women want me, fish fear me

OMG U R AWESUM11!!!1

Good lord people! You! With your donations! I'm honored that so many people who I've never met and who I probably will never meet (andifidoiwillneverrememberyournamessopleasedontbeoffendednoimtotallyserious)* saw fit to support me, and people with AIDS, on this ride, which is one hundred and fifty gajiliion miles from SF to LA. Within 6 hours of Rachael and me blogging about it I exceeded my minimum donation and within 8 hours I exceeded my goal (which I set higher than my minimum mostly because of a large early donation that guilted me into keeping on with the keeping on, and you know who you are, and you are awesome). I just this second had the idea that I'm gonna wrap some yarn around my handlebars next my the image of Avilokiteshvara, the buddha of Compassion (who I taped my my stem** when I realized that my stem wasn't particularly inspirational to stare at whilst climbing hills) to remind me about all the people who are supporting me on this ride. I stared at that empty space long enough to know that I wanted something to encourage me - that yarn is going to do just fine.

So, that said - on the off-chance you aren't broke yet, please consider donating to support the people in Myanmar (Burma) instead. I wouldn't usually bring up this sort of thing, but Myanmar is a special case since there are very real concerns that aid that goes there won't end up helping individuals in need. Fortunately, a member of metafilter was able to suggest some agencies that have been operating there (pre-cyclone) and will be able to distribute aid. These organizations include groups like Doctors Without Borders, which is a pretty reliably good cause. If you were on the fence about donating, or were putting it off until payday (dude, I feel you) please donate to one of those organizations. This is part of my groovy "we are all interconnected" thing, but I'm not planning to turn my blog into a nonstop donation platform or anything. (For one thing, that's not normally very funny. If a giant clown attacks Akron, that would be pretty damn funny, but until then...)

Also, if you would like more info about Myanmar in general, this episode of Speaking Of Faith is a great introduction.

* that's gonna make one really fucked up line with no breaks. my inner designer reels.

** not the actual buddha, of course. I can't afford that kind of tape. And it would take so much of it - all those arms!!!

The begging, I has it.

So, as you know, I've been training for AIDS/Lifecycle 7, which coincides with my 40th birthday, since October. At this point I'm spending about 15 hours a week training. Many of my friends haven't seen me in months, and know they won't see me again until after the ride. If I'm not at work or at band practice I'm usually on or near the bike, or resting in preparation for a ride. Or eating - all this exercise results in a lot of eating. Good god am I tired of eating.

In the six months since I started training I've given a lot of thought to what I'm doing, and how it is that I can even attempt this. There's a lot of support. Every weekend volunteers come out to plan routes (crazy crazy routes with hills and traffic and no zebras!), be ride leaders and help us get ready for The Ride (or in some cases, overcome our fear of hills). We have training buddies and the support of other riders to encourage us newbies. On The Ride there are almost as many roadies as riders - folks who get up early and stay up late to plan routes, get permits, prepare food, help us bed down at night and get up in the morning, fix flat tires and cheer us in.

Now, another thing that you readers know happened over the last six months was finding Bart. (Have faith, I'm going somewhere with this.) There were so many people who were willing to make an effort on behalf of that dog - the people who first saw him in the road and stopped for him, the other person who helped me take him to the SPCA, and of course all the people who worked hard there to save him and rehabilitate him. People keep trying to pat me on the back for that, but he wouldn't have made it if it had been just me there that day - and I think we can all agree that we're glad he made it.

So I don't usually think of myself as a team player. (I loathe team sports. In fact, I never had any interest in sports at all until I discovered kickboxing - at last a sport where you clobber the other guy! Perfect!) But I, in my usual late-to-the-party way, I have had a realization. It takes a... hmm, what's the word? Collective? Apartment building? Flash mob? Gang? That's it! It takes a gang to, uh, enable me to ride my bike to Los Angeles! And it takes a gang to save dogs! ~~And have dance-fights!~~ Honestly, since I've been training I've realized how privileged I am to be able to be part of this event and have the kind of support I've been getting, and it's really opened my eyes to how much we all rely on each other all the time. Not to get all cosmic on you, but dude, we're all interconnected! I've gotten some really good real life illustrations of it lately.

