Thursday, March 28, 2019

It's Stopped Rainin', Everybody's in a Play, And Don't You Know It's a Beautiful New Day. Hey, Hey


Okay, so it's officially Spring in Iowa. Besides the flooding and potholes, it also means lovely temperatures and EVERYBODY trying to finally get outside and walk dogs, play in parks, and ride bikes. In other words, Iowa really does feel like heaven.

Since it was in the 50's on Saturday, we got some friends together and rode 50 miles to Kalona and back. It felt great.


Much like the people, the animals were out playing as well. At one point we were riding past a barn with a rooster out front and some pigs behind a fence all wallowing in the warmth. Me being me, I started saying, "Hi, rooster! Hi pigs! You're such good pigs. I love you so much!" And at the last minute, I looked up to see an Amish family sitting in their yard and collectively rolling their eyes at me.

I imagined them saying, "White people...No, wait. WE'RE white people too."

"Okay, then. 'Mericans...Oops, we're 'Mericans too."

"Well, then. City folk...There. We can all roll our eyes at the annoying city folk antics."


I love the Amish parking lots, too. You don't see that every day in Iowa City.


By the time we hit Kalona, we were all hopped-up on endorphins. It was another one of those days where I played with friends outside all day and kept thinking, "I love my life!" And not in the sarcastic way, either.


We were supposed to be home around 5'ish, but we had friends meet us at Kalona Brewing Company for a very early dinner/late lunch, and we didn't get home until almost seven. Luckily, it wasn't dark then yet, but our cats were NOT happy, since they are supposed to get fed at five and usually whine so much that we feed them closer to four on the weekends. Bad humans.

I hope all of your Springs have sprung and that you are getting to play outside with your friends as well.


Friday, March 22, 2019

And That's Why Birds Do It, Bees Do It, Even Educated Fleas Do It.


There is a big black and white cat that's been lurking around our backyard. I'm not sure if he's there to hunt all of the birds and squirrels who frolic there, or if he's there to taunt Archie. Either way, I thought I saw him back there out of the corner of my eye this morning. Because the movements were so fast and aggressive, I soon realized that it was really some ducks.

We live a few blocks away from the creek, so it was odd to see them back there. Then I realized that it was a full on three guys to one girl duck gang r*pe. I know it's just nature, but it made me so sad for the female.  She kept trying to fly away and they kept attacking her. It was probably stupid of me, but I pounded on the window to try and take their attention off of her so she could get away, but all that did was make them take their aggression outside my yard. It meant I  didn't have to see it then, so that was something.

This morning reminded me that along with the beautiful and hopeful parts of Spring, that this world isn't always all that kind to the females of a species. Sigh.

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

I Went Riding On My Bike, With a Spanner, Pump, Back and Front Light.


 Soooo, guess what? You got it. We actually got to ride bikes outside on Saturday. Originally, we thought we might be able to ride outside both days of the weekend, but Sunday was colder than they thought it was going to be. So, Saturday it was.

We went at a nice leisurely pace and we all were saying how great it felt to play outside on bikes again.


We rode 27.7 miles. We thought we were just going to do an out and back, but when we got to Mahaffey Bridge Road, we decided to do a circular route through North Liberty and to the Coralville Resevoir and then back home.

When we hit the intersection of Mahaffey Bridge Road and Sugar Bottom, a woman was walking her dog and asked, "So, don't you want to pet me dog?" Just so you know, when asked that question my answer is always going to be, "Hell, yes!"


Just as we were heading down the sweeping downhill on the way to The Res, our friend Burne got a flat tire. We stopped at the spillway to fix it. They said it was for authorized personnel only, but they didn't specify WHO(M?) was authorized, so we just assumed they meant us and we rode our bikes up and down the sloping cement walls. Like I always say, I love being ten years old and fifty-three all at the same time.


We finally made it to our friend, Marco's house and dropped him off and gave his cute dog some attention before heading home.

I'm so excited that it's the first day of Spring today and that we'll hopefully have many, many, more weekends this year playing bikes with friends outside.

Friday, March 15, 2019

Little Darling, The Smiles are Returning to Their Faces.


Well, it's Friday finally. It was a short week for me since I took Wednesday off for an appointment. My appointment was a breast ultrasound. I know I get one every year now, but I still worry every single time.

I always thought that a breast ultrasound would hurt way less than a mammogram. I imagined it would be like the gentle wand they use on pregnant women. I was wrong. They still use those damn paddles, but they don't smash your boob in between two of them. Instead, they smash your boob between one paddle and your rib cage. This particular technician, just couldn't get the view right. She kept trying over and over again, and crushing me with those damn paddles with every try. I can't imagine getting exposed to the radiation over and over again, could be that great for me either.

I think anyone who has to hurt women by giving them mammograms and breast ultrasounds, should have to have one themselves, so they would know how it feels to have someone inflicting that pain upon them several times, because they couldn't get it set up correctly. The tech who took the films last year was great. I'm sure she had worked there a long time, but she was able to do three views of each breast and be done. Anyway, I'm done whining...For a little bit anyway.

The good news is that the story had a happy ending. Not only did I stop at Trader Joe's and buy myself some flowers afterward, I also got good results from my ultrasound the following day. No malignancies found. Hooray!


The other good thing, was that I took the rest of the day off and got to do an eight mile run in 50 degree temps. FINALLY.


