adventure - party - carnage

Some catching up to do, it seems.

Been out having little adventures, this morning's featured road side blood and gore, but more on that later.

• On Friday, Magnum and I headed out for a commune with nature and hiked up to the summit of Arthur's Rock, a popular local hike.  I'd been up there once before with work friends, and Magnum wanted to give it a go with the aid of his new trekking poles. So off on our Arthurian quest we went. 

Magnum and the trekking poles, along with myself, made it to the summit and back. 

I highly recommend this invigorating hike. The summit rewards us with captivating eastward facing views where one (with super dooper vision) can nearly make out the cornfields of Nebraska.

Acrophobe me, hanging on for dear life

• Yesterday, we attended a large-ish family gathering to help Magnum's 90-year-old stepfather celebrate being 90 years old.

I grabbed a portion of one of the "Grandpa-D-with-all-the-grandkids" photos as it happened that our three contributions to the grandkid brood were right next to the man of honor. The landscape versions of the mass of grandkid humanity photos are much larger.

That's my MIL between Meego and Chaco, Grandpa D next to Wolfgang.

We each were supplied nametags with our "titles", i.e. "Abby - daughter-in-law" which made life easier at such a large gathering.

• This morning, Magnum and I headed out for a pleasant bike ride. Nothing strenuous, just meandering around our friendly town. We were rolling down a particularly picturesque street, me slightly in front, when I hear much scuffling from behind. 

I eventually looked around to see the end of Magnum's lengthy crash, he and his bicycle laying on their left sides.

The thing what happened: he was drinking from his water bottle, held in his right hand, as we approached an intersection. Upon noticing a truck approaching from our right, he instinctively grabbed his left-hand brake lever, which so happens to be the front brake. This caused his front tire to do a little hurky-doo, and the rest is self explanatory.

We assessed and briefly convalesced under the delightful shade of happy trees lining this particularly amiable street. It would've been a perfectly excellent little place of recess if not for all the blood and gore.

I whipped out my handy first-aid kit I always have with me while bike riding, almost happy for the justification to use it. It was reminiscent of that incident during my lunch lady days when young Mitch splashed nasty cleanser into his eyes, and I got to use the eye wash station for reals.

"I can fix this!", I told Magnum as I rifled through my little IFAK 

"Mammals are pretty much all the same except for the number of tits!", a line from a show we recently watched - quoting a veterinarian coming to the aid of her freshly stabbed wife.

For the record, I cannot fix a fresh stabbing, but a little bike crash road hash, oh yes.

something strange in your neighborhood

It makes sense that we call the current season "Fall".  I totally get it now.  

I was out enjoying a lovely run this morning, before sunrise.  Best time of day, right?  The trees and their ancestors cohorted to take me out.

I was loping along this particular section of sidewalk, a particular section I've walked and jogged many a time before.  But the trees, they had it in for me 

The lovely sidewalk in the friendly daylight

It was early morning, it was dark.  There are streetlights interspersed along the road, but those Ash trees are so good and providing shade...

Then there's the friendly fences that create a nice boundary between the public and private properties.  The trees talked to the fence... or the fence talked to the trees.  I dunno, but whoever's idea it was, I bit it.

I was moving along my merry way down the sidewalk, had entered the under-canopy of those tree friends.  I could make my way just fine in the temporary darkness.  Then,

wham-blam! (or something like that).  I was on the ground.

Realizing I was no longer upright, I sought the reason.  Oh fine, a slat from a section of fence had broken free and landed crosswise in the sidewalk.  A ghost of trees past, it's the only explanation.  My knobby knees and knobby shoulder we're its main victims.

In the end, no real harm done.  Coupla skinned knees, little shoulder abrasion, and a slightly tweaked rib near my right boob/underarm (heaven knows I've not got a lot of padding in that particular region). I got up and finished runnin' the route and took the "poor me" photo of the knee wounds when I got home.  