Which brings me to what a good cause this is for. (For some reason all the templates they give us for fundraising have us saying we're riding for AIDS, but I tell you what, I'm riding AGAINST it. I'm taking a stand, and I am totally against AIDS.) These days it's possible to live a long time with HIV, but it's not necessarily easy to do so and it's a lot easier with some help. I know firsthand from living with someone who had a serious illness that it is a lot of work being sick. Providing support for people with AIDS isn't just searching for a cure, but helping those who are living with the disease now. Since I started training I've really focussed my thoughts on how my contribution is helping people living with HIV get on with their day to day lives. The San Francisco AIDS Foundation, who are the beneficiaries of all this fundraising we've been doing, helps folks manage their health and and treatment to maintain their quality of life. They also do HIV testing, counseling and medical care, help people get benefits, rental subsidies and provide information and do outreach to prevent the transmission of AIDS. What I'm keeping in the forefront of my mind is that the money I raise is going to be put to use immediately to directly help someone living with HIV/AIDS live a more healthy and dignified life. It's gotten me up more than one tough hill, let me tell you.

So I've promised you begging*, and the time has come. I've been training for months to RIDE MY FREAKIN' BIKE TO LOS ANGELES. I'm not asking you to train with me (unless you have a tandem and good strong legs). I would like you to join my gang (I'm looking into matching satin jackets) in my commitment to make a difference. Now's your chance! Donate a hundred bux (there's a handy payment plan)! Or ten dollars! Or one dollar - any amount is awesome. Okay, a hundred bucks is a little awesomer, but one dollar is way awesomer than no dollars. Seriously - I mean, think about Bart, and those people who stopped when they saw him in the road - they saved that dogs' life just as much as I did, even though they were only there for a few minutes. I'm asking for your donation of any size at all to support me in this ride, and to support people living with HIV right now. Every donation of any size is from someone who is helping people with living HIV/AIDS.

Make a donation here!

*Actually, it's a little not-begging, because The Knitter insisted that she be allowed to raffle off some handknit socks. (I'm totally not kidding, she insisted.) (And btw if you already made a donation I thank you, and of course you get added to the raffle.) But we're not focussing on those nice, warm, luxurious hand knit socks right now.

I like cycling because it's the only time it's okay to wear black socks with shorts. Also, you can wear your underwear proudly on the outside.

question

What could be nerdier than falling off your bike? How about falling off your bike and landing on your inhaler? Is there any way to make that more dorky? I could have done it at a science fair.

I'm going to go tend to the large inhaler shaped welt on my leg now, thanks.

jumbo shrimp

Clipless pedals my ass, that's what I say. If they're so clipless, why you have to clip into them, huh? And also, why are they clearly trying to kill me? I got clipless pedals, in case you didn't already hear. Last week I said they weren't trying to kill me, but they were just being crafty, like Lady Macbeth. Or something.

I did my first big serious hill-climbing ride this weekend, and also the longest ride I've been on and let me tell you it was a great idea to combine those things. Just great. I rode 57 miles, got lost twice (in my neighborhood - which is how I learned that apparently what I do when riding in my neighborhood is space out) and fell down twice. That's the beauty of clipless pedals - they let even the most experienced rider fall down like a clumsy six year old who just got the training wheels taken off! On my first training ride someone fell after being unable to unclip fast enough at a stop sign and broke her wrist. And a few weeks ago, on the so-called zebra ride, a rider came in with blood running down both legs because he just forgot to unclip at a stop light. Oops.

