Recently I’ve been listening to Slate’s really good sports podcast, “Hang Up and Listen.”  I came to it because I’ve liked Stefan Fatsis on NPR and in print (Word Freak and A Few Seconds of Panic are both terrific books.)

They’ve done a couple of nice segments on the Winter Olympics and one of them (I think it was Josh Levin) mentioned that lots of the sports shown by NBC on the Olympics just aren’t shown very well.  The sliding sports (luge, bobsled er, bobsleigh, skeleton) are simply a series of cameras at different parts of the track.  You see pieces, but not the whole.  They do a better job with the big ticket sports like figure skating and alpine skiing and even manage to turn biathlon into something of a story.

I have, as some of you probably (don’t) remember, been an every-four-years fan of curling for a little bit now.  I really like watching it.  NBC did figure out, bless its corporate heart, that curling couldn’t be highlighted and it couldn’t be narrativized.  What it could be was shown in its entirety with experienced curling commentators.  On CNBC and USA.  Ok, so I have to live with no primetime curling.  But I’ve got dish and a dvr.  Dish always gives you CNBC and USA.  It’s like a woman I know says about grits in South Carolina.  You don’t have to ask for them, they just come.

Anyway, there’s a lot of curling on, actually.  Several hours every day.  Since I don’t actually have several hours to turn over to the sliding granite stones every day, I had to figure out my own approach to watching.  By the by, I love that I got to do that.  That’s what’s wrong with NBC’s coverage on primetime.  I’ve got to take what they give me.  That’s all well and fine the night the show the women’s long program, but less so during ski jump after ski jump or, heaven forfend, ice dancing.  For curling though, I make my own rules.  I set my own schedule.  How to do that, though?

Don Duguid and Colleen Jones (the curling commentators) are enthusiastic about the sport to such a degree that it’s hard to sort out what to be excited about and not, so, at first, they weren’t much help.

I happen to be an American who finds the Olympic American hometown rah rah thing a little annoying.  I also suspected that the American curling teams weren’t very good.  (Quelle Suprise!  I was right).

I first came across curling during the Salt Lake City Olympics (sorry, Olympic Winter Games) where I watched the Great Britain women’s team take gold.  I toyed with rooting for them.  I guess I should acknowledge the given that I’d be focusing my watching on women’s curling.

Then, I hear (from Colleen–who was ready to guide me after all) about Cheryl Bernard and her Canadian team.

It seems that Canada lets its best club teams compete against one another to represent the country in the Olympics.

Cheryl and company (Susan O’Connor, Carolyn Darbyshire, and Cori Bartel) were good enough to make the trials, but no one expected them to win.  They were, by all accounts, the 4th best performing team in Canada.

They did win the “Roar of the Rings.”  Thus were they Team Canada.

Then there was all this drama about their not having enough international experience and should Canada change the system and blah blah blah.

Cheryl and her team came to Vancouver (their club is in Calgary) and beat pretty much everybody in the preliminary rounds (they lost once to China) and then won their semi final against Switzerland by which time everyone had stopped talking about whether they should have won and whether to change the rules.

I watched most of their games.  I read up on curling and how to make the stones (a complicated process) and even looked to see if there were SoCal curling clubs (yes, but in Orange County, which isn’t close enough).   Still I’d like to touch a curling stone.  And wear those cool slidy shoes.

Cheryl and her team were, in a fundamental way, my Olympics.  Honey and I have watched lots of primetime.  It was curling I looked forward to.  I rooted for them.  I imagined them singing “O Canada.”  (Side note:  Canada has a MUCH better national anthem than we do.  It’s rousing, it’s singable.  I’d take “God Save the Queen,” too.  I can’t hit that high note in ours and neither can you, so don’t act like you can).

I followed the controversy over the supposed swimsuit photos she took.  Worried about her cold.

I wasn’t the only one.  Canada went a little curling mad.  They wore those curling hats. People stopped Cheryl on the street and asked for her autograph.  Guys held up signs asking to marry her.  Her husband borrowed one of them.  They were in the gold medal game.

Then Friday afternoon they faced Sweden.  The Prime Minister of Canada was there.  So was the King of Sweden.  I was too.  It was a state mandated furlough day for me.  Curling and furloughs go great together.

There, too, was the all the international and Olympic experience the people of Canada had worried about in the person of Anette Norberg, Sweden skip.

It was a tense match.  Colleen even said so.  Sweden looked like they would win and then Canada came back and stole two ends.  (Basically they won points they shouldn’t have).  It looked set for my girls.  Cheryl needed to make one shot in the 10th (and last end).  She missed it and Norberg tied the game.

Then, in the (extra) 11th end, Norberg made a spectacular shot at the end and Cheryl couldn’t match her.

I was heartbroken.  Not as much, I’m sure, as Cheryl was.

You can look around the web and you will find lots about how she messed up and lost the gold.  There are Canada fan sites and curling sites.  Newspapers and blogs.  There’s a lot of talk about choking.

For me, it wasn’t about any of that.  She was an underdog who got everyone on her side.  When she lost she walked (ok slid) over to her team and they embraced.  Most of the pictures of them on the podium with the silver medals around their necks show their dissapointment more than anything else.  She seemed to handle it all with class.

As I watched her Friday afternoon, I remembered why I still like sports sometimes.  I remembered that sports should always be about winning and losing and heartbreak and triumph.    (Not money or contracts or steroids or whatever.)

Cheryl Bernard broke my heart today.  Two weeks ago I didn’t know her name.

Cheryl did manage a smile over the silver medal at the end of a lovely two weeks of curling.  Thanks for letting me follow along.

