Hungry Monday x2

The bagel shop could not toast that bagel fast enough for me this morning. I should have ordered two. Also, the large coffee cup was not large enough.

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The fog sitting on top of the coastal range as we headed home yesterday evening was, for once, a welcome sight

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I'm still hungry

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If a weekend's success can be determined by the content's of one's cooler when you return home, then I claim this weekend a rousing success. Amidst some used up water bottles, there were two bottles of Chimay from Ali's Tomcat and one bottle of some kind of Hutchy Rose Vino special thing.

Cheers!

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All kidding aside, I have a suprising amount of energy so far today. I am wondering just when, and how suddenly, the bottom is going to drop out.

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Rule #1 of Race club - Don't get dropped from the break...don't get dropped from the break...don't get dropped from the break.

At one point, when the endurance I am lacking started to catch up to me and my hoohaw started whining, I wondered, ever so briefly, how it would feel to get dropped from the break.

Just briefly.

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I continue to be head over heels in love with my man.

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EZ Ups are pesky creatures

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Feed zones are dangerous

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Bellas have an annoying habit of not showing up in race finish film. Do we need more flair?

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I should have had the meatballs

Happy Thursdays

I like Thursdays

So close to Friday. Thinking about the weekend, but don't yet have to stress on all of the things you wanted to get done before the weekend.

There's still time. Lots to be optimistic about.

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We've got all kinds of chatter going around the bella boards about Madera and how to keep cool for the hot weekend. Ice ice ice they say.

okie dokie.

All I am thinking about is 3 flat stages.
Flat!
Except for some rollers.
Flat!

I am going to eat that bumpy section for lunch. Haaaaang on.

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Hump Day

sneaky Tuesday

since I am naming my days this week, Tuesday was Sneaky Tuesday.

I blogged instead of paying attention in class.

I took a sneaky spy pic with my camphone.

I slinked away from the conference right after they passed out the Haagen Daz bars (what more is there left to wait for once they pass out the ice cream?)

I squirmed in to Santa Cruz just before the nasty rush traffic.

I snuck into the Post Office right before the swarm that became a long line.

I rode those trails.

I ate some of Michael's tasty Sri Lankan eggplant when he wasn't looking.

purgatory looks like this

The bummer about technology is that I have to sit through this.
The not so bummer about it is that I can blog about it all stealthy like from the last row.

I do look up every now and then, maybe turn the page on the little hand out like I am following along. But basically, these things move at the speed of a soap opera, so you can blank out for some time, and not lose anything.

Does anyone ever really write notes on those giant lines next to the power point slide handouts? Those lines remind me of the writing paper we used to learn how to write cursive. (speaking of cursive, I read something somewhere, that cursive was dying. Don't know that I care one way or another about that ~ Ha...I just looked at that Q. Does anyone ever use that Q? What the hell?)


Why do they hand out all of this paper in a conference on paperless business processes? For real, they did. I should give them a conference on paperless conferencing. They should have the presentation online so we can take notes there. And then it wouldn't be so obvious that I am not paying attention.

I wonder what we're having for lunch?

Hungry Mondays

I am always sooooo damn hungry on Mondays. Ravenous, all day long. I try to keep healthy crap around the office for the munchies. Amongst other munchieness, I ate two bananas and three apples within about 3 hours. I paid for that a little later.

I think, even my bike is tired. We saw these flowers during our lunch ride and couldn't help but lie in them for a bit. I can hardly blame us.

How in the world am I gonna make it through Madera?

My dirty laundry

I'm out of pants.

Michael and I haven't done laundry in forever, and I am finally out of pants.

Yesterday I wore that pair. You know that pair. They're sort of in the back of the closet and you don't throw or give them away because they fit and they are okay...but you never wear them because there is just something funky about them. Well, I had to wear that pair yesterday, which means that today, I am out of pants.

Seeing as how it was too cold to wear a skirt, I went rummaging through the sweat pants stack. I found a pair of Prana yoga pants, with a little bit too much fuzz and kitty hair on them. And thats what I am stuck wearing today. Luckily, I work at a place where that is dressing up.

