party-downtown day and a ram

Bike-to-Work Day 2023 is done. It happened yesterday, and we had a beautiful morning for it. Magnum and I headed out to be among the masses and got our fill of freebies and food. 

Here's a small display of things I decided to pick up, Chick fil-a chicken biscuit sammich for scale:

The haul included some bike lights, couple of first aid kits, bike map, coupons... The ziploc bag looking thing is, I think, for carrying water? The theme of the booth was water conservation, so I'm going with it.

Ironically, it seems that bike-to-work day has become more of a skip-work-and-come-party downtown as most of the booths are concentrated at the university and downtown, two locations close to one another. Businesses with outlier booths are less likely to get visitors. If I would have actually ridden my route to work at the college (I was off yesterday), I don't think I would've seen any stops. In fact, the college used to have a booth on site, but stopped doing it since covid and hasn't resumed.

I'm not complaining, though, just observing. It's a fun time, with lots of cute kids, who I'm sure were not going to work.

I did have my bike cam rolling, but the footage is pretty similar to last year's, so no fresh video.

And speaking of Cams, I was out for a jaunt this morning and came across this local celebrity

Cam, the Ram, the university's mascot, was out "taking his walk", according to his handlers.

I asked for a photo, and he struck this ramly pose.

I found it amusing that he was out there just going for a stroll while  in full "uniform". 

According to his profile page, Cam...

"is under 24-hour surveillance at a top-secret location with constant access to on-call veterinarians..."

Welp, I guess good on me for being out there early this morning. I think I now know where Cam's top-secret location is. 

If I'm not heard from after this, it's likely because powerful people decided I know too much.

weekend bullets

And so ends another week. Time goes faster the older you get, it's true. 

• I worked at the college yesterday as my turn came up in the Saturday rotation.  I was teamed with Assistant Boss who struggles somewhat with dyslexia. He seemed more challenged than usual yesterday after a problem with an early check-in had him a bit frazzled for the rest of the shift.

He confided to me that he thinks his dyslexia is getting worse as he gets older (he's late 50's). From my observation, it seems he has developed anxiety from the potential mistakes as a result of the dyslexia. Maybe it's the compound effects of dyslexia + anxiety about dyslexia making it seem worse.  End result: it's worse, but not terrible.

On a lighter note, we had chuckles from a test candidate from China whose name was pronounced "Wrong Way" (she found it amusing too). Made us wonder if our names mean anything in other languages? Hopefully nothing embarrassing. 

• I decided to stop "drinking" a little over three months ago. At that time, the extent of my so-called drinking was splitting a lite beer with Magnum most evenings. So, I figured it wasn't really doing much for me, so what was the point? Admittedly, I did/ do miss the taste of it in a habitual kind of way, especially now that we're in the heat of summer and a "cold one" sounds enticing. 

Last weekend, we went out to eat with the guys for Father's Day, and they each ordered (not lite) beers. I got a slight buzz just from sampling them. If I wasn't a lightweight before, I definitely am now.

• 38-year-old Courtney Dauwalter from Leadville, CO won the Western States 100-mile ultra race by smashing the previous record for women. 

I enjoy running, and I have absolutely NO desire to EVER run 100 miles. I don't even have the desire to run a full marathon - something all kinds of people pay money to do. 

That said, I would happily run 100 miles through the mountains before I would ever get into a deep-sea submersible.

 

climb in order to fall

Back in summer 2020, shortly after we'd moved here, as the pandemic was wreaking its havoc, we decided to try out some nearby hiking trails. The whole family hiked up to Horsetooth Falls to take in... well... the Falls.

2020 Falls fail

But alas, we arrived at the destination and found:

lots of rocks and dirt, with not a drop of water to be falling or otherwise. 

Okay, so we learned that in order to take in actual falls at Horsetooth Falls, we'd need to arrive during peak Spring thaw. Likely not much to see by the end of May and beyond.

BUT WAIT!

We've been enjoying so much rain this year, and I've seen current pics on social media of actual falls at Horsetooth Falls.

This morning, Magnum decided to take some time off of work to try out those old man trekking poles he recently purchased. So where to go?

Why, the Falls!

Social media (in this rare case) did not lie. Falls were falling, splashing even. Kids and dogs waded in the cool waters at the base. It was refreshing sights and sounds.

The hike to get there is just a little over one mile, so nothing too crazy for an experiment. 

There were plenty of like-minded people - young, old, and in-between - along the trail and hanging out at the falls on this rare no-rain-in-the-forecast day.

Horsetooth Falls is certainly not on par with Niagara, Yosemite, and the like. But around here, we'll take what we can get. 

I cooled off the tootsies before heading back down.

Magnum reports that the trekking poles made a favorable difference on the old-man knees.  I realized while walking behind, we were rather Bobbsy-twinned in our choices of outfits.

