Solstice Eve

Winter will be here tomorrow, or at least what passes for winter in Tucson will arrive. I'm in the midst of my annual end-of-year vacation. It's actually a staycation just like it is every year - I don't really travel and especially not this year because I'm occupied with house cleaning. And I'm not talking about a few laps with the vacuum cleaner and a swipe or two with a feather duster. No, this is a full-on excavation, culling and removal of 15 years' worth of accumulated crap, starting with clothes. Lots and lots of clothes.

It's proving to be an informative archaeological expedition. I've been digging down through my past clothes and, as I examine the sizes, I can see my weight climb up steadily over the years before dropping down to where I am now, 50 pounds less than my most ginormous state. I was looking forward to fitting into some of my old favorites and I do, but just because I can put them on doesn't mean I can pull it off - a graying, 39-year old man just cannot rock the old school Vans, baggy shorts, Thrasher magazine t-shirt look at the office. I suppose I could wear it on weekends but those days are generally given over to the hiking boots, cargo shorts, wildlife-themed t-shirt look, and there's just only so much room to store this stuff. The skate punk has given way to the birdwatcher.

After I get the clothing situation resolved to the point that everything is on a hanger in a closet or folded neatly in a drawer, I'll start on my books. Whereas clothes horse has a somewhat negative connotation, bibliophile sounds cultured and scholarly. While bibliophilia does connote refiement, books have nevertheless taken over the house and so they too will undergo a purge. I'll take them to Bookmans and see what I can get in trade but I balk even at that, as getting trade credit will inevitably lead to more books.

But the vacation isn't entirely about house cleaning. I've fit in a couple of nice bike rides and the dogs are getting walked more than usual. I've spent a couple of long mornings watching birds at the feeders in our front yard. I've had mixed success trying to eliminate some mechanical bugs from my motorcycle. It's all just the usual, mundane stuff but it's liberating to not have to try and fit it all in around work. Speaking of the usual stuff, it's time to hit the weights.

Until next year, maybe?

Buzz kill alert

I mentioned back in late September that BeanSS and I were emerging from an epic shit storm. Well, recent events have necessitated that I take the metaphor a bit further. It turns out, we were only in the eye of said shit storm, and it has started raging once again.

The short version, the only version I'll share here, is that just as I was dealing with the tragic deaths of two stray dogs (not ours), out of the blue, I learned of the untimely death of a sibling. This was all on top of a bunch more stuff running in the background, mostly left over from the summer from hell. Dammit, I think we've been through enough.

I've kept right on riding, lifting and hiking because the exertion somewhat helps keep my mind off it all. I very badly want to get back to a time when everything wasn't so difficult, so heavy. To that end, I dusted off the singlespeed, which hadn't seen a trail since May. I rode down to the regional park and did lap after lap on the myriad loops. I'd been commuting like mad all month on a road bike and riding in the dirt was liberating. The weather was absolutely perfect and the desert was beautiful. I rode strong and downed a beer when it was over. The pain of having ridden so hard very briefly displaced the pain of recent events. It'll be back, but I'll keep on trying to overcome it, riding the wheels right off my bike if I have to.

This is autumn, right?

It was 98° yesterday afternoon. That's right boys and girls, just shy of the century mark. I checked the calendar and sure enough, yesterday was October 17th. It was 94° today. WTF? I know, I know, desert dwellers aren't allowed to complain about heat but dammit, it's fall. Halloween is two weeks away. Enough already!

It's not like I was going to go riding or anything. I'd kinda' sorta' hoped to, but I cut my left thumb so badly with a new knife I thought I was going to need stitches. I probably did need stitches, but I envisioned sitting in an overcrowded emergency room through two or three shift changes, surrounded by people infected with the H1N1 flu strain, only to be informed that too much time had passed for sutures. The laceration seems O.K. for now, but the need to let it heal up a bit (having spontaneously spurted blood all over the place on two occasions yesterday) will keep me off my bike and away from weight lifting for a few days. And since I've already spent the last week with a constant dull ache in every muscle and joint from cumulative overexertion, a little R&R could be nice.

Bike commuting update: I clocked my 1,000th mile of 2009 a week or two ago. So that was cool. I've reached all my frequency and mileage goals for the year, so everything else is just statistical gravy. I probably also need to ride my motorcycle more than once or twice a month, as disuse is often worse than overuse. I'm very much looking forward to bitching about riding in the cold.

OK then, it's time for a dinnertime bowl of cereal, a change of bandages, and some sleep.

Equinox, take me away

The summer has finally passed, and with it, another season of trying experiences here in the Old Pueblo. I won't get into the specifics, but suffice it to say my and BeanSS life over the past few months has been a shit storm of epic proportions and I'm happy that autumn finally here. But enough of that.

On the plus side, it's been an exceptionally good month for bird sightings at home. I hypothesize that poor monsoons (aka "nonsoons") stress the ecosystem, driving migrants away from traditional routes along rivers and further into the water-subsidized habitats in the city. It's not the best thing for birds, but it does increase the diversity of species I can see in or from my yard.

