Jacob and Marcia – Page 11 – Jacob and Marcia's corner of the web

Rules are meant to be followed

There are protection/safety/blessings in obeying the rules. From playing games to laws of the land. If you think about it, it may sound funny to think of “protection” in keeping the rules if you are say, five years old and playing Candy Land. Though, there is protection, if you cheat you are likely to be hit (or something similar) by your playmate(s). Sports, there is potential serious injury or death if any of the players thinks they do not have to keep the rules. If you cheat in school, you face bad grades or possible expulsion; often times this goes on your “permanent record” and makes it nearly impossible to get into another school. The basic ten commandments are there for our benefit. So, as we think about it, there really is safety in keeping the rules. This includes the high school track.

A friend and I walk in the mornings at the *high school track. Diana is my fifth (and longest enduring) walking partner in the three-ish years I have been doing this early morning practice. I have not always had a walking partner, but I find that while I do not like to be in a big group for exercise, it does help to have one other person that keeps mee going. Sometimes I can handle having a second person, any more than that, and I start to get a wee bit uncomfortable.

Back on topic, we get to the track fairly early, and over the years I have seen many people come and go. I see most people for less than two months. This summer however there are two ladies that have been on and off through the summer. We always greet each other. I have a story from this Wednesday morning. In this story I will refer to them as **OSL and ISL, standing for Out of Shape Lady and In-Shape Lady.

Well, Diana and I were walking and we were just past the middle of our second lap, and we heard a voice yell something at us, we did not understand the words, and we both asked, “What?” as I placed my hand up to cup my ear.
OSL: Could you let us have the inside lane!
Diana: There is no jogging on the inside lanes. There is a big sign posted.
OSL: We are just timing sprints!

I know she felt entitled to request this on Wednesday because they actually arrived a few minutes earlier than we did. ***Normally we are the first people on the track. Also, OSL and ISL had not been coming for the last three weeks. When they would go to the track, it was sporadic. Each time though they would give us dirty looks like they could not believe we wouldn’t move when we should know to get out of their way. OSL would grunt at us each time she passed by us and get as close to us as she could, and half of her dirty looks were the stink-eye. About five weeks ago (two before they took a three week break) ISL arrived after us, but still about five minutes before OSL. She did some stretches and then decided she would go over and read the posted track rules. She no longer gave us dirty looks or tried to make us uncomfortable with her body language. In fact, she would even politely greet us. It is amazing what knowing the rules can do. Here is a picture of the sign posted:

trackrules

Back to the story: if it were up to mee alone, we would have stayed put and continued walking in the inside lanes. However, Diana is a good person. She suggested to mee that we go ahead and allow them to jog (or sprint jog) in the inside lane. I didn’t want to. Because I am stubborn and it is a posted rule. Diana however, saw a potential lesson in it for OSL if we gave her the lanes after pointing out the rule. So we moved to a couple outer lanes.

The next time our paths crossed (we were walking the opposite direction from the one they were jogging) OSL yelled out “Thank you!” We chose not to respond, for a couple reasons. First being that by that point I was ****starting to feel a bit snarky, and my reply would not have been very polite. Second, I was not about to allow her to think I in any way approved of her actions. Thirdly, I did not want to give her the validation. This seemed to bother her, because the following time we crossed paths, she tried to thank us with more explanation as to why she was entitled to do what she wants.

If the rules were not posted (and if it was not common knowledge that joggers/runners leave the inside lanes for walkers on a track), and if she had not been giving us the stink-eye through out each encounter thus far in the summer…maybe, just maybe it would not bug mee so much. I think it would still bug mee, just not as much.

The other part of her *****sense of entitlement that really gets to mee is that she totally seems to think that she is so much more important and that it is okay for her to break the rules. And that she thinks nothing of requesting us (not a “please” escaped her mouth) to allow her to break the rules. And did she even consider our wanting to keep track of how far we walk? Why does she think we use the track, and everyday the same lanes? Does it not occur to her that we want to walk a certain distance, and by making us switch lanes mid walk, we no longer have an accurate measuring of the distance?

No, it does not matter to her (or any one else who lives in entitlement-land) what the needs or wants of other individuals may be.