I did run through a little bit of Hickory Hill Park to see if it had de-iced at all. Apparently not.


I took a hard left out of the park and into the cemetery. I have always loved the Oakland Cemetery. It was pretty much ice free and I got to run on the car free lanes.


No visit to the cemetery would be complete without a stop at the Black Angel. She's not quite so scary during the day.


Since I have no sense of direction, it's nice to have some signs to lead me the right way out.

During the run, at about the fourth or fifth mile, I had that moment where I could finally run without having to worry about falling on the ice and it was warm enough that I wasn't layered all up, and I had runner's high and I thought, "Ahhhhh. This is the feeling I've been waiting for these last few months." Winter is finally loosing its grasp on us. Let's hope it stays that way.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, gets the best results possible, has that wonderful feeling of Spring's awakening and buy yourselves some damn flowers for god's sake. You won't regret it.

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Our Aspirations, Are Wrapped Up in Books. Our Inclinations Are Hidden in Looks


Okay. We're doing this month's "travelling through books" post today. Woot!

In the month of February I read ten books. Which sounds like a lot, but most of them just happened to be shorter than normal.

1.) The first book I read was "Me Talk Pretty One Day", by David Sedaris. It was very funny, so it was what I needed at the beginning of February and it took me to North Carolina, New York, and France. Nice.

2.) I read "Arcadia" by Lauren Goff next. It took me to a Hippie commune in upstate New York in the early 70's through the near future. I really liked this book. It was a hard trip to take in some ways, but very gratifying.


3.) "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman, was a kind of, sort of, sequel to "American Gods". I thought it was great escapism. the characters were lovable pains in the asses and it took me to Florida, England, a Caribbean Island, and another realm altogether.

4.) "What is Yours is Not Yours" by Helen Oyeyemi was a collection of short stories that were like fairy tales, which I love. So, we went to different places in Europe and met many interesting people. A very nice trip indeed.

5.) My fifth journey of the month of February was "Babycakes (Tales of the City #4), by Armistad Maupin. This is such a fun series. Now, we're in San Francisco in 1983, at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, and it also took me to London in 1983. I would've loved to have been able to travel to those places for real my senior year in high school and my first year in college, but this was the next best thing.


6.) In my quest to read more classic fiction, I did pretty well last month. My sixth book was classic non-fiction, "Out of Africa" by Isak Dinesen (aka Karen Blixen). It took me to Africa at the beginning of the 20th century. It was fascinating, even though it was hard to deal with the colonialist ideals of the time.

7.) I followed up "Out of Africa" with "Devil in the Blue Dress", by Walter Mosely. I loved this book. It is a detective novel that takes place in Los Angeles after World War II with a Black protagonist. It took me right out of Iowa.

8.) Next I read "Little House in the Big Woods". I loved the Little House series when I was a kid and haven't read them since then. It was really fun to go back there, and remember reading them for the first time, and being obsessed with the TV show.


9.) I ended the month with two classic novels. In my pursuit to read every Jane Austen novel this year, I read "Sense and Sensibility" last month. I liked it better than "Emma", but not as well as "Pride and Prejudice". Of course, that's all relative, because they're all so good. I'm really enjoying reading her novels so far.

10.) The last book I read this month was a doozy. "Madame Bovary" by Gustave Flaubert was amazing. It wasn't great escapism, because no one was very happy, but it was so well written and riveting. Plus, it wasn't too bad going to France at the end of February either.

I doubt I'll read anywhere near ten books in March, but I'll give it the old college try.

Friday, March 08, 2019

Spinning. I Feel Energy Bein' Pulled Off From All Sides. And It Feels Good. Like Relieving a Headache


So, this will be a pretty lame blog post, since I've been dealing with migraines, both big and small this week.  On the plus side, I'm hoping this is the last time I complain about the cold for a while...

Last weekend was full blown migraine weekend. I took my meds and they worked for a while here and there, but I couldn't really run or ride much. Heidi was pretty happy about it. She likes to snuggle while I lie around and drink tea and read.

I also got more done around the house than I normally do when I can go outside and play instead. I went through all of my drawers of clothes and got rid of anything I hadn't worn in a while. I had one bag for Goodwill and one for garbage. The clothes I kept I rolled up and arranged in my dresser. For the shirts, I had one row of work related shirts, one of bike racing shirts and one of the bigger t-shirts that I wear as jammie tops around the house. This week was great. I could just go to my drawer, grab what I needed without having to dig through and find the kind of shirt I wanted. I know it sounds silly, but I'm not very organized in general, so when I do get organized, it's like a revelation. We'll see how long this tidiness lasts.

I also finally planted my seedlings for the garden. It's still weird to me to think that at some point it will actually be warm enough to work the soil.

Anyway, I joked with John about how much I would get done around the house if I stopped working out. Of course, I'd be miserable, so he probably wouldn't want to live with me...


On Sunday night it was supposed to get below zero with the windchill. I was so over it, so I decided to pretend it was Summer outside. I made nachos for dinner with guacamole, salsa, and a beer.


We also watched "Jaws". I don't think we've seen it in a couple of years. There was something stupidly hopeful about watching a movie that takes place during The Fourth of July, right before another cold snap.


So, I'm hoping my migraines calm down soon. I will try to write more next week, as long as Archie stops trying to eat my pen. Damn cat.