Rain, rain go away

[Veronica]

Well, it's raining here and it's raining on the East coast. What do you do with your weekends when you can't/don't ride?


Thom and I volunteer at least one Saturday a month, sometimes two, at the San Francisco National Maritime Historic Park. We usually get to do some sort of fun project while we're there. Yesterday Thom spent the day 115 feet off the deck straightening out the main topmast

I played with pine tar and parceled and served a wire rope that will be taken aloft and used for volunteers to clip into when they are working. Parceling means putting on a thin layer of muslin, which is then covered with pine tar. Serving is wrapping a thin line very tightly over that muslin. This is done to prevent chafing and to cover up where the wire was spliced to put in an eye.

At home, we've got projects to work on in the house and the yard. We're in the process of redoing our front yard. We live on a hill and we have put in two stone retaining walls to even out the hill and have a planting area, where hopefully stuff will actually grow. We still need to do the irrigation (but not today) and plant.

Inside we still need to put in the shoe molding since we replaced the carpet in the bathroom with tile. We also want to redo the floors in the bedroom, music room (aka living room), hall, dining room and kitchen with wood. And replace the sliding doors in the dining room with French doors.

A few years ago we made 4 end tables out of cherry. They still need the drawers to be made for them. They're being used anyway, just with the opening facing the wall.

I really do like to cook. So today I'll probably make chocolate chip cookies, an apple pie, and baked fried chicken. I'll probably do a little cross stitch and read a kid's book or two. I try to stay current on the latest children's literature. It's good to be able to recommend books to kids.

I've got a yoga tape that I'd like to try and maybe I'll do my weight workout.

I forgot to mention the endless culling and editing of photos we take. Thom actually sits at the computer and does the typing and I'm his managing editor. The DMD photos took about 4 hours to process.

V.

[Bike Goddess]

V- I'm tired just reading what you could/would do today since no one is riding!

Blame the rain on me- if I can't ride, neither can anyone else!

Off of work I go raiin and all.

While you're at it read a few books for me, and where are those cookies and that pie going? I.E. Whose mouth gets blessed?

[massbikebabe]

Yup,

those of us on the east coast are getting a big drink of water and not riding this weekend...unless you like rain and 30 mph winds. This is one weekend though I am grateful for rain...I spent Friday night in the ER with a kidney stone. No riding till this bad boy passes. My mothers day has been spent in a vicodin haze reflecting how easy my two 8 pound deliveries were compared to this tiny stone The upside is my hubby and kids will feel bad for me so I might get some neat bike stuff for mothers day


karen

[Veronica]

My mothers day has been spent in a vicodin haze reflecting how easy my two 8 pound deliveries were compared to this tiny stone The upside is my hubby and kids will feel bad for me so I might get some neat bike stuff for mothers day

Ahhh... gotta love that attitude. There IS a silver lining in every cloud. Hope you get some cool stuff - but more importantly, hope you get better soon.

V.

[Melody]

\My mothers day has been spent in a vicodin haze reflecting how easy my two 8 pound deliveries were compared to this tiny stone The upside is my hubby and kids will feel bad for me so I might get some neat bike stuff for mothers day

Eeep! I hope you get better soon. And if you get gifts, that always helps cheer you up.

Mel

[joyrider]

Does anyone else here go riding in the rain?
I do, usually when it's sprinkling on and off... So I have two questions - is it hard on my bike to ride in the wet and how dangerous is it?

[SadieKate]

Oh, my gosh, if anyone could see my house they’d know I have waaaay too many hobbies. The kitchen has turned into a permanent bike shop. Somehow, we’ve ended up with major building, reconfiguring, repairing and maintaining projects on one bike or another since August. Guess that’s what happens when you own 14 bikes between the two of you and you ride them all.

The rain is so conducive to just snuggle into bed with a book. I have piles of books that I’m reading like the spate of bikealogues after a run of novels. I can highly recommend “The Time Traveler’s Wife” and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.” I think I might move on next to Terry Tempest Williams’ Utah stories, “Red” and Frances Willards’ “How I learned to ride the Bicycle.”

I spent the winter knitting oodles and oodles of hats, mittens and wristies as gifts. So today will be a good time to get my summer projects on the needles now that road trip season is back. Whenever the road is fairly flat I can knit in the car and talk to Bubba. He likes to drive so it makes the perfect combo. If I’m not knitting, I sleep which doesn’t help him and besides we do our best talking done in the car. I think I’ll try to get the shawl cast on today while I watch the Giro. It’s a deep dark red from a Canadian company called “Philosopher’s Wool” which puts a focus on sustainable eco-friendly local farm wool production. It has a lot of the natural lanolin left so it should be good treatment for my hands since biking is so hard on them.

I also made several bike chain bracelets over the winter with lots of fancy beads and charms. Those were fun gifts because I could personalize each including a penny farthing charm with a moving wheel. Bubba just helped me make 15 key chains with spoke nipples and alphabet block charms. It was really nice sitting at the table chatting with him while we broke and re-pinned the chain pieces. I sometimes think these times help him unwind from his daytime lawyering if he can’t get on the bike. Being counsel for the state F&G commission as well as Forestry can be pretty stressful between the politics, personalities and the emotional issues. All the knitting and bracelet projects entertain him also as he is my aesthetic consultant, but they took up my normal winter baking time so I didn’t get a stash of biscotti made. Maybe lemon shortcake will be on the summer menu instead.