I guess that is why I like/appreciate rules. They are just what they claim to be. Following rules keeps us in check, and helps us not step on others’ toes. What a less thoughtless world this would be (or at least appear to be) if we would all follow the rules out there, and stop looking for ways that they apply to everyone but ourselves.

Jacob suggested that perhaps she may be the bumper sticker driver from here.

* School starts this next week, and we don’t want to have to get up as early as we would have to in order to be off the track so as to not be there after the school day has begun (last year we did it), so we will have to move our walking to the university track, or walk laps around the town square.

** This reference is only to her inability to breathe as she runs/jogs. She is a fairly small person, she just breathes really hard as she goes around the track, and looks as if she will pass out from exhaustion, doubled over at the end of each lap. She might be able to breathe better if she would just drink some water and get her mouth/throat wet.

***While some days there may be other individuals who arrive earlier than us, we have always been there earlier than these two.

**** Oh we all know I was snarky feeling as soon as she demanded we give her permission to break the rules.

*****Really any person’s sense of entitlement bugs mee. You don’t get things just because. You can’t go around demanding things and still have friends (at least not friends that like you).

Belly shot (not that kind)

Here I am this evening at 24 weeks.

24weeksbelly

You can’t really see it in this picture, but I am wearing my rubber chicken earrings.

FAQs

Q: How are you feeling?

A: Hungry. Tired. Gotta pee. So mostly good! (However, not as tired as I once was.)

Q: How many weeks are you?

A: Today marks 24 weeks (LMP) however, gestationally 22 weeks. It is weird, and can be confusing. LMP stands for last menstrual period. Ovulation, and therefore conception does not occur for (an average of) two weeks after that. So while we are told that we are at 24 weeks, Copyright has only been in there for 22 weeks.

Q: Have you felt the baby move/kick?

A: Yes, yes I have. I thought I was feeling something for a while, and then because I have never been through this before, I was doubting what I was feeling. And then what I felt was more obvious at 21 1/2 weeks. A few days later I was trying to hear for a heart beat with the stethoscope, and must have been crowding little Copyright, because there was a strong movement that pushed the stethoscope over. A week later I was able to place Jacob’s hand on my abdomen and He was able to feel baby movements. There have been stronger and more movements in the short weeks that followed. When I lay down, we can see movements with our eyes. We try to use the stethoscope to listen for the heartbeat, but we are not as skilled at that. We do have a thing-basically an electronic stethoscope-and we heard the “whooshing” that is Copyright’s heart and last night I decided that we should try again, and we heard the heartbeat pretty strongly. This time it was more like the thumping of my heart, and less like the whooshing from before, however we know it was not mine, because we could still hear my heartbeat as well. So that was pretty neat.

A: Well, this baby is uniquely made from us, and so the “copyright” part. And this baby was started and will be born in 2010. And we felt that we wanted a “name” so we are not always calling the baby “the baby” or “it” or “he or she.”

Q: How many are in there?

A: We are assuming there is only one in there. We will find out for sure next week. This is also the appointment that we will learn if we are getting a he or a she. Also, the dreaded glucose testing appointment.

There is hope for this world yet

I was running some errands, and needed to get some salsa. Jacob loves salsa and we were out of it. I went to get the White Corn and Black Bean salsa because he likes it. Today, it was on the top shelf, and pushed all the way back. I am short. I stood on the tips of my toes, and reached. I could not even touch a jar. So I took a few steps back to survey the scene. Would the bottom shelf or two be sturdy enough to hold mee? How much would I get hurt if it would not hold mee? Does Jacob really need salsa?

At this point another shopper man came over and asked if I would like some assistance. I admitted it would be great. He got on his toes (also not that tall). Reached and pulled down the first jar he could get. It was covered in dried/sticky salsa. He offered to get mee a clean one. I appreciate that even people who don’t know mee also want clean products. He asked if there was anything else I needed. I told him there was not and thanked him. The teenage boy with him was “patient,” his body language indicated that this is a regular occurrence with his dad(?). It made mee tear up as I walked on to find bread. They were happy tears. I am so glad to know that people are still willing to help a person they do not know, and (at least by example) are teaching the next generation how to be kind to others.

Thank you kind sir, you are a gentleman!