When I got my fancy little shoes with the fancy little pedals, I was assured I wouldn't fall down because "You just have to follow one rule - unclip both feet every time you stop." Sounds easy, doesn't it? The problem is, sometimes you don't know you're going to stop. Say, for example, that you suddenly find yourself turning right to go up that one very steep block of 98th (which is in my neighborhood, which means I was spacing out, too) and there you were flying along in high gear and all of a sudden you have to switch to you lowest gear (I had to stop just long enough to lose all my momentum) so you're going up this steep hill and you're trying to change gears as fast as you can AND - your chain locks up. And then you have the purely enjoyable experience of feeling yourself tip over while making a cartoony "whoa-ooooh-ooooh-ooooh!" sound. And then you fix your chain and continue your ride while wondering if maybe you tore the elbow of your windbreaker right in the spot that you can't see it because your elbow feels cold. That will turn out to be because of the BLOOD. And also the tear.

Then there was the getting lost part of the ride, which may have been a subliminal attempt to go home. Then there was the other getting lost part of the ride where I misread an address because I would do a lot better if they would write them out like this:
     one-five-nine-two
than this:
     1592
That looks an awful lot like 1952, don't you think? I thought - all three times I checked it, in fact.

After the getting lost part I was at the end of the pack (I had also left our last rest stop last because I was helping a little old lady park her car, which I am glad I did so there Lance Armstrong) and was riding with the sweep riders, who were having a nice leisurely ride. So leisurely, in fact, that my pace was an eensy tiny wee little bit faster than theirs. But I needed to stick with them because I was tired of getting lost and the directions were - how should I put this - baffling. It turns out that it's pretty much a drag to ride just a tiny bit slower than your natural pace up approximately ten thousand miles of hills (you didn't know the Berkeley hills had that many miles in them, did you? I assure you they do.) And if, say, you were riding behind someone who's pace is a just a wee bit slower than yours up a steep hill and there's gravel and you're struggling not have to pass him because you're not THAT much faster and besides you'll get lost if you do that, and then he hits a rock and stops, what is going to happen is that you're going to be stopping unexpectedly, and you will fall down, this time in the middle of the road, with witnesses. Which is awesome. At that point I decided "screw it - if I get lost I'll just live in Tilden Park the rest of my days" and went at my own pace. That was the awesome part, because it was all downhill from there and I rode approximately one million miles per hour, which is faster than the speed of sound. I don't want to brag, but I passed an antelope AND a cheetah. And the antelope was on roller skates!

The ride was supposed to be 67 miles, but there was a conveniently located bail out, and I had band practice so I only went 57 miles. Only. Ha! I had planned on riding the next day too, but I was in no shape to do anything but complain vigorously. I pretty much felt like I had been hit by a car. So the Knitter and I took the dogs for a walk and then went home. Also, there was lots of sleeping (although I didn't sleep that well, since every time I moved something hurt).

I have bruises up and down both sides of my body, and a huge scab on my elbow, but I feel fairly studly. Someone told me that there are NO days on the real ride that have as many hills as I rode on Saturday, so that was pretty reassuring. And I rode every mile. Veeeerrrrry slowly, but I rode every mile, and mostly stayed upright. I'm feeling like the ride is much more doable now.

Coming Soon! Begging!

sometimes

Sometimes I randomly get the theme from The Patty Duke Show stuck in my head.

They're CUUUUUUUUH-SINS! Identical COUSINS! All the way!

dogs on bikes!

There are actually no dogs in this post, but I said that since I know everyone is here for Bart. I guess I shouldn't have told you that. Hmm.