Pre-entry note:  I’ve been thinking some lately about this blog and how much I was engaged with it during the last Winter Olympics.  It was a different time in my life, to be sure.  Four years seems both quickly gone and very recent.  I’m not going to feel badly that the blog has lain fallow.  But I found myself (with only my iphone at hand–no laptop) thinking about an entry while on a trip this week.  So I wrote it down (pen and paper!) and submit it to the the blog maw for anyone’s consideration.

What is it like to be alone in an unfamiliar downtown?

It depends on the city, really, doesn’t it.

Some (most) have the obvious thing to do.  To wit:

Denver–The Mint

Louisville–The Bats

Seattle–The Needle

Don’t read this as pejorative in some way.  I’m usually up for the obvious.  The more factual and historical, the better.  So picture me, then, bereft outside The Mint, unable to get a ticket and learn about all those coins.

Two Nevada coin asides:

1) Honey and I go to the site of the Carson City Mint after a breakfast of pancakes, after a truly hellish night in Virginia City.  Unless it’s the Irma in Cody, WY, give 19th century hotels–however quaint you think they’ll be–a pass.  They will be hot or cold or startlingly both.  They will be loud.  You will not sleep.  All of what I have said is especially true of The Silver Queen in Virgina City, NV.  Virginia City MAY be worth a drive-through look at the Bucket O’Blood casino and saloon, but not more.  Not even a little bit more.

I wanted more from Carson City, mint wise, but I was tired and perhaps compensatingly over-carbed.

2)  During the early days of the Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas was in a period where high-end properties were all about museums as part of the experience.  Museums make thing high class, don’t you know. The Bellagio had Steve Wynn’s own art collection.  Not to be outdone, Mandalay Bay opened with a featured museum to money.  Appropriate?  You bet.  (Ha!).

So, Honey and I dutifully paid our admission and were given those hand held recorder sticks.  Wands.  Whatever.  You push the number of the display and a deep voice intones from the stick about the coin in front of you.  There was a coin set off by itself in a glass case.  When we approached we discovered it was a nickel.  The stick then began what seemed like 90 minutes of narration about the nickel.

We both gave up on the nickel before it was done.  It was a rare and important nickel.  It was also–there’s just no getting around this–a nickel.

(Ok, I just looked it up–because being snotty about a nickel doesn’t mean it’s not important.  It was a 1913 Liberty Head Nickel, one of only 5 known in the world.  They were not supposed to be in circulation, but somehow 5 of them got into collector’s hand.  Liberty Head nickels were regular nickels from 1882 to 1912.  In 1913 a rouge Mint employee stuck five 1913 Liberty Heads.  One of the five most recently sold (2007) for $5 million.  It’s quite the nickel).

To rejoin me alone in downtowns…

A few years ago, I had a trip to Denver.  The Mint Tour was full.  I “replaced” it with a tour of Molly Brown’s house (she of the unsinkable) which I left halfway through.  My trip to the Louisville Slugger bat factory paled next to the massage at the spa Treecup found that trip.

I try, you see, to be a good conference attendee.  I really do, but somehow I am compelled to wander away sometimes.

So, Thursday I wandered Seattle.

I had high hopes.  No rain.  A cool Pacific Northwest City.

And then, well, there’s the Space Needle Dream™.  I’ve had it for years.  Not every night.  But once or twice a year.

Here’s how it goes.  I’m in Seattle.  How do I know?  I just do.  It looks like my brain thinks Seattle should look.

When I touched down at SeaTac on Thursday, it was my first moment in Washington State.  Why have I been dreaming of a place I’d never been?  I’ll leave that to the symbolgists and psychologists.

Anyway, in the Space Needle Dream™, I need to get to the top of the Space Needle.  I can’t get there.  I try and try and can’t even get close.  There’s something important up there.  A Space Needle Dream™ secret.

So Thursday afternoon, I landed and took a cab with a colleague to the hotel.  She left to meet her sister for dinner, so I feel ok about missing the opening talk and head off to the Needle.  I take the mid-60s monorail to get there.

I paid my $17 and rode the elevator (41 seconds) to the top.  The sun was setting behind the Puget Sound.  I circumnavigated the outside deck, the inside deck and stared off into every direction I could.

I then called Honey.

“Will I know the secret message when I see it?”

“Maybe it’s in the needle part”

“Well, that’s problematic, because I’m in the round part and can’t get there.”

I do like modernist architecture.  I enjoyed the monorail ride back, where I looked at the Needle from below.

I then walked several hundred vertical miles (ok, 12 blocks) up a mountain (ok, up Capitol Hill) to buy some good coffee.  (Victrola, Stumptown (a Portland import), and Vivace) for enjoyment back in the blessedly flat San Fernando Valley.

I enjoyed my beer and burger for dinner and wrote this blog in my moleskine with a blue gel pen.  (How quaint).

It was a tiring afternoon (no lunch didn’t help), but the people seemed nice and everything was open.  (Take that, Denver!)

The next day I went to Pike Place market and to REI mothership.

The secret is still out there somewhere.  Problem is that now I don’t even know where to look.  But I’m sure I’ll find myself in another downtown at some point and I’ll wander.

As for the Space Needle Dream™, maybe I was wrong.  Maybe it wasn’t Seattle after all.  Could the secret be in Brussels at the Atomium?  Do you think they have any conferences there?

More on this soon, I guess.

I might call him Wolf, with the German “v” sound.

I grew up in a newspaper reading family.  Even as a child, I liked reading the newspaper.  We got the afternoon paper most of my childhood and then switched to the morning paper when I was a teenager.  Let’s pause for a moment and think about that.  Morning paper.  Afternoon paper.

Yep.

I grew up in Atlanta and the two papers were co-owned in my lifetime.   Of course, they had been separate newspapers once upon a time.  Though co-owned, they maintained separate newsrooms through 1982 and maintained separate editorial boards through 2001.    The Journal was liberal.  The Constitution was not.

