Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Ding a dong ding...blue moooooon

I know it's a standard, but when I think Blue Moon, I think the Marcels.

Tonight there is a blue moon.

Go outside and sing!

Dip di dip di dip
Moo moo moo moo moon
Blue moon.

Clarified mud

Just to add...I'm pretty sure I'm craving faith because of my fear of death, but I'm not trying to suggest that's what faith is for, or that mine is a good reason to be seeking. Just sayin' that's where I am...

and I do sorta feel like I'm at least looking in the right direction, regardless of the reason.

Death, we need to make peace

This is the theme I keep coming back to, in my serious moments. Death and faith. My realization that I crave faith because I fear death.

I had another unexpected one today, the little rat we adopted Sunday. Victor took her to the vet last night, and when the vet confimed the lump under her arm, he decided to let her stay there over night so she could have surgery to remove it today.

I was anxious about this for many reasons...but I am always anxious. I mentioned that the other day, wondering if I should be on Paxil: I was anxious because I'd heard about a fatal traffic accident and I was afraid my sister or a friend might have been involved. Just like virtually every time I am anxious about the worst possible outcome, the outcome was fine (for me). Today it wasn't.

After Victor called to tell me the rat had died, I called my sister. I was sobbing so hard I could barely get the words out, explaining to her that I should have listened to my fears, I should have fought harder to change Victor's mind about having the surgery.

"Then you would have found her when you got home, and you'd be wracked with guilt now because she wasn't at the vet's," my sister said. "It wasn't up to you when she was going to die."

Appointment in Samara.

But...

Last night I was sick with worry. I put it down to being sick in general, and I tried to do some reading...Thich Nhat Hanh and Thomas Merton. I prayed, and as always I realized that my prayers are just requests. Dear Santa, please bring me a pony. Dear God, please let her be ok. That's why I took out the Thomas Merton, but it was too much, too deep.

I know I shouldn't just pray for what I want. If I have faith in God (for want of a better name) I need to have some faith...thy will be done. I tried praying that way last night, and tried to convince myself that if there is a God (for want of a better name), to be in constant fear like I am is to deny Him.

Or maybe I should just get Paxil.

Before you say Get a grip...it was a rat I need to explain. First, she was a small and fragile life for whom I'd taken responsibility. But more, my difficulty in dealing with her death is the difficulty I have dealing with death overall. One day on the Metro I read the paper and started adding up the death toll in the A section. There were some soldiers, and some civilians, and some accident victims and some victims of natural disasters. There was a father who'd shot his wheelchair-bound son and then himself; neighbors said the father had grown despondant over his inability to get help in his adult son's care. And I thought, every one of them...the individuals with names, the few whose lives were part of exact counts, the ones who were included in round numbers (over 100 people are presumed dead)...were just like me. Where are they now?

When I cried I know I wasn't crying so much for them as I was crying for myself.

Yee Haw

Darn, I already made plans for the weekend, not realizing it was time for Dukefest.

Guilty secret...I loved the Dukes of Hazzard. There was this one episode...Boss Hogg got into this scheme with some con men from the big city, but those slickers figured he was just some dumb hick and they were out to double cross him. Of course them Duke boys got wind of what was up, not that Roscoe'd believe them, but then when the city girl started flirtin' with Bo and Luke both, well, the cousins started fighting with each other and lost track of what was going on. It took Daisy and Cooter to really keep everyone out of trouble; luckily Daisy had Enos wrapped right around her finger. Then at the end, once the FBI hauled those city con men off, that big country music star got busted in one of Roscoe's bogus speed traps and had to put on a nice little show at the Boar's Nest.

I'm laughin' just remembering it.

One thing did always sort of bother me, though...what the heck happened to Uncle Jesse's brothers, that he ended up raising all of the kids? By my count at least five (not just Daisy, Bo, and Luke, but the strike-year replacements Koy and Vance) sets of parents either died or took off. If there was some horrible mass Duke family tragedy how did Jesse and the kids escape?

