Small, two day vacations include naked drummers and lemonade stands out in the middle of the Pinehurst mountains on your way back from your 50 mile, 90 degree bike ride.
Small, two day vacations include driving over to Tijuana that same night and eating tamales and drinking tequila.
Small, two day vacations include driving along the coast the next day and riding bikes by Mavericks and old biplanes and chickens and on the bluffs on the ocean to sweat out all the tequila.
It makes sense to wear easy hairdos to work so that at lunch you can put a helmet on or go for a run and not worry about having to wash your hair during your shower at lunch.
It's got to be convenient.
I thought about wearing the princess Leia hairdo today, but settled on the Laura Ingalls Wilder look.
When I was a kid, my mom braided my hair every day. Two long straight braids every single day of my elementary school life.
My friends would tease me that I looked like Laura Ingalls. And for a while I pretended to be her. Charles was my dad and I called him Pa. My little sis, Jessica was Nelly the mean friend. She hated it. Most of the time she wouldn't play the role the way I wanted her too.
My brother was Nelly's brother and he never wanted to play either. I made them play even when they didn't want to. I was the big sister and they had to do what I said at that age.
A few times, when I was out and about on the town shopping or whatever with my mom and siblings, other kids would ask me if I really was that girl who played Laura Ingalls on TV and I'd say yes and just walk on by like I was a star.
And then one day I got my hair cut.
... like Dorothy Hamill the Olympic skater. I got one of those weird bowl cuts, where I had to use a curling iron to curl the entire mushrooom under.
Every day I'd wake up and do the curling iron routine.
That same summer, I went down to L.A. to spend some time with my grandparents. I ended up helping my grandma at work a lot, in the doctor's office she worked part time in. I'd help her check in patients and schedule appointments. I had good writing and she could get her filing done while I answered the phone and wrote things down for her.
One day I was filing something for her and an older gentleman came in for some sort of appointment and Nana was checking him in and introduced me to him. This is my grand daughter Lauren, she said. She's helping me here for a few weeks.
He sort of stared at me for a few minutes and then said, are you sure that isn't your grandson? Nana looked at him and shook her head no and said, no, she's my grand daughter. And again, he said, no I think it's a he. Like he knew better.
And all the while I was standing there filing quietly wanting to scream at him about how I was supposed to look like Dorothy Hamill and how hard I'd worked on it with my curling iron, while they argued about whether or not I was a boy or a girl.
Awe shit, I remember thinking after he left. I hate this hairdo.
So I grew it out, until I was an adult. And then one day, after giving birth to my second kid and feeling extremely sad with postpartum depression after drinking half a bottle of wine, I shaved it all off. It was an inch long all the way around. (I swear, I'm not kidding. I totally get the whole "Britney shaving her head" thing. Moms with new babies do shit like that all the time.)
And that night at dinner, Morgan sat across from me and said, I don't know who you are. It's like you're not my wife anymore.
And so here I am middle aged and happy, back to wearing my Laura Ingalls braids.
I'm on pause now. I'm feeling a little lazy about riding.
Missing one lunch ride isn't going to hurt me. It's not cross season. I still have months before I have to worry about really, really riding or maybe training. And no more mtn bike races for me till end of May, so, I'll do some intervals tomorrow.
I keep saying stuff like that. And then tomorrow comes and I'll go for a lazy lolly gagging ride before work. And then the next day comes and I don't feel like going to spin class because, well, I could go tomorrow instead. And running? Well, I quit running 3 weeks ago.
Like today, I worked from home. And instead of riding at lunch, I went up on the back hill for an extended lunch and planted some lantana on the steep part and weeded. My rational was something like when do I ever get an hour or so of totally uninterrupted weeding and planting all by myself.
Whereas, riding, well I can do it any old lunch time. 24 hour race? Heck, I got months to train for that.
This is the kind of thinking that gets me in trouble. I do it one day, and then the next and soon I'm relapsing. After a good chunk of months of solid base riding and here I am now, and I'm going to piss it all away. Might as well start smoking fatties again too.
