorn 24 ride this weekend.  Three guys were on their unicycles (basically a tricycle).  It was fun to watch them balance each other at stops.  Three seems like a magical number since three of our six participated in this ride.  As I was riding home from the ride with one the leader of the team, we decided to get tutus for the members of the team.  I sent a text to all, and it looks like we'll each be riding in a different color tutu.  Let's hope this is still a good idea on Friday night and Saturday.

Today I've spent the morning drinking coffee and taking care of the "loose ends."  One thing I learned is that when one procrastinates renewing her NCTE membership it can no longer be done online; a call must be made.  I've spent the morning paying bills and renewing several memberships.  Most of what I've accomplished today should have been done in June, but I am finishing it today. It's also time that I attempt to start preparing for the new school year.  With the exception of some reading/blogging about YA (young adult) books and taking a incredible workshop, I've really done zero to prepare for the new school year.  I really think it's healthy, and I'm OK with enjoying the summer.  Unfortunately, I'm also concerned that I may not be motivated until workshop week to do anything school related.  It may cause undo stress the week of the 24th.

Saturday night I returned to my dad's house after a wonderful wedding.  Since he lives in the country, it is really dark.  I mean really, really dark.  There are no street lights, and I didn't leave any lights on for my arrival.  I started walking towards the door and stepped on something.  Although I wasn't sure what I stepped on, I was hoping it was weeds growing out of the cracks on the driveway. The next morning I went to the car to start packing for my ride home and found something gruesome.  It was a snake smashed in two.  I freaked out, grabbed a broom, and swept the pieces into the rocks.  OMG!  I had actually stepped on the snake.  It's a good thing I didn't know what had happened the night before because I would still be in a heap on the driveway.  Notice it's taken me a couple of days to write about the experience. At the beginning of July, I had found a snake in front of the door.  It slithered into the ro...

The First Baker's Dozen I'm in God's Country.  Last night at dinner I was asking if Tim the Corn Man was going to be in Okoboji this weekend.  He lives on a farm a ways away but drives his truck to Okoboji and sells sweetcorn (sweet corn???) in a parking lot.  I've had sweetcorn twice this summer from the farmers' market in Minneapolis, and it was subpar.  Tim's corn is always perfect.  Maybe it's that Iowa soil.  Anyway, I decided I wanted to buy corn today and freeze it.  Although I've never done this, I thought I'd give it a try.  After getting advice from a couple of people, I tackled three dozen ears of corn.  Since Tim always sells a baker's dozen, I have plenty of corn.  My intention was to leave a couple of ears to eat, but I forgot. Beautiful Bi-Color Sweet Corn Thankfully Dad loves to keep his knives sharp. Each snack bag holds one ear of corn. I put three snack bags into one quart freezer bag. We'll s...

This morning as I was getting my hair done, my stylist, S and I talked about the book I wasn't reading.  I'm not reading The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.  The book will be automatically returned to the library via the interwebs and will not longer be on my iPad sometime this evening.  I've been trying to read this book for a couple of weeks and don't seem to care.  At book club last night, the intelligent ladies I meet with once a month talked me into giving it another try, and I did finish one more chapter.  Although I've put myself on the wait list (again), I really don't think I'll finish it by September.  Anyway, S and I both were less than impressed with E at, Pray, Love although I'll be the first to admit this is more intelligently written.  As we discussed why I wasn't reading the book, S asked me if I'd seen Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk.  I had not seen it, but I did listen to it on my drive to God's Country. ...

Another Macklemore song is hitting the airwaves.  I think it's a writing prompt or journal entry (or something) for the new school year.  This morning I had breakfast with a friend who is due at the end of the month.  As soon as I heard it, I sent her the link.  Although I'm not quite sure what to do with this song, I think it's amazing.  What advice would you put in a song?

On Thursday Kitty Klaus wasn't eating and really drinking.  Friday, I took him to the veterinarian, and we talked about what needed to happen.  Saturday, we went to the vet again, but I saw a new vet.  Honestly, I was not a fan of this vet, but we discussed the changes that were happening.  Monday, once again we went to the vet.  KK still was not eating or drinking.  I was trying to force down food, but it was ugly.  This time we did a round of blood tests (x-rays, etc. had already been done).  Last night I knew it couldn't go on.  They say animals have certain habits when they've given up.  When KK hid in the wet shower then tried to hide under the dresser (only enough room for his head), I knew today needed to be the day.  Luckily, today's vet was wonderful and kind.  He showed me the numbers from the blood test which helped me realize I was making the correct decision.  It was (IS) difficult, but he went peacefully. ...