I hate not having pockets though.

I have no idea when we are going to get caught up on stuff at home.

I have bike parts all over my house, dirty towels on my stairwell, mud in my toaster...and no pants. But we are heading to Livermore tomorrow and will be there for the weekend to play and race in the rain and to drink all of David and Monica's wine.

This is what happens when there are no adults in the house.

There is a limit to what I will put up with however. The other day I headed over to Santa Teresa for a quick sunset ride. I was rushed but determined to get a quick ride in. My bike still had Sea Otter mud and yack all over it. And that was fine, I could deal with that.



But when I pulled the bike out of the car, I noticed that the Sea Otter number plate was still firmly attached.

Nu-uh. There is a limit to my goofyness. And riding around Santa Teresa with a Sea Otter number plate is that limit. I went searching through my car for anything to take the damn thing off, because if I couldn't, I was not riding. You know?

I tired pliers, screwdrivers and the brute force of my bare hands and that plate would not budge. I was starting to bum out. But fortunately, I found this goofy ass Pink Swiss Army knife thingie that my former work gave me when I left (i dunno) and the little pull out scissors did the trick. I couldn't shift real well, mud was still clinging to the frame and I didn't have enough air in the tires. But the ride was all good.

Is the weekend over yet?

My poor Danskos. They have been through a lot. But I think this weekend finally killed them.

We got home at 9:00 on Sunday night, with the Toaster and Sputnik packed full of otter necessities like tents, electical cords and hula hoops. But we were both too whooped to even think about unpacking. It was tough enough just to make the long walk from cars to bed.

So the otter circus thats in my car went to work and back with me yesterday. We toughed up and unloaded, cleaned and organized last night, but only because it started to smell like dead otter in my car and there was no room for my NEW BIKE!.

But for all the work, and all the grumblings about the chaos that is the Otter, I had a blast. Its the one chance that our entire team has to get together. Where else would our Cat 4 road racers get to hula hoop with our pro downhillers?


Only one place. And so, each year...its totally worth it.

Huge huge thank yous to every bella who came out and raced and volunteered and hulad and hooped and boogied and bubbled.

Muah!

Windburn

Oy...and its not even the weekend yet.

But this is why all the work is worth it

Physics Lesson

Just because you close your eyes real quick, hoping for a few more moments of sleep in the morning, does not mean that time won't keep ticking along.

How does the clock move 15 minutes in a few seconds?

She's crafty

All training and work and anything else had to be put on hold during my lunch hour today.

I had a very important mission to accomplish. I had to get a new helmet flower.

We got our new Giro helmets in this weekend and I sported it on Sunday. But, as lovely as it was, it just wasn't cutting it for me. It was flowerless.



I tried to remember where Soni got the cute little flower that I have been sporting in my old helmet. And then I remembered....a craft store.

craft store. Like, with, craft things.

I am so not a craft things person.

I googled up the closest crafts store in Morgan Hill and found a place called JoAnns or something. I walked in and let me just say....why haven't you people told me about these craft stores?

I spent forever walking up and down all the aisles of fun. Gone are the days of bags of googly eyes and popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners. Crafts are totally hot and trendy now.

(By the way, when did this whole scrapbooking thing start? That stuff is just plain out of control. Looks like a lot of work for some pictures. I didn't even know people printed out pictures anymore, much less went to that kind of trouble. I used to just raise the film over the sticky page in an album, throw a bunch of pics in that seemed somewhat the same, and stuck the sticky page back on top)

I found my fake flowers and some other stuff and then I spotted some shiny sparkly fabric that I knew would just be perfect for something meaningless and bella. I had to have it.

I loaded up three of those fabric roll thingies in my cart with the fake flowers and my other stuff and headed for the register.

The cashier looked at the giant rolls of fabric in my cart and asked if I had measured the whole roll. I was confused, don't they know how much material they put in a roll before they put it on the shelves?

Luckily, before my ignorance could be made audible, the cashier instructed me to go to the cutting desk place to have my fabric measured and cut.

oh.

