Heard this morning, while TheMommy was checking in on TheWeeOne’s morning prep;
Hey? Are you gettin’ your hair done?
(Sigh) Noooo.
Are you gettin’ your teeth brushed?
Noooo.
What are you doing then?
Forgettin’
Category: Uncategorized
Still Dreaming
TheWeeOne startled me in the kitchen this morning, waking up before I left for work. I said,
How come you woked up so early?
Mmmm, I always wake up early Daddy. And, my dream was over.
Quiet Cloth
This past weekend we drove to North-Eastern Oregon to see the 23rd Annual Nez Perce Tamkaliks celebration.
It is a PowWow and friendship gathering filled with their rich oral tradition, stories, dancing, prayer, and the appropriate pomp and circumstance. I’ll get to more of that later.
First, a vignette from the ride home.
We drove a lot, 909 miles over 4 days, and near the end of the tired drive home The Mermaids were mostly good, their DVD player was malfunctioning (overuse?) and TheDaddy purt-near ran us out of gas between Yakima and Ellensburg when we stopped for dinner. The Mermaids were half asleep and somewhat delirious – bordering on cranky – a good time to stop.
The WeeOne was strangely holding out for Subway sandwiches until she tasted the pancakes and syrup which TheMommy had ordered with her meal. She ate roughly one-fifth of the short stack but the shot of sugar to her system was obvious – like three big swigs of whiskey on an empty stomach.
She started free-associating.
This carried over into the van, back on the read, where she was (mis)quoting lyrics from songs, beating her sister with a pillow-pet and just generally getting the jitters out.
Finally her sister had enough and after the n’th iteration of some lyric LaGrande loudly SHHHH’d her; WeeOne whispered her refrain this time.
We laughed and TheWeeOne got more ‘gas in her tank’.
Again the refrain
SHHH! (Laughing)
Again this time, but different.
(more Laughing)
SHHHHHHHHt!
The car fell momentarily silent – LaGrande held her mouth for a second and then said
Oopsie, (still laughing) I just said ‘SHHHHHHt’?!
It’s okay, it was an accident.
Okay.
But TheWeeOne was still going, hair on fire, and hearing this nominal acceptance she gave a testing whisper.
shhhhht.(giggles)
SHHHHHHHt. (this time louder)
Hey?!
SHHHHHH…………….t!
Hey now, that’s enough! I know it sounds funny but that’s still like saying a bad word.
Then, with TheMommy’s reprimand still hanging in the air, TheWeeOne paused; and queued her zinger.
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHirt!
I don’t remember the next 2 miles of road, nor could I see it through my laughing tears; all four of us were delirious..
The Mommy and I agreed we are pretty much on defense from here on out.
Sprout wings
Scenario:
You are on your bike, with the wind in your face, headed for a train station only two miles away. The train is 7 minutes away. You haven’t ridden in four days.
You are coming up to the last light, a straightaway, slight uphill grade after the light with nobody behind you.
There’s a truck, in front.
A delivery truck, stopped at the light in your lane.
But it’s not just any delivery truck, it’s got a big fat, flat back, with a hand truck fastened securely.
Oh and it has an ad on the back;
0 sugar / 0 calories / 0 fatigue
It’s a Red Bull truck, yes Red Bull, and it looks something like this**
Two questions:
What would you do?
What would blief do?
** (image is a mere re-enactment, because the one thing I didn’t do is snap a picture)
Where ever’thang is bigger
This past weekend TheMommy and I flew to Dallas Texas for a wedding – Tony and Apryl’s wedding. We are now flying back. While we enjoyed our first vacation without The Mermaids for it’s relaxing pace (after the wedding) we missed their dimples and their laughs and the many opportunities to share the sights, sounds, and tastes of Texas with them.
The wedding itself turned out to be a wonderful day and night. Warm but not hot, some clouds rolled over for the event and dulled the full brunt of the Texas sun. I wore a chocolate tux and stood in as best man while TheMommy took a behind the scenes approach preparing the brides’ (and flowergirls’) hair.
I had the distinction of offering the first toast and the pleasure of delivering some of the finest words in cinema history related to weddings. If you know The Princess Bride then you know of what I spoke.
I have a few pictures on my phone which help to tell the story.
First Day(s) of School
LaGrande entered the 3rd grade this year.
She started school, oddly enough, last Wednesday.
And, even more oddlier, TheWeeOne entered Kindergarten the next day.
No it isn’t oddlier that TheWeeOne entered Kindergarten – she was quite ready for that – rather it was odd that the school district (just this school?) decided to start half the class Wednesday while the other half started the next day, Thursday.
Then, the entire class convened for a full day on Friday.
Later Friday night, despite the BBQ and party going on in our cul-de-sac until late, TheWeeOne asked to go to bed at 8PM. Full day on Friday right out of the gate was hard for a new Kindergartner.
Around the interwebs
I did a google search this morning for “livestrong seattle” and clicked the images tab, looking for some pictures of the event this year. I was looking for, naturally, me.
On the first page of google results I found me…but from last year! Pretty cool though, somebody farmed a picture that I hadn’t seen before from flickr somewhere taken of me at the 2009 Livestrong Challenge ride.
If only I felt yesterday as happy as I looked in this shot…oh well.
The image links back to this page which…btw…has an image at the top of the naked fremont cyclists. While, we’re name dropping, my picture just happens to be on the same page as a quote from Lance Armstrong, a picture of BikeSnobNYC, and multi-colored naked cyclists!
What publicity!
http://www.bikingbis.com/blog/_archives/2010/6/16/4555136.html
Update: Turns out the picture was taken (and the bikingbis site is written by) this gentleman, Gene Bisbee.
all your blief are belong to us
to blief.zwise.net owner. you have an email in your inboxx and it contains my instruction. intill you comply your blog will be slowlyturned upside down and unlegible. the texts will become only readable unless you select them and paste them ever someplaces else.
i will hold your blief.zwise.net pages hostege until i a wait for your complience.
Owling & `nastics
Watching Lady and the Tramp The Wee One said
Watch Mama, he’s gonna owl and he’s gonna owl loud!
Then the dog howled and she said
See Mama, he owls really loud!
On an unrelated note the mermaids started once a week ‘nastics. Both of them really wanted to do ‘nastics but Dance was preferred. We found a good schedule that suited us all and there they go.
Tonight was The Wee One’s 1st ever ‘tryout’ and the instructor watched her pull a pike position on the not-so-high bar and commented on how strong she is. Keeping up with a big sister such as hers would do that.
They both passed their tryouts with flying colors and will continue on a month-to-month basis jumping on the trampoline and climbing ropes and doing somersaults and performing exquisite cartwheels.
Silvio benchmark
I am finally fully kitted out on my Silvio (clipless, no fairing, fenders, rack…don’t have my bikebin yet) and took my first full ride into work this morning.
My time, in a hard (but not epic) push, was 59:10. Previously I mentioned that I would have a healthy record to beat if I ever got a Silvio. That record by the way was set pre-fairing. Whewie…I can’t believe I ran that time. It’s gonna be tough to beat.
Climbing speeds were really fast.
I noticed that my descent down Talbot got a little wavy pedalling up to about 33mph and stayed wobbly after I stopped pedaling. Not sure yet what that is about.
Stats:
Distance reading – 17.11 miles (Colman Park alternative)
Average speed – 17.4 mph
Top speed (wobbly) 38.1 mph on Talbot.
Total distance on the bike so far is 40.5 miles.
blief 