19 April 1999: Back in the Saddle

Today I biked to work for the first time this season. I was going to last week, really I was, but it snowed. Twice. So I didn't. Because I'm a wimp--gwan and say it.

This despite the alarm clock not reading my mind this morning. RDC set the thing for 8:00 for yesterday's brunch reservation (at 10:30, mind you, like I wouldn't be up at least two if not three hours before that anyway) and neither of us remembered to change it. So at 6:18 this morning RDC asked, "Don't you need to get up?" And I did.

The first thing I do in the morning is shower. That's not true. I kick my way out of bed, I turn off the clock, I take my pill, I pee, and then I shower, but the shower is the necessary wakey-wakey element of my day. On days that I ride, I don't shower until I get to work. This leaves me baffled about how to get out the door on time, because without a shower I need at least six times longer to wake up. That's why I don't shower immediately on weekends. I wanted to put in my contacts, of course, but I could barely open my eyes, let alone master the hand-eye coordination of inserting lenses.

So I staggered around in my glasses, boiling water for my oatmeal and throwing together whatever I was going to wear and even remembering a towel, and after I ate and had my all-important oj, I could do my lenses and get dressed and hook up the paniers and kiss RDC and leave, only seven minutes later than I should have.

I keep wanting a bike computer so I can measure how far it is to work. I can't approximate it in the car, not only because the trail veers significantly different from the streets but mostly because the stupid Tercel doesn't have a tenths-spot on the odometer. My deathtrap Omni had a tenths-spot. We're going to measure all of Denver once we get the Impreza.

Hmm. Maybe I should've named the Omni Deathtrap instead of Fugly. She was always fugly, though, whereas her deathtrap attributes didn't show themselves until her last year.