An Amusement & Diversion for The Genteel Cyclist. Daily.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A brief report from the edge of the abyss


So I have just a few remarks about my first CX race of the season, the Wirth "Classic" (can a first-time race be a "classic"?) chief among them: a shot of whiskey at the 20 minute mark not a good idea, plus suffering the indignity of getting called "Bitch" by Zito for throwing the shot glass on the ground, but you know, Zito: This was a hand-up, not a hand-down, no? Afterward, people commented on how dazzlingly red my face was.

Anyway, thanks to all the friends and family and general well-wishers and bike punks who sort of formed the psychedelic lights and the crazy soundtrack to my little ride through the tunnel of pain on the Wonka riverboat. I spent a lot of my time thinking my God, I forgot how freaking hard this is.

What I really wanted to mention is that the world economy is tanking, we're in for a deep and dramatic recession, and I've been riding the Fuji Boulevard -- actually my daughter's bike -- over to the park with the dog, and we've been hunting squirrels until she just about can't run anymore. You either love squirrels -- like the crazy woman in Loring Park who every day brings a bag of fresh bread and tears it up and throws it out, trying to feed them out of her hand, I sometimes fantasize about one of them just kind of sinking his incisors into the fat part of her thumb just because I'm a mean person, I suppose -- or you hate them. "Tree rats." I tend to think of them as a nuisance. I sit in my office and watch them raid my bird feeders all day, and they really vandalize the things, and I've waged some minor wars with them, but now that we have another labrador, Sunshine keeps a tab on them. But when she's running them down in the park, invariably the young and sick and stupid ones, I just feel sorry for them, and just as her mouth is about to clamp down on them at a full sprint, I'll make a loud, Tourretic noise -- "Woooooo!" -- and this will distract Sunshine for just a fraction of a second, letting the retarded or judgment- impaired squirrel escape from the jaws of certain death.

The other day, I was riding the Sears-Roebuck with the sticky Sturmey-Archer and the weak coaster brake to the grocery store, and a squirrel shot out from under a car. It ran right through the spokes of my front wheel, did two sommersaults in the road, then ran back under the car. It just made me smile.

Now I'm off to the dentist. This year, I'll wear a clean shirt.

2 comments:

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StevenCX said...

The whiskey worked for me - after two of them I wasn't feeling any more pain! I even managed to hand back the shot glass once.