LA...things i've never done, cars parked under the sun

i'm tired as all hell, but i saw two very different videos on bike advocacy today. each video essentially represents the opposite sides of bike advocacy spectrum. one working within, the other working without. just had to quickly share.

enjoy.





and then the more punk rock, and very illegal, voice of bike advocacy. can't help but admit it must have felt like a rush to ride on the highway past the stalled cars in traffic. i bet there was all kinds of road rage...



oh, and as i might have to do a reverse commute soon as part of (hopefully) a new venture, i discovered the very thing i had been looking for. some place FREE and SAFE to park my bike while i am about an hour south. keep it up! ride bike to the water, store it, ride back at night. not quite the laguna honda uphill challenge, but still a decent ride in the morning to get the blood flowing. god i love riding. and goodnight.

oh ok, i just couldn't stop thinking about biking and riding to work and all the goodies bike to work day had. they had cute shirts and tote bags full of lights, patch kits, maps and stickers. i love stickers. and they gave out fuel in the form of bananas, bagels, muffins and energy drinks. and i heard that on market street and van ness, an extremely busy intersection, (some may call it the main artery of the city) there were twice as many bikes than cars during the morning commute. now if that were only to happen every day.

i fell into bike riding out of necessity. it was the cheapest and fastest way to get where i wanted. i've been a public transportation user going on 12 years now, and i've been riding off and on for 8 years. this time i got serious about bike riding because of monetary issues, getting over the trauma of being run over and wanting to be somewhere as fast as i possibly can get. and in this city, it honestly is by bike, despite what one must think of the hills. it's faster than public transportation, it's cheaper and it gets you exactly to where you want to be. and since i don't have a gym membership, it is just the best of both worlds. completely useful in its dual functions of exercise and transportation. there's nothing i like more than something that's practical. can't get more practical than that. and there's something that takes you back to being a kid and feeling the wind through your hair and just being carefree about moving on two wheels. good memories and just as good as anti depressants. ahem, so i hear...

i heard from someone you're still pretty

for some reason that lyric stuck out to me as i heard this song on pandora while trying to cut out the noise from the calimexican and her boy in the kitchen next to my room. it's nice and bittersweet.

ok, so been doing the commute, and yes, i did have to muni it from the mission to laguna honda. the little problem i have is the slight mountain/big hill called twin peaks. as i gain strength as a rider, perhaps that will not be so daunting a task for me to take. in the meantime, i will just put my bike on the 48 and that will be that.

thanks to the comment from chic cyclist :) it's good to hear that advice/words of encouragement from a dancer. i am happy with my new commute, and i'm glad about the yoga classes. after two saturdays, i've determined i like the instructor enough to most likely attend classes on tuesdays as well. now if only they had a donation pilates class somewhere....

the best thing so far about my commute is that i've been drinking less caffeine and more water. i never really drank that much caffeine (and 98% in the form of tea) to begin with, but i've cut down even that much more. but i do miss my routine morning tea. i figured i will start bringing some to work and so be it.

i also realized i need some new handlebar tape and gloves to reduce the bumpy residual asphalt that tends to outline 7th avenue going up into laguna honda. that part of the commute on my skinny tires is probably the worst. so tomorrow i am going to try riding with gloves for the first time. i didn't get the color combo i wanted, but that's ok. apparently they might be too big for me, but they seem to be fine. we'll see. if they are too big, then that can be easily repaired. for the time being, i do feel like anything will help. haven't put on the new cork tape yet, but i will. and it's a light blue. nice to change up the color combo a bit...

in that vein, i've got to rest up for my ride. this week also holds bike to work day. the city is littered with cute posters reminding anyone and everyone that thursday is the day. how exciting. more exciting is that they are going to have morning and evening commute stations where they will be giving out discounted bike coalition memberships. saving 10-20% on bike parts/accessories? yes please. sign me up.

and now i leave you with that song. reminds me of the picture of you and me in red and blue. "and please remember me, happily/fondly/at hallowen/mistakenly/as in the dream/my misery/seldomly/finally."



and...last but never ever the least...happy mother's day!

oh, and last night the boo and i saw the kids in the hall (um, can't believe they have a myspace page...) perform where the ballet performs. it was great, and we had terrific seats. they played a mixture of old and new things. very fitting to these past few posts was a new skit with old characters. i don't know their names, but they are two informercial product sellers. they were making fun of fat americans and american dependence on SUV's for transportation. so they "invented" a spigot that one can stick into your fat beer belly and take all the fat out. that fat can be burned and converted to gasoline for your hummer. it was so hilarious, i kept covering my mouth and laughing b/c the powerpoint presentation they had running was the funniest thing i've seen in a long time. also their superdrunk (he's a super hero) was hilarious, and contained the best line of the night (for me, the boo disagreed). "you're the one with the mangina, foley!" ahh, spoken so well, in the appropriate tone and timing. beautiful. also, that was the last skit of the night (pre-encore), and they kept cracking themselves up. i love it when that happens.it's like we are also kinda in on the joke, but not really, but kinda yeah.

