era

Today I couldn’t face saying goodbye to my xtracycle. If I would have, I would have cried, in front of Terry & Ralph and maybe they would have thought me a fool, and I just couldn’t face it. So I took an extra-hot shower while Ralph wiped the bike down and took it in to trade in at the bike shop. And now it’s gone and I even walked in my garage thinking it was there, already, and felt a pang.

This bike was a big, big part of my life, and of the kids’ life, for over five years. I could and did take my children everywhere on this bike (as well as lots of other kids and a few grown-ups!). I was biking the Hogachillun on it up until today. In fact, Phoenix – for the first time – rode with her brother on the back, just the other day. Fond memory: biking around Lake Quinault and SMOKING two city-cyclists with their fancy gear and fancier bikes – while going uphill, and while hauling my child (and that may have been how I ruined my knees! so: comeuppance).

I don’t know if anyone reading understands, but in this moment it is difficult for me to move on after several years of packing the kids around, all marsupial-like.

"Do They Like Riding On The Bike?"

 

PROOF

 

Adventure Necessities

 

We Embark

 

This Bridge Makes Me Sh*t My Pants

 

Kelly + Coffee + X = Heaven!

 

Transporting:

 

This Is How We Do It

 

Docs + Fishnets + Bike

 

Mittens May Hamper Agility

 

Goodbye, X. You were an amazing family vehicle.

***

My new wheels:

New Wheels

 

The upgraydd is a Trek 520, with Ortleib roll-top pannier bags. Today, with the trade-in of my bike, we paid off the layaway. I took the new bike on a couple rides, about ten miles total. Just like my first day with the X, this bike felt new and strange. Very different stance, very different weight, handled differently. I did manage to carry books, my purse, a camera, and a potluck chile relleno. It made me feel like maybe I still had a cargo bike. Kinda.

salt skin

Today Ralph and Phee took the day off to hit Olympia, so Nels and I got up, had breakfast, donned as few clothes as possible, lathered up with sunscreen, and biked an eight-mile trip in the heatwave to pick up groceries. I biked slowly, for me, as I have something wrong with my knees – especially the left one. I remind myself: I don’t have to have knees that work or get my exercise or go to the doctor or take medicine or get an xray, all I have to do is be here right now and ride the bike with care and take the time I need. I’m not doing anything else right now, just This.

On our trip – against the wind on the way there, bolstered by it on the way back, thank Jeebus – my son clings to me and talks mostly about his exploits outdoors and I enjoy the sights of the sidestreets of Aberdeen. I pass a man nodding out in the alley in a not-insubstantial pile of fast food wrappers. At first I think he is a pile of refuse until he moves in a very human way, which spooks me. A moment later I am thinking of the addicts and alcoholics who perish from exposure during extreme weather. I pass a group of brown-skinned children playing with a hose; five boys taunting a girl who with seriousness chases them down to spray them. Nels and I smile and laugh and are both secretly delighted when we get a few drops from a dashed water balloon.

At home I rest with a root beer float and then a tomato sandwich. I bake a Brooklyn-style pizza for dinner and make Ralph a Vietnamese coffee. The extreme heats of oven temperature and olive oil and kalamata olives curiously satisfy me in my kitchenspace, which I’ve learned to keep cool, or at least cooler than the out-of-doors. Despite my precautions, I am a bit sun-fazed, tired from my ride (and my knee did get worse, despite the care I took in not straining it), a little scattered. At nine o’clock we take a walk out by the bay and I limp along and our dog, happy with not one not two but three long walks today, smiles alongside our conversation, padding in the deep grass in the dark, a gliding white shape accompanying our travels to nowhere in particular.

is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment

I’ve spent so much of the last dozen years in near-constant company of children you’d think I find them quite unremarkable as companions; but in fact, they are a special type of experience to me, still. I often feel uncertain, and think I am supposed to be providing them more food, more cuddles, more baby-talk. However I have very little to offer on all these accounts – sometimes not much for my own little ones.

The girls visiting tonight are, as per usual, excited about our life and they explore it frankly. They are enamored of our home; they enjoy my mother’s property next door, with the witchy garden and koi pool and fire pit. They are excited our children do not go to school and they are enthusiastic about Nels’ lemonade stand (he spent all day out there; cheerfully greeting, pouring, mixing – and when alone, singing songs and saying, “I’m a winner!” to himself).