Well, I was on my bike and I got DOG TIRED!!! How's that for dog news? I haven't been blogging about bike riding because for a long time it wasn't happening due to weather, and also somewhere in there I was sick, and then... sigh.
I went on this ride that was my first big ride after the weather and being sick*, and they taunted me with the promise of a zebra, but there was no zebra. There's never a zebra. But there was a hill - it wasn't steep at all, but it was long, and the ride what about ten miles longer than I'd done before, and I was the last person and I had to stop to rest and it sucked. And there was no zebra. I had planned to think of that ride as the Zebra Ride, but now I think of it as the "Fuck You, Wind" ride, because there was a headwind both ways!!! I think we all know what the correct response to that is.
Anyway, I was languishing by the side of the ride with the very nice ride leader who told me that "this is a nice ride because it's not very hilly". And that's when my spirit was crushed. That was supposed to be category 2 terrain - "rolling hills" - and the ride the following week was category 3 terrain and I pretty much resigned myself to never being able to do The Ride, much less the category 3 ride the next week. I also might have been pms-ing a little. Seriously though, it was a bummer. So I didn't do the ride the next week (which I have concluded was the correct thing to do because it was too hard for me) and I spent a lot of time on the trainer, and on very short hilly rides, and then I went out of town with the band, which is not such good training, although it's a lot of fun. Then I got on the trainer again. The good news is that I went on two rides this weekend - one ridiculously easy and one harder - and a) did not die and b) found out that everyone else was sick and had weather, so I'm not the only one who's behind and if I end up walking to LA I will have company! Yay!
The super easy ride was on Saturday, which was a good one to choose for my maiden voyage with clipless pedals, which for some reason are the kind you clip into - also, my new shoes are silver and pink, and I hereby dub the the Fembot Shoes. It was with the same ride leaders who were on my first two rides, and I have decided they are my favorites. Very mellow, just there to have fun - have I mentioned that I'm not competitive? I'm not. I can be combative if you get in my face, but especially with sports, I'm not at all competitive. I mean, ALC training rides aren't competitive, but if you get a bunch of enthusiasts out there to egg each other on... I'm not going to fit in with that group. I will be way behind that group, in fact. My philosophy is "It will be there when I get there". So, while I appreciate the folks who are gung ho and am happy for them, I'm not interested in keeping up with them, except insofar as I don't like to be the very last person - or rather, I don't want to be the last person all by myself. Would you like to walk in with me? Many of you were non-jocks - I'm sure you understand. Anyway, the Saturday group is awesome and supportive and laugh at my jokes and I am willing to schedule my life around them and that's that.
Then Sunday I did the fabled Tiburon loop which is a so-called "easy" ride. I was worried because it's one of the standard rides that everyone in SF does, so I thought everyone was going to be all jock-y and whatnot, and then this woman showed up who - she wasn't small. And actually, a lot of the folks who've done the ride multiple years aren't small. Which is cool, I'm down with the big folks. But I saw this woman and thought to myself "It'll be okay, obviously she's not caught up with the training schedule either". But then I ended up riding behind her and she absolutely monstrous calves and was, if not fast, faster than me. Of course I ended up behind her the whole way. And I ended up behind the guy on the fixed gear (one speed) bike. But whatever, I'm not competitive, right?
I understand that compared to the route to LA it is, in fact, easy, but those were the biggest hills I've ever ridden up and you know what? I didn't die. At all. Not at all dead. (The guy on the fixie didn't die either, which I have no explanation for.) In fact, I noticed something interesting, which is that while I was in agony on the actual hills, as soon as I was not on a hill, I was fine. That's kind of weird. Also, I'm not sore today. I have yet to have sore legs after a day of biking. I'm starting to suspect that I'm broken. Arms and shoulders? Definitely sore. Legs? Not so much - just tired. Anyway, noticing that was reassuring. Also, on the last big hill on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge I was pretty tuckered out, and a couple of the other folks in my group were stopped to rest and I was SO RELIEVED. I mean, that I could, uh, show solidarity by waiting there along the roadside with them. And then I totally made it over the hill on the bike without walking at all. That's my other big discovery about these rides - resting is a good idea. I know, put me on the short bus, but I didn't notice before, probably due to my innate laziness. If resting is a good idea when you're not actually doing anything, it must be an even better idea when you're exercising! Who knew? Not me!
So that's where I am. Still slightly freaked out (I have a band event this weekend that will keep me from riding, and some other shows that will keep me up or otherwise leave me indisposed on some of the remaining EIGHT WEEKS til the ride) so I think I might be taking some days off work for training, and spending more time on the trainer (which means I can watch Battlestar Galactica - the trainer is boring, so that's the only time I allow myself to watch BSG and usually that's the only reason I get on it in the first place).
I'm also getting worried that there isn't enough food in the world for me to eat when I'm riding this much. If you come home and your fridge is empty it was probably me. Sorry about that but all I want to do is eat right now. Someone said yesterday that on the ride they suggest eating 7000 calories a day, to which I responded "HOW????" I'm starting to suspect I'll find a way.