Dear gum-chewer-lady

I walked away because I almost vomited on the toothbrush display. I am pleased that you were showing interest in oral hygiene (next let’s work on showers, please) however, chewing gum just won’t help your efforts. Though, the part that made me walk away was the fact that you were chewing loudly. I thought a cow had walked up to mee and was masticating very wet cud. The mental image I had before I looked over was of a nasty puree of grass and mucus spilling out onto the floor. While I was relieved to discover that they did not allow a cow in the store to purchase toothbrushes, it was slightly more disturbing that a human was making the sound. Please learn to 1) chew gum (and I suspect all your food) so that it does not sound as if it would fall out of your mouth at any moment, and 2) chew with your mouth closed-this, even if you keep chewing in the same style, will keep the rest of the world from hearing the sloshing inside your mouth, and frankly we don’t want to see what is in there either.

Sincerely,

mee

P.S. Are you the same person we saw the other day who has bumper stickers that read, “Why am I the only one on this planet that knows how to drive” and “My future’s so bright I need sunglasses” and then blew through a stop sign only to follow 2-3 feet behind a car in the left lane and then make a right turn with no use of turn signal (or lane change)? -m

23 down 17 to go

…approximately.

So here are some pictures, mostly for my own documenting purposes. And some of you don’t see mee very often, and for those that have been around for the gradual changes, here is a more distinct view.

On 14 April 2010 I decided I would take a few pictures before I started growing my belly very much. At that time I was only 7 weeks (lmp) along and was not close to showing outwardly what was happening inwardly.

20100414 a 20100414 b

These next two are blurry, I was not really very focused myself when I took them. I felt kind of silly since there was no progress to record. But the first here is the most side-ways shot I got. The second I just felt good in that one since I had not really gotten a shot of how I looked after losing all that weight last year.

20100414 c 20100414 d

I had this grand idea to take a picture once a week and then I could compare week to week. If I had started it four weeks earlier (we knew close to the day that Copyright came to be) I might have really tried to stick to the plan. But I had not been taking weekly pictures, and life got a little crazy. And I figured that I would start to take pictures when I started to notice a difference, the next thing I know I was hanging out with some family and one of the nieces was leaning her head into mee and I looked down and did not see her head. It occurred to mee in that moment, I missed the point when I started showing (I did take a picture of that view, though I have to search through lots of pictures to find it to post).

The next picture shoot I did was this afternoon. 16 weeks later. What a slacker (in pictures, I have been sewing and doing other stuff like crazy). The next picture is a side by side of “7 weeks” and “23 weeks” in the same clothes.

20100810 sidebyside

Now for more comfortable clothes.

20100810 hoy

And lest anyone think I am not excited (cause really it is fun to see the belly grow-in this way).

20100810 happy

Frizzy hair and all-I know many of you think it is because of the humidity, it is not so with my hair. My hair does well in humidity, my hair gets frizzy when the air is dry-the air-conditioner is on and I had been in that all day.

I want them to go faster and louder

Almost a month ago (July 6-8) we had our first house guests in our new home. They are such fun three (and-a-half) year olds. I think they left wanting more. Which means they will be happy to come stay again!

They arrived and I showed them where to find the toy box in this house, and we had our was-a-stove-box-converted-house ready for them to play in. G3 said, “We love ours house in yours house, Marcia!” Yay a successful play-house.

Here is a picture of them playing with the toys from the toy box, the hand-cuffs are from our Halloween costumes when we were prisoners. (We keep the other set out of reach of children, thank you very much.) At some point during this playtime, G2 told us, “Daddy smokes. I like him smoking.” Her daddy does not smoke.

First item on the schedule was to get in the car and travel to a drum corps show. G3 fell asleep in the car before we left town.

G2 said, “I am not going to sleep, I want to be awake.” I told her that was fine.

Then not ten minutes later she did not answer when I asked her a question, and this is what I saw.

It was raining when we got to the show location, and we were hoping that it would have stopped, so while the girls and I sat in the car and ate the food we brought, Jacob went to see if the show was going to be cancelled or moved indoors. (We had already purchased our tickets.) The answer was that it looked like the rain would stop soon, and we would wait and the show would just be delayed a bit. So, we went in and waited under the shelter of the bleachers. We had to entertain ourselves. Only when making this post did I notice the sunglasses; I did not see them like that when this was taken.

