this is the way we bike to work. (and then stop)

And now! The long story of how I started bike commuting but will not be doing so until further notice.

First, a long while ago, I switched out wheels on my Raleigh because they were super bent and crappy. This led to better wheels and less choppy braking, but horribly squeaky braking. As a result, I wasn't as inclined to bike because it was super embarrassing at times.

But I still stuck it out from time to time, avoiding stopping as much as possible, or at stopping very slowly when necessary. (How incredibly safe, I know!) I even made a long trek to Minneapolis! And not just west of the river but all the way past Bryn Mawr and back. I finally got to try out the Midtown Greenway and a few other trails, and it was a nice ride overall - but let's face it, squeaky brakes are NOT HIP. So on the way home, I stopped by the Freecycle shop on the Greenway and they switched the brake pads. For a while I was all, oh glorious brakes! I can stop without squeaking! But within a few miles they were still a bit squeaky (only when coming to a complete stop very quickly, though).

I also started biking to work. This was working pretty well, in part because I have my own bathroom in my room (!) and could bring outfits to change into on days that I drive. The route is mostly flat, with either bike lanes or bike paths for most of the way (except for the scary Pennsylvania/35E intersection).

What happened, you say? Well, on Wednesday night I biked downtown quick and was trying to race through a light but had to stop, and fast. And I'm pretty sure this is when the brakes tore through the tire. But since I was only a few blocks away from my destination, I didn't really notice anything. And even when I went home, in the dark, I knew something was wrong but decided I'd rather get home first (since it was less than a mile anyway) than stop on an abandoned street to figure out the problem. Sure enough, flat tire - thus ruining my goal to bike to work the next day.

And since then, I haven't found the time to fix the tire. Sure, I want to fix it, but will that help the squeaky brakes? Is this cold weather going to bring snow soon, rendering any repairs moot? Will this craigslist bike haunt me forever with problems? Should I just get a new bike already? (Probably). Sigh. Stay tuned.

quickly.

The truth is, I am far too tired to really write anything of substance but this box is egging me on. I am going to bike to work tomorrow, and I am typing this because you, the internet, will hold me accountable when I am even more tired at 6am tomorrow. Every day at around 3PM I start to wish my work had vending machines with salty snacks, and every day around 4PM I wish that I only had maybe three different classes to prep for instead of five. Fall is sort of here and I kind of like the cool breeze, but it feels too early to wear tights which means I have had to resort to pants. The RNC elephant stampede didn't cause nearly as much trouble as I thought it might, but I think I was also too busy to notice.


As usual, I will figure things out in the morning, when my brain is as sharp as a tack. Right.

rnc: the protest

I'm not a huge fan of participating in protests for a lot of reasons, the main one being that yelling and chanting gets tiring and also doesn't seem to get a lot done. (And that just makes me more depressed about government - how do ordinary people start actual change? But holy cow, that is not a topic I intend to broach right now.) Having said that, if there is a huge protest nearly in my front yard, I should probably at least stop by to gawk.

I headed out yesterday a little after noon to the capitol, where there were many people milling about. I soon realized I was way overdressed compared to all the punks and hippies. (Hello, it was Labor Day! Last Day to wear my pearly white skirt!) I wandered a bit, but I was by myself and so I just headed over to my friend's condo and waited outside.

I soon realized we would be very close to the parade route, so my friend and I hung around to take pictures. This one is my favorite.



There's more pictures, but that's pretty much how it was...lots of people walking, carrying signs, sometimes chanting things. After a while, when we realized there was no end in sight to the protesters, we thought we would head towards the actual convention center. (Okay, my real ulterior motive? I was super determined to return my library book.) But every street we went down, we ran into these guys!



Somehow we managed to snake our way around the riot police to get to Rice Park - I was able to return my library book while my friend got a coffee. The delegates were lined up for over a block to get into River Center (surrounded by cages). I happened to be holding an anti-war sign (given to me by a protester), which invited a young Texan delegate to start talking to us. (Whose name I recognized later in this column - man, that dude gets around!) We (my friend, the Texan, and myself) got into some circular arguments: we agreed that war is bad and that maybe we don't have a true democracy, but what to do with all those trillions of dollars going to war? Surely not put the money towards health care, says the Texan! We didn't really get anywhere in changing anyone's minds, but I must say I was somewhat pleased to even have that conversation in the middle of the street.

[During this time, a friend was also calling me with reports on CNN about people breaking windows and other bad stuff. Honestly? If she hadn't called, I wouldn't have had a clue. That's why news reports are funny - you can be really damn close to the action and still miss everything.]

We started heading back home, but of course ran into barricades of riot police every direction we went. (Which is why I found this tale of a stroll through St. Paul so funny.) Make it home we did, after a while.

