crashing

I was out running in the wee mornig hours on Friday and decided to snap a pic of this sculpture at sunrise. 

It's a bronze sculpture that sits along a popular trail near the bike racks for a a botanical garden attraction. 

It "shades" a bench and one of those public bicycle repair stations.

It's titled "Cycologist" and actually makes me think of a multiple bicycle crash... in a tree?

Looking at the photo afterwards, it looks rather sinister and thorny in the darkness. 

So when I was in the area again this morning at a later hour, I snapped it again in the daylight. Still crashy/ thorny, but a little less sinister? Maybe?

So yes, I am able to run again and have been reminding my body of that for the last month or so. The physical therapy, including the dry needling, seems to have helped. I don't exactly feel 17 again, but I'll take what I can get.

Speaking of bicycles and crashes, Magnum and I were out walking around yesterday when we came across a fresh accident between a bicyclist and a (I think) pickup truck.

It happened on the other side of a busy road we were walking along. I looked over and saw a laid down road bike with its front wheel looking rather bent and possibly detatched? That's when I noticed the guy on the ground, the car with its hazard likes blinking and a pickup truck with its hood opened.

From my astute observations, I surmise that the pickup truck was going south and turned left to enter an apartment complex and hit the bicyclist going north in the bike lane. Probably a bystander then pulled their car into the apartment entance to block other traffic from the injured bicyclist.

Shortly afterward, all the first responders showed up - fire, ambulamps, po po. Traffic was blocked and rerouted at he intersection a little further south. I was actually impressed at the quick efficiency of it all.

The injured cyclist - wearing a helmet - was on his back and appeared to be conscious and speaking with his helpers. This was along a busy stretch that I personally wouldn't ride a bicycle on. There is a bike lane, yes, but PFFFT.  Now, I'm not victim blaming here, I'm sure he had the right of way. But a little common sense goes a long way.

Just about every close call I've ever had while bicycling in traffic involved someone turning left. In fact, [that one time I was hit], several years ago when I was bouncier, was by a woman who turned left into me. It seems that left-turning drivers are looking for oncoming cars and bicycles turn invisible. 

what's her face

She interviewed me, hired me, promoted me, then promoted me again - my boss from my job prior to me leaving to work at my current job. 

She'd been a good boss, I liked working for her, and I think it's safe to say she liked having me as an employee. I was a dietary supervisor at a full nursing facility where she was the dietary manager. Shortly before I left, she'd left for an administrative position at a largish senior living facility.

When I applied for my current job at the college, she served as a key reference. We kept in touch for a while after going our separate ways, but that died off as such things tend to do.

I've been working at the college for a little over two and a half years now. Yesterday, I got into work, looked over the list of people scheduled to come in for testing, and a certain name caught my eye. It was the same name as that former boss.

"Is it her?", I wondered. Her name is not particularly unique, but she spells her first name slightly different than is typical. 

Sure enough, PB (previous boss) came a-walkin' in at the appointed time. I recognized her by her hair and voice - which may sound funny, but when we worked together, we were deep in the throes of the covid pandemic, at a nursing facility no less.

Meaning, we were always fully masked and often moreso. I sometimes saw the faces from afar of coworkers as we took our socially distanced lunch breaks together. But the boss didn't eat lunch with us. I'd never actually seen her whole face and vice versa.

So, she came in yesterday, and I was all,

"Hey, I wondered if that was you on our roster!"

And she was all *as I imagine from the look on her unfamiliar whole face* "who the hell are you and why are you talking to me like that?", not to be fully attributed to test anxiety.

Pandemic Abby

I stated my name and the place we used to work, THEN she remembered me. We acknowledged the whole mask thing.

I recall one time I went in to speak with her about something on a day off, and she marveled at how different I looked. Although I was still masked, I wasn't wearing my hair band.

So, I see why I was so unrecognizable yesterday - no mask, no hair band - just out there, free range, spreading and absorbing whatever's in the air with my whole face.

And honestly, if I hadn't seen her name, I doubt I would've have recognized her either.

hi ho

Big, wet snowflakes are falling outside my window. Looks like it's gonna be a bus-to-work day. This image showed up in my fbook feed today - from my hometown's history:

Just a little reminder how posh most of us have it today.

We had a fire drill at the college this week. Thankfully, that day, it was relatively warm and sunny out. We had to scoot all of the people who were testing out to the gathering spot. 

Now, staff was given word of this drill several weeks ago so as to plan accordingly. We happened to have several students from one particular class taking an exam at the time. Later, their teacher emailed us, concerned about the students being able to collaborate during the fire drill "break", stating, "I thought the testing center was exempt".

Uhm, well, no. Fire drills are to be treated like the real thing for EVERYBODY, not surprisingly. We told the instructor that we were out there with her students, while not burning, and they behaved themselves, mumbling under our breath how she shouldn't schedule a large exam during a planned fire drill.

