A Tale of Two Sleeping Bags

My mantle is shifting. I bought a bike last week, many thanks to Tom for doing most (all) of the leg work on that one. I've started riding the bike to work each day and am learning a lot in a little space of time. I've kinda thrown myself into the fire of downtown rush-hour traffic. It's thrilling.

I'm rolling the right leg of my pants up and trying to not rear-end a taxi. You can get going at pretty swift little clip barreling south on 2nd street, and well, even though there is a bike lane, taxis and parked cars don't always remember to look for cyclists. Actually no one ever really remembers to look for cyclists and if they do see me they always assume that they have time to pull out in front of me 'cause, you know, bikes are slow. Wrong. Bikes are fast and light and terribly nimble, remember that the next time you see me approaching. Nimble.

Gear comes with bikes, well, the need for gear. I've been haunting the bargain basement of REI for the last few weeks, I work two blocks away, and so I can stalk some of the things I need, waiting patiently until some person returns a fender or bike lock or head lamp. With gear and a general acceptance of the scrappiness of my true self I've been slowly but surely remembering how very much I love little daily adventures and so I finally purchased something I should have bought years ago - A sleeping bag.

The only sleeping bag I've owned is the one that I've owned for at least 25 years, if not 27. It is my Hulk. Covered with Captain America, the Incredible Hulk, and Spiderman my blue flannel lined sleeping bag just doesn't cut it on camping trips. For the life of me I can't remember what sleeping bag I used when I was camping in high school or for the summer I worked for the Forest Service, must have been one I borrowed. Now with my super tight new, birthday present from the parents, sleeping bag I can plan to sleep away more. I can pack up and move out, move on.

Other exciting news - I wrote a grant for the non-profit I volunteer for and we got it! Our first grant, it will provide funding to teach book-making classes in Seattle Public Libraries. Little pat on the back for me and many thanks to the peeps who helped out on that project.

My computer has kicked the proverbial bucket and is going to the doctor this weekend. If it can't recover I'll be coughing up the dough for a new one but I have high hopes for my current beast. It's been with me for years and is built for strength so I'm sure things will be fine. In the meantime I'm using my crap-top and while it doesn't have all of its marbles, as I type this the mouse cursor is randomly cruising around the screen, it will suffice.

Big weekend ahead, Blue Scholars and Cloud Cult in concert, tomatoes to be canned, zucchinis to be pickled and art to be made ...... contentment.

How to watch Baseball

My cousin is moving to Hong Kong, he's one of those teachin' fools, the ones who go from country to country teaching kids to speak the English. He and his wife Heather have worked in Poland and Korea (south) and now after a year(?) hiatus in the states they're headed back out there, to be foreigners again. They leave in September, assuming the visas all check out, but in the meantime we've got them for another month. I set a goal with Kevin for the month; go an M's game for each home stand till they leave. That's only like, what, two games a week, tops? Totally achievable.

I love Baseball.

If you don't already know this about me you probably should, (one more confession this week). I love live baseball. I can listen to it on the radio with relative attentiveness or I can nap to it while it plays on the TV, but watching, live, that's where it's at.

The Mariner's came to Seattle the same year I did, 1977, a good year. I don't remember when I saw my first game, (family any guesses?) but I do remember a few key firsts connected with the Mariners. -

The first time I realized I needed glasses.

"Hey Dad, what's the score?"
"What you're saying you can't see the score board?"

Sixth grade and my sister had just been to the eye doctor to get her first pair of glasses, so naturally my parents thought I was exaggerating my difficulty. I don't blame them, I was always coming up with some new story. Like the one where I told my family that I had already had kids and a husband, and was living my life in reverse (grade school). But it turned out that my eyes were worse than my sister's and I've had corrected eyes ever since. Ha! Take that parents!

Last night however, I had two firsts.

1) I finally mastered the art of sunflower seed consumption. Well kinda mastered, I managed to accidentally spit a bit of seed on the person sitting below me, but what you don't know...A great activity for the fidgety; you pack a cheek with seeds and then shell and disassemble them inside your mouth. The salty seeds create a lot of spit so you have to finesse the shell out of your mouth without drooling and without dislodging the hard won tasty seed. From the look on Greg's face I'm pretty sure I looked like an earnest squirrel. What does an earnest squirrel look like? Puffy cheeks, eyes squinting with concentration and tiny furrowed brow.

2) Then there was the 8-1DP, Ichiro caught the pop-up fly all the way out in center and lasered it right to Hernandez who tagged the runner out at home. Everyone lost it, jumping up and yelling and yelling and then I fainted. Seriously. My first faint. I'm not a fainter, not much of a blushing flower but apparently I'm no match for gravity and low blood sugar. We won by the way, in extra innings but we won.

More baseball tom morrow, the idiot Red Sox are in town, I'll try to stay fully conscious this time.