Whale Sharks, Fearing the Reaper, Bandolier Booze, and Other Thoughts

Friday Coffee Club made my week. I love how DC has so many interesting clever people. 

• For the second week in a row, I got all turned around getting to A Baked Joint, but I made a rather splendid recovery and avoided riding on sidewalks or through nearby construction zones.
• Friday Coffee Club is best when it is about tales told well. Michael B. was in fine form telling us all what it was like to scuba dive in the Philippines among whale sharks. Their tales look so smooth swooshing slowly back and forth. This, combined with the sheer mass of the fish, makes it look like the shark is moving slowly. Quite the opposite, so divers beware. Also, if the tail hits you, you’re chum, dude.
• Andrea then weighed in on tales of bike touring and RAGBRAI. She and her husband concocted a three-month cross country tour. For comfort, and to be in harmony with her bent hubby, she bought a Tour Easy, the same recumbent as Big Nellie. She went to pick it up two weeks before the tour only to find out that the wrong size had been order. Ack! After some phone calls to a competing bike shop, she scored a bike in the right size and color two days before the tour.  I can’t imagine jumping on a recumbent for the first time and riding 4,000+ miles. Dang.
• Next Andrea told us about her recent participation in the annual cross-Iowa bike event called RAGBRAI. The ride starts on the banks of the Missouri River on the west border of Iowa and heads to the Mississippi River on the east side. She flew to Minot SD only to learn that her bus to the ride start had been canceled. Within minutes she had hitched a ride on a converted school bus designed around a Blue Oyster Cult theme. This never happens to me. Ken Kesey phone home.
• RAGBRAI is also a rolling party with pie and alcohol and other ingestible goodies. Being somehow in possession of numerous airplane sized liquor bottles, she needed a way to carry them. So she acquired a bandolier from a hunter friend and put the bottles in the shell holders. Genius! We don’t need no stinking glasses.

It doesn’t take much to be a thoughtful friend.

• We sometimes forget to stay in touch with friends. And when we do, the communication can be somewhat perfunctory.  I am heartened to know that there are people who I don’t often see but who go to the bother to let me know they are thinking about me.
  • Today, Rando Mike sent me a message out of the blue congratulating me on my retirement. You are two weeks early, my friend. No worries, I’ll stop by your house (an official rest stop) during the 50 States Ride before heading off to Key West. Mike has been trying to talk me into riding somewhere else. He won’t succeed.
  • From time to time, when I haven’t heard from her, I send Klarence an email just to make sure she is doing okay. I’m sure she’s fine, but it doesn’t hurt to check on a friend who did me a massive good turn two years ago. A few hours after Mike’s tweet, Klarence sent me an response to my most recent “Are you okay?” email. She has been busy stalking her favorite jam band, working her ass off, and moving so it has been a while since our paths have crossed. Somewhere in all that chaos she quietly kept tabs on me via social media, liking this tweet and that Instagram picture, a sort of electronic way of waving. Regardless, I have no reason to believe she has any idea what’s going on in my life. So she ends her email: “Ready for retirement??” And you wonder why I am ever grateful, Klarence.
• My co-workers are busy trying to squeeze some fun out of my imminent departure for Seizure World. Their glee is palpable. They’ve already scheduled chips and quac during an afternoon in the office. My co-workers vastly prefer chips and quac to actual work. Or to me, for that matter. There also will be a happy hour of sorts. Kelly, who once ran her sorority in college, is losing her mind. She’ll be away for all this social stuff. Of course, she couldn’t care less about me. She’s just a maniac for parties.
• Co-worker Amanda returned from her vacation, a birthday recon trip to Key West. She reports that Key West is chock-a-block full of good restaurants and saloons. She sampled them all. Well done, my young apprentice. I may need you to scout out west coast destinations for my cross country bike tour next summer. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to travel to San Diego, San Francisco, Astoria Oregon, and Seattle. Eat, drink, and take notes.

Home is where the chores are

• The contractors finished the refurbishment of the 8 x 14 shed we call the Rootchopper Institute’s Headquarters. We are dumping the forest green color scheme and matching the shed colors to the house: gray with white trim. Mrs. Rootchopper has taken over the painting. The particle board is sucking up paint like a sponge. It’s taking as long to paint the thing as it did to rebuild it. So it goes. Looks great though.
• The contract called for all kinds of extra payments for additional work. Despite doing quite a bit of extra tweaking to the framing, the bill arrived with no additional payments on it.
• My car did not fare so well. I took it in for an inspection and after replacing the front brakes and doing an alignment (as well as other assorted maintenance), I walked away $600 poorer. Andrea, got any of those bottles left?