4 Days, 4 Rides.

Thursday was Critical Mass, Durham Style. 15 or so of us riding a maybe 3 mile loop. Nomas (my friend, neighbor and partner in single speeding) flatted about 1.75 miles into it, so the whole "pack" hadda stop and wait in the freezin' dark [31 degrees, 5:45 EST]. Get going, gonna do a coupla loops, but certain elements started whining about the freezin' dark. Nomas hadn't, despite his best efforts, removed the tiny chip of glass stuck in his brand new tire, so he was rollin' low and slow and the suggestion to adjourn to the smoky dark of Bull McCabe's was not resisted. At all. Met some fellow dark riders, mostly commuters, some of whom were mildly amazed that someone {moi} would have 4 (four) bikes. Glad I didn't count the other 4 that don't get ridden. 3 mile ride, 5 miles there and back = 8 miles for ride one.
Saturday Nomas and I lit out for parts unknown at about 7:30 pm. Poached a bit of cart path on a private golf course, rode into gnarly new neighborhoods full of gaudily festooned 2by4 & half inch cdx 'houses', got lost, got orient(at)ed, got re-lost, etc. Rode for about 2 hours in the mild dark: 55 degrees or so. Maybe 30 miles.
Sunday I took the whole day off work for the first time since August ended. (Unless you count the 3 action-packed days Rider X and Li'l Lotto rolled thru in November?) Raked leaves, picked up canine feces, fixed some broken tools, did some laundry, sanded and re-sealed the concrete countertop, {sounds like work}, then went for a quick 40 miler with Senor Siete. Rolled out circa 2:30 pm for a Borland Road climb. Met a large Cat 3 crit racer with the scars to prove it. He rode up beside me, we start talking-- he's going my way for a while, so we ride together. Says he saw me at Kerley and Cornwallis. I'm all, Dude, you been chasing me like 6 miles. He goes yeah, you were hard to catch. I'm like, cool. Car back, so he puts some haunch into it. Nothing like drafting off a 6 foot 200 pounder. He goes straight, I turn left, do Borland pretty hard, see lots of riders for a late December afternoon, but it is 67 and sunny, so. . . Shoulda brought a second bottle of water and a banana or sump'n. Legs turned to mush about 2 miles and 3 hills form the barn. Gotta getta knee warmer for this achy robo-knee.
Made it home at 4:40. Chopped up some turkey carcasses for the beasts. T-Flo has gone all raw on the pet food tip. Uses her old Whole Foods connections to get the goods. Too gross for her to trim scraps for Seta and cleave the rest for the Bitches of Englewood. That'd fall to moi. Once a butcher, always a butcher, as I always say. The recipricants (sic) of this gastronomical largesse are both grateful and much more attentive of any kitchen-based activity. Of which, well, the larder was low. Time for ride number the fourth.
Pull some shorts over the bibs {yes, shorts; it's still in the low 60's, ya snotcicle havers} change into my shopping/cycling shoes, and saddle up the eine Klein nachtmusik for a backpack filling trip to Whole Foods. Get my shop on, run into the client whose house I was 'posed ta be at taday, tell her I hadda take a day. HAD to. She goes Dude, I totally understand, ya gotta do that sometimes. I hope you went for a ride. Round trip: 3 miles or so.
Roll up the driveway to see J in the back yard. She'd brought Bella, her German Shepard Dog, over to add to the scattering of dog scat, like she does, and she surprised me by accepting my offer to stay and share my tomatoes and pasta over shrimp. Good times. Seta, T-Flo's Sphinx (Mostly hairless) 4 month old kitten made her feel like a movie star. She just does that. If you know me, you know I'm a dog person and NOT a cat person, but this little one is a charmer. So ugly (no hair, possum lookin' tail, junk hanging out, wrinkles on wrinkles) you feel sorry for her cuz she doesn't seem to know she's so ugly. But she's playful and trusting and gentle. We play this game where she sits in her basket on a table under a heatlamp (no hair) and I stick my face down to her and she'll claw and bite and throw her head back to bear down with some back-legged rabbit kicks and she hardly ever draws blood. No, really, she doesn't even scratch me. Just hairless paws a bald belly. She sat on J's lap, then climbed up toward her face so J leaned back and Seta curled up under her chin and fell asleep. Woke up and started trying to nurse on J's neck. She did that to me a 3:30 this am--if you let her, she'll leave a mark. And it's loud. And she's persistent. I'm partly relating this because she's coming North with us this month. As in Christmas. Prepare to be charmed by the gargoylest looking live animal you ever saw.
But there are no pictures because my phone continues to defeat me, and T-Flo took her sweet little Olympus with her to fabulous St. John's. For a week. In a private Villa. Just her and her clients and their year-old daughter for whom she nannies. On St.John's. In the Caribbean. For a week. Of getting-paid-her-regular-rate "work".
That's all I got.{ Nomas is gonna learn me how to embed jpg's and other URL gobbledygook. Whether he knows it or not.} So next time I might have pitchgers (sic). Just don't let this stand as the most exciting weekend a Liontamer had.