oh, and on a more serious note, scott thompson fell off the stage last night during the encore. it sounded/looked like quite the nasty fall. apparently he was taken to the hospital, checked out ok and was performing tonight. glad to hear he's ok. SF loves you scott.

btw, in case you care, all of them have been a favorite of mine, but the longest and current favorite is....MARK. geez, he is fantastic.

like i said earlier, i need to rest up for the ride. it's now 12:11am. eek.

bikebikebikeboobike

so this week has been full of firsts. i started commuting to work on my bike. this means fifty (50) minutes a day in the saddle. my crotch is a lil sore, ain't gonna lie. but also aint gonna lie about how excited i am to see the benefits of these 50 minute rides for 5 days a week. and that's just for work. on the weekends i love to ride for fun, so we'll see. i can already tell my legs and bum are becoming steel-ified. i think i need to let them rest tonight/this weekend.

in my scouting the internet for its end, i found out about donation yoga. one is a couple of blocks from where i used to live, which is only a few blocks away from where i live now. the intent behind yoga donation is something i completely agree with and stand behind. it's pretty complicated, so bear with me if you can't keep up: yoga is too damn expensive! so for those folks who would like to keep a regular yoga practice, but can't due to prohibitive costs, you can donate as much or as little as you want. i'm glad there are non eliest yoga instructors out there who actually understand that paying $125 for 10 classes is just not a realistic expense for most of us out there who do appreciate the benefits of yoga, but can't afford the maintenance. if you went 3x a week, that only lasts for 3 weeks. gyms are cheaper, but their classes are often sub par when compared to yoga studios. and the yoga studios here only offer $10 community classes once a week in the middle of a weekday. yes, i'm looking at you yogatree hayes valley....grr.

anyway, bonus for me, i found one instructor who is an avid cyclist, and so he tailors his practice to meet the needs that come from biking. he participates in the LA to SF aids ride. and quickly. how noble, but not exactly me. i'm still huffing and puffing up 7th avenue to laguna honda. i think i will try out this yoga place, see if they really will take 5 bucks (if not, i don't have to go back, if so, then maybe i can do it again in a few weeks) tomorrow morning. i am pretty sore, and i think a good stretching is well called for. i can't wait to try it out.

i also don't want to get bulky biker legs, so i think stretching them through yoga will lengthen the muscles a bit. at least that's the idea i've constructed in my head. i don't really think i will bulk up too much since one, i'm not a dude and lack the testosterone, and two, i don't eat the amount of protein required to build such muscles. i can already tell the difference in my arms and my face, which makes me feel i'm beginning to lose the chub and gaining the muscle i like. also i've been carrying my bike up and down the stairs of this crazy city, and my right arm is beginning to look like steel when NOT flexed. my poor left arm. haha.

with all this biking i've been doing, i've slowly but surely compiled some necessary gear. i had to update a helmet after i realized mine was from 2000. something tells me the foam in that thing was outdated. not something i want next to my head should i fall. i also got a cycling cap to cover up the hat hair. that cap has come in handy this week. but those items combined with my standard riding gear of jeans/tshirts makes me feel like a 12 yr old boy.

now, i often say that i'm 1/2 dude. i actually believe i might be (very well documented is my despise for anything resembling a romantic comedy except for those based on austen). so following that logic, i would want to look like a dude for 1/2 the time. the other 1/2 i'm wishing i had a cute and clunky cruiser bike so i can wear a skirt or at least be able to look a little more feminine than i usually do on my beautiful bicicleta. and what do i find today, on the day that i wish i could have worn a skirt and a striped top? two girls that have the same idea. but since they are presumably 100% girl, they thought of the idea before i did. london cycle chic and riding pretty: bicycle chic california (that's kinda a mouthful, huh?).

also in more bike related news, i'm excited to hear about the DC bike sharing program. there's been one in austin for awhile now. i think it's been around since i've been in college. and upon checking out their site, seems like they are not only providing free bikes in austin, but they are also like the oh-so-loverly bike kitchen. i hear they are going to bring a similar bike program to SF, chicago and pdx. these are already bike friendly cities, so its kinda cool to see it start off somewhere familiar and then perhaps branch off to where bike riding might be more of a foreign venture.

back to DC. their program is cool, and sounds kinda like zipcar, but for bikes. both types of ride sharing are based on european models, so there ya go. not thrilled that they had to get clear channel, a notorious corporation, to help out w/ the funding, but i suppose it's not the worst thing either. they can spread their message of censorship across the world! jk...?