So that's what's going on with the riding. Soon there will begging, but in the meantime if you care to donate to some good causes, and help me raise money for the ride, there's a link there at the top of the right column.

* I had been riding my bike to BART on my way to work, but I wasn't super comfortable doing that on my shmancy bike in east Oakland, and then one day I found a dead pit bull on the sidewalk on the way to BART. The good news there is that that is what caused me to ask the Knitter what you do when you see a dead animal on the street, and she told me to call Animal Control, and that's why I stopped for the dead dogs that one day and found Bart, who mostly wasn't dead at all, so I there's definitely a bright side. But dude, I saw another one on Hegenberger on the way home from BART the other day and I am so over finding dead dogs on the street. Seriously.

Bart update

Lots of people asked for an update on Bart. I'm delighted to report that he's doing GREAT. The Knitter and I went to see him this morning at the East Bay SPCA. He's moved out of the clinic and has a bed in the office now, and there's a bowl there that says "Treats For Bart". As you can see, he's filled out a lot - he gained 13 pounds!
That bag of dog food in the background also says "For Bart" on it.

They're teaching him how to play, because he didn't know how.

He's picking it up pretty quickly, but really, all he wants to do is hang out with people and get petted.

He's a big cuddlebug.

He's a lucky dog. We heard a little more about the lengths they went to for him at the clinic - they had a heated blanket that they use to warm people who have hypothermia there, and they contacted a specialist to find out how much of what nourishment they could give him to keep him from going into shock. They want to get some more meat on his bones ("That's a whippet butt - we want him to have a pit butt.") but he's well on his way. He LOVES people (god only knows why). He's occasionally fearful but mostly really really affectionate. He's going to be a really good pet for lucky person. Go Bart!

Mmmm, apples!

My wife, she looks good in clothes.

(Wait. I'm not sure that came out right...)

Tragedy of BART

Hoo-boy, it's been a long time. And it's not like certain tipsy Canadian lagomorphs haven't been nagging me to update you, either. It's been an eventful month or so, and I'll fill you in, but gradually. So you can stand the shock. Starting with the most recent events and working backwards.

Last friday I was driving to BART and when I noticed a car stopped by the side of the road on Hegenberger, which is a busy six lane street that heads to the Coliseum and the freeway. Just as I passed the car I saw what looked like a bag of dead animals lying on the curb. Since I only recently found out that what you do when you find a dead dog by the road is call animal control to remove it (it wasn't pleasant to learn about that, btw) I circled around the block to check it out and call Animal Control. When I came back around I found three women standing on the curb looking at two dogs (one of them was white and brindle, which was why it looked like more animals) wrapped in blankets spooning. The smaller one, a solid brown puppy was already dead, but I was horrified to see that one of them was still alive. Just barely. The women had tried to feed it some crackers (what they had in the car) but the dog was just laying there, not moving at all. We talked a little bit, and a man who lives in one of the nearby houses came out and told us that people dump dogs there all the time. I called animal control (I had to call three times, and I had the Knitter on it too) and the ladies who had initially stopped left, because they had to be somewhere, and there wasn't anything they could do. These dogs had pretty obviously been dumped out of a probably moving car.

Animal control said they were going to send someone out and it would be a priority, so I sat down and waited. I didn't was pretty sure the dog was going to die any second, and I didn't want to leave until he did. Of course, this was an unfamiliar adult pit bull, in pain, on the side of the road in a bad neighborhood, so I wanted to be careful, but it was pretty boring and depressing, just sitting there not doing anything while this dog is dying, so I scooted a little closer, and a little closer, until I decided he wasn't going to make any sudden moves - heck, he wasn't capable of any sudden moves, and I petted him. He just let me.

