Watch your taillights blaze into nothingness

I hate goodbyes.

Last night I had to bid farewell to one of my best friends in this world or any other. She's moving to Nashville because she feels restless and ready for a change, and although I was at first quietly skeptical of her destination (What good can come out of Tennessee?), I am nothing but impressed by the way she has spent the last six months planning and doing and saving and now...she's actually going. Really and truly going to drive from Seattle to California to Tennessee.

We've been friends for ten years, a third of our lives (so far). I met her in college, where we shared a major, many classes, and volunteer experiences. Then after college we both spent a year with Americorps, and after that we were roommates for a couple of years.

When I look back on the last ten years, I'm amazed we've stayed so close. She had been good friends with my college boyfriend before he and I knew each other. When I decided I wasn't ready to get married and he and I broke up, various other friends found it too unfathomable and drifted away. (Not that that was the only reason I lost touch with various people...but it was a factor for a few.) She did not. When Mr. Thel and I first got together a couple of years later, she seriously disapproved of him, to the point that I really did think our friendship was over. But when her dire fears didn't pan out, she was big enough to put her reservations behind her and never speak of them again...

She's been like a sister to me, quarrels and bickerings and tears and all. I'm so proud of her for following through on a dream like this--and heaven knows, I understand how hard it is to go through with something others disapprove of, even when you know in your very core that it's the right thing for you to do. I've done it twice since I've known her. So even though I selfishly don't want her to go, even though I fret about how she'll do once she gets there, I understand her need to do this and I wish her well as she goes.

So bon voyage, anam chara. I promise to visit you in Nashville.

Commemoration

List of things I hope to accomplish between now and next July, the tenth anniversary of the year I had the cancer:

- dye my hair blue
- buy one of these and spend a month crisscrossing the continent
- ride the 2008 STP
- get a tattoo to mark the ten years

Gee, when you string it all together in one place like that, it looks awfully dramatic. Still, you only live once. Time to step out of the rut I've been treading for the last few years.

If I remember right, after ten years they start whispering the word "cured" instead of "remission." So now instead of fretting about a relapse, I can start worrying about my increased risk of breast cancer due to all the radiation I absorbed ten years ago. I get to start having mammograms ten years earlier than all the rest of you!

Maybe next time

Sirens very early this morning got closer and closer to our house, until the noise stopped and flashing lights lit our bedroom.

"Is it the [alleged] crack house?" Mr. Thel asked sleepily.

The lights were indeed flashing in front of the (alleged) crack house. It was a fire truck, though, not the police...damn it.

Like Candy

Our five tomato plants produced a small wealth this summer. I had somehow repressed the memory of how perfectly sweet and delicious a homegrown tomato is...I don't know how I can ever forget again.

What I like about you

Some small local things I enjoy:

1. Knowing almost all of the neighbors on our block--if not by name, at least to wave at.

2. Being able to swing down to the library to pick up a book I reserved, and be home again in ten minutes. By bike. Without breaking a sweat.

3. Having a guest bedroom complete with a hide-a-bed (what do the rest of you call that particular furniture item, by the way?) that is allowing us to host a steady stream of visiting relatives this summer.

4. Browsing through the farmers' market on Wednesday evening with the setting sun in my eyes.

5. Whizzing down the hill into Madison Valley on the way to work.

Can't I just put a secret sign on the door that convinces them to try a different house?

Everyone is allowed to have one phobia, right? One little fear that is far out of proportion to actual danger? I only ask because in the past week I've killed two nasty poisonous hobo spiders in the same area of our living room, and it's freaking me right the fuck out.

We didn't have any hobo spiders in here last year--so does that mean they'll all die off before winter? What time of year are they most likely to creep inside, and is this the worst of it? And can I PLEASE find a website that addresses these issues without feeling the need to plaster at the top of their page an enormous, detailed photo of a hobo spider blown up seventeen times as large as life? Shrieking and stabbing at the "back" button is ever so disruptive to my research mission.

In which I announce that I am capable of occasionally following through on a plan

Last night a man handed me a large stack of cash and I handed him my car keys. Today I traded most of that large stack of cash for a receipt showing my credit card balance at $0.00.

Then, because I can only be perfectly responsible for so long, I marched right out and bought new shoes. In my defense, the shoes I bought were both attractive and responsibly comfortable.

"The universe is so large that it causes my mind to reboot whenever I try to think about it."

Space and time both do that to me. Only my brain doesn't reboot; it freezes. I have to make a conscious attempt to reboot. Here's a post that describes the befuddled awe better than I yet have, even if my experience diverges from his about halfway through.

Have fun storming the castle!

At the end of July Mr. Thel and I packed our bags and headed south for a week of sunshine in Oregon. We spent a few days with my family, being lavishly feted and feasted as is right and proper, and then camped up a river that rhymes with "Humpqua," famed for its fly fishing and scenery.

THe day before we left I had stopped by the Ravenna Third Place Books to pick up the final Harry Potter installment. I've never been one to snatch up any of the HP books on the day of their release, hopping impatiently from one foot to the other outside a bookstore at midnight; I didn't read the first one until years after its release. But I figured I'd better read this one more quickly, before having the ending spoiled for me.