But poles and cheesy matching outfits aside, what's with all this greenery!!?

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

4. Share a photo that best represents your June so far.

thinking thoughts

Tuesday, time to reflect I guess.

Random thoughts/ moments:

• We got together for a nice time with all the guys for Father's Day. It included another good restaurant discovery (featuring no adjacent table drama). My blackened chicken sammich was so good, but I didn't finish it. I actually woke up later in the middle of the night thinking, "Damn, shoulda got the to-go box!"
• My 19-year-old friend/former coworker CC had her baby. Everyone seems happy, lovey, and healthy in the filter that is facebook.
• Had a P.E.O. meeting last weekend. Our convention delegate came back with various prizes for us. I got the "Crunch" award, for coming through in a crunch, a.k.a. agreeing to be the next chapter Prez. I figured my award would have to do with that

News that caught my attention:

• Our local indoor mall is staging for a total redo that will essentially get rid of the indoor mall. It all makes good sense to me, but where are the old folks going to walk?
• I have no desire to go on any sort of "submersible tour" of the Titanic or otherwise be in a submarine. Certainly not to a depth of 13,000 feet. Especially not after such stories of the ongoing search operations.
• I read an article written by a local MD who is also a registered dietician. The article addresses why/ what to eat before running. I usually run in the morning and don't eat beforehand, but the article says, 

"Men and women's bodies function differently when it comes to burning fuel and things that have worked well for some men (i.e. fasted running) are dangerous and counterproductive to women."

So that caught my attention, which is mainly why I read the article. But I never found what was "dangerous and counterproductive to women". Anyone?

Triumphs:

• Is it a triumph that I thought about eating a graham cracker, like the good doctor's article suggests, before heading out for a run this morning? But then I said, "Nah", went for an enjoyable jaunt and survived?

Challenges:

• We've got landscaping ideas for the front yard. I actually like working in the yard, but it's time consuming. Do we just throw money at it and let some pros do the main bits, then happily maintain it afterward? Or keep chipping away and have a never-ending-WIP?

One thing learned from triumph or challenge:

• As mentioned, sprucing up the yard on our formerly-a-rental-enjoying-a-mere-modicum-of-lawncare house, I'm learning, is a good sized project.

poodering along

Went for a lovely morning bike ride before it got too hot. Stopped to appreciate the results of spring thaw + rain.

I call it "Shadow Selfie by the Poudre" . It's the Cache la Poudre River that runs through town. Everyone pronounces it "POO-der", and today I learned it's true French pronunciation is "poo-DRAY", which sounds snobby to me.

Shadow selfie by the POO-DER. Final answer

puddles

Happy Father's Day to all the good dads out there! (Deadbeat dads, move on).

Pic of my dad and me from a loooooooong time ago (I was about 16). Dad was a total gringo, mostly English probably. I recently heard the term "hapa" as to describe half-asian, half white people. 

So I guess I fall into that category (Mom was Filipina), but you likely won't hear me using the term.

Colorado is currently uncharacteristically lush and green. We've been getting so much rain, it's a jungle out there. 

Coming back from a dog walk, I snapped this pick of our young maple tree, George, whom we acquired about a year ago. He's filling out nicely, all "George of the Jungle"

Magnum removed the (HUGE) training poles a few weeks ago.  Looking back, he was so tiny *sniff*.

We've got other landscaping plans for the front yard, but that's where the status remains - plans.

I spotted this little spy while cleaning the week's mud and gunk from my bicycle.

I think I'll name it Puddles.

I have a short work week ahead. Juneteenth is a federal holiday, so the college is closed tomorrow. I do have one tutee to meet with, and I'll try to make good use of the rest of the day.

sometimes sunshine, go away

 Some Tuesday reflections

3 random thoughts/ moments:

• Are mullets making a comeback? I've been seeing mullets on more kids and young adults than I remember in recent years. I've gotta say, some people are able to rock a mullet. I don't hate them.
  
  
• Young guy came into the testing center for a certification test having to do with his job in horticulture. Party girl put him through the whole don't-cheat pocket check before seating him for the test.
  He responded with, "wow, this is worse than when I went to jail!", which had us giggling.
  
  
• Speaking of Party Girl and horticulture, she expressed her interest in trying psilocybin, or magic mushrooms - which are legal in our state - to improve her mood, with guidance from a knowledgeable doctor.
  She's totally given up pot and hard liquor and "only drinks beer".  She pretty much confessed to me that she knows she's an alcoholic, and she said it in such a way that assumed I knew it already, which I did. I just wasn't sure if she knew it.

