more exploding tires!

after trying again and having the tube explode again george and i decided to just set the project aside and wait for some more informed help. i did, however, get the bottom bracket, cranks, and some pedals put on yesterday:



Rivendell's wheel-builder, Rich Lesnick, emailed me yesterday to say my rear wheel was all assembled and ready to be picked up. this morning we headed out, with a box full of pastries, to get the rest of the missing components.

in order to get to walnut creek from here we get to do exciting things like go over the richmond-san rafael bridge and through the caldecott tunnel; at these two places we realized what is wrong with california drivers: they can't merge! that's right, all these instances of traffic being jammed, backed up, out of control and ridiculous are because people can't grasp the concept of merging- preceded, i suppose, by sign reading. by chance, we thought our car was making a terrible burning smell so we got off the interstate to check it out. it turned out to be someone else's car and when we got back on the interstate, just before the tunnel, we managed to miss almost all of ridiculous waiting.

once there we picked up the wheel, a saddle: the women's b.17 because it really does suit the bike better, two burrito wraps, new brake pads, and little nut/bolt combo missing from one of the brakes. they took a look at the wheel and tires and determined that (surprise!) a smaller tire would hold to the rim better and more safely than the ones they'd previously given me.

all that's missing now is bar tape and a seatpost (which we'll have to scrounge around for, apparently this frame requires a fairly skinny one.)

george installed his new, wider handlebars and got some red bar tape for them which turned out to be a pale red so it looks kind of pink. he's pleased, but may shellac them to try and redden them up. it's a good look for his predominantly silver and red bike.

in cat news: it's true and confirmed, the cats have fleas and ringworm. this means lots of baths and anti-fungal cream for them, which by this point they're fairly okay with. they're not clawing our eyes out, but they're really not happy about it. there's been floor and laundry bleaching and scrubbing all around. i mean, it's not like we're living in a filthy hole or anything, we clean and launder regularly, the windows are always open, they get advantaged regularly: what the fuck?

saturday is george's birthday (the big 2-5) and hopefully we'll be going to the beach with liz and mike. i think he's decided that instead of a cake (i had suggested carrot cake with strawberries and whipped cream filling, frosted with either whipped cream or buttercream) he'd like a tart. and quiche. but not at the same time.

p.p.s

my tires are the coolest thing since forever and are a big awesome surprise for all y'all.

you know, more bikes

what do you find in the bottom of a jug of maple syrup after it's been sitting for a while? a crystallized pancake!




i had my doubts about amaryllis bulbs, but they were a) unfounded and b) wrong. towards the end of last summer susan (george's mom) gave us a bunch of them and naturally i brought them all the way across the country and about a month ago decided to give 'em a go. the result was this great bloom - however, it was too heavy for the rest of it so it fell over and broke off. so the leaves in the background are still in the pot and the flowers are actually in a blue thermos. we fooled you though.




after discovering a flexible bondo-like substance, george got to work remodeling our new/old dash! he cut some custom vents and applied the aluminum strip (at the bottom). we haven't decided what color to paint it yet, the front-runner right now is beige (because it'll match the color of the roof inside.) the other option would be black, but we have a theory that a lighter color would help keep the car cooler in the hot summer sun.

saturday we made a trek out to walnut creek to check out rivendell bike works with karl and lindsay and it was a tremendous success. the guys there were really nice, really helpful- nay, ridiculously helpful. the rear spacing on my new/old frame is narrower than bikes these days and someone invented a pair of tricky little tools to a) increase the spacing and b) re-parallel them. the best part is that i got to do it myself! that way i couldn't blame anyone else if it fucked up the frame, wouldn't have to pay them to do it, and i got to do it myself. we walked away with a bunch of snazzy new bike parts and a rear wheel on order. i froze on the saddle choice; i've been eying the brooks b.18, but didn't realize that brooks makes a womens version of the b.17, which is less cruisey and more roady. lindsay got a b.17 for her 1980-something schwinn le tour, which she was super psyched about (apparently the current saddle is really dirty and suede thanks to the bike's previous owner.) hopefully by the time my rear wheel is ready to be picked up i'll have made a decision. instead of getting me new handle bars we got george new, wider, handle bars so i'll have his old ones.