Now the combined Atlanta Journal-Constitution, according to my Dad, who reads it every day, is “terrible.”  It’s delivered once a day (morning) and focuses on local news.  My parents get the New York Times every day as well.  They’re newspaper readers and getting the Times means they still get a real newspaper.

I went through a period of not reading the paper much.  I read Salon and Slate, checked the Los Angeles Times web site when there are wildfires, watched Rachel Maddow with Teresa sometimes, and listened to NPR most of the time.  I figured I was getting my news.  I never gave up the Sunday paper thing, though.  I always read the Sunday paper, even as it got gutted.  No more Book Review, no more Opinion, no more Magazine.

I’ve been lucky, in my adult life, to live in cities with decent papers.  The Washington Post does pretty well.  The Los Angeles Times has something to say most days.  I moved away from Washington before the decline of the newspaper.  I am certainly not qualified to speak on the newspapers’ decline in any expert way.  There are those far more in the know who I have asked about the situation (folks who teach or taught journalism at my University, for example) who just shake theirs heads when I ask about the future.

And, of course, the future looks bleak.  The LA Times runs large number of corrections every day because they’ve fired their fact checkers and copy editors.  One day last year, their Calendar briefs had stand-in headlines that read “sub head here” printed instead of the actual sub head.

For a while I was getting the Thursday-Saturday papers for free and paying $1.25 a week for the Sunday paper because every time I tried to cancel, they’d offer me a better deal to keep me as a single number on the subscriber list.

Lately, though, I’m glad to get the LA Times.  It may not be the great paper it was even ten years ago, but they employ a number of writers and critics I really like.  I would read anything Dan Neil writes about anything.  Mr. Neil, here’s a box of hair, please write about it and I will read it.

I even sent Neil an e-mail some years ago praising his review of a car Chevrolet (the SSR) put out that was supposed to look like it had been chopped and altered.  Neil’s take on the difference between mass-manufacture and art was one of the best things I’ve ever read about folklore.  I told him so by e-mail and have used the piece in my class.  He, in turn, worried in his e-mail response to me about what happens when a writer’s writing makes it into a college class.  Does he lose his edge?   Even recounting the incident here now makes me happy.

I always read Susan Carpenter (who they should let review motorcycles again).  I like Robert Lloyd and Ken Turan.  Mary McNamara and Sandy Banks.  Steve Lopez.

The paper may have had the great short-sightedness to fire its copy editors and fact checkers (surely a necessary group of folks).  I am glad they kept some  of the people they did.  And so I read it Thursday through Sunday.  I’m not looking to it for the latest news any more.  I’m looking for in-depth reporting.  Good writing.  Stuff I didn’t know.

I guess an aside is worth making about the other daily Los Angeles paper, The Daily News.  I don’t read it, but one of the reporters calls me a lot to be a quoted expert.  I’m sure it says something about the self-absorption of the city and time in which I live when I say I always look those articles up online to see if I sound good in the quotes.

All this lead-up brings me to the piece they ran on page A3 in yesterday’s (9/18/09) Los Angeles Times Valley edition by David Kelly.  I won’t hotlink, since at some point it won’t be available any more, but here’s the first paragraph:

“A man claiming he was paying tribute to dead golfers tossed up to 3,000 golf balls into the biggest sand trap he could find: Joshua National Park.”

Yes, indeed.  That right there is why the paper is worth reading.  This item didn’t go viral on the internet (maybe because it didn’t involved Kanye West).  It didn’t get picked up by NPR because it’s a little too long for a quip and doesn’t have the pathos needed for a feature.  Rachel Maddow didn’t mention it.  Salon and Slate didn’t cover it.  I read about it in the newspaper.  The same daily print newspaper that had a very interesting piece from Neil about Diesel/Electric hybrids (want!), an hilarious panning of the Matthew Modine play making its world premiere at the Taper, a good review of both The Burning Plain and Bright Star, as well as a bad one of The Informant! (Very helpful–I now will not go see it).

I also read an interesting piece about why the NFL is helping the Washington football team keep its racist name and an obituary of Frank Coghlan, Jr. who played Billy Batson in the Captain Marvel serial.  (Shazam!)  Just so you know, Southerners read the obits.  Every day.  There was also a well-done (and scary) feature by Richard Fausett on the Oath Keepers.

To get back to the golf balls, I read every word of the story.  Twice.  Thought I should tell Teresa about it.  Thought I should say something on Facebook about it.  Then, I decided to blog about it.  Because, of course, my connection to and fascination with the story was about more than the golf balls in the National Park.  It was about why newspapers should still matter.  Do still matter.  It’s good to slow down, read the paper.  Think about it.  Talk about it.  It’s also good to listen to NPR, read the web, follow blogs, tweet (I suppose, though I’m not yet convinced).  None of these things have to be either/or zero sum things.

Quoting again from Kelly’s piece, wherein park rangers noted that the golf balls had some tennis balls mixed in, he writes:  “Rangers also found cans of fruit and vegetables left in the desert along with park literature tossed around.”

According to Ranger Joe Zarki, Jones [the accused] spread the golf balls around the park, “‘to honor all the golfers who had died.’”

“Contrary to what rangers originally though, Jones wasn’t chipping golf balls into the desert with a club.  He was hurling them from his car.”  Mr. Kelly, you’ve got me hooked.  Tell me more, please.

“Jones was unavailable for comment Thursday.  He lives with his 84-year-old father, Douglas, who didn’t know about the incident until a reporter called him.  ‘It certainly sounds strange,’ said his father.  ‘He hikes out in Joshua Tree every three months or so, and he golfs maybe once a week.  But I don’t know where he got that many golf balls.’  He did, however, say that his son works at a local golf course.”

Well done Mr. Kelly.  Well done LA Times.

Support your local newspaper.  It may be dying, it’s certainly flawed, but it’s still worth having around.

