More?

Just what we need...more rain!

A week after Ida dumped more on us than we normally get in a month, the "remnants" of some other storm--I've stopped keeping track of the names--washed up our way.  It doesn't look nearly as bad as Ida, but I think many of us feel about rain the way we felt about smoke, loud noises or plane crashes in the days after 9/11.

The weather reports say the rain might stop later this afternoon or tonight. If it does, I'll go for a ride, even if it's only a short local trip.  I might go even if it doesn't rain as heavily as it is now:  Barely any wind has blown, so far.

Oh, well.  As long as we don't experience floods again, I won't complain--not too much, anyway! 

The Skies, And Days Off

If you are in North Carolina, my sympathies are with you.  Up here, in the Big Apple, we've gotten only hints of Florence.  The worst came on Tuesday, when torrents alternated with steady, driving rain.  I'm sure, though, that we didn't experience anything nearly as tumultuous as what folks in the Tar Heel State witnessed.

Since then, we've had three days of almost uninterrupted overcast skies.  A few stray showers have passed over us, and late yesterday afternoon the sun played peek-a-boo.  That, combined with the drop in daytime high temperatures from about 27C to 21C (80 to 70F) since the weekend has made for some very pleasant riding weather.

Oh, and I have to thank the Jewish people for giving me a couple of days off so I could enjoy it.  The funny thing is that, where I teach, Jewish faculty members probably outnumber Jewish students by about 20 to 1.  If anything, we probably should have Muslim--or Hindu--or, hey, maybe Buddhist--holidays off.  What about pagan feasts?  

Hmm...I'd have a lot of time to ride.  But I'd have a hard time making a living--unless, of course, those holidays were paid!

Is Snow The Only Thing Falling?

I woke up to snow fluttering down my window.  The flakes weren't turning into mounds, or even a scrim of powder on the streets, so I thought I'd go for a ride--and, maybe, catch some snowflakes on my tongue. (It's one of my guilty pleasures!)  But, as soon as I got out the door, the snow turned to sleet and the streets and sidewalks were being glazed with slush that, in spots, would slick with ice.  Even on my bikes with fenders, I wasn't going to ride in that.  

In my youth, I might've.  Actually, I more than likely would have.  Riding in conditions nobody else would was a point of pride, almost of definace.  I think now of the time in Vermont when the temperature dropped from 50 to 15F (10 to -10C) and a partly cloudy day turned to rain, sleet, then snow, the latter of which fell as I was descending a mountain.  I also remember the time I rode down a virage in the French Alps, near Arly-sur-Praz, on a fully loaded bike as rain fell and a loaded lumber truck rumbled--and, was that a skid I heard?--around one of those hairpin turns.  And, when I was a bike messenger, I had to ride in conditions worse than what I saw today.  

Am I getting lazy, soft, or just old?  I don't think the day was a waste:  I read, wrote and had lots of cuddle time with Max and Marley.  Still, I have to wonder about what's becoming of me.  Perhaps I no longer cast a shadow.  Then again, nobody does on a day like this.

Photo by Roland Tanglao

Rainy Saturday

Rain.  It would have to fall on a Saturday.  A driving, heavy rain.  I'm thinking of something Wallace Stevens wrote:  "the sort of man who prefers a drizzle in Venice to a hard rain in Hartford".  I guess it describes most people.

 Even though it’s fairly warm, seeing such heavy rain didn’t get me into the mood to ride.  Plus, more of same has been forecast for the rest of today.  Then the temperature is expected to drop from about 22 to 8C (72 to 45F) by early tomorrow.  If the rain stops, it could be a nice, crisp fall morning:  one of my favorite riding conditions.

For today: bike maintenance, reading, non-blog writing, quality time with Max and Marley and, possibly, cooking.

A Cyclist's Senses At The End Of The Semester

It's probably just as well that it rained almost nonstop for the past week. I suppose that if I were more religious, or at least more willing to take wonders for signs or signs for wonders, (or, for that matter, was still a college sophomore with a copy of The Waste Land--you know, the old paperback with the grey and black cover--in my hip pocket) I might've thought this week's weather was some sort of prelude to the Apocalypse.  But the rain kept me indoors when I would've been anyway.  


So, not being the superstitious sort, and no longer owning any garments with hip pockets, I just took the weather for what it was and read from that pile of papers that seems to grow no matter how much time I spend reading them.  This is one of those two or three times of year when, if you're a college instructor (especially in any sort of writing or writing-intensive course), you simply have no life beyond those papers.  


But late this afternoon, the weather was so beautiful (or maybe it just seemed so in comparison to what we've had) that I took Tosca out for a ride.  We were out for a bit less than an hour, but it made me feel so much better.  And, of course, I was more productive when I got back to work.  Isn't that the point of recreation--at least in a capitalist economy, anyway?


And I find that even on such a casual ride as I took today, my senses are sharpened.  I'm thinking now of the day last week when, a few blocks from my main job, I passed someone who was selling fresh fruit from a cart on the sidewalk.  Even with a lane of parked cars between me and that cart, I could smell how fresh the fruit was--especially the strawberries. I was going to buy a one-pint carton until the guy offered me two cartons for three dollars.  


Today, when riding near PS 1,  I thought I smelled cat fur.  And I just happen to have a good sense of smell:

As you may be able to tell, Mojo is a shy kitty.  And she's big.  I mean, huge.  People often comment on how big Max is, but Mojo has to be at least half again as big.  