I browsed around the bookstore while I was there, and a used copy of Stardust, by Neil Gaiman, intrigued me enough to add it to the total. When you're already spending $35 on one book, what's another $6.50? I figured I'd have plenty of reading to keep me busy throughout our vacation.

Naturally I instead devoured the Harry Potter finale (verdict: good, not great. The epilogue, in particular, got on my nerves. At least I was right about a few conjectures.) by the end of Tuesday...so I picked up Stardust. I lingered over it longer, but I adored it completely. Gorgeously written, beautifully described and plotted--really, contrasting Stardust with Harry Potter felt like eating at Burger King one night and then having an expensive steak the next night. Except for the fact that that would be way too much beef in a short time period. But, you know--it was incomparable and lovely. I came home and was gobsmacked to see that it's been made into a movie which is coming out on Friday. Serendipitous! You can bet your boots that I'll be seeing it. It's being compared to Princess Bride, so come on. You know you want to see it, too.

They call it "half a century" *

*Ed. note, 9 September 2007: They have informed me that "they" actually refer to it as "a half-century." So now we both know.

I took the day off today for various reasons. I am loving the extra vacation time I get at work now--over 3 weeks a year. Whee! That's an almost civilized level of vacation time!

I had set myself a goal for today--a personal challenge. Last Saturday Mr. Thel and I rode our new road bikes 34 miles up and back on the Centennial Trail between Snohomish and Arlington. That was the third time I'd ridden over 30 miles at a go, after a trek down the Green River Trail and another down the Cedar River Trail in late May and early June. Having accomplished that, I decided to challenge myself to do a 50-mile ride on my day off.

I pored through routes online and in my copy of Biking Puget Sound, looking for something just over 50 miles that wouldn't be impossible to accomplish. In other words, I didn't want to ride up Snoqualmie Pass or anything. Yesterday I decided to combine this goal with another and ride around Lake Washington. The length was right, at around 55 miles from home, but the guidebook did list the ride as "strenuous," and I wondered nervously whether I ought to try an "easy" or "moderate" ride first.

Nevertheless, I set out this morning at 6:50 (a bit later than planned, thanks to the neighborhood fireworks that didn't let up until somewhere around 2:30 a.m.). The first ten miles were familiar friends, covering the same route I ride to work all the time. From there it was just a mile or two up to the Burke Gilman Trail, which wasn't too crowded at 8:00 a.m. the day after July 4th. That made for a nice, flat run up to Kenmore; I stopped at 8:50 across from the Lake Forest Park (Third Place Books) shopping center for a snack and a short break.

I had to make a quick bathroom stop at a park just up the road, and then headed on around the north tip of the lake. I climbed the longest hill I've yet done, a slow incline up Juanita Drive past Saint Edwards State Park. I am enormously proud to announce that I rode the whole way up without being forced to get off and walk. I had to stop halfway up at a traffic light (a welcome break), but other than that I just crept steadily uphill. Then down, down, down, down into Kirkland.

I was in unfamiliar territory now, which slowed me down quite a bit as I had to stop and refer to my cue sheet to find the route through Kirkland and Bellevue. (I must make a note to go back and stroll along the "Corduroy Road" next to Juanita Beach Park...) I probably added at least a mile or two to my route at two points where the book's directions confused me. It was after 10:00 and starting to heat up a little, though there was a cooling breeze all morning. I was starting to get a little hungry again, and then I had to get off and walk my bike up two short, steep hills in the Clyde Hill area. I was being very good at drinking water and Gatorade while riding, so I was well hydrated, but my energy started to wane as I wound slowly through the twisty, hilly roads north of I-90.

Finally seeing Enatai park just under the freeway was a relief. I stopped for another bathroom break, a water refill, and half a packet of sunflower seeds before resuming my journey. I knew I was over halfway by now, which cheered me up, but I was just tired enough to seriously contemplate the option of taking the bike path over I-90 and then back down the 6 miles home from there...but no, having gone halfway I was determined to see it through.

On down along I-405 on a bike path, and then another accidental detour down to Newcastle Beach Park, I think...retraced my ride (uphill, naturally) and went on, hoping to get to Gene Coulon Park in Renton by noon. I made that deadline with only minutes to spare, and took another fifteen minute break for water and M&M's. I knew I'd gone nearly 50 miles at that point (my bike computer didn't work today at all, so I had to base my mileage on the book's cue sheet), and was delighted to find that I wasn't completely knackered. It really does help to drink water constantly en route! I flew out of the park, back on familiar ground, and down through Renton, around the south tip of the lake, and back up Rainier Avenue home, almost exactly six hours since I'd left.

I rode about 55 miles in about 5 hours of riding time, I reckon...probably even a little less, but that's my best estimate of break times, anyway. Total elevation gain, according to the book, was a little over 1800 feet. I made it up that Juanita hill on my first try. And best of all, I didn't push myself beyond endurance.

Half a century down! Hm, now what goal shall I set next?