Now, about afternoon delivery…

“Am I obsessed with justifying this decision?”  I asked Teresa.

“Every human want to justify her decisions.  It’s what makes us human,” was her reply.

I had noted that I would be glad not to have to worry about the size of open parking places in the really impacted Whole Foods parking lot.  This was after saying early this very afternoon, that I would be glad:

1) Not to have to worry about the enormous blind spots on the FJ

2) Not to get 18 mpg

3) Not to have my car mistaken for a Hummer ever again

I may have come up with another thing or two or three.  Or eleven.

You see, friends and blogreaders, it’s a mere three years after procuring my Toyota FJ Cruiser and enduring the summer of 08, where filling it up was a $65-75 endeavor that had to be done every 300 miles (or fewer).  Usually fewer.  And my time with the FJ is drawing to a close.  Not because I leased it.  Not because there’s anything wrong with it.  But because I just can’t deal with it any more.  I’ve got other reasons.  I’ll throw some around now:

I’ve been furloughed from work two days a months with an accompanying 10% pay cut.  I would like my car to be cheaper.

It has faux-suicide doors and very few adults want to get into its back seat.

It will need new tires in the next six months and that will cost $1000 or more and I still won’t be able to change them by myself, given how large they are.

Gas is back up over $3.00 a gallon.

Americans still want “cute” SUVs and the FJ is cute.  And newish.  And retro.  Someone will want it.  It still has value.

I don’t like having to hoist up into it.

I would like to make less impact on the environment.  It qualified for Cash for Clunkers.  A 2007 vehicle.  Seriously.

I know, by the by, that someone else will buy it and use it and they will make an impact on the environment with it.  That will be partially my fault.  I’m ok with that.

Ok, see what I mean about justifying what I want to do?  A lizard brained serial carogamous, I am.

Anyway, all of which is to say, I put a deposit down on a 2010 VW Golf TDI.  Clean Diesel.  40mpg.  German made, just like my Passat of yore.  $1300 tax break.

It won’t be here until December or January.  In the meantime, though, I’m a little obsessed.  In a good way.  Want to see what it will look like?!

That one is British, but it’s the color I ordered.

We had our usual terrible time with car dealers trying to get one ordered.  We went to test drive the Jetta TDI (same engine) to make sure I liked it and to order one.  It’s not even worth going into much detail about how much both dealers we visited did sucketh.  Van Nuys VW and Livingston VW both refused to take my order, had marked up the TDI cars above MSRP, and said that the dealers who would take orders were “lying.”   Commonwealth VW has my business in buying the car for sure.   Some car advice:

1) Do your research on the interwebs before you go

2)  Walk away from people who call you “ma’am” in a condescending way and

3)  Always always always always bring Teresa.

Then you’ll be fine.

More details to come, I’m sure.  Vroom (in a clean diesel way).

The name is Sporks, the license is Alco2jet 220579.  That is all I can say or I might have to kill you.

Or not.  But that is my license number.  I’m a licensed carbonator.  Yeppers.

A week or so ago, Teresa sent me a link to a product I didn’t know existed.

The SodaStream Fountain Jet.

Behold:

I’ve always had a thing for old seltzer bottles.  We have some Teresa bought at a yard sale in the garage.

Ours are not this pretty but you get the idea.  William Powell could make you a drink from them.  Especially if you were Myrna Loy.

I also have been trying to be more green.  I ride my scooter when I can.  I would like someone to buy me this:

Audi A3 TDI.  45 mpg.  Thank you very much.

I’d buy it for myself, but I’ve recently taken a “state budget” furlough pay cut.  (Don’t ask).

The SodaStream hits exactly the right marks.  I can have (really, really slight) thoughts of Powell and Loy while making carbonated beverages.  It saves me from buying and discarding plastic bottle containing fizzy water every week (my average was 3 bottles per week).  It fits my newly “dehanced” salary.   (Thanks California economy!)

So, how does it work, you ask?  I’m so glad you did.  So, so glad.

First, you need to secure your license for the Alco2jets.  I have two licenses and two jets.  I am special.

That’s the spare.

That’s the one currently in use.  See just how special I am?

License 220579.  That special.

Ok, so here’s how it works.  You fill your specially provided SodaStream bottles from your handy Britta picther.

Please note that two bottles full is more than the (*cough*stupid*cough*) Britta pitcher can hold.  No offense to Britta stockholders.

This will mean filling and waiting for the Britta to take its sweet time draining itself through the (probably only mildly useful) filter.  Now, I could just skip this step and use tap water.  But what if L.A. tap water isn’t pure and clear as the driven snow?  What if, indeed.  So, once the Britta has finished its “job,” here’s what I’ve got:

Yep, still water, two plastic bottle.  Awesome.

Now I secure one bottle on the machine.

Then I push the magic button.

And watch the bubbles fill the bottle.

If you try this at home, you will probably be joined at this point by one or more dogs.  They do not like the sound.  Especially the loud burping sound it makes indicating a certain level of carbonation.

I manage to ignore the dogs and persist.

4 burps for plain or flavor enhanced water.

How about orange?

Just a drop.

Now, let’s get fancy and have some Diet Pink Grapefruit–”compare to Fresca!”  I’ll want five burps on this, dog concern be dammed.

Measure the syrup.

Pour in bottle and gently shake. I register slight alarm at the pinkness.

Pour into juice glass.  Serve to spouse.

Seems ok.

Secure made soda in fridge.

Put soda maker in it’s place (on floor, away from flammables, near wine and drinks)

Pour self a (slightly larger) juice glass of pink drink and sit down to blog.

Generally I’m only slightly excited by kitchen gadgets.  This one, though, is beyond fab.  No electricity, less plastic. A source of creativity.

Burp burp burp burp burp.

On Friday I rode my scooter to work.

