Hashimoto can kiss my ass

Camphone 15, originally uploaded by Sabine Dukes.

I may be a lazy blogger, but I am kicking ass everywhere else.

Since Michael's been on his vacciones, I have:

Painted the den (well, not me, but its painted!)
Solved the flooring debacle (stupid Home Depot)
Got the heater fixed
Got my ear fixed (it was a little clogged and grumpy)
Got my tooth fixed
Went Trader Joe shopping
Installed Photoshop Elements 6 (sorry Beth, I'm not a big girl yet)
Finally figured out what damn PS layers were
Dinked around in Photoshop elements and made a picture for this blog
Finished reading the last of the Farseer Trilogies (you can get your books now Soni)
Extended the bella clothing order (cat herding)
Finalized the 2008 bella art
Consulted with Miss Mary on the Fandango (tapas or tatas?)
Bitty batted with Natasha about 08 road
Planned the Saturday mtb ride
Drank yet another bottle of spanish wine
Got out the 1099s
Installed the fixed asset software
Hired a temp
Made the auditors happy
Rode my bike at lunch

Yeah

but I still have not cleaned the cat box

~~

Reservoir Check!

Here is the little part outside the reservoir where all the fish were dying. It hasnt seen water since that fateful day. Now its flling up again and little duckies were swimming in it. Can you see the little duckies?

~~~

p.s.

So. I'm sitting here in the living room, rereading my post and reflecting on what a bad ass I am for accomplishing so much in a couple of days, when something struck me as wrong.

There was something I did wrong, but couldn't figure it out until I saw potato chips in the refrigerator and half and half in the pantry. Luckily the wine is fine.

The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies

The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, originally uploaded by Sabine Dukes.

I'm a lazy blogger

and a sad panda

my honey is leaving and will be gone almost a whole week.

waah.

I'm going to get sooo much done this week. Already scratched one thing off the list:

1. Begin the planning of the bella party

and its not a moment too soon since the party is less than two weeks away. And really, Miss Mary is doing most of the work, but still its one thing off the list.

Then we've got the planning of the Bos training cramp, and then the flooring debacle at home depot and then maybe my tires (I've been skipping my thursday workout) and then maybe even paint a room, buy some filters for my camera, put away some christmas stuff, and finally order blinds for the windows.

Now, I'm just wondering how the cat boxes are gonna get cleaned.

For Sale: 1991 Gorilla

My mom is selling her boyfriend's car. He can't drive it anymore. Or at least he "shouldn't" drive it anymore.

My mom caught him heading down Ord Grove Avenue into oncoming traffic.

His car is a 1991 Nissan 300Z with only 58,000 miles on it. But before you get too excited...its white with a red leather interior. Thats right, I said red leather.

So my mom wants me to put an ad in Craigslist for her. And I asked her to send me a picture of the car for the ad.

And today I got an email from my mom that said "here is the picture of the Nissan" and attached to the email was a very random picture of a gorilla. (above)

Huh?

~~~


Bella training camp was this weekend.

Training might be stretching it a bit though. Unless one is training for a wine tasting marathon, or a frat house party, or one of those roman parties where you gorge yourself and throw up.

We really are out of control.

Or maybe just I am.

Whichever, I was pretty hungover for part of the training camp weekend. I am going to blame it all on Marscat and Susie because they took me wine tasting.

This is what I remember about bella camp:

Belgian waffles
climb , freeway aaaack!, climb, climb, freeway aack!
Wine tasting
pepperoni pizza with wine
Creme brulee with port
Tums with excedrin
8 glasses of water in the middle of the night.
Belgian waffles
spin, happy, spin, spin
windy crit practice
grabbing dollar bills out of Laura's ass
keeping Laura from grabbing dollar bills out of my ass
sidewalk nap
portapotty dash
spin, happy, spin, spin

And then, somehow, I came home with more bottles of wine than I arrived with.

And did not ride in the rain.

Now if that ain't a perfect camp, I don't know what is.

Fuck Chicken

CamPhone 13, originally uploaded by Sabine Dukes.