Have a nice trip, see ya next fall!

Coulda been a lot worse... as in... so glad no one saw me.

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

6. Write about a time you thought there was a ghost.

what I did at summer camp

It's probably been around 30 years since I was last in Winter Park, Colorado.   Well, before this week anyways.  We just got back from a few days in the mountains, and I didn't turn on a computer the whole time.  Miss me?  Even notice I was gone?

We planned a family trip several weeks ago, and the stars actually aligned so that all five of us could hang out.  So I've been in and out of a mountain cabin for the last few days.  I'd like to say we enjoyed fresh air and sunshine, but various big wildfires out-performed the fresh air part.  Plenty of sunshine, though!

Obligatory sitting-around-on-vacation pic:

Don't mind the small blemish on my left shin.  I did a much better job on the right shin when we spent the day at Trestle Bike Park.  Trestle is a mountain bike resort with miles and miles of mountain bike trails.  The nice part is, you can ride a gondola to the top, so you're mostly riding your bike DOWNhill.  Weeeeeeeeeee!

Wolfgang is the most experienced mountain biker of the bunch and has been to Trestle before.  The rest of us noobs got to experience it for the first time.  

Meego and whatsherface.  Who wore it better?

It's one thing to snap a pic at the base of the gondola, another thing to get back down the mountain.  Just call me "hashtag slow and awkward"!  Nonetheless, I've got to say, it was fun!  Magnum and I stuck with repeatedly riding on one green trail in particular, aptly named "Green World".  It was great because it went for miles and miles without getting too technical.   

One of Wolfgang's friends joined us on Trestle day, so those two did their thing on the more advanced trails.  Meego and Chaco hung out with Magnum and me for a bit, but pretty much left us in the dust and did their own thing.  

And it wouldn't be a noteworthy day at the bike park without some body damage, right?  Meego was the first of us to do an over-the-handlebars move resulting in a bit of road hash and some bike blemishes.  But he was back to it in true 20-year-old fashion.  

Later on, Magnum hit a highly technical berm and ended up flying off the bike (translation:  he tripped exiting the gondola)

Finally, I attempted a particularly gnarly feature, and ended up sending it off the trail and into the foliage (translation:  I pulled my slow @ss over to let an adolescent pass me, and ended up dumping my bike).

Successful first trip to the bike park!

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

4. Write a blog post inspired by the word: damage

toilets, leaking snot, and some more ink

A few weekends ago, my P.E.O. chapter threw a highly successful wine and cheese social/fundraiser/auction.  It was a good bash with good food and wines, and we made double what we made last year.  I've got a hankering for cheese and wine as I type...

As publisher of our newsletter last month, I had intended to include a few photos of the shindig.  Guess who forgot to take any photos 😑.

Typical.  

So  I emailed all of the members who were in attendance, asking if any of them snagged some shots.  Nope.  Not a one.  Well, we just chalked it up to having too  much fun wining and cheesing and auctioning to snap photos.  

Similarly, this past weekend, Magnum and I went up to college town to visit with Wolfgang and Meego.  Chaco even joined us for a while on Sunday.  Photos of our activities?  Nope.

This was the only shot I got of our weekend away.  Yes, it's of our hotel bathroom:

I snapped it because I thought I'd record the strange layout.  See, I'm not a "statuesque" woman, but I'm also not a shorty.  At 5'5", I'm pretty average, with probably longer than average arms.  Gotta say, that toilet paper roll was quite a stretch.

So there, that's my weekend in pictures.

Actually, we had a nice time.  Weather was perfect.  College town has so many good restaurants and breweries.  It's a good thing it's rated platinum for bicycling, or several residents (and visitors) would be obese.

I did manage to stick to my vegetarian ways.  There is much more to the veggie life than salad.

My overall caloric intake was also probably helped by the fact that my mouth is still recovering from my tooth excavation of last week, so I ate more daintily than typical.  That portabello mushroom sammich was just as delicious eaten with a fork, though.  Wish I had a pic...