So yeah, there's my story. In conclusion, I can't help but think about how silly and cyclical this whole convention-protest-arrest thing is. Republicans (or democrats) convene, police get fired up and ready (almost in a way that says "I dare you to start something"), people show up and cause trouble, people get arrested, some people that shouldn't also get arrested, people get outraged, and the people who cause trouble will continue with their goal, which is to stop the republicans (or democrats) from convening.

In other news, helicopters. Lots and lots of helicopters. But life goes on for the rest of us.

the problem with produce.

Oh single friends, you must know how it is. You go to the grocery store and the farmer's market with such hope and ambition - you buy loads of fresh fruit and vegetables, making careful plans not to buy too much just because it looks nice. You are thinking ahead so as not to be wasteful! Good work! But then you do silly things like go out to dinner or happy hour, and pretty soon you are pawning off green beans on your parents (while stealing cherry tomatoes from their garden), wondering what the hell am I going to do with all this food?!

Such is my life as of late. It's gotten late enough in the week that all meals must be based around what is about to rot in the fridge. I finally finished the roasted veggies (eggplant, zuchinni, onions) in a wrap for lunch. For dinner, I stared at the cucumbers and the tomatoes, wondering if I should have tomato and cucumber salad again, and then I decided I would make some gazpacho.



(I've never made gazpacho before so I used this recipe as a guide. As usual, I was missing about half the ingredients so I just had to make do. It turns out that my gazpacho is tomato cucumber salad, pureed.)

Then I stared at the zucchini and thought, man, zucchini, you are boring. What can be done with you? The answer is definitely zucchini cheddar bread, with a recipe from The Joy of Cooking.

By this point the gazpacho was happily chilling (ha, get it? It's both hanging out and getting cold! [sorrrry]) in the fridge and the bread was in the oven but it was going to take an HOUR and I was starving. And it seemed like I should eat the bread with the soup, that just makes sense. So I made a small salad with spinach (never should have bought that!), blueberries, and walnuts.

Finally finally everything was ready so I ate this:



The gazpacho is a little spicier than intended but still refreshing. And the bread is savory and filling. Hurrah! Summer produce meal!

...of course, now my new problem is that I have too much bread and gazpacho to eat. Whoops.

random round-up.

1. David Carr, hosted by Common Good Books

I had heard a bit about The Night of the Gun through the internets, so I figured I had pretty much no excuse to walk a few blocks for a reading. The church hosting the space for the event was packed and extremely hot, but it was still a good time. Carr read a very short excerpt, and then fielded some questions before having to run and catch a plane. I actually found the question section to be the most engaging and I wish there was more time for that. He had really good answers about how to warn his children about the addictive dangers of college, and how he wishes he could say that writing a memoir about addiction and recovery was cathartic, but it wasn't. All in all, he was very endearing and appreciative and I enjoyed my time there. The book is going on the to-read list, as I have other books to finish in uhh, this next week. Oops.

2. Summer Borscht at the Amateur Gourmet

God, reading this made me wish I was wandering around the East Village with plans to stop at Veselka for a late dinner of borscht and pierogis, TODAY. Goddammit. Instead I'll be trying to finish two books this afternoon while waiting for sushi happy hour. (Okay, that's really not all bad.)

3. Housekeeping

I updated my link list, which means I made it much smaller. I can't stand link lists that go on for miles, so I'm highlighting the lesser knowns on the sidebar. 'Cause really, if you have more than, say, 50 subscribers on google reader you don't need any help from me. (By the way, google reader still says I only have two subscribers. Eff you! I have at least five. I think.)

RNC: the homefront

I know that people like my mom would not suggest that I give clues to my location on the Internet, but suffice it to say, I live very close to the Xcel Center, home of the 2008 Republican National Convention. How close? Close enough to be able to catch of glimpse of a bright red poster from my window, which on closer inspection has this on it:



Oh, that elephant. I think we'll call him Stampy.

Anyway, they're coming. They are erecting a giant white tent across from Xcel, for god knows what. They are walking around with orange tags around their necks that proclaim them to be convention workers/volunteers. They are making plans to infiltrate Minneapolis St. Paul (that's one city, not two) and pester all of those within.

Can't. Wait?

on getting out.

Sometime last week, feeling the threat of summer ending and still itching to make it out of the state, I booked an entirely last minute trip to Milwaukee and Chicago. I ended up taking the train to Milwaukee, the Megabus to Chicago, and the train home again from Chicago to St. Paul. The train was comfy both ways (if not a little long and loud heading back), and the bus was quick. I mostly needed to go somewhere without driving in order for it to feel like a true getaway, so I was thankful for the lack of a car.

The last times I've been to Milwaukee I was overcome by the smell of yeast and my naive eyes were disturbed by creepy grocers with bars in the windows, but I didn't find it bad at all this time around. In fact, I found it rather agreeable, even if the Wisconsin State Fair is far inferior to Minnesota's. I also got the best pair of pants ever, and sang Disney songs with friends in the car, so it was good times.

