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Midyear Resolutions

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Midyear resolutions are as good as New Year\’s resolutions, aren\’t they? They needn\’t be the same as those made on January 1, either. Take me and my repeated trips to the salvage store. The make-your-own-grab-bag deal is a strong draw. So is my eagerness to see what I\’ll find; the store doesn\’t always have the same stuff. Yesterday morning I made a trip there, using all three carrying modes. Even though I\’ve been saying for months that I must stop bringing home canned stuff, I got more! It makes me ask myself what I\’ll have to do to get myself to STOP IT! I have plenty of non-perishable food. I have far more candy than I\’ll ever need. I\’m glad it\’s stuff I can keep in the fridge, where it\’s out of immediate sight. I also have plenty of stuff I can use as ride food. Another reason it\’s hard for me to stop hitting the salvage store is that I\’ve come to enjoy the ride involved. Round trip is a little under 10 miles, which is a nice little distance. How, then, can I keep midyear resolutions to stay away from the salvage store? Getting fresh produce only would be one way; I have to admit that what the salvage store has doesn\’t always look like it\’s very good. I often buy little or no canned stuff at other stores because I already have plenty. I don\’t need to buy candy and other snacks from other stores. I have lots of them from the salvage store. Another way would be to sleep late on Saturdays, and not go to any store at all. Or I could do a 10-mile ride on the road bike on Saturday morning. That might be the best of all!

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Weather Watch II

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I bring you Weather Watch II! We\’ve been under a tropical storm warning since yesterday evening. It made me uneasy about going anywhere at all. Yet staying indoors all the time drives me crazy, weather watch II or not. At 8 am there were a lot of clouds, but the sun was peeping out sometimes. I decided to make a trip to the drug store. Someone had asked me to get some things, and I wanted some Diet Cokes. After that mini-excursion, I got to work on my web site. I want to do all I can with it before Cristobal comes along, possible knocking out the power. My Internet access relies on electricity. Since late morning I\’ve also been running both my window units. I want to cool this place as much as possible in case of a power outage. The first flurry of rain came around 9:30 am. It didn\’t last long. As the morning went on, there were further bursts of rain. In between them, the sun showed itself now and then. Around 11:30 am, I got hungry. I ate some lunch, and shortly past noon decided to go for a spin on the hybrid. I knew that I might get rained on; but I also knew that it\’s unlikely that I\’ll get to go out tomorrow. Better to get in a bit of riding while I could! Sure enough, a fine sprinkle began before I got to the park. This continued on and off. The wind got quite strong on and off, too. I made just one round of the park, then decided it might be best to go back home. For a few minutes it rained quite hard; if it was going to turn nasty, I wanted to be indoors. I reached home with a mere 4.28 miles on the Cateye. Those few miles didn\’t do much more than get my legs warmed up. But at least I got outdoors.      

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Pack Mule

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Pack Mule A pack mule is what I felt like this morning. Many a time I’ve made an excursion to the salvage store with bike trunk and trailer; or with trunk and panniers. Today, for the first time, I used all three. I wanted to see how I would do with that load. Fortunately the wind wasn’t bad on the way home. I actually felt like I was pedaling more strongly than usual. When I arrived at home and got off the bike, though, my legs felt rubbery enough that I went staggering! And what all did I get? A make-your-own-grab-bag, naturally. I even found two FitCrunch Bars there! I got yet more canned goods. Alas, I also bought cut-rate, past-season Valentine and Easter candy. Most of it is chocolate, so it’s in the fridge. I had hoped to find paper towels. If the store had any, I missed them. Not that I need more of them; getting a pack was to be part of this pack mule experiment. I was going to put anything big and  bulky in the trailer. How did I manage to get to the store today, Friday? I’ve been watching the weather, along with everybody on or near the Gulf coast. Cristobal is out there, and we could start feeling some impact from him as early as tomorrow morning. We’re under tropical storm warning already. But the forecast for today was for calm winds very early; and later in the morning, wind under 8 mph. That’s much easier to deal with than winds of 10-15 mph, big load or not. So I took some vacation hours this morning; got my grocery shopping done; and also visited the bank to get a roll of quarters. Weather permitting, I might ride to the regular store tomorrow to get some bananas. But nothing like today’s load. I’m not a pack mule, you know.

