High Raw Happiness

While driving 100 miles on curvy two-lane highways from Columbia to Piney Campground my son Ryan and I were entirely at the mercy of our Garmin’s navigational skills. The problem was road construction and detours kept pushing us off its desired route, much to the consternation of the rude little nav computer. This inspired a Knock Knock joke:

Me: Knock. Knock.
Ryan: Who’s there?
Me: Interrupting Gamin.
Ryan: Interrupting… <Me: Recalculating!!!> …Garmin who?

As I wrote in Instant Karma on the Bicycle I learned about the consequences of judging others and feeling all superior. This morning as I walked up the hill to my building in downtown Nashville I saw an overweight man about ten years older than me crossing the street slowly and using a cane. The thought “Looser geezer hobbling on a cane” tried to catch hold but remembering the prior incident I deflected it thinking “I was using a cane a few weeks ago, on crutches even, and I’m old ish too.”

And then a great sneeze came upon me as the morning sun pulled out around the edge of a building. “Bless you!” I heard from across and up the street. It was cane man. A little embarrassed, I smiled at him and laughed yelling back thank you. He smiled and waved.

Sure beats a flat tire!

I was alone, 10 miles out on a bicycle ride zooming down a two lane road about to take a left onto another two lane road when I noticed a grumpy looking gray beard walking along the ditch carrying a half full, faded, red plastic gas can. In the back of my mind came the thought “Sucker! If he’d been on a bike like me he wouldn’t need gas and wouldn’t be stranded. I’m so much better than him. Smarter, younger, fitter…”

PFFFT!!! Went my front tire, spraying bright green tube slime on the road, my bike and me as a sudden puncture burst onto the scene. I stopped, got off the bike and was looking at the tiny hole as grumpy gray beard caught up.

I said “Looks like we’re in the same boat!” smiling. He grunted, said “Flat tire” and walked on.

I carry a phone and my rescue crew was at home on the sofa, ready if not willing to come get me in the van. But I also carry a patch kit and a pump and decided to attempt the repair. It took just 15 minutes to remove the wheel and inner tube, find the puncture, apply patch, stuff the tube back in the tire, pump it up, and put the wheel back on the bike. I never caught up with gas can man, but maybe I should have waved and smiled at him before the flat.

There’s a great scene in one of the Indiana Jones movies where they serve up chilled monkey brains and the girl just isn’t having any of it.

Chilled Monkey Brains

I had a similar experience at dinner tonight. The whole Fulin’s Asian Cuisine visit was discombobulated from the get-go. We were seated in an echo chamber. There was no silverware or napkins. I had to walk the restaurant in search of our waitress to ask for some after our salads came out. Everything took forever. But finally they brought out my vegetable tofu casserole, which had the description “For the vegetarian in all of us” below it on the menu. It came in a little covered casserole dish. It’s what I always get. I scooped the vegetables and tofu cubes onto my plate beside the brown rice.

I was moving it around inspecting one of the tofu cubes. It appeared to have blown out. It was flatter than it should have been and the color was off. Looking closer I saw it had long grooves and little circles. That’s odd. Puckered circular shapes in long rows… “AAAAAAHHHHHH! TENTACLES!” I think I might have yelled as I shoved the top on it and pushed it all to the center of the table.

It was truly traumatizing! A large black couple at the next table was having a good laugh at my expense until I made eye contact with them and they looked down and resumed eating.

The manager partially comped our dinner, which was still over $100. I don’t know if I can go back there. I guess I’ll get over it. But seriously, body parts? Arms? Tentacles in your dinner? Sick!

The great thing about cycling is that each ride is an adventure in its own way. Today I was about five miles out of town on an unlined two lane road when I noticed a red Dodge Intrepid approaching slowly ahead. It stopped and the driver, a black guy about my age, waved for me to come over. I pulled up next to his car, standing in the middle of the road. By way of greeting he said “What kind of bird is that?”

“What?”

“Back there. What kind of bird is that?” he asked pointing down the road behind him. About 100 yards away I could see a dot on a power line.

“That one way down there?”

He nodded. “Go see”, he instructed, giving me a little shooing motion.

