A very long tale of riding

I've been riding my bike again lately. Riding it obsessively, because that's just what I do. If I like something I get obsessed and can't think of much else except what it is I am obsessed with. It happened with veggie burgers, TCBY, Lays baked chips, green tea, white tea, chai tea, coffee, espresso, hummus, Bruce Springsteen, Mumford and Sons, David Sedaris. The list goes on and as you can see it mostly all has to do with food, beverages, musicians and hilarious writers. Trust me, there are much worse things to be obsessed with than the previous list.

Riding a bike is the one thing in my life that I mastered on the first try. I think this is the reason I like it so much. I was five years old and spotted a bike on our front dirt. I can't call it a front lawn as we were the sort of children who played hard and didn't allow grass to grow. Anyway, I saw the bike and noticed that no one was around, and because I didn't want to make a fool of myself in front of anyone else I figured I would take the opportunity to get on and see what happened. I rode all the way over to my Nana's apartment without falling. It was completely exhilarating and I was hooked. And then I was mad that there were no witnesses.

I grew up in an age where parents were smart enough to not sign their children up for any activity that wasn't close enough to walk or ride our bikes to and so those were just about the only ways I knew to get myself around. When I was in high school I managed to become friends with people who had cars and this was quite helpful, but still, I loved riding my bike.

When I got my first job that paid over eight bucks an hour I saved up and bought myself an expensive Trek mountain bike. I rode all over the place, mostly on deserted country roads that were definitely not the kinds of places a twenty one year old girl should be riding alone. This made my mom nervous which I think was the reason I did it. And yes, I am sure I will be paid back in kind by my own children.

I dreamed about going cross country on my Trek. Like most of my dreams, I had no real plan and sort of just hoped this would happen on its own and when it didn't I forgot about it and went about my life. I got married, moved a lot, had children and the only bike I rode for a while was a stationary bike that I loved for the sole reason that riding it everyday for an hour helped me lose every bit of the weight I gained when I had gotten pregnant.

It wasn't the same though and when we moved to Burlington I started riding outside again - that is until I took an awful spill and almost landed head first directly into a tree. I was shaken and for quite some time I didn't ride and when I did, it was only with Greg and the kids.

Once we moved here, a place where the weather is almost always nice enough to ride outside, I got back into it and remembered how much I loved it. The problem of course is that because I am somewhat obsessive I am not happy enough to just ride for an hour. I have to ride for ninety minutes which leads to two hours which leads to two and a half hours which leads to a very sore arse and bizarre tan lines.

At the very least, all of my obsessive riding has taught me some important things and I will share them with you now. Bring enough water or risk hallucinating, wear sun block or risk getting an awful burn, turn around after an hour because if you don't you will just want to keep going and chances are you have people waiting for you at home who love you and may even miss you if you don't come back (unless you were in a really bad mood when you departed and in that case, stay out as long as possible). When your butt gets sore, you are better off just sitting through it because if you stand up and then sit back down on your bike seat it will hurt approximately one hundred times more than it originally did.

Another thing I learned. Lake County is gorgeous. There are hundreds of bikes routes to ride and you will be unable to stay in a foul mood if you happened to have been in one when you left, not that I would know anything about foul moods as I am mostly a sunshiny type person. Truthfully, whatever I am feeling when I leave for my rides I couldn't really tell you because by the time I get home I am completely exhausted in the best possible way. And every time I go out I am convinced at some point in that ride that during this lifetime I will make my way across the country on my bike. That's what riding does for me. It make me crazy and delusional and happy and completely thankful to be alive.

Two decades worth

Sometimes high school friends "friend" me on facebook and ask what I've been up to for the past 20 years, so I've come up with a form letter to let everyone in on the excitement that has been my life over the past two decades.

Dear so and so,

It's so good to hear from you. Due to my laziness, the chances of me sending you a friend request were slim to none, so thank you for taking the initiative.

As far as what I have been up to for the last twenty years, well, I will try to distill everything down to the nitty gritty, truly important stuff.