You think Yellow has issues with skiing and snow getting in the way of each other? Fishing is going to be the next push-pull issue, probably for both of us. So far, I have not been tempted to go striper fishing because the fine days have been too few and far between to give up cycling for piscatorial pursuits but I know the days of trout and steelhead are coming. Even just taking my pontoon boat out and drifting down through the rapids is starting to lure me. I think I might want to raft the Middle Fork of the American River again this year just to get my whitewater skills a bit tuned up. Kind of like keeping your mtbikes skills up to speed. Speaking of which, this year I plan to learn to consistently pop a wheelie. I can un-weight my front wheel just fine, but popping a true wheelie whenever I need to isn’t quite there. I still remember the first time I got that wheel up and kept it there for a several strokes. Wow, what a feeling of weightlessness. I want that on-demand.

All of this reminds me that I haven’t repaired the chaos done to our workroom when we pulled the table out to use for Thxgiving and Xmas dinners. We had lots of people over for both meals and somehow we’ve just lived with the disaster in there since then. I’ve been trying to weed out my old quilt magazines so I’ve got boxes of them piled in there ready for donation somewhere plus all of Bubba’s fly-tying materials and every fly-fishing magazine ever published. Just trying to pull out the articles on maintenance, repair and skills from the bike magazines turns into a mountain of a job. I guess since it is almost noon here, I should go try to do one constructive thing today. Hmm, maybe there are some biscuits left . . .

[spazzdog]

Great bracelet!

It's nice you two have that relationship.

spazz watching the grey weather

[Surlygirl]

Oh Karen, my heart goes out to you. My mom use to work in the ER and she told me you can always tell Kidney stone patients, they walk without their feet ever touching the ground it hurts so bad. My sister in law had one and man was she sick, I just feel so bad for you.
Get well soon and pass that bad boy.
Jody

[Crankin]

Sorry about your kidney stone, Karen. That makes complaining about the weather seem trite. But like you say, it might be good for getting some cool bike presents for sympathy...
When it rains at this time of year, I go to the gym. I can't bring myself to do a spin class during the normal cycling season unless it's been a few days since I've ridden. Saturday we went to a pilates class and warmed up on the treadmill with a short run. I will ride if it's just sprinkling, but the winds today stopped us from going out. We decided to hike in the Delany Reservation in Stow, about 2 miles from my house. It was really nice and we found some good trails for mountain biking. I went out Friday after work and the winds just sucked the energy out of me. I am 7 miles short of my 500 mile goal that I thought I would reach this week. But then I reflected on the fact that last year on Mother's Day, we were riding in Concord and ended up in a soaking rain, with a temp. of 48. The next weekend was 95.

[spazzdog]

massbikebabe... i am so sorry abt your kidney situation. i know how that hurts. lots of water honey... and the vicodin ain't too shabby either.

feel better!

spazz

[Hill Slug]

This rain is really putting a damper on my pool installation.....
They started last week, and it rained while they were digging. So now it's raining AGAIN, that's going to push them out till at least Thursday....
I can say there is a moat around the back side of my house.....They were able to trench for the gas line, and part of the pool area. We're getting a fiberglass pool, so we don't have to wait for the cement to dry. But at this rate they won't be done for a couple more weeks.....wah wah wah. It's still early to swim, but I just want it to be done......
I was able to ride yesterday 50 miles with the team though......

[Veronica]

When we first moved into our house I REALLY wanted a pool. I swam in college and our back yard is big enough that I could have put in a single lane, 25 yard pool. But we could barely afford the house, so that didn't happen. Just before we bought Thom's piano, he asked me if I would rather have a pool. Well, yeah kinda, 'cause I'd get more use out of the pool, than the piano. But Thom almost never swims. The only time I think I have seen him in the water was while in Hawaii to go snorkeling. So I think I get more enjoyment out of listening to him play, then he would get out of having a pool and watching me do laps. Plus I'd have to give up my rose garden.

V.

[anaphase]

Well, I actually rode today! Just 14 miles but it was fun to get acquainted with a road bike again (It's been about 12 years since I've been on one) and test everything out.

But when it's raining hard, like Saturday for instance, I usually do work on my house, paint, or swim. Sometimes I run if it's not too bad out. In the wintertime I knit a lot. Like you gals, I have a lot of hobbies.

And that is one cool bracelet!!!!

[LBTC]

wow
we were supposed to get rain last night and today, but we didn't. we really need it....everything is very drive.

This is the first weekend in awhile that we could get stuff done. good progress on a house project, a bit of yard work, I printed cards to sell, the laundry was done before we went grocery shopping and the banana bread will be out of the oven in minutes.

Sorry all you healthy folks have to put up with rain! It will pass, though, right? And think of all those cool bracelets and knitted things you're getting done! way to go!

Namaste,
~T~