Oh yeah! I totally cleaned Rocky Ridge today. No bobbles, no dabs.

There were a few "oh shit" moments though.

Now, for those who aren't so wussy at mountain biking, Rocky Ridge is probably no big deal. But I am from the land of soft sand and redwood needled carpet trails and the rocks just foul me up something fierce with their pointy obtrusiveness.

I trusted in the Dawg (and in only about 17psi in my moto tires) and rolled right over everything. It wasn't pretty, but it got 'er done.

At the bottom of the trail, when I stopped to finally catch my breath and regain and reflect, I was all full of giddy glee and was sort of bummed that no one was around that I could fling my glee on.

So I patted myself on the back and granny ringed it back to the car.

I can't help myself

Reason #113, originally uploaded by Sabine Dukes.

I really shouldn't blog this picture, but damn, it cracks me up too much not to share it with a few of my friends.

Besides, he has it coming. For giving me a goofball training plan.

I think he's actually kind of given up on training me and using that part of his brain to help people who might actually take his advice once in a while. For people who actually want to workout and have some discipline and stuff. For people who don't nod their head and promise yes they will do 2 sets of 7 minute intervals on a flat road in the wind when they know full well they are going to go mtb and hit that tricky section of Rocky Ridge instead.

But still. He could at least humor me a little.

So, you wanna know the training plan he gave me?

Monday: ride the Dawg up steep fireroads in the granny ring
Tuesday: ride the Dawg up steep fireroads in the granny ring
Wednesday: ride the Dawg up steep fireroads in the granny ring
Thursday: Finally get the tires replaced on the Toaster
Friday: ride the Dawg up steep fireroads in the granny ring
Saturday: MTB Ride (which usually involves climbing steep fireroad in the granny ring)
Sunday: Who can plan that far ahead?

Yep. Thats it. Thats my super secret training plan.

I think, today at lunch, I will hit up that tricky section of Rocky Ridge.

Coe Legs

Camphone 11, originally uploaded by Sabine Dukes.

Ouch.

They still hurt.

But man, was that worth it. Nine of us headed out to Coe on Saturday. It was an incredible Juneuary day. Birds a twitterin and streams a flowin.

And hills a rising. Lordy there are some hills to climb in that park. Ann mentioned that Serpentine trail would be a tough climb and we might have to walk a little.

A little?

I'm quite sure I push walked more than I rode. I even had time to stop and take a picture with the phone.

But it was so very much worth it to get to the top and see nothing. Well, not really nothing, but nothing man made, save for the observatory on top of Hamilton.

At 90,000 acres, Coe is the largest state park in No California. Because it is so large a park, it can maintain its wild habitat, with very little influence from encroaching populations. I imagine it is what California used to be, back when the Ohlones migrated seasonally to harvest the rich wildflowers.

How precious to have preserved such a chunk.

Unfortunately, it is on the list of parks to get the axe under Schwarzenegger's budget proposal.

48 State Parks to be CLOSED.

CLOSED.

In the history of our state park system, no Governor has ever closed a state park to meet a budget. What an utterly dreadful legacy we would leave to actually CLOSE a state park.

The cut would "save" $13.3 million from the state budget, as part of an effort to fill a $16 billion gap. That is less than 1% of the shortfall.

Just seems a stupid way to save some chump change.

Many its just an act on the Governor's part, or maybe the State Parks is just gesturing, or maybe it would really happen.

Sure, we'd probably still get to ride in these parks, but thats not really the point, is it?

More info on the proposed closures here. And a sign it and send it thingie is here.

Cyclocross Dreams

Sploosh, originally uploaded by sabinedukes.

I had the weirdest cyclocross dream last night.

Michael and I rode out to watch a cyclocross race and on the way there we saw Ben and Andy. They were both on their new cyclocross bikes so we pulled over to look at them. (The bikes, not Ben and Andy, although I probably did look at their calves)

And that was all fine, but then the dream morphed into nonsense as dreams usually do.

So we are looking at the bikes and making cyclocross small talk, when I notice that Ben and Andy brought their pets with them. Their pets included some dogs, chickens, some kind of rodent thing and a pig.