The music of my life

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home for cold medicine. (I think I figured out why I felt so crappy Monday...I'm actually sick. Sore throat, puffy eyes, aching joints...mystery solved.)

Anyway, store. I'm going up and down the aisles looking for cough drops and I realize the Muzak isn't Muzak. I'm hearing

This ain't no party
This ain't no disco
This ain't no foolin' around

I know it's been a long time since canned music was 1001 Strings, but usually it is light, middle-of-the-road music.

Years ago in Washington there was a radio station with the call letters WGAY. When I was a kid my grandparents listened to it. I think they actually played 1001 Strings. The call letters and the extremly un-hip music made "You listen to WGAY!" a playground taunt.

Just a few years ago I wrecked my car and borrowed my father's station wagon to drive while mine was being repaired. Driving it home I heard Stephen Bishop, Carly Simon, and Glen Campbell. I turned up the radio, thinking, wow, I haven't heard this in years. Then the DJ came back on with "You're listening to WGAY..." and I damn near wrecked dad's car.

But I admit I like light, MOR music. And it's not that I don't like Talking Heads. I do. I own Fear of Music (on vinyl). It's just that...Talking Heads are alternative. Talking Heads are something to make your parents say "What the hell are you listening to?"

Talking Heads are not about buying milk and bread.

P.S. I tried to check out the Muzak site. It confused me...

Just another day

Something was nagging me all morning.

I got off to an anxious start anyway; the first traffic report I heard in the car this morning mentioned an accident on the routes taken by my sister and one of my friends. The reporter said "97 is closed at 650 for a fatal accident." My sister takes 650 across 97, my friend comes down 97 past 650. I left my sister a voicemail when I got to the office: "Hey, it's me. Gimmie a call." Nothing, just need to make sure you aren't dead. My friend made it in only a little late, and my sister called eventually, then I could breathe. Sometimes I wonder if I ought to be taking Paxil.

Something was still bugging me, though. Every time I signed something I was thinking July 27...am I forgetting a meeting? An appointment? Around lunchtime it hit me. July 27 was my wedding anniversary. It was a long time ago...the divorce was a hundred years ago, so the wedding must have been two hundred...but it brought up a lot of emotion that I didn't really want to examine today. But even though I didn't want them, the bastards kept knocking on my brain all afternoon, demanding attention.

When I got home the sun was out despite the forecast for another cool and rainy day, so I decided to skip the gym in favor of a walk. Sun and pondering, I decided. I'll deal with the emotions down by the lake with the geese and the turtles.

I have house envy. I don't like my place much...it's a generic early-70's townhouse suffering from my deficiencies on top of all the weird things previous owners have done. There are houses after which I lust, though, like in the next neighborhood. The townhouses there are bigger, with detached garages and brick walls around the back yards, and there's one I pass with the nicest landscaping. In the dead of winter it is tidy, the rest of the year it is tastefully colorful with trimmed shrubs and stone accents.

Coming down the street this afternoon I noticed the shingles on the roof of the house I like were peeled back. Then I saw the missing windows, the black and crackled studs, and the sunlight on the other side. Rubble covered the garden, punctuated by black-eyed susans and petunias.

The garage was untouched, pleated curtain in the window.

I could smell the charred smell.

The houses on either side had blue tarps on the roofs, and one had boards over the windows and a broken-in front door.

I am scared of fire. I have had an electrician check our basement wiring, not trusting the work of previous owners. If I could afford it, I'd install sprinklers. I unplug the coffee maker and the toaster when I'm not using them. Sometime I wonder if I ought to be taking Paxil.

I got down to the lake. The marriage/divorce emotions were still swirling, but I was also thinking about the strangers living my nightmares.

I typed this out hoping that by the time I was finished I'd have insight...a lesson learned, a pat line to wrap this up. Nothing is coming to me, so I will just ponder some more.

Rainy days and Mondays

For some reason I've always made the leap that if I called in sick on a Monday my boss would think that I'm an alcoholic.

