A Long, Long Time Ago...

One time, way back when I was in college, I moved all my stuff out of my boyfriend's house while he was away at work one day.

And I didn't tell him where I'd gone.

I'd caught him making out at a party the weekend before, with a girl who had both nipples pierced. When I approached them in the yard, at the party, he asked her to lift her shirt for me. So I could see that both nipples were pierced.

That summer, he'd been working at Nordstroms in men's suits. She'd been working across the aisle at the cosmetics counter doing makeovers.

I'd been upstairs working at J.Crew as head cashier.




So I left.

I moved into a house, up in the hills with a gigantic backyard in the eucalyptus trees, with three guys. One had his weiner pierced, one was an artist with a pet rabbit and a turtle and one was still in school majoring in philosophy. And after a few weeks we decided that we all got along ok enough that we'd make a go at having a garden out back.

And maybe make a few bucks while we were at it. Because my new $6 an hour job at the local latte' shop just wasn't cuttin' it.

So we planted our garden in the back yard. We watered the garden. We sprayed their little leaves and we sheltered them. We named them. We transplanted each plant into it's own pot. We fed them perfectly mixed nutrients and we waited and hoped while they grew.

And then one day while I was alone, there was a knock on the front door. And there were three men in utility suits standing on our front porch.

There's a sewer line on the top right side of your yard and we need to do some maintenance, they told me. We're letting you know that we're going up into your yard.

And before I could stop them, they'd walked around to the side of the yard and were proceeding up the side stairs straight into the plant area.

I went back into the house and opened the sliding glass door to the yard and let our two large and threatening dogs out into the back yard. And then they laid down on the patio to watch the festivities and lick each other.

And then I walked out to the side yard to greet the utility men while they walked through all of our "potted" plants. I stood in the middle of our carefully manicured forest while they made their way through them, looking around in wonderment.

And as the last of the three men passed by me, he pulled his sunglasses down to the edge of his nose to look me directly in the eye and he smiled big at me.

As they climbed our hill, I stood there, with my arms folded. And when they got to the top, they called down to me and waved and pointed to the sewer area as if to say, see, there really is a sewer line here. And then they lifted the cover and chatted a little and placed it back and chatted some more and then left down the side of the house still chatting.

And then I went inside and locked all the doors and smoked a bowl.

By the time my roommates starting returning a few hours later, from their daily activities, I'd already pulled every single one of our "plants" into the house to safety.

And then I sort of forgot about what happened and made myself a liverwurst sandwich and sat down to watch Welcome Back Kotter, when the first roommate arrived home.

What the fuck he said. Yeah, what the fuck I said.

And then we made the executive decision to shred them all, with the exception of keeping two each. With that, we reasoned - as we statistically evaluated the probability of at least 1/3 of the plants actually being female, we'd still have something in the end.

So we did. And we ended up with better statistics than the 30% ratio we'd predicted. And then I bought myself a neat little old red karman ghia.



And then one day on the way to my new job of selling flowers, I got out of my newly purchased karman ghia with my new boyfriend and ran into my old boyfriend. And I said hello to him and introduced him to my new boyfriend Jeremy, the one with the pierced weiner.

Riding A Bike With Bed Head

Last night I dreamt that I cut my hair in the locker room at work with a pair of nose hair trimming scissors. It took a long time to do. And the whole time I was doing it people were coming and going, taking care of their business.

When I was finished I turned to look at myself in the mirror, because I'd been cutting without using a mirror, and I had one of those hairdos from the 80's where one side is super short and the other side is super long.

And I was holding my tiny nose hair trimmer scissors trying not to cry. And people in the locker room continued to walk past me, but now they were shaking their heads disapprovingly.

And there I was a woman of 41 with a 1987 hairdo. Oh the humanity.

I was so despondent about my fucked up hair and the way people were treating me because of it, that when the alarm went off this morning and woke me from the dream, I immediately got up to look at my hair. And there it was in two frizzy red braids, leftover from the night before.

Braided hair is good for bike commuting at the crack of dawn. You don't brush it or re-do it. You just get up, get dressed, brush teeth, do all the other stuff, put your helmet on and hop on your bike and go.

And put on your scarf. Today I wore a wool scarf on the ride down to BART. Hello? Best thing ever. How come no one ever told me this before. Jeans, Sweater over nice shirt and SCARF. Warm and toasty even in 50 degree fog.

Anyway, I can't imagine what it would be like to have to "do" your hair-do before the commute so early in the morning. It's not productive. And I can barely roll my pant legs up at that hour. So bed head, ride down to the train, get to work, coffee and then re-braid.

I guess I won't be getting that short haircut I've been toying around with in my head for the past few weeks.

This Just In

Norcal cyclocrosser boys to men, Matthias Behrends and Morgan Fletcher of Team Dos Machos Sasquatchos, wrapped up the final Transrockies stage yesterday with a total time of 34 hours and four minutes for a nice 20th place out of 69 finishers in the 80+ age group.

That's about as much time as I spent goofing off in the office last week.

Morgan reported in via text messages after stages, 5, 6, and 7.