News that caught my attention:

• 4 children found alive after 40 days in the jungle. The youngest was 11-months old!
• World record 2 miles in 7:54. I'd be hard pressed to run one mile in 7:54.
• Denver Nuggets are NBA champs. I don't follow the NBA, but "Denver Nuggets" and "Champions" aren't words that typically show up in the same sentence, so I suppose it's noteworthy.

Triumphs:

I have enough regularly scheduled tutees for summer to nicely round out my working schedule. I'm not going to take on any more students, so can settle into a modicum of predictability for the next few weeks (ha! as if).

Challenges:

We've been getting well above average amounts of rain for the last month or so, which isn't really a challenge. I appreciate the break from the hot 'n' dry. But the rain has flooded some areas, and it does put a literal damper on my bicycle commuting. 

Magnum got himself some trekking poles a couple of weeks ago. His knees don't like hiking downhill, so he mostly avoids it. He hasn't yet hiked "the tooth" (Horsetooth mountain) right here in our "back yard". It's such a local landmark, it seems illegal for him not to have hiked it in the three years we've lived here. 

I've been meaning to go up again now that it's summer, and Magnum says he'll test out the trekking poles and join me. They'd better work, I'm not carrying him down. In the meantime, we're waiting for the trail to be less muddy and mostly less hail-y and lightning-y. 

One thing learned from triumph or challenge:

Work Study shared with me a list she compiled with activities for getting out of her comfort zone/ routine. It's easy to get stuck in a rut. It's been too long since I've done much exploring outdoors. Rain or shine, just go.

strike up the...

I was a small town girl living in a lonely world...

Okay, I wasn't necessarily lonely, but I did spend my formative years growing up in a small coal-mining town - one where "everybody knew everybody" pretty much. 

When I was a sophomore in high school, our marching band was invited to a festival, featuring a large parade and field competition, in another state. This was a relatively big deal for our little town.

Anyone who's been involved in HS marching band knows the constant need for fundraising activities. This festival brought us band kids to new heights in such efforts. Finally, at a certain point, the townspeople responded with, essentially, 

"We don't need any more candles/ place settings/ chocolates/ mixed nuts/ child labor... Can't we just make a freaking donation??"

Why, yes. Yes you can. Now, this was long before the digital age. There was no web, so no website to go to and donate through Paypal or such. Everything was done face-to-face via check or cash.

One fateful day in late winter/ early spring was the designated HS Band Festival day or something like that. We band kids would infiltrate the neighborhoods and collect donations from anyone wanting to contribute. 

It was a Saturday morning, and we all showed up to the band room wearing our respective band hats  to get our - literal - marching orders. That year, I was part of the banner girl team. We toted around letters that spelled out our high school and mascot and did little dance things. 

I was the "A". Other side had a "S" for the spelling of our mascot. 

And yes, we wore blue hard hats.

Our instructions for donation collecting included that we stay in pairs when going door-to-door. Well, my similarly hard-hat clad teammate and I soon had the epiphany that our work would go MUCH faster if we split up. So we did exactly that, she hitting one side of the street, while I took the other. We'd meet at the end before returning to the band room.

This was all going smoothly as I neared the end of my route. I had two houses left. *insert dramatic music here*

I was on the tasteful porch of a tasteful house in the square behind my house.  A cheerful man answered the door, he was friendly, smiley. I could hear young children in a room off of the entryway watching Saturday morning cartoons. The man was still in his bathrobe.

"Oh yeah, yeah!" he greeted when I told him my reason for being on his porch (and wearing a hard hat), "My wife has the checkbook, hold on!".

A moment later, a similarly smiley, friendly woman arrived with checkbook and pen  in hand. She began making out a check, asking about the band's preparation for the festival, etc. The kids happily watched their cartoons, the man stood a few feet behind the woman, opened the bathrobe and...

• shucked the corn
• peeled the chili
• polished the banister
• adjusted the antenna...

Yeah, he was jerking off, looking me in the eye while his friendly wife wrote out a donation check and his cute kids watched cartoons. 

I said nothing but remember thinking, "oh for the luvah Pete..." something like, and fixing my eyes on the charitable woman's hand writing the check. The wholesome moment had taken a decidedly disappointing turn.

I said my thanks and exited the porch. 

But hey, the festival was fun.

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

1. Tell us about a memorable neighbor from your childhood neighborhood.

end of week bullets

• Last Sunday, I went for a run in the rain. It was actually quite nice - just rain. No lightning, no hail. A couple of weeks prior, I'd got caught in a rainstorm while running. At the point of getting rained upon, I knew if I turned around to go home, I'd become fully saturated anyway, so I just kept on a-going... and got fully saturated.

So last Sunday, it was already rainy when I left the house, and I wore my nylon shell, which did a good job of keeping me relatively dry - between waist and neck. My shoes got fully soaked, however, from all the puddles. Add the soaked shoes to the fact that my left sock had a small hole from which my pinky toe had pooched out, and I ended up tearing a small patch of skin from said pinky toe.  