“OK”, I laughed and rolled off.

“It won’t fly away”, he yelled.

As I approached what was now clearly a hawk I saw the two men backing their Intrepid all the way to where I stood in the grass straddling my bike looking up at the hawk.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I’m pretty sure it’s a hawk.”

“A hawk?”

“Yeah. It’s a hawk. Looks sort of like a little eagle.” It fluffed its feathers and relieved itself. Then with two or three easy flaps of its long brown wings it soared away over the field. I looked back at the men. The older one, maybe the driver’s dad, slapped him on the shoulder with the back of his hand and said “I told you it weren’t no chicken!” and they drove off without another word to me.

Originally posted on 9/25/2010 9:55 PM

After the work week in a cubicle in a government skyscraper I was itching for adventure! So I had breakfast with my 15 year old son (homemade pancakes for him, oranges for me) who did not want to go outside this chilly morning. He was not feeling too great, but was well enough to leave with his sleeping mother and older brother. For me it was bicycle time!

I took a different street than usual out of the neighborhood passing a young lady on her porch with her two large dogs. She waved and said good morning and her dogs launched! They raced me the length of the road, then headed back home at the stop sign. Ahead there was a fat man standing, smoking in his front yard with a small, yapping, leash pulling mutt. He cussed out the poor dog to shut the <censored> up you little <censored>! I sailed down the big hill past them, around a sharp right angle curve and onto a busy road running two stop signs without slowing. They should be yield signs anyway.

Pedaling along in my son’s old high school soccer jersey I noticed a teenage girl riding with her mom passing me in their minivan. She was smiling and then frowned and turned away when she realized I was a grownup.

I was making good time down a hill when another minivan up ahead backed onto the road. Who backs into traffic? I nearly caught up to it, but then he took off and I just kept going on the white line, kind of gaining on him but ready for him to pull away as cars tend to do. Then without warning he took a sudden right blocking my way! Screech went my back tire as I skidded a bit sideways to keep from T-boning the van. He was oblivious. I gave him a “WTF?” wave and a lady passed me holding her palms upward shrugging in a mutual “WTF?” gesture.

All this adventure less than ten minutes into the ride!

It was a blustery fall day. Windy that is. The kind of wind that makes the US flags stand out straight like sheets of rippling plywood. Leaves and litter raced right along with me like the dogs. Easy speed. Other times, most of the time it seemed, the wind was severely anti-Steveward.

I rode to the Chickasaw Trace mountain bike course seeing a couple of vehicles with mountain bikes on their roofs or trunktop carriers passing me. I veered off the park road, across a ditch and onto the end of the “Trail of Tears” instead of starting at the official start. What a tough ride. Steep uphills. Insane downhills. Roots. Rocks. Hairpin turns. After a mile of that I got to the start and rode the easy flat part along the creek. It seemed different. Looked like someone had worked on the trail… DROP! Yeah, they had moved the trail! A sudden and deep drop with a right angle turn at the bottom took me by surprise but no crash. Close one though!

I was cranking up a hard, hard steep rocky stretch that I have yet to clear without having to put my feet on the ground at least over a few pedal scarred rocks. Was that brakes I heard? I turned to see there was a guy behind me. “You’re OK! Keep going!” he yelled. I did, making it farther than ever before but still having to bale. He passed and I saw how you make this part. Maybe next time. Although he did ride over a rock the size of a fat suitcase, and this is steep uphill mind you, so I don’t know if I’ll make that any time soon, but someday.

More riding riding riding. Alone. Slaloming through the trees, the trail soft and slippery with leaves concealing roots, rocks and fat green walnuts. “On your right!” a second young guy in a yellow jersey yelled as he passed smiling but intense. There’s always someone younger, thinner and more fearless than you are, placed there to keep your ego in check.

A mile or so later I came up on a chubbyish man and his preteen son who he instructed to get out of the way “Rider coming through!” he yelled. I slowed and passed them on the right barely missing trees saying “You’re OK! Keep going!” There’s always someone faster, thinner and more fearless than you are, you see. Eventually I broke out of the woods and back onto the park road for the long ride back to town.

