On a good news note, our squad FINALLY had a decent weekend for some team riding and bonding. Our philly girls made the trek to casa de Meidhof, where we proceeded to take over the joint as we donned our super-woman suits and headed out for an assault on suburban Montgomery County. This was my first ride around that area in months, so it was fun to see lots of familiar and friendly faces. A team ride like this is great for motivation after some long weeks of indoor riding. Check out our new website and blog ... JenCheng is so excited with all the new changes that she's already posted ! Have no fear, there will be updates and "official" announcements made in the coming days.
My bike was a disaster for Saturday's ride. It wouldn't settle into the big-ring (which is the preferred gearing for a masher like me), instead throwing the chain over to catch my pedal. Between that and my chain/cluster causing all kinds of racket, it was mildly entertaining once I got over being mortified. I was spoiled at one point in my life (only with regard to bike maintenance, believe me) and I frankly never bothered to apply what I may have picked up during that period. Thankfully, Badger married Merdhot, who knew that he was getting into with her friends, so he took mercy on me and fixed the bike all up. So, I escape yet another ride without having to learn/apply bike maintenance. Maybe I should take a class ... then again, given my home improvement debacles, maybe I rely on the kindness of other cyclists. A girl's gotta know her limits.
Sunday was supposed to be a trek through Howard County but the weather was crap. Thats the bad news. The good news is that we had the opportunity to hang out at Conte's for an impromptu computrainer session. The Bethesda location has a super cool bike room with a huge flat screen, dozens of race courses or training rides and an awesome sound system ... We got to ride the same roads we had planned on riding, virtually.
All of this riding in one weekend is a novelty to me right now - work has been so obnoxious and deadlines keep looming over me. My rollers, trainer, various viewing entertainment (I'm currently watching the last season of Heroes) and patience are about all worn out for indoor workouts. The bad news is that indoor workouts can't substitute for real, full-on climbing. The good news is that after Sunday. I can see things will come back quickly if I can string a few of these weekends together.
My most recent home improvement near disaster: my bedroom has never had blinds/shades since I've lived here. Yes, that's about 7 years or so. I have realized in the past year or so that the potential for me to flash anyone walking or driving by is pretty high - in hindsight, I'm sure I'm not the only one who realized this. So, I finally bought some nice blinds to protect my ... modesty (cough). I was trying to read the directions (another novelty) and needed more light, so I plugged in a lamp that Mitch had given me when got new ones. It immediately blew the fuse. Not thinking anything of it, I dutifully went to the basement, found the offended fuse, and flipped it on. By the time I got to my 2nd story bedroom, there was a haze of smoke everywhere. I couldn't figure out what was smoking ... then I saw the cord going to Mitch's lamp was literally frying - on top of two brand new sweaters that I needed to hang up. It burned through both sweaters and left a trail of melted plastic on my carpet. Is there any way to get melted plastic out of carpet ? A shot of the cord is above- it was a mess.
So, we'll end this post with the good news that I didnt burn the house down, and I did get the blinds up (and they look awesome, if I do say so myself).
1 comment:
You forgot to mention that Lucy ate a month's worth of power bars, clif blocks, and Cerasport while we were out riding. I wonder how the pooch felt Sunday.
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