That’s not me on Friday, but I know people like visuals.  It is me, and it is my scooter, it’s just not Friday.

Anyway, I had on “nice” jeans, a white shirt, and boots.  It was Friday, I had no meetings, it’s summer.  I looked fine (for me).

These were the boots I had on:

Ok, if any people who ride two wheeled vehicles would like to have an internal dialogue about how safe these are, go ahead.  I’ll wait.  I’ve been having some foot soreness lately and these are the most comfortable boots I own.

Anyway, I was walking down the stairs mid-afternoon as two women were walking up them.  Both women had on high heeled sandals that were (and this really is the only word for it) bejeweled.

Something like that.  I was admittedly clumping a little–as I was trotting down the stairs.  They, on the other hand, were walking slowly and carefully, undoubtedly not to trip and fall as they ascended.  They were undergrads going to class.  Trust me when I say I know that’s who they were.

Both of them glanced at my feet and then at each other and shared a moment (I saw it, no ambiguity) of disapproval.  I simply kept going but have been thinking about them and their shoes and me an my shoes ever since.

Yesterday, I asked Teresa, “when did women start wearing such stupid shoes?”

She replied, “oh, they always have.”

That’s Claudette Colbert “walking” her dog in 1938.  Those shoes wouldn’t work for me.  Seem fine for Ms. Colbert, though.

Here’s the thing, though, even if women have always worn shoes that make them less, um, functional than men, they didn’t use to ALWAYS do so.  By which I mean, they may have had the less functional shoes, but they only wore them sometimes.

For example, when I was in college, women didn’t wear those kinds of shoes to class.  They wore comfortable shoes.  Or flats. This trend of comfort predated my college years, of course.  Behold:

You don’t even need to see these two women’s shoes to know that they have no resemblance whatever to the bejeweled numbers above.  I would like to see the bejeweled numbers over thick socks.  I really would.

The judging of shoes–I might add–was prompted herein not by me, but the bejeweled folks ascending.  I wonder if their feet hurt.  I expect they did.  Maybe still do, here two days later.

I was thinking about that today as I surveyed my shoes.  I cannot say that they reflect any particular trend but my own sensibilities, size 11 feet (which constrains choice, of course), and some practicalities.  I’ve selected a few for a brief tour.

Shall we begin?  Do make sure your seat belt is tightened before we depart.

First, let’s start with the “special interest” shoes.  Those that must serve a particular function (and may not serve another).  Representing this category are:

Shimano’s fine M160 shoes.  Clip in to my fine SPD pedals and be off.

They’re certainly my shiniest shoes.  Truth told, I keep platform pedals on all three bikes most of the time, but sometimes, I like to clip in.  The M160s are ready when I do.

Special interest shoes #2 are also related to two wheeling, though motorized this time.  Behold the Sidi Slash.

Pretty, fancy, no?  Those are motorcycle boots for when you want to ride your 250cc scooter HARD (and safely).

On the casual end of things, I have what we use to call “tennis shoes.”

They’re Go Lite Trail Fly shoes.  Meant for running on scree.  I wear them for tennis shoe occasions.  I have worn them on scree.  In Hawaii.  More often I wear them on pavement.  In Los Angeles.

When I first moved to California, I insisted that one of the best things about it was the ability to wear sandals year-round.  I have had sandal love affairs (Birkenstocks, Doc Martens, Keens), but my true sandal love has always been and will always be…

Teva.  Tee to the vah.  My only pair at the moment, but I’ve another one on order.  There’s also a pair in the “going to Goodwill” bag that Halo chewed on.  I may rescue them and try again to compensate in some way for the cat chew marks.  (Update:  I did rescue them and they may not be the chewed upon pair, as I am currently wearing them and there is no pain.  No pics, you’ll have the trust me).

Six pounds of calico hellion right there.

As some people may have heard, my old friends at Crocs are in trouble.  They may go under.  Belly-up.  Bankrupt.  I let all my Croc clogs go some time ago, as I was getting rashes from the rubber on the tops of my feet.  I did acquire some Crocs flip flops recently.  Every time, I wear them, I think “last running of the Crocs.”  Or last flipping of the Crocs.  Or last flopping of the Crocs.

For work, I tend to practical, brown or black and loafer-esque.  Thus:

Those are Earth Compasses.  The next ones are on the “fancier” end for me.  The last time I wore them, I got a blister which got infected.

Some kind of Merrell slide.  I have them in black and brown.  Teresa and I refer to them as my “Associate Dean” shoes.  I got them as I was starting my new(ish) job and associate (ha!) them with it.  Right now, they’re not in circulation…  Infected blisters, you know.

I have a deep appreciation for Nike’s Considered line.  Launched in 2005, it lasted two years and produced several shoes that I adore.  They’re now all wearing out.  Here are the Gems from that line:

And there is no finer shoe in my life than the last-gasp Considered offering:

I have tan ones, too.  Both pairs are on the worn side of new.  I’ll miss them when they go.  I look through Nike’s current offerings every once in a while.  Then I sigh.  I’m out of the demographic, you see.

I expect I’d have gotten less of a look from the bejeweled crowd had I had these on:

My Earth Scenic boots.  I’ve even been known to polish them.  More hippie than clunky.

Whatever that theoretical outcome on the stairs might have been, there still seems to have been a meeting of women that I missed.  A meeting where it was decided that comfortable shoes were banished.  I’m good about keeping my calendar up-to-date, so it may be that I wasn’t invited to (or wanted at) the meeting.

Just as well I guess. Clunk clunk, flip flip.

When I was growing up, baseball (and a few other sports) was something my family could do together.  It wasn’t a perfect context by any means.  But, we could usually watch the Braves and be ok for a few hours.

I’ve always held onto baseball.  I lived in DC pre-Nationals, so I didn’t adopt a second team in my time there.  When I moved to L.A., I adopted Teresa’s Angels (after I met Teresa, that is) and continued to root for the Braves.