That didn't stop me today...I got up at 5:45, took the dog out, called in, and went back to sleep for four and a half more hours. I can't explain why...it was cool and drizzly this weekend so I didn't do anything particularly active, nor did I stay up late any night, drinking or otherwise. My body just refused to move.

I am noticing that my energy is really tied to the weather, though. I need sun. Too many days without it and I am a slug. Perhaps I need to start job hunting in Aruba.

le Tour finis

"Finis" is French for "finish," right?

Congratulations, Lance.

I said I wasn't going to be upset if he did win number 6, and actually, as it happened, I did become pretty excited. I was watching history being made...on tv, but still, I was watching it live.

Congratulations, too, to the rest of Postal, and to the overall team winner T-Mobile. Congratulations to the other guys on the podium, Andréas Klöden and Ivan Basso (and what a cute kid!), and Robbie McEwen (his kid's cute, too, but Ewen McEwen?), Richard Virenque, and Vladimir Karpets. And to Thomas Voeckler for all his days in yellow...his grin at the end of those stages showed pure joy, and I bet it'll be awhile before he has to buy a drink for himself. And another guy who deserves kudoes is Jimmy Casper, the lantern rouge, as they call the guy who finishes last. Yeah, he finished last, almost four hours behind Armstrong, but he still rode 3,390 kilometers, every mountain, every wet corner.

A lot of people thought the Tour was dull. I'm not one of those people. My only disappointments were on behalf of some of the riders, Tyler Hamilton in particular, and Jan Ullrich, but I enjoyed the sneaking onto the Tour site in the morning to get the results, and watching the replays every evening. I didn't even mind Al Trautwig. I'm bummed it's over already, really.

Well, I guess it's time for me to start paying attention to Important Things. What else is going on in the world...?

Really. Ugh. On the other hand, maybe I'll just lay low until the Olympics start.

Cole slaw

When desperate for an entry, post a recipe. I needed to type this up for someone anyway, so I shall share:

Cole slaw dressing

1/3 cup white vinegar
scant 1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper (Hot Shot pepper blend is good)
1/4 teaspoon celery seed

Mix well. I am slackass lazy and buy the bags of preshredded cole slaw vegetables, then I throw the mixed dressing and shredded vegetables into a gallon ziplock bag and toss it that way. Serving from the bag isn't a particularly artful presentation, but it saves washing another bowl.

This is a tangy cole slaw rather than creamy. If you prefer your summer salads heavy on mayonaise/Miracle Whip, this is probably not for you.

Another food note: There were Snickers with Almond in the checkout at the pet store (of all odd places). It ain't the same as a Mars bar.

Rah rah ree!

Kick 'em in the knee!
Rah rah rass!
Kick 'em in the...other knee!

That's the only cheer I know, but I'll be learning more, as Ted had recruited me for his fanstasy football cheerleading squad.

Yeah, me. I dunno...I'm not exactly the perky type. (Athough when I asked Victor "Can you picture me as a cheerleader?" he did get a gleem in his eye, so I had to change the subject.) But I'm flattered (especially since Ted knows my cheering for a team generally has fairly sad consequences) and I'll give it my best...

Ow. I think I'll leave the splits to somebody else, though.

Back to the race

I have found a few other cycling (or at least Lance) fans at the office. Late every morning the phones start ringing: My connection timed out! Are you on the Tour site or OLN? E-mail me the updates!

We "watched" the L'Alpe d'Huez time trial yesterday, but it was nothing like seeing the tv feed. When I did finally catch the rebroadcast last night I was actually a bit glad I hadn't seen it live, because the drunk morons on the road would have been giving me a heart attack. I was glad to see that Jean-Marie Leblanc saw the same problems:

"I was scared, too, and I felt relieved when we reached the section with barriers," Leblanc told Reuters. "Until this morning, everybody thought this time trial was a good idea, and now we realized it was not so. There were lots of aggressive fans surrounding the riders, and I even saw two idiots spit at Lance Armstrong."

(from Velonews)

I guess every sport has its asshole fans.