Two weeks I've been like this - since we got back from sea otter. Well, I guess that's just a week or so, but it sure feels longer.
Blah, blah, blah.
Gardening seems to hurt more then riding anyway. I have a big ol sunburn stripe on my back hipish area. I guess I had a nice big plummer's crack while I was planting so ferociosuly. And my arms and back are sore from what, digging holes?
I better hop to it. I better get down with the get down and get back to more focused riding. I better take that Sea Otter number off my mountain bike and ride that thing.
I was listening to six 9 year old boys talk about star wars and farting and Lego's and their nuts and snowboarding and skateboarding and calling each other retards.
Earlier I was fondly recalling the days of my younger slumber party years. We seemed to have them every year with 15 or 16 kids each. Your mom was a stay at home mom, Morgan reminded me. And your parents liked to drink, he said.
Oh yeah, I recalled.
One year we went out and t p'd all the targeted boy houses in the neighborhood. My dad came with us and assisted us with all the tall trees. Having a dad who helped was ground breaking. At most friend's slumber parties you had to sneak out, but not mine. I was the most popular kid in sixth grade for the next 3 months.
Your dad was always doing mischief , Morgan reminded me. Oh yeah, I recalled. Too bad it's raining tonight I was secretly thinking.
Back there, with their light up sticks, listening to we are the champions in rave format, dancing around, like little whirling dervishes.
And I'm out here waiting for them to slow down.
With wine and my chicken salad, having done a nice hilly 4 hour ride earlier, having cleaned up the ice cream sundaes that spilled on the dining room floor after lighting the sparklers and sticking them in the ice cream.
While Morgan is downstairs changing tires on his mountain bike, because it's supposed to rain buckets up in Napa tomorrow morning during his mountain bike race.
... waiting
Our network is painfully slow today. So slow, that as soon as I start to do anything I lose interest because I have to wait for it to process.
So here I am, wasting time, waiting for things to go. Tick tock, tick tock. Most of my work is done in giant databases on the back end. Tick tock.
We're moving the studio. We're actually moving the entire office over to the other side of the floor. New cubes, new kitchen, new entry doors, blah, blah, blah.
I'm glad. Change is good. And it's like re-arranging your living room. Every once in a while you need to re-arrange things in your house to add a little excitement.
The new studio door is right near the bathroom doors. That'll be a problem for me. I don't want or like to know every one's business.
I have big issues with work bathrooms. Like I don't think people should go poop at work. They should do it at home. Especially people who talk too much. And please don't talk to me in the bathroom while you're doing a poop.
So I've asked the IT guys to make the network hookups at the opposite end from where they have them, so I'm facing away from the door. So I'm not looking out at the bathrooms.
The construction is loud. So we shut the door to the studio and turn up the music. Between the music, the construction and the slow network I'm having a hard time concentrating today.
We're listening to the Arctic Monkeys.
This weekend is Sam's slumber party. This year we've limited it to 5 boys. Last year it was 10 and the year before it was something like 14. Each year we've gotten a little smarter.
Slumber parties can get pretty wild with boys. My plan is to do a 4 hour ride Saturday morning so I'll be nice and relaxed that night. And I'll drink some wine. More then 4oz. that's for sure.
Yesterday I mistakenly let Morgan's wool cycling undershirt go through the washer and dryer. I swear I pulled all the wool things out. But I missed this one. Sorry sweetie.
Speaking of Morgan, he's a vegetarian now. Oh, wait a sec, his week long vegetarianism just ended. He just IM'd me that he's eating a steak burrito.
I'm not a vegetarian. I'm a meat eater. And a beer drinker. And a chocolate eater. And a wine drinker. Good thing I'm lucky and don't gain weight easily. I got the lucky weight gene.
Too bad I don't have the natural bike racing talent gene.
My dad is an alcoholic. He drank a lot while we were growing up. But he was a happy drunk. And he was always very funny and witty. It could have been a lot worse.