When I was in graduate school, I had a hard time my first summer finding a job.  I finally landed one with a company that did SAT tutoring in high school students’ homes.  I have never before (or since) had such an up-close view of affluent L.A.  Before I started the tutoring (which was mostly a late summer/fall activity, scheduled around the SAT test dates), this company hired me to answer the phone in the office.  The office was in one of the owners’ apartments down in a cool part of the city.  I wasn’t allowed to do much, just take messages.  The owner, in fact, laid me out when he heard me giving a parent a little information about what they did.  I had repeated a little bit of his spiel verbatim.  I had, after all, heard it a thousand times by that point.

He was an arrogant prick.  Very impressed with his own masculinity and Ivy League degree.  He was also a rabid fantasy baseball player.  He dismissed my curiosity about it.  Women couldn’t possibly be interested in baseball at the level fantasy required.  Certainly not mid-Atlantic educated ones, who weren’t admitted to an Ivy.  Or a seven sister.  Or…

I worked for them for one SAT season.  Never once did I ever see or experience them backing up one of their employees.  They were perfectly happy to let us line up passively in front of the bus that was angry parents of lazy student’s SAT scores.  It was a wretched experience.  If anyone wants the name of the company (they sold out to a national company, but still have the same set-up), do let me know.  I know, given the current economic situation in the U.S., there are lots of people who need jobs.  If you’d like one that will make you feel like shit, let me know and I’ll hook you up.

I left the bad company and went to work for a much more pleasant one (who did the same thing(ish) in a mini-mall east of downtown).  Company II was owned by and catered exclusively to Taiwanese immigrants.  Laying the weird meat buns I would sometimes get as gifts aside (but not those lovely red envelopes with money), it was a nice thing to do for the rest of my graduate school summers.

I held onto baseball past that.  I hoped with the Braves every year.  Felt very sad the summer of 1994.  Got back my joy with the Braves World Series of 1995.  Teresa and I went to Angels games, mixed in a Braves/Dodgers game here and there.  We also took time out to go to minor league ball in the Cal League.

My favorite experience was attending a game at the home of the Stockton Ports (now the Mudville Nine) and winning a six pack of pickled peppers.  What was not to like?

The 2002 series was unbelievable.  We breathed in and out with each pitch.  We named our new cat Halo.

Then, a few years ago, Ivy-jerk notwithstanding, I started playing fantasy baseball.  First, I played for free (with strangers) on Yahoo.  Then I joined a money league, ran the blog league and enjoyed myself (mostly).

Last year baseball started to change for me.  The money in the game has been out of control for a while.  Add the drugs.  What have I watched?  The game itself is fine.  MLB far from it.

Was Mark Lemke the last clean player?  Maybe Tim Salmon?  Bob Horner?  Bib Gibson?  Did Bart Giamatti’s untimely death ruin it for good?

When I think about my sadness around baseball–and it is surely there–some of it is tied up in fantasy.  The baseball blog league (which was terrifically fun) never attracted enough people to keep it going (unlike it’s much healthier sister blogleague football–coming soon for 09!).  The pay league, into which I was invited by my brother, has gone like this:

Year 1:  My dad and I agree to have a team.  He does nothing except pick the team name (with which I am still saddled).  I finish dead dog last.  It cost me real money.

Year 2:  I invite a blog-friend in.  I finish tied for third.  It costs me less money.  Somehow, my dad gets talked into taking a team of his own.  I try to help him on the phone.  I try to help him in person, while we’re on vacation.  It’s really frustrating.  He finishes last.

Year 3:  For some subconsciously masochistic reason, I agree to be the commissioner.  I like being the commissioner in the blogleagues.  This is not also true of the pay league.  I also switch jobs mid-summer.  Result:  I finish out of the money by 1 point, I spend a lot of time I don’t have entering changes for the league.  Mostly though, I have my integrity questioned, am accused of using my commissioner “powers” to cheat and then have a huge fight with my brother.  He tells me in the course of the fight that the guy who said I had cheated had done more for the people in the league than I would ever know.  I decide to quit.

Year 4:  I don’t quit.  I think (at the time) that I might get some love of the game back.  Be easy, enjoy yourself.  Today, again, my integrity is questioned because of a lopsided trade I agreed to.  It was lopsided trade designed to help me next year.

But today, I keep thinking about baseball.  And feeling sad. And wondering whether I should play or watch at all next year.  Or the rest of this.

I can think of a few things that might help me feel better–the Ken Burns doc, some Roger Angell, some Stephen J. Gould.  I’d say that I could go to a Rancho Cucamonga Quakes game, but we’ve had two actual earthquakes in the last three days and somehow I don’t want to go to a stadium called the epicenter.  Plus there’s that whole–I don’t like the Inland Empire much problem.  My university’s team is done for the year, so the *pling* of the aluminum bats can be no comfort now.

That’s Bronson Arroyo, one of the guys I got in the lopsided trade.  He’s curently 6-5 with an ERA of 6.56.  He’s 6′5″ and goes 195.  I don’t think he uses steroids.  That’s good, at least.

It’s a beautiful game, baseball.  I need to find out how to get back to its beauty.

The dirt’s pretty.  So’s the ball.  It’s everything around it that’s suspect.

Cue outro…

“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio [or insert alt player, as needed]…?”  I’d like some of the joy in Mudville back but am afraid there are too many strikes now.

When I was little, my parents had a succession of cars with which they were largely unsatisfied.  There was much lamentation about the sold VW Beetle–replaced by the unsatisfying AMC Rambler.  They replaced the Beetle because I was born.  The purchase of the Rambler was my fault.  So was the collapse of AMC.  You heard it here first.