In the evening Ralph leaves for a meeting and the four children and I venture out to our favorite little walk along the harbor. Within a few moments the younger sister N. sits behind me on my bike, completely at-ease with a grownup she’s never met before. She has a wicked sense of humor, very dry – a lot like my daughter. She is pretty in a winsome, Scout-from-To-Kill-A-Mockingbird type of way. Her sister is a real beauty, clouded blue eyes and long lashes and dark hair falling across her clear brow. They are very composed little girls and quite game to shift bikes back and forth when we are joined by another child on foot, woefully protesting the unfairness of not owning a bike. Phoenix, for the first time, rides my X with Nels on the back while I carry N. I feel a sting of pride. A little later my daughter rounds a corner too fast and ditches the bike too, falls right over although she and Nels are very good at dumping bikes without being hurt. Phoenix gets up and dusts off. “It’s not a maiden voyage of an Xtracycle if you don’t fall,” I tell her cheerfully; she brightens up.

The children know where to look for animals hidden here and there in the hot, muggy wetland – we find all sorts of creatures, including many centipedes criss-crossing our path, a long-toed salamander (rare for our area of Washington), and a small nest of nubbly purple-pink rodents. The children entreat me to take photos with my phone although in the case of the little baby nest, I don’t want to get too close.

Long-Toed Salamander

Rodents Of Generally-Expected Size

***

Back at home the visiting girls stay until the last possible moment before they’ll be late getting home. They keep asking about my sewing and my sewing room. Finally it occurs to me they might like some of Phee’s hand-me-downs. I step into the closet and begin pulling out this and that, garments my daughter has grown out of that haven’t found a new child. I hand over a few things then start straightening the hangers, lost a bit in preoccupied tallying of my children’s clothing needs. A moment later I turn to find one of the girls still standing, expectant, hoping for more magic to be pulled out of this dark and dusty little closet. The girls try on the garments and one of them, the older one, brightens up considerably at Phee’s leopard-print-and-lilac-rose dress. She changes into the frock then skates into the kitchen and twirls; the dress suits her even more than it did my daughter.

Giving clothes to children is funny. The kids have to like the clothes and then who knows if the parents will let them wear them. And then there are the unintentionally-comic requests; a friend of my daughter asked me to make her a Justin Bieber t-shirt. As if you can’t find one of those for $5 at Walmart! Still, I am gratified to think these particular garments will find another happy home. All told, the girls left with the Blue Dragon Egg Jacket, the Bleeding Heart Dress, the Rayon Tiered Leopard Dress, and Blue Goth.

(A retrospective:)

Happy As A Clam
Supermodels
Up Close, Flowers, Leaves, Vine
Pensive At The Coffee Shop

Lately:

As you well know I am not a very exciting person but I do things that get me stared at in this smallish burg, namely today biking with my glowing pink hair through Hoquiam on Ralph’s Ute, which in turn had Phoenie’s bike piggybacked as I was meeting the kids at the Y and didn’t want to haul them both. (My daughter loves, loves her new fast and lightweight bike and the adult size enables her to have longer, faster, and more effiicient rides.) I’d used my very belt to lash the head tube of Phoenix’s bike to the flight deck of mine. After a few blocks of this I stopped at the hardware store and bought a couple bungees and used one to secure the bikes – and, in turn, free up the same service for my pants – properly the rest of the way.

The kids had a swim date from about three PM to five PM. I spent those hours at home phone and internet-free, practicing yoga, which I’ve found I am best suited doing separately from children running about and stepping on my throat. By the way, my “home studio space” lacks a few things, practically a strap and blocks (which would help as I almost killed myself on Sleeping Pigeon today), aesthetically perhaps the lack of redolant cat when my face is hitting the floor.

Anyway, at the Y to pick the kids up, just when I walked in the lobby (after answering the bike-related questions of a very interested four year old who immediately intuited he could ride atop the back of my steed), they both came running out. They’d gotten all showered and dressed and packed up, economically rolling up their towels in the duffel bag, and they were hungry. We continued our bike ride only seven blocks to the Mia for Italian fare and I drank glass after glass of water. Ralph met us there straight from work.