Thankfully all three kids are still silly. We inherited that gene. But all three of us have battled addiction problems as well, we have that gene too. Luckily, two of us made it through, ok.
Even in the middle of his addiction though, my brother still maintains a sense of humor and wit about him. He could have moved mountains.
Yesterday on my lunch ride I ran into two cops on horses on the trails. They liked my color coordination - my pink and black and white.
But why does your bike only have one speed they asked.
I didn't ride my bike into work today because I couldn't get up. And I didn't bring my bike to work. So maybe I'll go for a run or something at lunch. If I sit in this studio all day long I become a hermit and forget what it's like outside. And as each hour goes by I slink more and more into my seat.
And then I'll walk over to the cafe across the street and eat some sort of meat sandwich which will then make me feel sick in an hour.
No meat for lunch. That's a good motto to stick by. Well, maybe turkey and a hard boiled egg and some fruit.
to finish our taxes...
Like there's some sort of magic in there that I missed. Like maybe if I do them over and over 10 times I'll find that magic bullet I missed the last 9 times.
I haven't made them dinner yet and I can hear one crying in the back somewhere because the other one punched her.
I made them finish their homework and read for 45 minutes before I let them free on the computer so I could fester on this and that and find what I missed.
I hear crying and loud music and loud laughing and I'm ignoring it all in a crazed state of tax festering.
I haven't missed anything. It's all so perfect. It's all so precious and perfect, I just know it. In my little tax tweaker mind, everything, all those little numbers are so perfect in their little boxes.
Which means it's time to let go and click on the little "file taxes" button.
First I'll go straighten some shoes.
We raced some mountain bikes a little bit this past weekend.
We saw some of this and did some of that...
and they did a lot of this and a lot of that ...
and with some pimp daddy and muscle showing single-speeding ...
and of course when you have a 10 year old boy, you gotta see some of this ...
and then there was a little of this and that ...
and more this and that ...
and some yipping and yapping with more mountain bike racers and pudding eating and cross eyed lemonade slurping ...
and on the way home, some of this ...
and after we got home, there was a little bit of birthday celebrations and Paris-Roubaix watching with some blogging friends.
And now I'm going to go file an extension for our taxes.
This is how it went.
Yesterday Melvin, the OCD neighbor called the police because his carpenter left a $1000 chop saw out front and a bunch of guys in a honda stole it. The other neighbor saw the whole thing happen and took down the licence plate number and then told Melvin, who then told us and then called the police.
Once when I was a kid I left my brand new skis out front on the grass while I ran inside to watch cartoons and when I came back outside they were gone and my dad called me a dork for leaving them out there. I had to save up and by myself new ones.
Anyway, today while I'm working from home Melvin again calls the police, from his work mind you, because he thinks someone is taking his wood.
The police arrive while I'm home, working, still in my pajamies. I hear someone making noises on the side of the house while I'm on my way back to the bedroom to change into my riding clothes and I think it's a bad guy so I go out front with my karate chopping stance ready and there he is, Johnny Law. I ask him what's up and he asks if a car was stolen the day before and I say no but a $1000 chop saw was and then we each relay our stories to each other.
He calls it in and that's that.
I go back inside and continue to work and there's some arguing going on between departments and I make a smoothie and forget that I'm supposed to be getting riding clothes on and I go back to doing some more work.
Then Cece knocks on the door. Cece is Melvin's wife. She goes on for a half hour about how she's sick and tired of Melvin and his paranoia and he can go sleep with the dog for all she cares and blah, blah, blah about how he kept calling her and calling her to go back to the house while she was at the movies and blah, blah, blah about someone stealing his wood for the deck.
Finally I get her to leave. I go back to working and decide to do our taxes, because again I've forgotten that what I really want to do is go for a ride.
After an hour I remember that I want to go on a quick ride, so I eat a little snack and finish the taxes. And then it hits me, that we owe a lot of money to the government because of an un-wise decision I made about liquidating some of our assets at the wrong time last year.