After graduating from high school in 1987, I went onto to college, graduating from Suny Albany in the winter of '92, with a degree in the "liberal arts." It was well worth it; I am still liberal and artistic. I'll save you the trouble of doing the math and just tell you that yes, it took me longer than four years to graduate. I was busy doing important and productive things during that time, things not related to my studies, hence the delay.

I met my husband (although he wasn't my husband when I met him) in the summer of '90 and married him in the summer of '93. His name is Greg and he grew up in Buffalo, NY. I can't really describe him to you, as it wouldn't do him justice, suffice it to say that he has a twisted sense of humor, talks minimally, and doesn't care what anyone but me thinks of him. Sometimes this fact makes me nervous, but most of the time I find it refreshing. Oh, and he does laundry on a regular basis, and adores me and our children, so I bagged me a good one.

Greg and I spent the first years of our marriage moving around to various places like Rochester, NY, West Kill NY, North Carolina and Vermont. There was also a short stint in Maine that I prefer not to think about.

In the fall of 2001 we decided we should take the three children that we now had (two girls, one boy) and move closer to extended family, so we moved back to Albany, NY, where we remained for about four years, until we decided that we should move again, this time to someplace warm and brimming with job possibilities for my husband - he works in construction as a project manager. He's pretty bossy so he has done quite well in this position.

Anyway, in the fall of 2005 we packed up and moved to central Florida, knowing that the state was bursting with building projects and Greg would never be out of a job, and so far he hasn't been, although things got dicey last year, but I think we're okay for now. I don't worry too much about this stuff.

At first I hated central Florida, as it was the exact opposite of everything I had ever known. I especially hated the palm trees. They seemed so empty and soulless and I spent many hours wondering if we had made a huge mistake moving to a place where the only trees were ones that provided no shade, but then we found this great little town called Mount Dora, Florida, located in beautiful Lake County, and I decided I didn't hate it all. There were huge oak trees with Spanish moss dripping off of them, and lakes, and hills, and friendly people and my kids said it reminded them of their Fisher Price village, so we decided to buy a house and settled in.

Right around this time I had another baby. She was a total surprise. At first I was annoyed that I was pregnant because I was a perfect size 6 and I didn't want to get fat, as I am stay at home mom and dreaded becoming the stereotypical, dumpy mom, but the second Maggie was born I told everyone to pretend I had never said some of the things I did while I was pregnant. I certainly didn't want her to get a complex and think that keeping my figure was more important to me than bringing a new life into the world. As it turns out, she is doted on like no other child has been and will probably go on to do something incredible and amazing, like curing diabetes. But even if she doesn't I won't care. None of us can imagine life without her. She's pretty great.

As far as the details of our lives right now, I homeschool my fourteen and twelve year old daughters, but my son, who is ten, goes to public school. My kids are funny and cute and love to read and were once described as "little spark plugs." That's really all you need to know about them.

I spend most of my days reading, painting my walls over and over again, moving furniture around, walking around our town and enjoying the beautiful weather (unless it dips below 50 degrees and then I refuse to go outside.) And of course I have met some wonderful friends. In fact, I think the friends I have met here may be some of the nicest people on the planet.

I guess my life keeps me busy because I fall into bed every night completely exhausted. And yes, I know it all sounds so simple and quaint, but when I was a little girl I had no aspirations to lead a glamorous life filled with wealth and fame; I only wanted to grow up to be a mom and wife, so I guess you could call me a success story.

I hope this fills you in on some of the finer points of my life. Please let me know what you have been up to for the past twenty years.

whammy

One of my greatest joys as a child was visiting my grandparent's house. It was not a house filled with many rules. The only ones in place mostly had to do with food. We couldn't freely dip into my grandfather's beloved Twinkies, hot dogs, or liver worst; permission must first be sought. The other rule was that we definitely were not allowed to touch the thermostat, although we didn't know about that rule until my Uncle John, the youngest of my dad's eleven siblings, dared to touch the heat one day and chaos ensued.