G3 helped G2 fix her skirt (which is a very cute skirt, btw).

They found drips coming from empty rivet holes.

G3 wanted her picture taken too. And just so you know, that is not a tear under her eye, it is a water drop.

Here is G3 sitting on Jacob’s lap watching the show.

Here is G2 sitting on my lap watching the show. After a while, she wanted to switch places with G3 because 1) the guy in front of us was very VERY tall and 2) my lap was/is not as big as it used to be, she had to share with her unborn cousin.

Here is a picture of the first corps that performed. They won their category/class. And as a special treat that guy there in the front ensemble is/was one of Jacob’s pitt students. We are proud of Jason, he played good.

We enjoyed this pretty sunset over the performances. ( I just realized that could mean that we preferred the sunset, that is not what I intended to say.)

We had arrived right as the show was supposed to start, and we could not see the corps busses. We had brought a lot of fruit with us to donate to Jason’s corps and we did not want to take all that fruit home with us, lest it go to waste. So when the shows were all done we drove around and found where the corps buses were parked, and Jacob went in search of someone we could give the fruit to. This was after 10 pm and the girls were tired, but very well behaved. In fact, all the people that were sitting around us were very complimentary of how well they behaved and were impressed that they watched the shows. G2 at one point told mee that one of the corps was going too slow and needed to be faster and louder. Both girls were in awe of the flags (color guard). If there had been any souvenir flags they would have been able to go home with their very own flags. Fruit delivered, and we started our two-ish hour drive home. They fell asleep in the car pretty quickly.

The next morning while I was walking (the girls were still asleep when I left, but insisted that they go walk with mee the next morning) Jacob got pancakes going. After breakfast, the girls took a BUBBLE BATH in my “tiny tub.”

While they were in the tub, their happy-things took a bath too. A very much so needed bath. Don’t tell Ronda that I let them have Happys with them at the drum corps show, but I did and they dropped them a number of times in the rain puddles, and may or may not have dropped them on the floor in the (public) bathroom when they took turns before getting back in the car to head home. Once it was clean, G3 told mee that she was unable to chew on her happy because it was clean. She makes me laugh!

After the bath they wanted to watch a movie in “ours house in yours house.” (Jacob thinks it is funny that the first thing they did when they started playing with the house was to find the object that was too big and try to get it in the door! We all do it at least once with our own homes, right?)

What did they watch? “Mahana you ugly, get down from that tree!” “Do you want Johnny Lingo to see what a disobedient daughter you are?”

They watched all but the last 3ish minutes of the movie. Then on to another activity.

I let them paint their own nails with what ever color(s) they wanted. They had fun. G3, “Boys can’t paint theirs nails!”

G3 first picture, G2 second picture. (In case you couldn’t have figured it out by the colors they chose.) I offered to paint G2’s right thumb nail, but she insisted she did not want that one painted. Well, okay then.

Lunch time, they asked if I would make them oatmeal, because G3 told mee, “Oatmeal is ours favorite food.”

G2 had her apple slices and cheese all lined up-I suspect we are related.

G2 right at the end of lunch told mee, “Marcia, I am tired, I want to lay down.” I gave her permission, and G3 followed her in and five minutes or so later they were out. About three and a half hours later they were still sleeping, and this is what we saw.

Somehow G2 turned into Dora. They slept for about four hours and 15-30 minutes. I guess we did a good job of keeping them entertained. When they woke up they stayed in there talking for a few minutes and then came out and asked if they could have another bubble bath! I would have let them if we weren’t headed out the door. We went over to Jacob’s parents’ house and they had a lot of fun pillow fighting with the adults. I wish I had taken pictures of that, or even video would have been great!

They went to bed, and before falling asleep double checked with mee that they can walk with mee in the morning with my friend, right?

They walked a mile with us before sitting on the track playing.

I let them take another bubble bath. They loved that, maybe for a birthday or something they need bubble bath soap. While making stacks of toys that I let them use in the tub, I heard G2 say to G3, “G3 do you know I love you, you is my best friend. Don’t put that on mine!” They got out of the tub just in time to start playing when Grammy, Ronda, G1, and G4 arrived to pick them up. We all had lunch and then they went on their way.