Woodside Animal Rescue was offering her--and a few other cats--for adoption.  I would have taken all of them.  Maybe I really do have to buy a farm some day.


The representative from Woodside said that Mojo had gotten so big because she doesn't get any exercise. That came as no surprise, but the reason the rep--I didn't catch her name--gave me wasn't what I expected.  "She's afraid of the other cats.  So she doesn't play with them; she hides."


Hey, if she came home with me, she could hide behind that pile of papers that just keeps on growing.  That same pile of papers makes me want to take off on my bike and not come back until Memorial Day, at least.

Rain: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tommorow

This week has been the kind of week that can make just about anybody echo Macbeth when he says, "Tomorrow and tommorrow and tommorrow."


It's been raining non-stop, it seems.  And when I turn on the weather forecast, they could be saying "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow it will rain again and again and again."  


Is this what we have to look forward to?

This was the high point of my one bike ride this week--into and out of Manhattan, a grand total of about eight miles, to and from my class at the technical institute.    Well, I guess any ride in which I can take a photo like that isn't all bad.

Monsoon Blues

It rained throughout today, except for brief interludes.  In fact, at times we had near-torrents, and it's going to be worse tomorrow.

But the rain isn't the only reason I didn't ride to or from work today.  (What's the point of riding in a monsoon if you don't have to?)  It's almost the end of the semester, and I have lots of reading to do.  I do some of it on the bus and train, and I curse myself for the extensions I gave students on their papers!


On days like today, I think about going home and curling up with Charlie and Max.  I also think about riding Arielle again on a sunny day:

Playing Chicken With The Rain

The past few days could teach anyone the meaning, if not the precise etymology (Oh, shit, did I just sound like a linguistics professor?) of the phrase "April showers."


Yesterday rain began to fall when I was a couple of blocks from my class.  Today I woke up to tires hissing on slick pavement that was nearly dry by the time I rode to my first class.  But, when I stepped outside between classes, a glaze of rain clung to the concrete and pavement like a honey drizzle on a baking ham.  And, by the time I left for my other job, the streets were once again dry.


However, I could tell that the rain had gone in that direction and left just before I got to my other school by the fresh, dewy scent in the air, which was still pretty chilly.  I haven't seen new flowers on either campus.  But on my second job, I saw this sign of rain that passes over several times a day:

That's The Pinarello, which I saw for the first time since December.  And the cycling colleague in my department also had a "shower cap" on her bike:

And, yes, I saw everything glistening with raindrops when I went outside after class.  But, once again, I had just missed riding in the rain--or it missed me.

To Ride or Not To Ride To Work In The Cold Rain

I woke up very early this morning, as I have been on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Although it was warm in my apartment, I could feel the chill in the air outside my window as I heard the rain thumping against the awning next door.  


Riding in the rain is one thing.  Riding in rain and cold is another.  Starting to ride in the rain and cold is less appealing still.  I realized there is yet another category for the kind of rain we had today:  grayness, almost pure grayness, dropping through the chilled air and bringing down brightly colored leaves that are turning have turned into shades of rust, and soon will return to ashes and dust.


If I'd been on my bike as the day broke, I suppose it all could have been pretty, if in a rather melancholy way.  I could have worn my raingear and changed clothes at work.  But I decided not to.  For one thing, with the health problems I've had recently, I didn't want to take any unnecessary risks.  For another, it simply wouldn't have been a whole lot of fun, especially in a couple of places where the drivers can be pretty whacky.  Why do agressive risk-takers become even more aggressive and live even more dangerously when the rain slicks the roads.  At least, they seem to.  

In the end, though, I simply don't care to start riding under the conditions I saw this morning, and throughout the day.  It's one thing if I get on the bike when I know that there's a risk that I'll encounter bad weather.  Sometimes I'll take that chance.  But to start riding in the kind of weather we had today is simply not too enjoyable and, frankly, isn't going to make a big difference in my conditioning, such as it is right now.

Bicycles And The Rain

The other day, I got home just in time from my seashore ride.  Just after I walked in the door, it began to rain.  It's rather ironic, isn't it, that I spent a couple of hours riding next to an ocean but I was happy to stay dry?


Anyway, it's been raining almost nonstop ever since.  And, I got to thinking about how bikes look when they're out in the rain.

I found this photo on a Flickr page.  It was taken by Andre Wine in the Hardebrucke Station in Zurich, Switzerland.  The next time someone tells you the Swiss are boring or don't have a sense of style, show him or her this photo.  


Plus, I must say, I haven't done a lot of cycling in Switzerland.  But what cycling I did was certainly memorable!  


Anyway, the rain also brings me into the mood of this poem by Guillaume Apollinaire:

The poem, "Il pleut," or "It's Raining," can be translated thus:


It's raining women's voices as if they had died even in memory
It's also raining you,  marvelous encounters in my life, o little drops
Those rearing clouds begin to neigh a whole universe of auricular cities
Listen if it rains while regret and disdain weep to an ancient music
Listen to the bonds falling off that bind you above and below.


Those last two lines are such an apt description of what I've experienced over the last couple of years--and the way I often feel when cycling.  Especially the last line.


Still, I'd prefer that it stop raining, at least for a couple of days--and even if one of my bikes has fenders!