2008.

So not the Year of Laura!

Laid off. One of over 100 positions eliminated.

*poof*

My True Calling

My set list for this morning's spin class was nothing short of brilliant. I had to come up with music for the following:

10-minute warm-up
12 minutes medium endurance (approx 80-85% of HR max if you haven't had your lactate threshold test)
3-minute recovery
12 minutes medium endurance
3-minute recovery
5 x 30-second-all-out-sprints followed by 30-second recovery (OUCH!!!)
12 minutes medium endurance (what? no 3-minute recovery???)
3-minute cool-down

So I decided to make the first ME set all Tower of Power, all the time. Bring it back to Oaktown, baby. Then -

(and here's the brilliant part)

Then, for the first 3-minute recovery, I played this funkified version of the Sanford and Son theme song that had somehow ended up in my iTunes, not sure how, but I liked the transition, because it was still funk/horns and it happened to be the perfect length (3 minutes). And more to the point -

(and here's where I focus on the true brilliance without all the pre-brilliance build-up, or yapping, depending on how you look at it)

And more to the point, the next ME set, the one to which Sanford and Son was transitioning, was a set of Garbage. (The band "Garbage," that is. e.g. Stupid Girl. A great workout song, if you haven't already noticed).

Get it?!?!?!

Only one other person in my class did. Or maybe the rest of them were just preoccupied with the 5-minute sprint set to come, which was barfy indeed, especially the last 2 sprints. The sprint set was inspired by this past weekend's ride with Mel, who'd traded 30-second pulls with me until I thought I was going to die (in an intersection, too busy going into cardiac arrest to stop at a red light), and who then said what we'd just done would be great in a spin class.

This is all very timely (finding my true calling as a spin jockey, hullo?), because something HUGE is going down at work tomorrow, following a budget crisis meeting yesterday. All I know is that they're being very mysterious, and I have a meeting about who-knows-what with my supervisor at 11 am, which I was told I don't need to prepare for. I guess I'll find out then if I still have a job.

Demolition Derby

My kitchen looks like this:My bathroom now looks better than this, but there is only 8 inches of space between the new low-flow toilet and the fancy not-quite-functional-yet sink. It's been 2 weeks now without a functional bathroom sink.....or door....So anyway, as you can tell from the photo, that's not much space. You're touching the toilet bowl with your legs as you bend (theoretically, so far) to wash your face. Which would necessitate a shower, because that's just gross.

Fortunately, I wasn't home much this weekend, so not much time to dwell on my dwelling. Spent Saturday morning cycling 53-ish miles to Danville Peets (where I just noticed an historical photo in the bathroom on this trip; apparently Peets is really old! I thought it was a fairly recent Starbucks offshoot!) and back with Mel on Saturday, including alternating 30-second sprint pulls to warm me up since the sun never came out. I came back and took a shower. Then, as I was heading out to crush grapes at Bobby's winery with some other grape-crushing civilians, I threw my towel over the curtain rod (the only place to hang things these days). I heard a loud pop, and experienced excruciating pain in my bad elbow, which I suddenly was unable to straighten too much without more excruciating pain. So I threw on an ice pack and gingerly drove my stick-shift over there all bent-elbowed, wondering whether I'd even be able to help much at the winery. When I got there, Bobby just had me pushing a button on the crusher dealio! And drinking wine! So it all worked out. And Mark gave me an elbow massage, which didn't solve the problem, but sure felt good.

And then, after Bobby treated us all to dinner at Fellini's, some of us headed to a party of a friend of one of the grape crushers. There was karaoke! Here I am doing a Janis impersonation. You can't see the open bottle of whiskey in this shot. Lots of musician-types were there, it turns out. I found out later in the evening that I had just sung back-up (99 Red Balloons) for a professional operah singer. She was young, and not at all fat! But there wasn't much vibrato going on there, so she must have been holding back.