We really had fun having the girls here, maybe it can become a sort of tradition? What think you?

The post you have all been waiting for (well, some of you)

Our last post indicated that we were working on securing a mortgage. We did it!!! Hooray for us!! And (finally) thank you taxes! We qualified for the first time homebuyer’s tax credit. We have a home to call our own, we are very excited about this.

Monday the 14th of June (Miss Emily’s birthday) we closed circa 2:45pm (when all was signed and done). We walked straight over to the post office to mail out our “address change” cards to many people. This is why we asked for any addresses if people wanted one…. This is what it looks like:

annhousepageone

Okay, so it looked a bit different, because on what we mailed out had our actual address. However as previously stated, we are not posting our address on here. If you need/want our address, we can email it to you, but only if you ask, otherwise we don’t know we need to get it to you, and if we do not have your address you are responsible for getting it to us.

And for those who were/are unaware that there is a second page to the card, this is what it contains (unaltered):

annhousepagetwo

So there you have it folks!!! We are very excited and (as one of us likes to put it ) “a little bit terrified.”

It was kind of a sneaky maneuver to announce our news this way. Especially since I (Marcia) went camping with our young women for the rest of the week. We acknowledge that. We had good reason for it though. Originally we had set the closing date for when I was going to be camping, as soon as we realized that, we changed it for the day before I left. We also wanted to be sure that we had everything finished with purchasing the house before we announced the pending arrival of Copyright 2010. (And just because I want to explain my taking so long in making this post) We have been packing/unpacking/moving/cleaning/etc for the last half of June, and only this morning did we finally get around to setting up my computer. There, I said it, and I feel justified! And I am pregnant, so don’t make mee cry.

? ? ? F A Q ? ? ?

We get asked many questions with both of these big events happening in our lives. We have decided to do an FAQ (frequently asked questions) list:

Q: When are you going to move?

A: We have moved all of our belongings out of the house we rented and into our new house. We had our family help us. This process was started while I was at camp. I thought that was good timing, and because I have not been too incredibly useful, I figured it would work out better if I could just pack and have as much ready before hand and let them work while I was out of town.

Q: Are you all moved in?

A: That is a tricky question. All of our stuff is in the house, however much of it is still in boxes. We have been sleeping here and unpacking. I would not say we are “moved in” yet, I am not sure what the true definition would be for us to be in that state. Though because most of the boxes are in Copyright’s room, we have to be un-packed enough by the time December comes around.

Q: When can I come see your house?

A: Never, the date is past. We held an Open “empty” House the evening we closed. So I am partly kidding about the “never” part. We will not be holding another “open house” and we do request that if people want to come see it, that they set up an appointment (I hate the Tuesdays), so as to allow us to be home, and hopefully a little more moved in. We are after all living here now. Be considerate about it.

Q: How much work do you have to do on the house? (Also stated as: now you get to have fun fixing up the house)

A: Actually we don’t have to do any work on the house other than unpacking. We did have to get a fridge, stove, washer/dryer, and that is about it. The good people we bought it from gutted the house and made it like new with new cabinets, paint, toilets, roof, plumbing, wiring, everything really! We did get to pick out the carpet for the living room and flooring for the kitchen and bathroom.

That said, there is a detached garage with apartment space above it that needs quite a bit of work before it’s really useful, so that will be fun, but it isn’t something we have to do before we can live here.

Q: Did you buy the house because you are having a baby?

A: No we are having a baby because we now have a house. Joking. We pretty much decided to buy the house before we knew about being pregnant. This is a house we saw about a year and a half ago when it was in foreclosure, we loved it, we talked to the bank about making an offer. Then we were told some one else made an offer and that offer was accepted. Some months later (just over a year ago) we were presented with the opportunity to buy the same house, and it had been “gutted” and was in progress of being fixed up (when it was in foreclosure, the people trashed the house, on top of apparently not taking good care of it at all anyhow). We thought it over and agonized and had to turn down that offer. We did not feel like we could live in a “construction zone.” Earlier this year as Jacob was at the university in his office, he had a visitor and we were again offered the house, this time all the work would be finished and it would be move-in ready. We verbally expressed interest February, talked over details in March, signed a contract in April, and closed in June. We knew about the baby in March and test confirmed in April.