I am still getting used to the idea of time to myself where my kids aren’t either directly supervised by me or arranged for by me – or stressed over. Readers know I am not an overprotective mom in the general sense people seem to mean this, but I have in the past been sensitive to (and, okay, okay, easily pissed off by) comments of grownups regarding my kids’ conduct or my choice to let them be somewhere on their own. Even today I hovered barefoot and talked to the lifeguards overlong while my kids got swimming, nonplussed at my babies’ lack ceremony in saying goodbye. It felt so odd to just leave them and let the lifeguards boss them. In fact when I picked them up Phoenix gave me a dutiful report of the corrections the lifeguards had asked for, mostly involving grabasserty and Nels’ forays into the deep end. Nels can certainly swim and he’s mulling over taking the official swim test so he won’t get hassled for venturing over his head. And that whole thing is none of my business, neither to encourage or coerce but only to assist him if he needs it (which he won’t).

Home and I’m pleasantly sore and tired and ready for a snuggle and bed. Tomorrow I’m running again in the morning, then taking Nels out to his friend’s, after which I’ll sneak off to the bakery and select a few cupcakes et cetera to share with my little girl who’ll hopefully still be asleep and cuddly when I get home.

it starts in my belly / then up to my heart

One of life’s many pleasures for me is stretching out for a run, or one might not even be able to call it a run, as I am just now training again and I am slow-slow-slow. But soon I have a good sweat worked up and my body feels great and the blues are bluer and the greens are greener. A fellow in maitenance, working with two others putting football lines on the high school field, when I pull up to the track at a fair clip on the bike, he says, “Looks like you’re getting some exercise before getting some exercise.” He’s got long white hair and a big white beard and he’s skinny in work jeans and how I miss my father so much.

Another wonderful pleasure is later, slipping into a hot shower after a run and then pouring coffee. The kids wake up just as I’m about to duck out and join my sister for coffee (she’s heading back to Portland today) and Nels comes along. He and I both enjoy a toasted Everything bagel with cream cheese, some Superfood juice, and I sip coffee while he plays YouTube on my phone so Jules and I can talk (and talk and talk and talk). Afterwards he and I hit the store (pears, banana, pasta, a Hemplers’ ham) and I come home and make fresh vegetable soup for the kids and soon I need to rest as we’ve a dinner guest coming over at seven. After a simple dinner of Ralph’s creation (chicken piccata, roasted cauliflower, spinach and pea salad) we grownups take a walk over the scary clumpy sidewalks and pick up ice cream and talk to the Night People along the way; my mom picks up the kids for a date at her house, and Phoenix stays over. I’m seated on the porch and she comes and holds me and kisses me because she knows I’ll miss her but she knows she’s coming back. Her body feels lovely and substantial in my arms and her little boychick head of spiky hair smells divine.

Two days ago, for $10, I bought myself a lightweight jacket to wear on bike rides or running, and a $5 3-pair sock set. This tiny amount of self-care is harder for me than others may realize, but once done, I feel the better for it. Sometimes I think I should make a list entitled “self-respect” and see what I’d do for myself if I cared as much for my own body and heart and mind as I do for others. It’s a work in progress.

xtracycle

you wanna fly / don’t want your feet on the ground

xtracycle

I get a rush when I bike long distances and today was no exception (I’m already used to the seat, by the way). I had a full day including picking up a refurbished New Home sewing machine (squee!), then later a wonderful coffee date with my sister, just the two of us. Afterwards she took me next door to the bike shop and bought my new head and tail lights, in addition to a very generous gift certificate for the family. What a wonderful gift for us and a real blessing.

But the highlight of my day sticking to me now was about ten PM when my friend D. who’s tended towards shyness in the past agreed to ride on the back of my bike there in west Aberdeen, and we did a few loops in the summer street while people laughed a bit, circling around a big bonfire while P. played Foreigner’s “Records” out the stereo of his impeccably-shiny Harley.

Or maybe it was an inadvertant poem I heard early in the evening: “Pray to be sane / drank a Hurricane”.

Or later as it was cold out, meeting Ralph and Cole for hot coffee and pizza at the Mia.

Either way, things seemed to work out real well all day long.

the Mia

 

i’m all ears

I was proud of myself today, because despite this and that bit of crap-luck and small-minded asshattery and just a general difficult day, Hell Yes did I still get Phoenix and I out on the bike, and we rush-rush-rushed down to the bus depot, arriving there at the same time the bus did and trying to look nonchalant as I took the front tire off the xtracycle and hefted it up (it’s heavy and I seem to never get good upper-body strength going) and hopped on and while riding to the 7-11 (the only place my card can access cash without a fee) I set up Phoenie’s new doctor’s appointment and then, back off the bus, load up, get cash, hit the dance studio for the first bellydance class I’ve done in a while.