I was an ass about our assets.
And so, I become more and more depressed and I talk myself into feeling like I'm sick. Oh man, I'm so so sick I can barely ride. Maybe I have mono or something. Maybe I have a weird sickness from sucking on my sandy water bottle last week during my commute on the levys. It must of been the bird poop on the levys that got on my water bottle. Maybe I have bird flu.
So I get out there on my bike with my iPod and my sad music and I'm over dressed. Oh my god, it's so hot out. I think I have a fever. So I take my arm warmers off and my knee warmers off and I start up tunnel like a snail.
And then I remember my dream from the night before, where I catch someone going through my car in front of my house stealing my stuff and I go down to confront them and it's two women about my age and I tell them to stop and they laugh and say why don't you come along, so I hop in the back of my car that they've stolen and they say, let's commit some crimes and I ask how much do you make committing crimes and they say to me, about $5k today and I say, alright let's go.
Maybe I knew we were going to owe a lot more money to the government.
But then, I look down at my t-shirt and it's a velobella t-shirt, the one I won at surf city last year and I think to myself I can't commit crimes with this t-shirt on and then one of the girls starts hugging me and then I start to wake up and realize it's Morgan trying to get me to wake up for some action.
So I'm riding up Tunnel and I'm feeling so tired and I've convinced myself that I have mono or the flu and I'm trying to figure out ways to deduct more things on our taxes. Like maybe some church contributions or something, but then I think they probably have it written down somewhere that I don't even believe in god and I start to shiver and freeze and the wind is blowing me all over kingdom come.
So I pull over and put my knee warmers back on my body and start off again and I'm cruising along and I hear this voice say, Lauren? And I look over and it's a girl in a blue kit and I think whaaa, whaaat kit is that? And she's riding next to me talking and we're getting blown around by the wind trying to talk and then DING, I realize it's Courtney. And we ride for a bit, trying to make conversation barely hearing each other with the crazy wind and we part when she turns downward and we say goodbye.
And so I keep going and up ahead I see another rider coming towards me and we recognize each other, and it's Marscat and I turn around and ride with her for a while and we chat in the wind which is hard because it carries your voice away from where you want it to go. And we part when she goes down the hill and I turn around to head home.
And then I ride home and remember that we owe more money to the tax man and I don't even like our president or our government. And I can't even deduct my children anymore because of that mistake I made last year. And maybe I'll start growing pot again.
Last night I found these in our backyard when I got home.
I looked at them for a little while from the kitchen window. Then I went outside and looked at them. And then I climbed up closer to inspect them. They're hard.
I'm not sure what they are or where they came from. I lifted up the small one and it felt solid. The large one is heavy, but doesn't feel as solid. I couldn't see inside them.
Morgan says they look like they were dropped from the sky. I kind of have that feeling about them too. Like aliens dropped them.
Speaking of phallic looking garden art, our neighbor has a giant wooden penis in her yard. It's taller then me. It's right next to her little fire pit.
Morgan seems to feel they have a gnome shape to them. Maybe there are gnomes inside them. Maybe they're gnomes for our new garden. Maybe we have to chip away at the outside to get to the hidden surprise gnomes on the inside.
Last night we each sort of silently pondered their existence. And then I said out loud, what if they're a gift from so and so and they're art and we have to keep them in the yard. What do we do? And Morgan said, I was just thinking the same thing.
And then Morgan said, what if they're garden art, but people keep passing them on to each other's yards around the neighborhood. Maybe we should pass them on too. Like fruit cake at Christmas - you re-gift it.
That could kind of be fun. Our next door neighbor Melvin has OCD. It would be fun to sneak them into his front yard in the middle of his perfect roses and then watch to see what happens next.
When I got up this morning they were still in our yard.
Sometimes after they all leave, when you take a moment to survey, all you can do is take the 2 or 3 pairs of shoes by the front door and straighten them so they're lined up perfectly.