Some of his exact texts included things such as "Sometimes I feel like crying", "I saw bear scat", "I'm sick of forcing down lots of food at 5:45 a.m. in the mess hall", "We snuck out into town for pizza", "My bike is pretty fucked up now", "I've only had one Canadian beer while sitting here and I'm pretty buzzed" and "That's the hardest fucking thing I've ever done in my life".

To which I replied, while sipping my glass of red wine on the couch and watching men's beach volleyball with the sound turned off while listening to tori amos, "good job honey."

Watch out for Dos Machos Sasquatchos racing at a local cyclocross event and sswc08 near you, soon.

Reporting live from the corner chair of the living room while eating a chicken pot pie, this is the little lady, lauren.

Banana Break

I had a flat this morning on the way in.

Good lord, if you think fixing a flat during a normal ride is a pain in the ass, try it at 5:30 in the morning while it's still dark out and all the boogie men are out making scary noises in the bushes and you don't want to put your bag down because what IF a boogie man tries to get you, you might take off on your flat and leave your bag there and then they'd find your wallet and keys and know who you are and then they'd go to your house and wait for you there in the evening and GET you.

Scary time.

But then I thought about the Donner party and all the boogie men they had to deal with and I calmed down. After all, Oakland's not out in the wilderness with bears and coyotes and mountain lions and stuff.

No cry babies, I always tell my kids. I have a baseball hat that says that. I need to find it and start wearing it again.

I don't speak whineze.

After the flat was fixed in record time, I took off and hammered down to the BART station. I was going so fast I didn't even slow down to fix my plumbers crack. I did some other illegal things too, but I won't mention it here for fear of being reprimanded by law abiding citizens.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around...

I made it in record time. And I ran fast up those BART steps and just as I was RUNNING up the second set of stairs, in perfect cyclocross style, the train took off.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

And not only can I run super fast up the BART steps, once I arrive in SF, with the bike perched perfectly on my shoulder - I can now carry a cup of peets coffee in my left hand and periodically sip it and run up stairs in perfect form.

I'm ON like Tony Orlando and Dawn.



Look who I found...




They finished in 11th place in stage 4 yesterday. Which moves them up to 19th overall right now.

After the time trial on the 3rd day, it looks like they were given a two hour penalty. I wonder what happened. They would have, I think, come in 2nd for the stage that day.

Cyclingnews has some pretty good pictures and coverage of it all.

My Shangri-la Beneath the Summer Moon

I talked to Morgan on Sunday night, after the inaugural stage.

After the first stage of Transrockies on Sunday they were in 16th place. After yesterday's stage two, Dos Machos Sasquatchos had slipped down to 22nd - out of 71 two person teams, in their age group.

It seems though, at least according to Morgan, that the first two days would probably be the hardest. Monday's stage had the most amount of climbing out of all the stages. And he knew that the climbs would be the hardest for him.



He said they raced through snow, rain, thunder, freezing temps, sun, hike a bike and singletrack.

Morgan's like a diesel engine. He tends to not jump at the gun, but winds his way up and along the way steadily making good progress and gradually passes all the engines flittering out - to finish pretty strong. He's strong, steady and solid.



Me, I'm an old volkswagon. More like a karmin ghia. Trying to pretend I'm cool, trying to start out fast, puttin' along and barely hanging on, but happy to be all red and shiny.

And then Matthias, well, Matthias is strong all around. Morgan mentioned that during the first stage Matthias was holding back and having to wait a little on the climbs. But things were going well for them

Today's stage looks like it'll give them a little reprieve - and less climbing. So maybe things will settle out a little bit and they'll slowly begin their ramp up.

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Here, on the west coast, shortly back from LA and the bum rush of the cat lady...

Sam fractured his ankle on Friday about an hour after I dropped him and his buddies off at camp. Some kid slide tackled him during a pickup soccer game at camp. It's hard to tell with Sam when things are really wrong. Because un like both Lulu and I, he never complains about anything. He's a lot like Morgan.



But sure enough, after 5 hours in the ER on Saturday and still not a peep of complaint from him, we had our result.

So he's recuperating at camp grandma's for the week.

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And me, well, I'm riding my bike and...



Today's donut Tuesday here at work. Every Tuesday, Dale the doorman, brings a bunch of boxes of donuts and spreads them out for all to enjoy.



I don't eat donuts. I know my limits. Donuts are like crack to me. If I even have a tiny bite of one it's all over and then the whole day is lost. It usually starts with me cutting a small corner of and having one little bite, and then while I'm standing there eating the corner I'll eat the rest. And then I'll eat another one and tell myself I'll just run/ride at lunch and it'll be ok.

This is the start of the rise up to peak, when I rationalize that if I eat only 1 or 2 more then I can have a banana and almonds in a few hours, still before lunch and still feel ok to work out.

Because right then, I feel great. And everything is beautiful.

And then, I'm spinning in circles with the golf club and hitting golf balls down the hallway into the sales area and kicking the exercise ball at people I don't necessarily like as they walk by the studio. And then I'm riding my bike through the sales floor as fast as I can trying not to hit the cubicle partition walls.