Anyway, since the group of cycling fans here at work includes the VP of my division, I had no problem turning on the audio feed for the end of today's stage, which sounded like another thriller, with Armstrong sprinting out to beat winner-apparent Andreas Klöden in the final meters. I can't wait to see this one.

I wonder if we can get the really big bosses turned on to cycling. Next summer: OLN on the projection screen in the company conference room.

LiveStrong

Back before the Tour I ordered my yellow LiveStrong wristbands. It has nothing to do with supporting Lance or the the race, it was just that I saw the first ads for them reading the Tour previews in sports magazines. I bought the wirstbands because I do support the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and LiveStrong is the patient education arm and benificiary of the proceeds from the bracelets.

I've been preoccupied with work and the race the last couple weeks, but a few pieces of news have filtered through. Last week I caught something on the radio about combining tomato and broccoli to help prevent cancer. I finally got around to looking up the press release from the American Institute for Cancer Research. Two things jumped out at me:

“We decided to look at these foods in combination because we believed it was a way to learn more about real diets eaten by real people,” Erdman said. “People don’t eat nutrients, they food. And they don’t eat one food, they eat many foods in combination.”

and

“The take-home message isn’t just about tomatoes and broccoli,” Prince said. “The inferences to be drawn are more tentative and a lot broader.”

“A lycopene supplement may not hurt you, but the whole tomato can help you more,” he said. “A whole tomato may help you, but a tomato eaten with broccoli will help you more. Tomato with broccoli may help you, but an medley of different vegetables eaten together will bolster’s the body’s different defenses against chronic disease.”

Back to the wristband. I've been wearing it for two weeks or so, and I've been pondering the meaning to me. My grandfathers both died of cancer. I have a long list of family and friends who survived or did not survive the disease. Victor's mom died when he was just a kid, something he doesn't talk about much. Of course I support a foundation that will help those like my family and friends.

But the words, the imparative voice, the command: Live Strong. I keep seeing them on my wrist and thinking...you wear that, Nic, you gotta walk the walk, too. I know well enough that the best defense against cancer is the same as the best defense against every other health problem: a healthy diet and exercise.

It was hot and muggy today, and after a long day at the office I really just wanted to watch the race and sack out. It crossed my mind to order pizza. I looked at my wrist and I did end up in the gym, and I made a vegetable casserole for dinner.

Tomorrow's another day, but I think I'll keep wearing this bracelet.

The race goes on

Good thing I'm not a prgnosticator...well, actually, I never said I expected Tyler Hamilton or Jan Ullrich to beat Lance Armstrong, just that I kinda hoped one of them would.

Instead, Hamilton had to abandon on Saturday because of a back injury. I heard this news just as I flipped on the tv Saturday morning and was shocked...after the pain he endured last year?...but he explained in his diary that this year's injury was completely different, he just couldn't move the pedals. I now have my fingers crossed that he heals in time for the Olympics.

And Ullrich...on Sunday, he said (or rather, the English translation of his diary said...I know enough German to see that it isn't always a literal translation) that Lance is simply unbeatable this year, and on Monday he sounded pretty resigned:

Maybe the yellow jersey is out of reach now, but there are still two more places on the podium to be decided. What's to stop me getting on the podium? Nothing - I'll take a day-to-day approach to things and try, as much as possible, to get up there. Let's see where this approach brings me.

I haven't been reading the German news (it takes me too long to translate, and I'm barely keeping up with the English-why does the Tour come during my busy month?) so I don't know how bad Jan is getting hammered for his lack of fitness and preparation there. I've seen him slammed by Bernard Hinault and pretty much dismissed by Johan Bruyneel. And...I guess if you want to beat someone with such meticulous training methods as Armstrong, you gotta be willing to apply that same level of training.

I caught the last 10 km of today's stage on a rebroadcast when I got home (I love OLN) and Ullrich didn't look bad. But he didn't look as cool as Armstrong, sitting there in the big chain ring...