Just straightening those shoes helps.
And when you come up from bending over the shoes, you look up into the kitchen and see the ham glaze on the walls and the cake icing on the cabinets and the smashed grapes on the sticky floor and you remember the toilet innards on the bathroom wall and then you can see your underwear down the hall on the floor and you remember you haven't been down the hall in a few hours and you're not sure if you want to even go quite yet.
So you go to the back door and you straighten those 2 pairs of shoes and you look into the backyard and see the bubble machine still gurgling and spitting bubbles into the sky.
And instead of going into the kitchen to begin the process, you sit down in the corner chair across from your one-armed husband and you feel good that you at least got a nice ride in before the celebration of the rising, because your legs hurt from standing in the kitchen cooking all day.
And you recall the easter egg hunt and the bubble celebration and the 2 year old cousin who dunked all the toilet paper rolls in the toilet and then threw it all on your bathroom walls and the ham with cola and the almonds that you had to saute' 3 times because you kept burning them because they all wanted applesauce and bubble gum ...
... and the cake that almost slid out of your hands onto the 2 year old head and the dress-up they did in your underwear and the kid who stuffed too much ham and potatoes into his mouth and as he started to barf you ran with the empty salad bowl and got there just in time and then watched as he reached out to get the barfed-up, but still intact grape and plop it back into his mouth and your poor loopy husband with one arm on vicodan who sneaks into the back yard and lays on the camp chair and the brother-in-law with the hangover.
And then the grandma who takes your children for the rest of spring break week, until Friday when you can pick them up and head straight to Monterey for some silly bike racing.
We did a nice little ride the other night. We were on like Tony Orlando and Dawn!
We rode for about two hours around Joaquin Miller and Redwood. Did some loopy loops, some singing, some singletrack, some laughing , some yee haws and finished off with a nice fast decent down $2 hill baby!
Riding at night is fabulicious. You don't have to worry about hikers or other riders or going slow - you go as fast as you can. And because your depth perception isn't as sharp as during the day, you tend to ride over stuff you wouldn't ride over in the day. Nothing seems scary - although maybe that was all the Belgian beer and wine we had at dinner.
Anyway...
First we had dinner with our friends the Feix's. Then the dad's hung out with the kids at home while we all went for a ride.
We didn't really see any other living things out there. Some deer, some mountain lion barf, some moths, some self portraits ...
We did a lot of yapping and laughing while riding, which is what scared away all the scary monsters and mountain lions. And on the way back I did some singing up at the front.
And for our after-ride treat we ate a cake.
What better way to spend an evening then with a little BBQ, some beer and wine, a few hours of night riding while husbands watch kids and then some cake.
On! Like Tony Orlando and Dawn!
I'm stinky.
The COO is standing over me trying to get me to do something on the computer for him and he says to me don't you take showers after you ride into work?
Why, do I smell?
Well yeah, but not till after I've had a little snack and recovery drink and I've rested a little bit I say.
Then he tries to get me to do a bunch of work for him by standing right behind me and complaining about my smell. (Look at that picture of me. That's a pretty good one I must say. I was riding fast and smiling and taking a picture of myself all at the same time.)
He's pacing around the studio, telling me what to do, leaning over me, making comments, dancing a little bit, telling jokes, leaning over me, telling me it's wrong, telling me to fix this and then fix that...
Why are you so dressed up? I ask. I've got a meeting he says.
Boy, you sure do smell he says.
Finally I say, could you please give me some space, you're making me nervous!
Can you get it to me by 1pm he says? I can get it over to you in 5 minutes I say, if you just stop leaning over me. And then he leaves. And then I go downstairs to take a shower.
Nothing like the guy in charge telling you that you're really smelly.
(There's a rabbit somewhere in that green picture.)
Time for a long bike commute.