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Cravings

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Oh, cravings! Who among us does not suffer from cravings? I\’ve had a craving for sweets since I was a very young child. I guess I got that from my grandmother. She loved sweets, too. Now that I have pre-diabetes, I\’m working to control my desire for candy, ice cream, and such stuff. Shameful to state, I still nibble at the goodies more than I should. My desires aren\’t limited to the sugary stuff, either. Chinese food is another. The local Chinese restaurant closed before the end of March, thanks to COVID-19. On June 1st, they opened again; take-out and evening delivery only. Yesterday after I clocked out of work, I trotted over there and got take-out: the Mandarin Chicken Combination Plate, all white meat. (The all white meat costs a little more, but I like it much better). It would have been much faster to ride, but fitting a take-out dinner box into a bike trunk is a bit tricky. The little container of gravy (for the chicken) might have fallen over, and leaked all over the place. What a mess that would have been to clean up. My dinner was a bit cooler than I would have liked by the time I had walked home, but that had an upside. I didn\’t scorch my gums just behind my upper incisors by chomping down on a too-hot egg roll! There was another upside as well. As soon as I walked into the kitchen with my food, I got out two pint-size food containers; and split my dinner into three. Well, the chicken and fried rice parts, anyway. I didn\’t want to cut up the egg roll because the filling would have fallen out. Thus I\’ve gotten three meals for $12. That\’s pretty hard to beat. But now that the restaurant is open, my cravings for Chinese food will be much harder to control!

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Weather Watch

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It\’s weather watch time already, and hurricane season has barely begun! Yesterday afternoon I learned about Tropical Storm Cristobal. Cristobal\’s eventual track is still uncertain; but last night it looked like he\’s making a beeline for us. I actually hope he travels fast. I figure that, the faster he goes, the less time he\’ll have to strengthen. Thanks to my many trips to the salvage store, I have quite an abundance of non-perishable foods to use in case a storm does hit. Yesterday evening after supper I made a special trip to Walgreen\’s® to get a couple of jugs of drinking water. I\’m not going to wait until it\’s certain that Cristobal will land here to get them; by then it will be too late. Unfortunately Cristobal\’s effects might keep me from the excursion I was planning for Saturday: a trip to (yes, AGAIN!) the salvage store using all three means of carrying stuff. Trips using trunk and panniers are the most common. I\’ve also used trunk and trailer. But never before had I used all three on one trip. I was going to try it out this time, so I can blog about it. I\’d like to get one or two lightweight but bulky items so I\’m not too dragged down, but I want to get an idea of how the hybrid will handle under such a load. And, incidentally, me. Until then, I\’ll have to keep the weather watch going. I don\’t want to be caught off-guard by a torrential downpour on the way back from the store.

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Won\’t-Power!

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Won\’t-power, we hear, is just as important as will-power. Maybe even more so. We read about will-power in articles about weight loss/dieting; smoking cessation; and more. When I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes three months ago, I had a lot of candy on hand; most of it from the grab-bag bins in the salvage store. Much of it was bars such as Twix, Snickers, and so on. What was I to do with all that candy? I couldn\’t bear to throw it in the trash. I didn\’t think it would be good manners to offer past-best-by-date candy to others. To complicate matters, it was Easter-candy season. Elmer\’s doesn\’t seem to be around \”egg-cept\” at Easter; so I had to get some while I could. And here is where won\’t power comes in. After the diagnosis, I immediately began working to eat more healthful snacks: raw carrots, dry-roasted nuts, and such. I left the sweets in the fridge (where they won\’t melt). I do my best not to think about them. The bag of candy bars is on the bottom shelf, where it\’s less visible when I open the fridge door. After about three months my resolve seemed to weaken. Maybe I was trying to be too stringent with myself; but I had to bring myself back to heel. I have to keep reminding myself that I don\’t want full-blown Diabetes Type II. Back to carrots and hummus for snacks! So much for diet/health/pre-diabetes and won\’t-power. Is there any won\’t-power involved in cycling? I should think so! On a tough climb: I won\’t give up! Fighting  stiff headwind: I won\’t let this wind beat me! I\’ll bet Grand Tour riders have to have a lot of won\’t-power!  

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Leapin\’ Leo!

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Leapin\’ Leo joins Hoppin\’ John and Br\’er Joe in my list of culinary accomplishments. (I figured that, if John is hoppin\’, Leo must be leapin\’!) I had planned not to cook up more stuff to freeze until I could make a sizeable dent in what\’s already in the freezer. Then I realized that I needed to use up the celery and red onion that were sitting in the fridge, and approaching the point of being inedible. After I made Hoppin\’ John, I began to plan for variations, including one with lentils. That\’s the one I made today. It was another all-day project, made easier by work-from-home. The procedure is the same as the one for Br\’er Joe. At morning break time, I set the rice cooking. At lunch time, I chopped the celery, onions, and orange bell pepper; and I measured out the dry lentils. About 45 minutes before clock-out time, I got the lentils going, with the celery and a bay leaf. (I took the leaf out after the lentils were cooked). That was good timing. When I clocked out of work, the cooking time was almost up. I got the cheese ready, and then I only had to mix all the ingredients together. I ate a little Leapin\’ Leo; boxed up the rest; and put it in the freezer.. And then I saw the can of diced tomatoes sitting on the sink. I had forgotten to put the tomatoes in the mix! Luckily what I had put in the freezer had been there only a few minutes. In fact, it was still warm. I had to get it back out, dump it in the pot I\’d used as a mixing bowl, and add the tomatoes. Weird things happen on Monday. I\’m glad it comes only once a week.  

