Wow, It's Thursday

Only one more day and I am back to the weekend. I really want a couple bottles of cheap wine to get tipsy on. Then I'll drag out the gutiar and annoy the neighbors with antique country music. I feel it coming on, like the storms of summer. I don't drink much. I can, I just don't anymore. But once in a while, it's like a cart wheel, you just have to see if you can still do one.

You all have to comment today, LURKERS! Tell me I done good!

I rode the bike 2 and one half miles last night and only took three rest stops! I may have had to rest but I went the distance! YAAAY MEE!

I get so burnt out in the heat, no air in the office, and I bloat up so big it hurts to type. Then I go out to the unshaded parking area and hop into the white truck that has been locked and closed all day and shoot the 15 miles home wiping the steam off my sunglasses and the sweat out of my eyes all the way. Even with the windows all the way down, if it's 90 degrees, there is nothing but hot air to circulate. When I get home I just pass out on the couch.

The mate kept me cool by coaxing the little beloved air conditioner into continuing to run for one more day. He woke me for dinner and we had plans for a movie at 9:00. So at 8:30 he says, "Wanna go for a bike ride?"

And I do, REALLY! It's cooled off 5 or 6 degrees and I have rested up plenty. So I go find my mocs, tie back my hair, grab a hat with a good sweat band in it and trudge out to the garage to get the bikes out.

I look wistfully at the GL1000, the POWERED bike as I wheel my little 3 speed out. I have a basket, a water holder (courtesy of the mate!) and a diamond handle bar insert mirror that works really well to send morse code to the cars behind me in the dusk. "Flash don't Flash hit Flash me Flash bicycle Flash here Flash." I will be getting the horn on for the rotten little rug rats doing circles around me on their 19" training wheeled OCC bikes. They are the same nasty kids that show me up at the roller rink. I hates 'em.

I lead out and the mate wheels out behind me. As my offical grumpy coach that is his correct position, beating, begging and encouraging me from the rear. (He also likes the view, I am not tricked!)

Everything is uphill from the house so I take the short way, only 1 block to the black top, route. We slow down at the stop sign but I don't dare stop because the right turn is going to be another uphill and I will never make it if I stop. I crest the hill and coast the half block to the stop sign. This one can't be ignored, too much traffic. I pull way to the right as a car has come up behind us. The mate is right there in my mirror. The car pulls away and we make another right, heading for the creek.

The creek is my reward for riding more than 8 blocks. I grew up on an old mill pond and we swam in the creek that ran on other side of the dam. We had Tarzan vines, snakes, bloodsuckers, a dog that chased snakes, a salt shaker to remove the bloodsuckers and one year we hung a rope to swing and drop from. It was dark and cool on the hottest days and a daily joy to all of us.

The creek we are riding toward is a different one. I'm old now and don't know if I can get down the bank to wade in safely. The first time we made it this far there were three kids bombing off the bridge into the 4 feet of water below. Good thing they were short.

I had to keep stopping myself from saying, "You are going to BREAK your NECKS!" and "Does your Mom know you are down here?" My "auto replay mom-isms" are hard wired. I know CPR, so why spoil their fun? I was just jealous. If I lofted my full sized frame over that railing and curled up for a bomb not only would I hit bottom, dislocate my steel hip and leave a dent but the level of the creek would go down two inchs for it's whole length. Getting old sucks.

I still enjoy listening to the water burble over the rocks and logs, looking for turtles and fish, feeling the heat being held back by the coolness of the running water and just being one with the creek. I especially enjoy sharing it with the mate. We did 80 percent of our teen mating rituals by, fishing or in some type of water, including HOT! Standing there with him leaning on the rail beside me raises my libido and makes me nostalgic.

Sorry, side railed again, by love. Can you tell I love water and the mate?

So we headed toward the creek. The Grumpy Coach has this delusion that it is down hill both ways to the creek and back to town. I enjoy debating this with him but it smacks of the time Mom had been driving through the mountains for 20 hours in Maine and couldn't tell if she was going up or down hill because of the thin air. This is bad if you are in a 6 cylinder box pulling a ton and a half of furniture behind you in a trailer. She kept speeding up on the down hills.

He has no excuse for trying to convince me that we live where gravity and other natural laws are suspended except to encourage me to ride further out each day on the pretext that going back will be just as easy as going out. I refute him by having my legs and breathing burn out on the return EVERY TIME but he insists I am mistaken.

I put the bike in second gear and feel like I'm still spinning so I get it into third and continue pedaling. I hate third because when I drop back to one sometimes there is nothing there. I have to shift back up and down again to get the gear to change. I put it back in one as we hit the bridge over the creek.

We had a quiet rest stop, no kids this time. I got all gooshy inside thinking of the mate when we were teens. Yum! Then I notice his strong, male arm leaning by mine and start think of getting the mate home! But I get a wild hair and instead of heading back for town I went for the next crossroad.

One of my biggest fears when I'm exercising is that the stupid heart will clog up and quit on me again. (My other fear, anywhere on the road, is skunks. Who will help you THEN? must remember to ask) I am already too warm and may have bitten off more than I can swallow but I won't quit now. I make the corner, warn the mate I'm U turning, check for traffic and head back for the creek where we stop again.

A new view and a few minutes resting till my breathing slows and I'm ready for the hard part of the ride. We start back for town. As I don't condone stealing, I will just report the conversation without sock puppets.

"This is NOT down hill!", I complain.

The mate, defending his delusion, says, "It is TOO!"

"Not!!"

"Is," he claims, "look at the side of the road!"

I look over and holler over my shoulder, "Are those sand cherries?"

Taken off guard by the sudden change of subject he checks to make sure it's still me and not an alien on the bike. He's not used to me giving up before at least three repeats of Not! He figures it's the hormones or something and answers, "I don't know."

I make a mental note to ask the sis, she has sand cherry bushes and push the pedal one more time. I am half way up the last hill before the turn and the next half block hill. I can't breathe and my heart is pounding. "Stopping!" I holler over my shoulder.

"You can make it!" Grumpy Coach shouts.

"Can't!" I gasp. I stop on the side of the road and lean the bike over to half stand.

He pulls up behind me and says, "This is the furthest you've been, you're doing Great! Just a little further!" (in case you didn't notice, he's not a very grumpy coach at all)

I get my wind back and my legs stop burning in about 3 minutes so I bounce the bike upright and it staggers on the uphill launch but I make it to the second turn of the second pedal and get rolling only to have to pull in at the corner to let a car pass us.

There I stand and eye the one hill between me and home. I spin the pedals around and launch again, cross the road and am about two thirds of the way up when 4 little kids and a Mom approach the road on my side to cross. They look at me and I just KNOW they are going to step into the road. "Warning, old lady biker with no brakes, can't stop! Look out!"

They laugh at me but wait till we get past them to cross. I would have never have been able to start again if I had to stop there. I would rather have them laugh at me than push the bike up the hill.

I reached the top and hear, "You did it! It's all down hill from here!" I think, "Thank God!" and coast the block to our corner, make a safe left and continue to coast the last block home.

I am not sure how I can find as much to write about on a 2.5 mile ride as DC does for a 50 miler. Maybe it's because it seems like 50 miles to me. If the world is as we perceive it perhaps it was 50 miles for me!

I didn't get this posted on Thursday because I have been busy thinking other thoughts. They follow.

I have working on the soldier blog, too. It's not forgotten but there are so many links and so much info I want to include it's taking longer than I had planned.

I need to get back to my herstory blog, too. While my young friend is pretty patient and I think has decided not to leave home just yet I want to get that moving along. So if things get a little slow here be patient with me.