Getting a start on the good things I want to post about
Last Thursday, April 30th, was Dining Out for Life, when various local restaurants each donate a percentage of their day's profits to a group that helps people living with AIDS. I emailed a few of my friends asking who wanted to go, but most didn't reply. Mom did, though, and I enjoy her company (or I wouldn't have invited her in the first place), so she and I went to the Birchwood Cafe for supper and had an absolutely delicious meal! The Birchwood Cafe is one of those places with a fairly simple menu but takes care to use good ingredients, so it all comes out delicious. I had an avocado BLT, which I decided was really a BLT-MAO (either bacon lettuce tomato mayonnaise avocado onion, or bacon lettuce tomato my ass off, as you like--it was just that good), and strawberry shortcake for dessert. I've already forgotten what Mom had, but it was just as tasty, she said. I think I want to go back there for my birthday later this month.
Friday morning I met up with many other morris dancers and others, and danced the sun up! I want to do a slightly longer post about that, with pictures. For now I'll just say it was glorious, not least because of the people I got to see whom I see but rarely--among the non-dancers,
jenett,
theferret, rillaspins (albeit briefly), and Rhea and Brianna whose user names I know but can't remember and am too tired to look up. And Mom came too! I'm glad she agreed to come; I thought she'd enjoy it, and she did! I only danced one dance, the Abram Circle Dance which is the one we do as the sun rises each year on May Day. Then I stood around, chatted, watched others dancing, took pictures, and sang the songs we only sing on May Day.
Saturday was the car stuff mentioned in a previous post, but it was also the day I installed my new bike saddle and took it for a test ride. I'm in love! It's a Selle Respiro Moderate, MUCH more comfortable than the (men's) seat that came with the bike. And even better, it's got snazzy features like a seatcover that's supposed to pick up less heat from sunlight (says it stays up to 25° Celsius cooler than a normal bike seat) and a vent that blows air on my crotch while I'm riding. I can't say I've been able to feel the air through my jeans, but it's still kinda fun to know it's there. And I haven't once gotten numb since I started using this saddle! I biked around 9.5 miles on my test ride that day, up and down along the Mississippi River.
Sunday I spent the afternoon with
belmikey after not having seen him in far too long, then we picked up malefica_v and I gave them both supper. Then
belmikey went his merry way and malefica_v and I went to the Leonard Cohen concert! I'm really, really glad I got to see him in concert. He's still going strong, and sang almost all of my favorite of his songs, and displayed his sense of humor from time to time (remember he's the one who wrote the line "you told me you preferred handsome men--but for me you would make an exception"). All told it was an excellent day spent in good company.
Oh, and Sunday afternoon one of my neighbors was having a native plant sale, only he wasn't charging his neighbors anything. So I now have three strawberry plants, two ferns, and a mullein plant. I hope they live!
Tuesday I had much faster average speeds on my way to and from work--usually my average is about 10mph on my commute, but Monday it was close to 12mph each way. Wow! I'm getting faster. :-) I think it's partly me getting stronger, partly having the seat at a good height for efficient pedalling, and perhaps partly having a better seat. (Side note: my pants that I was starting to outgrow are fitting well again. This is nice: it makes laundry easier because I'm not having to all the time wash the one pair that fit, and also my pants are just much more comfortable this way.) Also Tuesday I went running again at lunch--it went well, I got tired but it felt like the right kind of tired--and got two showers after my run, one deliberate one at the gym and one supplied by Nature on my way back to my office. :-)
Monday and today were mostly unremarkable, but I will note that I had a very good salad at lunch today. I bought lunch for a change (I had already eaten up my leftovers from Sunday and hadn't cooked anything new) and got a salad, which is odd for me. I know some people start wanting salads in the spring, but I usually don't, and *especially* not pre-made salads like this one was. But for some reason that's what I wanted, and it did turn out to be really tasty. It had mixed greens, not your plain old iceberg, and barley (who has barley on hand???) and grape tomatoes and a big chunk of salmon, with pesto caesar dressing. Yum.
Tonight after work I biked over to the bike shop to pick up my free water bottle (free for participating in the do.cycle program and completing my first 50 miles of biking after joining the program). At the same time I bought a water bottle cage for it, of course, and also bought a tool with various sizes of allen wrenches that are used on bikes. I'd discovered when changing bike seats that my allen wrenches are in inches and I needed a 6mm one! The 7/32" one worked OK, but now I have a proper one. And when I get a little kit put together to carry around on my bike in case of bike emergencies, I can put the tool in the kit. But I must say, the bike shop people are very casual about this whole do.cycle thing. They're supposed to be tracking my mileage from my bike's cyclo-computer odometer when I come in for this stuff, but they've just waved their hands at me each time and said "Nah, I trust you." Well. Works for me, I guess.