I guess my grandfather was highly attuned to temperature settings and sensed that something was amiss. He went and checked the thermostat and when his suspicions were confirmed he started carrying on in a manner that was somewhat amusing. My grandfather wasn't prone to speaking, let alone yelling, and he wasn't even prone to moving out of his chair, so to see him running through the hall, flailing his arms and opening his mouth to scream was too much for my ten year old self to comprehend. My siblings and I ran upstairs, caught between nervous laughter and my Uncle John, who was trying quickly to remove himself from the scene.

At some point the crisis was diffused and we went back to doing things like making prank phone calls. My grandparent's house was a hotbed of prank phone call making. I think the fact that my grandfather was always reading and my grandmother was always working on puzzles meant we could get away with this for several minutes at a time without anyone becoming suspicious. When we were home in our tiny apartment, with a mother who had an uncanny knack for overhearing everything, we never even bothered trying.

My children started asking me questions about my grandparents yesterday, which started me down this path of reminiscing. One of my happiest memories is something I think about quite a bit, specifically every year when October rolls around.

The particulars are fuzzy, but it was fall, I was probably not more than ten or eleven and there was a baseball game on t.v. It was an important game, probably a play-off series, and the Yankees, who my brothers loved, and some other team, maybe the Red Sox, who my brothers hated, were playing. It may not have been the Red Sox, but my disdain for them makes telling this story more enjoyable.

Honestly, it doesn't matter that much who was playing. What matters is that my grandfather, who never watched sports, who never engaged anyone in conversation, who never got excited over anything other than people screwing with thermostat settings, started watching the game. The game grew more interesting and my grandfather moved up to the edge of his chair, which was quite shocking, and then he got excited and started pointing and wiggling his fingers at the t.v. and yelling out "WHAMMY!" whenever the pitcher threw the ball, and just like magic, each time he yelled that, a strike was called.

At first I think we may have thought he was losing his mind. A man doesn't go from never speaking to yelling out whammy without people thinking something is wrong, but the more he did it, the more we screamed and encouraged him to keep going and he did, right on through to the end of the game, which the Yankees won. Even now, as a forty one year old woman who should know better, I believe the reason the Yankees won that game was due solely to my grandfather's special powers.

If not for that small incident many years ago I may simply remember my grandfather as someone who never wore anything other than a black suit(I think he even wore it while he was sleeping) and someone who was obsessed with the air temperature of the house. I guess that's not a horrible way to remember someone, but telling my kids those things wouldn't have captured their attention the way the baseball story did. (Although a man who never,ever wears anything but a black suit, even on the weekends, even on vacation, even in the heat of muggy summers, is suddenly becoming more interesting for me to think about.)

update - After I wrote this my dad emailed me and let me know it was the Kansas City Royals, not the Red Sox, who the Yankees beat. I knew either my brothers or my dad would remember this seemingly minor detail -minor only to women. Julie, I hope this makes you feel a little better.

hopes

In light of my previous post, in which I admitted I busied myself last year by getting into a fight with a fourteen year old girl, and leaving and then returning to the scene of a fender bender, it appears I may be ripe for some resolutions, but I'm not going to go that route because history has shown that resolutions don't work. Plus, to resolve to do something sounds difficult and implies a certain amount of hard work is involved. Instead I am going to have some New Year's hopes. The word hope is much sweeter sounding than resolve. If you hope for something you merely have to sit back and wait for it to happen and it will.

Here are some of my New Year's hopes. I hope to get back into shape. I hope to become more organized. I hope to think before speaking. I hope to keep my house clean on a regular basis. I hope to not lay in the sun, something I can barely resist doing when the weather turns warm, even though I know it is giving me wrinkles and moles and my doctor told me to stop doing it. I hope to take my contacts out every night before going to bed, and to remove my makeup at that time. I hope to stop speaking in excessively loud tones to my children, although that one went out the window already when one of my kids lolly gagged while getting ready this morning.