Maybe Ivan Basso can hold on. And I certainly don't mean this as any kind of hope...I'm finding myself sliding back into the Lance camp, actually...but things happen. Fortune favors the prepared, but less-good riders can have good days, great riders can have bad days, and, well, there's a reason they actually go out and do the race instead of just figuring out who the winner will be on paper, right?

Is this true?

Is it true that you can't buy Mars bars anymore?

Somebody at work told me this. You can see how often I buy candy, because apparently this isn't a brand-new thing. It send me into a tailspin, though.

My friend also told me that what is called a Mars bar in Europe is really a Milky Way, and the Milky Way is a 3 Musketeers. And in the U.S., you can now get a Snickers with Almond, although it has caramel, which the old Mars didn't.

This all sounded like urban legend stuff to me, but a quick look at the brands on the Masterfoods Mars web page does show a distinct lack of link for the Mars Bar.

I need to do some investigating. The candy world is upside down, and I was too busy eating grapes to notice.

UPDATE: I checked the vending maching and the cafe next door. No Mars bars. I asked around...everyone seemed to know about this. A few people helpfully said "They have Snickers with Almonds now; it's the same thing." When I got home I checked my candy stash...one, count 'em, one Mars fun size bar left over from some past Halloween.

I said I don't eat much candy.

Go outside and play

It was sort of a triathlon: biking, canoing, and eating.

I feel much better now.

Pollyanna

Pollyanna - noun - A person regarded as being foolishly or blindly optimistic. [After the heroine of the novel Pollyanna, by Eleanor Hodgman Porter (1868-1920), American writer.]

I'd never read Pollyanna, but I was thinking today that I might be teetering on the edge of becoming one. It started with a conversation with somebody at work about cycling and doping. This guy asked me if Armstrong really is clean. (This guy, incidentally, doesn't follow sports, but he always wants to strike up conversations with me when there's some scandal involving a sport or team I like. He doesn't care about hockey, but he was sure to bring up Todd Bertuzzi, that kind of thing.)

Anyway, I said sure, Armstrong is clean. And when he asked why Greg LeMond is accusing him, then, I didn't have an answer. And frankly, I'm enjoying the race (more or less...I'm worried about Ullrich and I'm terribly sad that Tyler Hamilton had to put his dog to sleep) and I don't want to think about the doping. Oddly, the 1998 Festina affair...specifically the sit-down strike in the middle of a stage...was one of the things that got me really interested in pro cycling. But now I'm really into the cycling and not the politics and scandal.

There have been several things this week that have bummed me out. We had to put one of the rats to sleep, and at work I had an incident where a customer called my boss to report that I was rude and obnoxious (first time for everything, I guess). I've gotten a lot of second-hand dramas...things that don't involve me, but my sympathy for my friends who are involved makes me feel like I am, too.

So this morning I decided to ignore things that were going to upset me. I do that sometimes and I wonder if it's irresponsible or stupid...if I'm being a pollyanna.

How lame is it to be a pollyanna? I decided to read the book and see if it really is a bad thing.

Quick book report: Published in 1913, Pollyanna is the story of a little orphaned girl sent to live with her uptight spinster aunt. Pollyanna is disarmingly cheerful and finds the best in every situation, playing the "glad game" taught by her late father, a poor minister. As she explains to the housekeeper she befriends

"Oh, yes; the game was to just find something about everything to be glad about -- no matter what 'twas," rejoined Pollyanna, earnestly. "And we began right then -- on the crutches."

"Well, goodness me! I can't see anythin' ter be glad about -- gettin' a pair of crutches when you wanted a doll!"

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

"There is -- there is," she crowed. "But I couldn't see it, either, Nancy, at first," she added, with quick honesty. "Father had to tell it to me."

"Well, then, suppose you tell me," almost snapped Nancy.

"Goosey! Why, just be glad because you don't -- need -- 'em!" exulted Pollyanna, triumphantly. "You see it's just as easy -- when you know how!"

"Well, of all the queer doin's!" breathed Nancy, regarding Pollyanna with almost fearful eyes.