While I was sitting there another woman, who introduced herself as Linda, pulled up and asked what was going on, and it turned out she had a friend at the East Bay SPCA and suggested we take him there. I didn't really want to move him - I was sure he was dying and I didn't want to make him more uncomfortable, also I was afraid to look under the blanket to see what injuries he had. The other dog had a broken neck and I didn't really want to see any more gruesomeness if I could avoid it. So we talked about it and decided to wait for little bit for Animal Control to come. I was still petting his head, and he moved toward me a little, which was heartbreaking. The Knitter called and said she'd followed up with Animal Control and they didn't seem to know what was going on and couldn't give any assurances about when they would come - so that wasn't encouraging. I just wanted someone to come who put this animal out of it's misery humanely. So I sat there and petted him some more and when I paused for a moment lifted his head to get more pets.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I decided right then and there we weren't waiting for animal control. In order to get at the dog I had to move the dead dog, and then we had to see what our guy looked like under his blanket. Removing the blanket, I saw the most shockingly emaciated animal I've ever seen. He looked like he had been fed in over a month. We lifted him into my car with a sheet and drove him to the East Bay SPCA. The shelter director, who Linda had already called, came out to take a look at him. When we got inside they told us that he was probably a couple of hours from dying - his temperature was low they couldn't even measure it. They didn't know what they could do for him, but they had him on a heating pad and were hydrating him, and they'd just have to wait and see what happened. They said they'd call us to let us know what happened, so we gave them our names and went on respective ways.

And then I got to work and moped. I would love to get my hands on the person who did that to those dogs (the other one was just as emaciated) - I have an idea for a rehabilition program for him. It will involve being chained up in my yard for a month with no food. I think it will be a good learning experience. On the other hand, five different people stopped for this dog, and that was good - if the first car hadn't stopped I probably wouldn't have seen them, and if Linda hadn't stopped I wouldn't have thought to go to the SPCA, or possibly even been able to move him by myself. And then there were all the people at the SPCA, too - I'm finally figuring out there's something to this whole "teamwork" thing. Better late than never.

Anywho, I was all bummed out at work, and hoping to hear from the vet, when my phone finally rings with an Oakland number - it was the shelter supervisor. The first thing he said was, "We might have a miracle dog on our hands here." He surprised everyone by managing to eat a little bit of food! Yay! I asked if I could come see him and was told maybe Monday.

So Monday rolls around and I'm already planning to leave work early to visit him. I called the clinic and they said I could come, and that they had named him Bart, since he'd been found near Bart. I take naming him as a very good sign. The Knitter picked me up from BART, and off we went. They knew who I was and why I was there (I'm famous yo) and we got to go in the back door of the clinic. He still had to be fed very very small amounts of food, because his body wasn't ready to process a lot yet. He got carried outside to pee and sit in the sun. He could barely stand but he could wag his tail - especially when the lady who confessed that she'd been slipping him treats came by to say hello!

Today I got this note from one of the staff members:
"The entire staff is in love with Bart. I’ve had the privilege of sharing my office space with him all week and it’s been wonderful to watch as he gets stronger by the day. The doc has increased his food intake, and my wonderful co-worker Lenny gave our boy a bath this morning. He continues to give us kisses as we take turns showering him with hugs and pets."

So it looks like he's going to make it. Apparently he made the news, so he's a celebridog! Hopefully that will help him find a good home - I think he's going to be a great pet, and the East Bay SPCA does a great job of placing dogs. They also work closely with BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls), who are a great organization that rescues and rehabilitates pits and educates the public about them. Right now they have some of the dogs from Michael Vick's house, and if you want to get weepy you should watch their slide show about those dogs. And if, after reading this story, you felt moved to make a donation to either of these fine organizations, here are some links! (If you wanted to say it was for Bart, I would think that was cool. He's far too modest to be impressed that sort of thing.)

East Bay SPCA - Donate!
BAD RAP - Donate!