I do have some deeper hopes, but I feel weird putting them on here because they involve my faith and I find it increasingly more difficult to talk about my faith. I want to guard it with everything I have. I don't know what I am guarding it from - probably from neighbors who are trying to convince me my faith is not true. Nothing drives me further into my faith than when people do this, so I guess I am thankful for the recent annoyance. I'm pretty quiet about my beliefs and expect people to behave in kind. I'm surprised when that doesn't happen.

I hope to send a letter to David Sedaris begging him to come to central Florida for a speaking engagement. I guess our area is not deemed worthy of his presence, but I think I may be able to woo him with some of my lofty praise. I'm pretty charming when needed. Last week I was at the store and a friend who I haven't spoken to in some time was behind me at the deli. I'm not quite sure what happened to the friendship - most likely a lack of effort on my part. Things kind of just fizzled out and I could tell when I saw her that she was going to look down or pretend to get a phone call so as to avoid any discomfort, but I turned around and said " HI So and So, ( I called her by her name as I find this helps people feel better), how have you been?" And all was well again, due to my dazzling and irresistible personality. Right now you should be envisioning me smiling (with sparklingly teeth, of course) and the "ding" sound should be going off in your head. Please hope along with me that David Sedaris will come here.

I hope more people will leave comments on here. It makes writing more fun knowing people are reading. Terri and Julie, you are much appreciated!

2010 - a quick wrap up of some things I did,said, thought

Got in a fight with a 14 year old girl

Got in a fight with 14 year old girl's mother

Berated myself for being a hot head - spent a good portion of the year working on this. I made great strides, trust me, I did.

Cracked my front bumper on the tire of another car and left the scene in a panic ( I did a similar thing in the winter of '09 with the back bumper, except for that involved a mailbox. Oh, and children who did not belong to me were in the car -oops!)

Went back to the scene and waited for the driver of the other car (which was not damaged) to come out of store. Driver didn't care and didn't even feel bad for parking like a jerk, which is the whole reason I cracked my bumper in the first place (nothing is ever my fault, obviously) - left the scene in a furious rage but didn't yell at anyone

Promised Greg I would stop hitting things with my car and leaving the scene.

Made it through the rest of the year without hitting anything. I feel I may be due.

Lost and gained the same five pounds at least five or six time

Did not lose all of my baby weight

Laid in bed for several hours (over the course of 12 months) and wondered why God was punishing me by keeping me fat.

Painted my kitchen cabinets, but only once this year, which is an improvement over past years.

Rearranged my living room at least eight times - and after each time told Greg, "that's it, I finally like it, no really."

Read a lot. Some good, some bad. Highlight - rereading Pride and Prejudice after not reading it since I was pregnant with Jane. Lowlight - reading a dreadful book called How to Change your Husband in which I realized the book was really about how everything bad that ever happened in the history of the world (and my life) is the fault of women (and me) and I was the one who needed to change. I'm not a big fan of trick titles.

Told Greg only twice that we should move. This is the least amount of time I have spent on this topic in years. Decided I like it here - I like it a lot

Volunteered at a local food storage facility that sends the food to local food pantries. We did this so that we could get free tickets to Disney. We almost used the tickets a few weeks ago but had last minute change of plans and never ended up going. When my kids complained about this I reminded them that this made us better people than all the other people who volunteered just for free tickets. An older child was quick to point out that this was the exact reason we volunteered in the first place. The important thing is we sorted boxes upon boxes of unhealthy food and learned that all that junk food that doesn't get eaten in stores goes to poor people which ended up making us sad. Realized that we should only volunteer at places that made us feel happy.

Spent countless hours in Starbucks talking with good friends and laughing until it hurt and suddenly understood why my mother used to spend so much time doing the same thing with her friends.

Enjoyed every last minute of my trip to NY and Philly. I'll leave Vermont out of that equation. Still scarred by the filth - and some other things.

You may not be able to tell after reading this particular post, but I have had a fabulous year. Here's to hoping 2011 is just as swell - for me and for you.