Let me tell you, Phoenix was wonderful. She caught the front tire expertly as I popped it off; she carried it on board and paid our fare. She was entirely attentive at every juncture I needed her to be, smiling and laughing during dance class and minding herself with aplomb, popping over to the tienda for a soda. Then after dance class carrying also my precious, precious cargo of tacos, arroz y frijoles from my favorite taquería.

Good weather (or good-ish) means more bike rides which means lots of compliments, questions, gawks, and some bus drivers reacting in alarm when I load the bicycle. What I’ve observed is the same transit employees who speculate I won’t be able to load and secure my longtail (a minority, thank goodness) are the same who wouldn’t budge a corner of an asscheek out of the seat to directly stop me, so I ignore what they’re saying through the glass at me, get it all set up (quite securely mind you, perhaps even more so than a standard bike; there is no excuse in the world for these crafts to be disallowed on a transit as I hear there are in other places) and hop on board and go from a super-friendly space. “You sure that’s gonna work?” the driver asks today. “Oh yes, I’ve done it many times.” [ smile ]. I sit down. An older man sitting nearby leans toward me, “You sure that’s gonna work?” Yes. Really. My ladybrain senses you have concerns? So I tell this fellow, “Yes, I’ve done this many times before.” A pause, then: “It was an expensive bike and I wouldn’t risk it.”

When we got home Nels was on the porch, a look of concentration on his face: he was cracking and eating pistachios. A few minutes later I had a hot bath ready and put my head out the door before hopping in: my kids and about six others from the neighborhood, plus an honest-to-god PUPPY, all playing outside in the sunny grass. Perfect.

After the bath I check my email and receive great news from Chicago; my latest sewn creation, a custom design, was well received upon arrival (clients are allowed to send back any item, no questions asked, if it’s not to their liking). So now I can go public, here are some pictures of “Tigre”, a little newborn-sized bunting that left my house last week:

Tigre!

Back View

Hood

I wrote a little about the inspiration for this project, time spent, and materials cost on my Homesewn site; as per usual I put construction details in the Flickr tagset. I had a wonderful time, in particular with all the structural support and the handsewing.

Inside

So yeah, today ended up going better than how it started.

& now? Pedaling my 73 pound daughter around, and dancing for the first time in a while, then rushing off to a meeting this evening, and then a grocery trip for this week’s Conch – well, I’m a bit more beat than usual.

gollum, gollum

Today:

Play

The kids, playing together. They got wise to me taking pictures and giggled and ran off, thinking I was going to grab at their little toes. I would never!

Fabric in the mail, spoils of my testing work! The contents of one of two packages:

FAVRIC
From mid-left (green sliver) clockwise: leaf green cotton mini-corduroy, woven Irish linen mini-houndstooth, Very Wang wool rayon (so. soft), Hooty Hoot flannel (Hooty Jacks), Retro Rocket Scientist flannel (green on black), cotton canvas fabric (chocolate brown), cotton canvas fabric (deep amethyst), linen/cotton (dark grey), linen/cotton (melon).

Then off to downtown Hoquiam in the (cold!) sunshine. We took Ralph’s bike to the bike shop as his chain was seizing – and stopped at the River Landing too.

Little Guy On The Hoquiam River

Terry (Bike Shop Guy) measured  the chain and oiled it and put air in the tires and wouldn’t let me pay him anything, then opened the door for me in a very chivalrous manner. When I got home I even hex-keyed Ralph’s bike seat back to the (improbably high) position he uses. Partly because this was nice to do for Ralph, partly as a passive-aggerssive hint because when he uses my bike he always neglects to do the same (I love [ /sarcasm ] getting on my bike after he uses it just to get high-crotched in a most alarming and painful fashion!).

It gets so dark so early and we “sleep in” – so the Hogabooms aren’t getting as much daylight as we need. However the beautiful fall weather, although cold (for me), is lovely to venture out in.