(click for a larger, readable version)


after work today i was ready to start trying to assemble some bikey things and decided to start by putting a tube & tire on a wheel, a nice simple place to start. everything was going fine until the tube exploded! being captain cool/clueless that i am, i forgot to put the rim tape on the rim. it's this nice cloth tape that goes around in the inside of the rim and covers the end of the spokes so they don't....pop the tube! it was a shocking, headache-inducing pop and it's still in my head. then george got home and enlightened me regarding rim tape and we set out for performance bikes for some springs for the brakes, bar tape, and a bottom bracket tool. on the way home we stopped and picked up sushi for dinner and got liz o and mike's message asking to crash on our couch tonight.

george is currently dismantling his handle bars. boy is sleeping on the couch. girl is stalking around outside. i'm sitting on the couch.

p.s. - we think girl may have ringworm again.

when thieves steal your bike, build a new one

and so begins the chronicle of the new bike:









the frame also came with a rear derailleur and some brakes, both of which are in decent, usable condition.

cats!

the cats have been sleeping on the couch a lot lately, probably because it's soft and out of the hot searing sunlight. it's been ridiculously warm lately-up into the mid-90s. i see people around wearing long pants and shirts and...jackets. yesterday and today are nice and cool due to the morning fog we're getting; it was actually cloudy this morning.




while sleeping on the couch boy's been sleeping in some funny positions that rival the funny positions ollie used to sleep in. this one is my personal favorite-showing off the snaggly tooth and his enthusiasm for life.




and even when i lay on the couch he's still determined to sleep on the couch.

hot summer

lately we've been hanging-out machines; first dyani was here and while she was here we got a hang out a little with my paper-source-boss lori, we spent a good part of the weekend with karl and lindsay at the beach and playing wii, tonight we're dining with lil, tomorrow we're attending a little birthday bash for george's boss's son, bo (catered by wife/mom, jen with hot dogs!), then hopefully more hanging out with karl and lindsay, then mike and liz, then cynthia and leland are coming in july!

in the meantime george has been diligently working on our new-old dash for the rabbit. he's got it pretty well flattened out and cleaned up and soon we'll choose a color and install it. i'm not sure what his next step is, possibly working on the not-running problem, or the broken-horn-steering-wheel thing. regardless, we're one step closer to getting her running again.

my new-old bike frame has arrived and is beeeeeautiful! it's got part of a bottom bracket that needs to come off and then it's just a matter of amassing the parts, a good portion of which i'm hoping to get from rivendell bike works, and an up-coming bike swap in san rafael.

woo!

mourning and the lighthouse

after checking ebay and craigslist every day for the past week, i'm truly convinced my bike is gone for good. some people i've talked to have had optimistic stories of other people finding their bikes on craigslist and having the pleasure of getting it back, or simply finding it, or having it returned to them more than a year later. my bike has moved on. i have found a couple other bikes similar or identical to mine for sale and have considered buying another one, but i've come up with a better solution: i'm going to build my own precisely the way i want to. i deviously won an ebay auction for a Volpe frame from the late 80's and have started compiling a list of parts. the frame is scratched up enough that a dumb bike thief won't go through the trouble of stealing it, i hope.

dyani was here visiting for the last week or so which was a very welcome break from the lame stuff we usually do around here. she and her boyfriend conor are moving out to davis in september, so the first thing we did was drive to davis so she could sign a lease on an apartment. we did other californiay things like: go to the beach, the jelly belly factory, ride our bikes across the golden gate bridge (and then walk back after they got stolen), eat seafood, walk through chinatown, and check out the point reyes lighthouse.

















the cats, who we recently had to de-flea, are very big fans of dyani and are kind of bummed that they're not getting all that extra attention and entertained all day long anymore. while here dyani requested some baked goods and picked out chocolate cupcakes filled with chocolate mint ganache and topped with mint buttercream. they turned out delicious and kind of stomach achey. luckily we've pawned three off on the neighbors and george doesn't seem to have a problem eating one a day so we've only got a few left.