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Monster Killer?

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Dehydration sounds like a monster killer: De-HYDE-ration. Yeah, yeah, another one of my horrible jokes. Out on my ride today, though, I got this idea because I was wondering whether I might be getting dehydrated. Dehydration is far from a monster killer; it\’s a monster in itself. It was one of those days. For whatever reason, I felt tired. My energy level was low. My endurance seemed poor. On the way home, the 10 mph wind seemed awfully strong. Only will-power seemed to keep me going, and getting back home felt like it took forever. Dehydration is a possible cause of fatigue, and is definitely no joke. I began to take sips of water and electrolyte drink more frequently. It didn\’t seem to help. I ate a few more bites of food. That didn\’t help, either. Whatever was going on, I did a much shorter ride than I had planned. I was going to push for 40 miles, and did just over 29. When I was back home, and did my post-ride weigh-in, I weighed 2.3 pounds more than my pre-ride weight. That almost certainly means that dehydration was not my problem today. Maybe I should have eaten more before and during my ride. Or possibly even skipped it? After all, I was tired when I got up this morning. We all need a day off now and then. So why go riding when I\’m tired? I went out because this is the last day of Bike Month, and I didn\’t want to miss it. I need to learn how to keep going when things don\’t seem to be going well. It\’s called slaying your demons!

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Rulebreaking

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Rulebreaking, sometimes called \”thinking outside the box\”, is something that most of us do here and there. This morning you would have thought that I had violated a major rule of grocery shopping: Don\’t shop for food while you\’re hungry. I didn\’t exactly go to the store hungry. I ate a banana before leaving home, intending to have a more substantial breakfast when I got back. Then, while standing in the line to check out, my stomach began to growl. There was some kind of problem with the customer in front of me; the card she was using to pay wasn\’t working right, or something. So there I was, waiting and hungry. The longer you have to wait in line, the more you notice the items in the racks next to you. I spied Clif Bars, which I use regularly as ride food. I grabbed a couple of them; then saw the Cooper Street granola cookie bakes. I got two of those as well — and devoured one before climbing aboard my bicycle to ride my loaded panniers back home. I think I\’ve discovered a new ride food. After I got the groceries put away, it was finally time for real breakfast. Here is another way in which I indulge in rulebreaking. I don\’t give a hoot what we\’re \”supposed\” to eat for breakfast. If I want brown rice and lentil soup at breakfast time, that\’s what I\’ll eat. Breakfast is supposed to be a great time to eat legumes, anyway: they provide slow-digesting fuel to keep you going. On the bike isn\’t the only time we need fuel. So be a rulebreaker! Think of yourself as a trend-setter, and don\’t be afraid to think outside the box.

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Bad Hair Day

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Bad Hair Day A bad hair day isn’t most people’s idea of fun. Sometimes no amount of combing and brushing seems to do any good. For some people, how their hair looks is very important, making a bad hair day very frustrating. Cyclists, you might think, battle bad hair days constantly in the form of helmet hair. In cold weather a helmet liner goes a long way towards preventing helmet hair. But what can you do if it’s warm; and you want your hair to stay neat? Here’s an idea I never would have dreamed of. It’s inexpensive and easy. But with so many people making cloth bandana masks because of COVID-19, bandanas might not be so easy to find. Another solution, at least for men, would be a very short haircut. In fact, I feel sure that’s why so many pro cyclists have “zip” type cuts during the racing season. During a Grand Tour event they wouldn’t have much time to spare on hair care, anyway. My own solution for helmet hair: when I take off my helmet after a long ride on a hot, humid day; and my hair is crinkly; I just give it a good brushing. That pretty well gets rid of helmet hair for me. It might not work for everyone, I admit. My hair is thin and fine; and I keep it short. For thick hair it might be a different story. Even if brushing doesn’t completely get rid of  my post-ride hairdo, I don’t sweat it. Especially not in these work-from-home days (weeks? months?). I’m at home anyway; how my hair looks now hardly matters.

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