The oral surgeon told me I may get water in my nose when I drink or may have blood in my nose from the tooth hole since my sinus has a hole in it now, too.  He did not mention that snot would continuously seep into my mouth from the tooth hole, but that's been a LoVelY side effect as well that makes total sense.  It's still allergy season for me, and it's like my allergies know I have a tooth hole to have fun with.

Okay, this post has become way too much about toilets and TP and draining snot through tooth holes...

The other random update is that I've somehow managed to keep my head above water on the Inktober challenge of 2019.  I have to remind myself that it's not about being perfect or even great, just about touching pen to paper every day, so there's that.  Here are the latest.

Wolfgang is also participating, and it's fun to see his submissions.  He has fallen a bit behind, and that's because he clearly has more of a life than I do.

where's the tooth fairy when you need her?

Yesterday, it was sunny and nearly 80 degrees as I was gallivanting on my bicycle for some excuse or other.  The main excuse was that I knew today would suck.  I checked the weather app this morning and wasn't surprised

It's yucky outside as I type.  Winter is... here?

But enough small talk about the weather.  It's been another busy and productive week, and I'm a bit grateful for some weather induced downtime.  For one, I got that cursed tooth removed yesterday afternoon.

And for all the trouble it gave me in the past 6 months or so, that tooth wasn't happy about leaving.  The oral surgeon was a pleasant man with nice chair-side manner.  But when push came to shove, he pushed and shoved and drilled and twisted and drilled some more and pushed and... well, you get the idea.

Now, here I sit in recovery with a big gaping hole in my head, but I'm glad that sick tooth is no more.  Dr. had to dig up into my sinus to get all the roots out, so the sinus feels weird and needs to heal up too. Among other things, I'm not allowed to

• blow my nose
• play a wind instrument
• blow up balloons

for at least two weeks.  Darn, there go my clown plans.

The avoidance of wind instruments and balloons is pretty easy to abide, but I keep thinking of how nice it would be to blow my nose like a real person.

When under such limitations, however, I think of my friend, Bunny.  A few years ago, Bunny had carpel tunnel surgery on both wrists at the same time.  She wasn't able to use her hands for two weeks afterward, so her husband was her hands for her during that time.

Think for a minute of all the things you do with your hands...

Yeah.

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Linking up with Mama Kat this week for the prompt:
3. Write a blog post inspired by the word: sick

you had a hold on me right from the start...

The prompt this week for Illustration Friday is "Fire".


I had a somewhat busy morning, followed by a blissfully unbusy afternoon













I was feeling sorry for myself because my boob rib hurts and my shoulder hurts from losing a fight with the ground yesterday while doing an extreme sport:  walking home from Kum & Go.

So I did ink and puppy therapy, and now I feel better.

How was your Monday?

Silver Liningness Sunday

Hello and happy Sunday!  Another week of good things down.

It started with Labor Day and working the marathon, which felt worthy and somewhat productive.  I met some nice volunteers and nice runners.  Especially at the later stages of the race, several runners who aren't too serious, stop to chat or just mosey on through the aid stations and seem happy for the human contact during such an arduous exercise.

I think Meego also enjoyed himself.  He's pretty easy to persuade for such things and strangely seems to like getting up early as long as there's purpose to it.  Otherwise, forget it!  The bike ride to the aid station was memorable as well.  It was a 4 mile ride in the dark with hardly another soul on our route. So quiet and crisp, with our bike lights a-flashing.  Pretty cool actually.

Speaking of bikes, Alice was creakily limping along and just not her usual graceful self.  It was a difficulty to diagnose problem, and after trying a few home remedies, I decided to take her into the shop.  All five of the service techs took turns riding her (there's a sentence!).  Eventually, we got her problem figured out and taken care of.