Michael and I felt sort of outdone because we only had our cats with us. (How they came with us while we were riding was not answered by the dream) Michael sort of shrugged apologetically and said "we only have cats, I hope thats okay". Ben and Andy were cool about it and said they liked us so it was okay that we only had cats.

And then there were all sorts of animals, but I have no idea where they all came from. But in the dream, it was totally normal and expected to have all of these animals at a cyclocross race.

All of a sudden, Andy's pig turned into a giant wild boar with big tusks. It started tearing up the ground around the cyclocross course looking for food. It was messing up the course a little and I started getting worried that Andy's pig would mess up the course before the women's race. Andy just looked at me like I was crazy and said "don't you know this is how they make those courses in Belgium!"

And I was so embarrased because I didn't know. So I pretended that I did know. And that pissed off Andy's boar and he started squealing (the boar, not Andy) and getting angry. Suddenly the boar charged at a cat and I thought it was my cat, and I was going to kill Andy. (don't fuck with my cat, even in dreamland)

Well, the officials found out that I wanted to kill Andy, so they penalized me and I had to do two extra laps of the course. Except the course was super fun, and muddy because of all the pigs, and I was having a good time.

And then I woke up and had to go to work.

After the Storm

After the Storm, originally uploaded by sabinedukes.

Some storm.

High wind warnings, high surf warnings, batton down the hatches!

And somehow, this treacherous weekend, we managed to get more riding in than usual. (And not on the trainer. Thats not riding, thats just exercising.)

We must have been followed by the group ride angel all weekend because we hit that magic window when the rain stops long enough for frolicking fun each time.

We had about almost 4 hours of mixed sun on Saturday and a couple more on Sunday. We rode over happy and happier trails. We went up the fireroad and down the singletrack.

(As it should be, by the way. I actually had a passive agressive protest on a group ride last week when they all wanted to go up this fine fine singletrack and come back down a paved road. WTF? Warped. So I sat out that loop and met them a little later on. I have my standards)

We went to little moab, lichen lane, monkey trail and watched some cyclocross. Then Michael and I followed it up with good food, boozy drinks and a lovely sunset.

And now its Monday and I am in that weird transistion zone I'm in each time I have to go back to work after a fabulous weekend. The work me just doesn't feel real after a days filled with such satisfying sensory overload. The work me feels hollow and automotonish. And I am stuck drinking decaf.

This morning Michael and I both got up late and he remarked at what a mess everything was. I told him we live like addicts. Just living from one hit to the next.

Bastard People

camphone 9, originally uploaded by sabinedukes.

Damn Blogger has locked me out of publishing my blogs!

They think my blog is spam. They say they will review and if appropriate open it back up within 4 days.

Bastard People

But I am subverting them through flickr. Except I can't go back and edit. So you will have to excuse the blown out picture below until I am exonerated of my blogger crimes.

Resolution what wha

New Year's Eve Necessities, originally uploaded by sabinedukes.

Michael made fun of my resolutions this morning. Mostly because I don't think I've kept to any of them. And its only the 4th.

I sometimes take my medicine. I haven't even flossed. I made the bed once, but didn't get up early to do it.

Its not the waking up early thats the problem, its the getting out of bed part that seems to be hampering things.

I just love sitting in bed in the morning and reading or lollygagging on the computer or petting the kitties. If I was one of those people who worked from home, I would set up my office in my bed.

But of course, I could never be one of those people who work from home. I would get totally fired.

~~~

So, I pretty much decided I'm not riding today.

~~~

Pictures from the 2nd Annual Troy Natwick Invitational are here

Fat and Happy

Elephant Nap, originally uploaded by sabinedukes.

Let the New Year's resolutions begin!

1. Wake up earlier and make the bed once in a while
2. Become a yoga fuck
3. Maybe slow down on the hedonism a little
4. Thank him for taking care of my bikes
5. Remember to take my medicine
6. Floss
7. Erase my answering machine and clean out my inbox
8. Finish the damn kitchen already
9. Find more opportunities to dance
10. Vote