I rolled my cart over to the big cutting desk place and put my rolls up on the counter. The lady with the smock and the scissors and the giant button that read "Lou Ann" (Do they all put "Ann" after their names, I wondered) asked me how much.

Um.

I must have had that same blank look on my face as when the butcher asks me that. Because, at the butcher, before I can mumble out an "I have no idea, can't you weigh it, spice it, and cook it up for me?", they always ask me for how many people or something helpful.

And Lou Ann asked me what I would be using it for. Which was nice and all, but I had no idea what I was using it for. I just knew it was bright and sparkly and fun and I would maybe use it to cover a table at Sea Otter, or a wall at a bella party, or a part of a costume, or....and the thought of explaining how I needed it for a women's bike racing team and didn't know yet what I wanted to do with it, just seemed ridiculous.

So I told her "2". Wasn't even sure what the unit of measurement was, but 2 seemed good. Now I have 6 yards of sparkly bright fabric (Glitter Organza for the initiated)to figure out what to do with.

And a new flower for my helmet.

Good Friday

Easter is weird.

I mean, how do we go from a man (son of god, philosopher, spiritual leader, take your pick) being put to death on a crucifix and then supposedly rising from the dead two days later to save all of humanity from the sin of being human (or something)..how do we go from that to Bunnies that carry baskets of dyed chicken eggs, and brunches of glazed ham, and cartons of marshmallow peeps?

And whats with Easter being on a different Sunday each year. Who decides that anyway?

Speaking of religion, which I shouldn't because I will likely offend, but even after 8 or more years of roman catholic bible pounding, no one could ever explain what it meant to be the son of god. With the greek and roman gods, it was pretty clear. They had little god families. God husbands and wives, and sometimes mortal mistresses and sons and duaghters and all the family baggage that goes with that like jealousy and protection. You could picture them sitting around their god family table on the top of some mountain and eating grapes and stuff.

But the bible god is not like that. He or she or the entity doesn't have a house in the clouds or a dinner table or a wife/husband. So I never could understand what it meant to be the son of that. And no one could explain. Not even Father McGuiness who usually looked like he drank too much of his own namesake.

And don't even get me started on the holy ghost. But my visions as a kid whenever I made the sign of the cross and said the holy trinity, was some old dude with a big beard, some adult hippy looking guy with sandals, and casper the friendly ghost. Because I figured that if a ghost was part of all this, he was at least friendly.

What does any of this have to do with biking? Its all the crazy random crap that ran through my mind during my lunch ride today. All alone, on trails I have ridden before...the mind wanders. Sometimes afterwards I can't even remember where it wandered.

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This afternoon I made a quick dash over to Target to get a head start on necessary supplies for our booth at Sea Otter. Here is what I bought:

2 packs of AA Batteries
1 Extension cord
1 big box of Pepperidge Farm goldish (cheese flavored)
2 Cosmic light up hula hoops
2 strands of door beads from the kid's room section
1 bubble machine
1 gallon bubble juice
6 strands of cosmic beads necklaces
2 multicolored stunt dance ribbons
3 bags lollipops
1 kid's hello kitty roller disco shirt size XL

I hope we don't lose our non profit status....

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I was a complete goofball spaz on my ride today. Couldn't ride a rock to save my life. Took three tries to get up this little grunt I have been doing without problem lately. Fell over just straddling my bike (not once, but twice even). Almost fell while trying to take a Lauren'esque self portrait. And ran into a fence while looking at a bunch of firefighters.

whatever.

Training Day

Yesterday was a picture perfect spring day.

I managed to get out at lunch and do some intervally things...but I wanted more. So I shot an email over to Michael and asked his advice on getting in another ride after work. Maybe a quick little mtb spin at Santa Teresa, where the wildflowers are exploding, the grass is still green and the trails are tacky yummy.

He said I should go for it because "doubling up on the workouts is just soooo good for the fitness."

Yeah. Thats why I did it.

Some pics I stole

From CCCX #5

The Simple Life

I spent all day Friday drinking
all day Saturday racing
and all day Sunday eating

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The official race report is here

The photo was peeped from a link on Bummer Life and there is more grossness here