Tunnel Vision

We’ve had a lot of rain during the past few days.  It is April, after all!

I’ve gotten in a bit of cycling, though not as much as I had been doing.  Now I’ll confess that I actually took the subway yesterday.  My excuses:  The  curtain of rain precluded visibility, and I was carrying something that, perhaps, I could’ve hauled on my bike.

Heading home, I entered the York Street station in DUMBO. (I remember when the neighborhood was, well, not a neighborhood:  All of those self-consciously trendy cafes were warehouses and factories!). There, I remembered why I so prefer cycling!

Sunshine, With Irony

So...where in the world is Justine Valinotti now?

OK, you know this isn't the Ponte Vecchio.  Or the Pont Neuf.  Or the Tower, Verrazano or Golden Gate Bridges.

For all I know, the local transportation authorities don't even classify it as a bridge.  It doesn't connect countries, states or even two sides of a neighborhood. The houses on each side of this bridge are even considered part of the same development.

The body of water spanned by that structure looks like this:

Seeing that birthday party baloon floating in the effluvium surprised me more than seeing a creature that could have caused me harm would have--or, for that matter, almost anything else I might have encountered.


It's a canal, and from what I've gathered, it was used for irrigation, as it doesn't look terribly navigable. (Now tell me, who else  uses phrases like "terribly navigable"?)  It runs behind the house where I'm staying.

You've probably figured, by now, that I'm visiting my parents 

in "The Sunshine State."

It sounds like a corollary of Murphy's Law:  You escape from the cold only to run into the rain.

We might get more rain tomorrow.  I might chance a ride, but if I don't, skies are supposed to clear--and the temperature drop--the day after.  I wouldn't mind that.

Nor do I mind today which, so far, has included a leisurely lunch with my mother and one of her friends.  It's fun, and part of my education!

How Practical Are My Cats? (Apologies to T.S. Eliot)

Rain on and off today.  But it's not the reason I didn't ride.  You see, the semester is drawing to a close.  Exams will be given this coming week.  Meantime, I had a whole bunch of papers to read and grade.  So that's how I spent my day.

Max and Marlee got to spend time with me.  Every once in a while, one of them would climb onto the table and park him or herself on the papers.  They must know that I'd rather play with them than grade students' assignments. (No offense to my students intended!) 

I wonder what they see in those papers.  For that matter, I wonder how my bicycles look to them.  They see me leave with one of them.  Then I'm gone for a while.  When I come back, they want to cuddle.  What do they think I'm doing while I'm gone?  What do they think a bicycle does?

The only time Max and Marlee have actually seen me on one of my bikes is when I'm adjusting it after, say, swapping a handlebar or saddle.  They've seen my bikes hanging from my wall, on the repair stand, leaning against walls and bookshelves and even on the floor.  But they've never seen them quite this way:

From Still Amazed

Life On A Rainy Day

Today has been unusually cool for this time of year.  It's also rained on and off throughout the day.  I managed to ride for about half an hour.

After a dinner of shrimp and corn bisque, tilapia coated with cornmeal, freshly-ground black pepper and thyme and sauteed in olive oil with capers and lemon, and a vegetable medley, I did some work.  But Marley (r) and Max had their own way of coping.  Oh, by the way, they dined on poached tilapia.