And then in another half hour, I'm sitting at my desk complaining with a headache and feeling sick and telling the photographer to shut up. All this because of donuts.

But that was at my old job.



Nowadays, I just don't eat donuts. I just turn and walk away.

2 Buffalo Gals Going Round the Outside

I just spent the last three days down in Los Angeles at a trade show - doing a little PR, getting a little information flowing, telling silly stories, listening to silly stories, networking, laughing, gossiping, smiling and so forth.

And now I'm home. And tired and worn out - in desperate need of a bike ride.

And I'm not really in the mood for chit chatting first thing in the morning - especially to a chubby cat lady on my front porch at 8 a.m. as I'm trying to get four boys and their skateboards and lunches and helmets into the truck to drive across Berkeley during commute hour, for camp.

But there she is, standing on our front porch, feeding the stray cat that we've sort of adopted (and nick named cookie dough). There she is, the neighborhood cat lady - Leida.

Leida and her 5 pound bag of cat food and her little wool hat.

Last night when I got home at midnight, I had three messages on the house voice mail from her. Each one just a bit more desperate. Each one talking about what I should be doing for that cat. And I thought, how in the hell did Leida get my phone number. I'm not even listed.

I wasn't planning on calling her back.

But first thing this morning, there she is - standing on our front deck with a giant bag of cat food feeding cookie dough. And as I open the front door to leave, she shoves her list of cat things - things Lauren needs to do for the cat, into my hand.

It's an 8 x 11 piece of paper filled with information and phone numbers and instructions she's noted or me to reference, for the cat - cookie dough.

HOW TO CARE FOR A CAT, she's written at the top of the paper.

Never mind that we already have a cat who is quite happy and healthy - and a dog, and I have two healthy, well adjusted children. All of whom I take to vets and doctors and dentists for periodic maintenance to their bodies. I obviously still need instructions on how to take care of a stray cat, based on the fact - well, I'm not really sure what it's based on.

I hand the paper back to her.

And as she's talking to me while I'm trying to shuffle kids outside and into the car, she's getting more and more frantic.

I was afraid she might be dead, she says to me, because you weren't here to feed her and your husband told me that he would never, ever be feeding her again and that you would be taking her to the shelter because you don't want her.

I just fed her, I say.

You know, you can't start feeding a stray cat and then stop. It's not fair to them. I wrote it here in the instructions she says as she waves the paper in front of me.

And I sigh.

I feed her I say. And she eats lots of mice. And my kids feed her. And the house sitter fed her. Don't worry about her I say. She's fine.

But your husband said... she starts to say again as she's waving her instruction paper at me.

And I can imagine what Morgan said to her the other day. I can hear the conversation clearly in my head - as he's down in the garage, getting ready to leave for Canada and frantically wrenching and packing and loading and boxing up one handed - when she sneaks up on him and startles him with her cookie dough worries, while holding her big bag of cat food.

Don't worry I say to her. Everything is under control.

Ok, she says. That's good to hear. Is it still ok if I still come pet her whenever I see her? she asks me. And I tell her absolutely.

And we get in the car and drive away - and I can see her in my rear view mirror still standing on my porch with her big bag of cat food, petting cookie dough.

Transrockin'

It's hot down here in so cal. But it's actually kind of relaxing - just dealing with myself really.

But Morgan, well - wish him luck. I wish I was up there to help him.

His 40th birthday was yesterday and he broke his wrist skateboarding the other day. He's trying to wrench on his bike, finish a deliverable for work, finish packing and get on a plane today - one handed.

So he can get up there to race - broken wrist, bike, tools and all, up to Canada for Transrockies.

The Fear of Going Crazy

At busy times, when things feel just a wee bit out of control, I straighten all the shoes by the front door.

If I can get a bike ride in, each day - in the middle of the spinning and the shoes are straight - even if there's a pile of some sort of barf next to them, well then, things are golden and I kinda feel like it'll all be ok.

Who cares about the dirty dishes and the dirty laundry and all the take out and that the cat now eats on the table with us because the dog is always harassing him and will eat all his cat food if we leave his bowl on the floor.

If the shoes by the front door are straight, then it's all ok.

I'm leaving Tuesday morning to go down to L.A. for work. And Morgan's leaving Wednesday to go to Canada for two weeks. And one kid is going this way for a week and another is going that way for a week and the animals are staying at home, and someone else is coming to house sit.

And trying to get all those silly bike companies to send in their creative before the deadline, for the magazine, which happens to have passed already is like herding cats.

And watching the dog slowly pluck each little petal from my pink cone flowers that I carefully grew from little tiny baby seeds, while I stand at the kitchen sink looking out the window and drinking my glass of red wine, brings tears to my eyes.

And when you tell your husband to be careful on the skateboard at the skate park because he's leaving for his big stage race in three days, the one up in the Canadian trans-rockies, the one that he's been training and training and training for and yapping and yapping about for months and months and months on end ...

The skate park that you're going to, to hang out and watch your kids skate at while you sit on the bench and drink your cans of guinness wrapped in paper bags and pretend you're not middle aged.

Well, you should just remember that there's something called Murphy's law.