Q: I thought you never wanted to have children. (not really a question, and mostly directed at Jacob)

A: All bark and no bite. He claimed that until it happened he reserved the right to say that. In reality, we are very excited. And of course there is a bit of anxiety in the unknown. Will our baby be cute? Who will the baby look like? When do they toilet train? They don’t already know how to tie shoes? Things like that. However any person that said that to mee, doesn’t really know mee.

Q: When is the due date?

A: December 2010. Doctor’s office says the 7^th based on LMP. I say the 6^th based on ovulation.

Q: Is that a really sonogram or is it photoshopped?

A: It is really a picture from my uterus. Should it really be called a picture, it is an image created by sound waves aimed at my uterus.

Q: Are you having a boy or a girl?

A: We don’t know for sure. Based on biology and time and the moon and the stars aligning and the atmospheric pressure we suspect it will be a girl. However we have to wait about ten more weeks before my doctor will check it out.

Q: What do you want to have? (generally this immediately follows the last question)

A: A healthy human baby. I know they mean sex of the baby. Really though, I will be happy as long as everything goes well. I would love a son or a daughter. I would definitely be disappointed if it was not human.

Q: Do you want to find out the sex of the baby? (a number of people say gender, however there is a very important difference in the words, and for some odd reason it falls under my pet peeves category-sex is male or female, gender is masculine or feminine)

A: I would be okay with either knowing or being surprised, a surprise could be fun, though so could knowing and planning. Jacob wants to know. We will find out if we can. We really are planners and like to be prepared.

Q: Have you been sick at all? (directed at mee since no one suspected, except in hindsight, and we only told doctors and we were surprised at how people had finally stopped asking when we were going to have a baby)

A: Jacob responds with, “Have you not been sick at all?” I have had lots of not feeling well. I did really well with not vomiting, though there was lots of nausea, still is some, though not as constant. Then I got a sinus infection, drainage started and the vomiting commenced. I could probably win a contest for puking on command. Is there a super hero yet?

Q: Have you had any cravings?

A: Hmmm, cravings…. Not too many cravings. Mostly I have aversions. Sugar is the biggest offender at this time, unless it is counter balanced with other healthier foods. I can’t eat lettuce, and the vinegar in most condiments gives me issue. Yesterday I really wanted garlic bread, it was delicious to mee. One day I wanted potato chips (I don’t like potato chips, I like corn chips) in three flavors BBQ, Cheddar, French Onion; I did not get them, but I could taste them in my mind, and I wanted them. Early on I had a strong craving for Chef Boyardee canned ravioli; that stuff is nasty and I refused to listen to that craving.

Q: Are you (or “you are”) going to have fun shopping for maternity clothes?

A: If I liked shopping maybe that would be appealing. However I am short and it has never been fun to shop for clothes, for mee. Also, last year I lost over 60 pounds, and I did not get rid of those clothes (I know you are never supposed to keep “fat clothes” but I did). And there were some of those clothes that I like, and frankly I don’t want to spend money on temporary clothes. And there is the fact that we now have a mortgage to pay, and I don’t think there is a shopping spree in the future of our budget.

If we remember (or any other questions start to come up) other questions we get asked we will answer them.

We are so excited

So, yesterday was a big day for us. We were able to secure more “stuff” aka paperwork, exchange money for goods, etc. in order to be able to own a mortgage. Yay for us!

We (Jacob joined mee last night) went to Wally World again and obtained two more carts full of boxes. We went some time after midnight, and the really good boxes appear for availability around 1a.m. (so I guess it could be considered this morning).

We have been married for just over three and a half years, and have many times tried to set a scripture study habit. We have tried to read from front to back, to have a different topic each day of the week, to do some other things that did not prove to be keep-ables. However yesterday, we finished reading the Book of Mormon, in its entirety, together!!! The strategy this time, was that I wrote (actually I typed it on the computer and printed it out) each chapter and had them in a jar, that we have been drawing at random for each day, sometimes more than one chapter if it happens to be quite short. Honestly, it has been very fun to go about it this way. We already have studied all the stories in there through out our lives, and so as we have been reading this way we end up jumping all over the place. This keeps all the stories fresher in our minds. And as an added bonus, we had the privilege a few weeks ago to attend the annual Seminary Vs Bishopric Scripture Bowl. There is a Jeopardy style portion and a match the scripture with the content portion (for the first time in 10 or so years, the bishopric beat the youth in the jeopardy portion, though they youth won big time with the memory portion). Anydangways, the point of telling about that event is that as we watched them, it seemed as though we had “just read that story” about each of the stories! It was a really nice feeling.