Surprising how annoying a skin patchless pinky toe can be. Talk about your first world problems.

• Work at the testing center was very slow yesterday during my shift. I was there for four hours and gave three tests. But there were a few other tasks to catch up and occupy my time, so I ended up feeling quite productive. Plus, Work Study - our student employee - was there with a pile of math homework.  Summer classes are more concentrated than Fall and Spring, and she's in the thick of it. So I got some tuting done, and she got her homework done (while getting paid). Win-win (win).
  
  
• A Youtuber I check in on now and then (I don't subscribe to any Youtube channels) announced this week that he's going to stop doing daily vlogs. And I was all, "Good for you!" He's vlogged every day for the last seven years! 

He's a likable guy, and his channel is centered on running. That's how I found him - via his well done, informative shoe reviews. He lives in nearby Denver, and he attended the same university I did, so there's a local flair. He makes his living off  Youtube and supports his family of wife plus five-with-a-sixth-on-the-way kids, so it's clearly a lucrative gig.

But EVERY DAY??

I wonder how that affects a person's off-camera life: to be on camera every day for a channel with a large following - while raising a family, no less. Out there every day with the selfie stick and whatnot. His growing family is naturally often featured on his vlogs as well. So I'm glad for him and the family that he's decided to back off. 

• We've been watching Beef on Netflix. Seen it? Finished it? We made it to the final episode last night and were about halfway through it when - ZHOOOP - power outage.  By the time the power was back, I'd shut off the laptop and was ready for bed.
  
  Ironically, the title of that last episode is "Figures of Light", of which we had none.

one for the books

Magnum's mom's husband - a.k.a my step-father-in-law - is 90 years old. For the past something years, he's spoken of this book he's been working on. His memoirs?

He'd tell us some tale of his family and/or past adventures, usually ending with, "It's all in my book". We first figured he was journaling and tracing his family tree - a nice little retirement hobby for him. Then he started mentioning publishers and ghost writers, etc. The book was becoming THE BOOK.

Honestly, this made some of us a bit uneasy, because as part of the family tree, all of us were in THE BOOK along with birthdates, birthplaces, extended family? How much information was he sharing?

A few months ago, Magnum's stepsisters sent Magnum copies of the portions of the book that feature us - our kids, and other relevant people. This so Magnum could check the accuracy and request any edits.  We both looked over the pages and found the writing a bit choppy, honestly. Apparently, SFIL just dictated things to a writer who then put it into text. 

I don't know how much he paid to have THE BOOK all put together and printed, but it is done. Magnum arrived home after a work trip to Colorado Springs, where his mom and stepdad live, bestowing a box and saying, "You're the talk of the town," referring to the senior living facility where his mom and stepdad live.

"Wha...?", my response.

He opened the box and revealed 3 paperback copies and one hardcopy of THE BOOK. Hardcopy for us and a paperback for each of our kids.

"Oh...", I recognized the cover. 

Several years ago, Magnum's mom asked if I would draw a pastel portrait of SFIL. 

Yeah, sure. Why not? 

When Magnum opened THE BOOK box, I remembered that, a few months ago, MIL asked if SFIL could use that portrait for THE BOOK cover. 

Yeah, sure. Why not?

And there it was, all 190 pages, hot off the press. We've sort of been treating THE BOOK as "he's having his fun". Seeing it now, all done up, I'm hoping he's happy with it. I was a bit surprised to find the last several pages include original poems.

I skimmed a few pages, mainly looking over the photos, but have yet to sit down to read THE BOOK.  

Judge a book by its cover?

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

5. Book review! (hardly)

keeping it classy

Rain is lightly falling outside my window. Birds are chirping. It sounds like those rainforest videos... in Colorado?  We've been getting a lot of rain this spring, and I'm not complaining. The weeds are taking over, but it's green foliage rather than brown dirt, so there we go. 

This week became somewhat busy. I guess with one day less in the work week, all else became concentrated. Summer classes started at the college on Tuesday, but testing has yet to be impacted much by that. 

On the tutor side of things, I've been getting requests from high schoolers, mostly from the east coast  (schools here are already on summer break) for final exam cramming. Yuck. They didn't learn the material well enough during the semester and also didn't learn that they can't cram it all into a 2-hour tutor sesh. 

Moving on. Boss has mostly moved to his new office at one of the other campuses. Yay! The vibes we're getting from the crew at  his new location are quite grumbly, not surprisingly. God help 'em. I'm quite interested to see how this is all going to play out over the next few months. In the meantime, Boss's non-presence at our office is delightful.  Omg, so much.

I plan to catch up on a few things this weekend, including blog reading, after the busy week. Personal blogs have given way to vlogs, tiktoks, etc. 

We bloggers are the Classics!