Guilty

of a rainy afternoon & (a brief trip to) the Outer Darkness

“wailing and gnashing of teeth”, Biblical reference (Matthew 13:42)

or, the bike ride across town to get a hot lunch at the diner. The kids were shocked at the cold and wet. Nels, behind me on the Xtracycle and thus shielded from the elements somewhat, fared better than his sister. I’d bundled her up as best I could (having the foresight to know how cold the ride would be) but she cried real tears at the cold blasting her hands, and her fleece wasn’t quite up to protecting her from the wind. At her cries it was an effort to keep pangs of guilt at bay. After all, I make quite the effort to clothe them every year against the elements – which are decidedly wet, morphing our not-so-cold to an actually-cold – and every year they get bigger and even when I have the prescient smarts to make something big enough for next season sometimes accidents happen like in the case of Phoenix’s wool coat, lost or stolen – oh and also of course my mind was churning over the fact Phoenix’s bike is already too small for her and I wish I could finagle a new one for Christmas. Nels at least is set clothing-wise; my sewing and knitting have him bundled up in all kinds of wool (although, come to think of it, the hat I made him a little under a year ago is already en-smallening). So I’m good for a few minutes where my son is concerned; until he grows another five inches in twelve months, like he did last year.

Once we got inside and ordered – cheered that even in the depressed-economy in our little downtown there were several other patrons in the eatery – I told the kids this was the time of year, it would be wet and cold, and I could find or make them suitable clothes (latest acquisition: scrumping the purchase of rainboots from my mom; predictably, she went a bit overboard and the boots are rather resented by Nels who clomped in them so loudly at the library) but that we’d be outside a bit since we only had the one car and Daddy had to have it lots of days. They were entirely sober and nodded total acceptance of this. I chided them a bit for the complaints on the bike ride and I told them I needed their help in figuring out what they needed for the upcoming cold.

Phoenix took a napkin and drew a new coat I could make her:

Sketching

A black and white trenchcoat, double-breasted, waterproof with interlining. Assymetrically colorblocked sleeves and a contrast front placket. She designed it in about thirty seconds and I already know what pattern I own I can use, and I already know it’s going to rock.

Phoenix Quickly Designs Her Winter Coat

Nels asked Phoenix to order for him. They split a grilled cheese sandwich and a hot fudge cherry shake. They were very pleased with the whole business. And of course like always they like fixing up my coffee. I generally take it black but I can’t really resist how much they enjoy doctoring it for me.

Cream In My Coffee

As we ate the rain picked up. “It’s going to suck riding back home,” Nels said – but he said it cheerfully. We ended up diving into the library (a scant block away) and waited out the worst of the weather. When it seemed clement enough to go home we went for it. A few minutes later and only a little bit wet we were stomping inside the warm house and carefully storing the foil-wrapped remainders of grilled cheese for later snacking.

What lovely, lovely people to spend the day with.

Lurve

some representations of things that are more or less real

This is Ralph and I (and way in the background, the kidlets) one year ago.

***

Mama
This is me looking happy. I’m happy because I was contacted to sew a few things for someone. I hope it works out. I seriously am already thinking over the projects in my mind. I also ordered fabric and I got wonderful stuff for good prices and at this moment I am happily ruminating on this soft goodness. I’m also about to go on a sunny walk with my son. This latter makes me incredibly happy.

On the walk I enjoyed hearing the very loud AC/DC blaring down the street. I was the beneficiary for several blocks. I was indeed “shook all night long”. And yet I am not sure how this rocker’s next-door neighbors felt about the music selection coupled with the volume.

We stopped at my mom’s and interrupted her work (canning peaches) for a lunch date. It was lovely talking with her and Nels was a little angel in Los Arcos, his favorite repast being the bean dip and their fresh chips. He gave her a sweet hug and a kiss when we parted ways. They love one another quite deeply.

Bike Ride
This is Phoenix looking upset because Ralph got the wrong date for her soccer practice (so we’re biking back home); this is Ralph feeling a bit bad about this but mostly wanting to help his daughter feel better. Look at their twin-frowns.

Fried Rice But Artsy
This is fried rice, tonight’s dinner. I couldn’t get a good picture. It is delicious. It is also fun because you can make up all the fresh and fabulous ingredients ahead of time and then whip the whole thing together in only twenty minutes and everyone is soooooo hungry and loves it. I’ve been listening to the family compliment the meal all night, especially Nels. I heard him speaking in wonderment at how Mama can make such good food. He and Phoenix and the neighbor boy are out in a tent in the front yard (supposedly staying all night) and he keeps running inside (impersonating a “zombie walk” of course) to grab more bites.