And totally not from yesterday, but a few weeks ago…. A bit of back story. We have two cars. We only drive one car. We have had the other car on the donut for a number of months, because we needed to buy a new tire. Then another tire when flat. And the battery probably needs replacing. And some other thing that makes us “afraid” to drive it out of town, or over 35-40 mph else-ways a couple wheels may fall off. So, it is sitting on the donut, and the wheel with the flat tire that needs replacing, has been leaning upside the porch. One day I went out to do something, and noticed that it was gone, and there was no plant life growing in its place just yet, so it was a fresh disappearance. This morning I wanted to use my hand trowel thing, and it was no where to be seen. I had suspected it missing when the wheel went, though I did not look for it until today when I wanted to use it. Now we are left with two questions: How do we (or even just “do we”) buy a new wheel? and Who steals a wheel and a trowel? All I can figure is that some one must have had a greater need for it than us. And If you see a new plant display in a Honda wheel…well, if I see one, I will laugh. I think we have been laughing about it too much to find a way to be upset over it.

Bike Race

Years ago, we were in Burlington visiting family, and as we were leaving town I saw a big banner stretched across a highway overpass advertising the Memorial Day Weekend BIke Races in and around Burlington. I looked up the event online, and decided that someday I wanted to compete in the Wapello-Burlington road race. Yesterday was that day. Here’s how it went down:

We arrived in Wapello a couple hours early and checked in at registration, where they gave me an envelope with a whole bunch of numbers to pin on the jersey and one to put on the bike. Skinny guys like me had a hard time putting all the numbers on because there wasn’t that much jersey space! A nice guy named Josh who had parked next to us helped us get the numbers on just right.

I got the bike put together, made a couple of adjustments, and slowly warmed up. During the warmup laps I came across Josh again, and we went to the start together. After standing around in the sun (and then moving to the shade, and then back to the sun) for half an hour or so, the pro level racers came through town, and then our race started a few minutes later.

The start whistle blew and we rode a little ways as a “neutral” start, which is basically just everybody riding with no actual racing going on. Once we got outside of Wapello, the official on the motorcycle signaled that the race could begin, and immediately someone poured on the gas. I had started towards the back of the pack, but found myself right behind someone who jumped up to the front, so I just followed, and found myself in 3rd or 4th place very quickly.

At the front of the group, there were probably 6 or 7 guys who stretched out in a line, drafting off of each other, and took turns at the front. I took one “pull” (my turn at the front) for a minute or two until I started slowing down, and then backed off a bit and let a few people pass me and I got back in line. I was amazed at how long some of the guys could pull – one guy stayed at the front, holding pace, for probably 10 minutes!

Speaking of pace, I was astonished at how fast it was. I imagined the race would be a faster version of some of the group rides I take with friends around here, so I figured 22 or 23mph would be typical. Not so: As soon as the race really started, the bunch jumped up into the 28-30mph range and never really backed down. After the race I checked my speedometer to see what my top speed was, and at some point I hit 39.5mph. There weren’t any really long or steep descents, so I’m not sure where that was, but wow!

Anyway, back to the race. The road was only closed on one lane, and we were not allowed to cross the centerline. Doing so would result in instant disqualification. A couple of times there were large farm implements on the road that slowed us down, and we had to wait for the official (guy on a motorcycle) to clear us to cross the centerline to pass.

Another thing I wasn’t really prepared for was the physical tightness of the group. The largest group I’d ridden with was probably 8-10 people, and that was never a very aggressive ride. Thanks to some fast rides with the “Mercenaries,” I’d learned how to draft and how to safely follow just a few inches behind the rider in front of me, but I’d never ridden in a group this big (42 riders) and with guys so close on left and right that elbows and shoulders were frequently touching. That was rather nerve-wracking. One result was that I didn’t drink as much as I should have, because looking down to grab a water bottle meant taking eyes off the group around me for a second, which was scary. I only used up one of the two bottles of Gatorade I had intended to drink during the 33 mile race.