This time I forgot to bring all my clothes and stuff in prior, so I'm toting it all in my bag. Bleh. Good thing we can dress the way we want at work, because I had to roll everything to fit it all in. One time the COO and I were making fun of someone's margaritaville shirt and afterwards he said, who cares the way people dress here. If you do your job well and you're productive, you can come in your iron maiden t-shirt for all I care. And ever since then I've come in vans and princess Leia hair-do's and jeans and stuff. Although he still makes fun of my hairdos.
And this time I'm eating my oatmeal and blueberries before I leave.
I just peaked outside and it's quite dark. Where'd that moon go? Wasn't it just full a few days ago?
Last night I actually got in bed at 9pm, read for 20 minutes and then fell asleep. With almost 8 hours of sleep, I won't be yawning all day today. I have a tendency to go to bed too late on days I have to get up really early. A vicious cycle I impose on myself all week. Then on the 2 days a week I can sleep in, I sleep 10 hours each.
The worse thing about this commute is the pee factor. By the time I get off BART I have to pee like a mad woman. But I refuse to use the BART bathrooms. So I hop on my bike and ride ferociously to the first port a pottie on the bike path, which is cleaner and happier then the BART bathrooms. But by the time I get there it's one of those, can't walk without crouching because I have to pee so bad and I might pee in my pants. Once I'm done almost not making it I can plug in my iPod and continue on with the rest of the morning.
Ok, time to go...
I missed my lunch ride today. On nice days I feel a little guilty for not riding. Like someone gave me such a nice little gift and I ignore it instead of enjoying it.
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On the days I work from home, I leave all the windows open and the front door open so I can hear the bells down at the school. The sound carries up the hill to our house. Makes me think about what Sam and Lu are doing right at that moment it rings - finishing up lunch or recess.
Sam told me yesterday that a kid in his class was selling stink bombs at lunch. 25 cents each or 6 for $1.50. Can I bring some money to buy some he asked me. Nope. I said. Are they illegal? he asked.
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I just got a call from work from a guy in the other office named Frick. At first I laughed because I thought it was someone pulling a prank on me at work. But he was very serious and needed to know some thing about a project I'm working on.
Who names their kid Frick? What the Frick do you want Frick? Are you Frickin' kidding me?
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When Morgan was leaving for work this morning, he asked if I was going to ride my single speed today. I said maybe. Then we chatted about me being more dedicated to working harder on my bike. You need to learn how to deal with the pain better he said, use that garmin I got you, he said, use that power meter I got you, he said. Ok, I said.
Maybe I should do some intervals today, I said.
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Neither kid flushes the toilets around here anymore. When I ask them to flush, they defiantly run away from the room I'm in. NEVER AGAIN! they shout at me scared of overflow! Leave me alone, they each yell at me.
Too much flushing for me.
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We're doing an all girl night mountain bike ride on Saturday night, starting from my house. I hope we don't get eaten by any mountain lions.
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I got an email from a prospective supplier today. The title of it is "Cowball Hats". In the email he explains that he's "developed a new style of hat" and he's looking to get his foot in the door of our industry. "The hat is a combination of a baseball hat crown and a cowboy hat styled visor" he writes and he calls it the "Cowball Hat".
Cowball hat. Nice cowball hat you got there Frick! Why thank you, I love my cowball hat.
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There used to be this guy who worked at my office who was a swinger.
He was married (but with no kids) and he'd spend his vacations going to resort towns where they'd have naked swinger convention things. You know, like where they're all naked hanging around and doing "you know what" in hammocks and stuff and you're eating your chicken salad sandwich across the table from it. And then maybe you switch places or something.
Apparently that's how he'd met his wife, at one of these swinger conventions. Which I guess makes it convenient if you're into that kind of thing.
He was a project manager of some sort here. I can't remember exactly what he did except that he was a jackass. He was annoying and condescending when the COO wasn't around and ugly and not very nice to women.
I tended to ignore most of his requests because he was such a jerk.
Anyway, back then I was really good friends with a few of the engineers and the network guy so they would always let me in on all the little weird network secret happenings; like who was downloading large porn files or who broke the network while downloading the 50 giant Britney Spears screen savers or who was spending most of their work hours downloading Napster songs.