When I got home, the wife was warm and cozy on the sofa still in her pajamas, one son sleeping the other playing in his room. Sadly they will never know the adventure they missed, waiting just outside the door. But I’ll tell them about it and maybe someday at least one of them will come along or go out on their own.

(Originally posted on 11/13/2010 9:54 PM)

Walking in from my distant parking spot, I’m watching as a man in a giant, red pickup, driving too fast for a parking lot, let alone near the entrance to our busy Columbia Walmart, does a 180 to pull across the sidewalk up onto the concrete where they bring in the shopping carts.

This not-a-parking-spot is also clearly marked “FIRE LANE”, well at least on the parking lot side of the sidewalk.

He jumps out of his truck, slams the door, and strides purposefully into the store. I’m wondering what the emergency is when he stops at the Red Box DVD rental machine and begins browsing for a movie.

As with hiccups everyone occasionally has a song get stuck in their head. Like hiccups it’s not taken seriously because we all experience them and they just go away. Usually. There was that hiccup girl in the news this week who had them for years and is now accused of murder. I guess they finally got to her.

What if the tune that was stuck in your head was with you all day and later made it hard to get to sleep and then to your annoyance was still the first thought you had upon awakening? What if it happened repeatedly? It does to me all the time. Day after day. Month after month. I am the hiccup girl of songs stuck in your head.

It’s not the same song of course. It’s pretty much whatever song, or worse, jingle I heard last. 80′s music is the worst especially when I’m a captive audience like on the bus or in the grocery store. I keep my iPod with me out of self defense, but that just plants a song of my choosing in my head instead of a retched Beach Boys hit. It’s not the whole song either. Not by a long shot. More like two or three measures. Songs with words are worse than instrumental music but they all stick. Wildly random jazz is almost safe, but even that has an underlying melody that the music tumor can assimilate and reproduce.

Back in April 2010 I awoke on the second day of a campout and had a joyous few seconds of peace before the music started to play. I almost wept for joy, but it was so short lived that in just a few breath’s time the music tumor was throbbing a fragment of a John Denver song about sunrises or mountains, something appropriate for the setting.

If there is no song there is a cadence. A place holder waiting for a tune to wrap around it. It goes sort of boom-boom, chacka-lacka boom-boom. I consider this a reprieve when that’s all it does.

Then Tuesday, the first time since April, I awoke from a nap on the bus on the way home from work to find blessed silence. I looked out the window at the beautiful Tennessee countryside experiencing a feeling of total bliss–and impending doom. For as sure as the thought hits me “Hey. The music tumor has quieted. Shh…” my feeble mind starts seeking, searching. That day it was the Barry Manilow song “I Write the Songs”, in fact. I hadn’t heard it in ages. The cruel music tumor had saved it for just this occasion. It’s playing now as I type this, going quietly insane, like the hiccup girl.

(Originally posted on 11/24/2010 11:07 PM)

Sure we vegans talk the talk about being kind to animals, but do we walk the walk?

Yesterday morning (March 14) as I was stepping into the shower I noticed a medium-sized spider hanging on by his fingernails, fighting against the current to keep from being washed down the drain.

I could have easily nudged him with my toe and off he’d have been to the sewage treatment plant. Instead, I grabbed my humane bug trap (a plastic cup and thin square of cardboard I keep on hand for just such situations) and scooped him out of the water. I didn’t want to get dressed to take him outside, so I carefully poured him onto the sink and got in the shower thinking I’d take him out when I was finished.

Of course he was gone when I got out of the shower. “Oh well, I tried” I thought assuming he’d intentionally crawled down the sink drain. Then this morning, 24 hours later, I returned to the scene to find him fat, happy, dry and fuzzy waiting in the sink. He put up a heroic struggle to stay out of the bug trap this time, but I got him and showed him the way out into the garage where he’ll have plenty of prey and company.

Naturally something as important as this had to be Tweeted. Soon my Peta friend Michelle asked did I know that it was “Save a Spider Day” yesterday?! That spider probably thought “Just my luck. :::( I’m going to die on national Save a Spider Day.”

Yes it’s true:

Be kind to spiders and National Save a Spider Day