My Monday turned a bit nutso as Jake (the dog) went and got himself a yeast infection that required an emergency trip to the vet. I told him he was asking for it with his muscular, thick thighs and want to wear too tight, humid, crotch-jungle inducing leather pants, but he insisted on wearing them anyway. Stupid dog!
Seriously though, one downfall to english bulldogs–along with being expensive, dimwitted, gassy, lazy, snoring dogs that aren’t good in the heat, nor in the cold–is that they are easily prone to skin allergies. This causes them to lick, and the licking can cause yeast infections. Jake (the dog) went and got himself all yeasty and developed a painful infection on this left paw that had him hobbling around yesterday morning. So, an unplanned trip to the vet took place on Monday to get him checked out and pick up some medicine for the de-yeasting. He’s lucky I love him.
The yeasty-toed Jake (the dog).
With that said, I missed out on a ride yesterday. However, last night I took it upon myself to get my Jake (The Snake) gussied up for a possible crap road ride today. I have talked in the past about how I have fallen out of love with my cross bike, and how I have a plan (written in sand) to sell it and just use the El Mariachi as my dirt road bike. I really doubt it will fetch much money, so part of me says that it would behoove me to become reacquainted with the bike and use the hell out of it until it drops dead.
There’s no doubt that a cross(ish) bike is a lighter faster, more efficient bike for shit pavement, dirt and gravel roads; but, there’s also no doubt that I felt like utter shit on The Jake last year and would opt for the El Mariachi almost every time. I chalk much of that up to the on/off/on again back pain I had all last season and I’m hoping that this season I can at least attempt to get back to piling up dirt road miles on it–especially in the crap-tastic mud and slop of the Michigan spring. If not, I know I dig my hardtail and love riding it, so there’s no real issue. I only mention this because I am grasping at straws to write about something.
Sadly, despite today’s 40˚ temps, I found myself in the Stankment™ on the trainer. While our high temps have gotten warmer, the night-time and early morning temps have things a mess out there right now. Just taking some trash out this morning almost had me going down in a heap of man-fat. Had I been able to wait until around noon or so to start my ride I would have been fine and avoided the black ice and slickness of the morning’s freeze/thaw cycle. But I couldn’t, so I didn’t. No big deal, it’s like this every year and soon we’ll get enough consecutive warm days to get rid of the snow all together and make for safer travels on the pavement and less frozen slop and goop on the dirt roads. We’re almost there! But not yet.
Jake (the dog) is on the mends and walking pain-free and Jake (The Snake) is ready to go should I choose to risk it on the shit paved roads tomorrow morning. I don’t think it’s supposed to dip below freezing tonight, so that should bode well for an ice-free road ride. If not, I may just say “fuck it” and roll the fatty in the ice and slop of the dirt roads. I’ve been waiting too long for warmer temps to spend another day in the house “pretending” to ride my bike and spinning on the trainer.
Later.