Then Sunday, I had to do a long run on a wine headache. I got out later than I'd hoped, and it was a flat run instead of Chabot as I'd planned. But I got 'er done, all 10 miles, just in the nick of time (I saw a really bloody/violent miniature dog fight en route - it was one of the owners who was actually the bloody one, a Paris-type in a bikini who'd tried to separate the 2 locked dog jaws). Quick shower, and then took off with Aaron, who'd invited me to see the Chihuly blown glass exhibit at the de Young. Amazing eye candy. You've never seen anything like this. You'd better hurry up and get there, because next weekend is this exhibit's last. Buy tickets ahead; it sells out.

The most interesting thing about Chihuly? Saw a photo of him in the lobby. He's got an eye patch. An eye patch!

"Who better to fashion himself a glass eye?" you might wonder. And yet.

Just say no!

I got my first cell phone in January, 1997. I'd just moved to Israel, and there was a waiting list for a land line. Cell carriers there only charged you for airtime on outgoing calls, not incoming calls (but man, did they charge you for outgoing calls...). When texting became available, probably within about a year or so, I discovered it was much cheaper than calling out (about 5 cents per, if that, and only for outgoing texts); within a short time, I was texting like a fiend. Everyone else was too. It made sense.

In the US, texts are often charged both at the sender and at the destination, but, unlike phone calls, texts cannot be rejected or dismissed. And when I signed up for cell service (with Cingular) here, I was getting lots of gibberish texts. And I was annoyed at the fact that I was paying for them (in principle!). So I had texting disabled. And they said, really? And I said, yeah really. And then I got more texts. So I called and said, no really disable it this time. And they said really? And I said yeah, really, and credit me my 20 cents, or whatever it was. And then I got some more texts. And I called and said, no, really really disable it this time. And they said, it's disabled. And I said, no it's not. And they said yes it is. And I said I just now got a text from the number blahblahblah. Can you see it? And they said no. And I said, well superduper disable it, and credit me for my however many cents. And they said they couldn't because there was no text. And so, when I got my bill (with a text message charge on it), I called them, and said, now do you see it? And they said yes, and credited me. And I told them to make sure there were detailed notes of all these conversations on my account. And then I got another text message some time later and another charge, and I called, and it was invisible, and then of course they billed me for it. And I called, and said to credit me $5 right this very minute for my trouble, because I'm tired of calling and I might switch to Verizon. So they did. And now it's been several months, text-free.

But I was recently dating someone, and somehow texting came up, and I mentioned that I didn't get texts and he said, Oh. I've texted you several times, and you never responded. And I was all, Oh! And you didn't think I was a total bitch for ignoring you? And he said, well I just figured you didn't feel like responding. And of course I started wondering who else thought I was ignoring them. I hate to think there's someone out there who'd see me as a "nonresponder," which I'm not! I hate people like that! And I mentioned my angst to my teammate Mel, who then told me she'd almost texted me the other day when she remembered that I didn't have text messaging from that time she texted me and I never responded and then she had to call me, and so she said, wouldn't it be funny if you could retroactively get all your texts and see what you've missed? And I was all, yeah after like the 20th text, they probably sent some really nasty ones.

I'm not ignoring you. And I implore you to join me. Boycott texts, dammit! Do you know what popularized them in the US?? American freaking Idol! Your cell carrier is totally sticking it to you.

From Washingtonpost.com, 9/9/08:

A key lawmaker and a consumer group are pressuring wireless carriers to explain why prices for text messages have doubled in the last three years as the technology has surged in popularity over the same period.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee, sent a letter earlier this week to the largest wireless carriers demanding answers for why they've raised their prices for individual text messages outside of flat-rate monthly data plans to 20 cents from 10 cents since 2005. The increases aren't justified, he said, given the lower operational costs to the carrier to send the short code messages.

"It appears that each of (the) companies has changed the price for text messaging at nearly the same time, with identical price increases," Kohl wrote in the letter. "This conduct is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace."

Consumers Union sent letters to heads of the Senate Commerce Committee and Judiciary Subcommittee to investigate the texting price increases and whether they are the result of a consolidating industry and less competition.

The group said that 600 text messages contain less data than a 1 minute phone call. It said that at 20 cents a text message, wireless carriers would collect $120 for 600 messages.

"Does $120 for the equivalent of one minute of voice seem reasonable?" the group wrote in the letters. "Or do these usurious rates evidence an extraordinary amount of market power?"