The Rambler, in turn, was replaced by a VW 412 which overheated a lot.  The VW was replaced by a Buick Electra Limited, a behemoth whose soft steering was my comfort as I was I learning to drive.  Its landau top was forever the source of family drama because of the sparkler thrown onto it by my brother after an explicit warning not to throw sparklers.

I should note that this car lament/blame had a parallel in a story about the cat who died, because she was let out onto the busy street and run over.  As I was weeks old at the time, it was not I (in the Electra) who ran her down.  It was, nonetheless, my fault.  I was said to be the source of her “freedom” because the African-American woman who helped my mother care for me as an infant had warned that cats will “suck the life out of babies.”  Thus, cat outside on busy road, and a bad end.

Anyway, back to the cars.

Got the sequence?

Gave way (because of me) to:

Which wasn’t a good car, caused the downfall of AMC (my fault), and was replaced by:

Which overheated a lot.  Did I mention that my brother and I didn’t get along as children?  Thusly, one of us had to ride in the “way back” over the overheating engine one summer on a trip from Atlanta to New England.  I can still remember how hot I was.  Hotbox was replaced by:

There were more cars later, including the unfortunate car that became my first (handed down from my mom) and therefore the subject of my early driver accidents…

Have you ever noticed that certain cars never make people wistful for the past?  No one longs to have a fully restored 1980 Chevrolet Citation.  And that is why GM is failing.  You heard it here first.

Anyway…

Between the 412 and the Electra, my dad bought a used car, which he drove for six or nine months.  My excellent internets-based sleuthing has led me to the conclusion that it was a mid-70s Toyota Corona.  (I knew it was a Toyota, I knew approximately when we had it, and then I recognized it while looking at google images of mid-70s Toyotas.  See how clever I am?!)

That Toyota–while otherwise an ordinary car–had one extraordinary feature to my school-age mind.  The headrests of the front seats had openings into which the poles slid.  They functioned fine and the headrests were firmly attached.  Nevertheless, into one of these very small holes, someone had placed a dried bean.

Like that one in the middle there.  I saw very clearly how the bean could have been inserted.  Getting it out was another matter.

I could not, for the life of me, sort out how it might be extracted.  I spent hours contemplating.  I really wanted to figure it out.  Then, my dad sold the car and the bean was gone from my life.  I still thought of it occasionally for years.  The problem I could not solve.  The void filled with bean.

I thought about that bean today.

We spent yesterday with Teresa’s parents and their three dogs and our two dogs.  They have a small dog along with whom Biscuit does not get.  (Did you follow that?)  Anyway, Biscuit got into a fight with that dog and as a result, she smelled a little like the pee that dog emitted as a result of the fight.  I should note that non-Biscuit dog started the fight and I later said, “Lulu wrote a check she couldn’t cash.”  As a result of Lulu’s check, Biscuit smelled like Lulu pee.  Oh and chocolate chip cookies.  She smelled like pee and chocolate chip cookies.  We had a fresh chocolate chip cookie in the car on the way home (a result of a coupon at Black Angus.  Don’t ask).  So my car smelled of dog, urine, and cookie.

I was taking Biscuit to get groomed this morning.  I was traveling to a part of SoCal I generally avoid.  Biscuit’s groomer had moved from a store in the valley in which I live to another north of here.  I programmed my Garmin Nüvi with the address and set out.  When I arrived in far northern valley, I discovered that the store was on a new bit of road that wasn’t known to the Nüvi.  I got lost.  I found myself staring at the Nüvi, which was showing my car in a blank space on the map.

It looked like that except there were no roads.  I stopped the car and looked at it.  The Nüvi said I was nowhere.  And yet, I was somewhere.

The where was new space–not in a good sense, mind you.  There I was driving down a new road lined with faux-Spanish facade built around all the expected national chain stores.  Ex-urbs have no soul and may well be the reason for the bad economy.  You heard that here first.

But Biscuit likes Harvey and Biscuit doesn’t like many people and Harvey had moved to the PetSmart at the place unknown to the Nüvi.

All of a sudden, staring at my virtual car in a virtual wasteland, I thought of the bean.  I also thought of my nine year old self staring at the bean, trying to get it out of the void.

Then I looked up.  Away from the blank, away from the bean.

I found the store and took Biscuit inside.

(Why does Biscuit’s hair cut cost twice as much as mine?  Never mind, I know.  It’s because I don’t nip and my hairdresser doesn’t brush my teeth).

Normally, when I defy the Nüvi’s directions, she says “recalculating” in a way I find judgmental.  Today, as she tried to find her way through the blank space, I found her recalculations less judgmental and more bereft.  She seemed (not that I’m anthropomorphizing AT ALL) relieved when I headed home.

When left to pick up Biscuit, I turned the Nüvi back on and directed her back to the blank space. Biscuit didn’t smell like pee anymore.  The blank space is now filled in my mind by the exubry stuff that’s actually there.

I was listening to Carrie Newcomer as I descended back to the valley that is my home.

I’m the fool whose life’s been spent.
Between what’s said and what is meant

Or so she sang.

That bean is surely gone now.  Dessicated enough to dry up and blow up and away from its void.  Maybe it’s still there.  It’s not a problem I need to solve.

So I will wander without fail
In circles that grow ever wide
The sky expands and then exhales…

When I arrived home, the Nüvi said, “arriving at home, on right.”  We both felt glad.

(Lyrics from The Geography of Light by Carrie Newcomer, “There is a Tree”)

For those of you who have read and still read my homages to randomness, you know that occasionally I lapse into discussion of bicycles.  I am aware that no one but me wants to read these lapses.  Yet I persist.  It’s a little like my current occasional behavior of defying the Garmin Nüvi.  I just can’t help myself.

See?  My Gunnar Rockhound. Don’t tell me to turn on Roscoe.  I just won’t do it.

Today, though, I am coming clean about a new two wheeled addition to my life.

