It’s Bike (or Trike) Everywhere Month!

Go Hawks!

What used to be Bike to Work Month is now Bike Everywhere Month. This is kind of cool for people like my hubby Doug who aren’t in a situation where pedaling to work is feasible at the moment (in his case, because the idea of riding downtown on a recumbent trike = scary) can still participate and log miles for running errands, recreational riding, etc. Yesterday he rode his trike to PT and back. This is the kind of freedom he needs and has been missing, so I’m super happy for him.

I’ll be participating this May as part of the City of Seattle’s Greenhouse G-ass Kickers and logging most of my miles commuting. Tomorrow’s looking decent for the kick-off, so it will be fun to see lots of bikes (and maybe some unis and trikes?) around town.

NWC Epistle #1

Dear NWCs,

Nailed it. Winning this day. Dogs out and lawn mowed before the rain began in earnest. Good coffee talk with the neurotic wives. As great as it feels every Thursday to catch up on chores, errands and hanging with the ladies, I still can’t decide if the chance for these hours free of work is worth the loss of income and additional stress at the office. Yesterday, I nearly had a meltdown (the ongoing hormone carnival ride isn’t helping) when random question #286 of the day walked up while don’t-really-have-a-question-just-thought-I’d-loiter-here-not-leaving-after-being-told-you’re-so-busy-you’re-drowning was also standing there. When it turned out random question was pretty complicated and one for which I had no response, I heard words coming out of my mouth along the lines of “why does everything have to be so hard around here now?” I just don’t think I’m capable of stretching myself any further. I think I’ve finally found the point at which my rubber just snaps. Hair pins will be left spinning in the air behind me as I run from the place (look up Witch Hazel from Bugs Bunny cartoons if you’re not getting this).

Serendipity-do

When I was a kid, I loved those jars of bright pastel colored hair gel called Dippity-Do. It still exists, but is in a boring squeeze jar, not this lovely magical tub. This and Aqua Net were the go-to hair products of the day, not that any of them ever helped me achieve the lasting curls I so fervently wanted. I used to do extravagant things to get my hair to curl, including perms using the tiniest rollers and the harshest chemicals available. I sometimes ended up with some waves in my hair and though it wasn’t what I’d dreamed, I was still happier than living with my snarl-infested, stick-straight hair (why do we say this – some sticks are definitely not straight…). I have long since given up on this goal, much to my toxin-level’s benefit, and often run into people with natural curls who tell me they always wanted straight hair like mine. Grass is always greener…but not as green as Dippity-do!

Pizza Friday

We usually have pizza every Friday. I make a batch of dough from my favorite bread cookbook, Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast and then we put it together and cook it on a stone in the grill. This week I was too tired on Thursday to make dough, so we’re having pizza Saturday instead, meeting our friends at one of the neighborhood spots. We’ll get to see how our friend Tess does eating with her left hand only – she broke her ELBOW of all things on Thursday when she fell while running. Since Doug’s stroke affected his left side and he still has little use of that hand, we joked that if we joined him and Tess side by side, they’d be a person with two working hands! Oh, man. She’ll be having surgery this week to put a pin in the bone that is 2 inches away from where it’s supposed to be. Gruesome.