another first that happened was an unsolicited soliloquy from the boo. it was rather unexpected, rather eye-opening, and rather touching. and guess who rode his bike to work today? umm, that's right! leading by example perhaps? although having to ride to the sunset from the mission on boo days is something i'm not looking forward to quite yet. those have got to be some of the steepest street grades in the city. i think i might have to muni that. we'll see.

and on that note, i'm off to find out more about bikes. oh, i saw these super cute wooden fenders, but they are extinct i believe. the boo is good with constructing things. i wonder if he could make some? :)

viva ciclismo

yesterday in my daily web searching for the end of the internet, i stumbled across a bike advocacy group based in LA called cicle. seems kind of like an oxymoron, no? so i stayed on this site awhile and i have to say i really enjoyed the "properganda" and bike stickers they have. they are reminiscent of communist propaganda posters back in the day. and frankly, i like the way they look. it worked on me! here's the girl one:



here's the boy one:


i was happy to discover this is going on in LA should i ever need to relocate. i know that there are like minded people there after all.

speaking of which, i've been off the bike for a good two weeks tending to an ankle injury. i don't know exactly how i got it, but i do know for certain that it hurt, so i stayed off of it until it felt better. that meant no bike and little walking, and those are the two things i truly enjoy doing during the day. not being able to do them made me even more grumpy than usual. so i holed up here trying to find the end of the internet. sometimes i thought i did find it, but evidently i was wrong.

so this weekend was the first weekend the ankle told me it was ok to do things again. and somehow i convinced the boo to stop pretending he was going to fix his bike, and just fix it already. i told him i needed to clean mine since my leg kept getting dirty every time i rode (pre-ankle "injury"). we went to our local bike kitchen. every major city should have one of these places. it's basically a community bike garage where you can do repairs yourself. since space is scare in cities for a whole garage full of personal bike tools, nothing could be better than a community bike garage. i'm one woman who, if taught, could definitely feel at home with a tool belt and a garage. and it's not just because i'm good at assembling ikea furniture either, although i will admit that is where i discovered my latent talent for assembling things together with tools. i wont lie either, it feels empowering to be able to fix things yourself and not pay someone (likely a dude) to do it. i taught myself to change the flat on my bike and that was great. i can do it very quickly now if need be. took me awhile the first time, but it's all part of the process.

back to the bike kitchen. so the boo and i went early saturday afternoon. i learned how to clean my chain and i scraped the rust off of the lil parts all over my bike. my poor bicicleta has to be outside when it rains, and it started to rust due to a couple of years of neglect. but i scraped off the rust, along w/ some parts of my hand, and now she's glistening. and the chain! that was the best thing ever. feels like a whole new bike. like riding on a cloud. so then the boo and i took our souped up bikes out for a teeny ride. he hadn't been on it for awhile, so i promised to take it slow. we rode to the water and then ate some excellent, but if HELLA (yes, i said it) greasy fries w/ skins. the veggie burger was super delicious as well. my god. and the sun was bright and slightly unforgiving. i got a nerdy glasses tan on the nose, and a hair elastic tan on my wrist, along with slightly burned shoulders.

then we rode past his work and then home for him to time how long it would take him. there was a kinda nasty hill on the way, and i beared down and rode to the top. then i looked behind me. no sign of the boo. my road bike left him and his mountain bike out in the cold. after we met up again, i took him around to a few places, then rode home and watched estooopid movies and ate sushi!

that was a good day.

then yesterday i called up my regular bike gang since i wanted to go on a RIDE. the bike gang already had the same idea, so we met up at the usual place and then managed to collect a member who is going through finals, but couldn't resist the lure of the sun. it was one of those rare days where one didn't need pants or a light jacket to ride out to the beach. so the four of us hopped on our bikes, after one beer, and roderoderode. then....BAM. one of our members got a flat. i had a patch kit, but no one had a pump. my frame is so small that i can't fit my water bottle AND a pump at the same time. so, there ya go. so that cut our ride a little short, and since we were almost at the water, where the bike stores are few and far between, we ended walking back uphill to the nearest place, about 30 min on foot. on the way i learned how to balance my right foot on my left pedal, use my left foot as the kicker and coast. i couldn't do it at first, but then it became more like a biking skateboard. or a skateboarding bike would perhaps be more appropriate.