One night Mr. Swinger (before we all knew he was a swinger) was at work late and was having problems printing something. He phoned Mr. Network on the other side of the building to ask for help. Mr. Network told Mr. Swinger he'd VNC into his machine to see if he had everything set to the right printer. He logged on and before Mr. Swinger could close all his programs, Mr. Network had a chance to see all the swinger porn that was open on the desktop.
Apparently Mr. Swinger tried like a crazy man to close all the programs but Mr. Network was able to grab the cursor away and close things himself slowly while getting a good look at what was there. In the midst of it, Mr. Network saw the name of the facility in Jamaica where Mr. Swinger's events were held.
Thus began our research of what exactly happened at those events in the Jamaica swinging facility and the schedule of events for Mr. Swinger's next vacation. We did some googling and some calling around for information for the next few days to be sure what Mr. Network had seen was really what he'd seen.
Later, somehow a picture surfaced of Mr. Swinger that only a special few were allowed to view and only on one special computer - it was never passed around and we were sworn to secrecy. Only the super secret agents were allowed to view it. It was a naked picture of Mr. Swinger with only a bow tie and cuff links on, smiling and standing with other naked people with various scarves and bow ties and what not. I laughed so hard when I saw it, I cried and pee'd in my pants a little, I swear.
Another day, we were in a staff meeting and I had to practice a presentation because the following week I was to present it company wide and I needed some feedback. So, I'm telling them why I tend to get nervous in front of crowds and blah, blah, blah and Mr Swinger says
... just imagine everyone sitting here watching you and we're all in our underwear. And the sales manager says something to Mr Swinger like, I'm not sure you'd want to see ME in my underwear, let alone you! And the CEO and the COO don't look too pleased.
I think this was around the time when Mr CEO and Mr COO had recently been alerted to Mr Swinger and his porn at work when he accidentally had another picture up on his computer and a female engineer was sitting with him in his office.
Anyway, all I can imagine is bow ties and cufflinks and Mr. Swinger and I look over at Mr. Network and his eyes are watering from trying so hard not to laugh and I'm laughing so hard I can't stand up and I have to tell them all that I need a moment to collect myself outside and I leave the building for a little while.
Yesterday I saw Mr. Swinger with his wife while I was at lunch and of course I pretended not to see them. But still, to this day, all I see when I look at him is his little weiner with his little bow tie and cufflinks.
Saturday morning we drove a couple a hours down south to do some mtn bike racing and I discovered a few things about my current state of mommahood.
Like now, maybe, might be a good time to start doing some hill intervals. I felt like a smoker who hadn't ridden a bike in years going up that first hill. I'd forgotten about those long up hills in mountain bike races.
That's the thing about these races, it's like child birth. Hills? Pain? What pain? I looove this stuff. It's so much fun! Yay! And then Rod says, GO! And then there's so much pain and then there's some loong ass hill.
Oh yeah, my body says, the pain - now I remember. And half way up I think, holy shit, this is the last time I do this. No more for me. This pain is too much. But as soon as I'm at the top, speeding down the singletrack no hands on the breaks whoopin' it up and singing, I forget about the pain again. This is so much fun!! Pain? What pain? Yippee!
After the start I said goodbye to the little racers as they pulled away from me on that hill and I spun and spun and spun up, up, up and settled into my own little evil head of mind games. Mumbling to myself a lot on that first hill, I kept some in front view and some in back view but by the second lap I was on my own. Slowly I picked off some of the slower men on the second lap, but where the hell were the women?
Every so often I'd catch a view of a few behind me and the one close up ahead and I'd pedal harder, harder, harder, hurry, hurry, faster.
And then I was done. And pain? What pain? Look at the pretty butterflies and flowers. Everything is so pretty and nice.
Morgan fared better then I. Although his medal was lost in a matter of minutes while one of the munchkins was running around wearing it.
And then there was lunch on the way home...