By the time I got home tonight, I'd biked about 17.5 miles--not bad! 4.5 miles to work in the morning, and 13 miles from work to the bike shop and home again, with some meandering through unknown neighborhoods on the way because I tried taking a path I hadn't used before.
Now off to bed. I have laundry in the dryer so I'll have clean clothes in the morning. Ahh for having our own washer and dryer!
Friday morning I met up with many other morris dancers and others, and danced the sun up! I want to do a slightly longer post about that, with pictures. For now I'll just say it was glorious, not least because of the people I got to see whom I see but rarely--among the non-dancers,
jenett,
theferret, rillaspins (albeit briefly), and Rhea and Brianna whose user names I know but can't remember and am too tired to look up. And Mom came too! I'm glad she agreed to come; I thought she'd enjoy it, and she did! I only danced one dance, the Abram Circle Dance which is the one we do as the sun rises each year on May Day. Then I stood around, chatted, watched others dancing, took pictures, and sang the songs we only sing on May Day.
Saturday was the car stuff mentioned in a previous post, but it was also the day I installed my new bike saddle and took it for a test ride. I'm in love! It's a Selle Respiro Moderate, MUCH more comfortable than the (men's) seat that came with the bike. And even better, it's got snazzy features like a seatcover that's supposed to pick up less heat from sunlight (says it stays up to 25° Celsius cooler than a normal bike seat) and a vent that blows air on my crotch while I'm riding. I can't say I've been able to feel the air through my jeans, but it's still kinda fun to know it's there. And I haven't once gotten numb since I started using this saddle! I biked around 9.5 miles on my test ride that day, up and down along the Mississippi River.
Sunday I spent the afternoon with
belmikey after not having seen him in far too long, then we picked up malefica_v and I gave them both supper. Then
belmikey went his merry way and malefica_v and I went to the Leonard Cohen concert! I'm really, really glad I got to see him in concert. He's still going strong, and sang almost all of my favorite of his songs, and displayed his sense of humor from time to time (remember he's the one who wrote the line "you told me you preferred handsome men--but for me you would make an exception"). All told it was an excellent day spent in good company.
Oh, and Sunday afternoon one of my neighbors was having a native plant sale, only he wasn't charging his neighbors anything. So I now have three strawberry plants, two ferns, and a mullein plant. I hope they live!
Tuesday I had much faster average speeds on my way to and from work--usually my average is about 10mph on my commute, but Monday it was close to 12mph each way. Wow! I'm getting faster. :-) I think it's partly me getting stronger, partly having the seat at a good height for efficient pedalling, and perhaps partly having a better seat. (Side note: my pants that I was starting to outgrow are fitting well again. This is nice: it makes laundry easier because I'm not having to all the time wash the one pair that fit, and also my pants are just much more comfortable this way.) Also Tuesday I went running again at lunch--it went well, I got tired but it felt like the right kind of tired--and got two showers after my run, one deliberate one at the gym and one supplied by Nature on my way back to my office. :-)
Monday and today were mostly unremarkable, but I will note that I had a very good salad at lunch today. I bought lunch for a change (I had already eaten up my leftovers from Sunday and hadn't cooked anything new) and got a salad, which is odd for me. I know some people start wanting salads in the spring, but I usually don't, and *especially* not pre-made salads like this one was. But for some reason that's what I wanted, and it did turn out to be really tasty. It had mixed greens, not your plain old iceberg, and barley (who has barley on hand???) and grape tomatoes and a big chunk of salmon, with pesto caesar dressing. Yum.
Tonight after work I biked over to the bike shop to pick up my free water bottle (free for participating in the do.cycle program and completing my first 50 miles of biking after joining the program). At the same time I bought a water bottle cage for it, of course, and also bought a tool with various sizes of allen wrenches that are used on bikes. I'd discovered when changing bike seats that my allen wrenches are in inches and I needed a 6mm one! The 7/32" one worked OK, but now I have a proper one. And when I get a little kit put together to carry around on my bike in case of bike emergencies, I can put the tool in the kit. But I must say, the bike shop people are very casual about this whole do.cycle thing. They're supposed to be tracking my mileage from my bike's cyclo-computer odometer when I come in for this stuff, but they've just waved their hands at me each time and said "Nah, I trust you." Well. Works for me, I guess.
By the time I got home tonight, I'd biked about 17.5 miles--not bad! 4.5 miles to work in the morning, and 13 miles from work to the bike shop and home again, with some meandering through unknown neighborhoods on the way because I tried taking a path I hadn't used before.
Now off to bed. I have laundry in the dryer so I'll have clean clothes in the morning. Ahh for having our own washer and dryer!