Bike commuting remains a focus. I reached my usual 100-rides per year goal earlier this month and should turn over 1,000 miles pretty soon. My last non-utility ride was the typical meet-Veelz-at-Sweetwater jaunt, only we're both rocking the multi-speed drivetrains these days. My backyard weight lifting is no longer an exercise in heat stroke avoidance and the dogs are getting in on more walks in the cooler temperatures.

Another thing I take as a sign of fall is a reduced number of mosquitoes, but a seeming increase in the aggressiveness of the few that I do encounter. I'm a bit of a bleeding heart. I mourn the many animals I've killed for science or mercy, but I give absolutely no quarter to these blood-sucking, disease-vectoring, nonnative dipterans.

That's enough for now. Stay gold.

I'll have the usual

Another Sunday, another more or less unremarkable mountain bike ride, and yet, I feel a need to describe the whole thing. I always mention the weather but today was a real standout - a genuinely cool morning in August. It was about 78° when I rolled down the driveway, and this was with a late start from having walked the dogs beforehand.

I'm still enjoying riding my new/old hardtail but a little post-ride rear hub adjustment that necessitated wheel removal reminded me of what a pain in the ass rim brakes can be when pivot spacing is narrow and tires are wide. The pain in the ass was accompanied by a pain in the left arm. It's the same story as it is every year: monsoon rains, new growth on thorny trees, poor line choice, sleeveless jersey, cat-scratched arms.

A toaster full of bagels is calling my name, so I'm going to cut this one short.

Slow down.

A coworker just picked up a 1974 Schwinn Breeze on Craigslist and another scored a free step-thru of as-yet indeterminate origin from a friend. Their excitement over the vintage "girl's bike" bike acquisitions renewed my interest in riding my '79 Schwinn Suburban and getting BeanSS back on her '74 'Burb.

In a fortuitous confluence of events, we learned of the Slow Bike Movement. We read the Slow Bike Manifesto and realized we'd found a new two-wheeled home for ourselves. Not everything in this world needs a name and not every gathering of two or more people constitutes a scene but whatever this riding style is or is not called, all four of us had lost touch with it to varying degrees.

Going back to cycling for its own sake without any greater purpose other than to feel the road surface beneath my tires and the wind in my face really appeals to me. It's too damned hot for anything right now, but this autumn, if you see a small group of riders lazily pedaling some creaking 1970s Schwinns along 4th Avenue towards the Hut or around Reid Park, maybe with iced coffees in hand, that'll be us. You're welcome to join in, just don't expect to go fast.

Rats!

I have no bike stories for this weekend, as I spent most of my time here at Baja Arizona Headquarters, with occasional trips outside to walk the dogs or lift weights.

Actually, I spent a whole lot more time in the backyard than I'd intended to. I wanted to bar-b-que some chicken so I uncovered the gas grill. As I suspected, woodrats had started to take it over, caching it with leaves and cholla joints and leaving their little feces all over. BeanSS started cleaning it with a disinfectant before I decided I needed to hose it out completely. I pulled the grill parts out and blasted away at the nascent woodrat midden along with more than a few years of scorched food drippings. I was doing all of this in a low spot in the yard, and so I suppose should have foreseen what was about to happen.

I found myself standing in 2 inches of water, rodent shit, sand, burned fat, and reconstituted oil. The whole yard smelled like the inside of the grill. Verging on a heat stroke as I was, I just wheeled the grill out of the fetid puddle, cleaned it the rest of the way up, took a shower, came back outside, and made the chicken.

After dinner, I went back out to find the puddle had settled into three fairly disgusting strata - a rainbow of an oil slick sat atop a layer of muddy water, both overlaying a substrate of charred food remnants. And shit. Bees had already found it and keeping the dogs away was a challenge. I scrubbed the whole area with a citrus degreaser and blasted it off with the garden hose, and I think I got it as clean as it was going to get. Of course, I overheated again and had to retreat to the house. Another shower, and then I was in bed by 8:00pm.

This is all just a roundabout way to bring up my excuse for not riding today - I am just plain exhausted.

Ironically, the whole reason I returned to lifting weights in the first place was that I noticed how fatigued I would get doing manual labor in the yard. I distinctly remember how sore I was after swinging a pick and levering a shovel to plant an ironwood tree in the fall of 2004. I decided right then and there to do something to gain some upper body strength and to date, it's been been reasonably successful. Nevertheless, having done the yard-type work (in the heat, no less) on a day where I'd already hiked around with the dogs and worked out left me completely trashed. I'll eventually learn to better schedule these things in terms of how much I try to do in a single day. I'll also take heed of the thermometer reading before I start.

And for the time being, what I really need to do is set my live traps (owning such things is one of the benefits of being a zoologist) and relocate these woodrats once and for all. If only the great-horned owls I heard hooting earlier this year had nested near our house...