Just how popular has texting become? CTIA released a study this week that showed the number of texts sent in June rose 10-fold to 75 billion messages from the same month three years ago.

Speaking volumes

I spent this past Labor Day on a group ride. I figured it would be warm, and I was hungover from way too much Pinot at Frecky's wedding the day/night before, so I brought out the big guns for this one:

Two 24 oz. insulated Polar water bottles.

I got them at the start of summer, because they were on sale at pretty much every bike shop I entered. And because they now had all kinds of nifty colors. And mainly because of a haunting memory: I'd gone on a sweltering July 4 ride last summer (my first summer on a bike) with some other folks, and when we got to the top of Pinehurst, the guy with the insulated bottles still had an ice-cold beverage in his bottle cage. The rest of us had hot water. Except me. I had nothing left at all. And so he shared his ice-cold beverage with me. Yeah!

Before you go out and buy yourself an insulated Polar water bottle, I feel compelled to warn you about the "Insulated Bottle Jealousy" phenomenon. It's very real.

People will look you in the eye and ask you doubtfully whether they work. Then, when you tell them they do, the look of skepticism will deepen, and they will inform you that they are taking your brand new Black Sheep water bottle, the one with your name on it that you got for your Black Sheep Adventures trip, the one you were going to use to replace your "so 2007" Black Sheep water bottle from last year's trip, and they'll say it's because they lost theirs, and then they'll guck it all up and say the bottle cage did it and never give it back to you.

And some people will say, as they did on the ride this past Labor Day (after you killed both bottles in about 5 seconds because you were so dehydrated and asked the group oh so vulnerably for a re-fuelling stop at the next opportunity):

You know, it doesn't really hold 24 oz.

And you'll be alarmed, dismayed, and appalled.

It says 24 oz. right on the bottle! you'll shout. I'm alarmed! Dismayed! Appalled! They wouldn't lie right on the bottle!

There will be snickers. Some smartass will mention Atlanta (never mind). No one will believe in the fabulousness of your bottles.

And then you'll be glad you happened upon this post after your AA meeting, because you'll just send them this video:

*pause for "clean room" laboratory preparations, perfectly legal music download, and professional studio-editing of video production*

There's no place like home.

Would you like to see my beautiful bathroom with no walls, sink, shower, or door?
I'm showering at the gym these days (which is fine, except that sometimes I work out twice a day, and sometimes I don't want to run near my gym).

Kitchen demolition is next. I don't think there's a kitchen at the gym, and anyway, kitchening at the gym wouldn't work. So this is all great for my self-pity party, except that both my apartment room-by-room demolitions (ongoing since about July 1) and my self-pity party are getting a little old. I only really have control over one of those. So I have a bike date on Saturday, and we'll see.

Funny that the Wizard of Oz came up recently (thank you Beth). Here's a picture of my Dorothy shoes. I bought them in June at a yard sale, and I've been hiding them away so all the contractors and subcontractors and plumbers and electricians and sheetrock workers stomping all over my apartment won't think I'm a total freak (my other shoes sit in my hallway, in plain sight, and they keep getting moved around to make way for more holes in walls and whatnot). They're brand new! I thought they'd be great for Halloween. Hopefully I'll get invited to some sort of Halloween dealio and I won't have to walk far, because these things hurt.

Before you ask...

There's been a tragic accident, involving a tall building and a piano.And so I'm single again still.

Bring it.

Shy or Stupid

Tropic Thunder: The funniest movie I've seen in a long time. And one of my spin songs from this past week was playing during the credits! Weird.

I had a great ride with Marty yesterday. I'd asked him if we could start late and do a chill ride, because I was feeling weak, and because the day was shaping up to be a scorcher.

Scorcher 6. This time it's different.

