Day: July 18, 2008

Missing Jo

/ chollaball / 2 Comments

We came back from Rocky Point to the absence of Jo. I noticed it immediately, but it didn’t really bother me. I realized I was walking and moving gingerly, every second waiting to fend off the shrieking. It was like climbing Javalina and Mormon on the Blur again cause the Heckler’s fork is in the shop: waiting for the suspension to unjack, insead of being kind. Or the trailing edge of a sparkler over 4th of July, the awful scream of the parrot in reaction to anything i do. And it was not there.

It was quite nice.

The first day or two, every time I woke up I looked at the cage to see if I had to go shoo Jo out from under the sinks. where was she, where was she, where was she like I’d been doing forever. G asked about Jo, and I told her straight-up “Jo’s gone away. Jo’s gone to another home. Jo’s gone to another family.” She seemed upset about this at first, and I thought I saw her about to get all weepy, but it passed very quickly. She’s asked me about Jo maybe 3 times in 2+ weeks. She asked about Slim 20 times at least. G was intrigued by Jo, but more scared and annoyed than anything else. She’s taken lately to saying things like “this is my friend Kila” and “here’s my friend Turtle” and going and petting them with the greatest of care and respect. But about Jo, she only asked a handful of times. She has been fascinated lately with her 2 stuffed red parrots, and after I took Jo’s cage apart she started playing with the red stuffed parrot we kept in there – not sure if this is just having 3 similar toys, or a reaction to missing Jo.   They have gotten little play in the past week.

Andrea sent me an email about 2 weeks ago, but I have not heard from her since. Its only been 2.5 weeks, and its not like I can go pestering this woman, but I sent her a brief note today asking how it was going. If Jo’s new home is good for her, then this will have been for the best. I certainly feel more comfortable and less tension in my own house.

We moved the dog pillow into the corner where the cage was. Its a good spot for a pillow. Turtle was on it last night. It looked weird seeing nothing in that corner; it still looks weird. Every time I come into the bedroom my eyes go to that corner and scan for the bright green blob and I want to say “Hi Jo.” But I’m getting over it.

Commuter

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I have commuted 5 times to work now. I park at G’s daycare and head straight west on McDowell – no fun, no riverbed, no canals, and with the exception of a short jog through a trailer park and a break in a fence and a McDonald’s Parking lot to avoid Mckellips – utterly dull. Its all pavement, or the garbage and glass-strewn crap in the Res they call pavement. It really isn’t dull – its a slow, mind-numbing paranoia — complete defensiveness for an hour at a time. This must be what rabbits and cops feel like, and why they are so crazy and twitchy.

I had it down to just under an hour each way on the Blur, but within 3 rides i had damn-near used up 50% of my tread. I work too hard to keep those fine tubeless wheels and pricey tires ready for real MTB action to piss them away commuting, so decided to try the Superlight. Since its only ridden to shuttle G and the rare occasions Beckie and I ride together, it was much more suitable candidate to get abused by commuting. Unfortunately, it was running a 2.25 Kenda Kinetic which for all its rolling resistance might as well be a block of concrete attached to the hub. During the hour+ it took me each way, I had visions of old Far Side cartoons where the caveman is holding a square stone as v1 of The Wheel.

Very aggravating.

I’m not sure what to do for a commuter since there are so many different ways to go. I could tweak Beckie’s road bike or the Superlight, which would then render either of them too slow or too light for their actual intended purposes, yet simultaneously too light or too burly for their new purposes. I could get a cross bike, but do I really need another almost-roadie? I don’t even know what a cross bike is like? Or I could get a hardtail 29’r, but wouldn’t that just be an overbuilt cross-bike that still would be slow as a commuter or bad for MTBing cause of my tire selection?

So much to think about.

I decided to go for simple at first, and picked up 2 1.5inch cross tires and mounted them on the Superlight with thorn-resistant tubes inside. The wheels are heavy and hard, about what they weighed with tubes and nobbies, but this combination should make them reliable and durable, with little rolling resistance. It’d be nice not to have to worry at all about air pressure or slow leaks. On the ride down to the park with G in the trailer I immediately noticed how much faster the bike felt – the wheels were still heavy to get going, but the rolling was so easy. The first time commuting it took me 50 minutes in and 55 home in 110 degrees – a definite improvement. I did some research and a new low-end commuter will be $450, a new mid-range cross will be $700, and building up the Superlight with new wheels and new brakes and a new lockable fork will be $400 if I am an Ebay-god. So i think I will go with the $30 solution for now, and just see how this goes.

I like having the commute to plan for, i like how alert I am when i arrive, I like how my co-workers are subtlely cowed by this and my persona as a non-lightweight at work is subtlely enhanced. Coming home sucks, but its most efficient when I drop off and pick up G, so the finish is something to look forward to. It will only get better as summer passes. $6 a trip and a great workout.