"Oh, but it isn't queer -- it's lovely," maintained Pollyanna enthusiastically. "And we've played it ever since. And the harder 'tis, the more fun 'tis to get 'em out; only -- only -- sometimes it's almost too hard -- like when your father goes to Heaven, and there isn't anybody but a Ladies' Aid left."

The ending of the book is a little too pat...she melts the most bitter hearts in town, decades-old stifled romances are rekindled, and medical miracles prevail. But as for foolish and blind optimism, Pollyanna isn't foolish, she's got a heck of a coping mechanism.

I don't know if I was becoming a pollyanna, but I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea.

If all else fails, cross-post

Wook at the widdle noses!

Actually, I do have something quick. I was reading the Sunday paper this afternoon (yes, it is Wednesday. It is taking me the whole bloody week, ok?) and caught this pull quote in the Washington Post Magazine:

Then Mom would come on the phone and say, "Dear? Do you really need a pig at this time in your life? Do you really think that's what you need right now?"

Well, after that I had to read the essay, and I'm so glad I did.

(And since we have an animal theme going, Gene Weingarten's column was great, too.)

A quick rant

As a single (better yet, divorced) person, I am getting really sick of hearing about how marriage is the bedrock of society. I work. I own a house. I vote. I volunteer. I pay taxes. (At a higher rate than I did when I was married, in fact.) That's the kind of thing that is the bedrock of society, dammit, not marital status.

Or sexual orientation...but that is a longer rant. I will be so glad to see the Federal Marriage Amendment die.

Super Size Me

Victor kinda suggests that I review Super Size Me. I wasn't going to because I thought he was going to, but it turns out he was so thrilled about finding a parking spot right in front of the theater that he doesn't even care about the movie.

Anyway. Yeah, we saw Super Size Me last night. I loved it, but of course, for me it was preaching to the choir. I'm already of the opinion that fast food is not healthy for children and other living things, but I thought Morgan Spurlock's 30-day McDonald's-only experiment was a fairly clever way to hammer the point home. (I mean, halfway through the month his doctor is telling him his liver is turning into pate! And his girlfriend mentions that his, well, performance is suffering. It is wonderfully telling.)

For the record: I still eat fast food. It's cheap, it's convenient, it's tasty...although as I eat more real food, good food, I'm realizing that there's tasty and then there's actual taste.

One of the criticisms I heard about the movie is that "no one would eat fast food every day." Well...when I was in high school, we had a Wendy's across the street, and I ate lunch there pretty much daily. In college, I usually had my breakfast from a fast-food outlet in the student union after my commute to campus. Lunch I usually had from a convenience store on the way to work. A lot of my classes were at night, so it wasn't unusual for dinner to be from the student union or vending machines. For four years, my diet wasn't too far off Spurlock's experimental one. I'm sure more people eat like this than would care to admit it.

Not long after Super Size Me won at Sundance, McDonald's announced that it was taking the super size items off the menu. I will give credit to the restaurant industry...fast food and fast casual...they respond. McDonald's has salads now. Ruby Tuesday's puts nutritional information on the menu. Movies like Super Size Me, books like Fast Food Nation, and lobbies like the Center for Science in the Public Interest, despite being sneered at as "food cops" and enemies of freedom, are getting through to some consumers. Those consumers put their money where their health is, and next thing you know, you can get apples and milk in a Happy Meal.

I don't have kids. I think God every day that I don't have kids. But my sister has three, and I see them often, and I get a glimpse of what it's like...it's easy for single yuppie liberal me to go to the organic market and the farm and the bakery to get my unprocessed healthy food. My sister is shopping with three kids under 6. They are doing it all at the mega corporate grocery store, and on each endcap of each aisle the kids are pointing to the junk food they saw advertised on tv. And it's easy for single yuppie liberal me to say "Don't let the kids watch television so they won't see the commercials," but most parents live in the real world. (Today's Baby Blues comic strip is a perfect illustration of this, but the link isn't working right now.)

