As I mentioned yesterday, I needed to break free from my standard multi-surface loop and do something different. One idea was to venture out for another one of my fat bike photo rambles on the Farley (with all do respect to Gnat). When I woke up this morning that seemed to be the ride plan that produced the most girth to my loins–so that’s what I did.
With Wifey out of town until late Wednesday night, I won’t be working any hours at the shop until late in the week. For while B is old enough to stay extended hours on his own, over nine hours on his own, with the closest parent 25 minutes away, is a bit extreme. No big deal, this gives me a chance to catch up on stuff around the house, hang out with B, and get a few 30-35 mile multi-surface loops in my legs.
Last night I was once again banished to the Chamber of Farts: the guest bedroom where Wifey forces me to sleep when my digestive system decides that it wants to spew forth noxious gas time and time again for eight to twelve hours (which is pretty much every night). So I was pleasantly surprised that Wifey chose to enter my stank chamber early this morning for some snuggle time. Sadly it was NOT an early morning booty call, but it was pretty delicious that she braved the heavily scented C.o.F. to be with me before flying out to D.C. later in the morning.
Initial snuggles were followed by a failed attempts (by me) to turn the snuggle fest into something more, which was followed by chatting about the coming day and week. “What do you have planned today?” she asked. “Nothing much, I’d like to get a mountain bike ride in, but with you gone I might end up sticking closer to home.” We chatted a bit more and discussed how I could probably get in one big lap at MMCC and B would be OK. Then I farted, Wifey got pissed off, left the room, I confiscated the extra pillows, waved the eye watering stink away with the sheet and went back to sleep for another hour.
Wifey had to got into work this morning to make sure some sort of legal, shmegal software worked properly for her .gov people. She was also expecting a FedEx package at home containing a new work credit card for her upcoming trip our nation’s capital on Sunday. Since she couldn’t be in two places at one time, I had to lay around and wait for Mr. FedEx Man.
Even though I didn’t work yesterday, I still didn’t ride (call me slack, it’s OK). I needed to catch up on what seemed like a million different things around the house as well as prepare for my buddy Dave and his family to stop by for dinner and to spend the night. I have been friends with Dave for fifteen years or more; we used to work together at the newspaper back in Pittsburgh before he moved to Florida, I was “co” best man in his wedding and we still have a strong relationship via texts and email. Sadly his wife’s grandmother recently passed away and she was being buried in her home state of Michigan. Since all their family were coming up for the services, they extended their trip to see some of Michiganderburgh’s sites and to stop by and see us (a true Michigan sideshow attraction) before heading back to F-L-A this morning. It was awesome to catch up with him and to finally meet his two kids in person.
Last night we had another evening of heavy, better grab a life jacket type rain. In my opinion, here in Michigan, we get less rain on daily basis than I was used to dealing with in western PA, but when we do get rain, we get freaking RRRRAIN! It seems to just freaking pour down thick ropes of water.
After working all day at the shop on Thursday, my plan for Friday was to get in some miles on the Boone. Sadly, that didn’t happen. Instead it pissed down Old Testament-esque rains all morning and the rest of the day was filled with FINALLY getting a permanent crown put on one of my teeth and dealing with a backed up main drain which resulted in plumbers in the house to snake it. The only highlight was celebrating Wifey’s 44th birthday.
Tuesday brought a hazy and warm summer evening. I had an un-blogworthy 16 mile singletrack mountain bike ride in my legs and a belly full of baked chicken thighs and spicy tomato pasta, but the evening was too nice to waste sitting around the house. So once Wifey was home from work I made the decision to head out and do some fishing for a couple of hours.
Just when I started to think that I might never ride my bike again; I did. I rode last Wednesday then my work schedule (who’d a thunk that would happen?), appointments and weather kept me out of the saddle for four days in a row. While it’s easy to blame all those things, it was mostly just laziness that prevented me from riding. What can I say, I’m pretty swell at being lazy.
