Miscellaneous Missives

Summer is now officially over for me since next week is workshop week.  For my last hurrah, I traveled to Milwaukee for a Beer Garden bike ride.  Basically we ride from one beer garden to the next.  I rode 68 miles and drank some lovely beer.  We started at the Hubbard Park Beer Garden with 15 riders.  As the day went on, we added four riders to our group.  We meet three riders on the rode and invited them along and met one rider at a beer garden and invited her along.  A fun time was had by all. When I arrived on Saturday, we went out to eat at the Polonez Restaurant .  It's a Polish restaurant.  Soup came with my meal, and although I was tempted to go with basic cream of mushroom, I ventured on the wild side and ordered the Dill Pickle sou p.  It was really, really good!  Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of my soup, but I did wish I had after it was too late.

Seriously folks, I'm sitting in a tech training workshop, and I am losing my shit, for real!  There are only six of us in this training, and most of the people are NOT tech savvy.  The great news is they can whine and complain with the best of folks.  I, however, am still winning.  Let me give you a list to show my skills. 1) ...my Storybird activity for the first week of school ready to go.  Do you want the class code, so you can do your own book about community. 2) ...posted a bogus check-in to Facebook. 3) ...read all of my news feeds (Feedly) and continued to make sure I have read all articles of interest. 4) ...emailed my media director, assistant principal, and principal and responded to their response. 5) ...signed up for Black Story Tellers for our students. 6) ... connected my school calendars, so students had access. 7) ... left the room to talk to the district media person. 8) ... of course I've been blogging and continuously check...

Since I didn't buy glasses for today's total eclipse, I decided to bike the two hour eclipse.  My plan was to be near the Minnesota state capitol building.  I even downloaded a total eclipse playlist from Spotify which I read about on MPR.  The playlist was a bit slow for riding which was OK.  The songs were intriguing.  When "You're so Vain" started playing, the beat was decent, but I was confused.  Then I heard the lines, "Then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia/ to see the total eclipse of the sun," and it made sense.  Let's say I don't need to ride to this playlist again.  Anyway, I did see some of the eclipse through the clouds (clearer than my picture) as I was leaving the capitol.  Watching people congregate outside buildings, in parks, and on their lawn was quite fun.  Everyone seemed to be enjoying the eclipse.  I even stopped to take a picture on the Lake Street bridge as the eclipse ended.  My last three mile...

I'm going to say that today was the perfect summer day.  As I've mentioned before I am disappointed that I couldn't get a team together for Powderhorn 24 (PH24 = 24 hour ride).  Last night I volunteered at registration and noticed many solo riders.  Immediately, I asked if I could register to ride solo, and the answer was a vehement NO.  It didn't matter I had fun.  This has nothing to do with today's perfect day, but I thought I'd add it as the introduction.  I'm merely going to give you an annotated list of today's activities, and you'll understand why it was perfect. 7:30 PH Breakfast Volunteer -- I arrived at the Corcoran Community Center to help set up and serve breakfast.  We were ready to go by 8:00.  From 8:00 to 9:00 I basically greeted and chatted with riders.  Of course, I helped when needed, but I really merely chatted with folks, great, fun, somewhat exhausted riders (ride started at 7pm last night). 10:00 Midtown Farmers'...

I was towards the front of the group This evening I attended a vigil for Charlottesville at Bde Maka Ska.  Even though it was raining an impressive number of people showed up to sing and listen to speakers.  It felt good to be part of a group of similarly minded people. I am blessed to live in a fairly progressive city.  Unfortunately, I do not have words to express my fear for our country under the current leadership.  Although I realize the hatred and bigotry has always been there and needs to be stopped, it's frightening to see emboldened KKK and Neo-Nazi members cause more hatred in some people.

bouquet without bees I've been stung by something (probably a bee) twice this week while cycling.  The first one bit my collar bone.  It was itchy and painful, but I was able to tolerate it.  Thursday, a bee bit me on the belly, and I'm not merely saying this for alliteration.  It has a red circle (2-3 inches in diameter) around the sting, and it's not tolerable.  I read online that rubbing toothpaste on it would alleviate the pain and itching.  Yep, I actually gave it a try.  Now I have toothpaste on my belly that has not alleviated the pain and/or itching, and I feel like an idiot. BTW, bees like flowers as do I.  I bought a bouquet at the farmers' market today.  Of course, I checked to make sure there were no bees hanging around my flowers.

This morning was perfect.  I met KC out for coffee and discussed the upcoming school year.  It was motivational.  Then I was able to get in a bike ride before the rain comes back this afternoon.  I am a better person with conversation, biking, and coffee.  After biking, I decided to make a smoothie. My weight has gotten out of control, so I'm back to counting calories.  In addition, I've continued biking and added an ab workout every other day.  Anyway,  I've also decided that I should start drinking smoothies again.  Since I'm counting calories, I've decided to use almond milk instead of yogurt to save on calories.  Unfortunately, my smoothie didn't have a lot of taste.  Tomorrow I'll add peanut butter to see if that helps.  At least I'm motivated to make a change.

Britt Britt visited me for about 24 hours.  I think she enjoyed her stay because I enjoyed having her here.  We walked, read, and played.  This evening I had to take her back home to meet her new human baby sibling.  When  I told her she had to leave to go home with the new baby, she looked sad.  I think she's going to miss me. While Britt was here, I finished Sherman Alexie's memoir.  It is powerful.  It's a book I would probably reread again (if I didn't have soooo many books to read).  He's supposed to be here in September, but he's taken time off from his book tour due to his mother's ghost.  After reading the memoir, I can certainly understand his not continuing the tour, but I really hope he'll be here for Talking Volumes.

Even these fine feathered creatures are more active than me. Basically, I've taken the week off.  I've done very little.  Yes, I've done some biking and reading, but ultimately, I've geeked on the computer and slept in (a lot).  Although I went to both the Farmers' Market and the Uptown Art Fair today, I feel as though I've become a bit of a slug.  My plan is to change this behavior starting on Monday.  Until then, it's me doing very little.  Let's hope there's some switch that I can flip on Monday.

Riding to the last town on RAGBRAI.   Today is August 1st.  Most teachers use the weekend analogy meaning it's Sunday, and we're going back to work tomorrow.  For me this means thinking about the upcoming school year.  It's not going to happen today, but it will happen soon.  Today I will concentrate on reading since I brought home more YA books than I've read. The beginning of this week has been a challenge.  Yesterday I thought about my RAGBRAI peeps a lot.  After spending 7 days together with my small group and the masses of RAGBRAI, it's difficult to take the "real world" seriously.  Now, however, it's August (Sunday), and I'm ready to get back "in the swing of things." It's the end of summer, and my most intelligent thoughts are written in cliches.  I'm going to need to "up my game."