As we were coming into Burlington, we reached the area where we had two lanes of traffic instead of one, and things started getting really aggressive. One rider came up next to me and I think someone bumped him and he bumped me, then said “This is going to get really interesting.” This being my first race, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it sure seemed like the group in general was being pretty squirrelly to me.

About a mile and a half from the finish, things did get interesting. The road took a turn to the left (right around the intersection of Highway 99 (Bluff Rd) and Des Moines Avenue for you Burlington folk), and I think I underestimated the sharpness of the turn, or the rider on my right overestimated, or something. I’ll never know for sure. In any case, as we came around the corner, I found myself shoulder-to-shoulder with the rider on my right, leaning on each other so neither of us would go down. He was a bigger guy than me, so his weight won, and he was pushing me ever so slightly to the left. Just as I was sure that I wasn’t going to crash as a result of this contact, I felt a terrible feeling: Somebody’s front wheel coming in contact with the left side of my rear wheel. Rule #1 in riding with a group is that you never overlap wheels – you either ride behind someone, or next to them. I don’t know how that wheel got there, but it shouldn’t have been there.

So I was being pushed from the right by the shoulder of the rider next to me, and had been pushed into (or otherwise come into contact with) the rider behind and to the left of me. As this point I was just holding on for dear life! Then I heard someone behind me, presumably the rider whose wheel was touching mine, say “No no no SH**SH**SH**!” and then the awful sound of carbon fiber meeting pavement in large quantities. My stomach tied itself in a knot as I thought about how fast we were going and the almost certainty that not all of those terrible crunching sounds were bicycle parts. The rider next to me (whose shoulder had been touching mine) and I exchanged glances and silently echoed the words of the riders who had gone down behind us.

I was pretty spooked by the crash, and how close I had been to being a part of it. As we rounded the last corner and came within sight of the finish line, the real sprint began, and I found myself with a little space around me. While I never expected that I would have an opportunity to win the race, my goals going into the day were two: 1. Don’t crash and 2. Don’t get dropped. Competitively, I wanted to finish somewhere in the vicinity of whoever won; I wanted to be in the lead group.

So as the final sprint began, I found myself in a little open space within the group. Still spooked by the crash, I decided that having only barely accomplished goal #1, I could just ride hard and safely accomplish goal #2, even if it meant being the last guy in the lead group. So that’s what I did. I rode just hard enough to still be considered part of that group, but no harder, and I was the last guy in the lead group to cross the finish line.

My heart goes out to the guys that crashed. As we were coasting out from the finish, I noticed that Josh, my friend from earlier in the day, who I hadn’t seen since the first mile or so of the race, wasn’t around. I worried that he had been caught up in the crash. As others came to the finish, I saw a lot of scraped elbows and knees. When I mentioned to Marcia that I was concerned that Josh may have been in the crash, she said “No, there he is,” and pointed at him down the road a bit. I went over and talked to him for a minute, and found out that he had just barely avoided the crash, putting flat spots on his tires stopping inches from the pileup. He said that there were some pretty bad injuries – one guy with a broken collarbone, the classic cycling injury. I’ve been there. Ouch!

I beat myself up for a while, going back over the crash in my mind, trying to figure out if it was somehow my fault. In the end though, I kept going back to why that wheel was there in the first place. As I said before, rule #1 in group cycling is to never overlap front and back wheels, not even a little bit. If that wheel hadn’t been there, chances are everyone would have finished the race. Could the crash still have been avoided? Probably. Perhaps if the rider to my right and I had both judged the turn the same and therefore had avoided the shoulder contact, the crash wouldn’t have happened. Ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that my inexperience may have been a contributing factor, but the cardinal rule was broken, and not by me, and so the crash was not my fault.

So, leaving the crash behind, I’m satisfied with the race. I proved to myself that I was able to keep up with the race leaders, and finished in the lead group. I took a couple of turns leading the race in the middle, and enjoyed the attacks and responses and just general racing fun at the front. I finished in 15th place out of 42 riders. For my first race, I’ll take it!