A little breather

US Open Snowboarding Championships, Stratton VT

So I thought it was time to do some random blogging. I tweaked this photo a few weeks ago. It began as Danny Kass, and I photo-shopped it into a wicked abstract Danny Kass. What Fun can be had in photoshop. Things are mellow right now. I did my bike ride (road ride), and made my chicken dinner last night. And on we roll...

praised be sleep

I slept well last night. LONG and well. whew. It felt so good. My grandfather is still holding on; he's comfortable, and situated at the hospice now. A beautiful place from what my mom says. She's so tired, I hope she gets some sleep like I did last night. It makes a world of difference. Everyone is so peaceful right now, just sitting and watching and wondering. My grandfather was always strong, and a wee bit stubborn. My mom's convinced he's going when he's good and ready...and for now, though he doesn't speak...he's still in there. I imagine he converses with us in his head. Hearing what we say, and responding...and probably quite enjoys it. He'll let go when he's ready.
So here I am on a Tuesday morning with my travel mug almost dry (I brewed costa rican this morning). Not sure what the rest of the week will bring, but i'll make a chicken dinner tonight, and bake some cookies, and maybe ride my bike. That's all I know for now.

death rattle

My grandfather is dying. It's been about four months since the actual process began. Withdrawal from the world. Tangible and thick. Asleep more than awake, not enough energy to partake in anything more than acknowledging someone is in the room, and then nodding back to sleep. It's hard to watch, but I feel okay. I've never watched this process happen. Our family has always experienced sudden or complicated deaths. Young or disease related, or completely unexpected. There's something very painful, yet very serene, about watching death quietly tiptoe into a life. He'll be somewhere else very soon.

word soup

Senior year in college i took a poetry class. Just because. The same reasoning led me to choosing philosophy, and wheel throwing ceramics, and black and white photography (the darkroom was like my secret lair that semester). Anyway. I took the poetry class not so much to learn the art of poetry composition, but to force myself to share writing with others. I would work so hard on the tiniest of poems. A stanza would linger on my page for hours. I wanted to make it good. Flawless even. I wanted to read it and feel it in every inch of my body, and then project that around me. I don't think i ever got there. I heard no sighs or quickening of pulses or sensed an eerie quiet during or after i read, but i learned to share. I learned to listen. I learned that anyone can write poetry if they choose. I learned that the simplest poem may create something of a syllabic symphony, leaving you feeling breathless. The only people that are truly bad at it are the pretentious, self-indulgent people that have no investment in themselves and nothing to reflect on paper. 2-dimensional poetry is empty and cold. It doesn't convey empty coldness in words, it just leaves the reader feeling a void...like they've just read nothing. It may as well have been a blank sheet of paper. What brought on today's reflection? Well, I mountain biked twice this weekend. I'm getting better, but I still feel like I'm spinning my wheels sometimes. Why didn't I make that climb? Why'd I cut that turn so wide? No matter how much practice is involved, there's always an unexpected stick or rock to throw you to the ground. Someday I may be skilled enough to avoid these. BUT, the anomalies in the wood make the ride an adrenaline rush. I accept that I might fall every time. And strangely (or maybe masochistically), I'm okay with it. I used to feel uncomfortable riding with people better than myself, like I was an anchor holding everyone down. Poetry is the same way to me. I used to feel inferior to people that were word minstrels, thinking i shouldn't bother showing them my tiresome verses. But it's different now. I'll ride with the experts and share with the poets. I'm not out to impress. Each time i try, I don't really know how it'll turn out...but the best poetry and riding result unexpectedly when I'm not trying at all - just flowing and the rhythm finds me...and it's ten times sweeter shared with someone.