He said, "sure." So we met up at 10, cruised over to Cal Berkeley to watch the last of the tree sitters' shifts up in the last occupied tree, which was one of several that were finally being bulldozed right then and there, with the police out in force, after months and months of anti-tree-killing tree-sitting demonstrations (I can't believe I didn't bring my camera). And then we made a few false starts up into the hills (we were halfway up when we were turned around by the gatekeepers of some lab, where they were probably doing top-secret brain experiments on newly-flatlander-former-treesitters) and then tooled around a pretty seminary up in Tilden that Marty showed me, and then did the 3 Bears (hot!!!) and El Toyonal-Lomas Cantadas [El Toyonal, from Camino Pablo to Lomas Cantadas, 192 meters climbing in 2.3km distance. Lomas Cantadas from El Toyonal to Grizzly Peak, 152 meters climbing in 1.2km distance (total 344 meters climbing in 4.5 km). Steepest section, 15% consistent grade for about 1km], for a total of 50 miles. I've only done the El Toyonal route 3 times, each time on a different bike. First, as a brand newbie on Wendy's old steel too-big Marinoni in March or early April 2007 (Marty's a twisted, twisted man), then on my first bike a couple months later, and then on my new crash replacement bike over a year after that. My new bike seems to have liked it the least. My front wheel kept jumping off the road on the steepest portions, I'm sure because of the upright positioning (though I'd thought it was lower than my first bike). Got my already redlining heartrate going faster, just contemplating a wheelie up a steep hill, while clipped in.

And chill? Hm. Everything's relative. But truth be told, neither of us would have done it alone, and it was great to get a nice hard workout, we agreed. Plus, I'd gotten to sleep in a bit!

So during the ride, Marty reminded me of the time we'd first met. We'd all gone out for pizza at Lanesplitters after Mark's spin class. This was before I'd started cycling; Marty said I was super quiet in those days, kept to myself with my baseball cap covering 3/4 of my face at spin class, and he couldn't decide if that meant I was shy or stupid, and then he ultimately decided that it didn't really matter because I was pretty.

Does this guy know how to compliment a gal, or what?! And what depth of character! Joking aside, it did kinda scare me that shyness could be mistaken for stupidity, though I know outgoing people make a better first impression. Wait...we did agree it was shyness...?

Marty strongly recommended Tropic Thunder; he'd just seen it the night before. Scott was kind enough to indulge me. And now I must recommend it to you. Absolute, pure brilliance.

And now, an official 2008 Team Oakland photo, taken this morning, courtesy of Lauren's camera (I'd only managed to capture the gals with the green machine; it was early.):

"Have you eaten dinner tonight?"

said the checkout girl at Trader Joe's.

I'd made it there at 8:45 pm, just in the nick of time, after spinning 910 calories out of my body. It was my only chance to go. I was trying to be good, you know, get things done.

Immediate salivation surge. "No" I said, rapt as she bagged my two boxes of mochi. I had just spun 910 calories out of my body, after all. I really did try my best. I knew I had lettuce and an heirloom tomato in the fridge, so I'd gotten the rest of the makings for salad! I got low fat yogurt!**

"Oh. What are you going to have?"

How could she be so cruel? "Whatever's closest to my mouth when I get home."

But then I thought about what I was trying to accomplish here, and, once home, I set about making a salad.

Is there anything in the world more tragic than an unopened bag of soupy, once premium baby greens, and a once-succulent $5 heirloom tomato from Whole Foods now rotting in a plastic baggie, after you've just gone salad accessory shopping?

It wasn't at all fabulous. But at least I didn't eat the mochi*.

*Update: I had some mochi. Stay away from the Green Tea flavor. I know it seems like a good idea. But just trust me.
**Update #2: So...turns out it's high fat yogurt. Oops.

---

My BFF finally made it to spin tonight, after a long hiatus. Yay!!! He made things interesting, like when he asked me conversationally if I was hydrating, while I was at threshold and trying to force out instructions without hurling. And like when we were about 8 minutes through our second hill drill (this one was 18 minutes long) and I let on that we still had about 10 minutes left, and he yelled

"WHAT?!"

in a knee-jerk reaction kind of way, like I was completely insane. And everyone looked up, like maybe they should re-consider the drill. I sensed a mutiny. Classic Larry. Don't know why I thought it was Dave who'd said it, but I was at threshold again, and trying really hard to remember what minute we were on and not hurl.

The jury's out on Cuban hip-hop for Slow Frequency Revolutions, but I had to try it.