Left feeling rather underappreciated once again, I can now look at those early coal miners from my weird little hometown and realize I've got it pretty good.

cows and foodies

I have a super foggy, super vague memory of meeting Elsie the cow "in-person". Anyone familiar with Elsie? She was the real-life cow mascot of Borden dairy back in the day. Apparently, she toured.

I seem to have been enamored with Elsie at a very young age, and I'm not sure if the enamoredness happened before I met her or after. So I can't say how it began, but I do know I had an Elsie the cow plush toy for a number of years - probably a souvenir from our fateful meeting. God only knows what became of that plush toy. I just remember she MOOO-ed when tipped. Cow tipping, ha!

*On a side note, cow-tipping is not a real thing. I think I blogged about my failed attempt at it previously...*

Anyway, my bff Elsie is likely the reason I stopped eating beef several years ago. This week, I finally got 'round to trying rice "milk" as a substitute for cow's milk, and by George, I can do it. Now... about that cheese...

Somewhat related, we got around to watching "The Menu" this weekend. Seen it? I enjoyed it, i.e. I didn't fall asleep.

It makes fun of prententious "foodies". I confess to enjoy watching behind-the-scenes videos of fancy pants restaurants I will likely never visit, and that interest is more from my days as a kitchen worker myself - one of the "shit shovelers" (reference from the movie), rather than a patron. "The Menu" clearly makes the we-vs.-them distinction.

I thought the movie was well done and well cast. Can Anya Taylor-Joy act badly in any role?

So, that's about it for this week's accomplishments: I scored a minor win in fighting my bovine oppression and stayed awake throughout an entire movie.

I also sketched a frog recently in an attempt to awaken my drawing slump since the end of Inktober.

police burritos and clueless exes

Winter Bike-to-Work day was yesterday. Does your city celebrate? Do you?

I had the day off, Magnum works from home, so... figured we might as well bIkE tO wOrK.

Temperatures were in the upper 20's, no real wind, so it felt right. We should be a little chilly for WBTW for it to count. Although there were several stations around town, we only made one stop at the university campus which sported one stop shopping for a variety of stations. 

Two local restaurants battled it out for best sweet roll, one of our fave coffee shops provided gallons of warm caffeine, the city police dished out what were surprisingly good breakfast burritos, and other goodies.

As expected, it's not as big of a deal or turnout as summer bike-to-work. I sent this photo to my boss to rub in the fact that I was at bike-to-work while he and coworkers were just at work.

They promptly replied with their sweet roll/ burrito/ coffee/ juice orders.

Later in the day, I had a haircut appointment. Recall that from my last appointment, my stylist informed me of another stylist's unexpected death. Welp, the plot thickens.

The woman who died has a sister who is a stylist at the salon as well. The sister was working the chair next to me. She and my stylist filled us in that the other stylist was going through a divorce when she died. Her soon-to-be-ex returned to the house and took EVERYthing. 

Although separated, they were still married at the time of death, so I guess it's rightfully his barring any legal documentation saying otherwise? The sister stylist says she mainly wants her mother's jewelry. He took the mother's jewelry!

...PLUS, he still comes around wanting free haircuts. Of course he does. 

no escribas

I had to open my own blog to see how long since I last posted anything. Okay, one week, not too much of  a slacking? 

It's been a busy time, but should now quiet to a gentle roar. My tutor boss at the college opened up for semester requests, and my schedule became instantly filled. I told her I'd take up to 5 students for the semester, and they usually trickle in, but this time, it was like flood gates opening. Whoosh, 5 in the inbox. After the frenzy of figuring out everyone's schedules, we can get down to business. Plus, I'd taken on a couple of high schoolers in the meantime, so they should all keep me occupied. 

The testing center runs hot and cold. We were swamped busy on Monday, and yesterday was lots of downtime. I spent a good portion of the day putting stickers on a new batch of test booklets for Spanish speakers ala, "NO ESCRIBAS EN EL LIBRO" That's about the extent of my bilingualism.

Mango, our recently hired assistant boss, usually rides the bus to work. She's a fresh university grad and said that people on the bus often ask her what she's studying at the college. She explains that she's not a student but a staffer, so this is inevitably followed by them asking what she does.

This got my coworkers and I pondering our actual job title - what it says in the staff directory and on our nametags anyways: Professional Tester. 

Kinda confusing, sounds like we take tests for money, which is, in most cases, illegal. 

In other news, I'm back to the running. The physical therapy, including the dry needling, seems to be helping and I've been out running around again. Not quite race ready, but it's coming along nicely. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as laying on a table getting needles stuck into various places. I have to do a gamut of exercises as well.

Doctor PT just welcomed a new baby and mentioned he was thinking of signing up for a "big" race to help him keep the running motivation during this life change. Next thing, he's suggesting that I sign up for a 30k trail race. 

What? No! What...? 

In a weird way, that sounds kinda fun and awful at the same time.