Life, Love, and Coffee

Here I am sippin on my mug o coffee, eyes affixed to the morning internet practices, drinking mocha java that I picked up at Willoughby's on Saturday morning. We had the first New Haven bike ride in store for us this past weekend, and both days were all sunshine - begging us to ride. Saturday began with my trip to Willoughby's . I woke up, walked up the street to the bank...then went to acquire some fresh roasted coffee beans. I am definately more a mountain girl than city, but the ability to saunter down a few blocks and into a mecca for fresh roasted (daily!) coffee at 10am on a saturday definately increased my city life appreciation. So I wandered back with beans in tow and Jake whipped us up a ginormous stack of french toast. MMM! We figured a big breakfast would be fine since we were stopping at the bike store and planned on a fairly low key explorative kind of day. The bike shop trip was to pick up Jake's Cannondale 1FG (1 F***ing Gear). A gent had walked into the shop that week wanting to sell the thing that he'd only ridden a few times (a road biker that attempted mt. biking and decided it wasn't for him). So Jake got a killer deal on a nearly brand new bike. He's stoked to be hoppin on the single speed train. I admit it sounds so much more simplistic. No need to concentrate on gear switching would be exhilirating, but I still like my gears. They're rather forgiving, especially on occasions when you've been on a bike for 4 hours, you're sweating, feel like jello, think you're almost done, but you forgot about that last hill. that hurts. Plus, being fairly green to the sport (my second season)...I figure I need to practice up on my geared friend before even looking at a single speed. I look at a single speed and a climb and just think....ouch, ouch, OUCH! So not only was it the first new haven area ride, but Jake's first single speed ride. We went to Branford Supply Ponds, a mere 15 minute drive from our apartment. We didn't take a map and so immediately ended up off-trail hike-a-biking up a large wall of rock. When we found the clearly marked trails we were golden though. It was a fairly easy ride with a lot of time spent figuring out where to go - but a great place for after work riding and there's a ton of stuff we didn't even see yet. Excellent potential here. Since we took it easy saturday, we were hungry for more on Sunday. This time it was Westwoods. Still less than a 30 minute drive! I was a bit fearful looking at the reviews of this place, and AGAIN (we never learn) we started off on what we thought was a trail and ended up petering out into nothing...so we hike-a-biked until we found a trail. When we found the actual trails they were really well marked and REALLY fun. I definately passed on some of the more technical downhilling, drops, hairpin turns, etc...but i did surprise myself with a couple rock climbs and some downhill rock garden-ish stuff. We ran i nto a lot of piled slickrock that was fun to barrel down, and not too bad to climb. I'm so excited to go back to this place and explore. We got started late due to some errand running and only managed about 2 hours in the woods, but got a good sense of how some of the trails connect and have a map for next time...so this weekend should be pretty hard core. I imagine we'll do westwoods again and maybe try another new trail. And so, I have the fever. the end.

caffeine is the world's most popular psychoactive drug

An article on caffeine. What a great way to begin the day...sitting behind a desk sipping 8oz of java-nated caffeine....while reading about the culture of caffeine in National Geographic. I actually got this from Innerbitch.net. They're so good at random pop culture updates (even though I never have a clue about the TV shows they make reference to).
Only a portion of the article is revealed, and for the rest I guess i'll have to break down and buy a paper copy of the magazine. hrm. hrm. I will say that atleast I'm a non-sleep deprived caffeine addict. NG talks about the culture of using caffeine to maintain wakefulness and in turn not maintaining a healthy sleep cycle. I mainly drink coffee for the pure joy of it. Freshly ground, freshly roasted coffee beans at 8am is invigorating. I even pace myself, so as to not wind up with the 3 cup of coffee jitters (2 is way more than good for me in one sitting). So yay coffee. Coffee along with adequate sleep is a winning combination (though i will admit that not so long ago, in a land called undergraduate I drank putrid coffee (maxwell house) at 2am for the sole purpose of stimulating my brain cells to study biology - eh, atleast the coffee abuse blossomed into a fine relationship with java :o)

Live to Ride!

Spring-like temperatures!!!! Oh, I'm already anticipating the weekend ride. I think my tired sandwich-ness is better now. The culprit most certainly was an extended period of time sleeping on an air mattress, followed by one too many mornings of rolling myself out of bed haphazardly and forgetting there was floor right beside me. So we bought a bed finally. It's a nice queen sized IKEA bed, with a rattan head and footboard. It's quite complementary to the brick wall and various other knick knacks and IKEA things around the apartment. I'm so relieved to be done with "big stuff" furnishing. Now, we just need to populate the space with more plant life. I have my two bonsai (mini Japanese cherry trees I grew from seeds in 2001...), but that's it so far. It'll be garden-like in no time. AND, our landlords said we can plant a garden in the yard out back if we want too! SCORE! But back to the important stuff...The inaugural spring bike ride. I believe we're planning on trying out West Rock. It's the closest trail around and has a great view from the top. I'm a little nervous about all the rocks up here in CT. I rode rocks with no problem in PA, and some of the laurel mountain rock gardens were wicked, but there just aren't as many big rocks in PA...and there were places like Boyce and Kennerdell that were faster singletrack with less rocky areas if i was in the mood for something a wee bit less grueling. There are sooo many boulders here...deposited back in the day by glaciers. I'll be curious to see if most trails are all-around rocky or not. I'm sure we'll find some cool singletrack though. I can certainly do some hike-a-bike if needs be...we'll see what happens. We have sooo many new trails to explore around here, so i'm sure i'll find something my speed. OR, I'll start wearing knee pads :o) (any maybe body armour....HA!) Happy Spring!