Chicago is a city that I can never seem to stay in for more than 36 hours at a time. While this is somewhat silly, it's good in that it always leaves me wanting more. On Sunday I hung out with a friend, and we sat in various locales...cafes, Wicker Park, and eventually wasted away the rest of the afternoon drinking beers on a patio. By the time we headed to the El to get to dinner (admittedly a bit drunk), I realized how much I want to live in a true city, one with trains, one with enough density to make places interesting solely because they are filled with people.

I did some touristy wandering on Monday (the Shedd Aquarium, Millennium Park) before catching my train home. Now I'm back, and I have just a little over a week before I head back to the stresses of work, which I am trying not to get too stressed about. Instead I'm stressing about which pre-established summer routines I need to throw out in order to make the last week and two days of summer the most awesome. It's a lot of pressure, and in the process I'm forgetting all the things I meant to do.

Anyway, why am I still writing this when I could be doing...stuff? Stuff indeed.

thai eggplants! and stuff!

I like going to the Farmer's Market and picking up unfamiliar vegetables and then figuring out what to do with them. This week it was Thai Eggplants. They look nothing like normal eggplants in that they're not purple and they're round. And of course, I had no idea what to do with them so I went to the old internest and found this: Thai Eggplants and Chickpeas in Peanut Masala

And then I did what I normally do with recipes that seem complicated - I skimmed the ingredients, decided which ones I could skip, and also adapted it to suit my lazy needs. Basically, I skipped the whole food processor part because I didn't feel like dragging it out of the closet, and I just added the spices while sauteeing the onions/ginger/garlic in oil. And I didn't measure a damn thing, because I am just that hardcore.

It turned out to be pretty good. Sometimes I wish I could upload smells.



(And once again, I need to remember to stop making semi-elaborate meals when everyone is at work! Sheesh.)

a half is still a lot of work.

How does one write about running a half marathon, anyway? It's pretty much the same motion, over and over again, for a long time. But I will try.

On Saturday I ran the Urban Wildland half marathon in Richfield. The course is very nice, as it goes around lakes and through nature reserves and is flat most of the way. They also strive to be a green race by being waste free. And they had good stuff - the shirt feels great, and I got yet another reusable tote bag. (Seriously, five envirosax and another six bags that I've gotten from classes/races/catalogs/transit initiatives. Enough! Though, I do like this one, and it comes with the double superiority of being eco-friendly and running a half marathon.)

On to the actual race...this was the first one I ran where I was really alone. Usually I have a running companion, or at the very least finish line companions whom I can't keep up with. (I did get my parents to come to the finish line, so I guess that's something.) And although I had made ambitious time goals long ago, I knew I probably wouldn't reach them given my laid back training. It definitely wasn't my best race, in terms of how I felt or my time. The interlude between each mile marker always felt much slower than my actual pace, and at some point around mile 7 my legs turned to jello and never really came back. And somehow I still finished with a reasonable time - 2:05:30 (9:35 pace). I definitely didn't reach my goal (under two hours), but it's not in the horrible range either. (These are all relative to me, of course.)

So there's that. My quads are still killing me, and I'm hoping to bike a lot more this week instead of running.

stream of consciousness.

I've really been enjoying my meals this week, much more so than usual. I could attribute it to the fine farmers at the market, the freshness of the fruit, or maybe that I'm just an awesome chef, but I know what the real deal is: it's just that time of month where everything tastes amazing. (Ladies, you feeling me? No? Well, it's cool. Me and my hormones are getting along, for the time being.) It doesn't even matter what it is: cucumber and tomato salad, tortillas filled with black beans, fresh corn kernels and avocado, homemade oatmeal with berries and bananas, or even a small sliver of Parmesan, it's all glorious and I am loving every mouthful.



I biked to my parent's house yesterday, and traded in the lady bike for a new bike, which is actually my old bike, but slightly improved since I last knew it. Meaning, the pedal arm (crank arm?) actually stays on, and it also has a rack and a pannier. And it fits so much better than that damn lady bike, I feel like a decent biker again. Never mind that braking is annoying because I need to get a new wheel or two, when I'm in motion I feel stronger, faster, not unlike a Daft Punk song! (Sorry, I myself am shaking my head at that one.)



Hi, my name is e and I'm addicted to dresses. No, this is not a dress, it's shoes to match a dress that I bought while at Target, intending to buy toilet paper or something. The shoes are surrounded by three dresses (bought in two weeks), plus one from my old bedroom closet that I decided is actually wearable again (after a decade). I try to buy cute tops or, I dunno, nice pants for work but no, dresses and skirts. That's it. So please, if you ever see me out shopping, remind me that I don't need any more dresses.

[Sorry for all these random posts lately.]