And when I am in the grocery store, and it's 6:30 p.m. and I am stuck in a slow line behind a parent with an overtired and hungry child whining for Shrek Pop Tarts, single yuppie liberal me wants the @#$%^&* parent to buy the @#$%^&* kid the @#$%^&* crap to shut the kid the @#$% up. I can't condem the parents who give in to the pressure.

I actually have a lot more to say about points from the movie and from some of my own nutritional research of late, but I still have bills to pay before I go to bed and another long week ahead. So I'll wrap up quickly with this...

Victor and I were planning on catching the movie then going to dinner last night. We hadn't decided on a restaurant, but after leaving the theater Victor drove straight to the local, independent, vegetarian place.

Work on Saturday

There are some good things about going to the office on Saturday:

No traffic.
Wearing cut-offs and a t-shirt from a bar at the beach.
Being able to play the radio loud enough to hear it.
No customers.
Being able to sing along with the radio.
The network connections seem really, really fast.
No co-workers.

On the other hand...

It's still being at the office on Saturday.

365 days already?

No, this was a leap year...so it's been 366 days since I started blogging. Huh. I didn't expect it to last more than a week or two.

Of course, I still haven't finished the actual rat page I set out to make when the whole thing started, and looking back over my first few posts (a lot of bitching about my house, which I was refinancing and repairing at the time), I see that I really haven't accomplished much of anything in the last year. But darn it, I documented the heck out of my inertia!

Der Teufel (The Devil)

If you've ever wondered what the deal is with that guy in the devil suit on the side of the road during the Tour de France:

Didi Senft is better known to cycling followers as the "Tour de France Devil". Since 1993, Didi has dressed in a red devil costume and followed the Tour de France around its entire course, hauling his huge bike around on a trailer.

I've never known quite what to make of him, but this is a bummer:

This year the Devil has been reporting from the Tour for a German regional TV station. Last night his car was broken into and all his camera equipment was stolen. Unfortunately, the thieves also took off with a cassette containing an unaired interview with Tour Director Jean-Marie Leblanc.

I wish I had time to do more reading up on odd Tour traditions. Instead...that database project I was bitching about last week? Well, I don't do it just for the heck of it, it's to fulfill some regulatory thing for some governmental thing. (It's boring and the details aren't important.) What's important (to me, that is) is the August 1 deadline, the fact that I've already been working on it for two weeks, and that today I found out that the regulatory body wants the data presented in a completely different way than I've done it for the past four years, so the work I did the last two weeks is useless.

The devil is in the details.

The Someone-Other-Than-Lance Chronicles

I flipped on the tv during breakfast this morning hoping to catch the start of the Tour stage. I was a little early, so I watched what was on: more of OLN's Lance Armstrong coverage.

Y'know...I'm beginning to think that one of the reasons I'm not so fired up about another Armstrong victory is that I see just too much of him on tv. Yes, his is a compelling story; yes, lots of people who are tuning in to OLN right now are doing so just to see Lance. But there are other compelling stories in the cycling world, and even if the network wants to be jingoistic and just cover Americans, there are a few more of them, too.

Instead of showing Lance film another Subaru commercial, how about talking to Bobby Julich about being back in the Tour with CSC? Or Christian Vande Velde supporting Roberto Heras? Levi Leipheimer as the top Rabobank rider? Surely that is more interesting that seeing Sheryl Crow reading a newspaper.

For perspective, maybe they could talk to Greg Lemond about how being an American in the peloton has changed since his Tour days.

The race coverage itself is great (I learn something every day that I watch Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen), but if OLN is going to preempt the fishing shows for extended bike coverage, they could give people some credit and focus a little more on cycling and a little less on the cult of personality.

My other July preoccupation

Besides my work projects, I spend a good chunk of July being occupied by the Tour de France.

I'm going to commit heresy:

I'm not rooting for Lance Armstrong.

I would prefer to see someone else in yellow this year, someone like Jan Ullrich or Tyler Hamilton.