then we rode to one of my fav bike-friendly cafes. (my true favorite one is mojo though. can't beat an actual bike store/cafe in one place!) then i beat one brother in connect four twice, then his brother beat me three times in a row. i gladly gave the game to a 4 yr old who ran to us and wanted it so bad he couldn't help himself! he was adorable. then we rode back to the park where a portion of it on sundays is blocked off to cars. so we were riding casually and all of a sudden the flat tired member wanders just in the side and in front of me. his back tire hits my front one and down my bike goes. i somehow managed to jump out of the clips on my pedals and land on my feet. i told him i was really glad i didn't fall on the ground because i would have landed on glass and my arms and legs were exposed. apparently he was avoiding the glass (which is what gave him the flat in the first place) and scratching his head under his helmet at the same time. he only had one hand on his handlebars and i guess he spaced out or something. i don't know. anyway, he just rode too close to me, and i was more than a little scared that i was going to be pulling glass out of my arms the rest of the day. but my reflexes were quick and everything was fine. on the way through the panhandle, there was the four of us and we were behind these other two bikers. there was a group of three behind us too. the path we were on is full of bikers, walkers, runners, dogs, kids and parents. it was very crowded with people going every which way and then i saw the person in the front on the ground all of a sudden. apparently i said "oh hell no, " and i remember not even five minutes ago i nearly got in an accident. for a second i envisioned the 11 of us all on top of each other spread out with legs and arms everywhere with bike wheels turning through all the mess and pedestrians shaking their heads. anyway, of course that didn't happen. but the first six of us were riding very tight, meaning if i stopped suddenly, i would have been hit from behind or if the person in front of me did that i would have hit her. so i went right and rode over the grass to miss the first biker. apparently he got stuck on the part where the paved path meets the grass. there was a particularly muddy part that grabbed his back wheel and just didn't let go. why he rode over that since he was on a fixie, i have no idea, but whatever, it happened.

so we were riding back home anyway, but that sealed the deal. we went home, played scrabble, and things were right in the world again.

it was a great weekend. and again, here for your viewing pleasure, are only some the many many benefits of riding a bicicleta...wrapped up in a cute picture. enjoy

the folksinger is in the texas of my heart

like i posted last, i've been listening to the new ani. here's another gem i discovered. enjoy.

just show me a moment that's mine
its beauty blinding and unsurpassed
and i'll forget every moment that went by
and left me so half-hearted
cause i felt it so half-assed.

unrequited

i just stumbled across this song. i have been listening to old ani pretty much on repeat for the past couple of weeks. then i had the brilliant thought, hmmm, maybe new ani is ok too? anyway, this song resonates for reasons you know i'm sure. it's on her newest album. gorgeously haunting geetar and emotions stripped down to its core. i especially like how it seems to be an observation about, then a conversation between, the two people involved. it's the conversation we all wish we could have had if there is/was no closure. nice way to release it i think.

he had all kind of reasons
why she was unable to love him
she was just too young
she was too high strung
she was afraid of commitment
but all of the theories
that he recited
played like the song
of the unrequited

baby, how long's it been now
since you held me to your chest
and told me that you love me
more than all the rest
it's such a shame that you won't talk to me
cuz i won't repeat after you
i believe that there is more to life
we coulda loved each other through
but i was afraid of commitment
when it came to you

i'll tell you, if there is one instinct
i just can't get with at all
it's the urge to kill something beautiful
just to hang it on your wall
are you just too young
are you too high strung
to actually follow through
on all the love you said you had
baby i never lied to you

is all or nothing
the best we can do?

--unrequited by ani difranco on the album reprieve

green, yellow, purple and orange

i have told you perhaps once or twice that i get a box of produce delivered right to my front door. the two times ago it arrived just as i was ready to make lunch, and was rather impatient in thinking what i wanted to eat. had to be quick and easy. we're talking less than 3 minutes in prep time. so i started to make a sandwich, and it was full of lettuce, fake bacon and cheese. the box arrived and i saw an avocado. i grabbed it eagerly. i sliced into it and the colors were just so pretty i had to take a picture. so here they are:



and



and one more



ahnnnnnnnd scene. and yes, the sandwich was good, but kind of exploding with avocados...

today, nearly three weeks later, i am home enjoying a quiet solo night in. and good for me since i want to experiment with cooking. i see my 2nd tube of polenta patiently waiting for me. so i decide tonight is the night. i grab a huge collard green leaf, one carrot, a garlic clove and a teeny bit of red onion. i sautéed the garlic and green first, then add the carrot and at the end add the red onion. i wanted the onions and carrots to be nearly raw, but w/ a slight cooked temp. w/ the polenta, i just repeated what i did the last time. very little water, a teeny bit more of milk, butter and parm cheese. mix them all together and i am a happy camper. the sweetness of the carrot and the red onion are there to balance out the bitterness of the green. admittedly a strange combo of things i happen to have on hand, but also just experimental, and, most importantly, the carrots deliver the crunch i realize i need to "feel" full and satisfied. the red onions are kind of strong, should have let them cook longer. good thing i'm eating for one tonight. i don't think i can subject the boo to this meal (or even open-minded veggies for that matter), but maybe he'll slowly get used to the idea of eating veggies other than broccoli. maybe not.