I'm grateful for a variety of things:  (1) this particular shop continues to give great service, (2) repair costs were very reasonable and (3) were done in just a few hours, (4) Alice is back to her awesome self, and (5) turns out it really wasn't something I could've fixed myself.  She now has a nice clean and tight new bottom bracket - the bicycle equivalent of a butt lift!

The bite from the vicious mongrel is healing nicely.  I have since been on two more morning runs and have not encountered "Fang" nor been bitten by anything else that has left a mark.

Oh, and the neighbor across the street, whom I don't really know but was carted off in an ambulance yesterday?  She's back home.  I still don't know what actually happened.  As is typical, though, they had friends over for the Bronco game today, so that was nice to see.

This afternoon I went out with the intention of cleaning out the weeds underneath the trampoline, which no one has used in a long time.  I asked Meego to help me move it, and we ended up disassembling the whole thing.  Not sure what to do with it, but will probably just scrap it since it's pretty old.  And the weeds are gone, yay.

The cat is probably upset, however.  This is where he liked to keep his cache of dead things...

I told Magnum that I was actually looking forward to mowing back there now that I don't have that pain-in-the-butt obstacle anymore.

Yeah, life is exciting here!



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wait, did that really just happen?

Okay, folks.  Labor Day has come and gone, summer is unofficially over, playtime is over, time to get serious!  That's the attitude I had as soon as I awoke this morning.

Okay, not really.  It was more like, "uhm... Tuesday?"

But eventually I got going, and it looked to be a glorious day.  I headed out for a lovely run in the early morning hours.  The air felt crisp and clean.  I felt well rested from the long weekend.  My shoo-gooed shoes were ready and willing.

And it was a very nice morning until... this thing.  This weird thing.  This thing what happened.

It was toward the end of my route, and I was approaching a woman and her two little dogs from behind.  They were standing at a corner, and I intended to turn on that corner.  I slowed to a walk since I figured they didn't know I was coming up behind them. I didn't want to startle anyone as I went passed, so I slowed to let them know I was there.

Clearly, that failed.

One little ragamuffin dog saw me before the human did and started to freak out.  This prompted the woman to reactively freak out and begin reigning in ragamuffin number one, who was on a surprisingly long retractable leash.

While all that was going on, ragamuffin dog number two reactively freaked out and came around from a different angle on a similarly surprisingly long retractable leash.  This all happened in about 2.76 seconds.

While the woman was distracted by ragamuffin number 1, ragamuffin number 2 took full advantage and came straight for my jugular!

Luckily, he was just a ragamuffin, so he only got this far:

It all happened so fast.  When RM2 came at me, I just bent down to say hello, let him smell my hand, all that jazz.  But he went right for the kill!  

I felt the sting on my thigh, and at first, thought he'd just scratched me with his claws.  The woman was apologizing profusely, and I, all strung out on endorphins, couldn't feel upset with her.  I assured her it was all fine, and I continued on my merry jaunt.

A few paces onward, I decided to look at my thigh, which so happened to be oozing a nice stream of blood.  I wiped at it with my hand, only to have the oozing stream replaced anew.  

I turned back to the woman and calmly (she was still kinda freaked) asked if her dogs were up-to-date on their rabies shots since one of them bit me and caused me to ooze.  She assured me they were.

That was it, I don't know if I should've interacted with her anymore.  I was about a mile from home, so I just ran on home to stop the ooze and get cleaned up. 

Moral of the story?

Don't trust those little ones.

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ouch

A simple chair. Purchased at Office Max I think. Steel with an upholstered back and seat.

It was a chair.

It was a chair in the middle of the room.

It was a chair in the middle of the dark room.

It was a chair in the middle of the dark room that doesn't normally have a chair in the middle of it.

I walked into the dark room with the chair in the middle of it that doesn't normally have a chair in the middle of it.

I walked into the chair.

I was wearing shorts.

Too bad I gave up cussing a while back.

Good thing I didn't give up throwing chairs.

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