Here it is surrounded by its non-motorized friends…

Introductions all around, shall we?  In the back top, we have my newest bicycle, the Kona Dew Deluxe. It’s not REALLY a hybrid if it has disc wheels, right?  Underneath it (and mostly obscured) is Teresa’s Gary Fisher Tassajara.  To the right on top it my (now sold) Surly Cross Check.  We never quite got along.  Below the Surly is my Gunnar.  And in the center is my Kymco People 250. (Teresa’s Orbea Onix was inside at the time the picture was taken and her Honda Magna was in the shop–see explanation below).

There it is…

Let’s go back a few years shall we?

When I was in graduate school, I decided to get a motorcycle.  Why did I decide to do this?  Well there were a few reasons.  UCLA let you park one for free.  UCLA didn’t let you breathe for free.  They also didn’t let you park a car at all unless you lived in Amarillo and could prove your commute was too long by bus.  So, parking a motorcycle in any number of highly convenient motorcycle lots (including one right behind the building my program was in) seemed fab.

Also Teresa had one.  I like doing what Teresa does.  She’s my honey, after all.

Teresa, being the independent sort that she is, had learned to ride her bike on her own, taken the DMV test on her own, and was all set.  I’m not that adventurous.  Instead, I decided to take the Motorcycle Foundation Safety course.  It consisted of two in-class session that were a little like High School driving class.  Taught by an older guy who said he never drove a car, they were a little boring, but ok otherwise.

The class also had two riding days.  We rode little motorcycles in the parking lot of Pasadena Community College.  I was the only woman and the instructor thought me pretty much incapable.  Those two days were among the most stressful in my life.  I can, right now, conjure my late 20s self standing at the trunk of my car, on a break, my legs trembling, eating some string cheese and a nutri-grain bar.

Somehow, despite his dislike of me, I passed.  He wasn’t done, though.  His parting shot was, “do some of what you’re doing out on the road and you’ll get yourself killed.”

Pedagogically, a very weak approach, I must say.  I don’t know WHAT I did wrong that was going to put me in danger, but I do remember the fear and humiliation.

Anyway, I got myself one of these:

It’s an 84 Honda Nighthawk. I bought it in 95 or so.  I rode it to UCLA for several years.  Didn’t get myself killed, obviously.

I sold it in 99 or so.  I needed the money.  I had stopped riding it once I finished my degree.  I must say that I never quite got over the MSF guy’s warning.  I was relieved when a nice Air Force officer bought it from me.

I always regretted that Teresa and I didn’t ride more together.  We did a long ride once and I was barely able to get through Malibu Canyon because of fear.  She was fine.  I’m scarred.

Teresa kept her motorcycle and it sat in our garage for a long time, inoperable.  Last summer, with gas at almost $5 a gallon in California, she decided to get it fixed.  That’s her story.  My story, typically, is to follow along with Teresa’s enthusiasms.  No motorcycle, though.  Not this time.

I wanted a scooter.  Cute, fun, feet flat.  Automatic.  A Vespa.  I’d wanted a scooter for years.  I remember checking the alternative weekly in Washington when I lived there for one to buy. Didn’t have to be a Vespa.  Any decent scooter would do.  It was going to be different this time. I was going to be different this time.

So, I investigated.  Discovered that there were, essentially, four types of scooter manufacturers:

Italian: Vespa, Piaggio, Aprilia.  Uber-cool, super-expensive, and probably out of my league.

Japanese:  Some of the usual suspects, Honda, Kawasaki, etc.  Moderately priced.  Not a lot of choices.

Taiwanese:  Lots of choices, decent reputations, brands I hadn’t heard of:  Kymco, Sym, Genuine

Chinese:  I gather to be avoided.

I ran into a problem.  I wasn’t the only one who thought to buy a scooter last summer with gas the way it was.  Quelle surprise.  Finding a scooter in a showroom was hard.  Verging on impossible.

What you could get was a 50cc.

That Nighthawk?  It was a 700cc.

50s are great for gas mileage.  They’ll get 80-100mpg.  They also only get up to about 30 miles per hour.  I test rode one.  I really liked its looks.

I was a total freak about riding it.  Nervous and tense.  Once I got going, though, I remembered.  What to do.  Where to look.  How to use my hands and feet.

I might have bought it right on the spot, but for the 50cc thing.  And Teresa calming me down.  Bless her heart.

Most scooter manufacturers make a 150cc.  Yamaha 150s would be available in October (this was July/August).  Vespas could be sooner, but they cost $5000+.  Genuine Buddies were too small.  The world seemed to be tilting toward a Kymco.  The Kymco dealer was getting some Agility 125s in.

I haunted craigslist and ebay.  The same scooter popped up on both down in Orange County.  It was a 250cc, which seemed better for hauling my ass around.  I talked to the guy and made arrangements to come see it.  I even bought a helmet.  I brought some mountain bike gloves.  I got out cash.  Carrying around a lot of cash makes me nervous.  So does buying motor vehicles.

Teresa and I agreed that it would be better not to take it on the freeway.  Getting from Orange County to Los Angeles County without using the freeway is not easy.  I think it took about three hours.

By the time we pulled into the scooter dealer (it needed service), I was exhausted.  I was also pretty sure I had made a good decision.  It ran well, fit me nicely, and it was fun.

I ride it a couple of times a week, at least.

Sometimes, I act like a goober and stick my knee out when I turn.  Mostly, though, I just ride it.  Sitting up straight.  Following all the laws.  I never split lanes.  I always wear the gear (jacket, full-face helmet, armored gloves).  Gas costs $2 a gallon just now.  It cost me $3.11 to fill up the People last week.

Teresa and I have ridden a couple of times together.  We’ll ride some more, I’m sure.  Maybe not Malibu Canyon.  Maybe to the movies again.

Vroom.

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