I like Ullrich. I feel for the guy...he's gone through some crap. Not like Armstrong's fight with cancer, and some of Ullrich's strugles have been of his own making, but I still think that growing up in the bizarre world of the East German sports machine has to leave a few scars. He got off to a rocky start again this season, but he did just pull out a win in the Tour of Switzerland. Ullrich just seems really human to me, and I can't help but pull for him.

Of course, Ullrich did win in 1997. I'm also kind of a share-the-wealth type, so I'd be thrilled for Hamilton if he won. After all, he managed to finish fourth last year with his broken collarbone...that kind of determination deserves reward.

And I'm not sure I'd like to see Armstrong elevated above guys like Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault, and a sixth Tour de France win would do that, in a way. Of course you get the argument in all sports...you can't compare the modern athletes and their super-technical equipment and methods to the greats of yesterday (even if yesterday was, as in cycling, just a few years ago)...but Merckx and Hinault didn't just win the Tours de France, they won the other classic races as well. Everything Armstrong does is to prepare for France, and while le Tour is obviously the most brutal race, earlier champions dominated whole seasons.

Before I get flamed into next month, of course I respect Armstrong. No one can make light of his accomplishments as a cyclist, and even more than that I admire how he's turned his victories into hope for cancer patients. (I ordered my yellow wristbands.) I won't be upset if he wins...I just won't be upset if anyone else does.

Except Mario Cipollini. I usually have a soft spot for old guys, but he's just so freaking obnoxious...and his habit of bailing as soon as they get to the mountains pisses me off. So I'm not really concerned about him, I just don't like him and couldn't stop the rant.

Anyway, I'm not a particularly astute student of pro cycling nor an historian of the sport, just a casual fan with my own opinions. Feel free to disagree, especially you Lance and Lion King fans. And enjoy the next few weeks. This should be good.

Black & Blue

...berries.

We went to a local farm this morning (not quite around the corner, but as far as I'm concerned, very worth it for better fruit and vegetables [since my attempts at growing my own failed], plus I like to support family farms.) Two of the in-season fruits are blackberries and blueberries. I started eating them out of the carton in the car, and it took lots of willpower not to finish them on the way home.

I didn't quite eat them all, though, so after dinner (buffalo burgers, grilled corn, and a fresh tomato-cucumber salad) we had berry shortcake:

A simple thing of beauty.

Good news

A couple weeks ago I posted about the separation surgery for local conjoined twins.

Today's Post reports that the girls have gone home from the hospital.

I was reading the newspaper (the actual physical paper instead on the online version) the other day and as I turned each page I started adding up the death toll...in the hundreds in some article, one or two in stories about specific instances. One that stuck in my mind was a father who shot his disabled adult son and then himself; sources said the father was overwhelmed and despondant trying to care for the son, who'd been injured in, if I remember correctly, a bar fight.

I don't want to ignore that this is the world I live in, and I don't want to become numb to it, either. But I think sometimes I've become a bit hypersensitized, and I end up crying while reading the paper on the Metro.

That's why I'm so focused on stories like the twins. I could get into discussion of medical economics but I'm not, and I'm not thinking about that on purpose. I'm thinking about the joy and relief of the family, the skill of the medical teams, the knowledge they gained treating the girls, and mostly, of two little babies with a lifetime of potential.

"I'll alert the media" says Hobson

I took off work early today (2:00, and I was the second-to-last person to leave...I love how the day before a holiday is becoming a holiday.) I stopped at the drugstore on my way home and picked up some de-stressing stuff: magazines (Outside, Cooking Light, and Scientific American), bubble bath, a pedicure kit, stuff like that. Once home I called Victor to give him a rat update (the injured boys are improving) and he asked what I had planned for the afternoon.

"I'm going to take a bath," I said.

"Are you going to the gym?" he asked.

"No, I'm gong to take a bath."

"Are you going to walk?"

"No," I said. "I'm going to take a bath."

(I also painted my toenails sparkly blue. We had a 1979 Plymouth Horizon the same color...)