in car news, george took a dash out of another rabbit to replace ours which is cracked and messed up beyond repair. he's going to sand down the few cracks this newer one and finish it with some bondo-like stuff and paint it. he hopes to have it running by the end of the month. we got a new set of tires for liz's car and now it rides like a dream - smooth and steady.

violated

dear jerk bike thieves,

i don't support your way of life, but you've left me no choice. i hope you enjoy reselling/chopping/riding my bike which i have loved and treasured and ridden with great joy for less than a year. i am glad i hadn't upgraded my saddle or found the right rack for the back. please do enjoy the lights and i hope the pump falls off so if you have a flat you're screwed. maybe if you're lucky you can be hit by a car while riding it just like i was.


sincerely,

girl who's bike you stole from in front of a bank on a sunday afternoon.

p.s. - thanks for stealing the bike i was borrowing from my really nice elderly neighbor, i thoroughly enjoy telling him it had been stolen and there's no hope of getting it back.

p.p.s. - you're a jerk.

memorial weekend

the other day girl brought home her first kill: a tennis ball. as you can see it's only slightly smaller than her head. she carried it inside, walked around with it, showed it off, then played with it for a while.

for memorial day we went to my co-worker emily's barbeque in the park for a little bit and then headed off to muir woods to meet up with george's cousin iran, her husband anu, and two of their friends from iceland.



today i did all sorts of fascinating errands and cleaning and belated birthday present sending and of course: baking! chocolate chip cookies (from my new favorite book, baking illustrated), high protein bread (the amazing manghis' recipe), and grape nut muffins (from the enchanted broccoli forest).



now george and i are patiently waiting for dyani's pretty-delayed plane to arrive at 1am by rearranging the house and putting up bookshelves and watching a movie. dyani'll be here for a whole week! we'll be going up to davis to find her an apartment, biking into the city to bike into the city, and heading to the beach because it's been seventy and sunny for the past two weeks so why wouldn't we go to the beach?

last sunday we went to the maker faire and were overwhelmed by the number of people, the amount of technology and resounding creativity. there were fire trucks shooting flames, rockets, power tool races, at least three different electric cars, bicycles, bicycles, bicycles, a life-size game of mouse trap (it looked just like that too..), yarn, clothes, legos...



there was this tiny house which is truly remarkable. before we left for california we thought it'd be a great idea to build and tow a tiny house instead of a u-haul. our design looked more like a cross between a gyspy wagon and a train car.



a tiny tiny model A engine! (for those of you out of the model A loop: this past summer george spent hours upon hours tinkering on a 1930's model A in his parents garage and managed to get it running!)



on our way out of the faire we came across driving cupcakes! there were three or four of them, well, one was a blueberry muffin.

since we were down in that neck of the woods, we decided to check out half moon bay. it's one of those ridiciulously quaint costal towns that only survives because of the tourist traffic. we had some coffee and looked around an antique store where we found this little hand drill. i've been searching for one to use to drill little holes in order to bind books. (someday i may shell out the $40+ for a screw punch, but until then...)





but perhaps the most exciting part of the day was the very beginning when we were just heading out of san anselmo and stumbled across and antique faire! (they're all about the "faires" out here.) we meandered through looking at all the unaffordable antiques and the wealthy people buything them to use as decorative splashes to their homes until george found a little chest full of machinists' tools!



$500 later we were on our way to the maker faire.

p.s.

the key to polenta is cheese.

a smattering

george made this nifty little circuit tester! it lights up AND buzzes! he plans to use it on our sick rabbit in order to fix things like the headlights.

speaking of rabbits, my sister's rabbit, andrew, died this week after living to the ripe ol' bunny age of ten. after her first rabbit, fluffy, died mom and i went out in search of the perfect replacement to give her as a christmas surprise. we found andrew and managed to keep him in the house and a secret from her for something like a week. she opted to have him cremated like i did ollie - if anyone finds a bottle shaped like a rabbit, please let me know.

speaking of things being sick, my grandfather goes in tomorrow for some heart surgery. in addition to needing a stint in his artery, he has a touch of pneumonia in one of his lungs. he's spunky (like his wife was) but old; here's hoping everything goes smoothly tomorrow.

today continued to be full of baked goods: pitas, maple cornmeal muffins, and finally, polenta for dinner (which is still in the oven.) other highlights of the day included:

- breaking little pieces off of plants at OSH to bring home and root
- getting some new sheets
- george coming home for lunch

tomorrow we hope to bike out to point reyes station like all the cool kids do. (tons of people bike from san francisco to pt. reyes on the weekends - flocks! oodles! droves! murders!)

meh.

clearly someone's a better nose-licker.

we're back in california after a visit home. the travelling back went without incident except for george's weird-pain-in-sternum-might-collapse-lays-down-in-the-airplane-and-feels-
better-in-five-minutes thing. it was good to see the kittens and nice to not be flying or driving, but i can't say that i was glad to be back. the last three days i've been feel crappy physically, mentally, and emotionally. it's like living in someone else's apartment and going to someone else's job. george and i decided to try and think of it as having summer jobs in some great costal place.

rose is in town for a wedding in berkeley and hopefully we'll get to see her along with liz o. and mike. and at the end of the month dyani will be visiting for the sake of visiting and to nail down some housing in davis where she and conor will be moving in...the fall i think and to visit friends in santa barbara.

girl is pretty pissed at us-literally. she's taken to doing her business by the door and on our messanger bags. we reassure her that we're not going to leave her for good and that she's a good cat, but not when she pees on things other than cat litter.

recipes of the week!
- chilled avocado cucmber soup, from Horn of the Moon Cookbook
- coconut milk cupcakes with coconut cream cheese frosting and pineapple, from the blog Vanilla Garlic

chilled avocado cucumber soup

4 c. (2 medium cucmbers), chopped (reserve 1 cup, peel only if skins are waxed)
2 ripe avocados, pitted and peeled
3 large cloves of garlic
1/2 packed cup fresh parsley
2 c. yogurt
1 c. water (or 1 c. ice cubes to chill soup quickly)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. chopped scallions

- in a medium bowl combine 3 c. chopped cucumbers, avocados, garlic, parsley, yogurt, water or ice, and salt.
- puree mixture in a blender in batches until smooth.
- when everything's blended stir in the reserved cup of chopped cucumber and scallions
- chill 1 hour

my note: i think i would go ice cubes as a cooling method-the water seems to....water the soup down a little more than i would like. or maybe i wouldn't use either of these and would just chill it longer.

also, today i swiped some big, healthy wandering jew clippings from home depot-suckers.

montpelier visit no. 2

today i rode a sweet bike that colin made! george rode it too; he tried to do a wheelie and fell over backwards. we spent time with liz wandering around the town, visited the bakery and saw the new delivery car (a blue ford windstar), and some other stuff. mostly the bike is the coolest part.

[edit 5/3: the link to the sweet bike is a sweet video of me riding the sweet bike, but it didn't work out so hot. ]

montpelier visit no. 1

george, jesse and i drove into montpelier today to stop by the bakery and hang around town. paul and elaine had already left, but denise was still there and we talked about bakery things and new news-the delivery car finally died. magically, while we were there liz called! (liz k.-the first liz i worked with at the bakery) we made a date to hang out at the langdon street cafe this very afternoon! i got to meet her five and a half month old daughter, amelia! she's pretty little and pretty cute. she's got wisps of red hair and a distinct voice.

george and jesse played scrabble-jesse won. we went to rivendell and bear pond looking for the horn of the moon cookbook and any good book. i found this one! ideally i'm in the market for a used copy of the horn of the moon. then we went to the co-op and passed susan on the way in, but she didn't see us. jesse got stuff to make quiche and george got some asparagus to roast and we're hoping that james will bring down some steak. it's a lot of food. so come by and eat some.

home sweet home

we made it home relatively unscathed! the most annoying things we encountered were being unable to sleep on the plane and JFK being unusually hot and dry-which made us very unhappy. the icing on that cake is that the water-fountain-water tasted dreadful and the bottled water was virtually unaffordable.

jesse met us at the airport and we headed over to see my sister and pick up some car keys...then downtown for some lunch...then up and down church street for fun...and he drove us down the parking lot with the car. luckily he didn't make it out of the parking lot before we discovered we couldn't get the car to start. after trying to jump start the car about eight times and calling my dad at least four times we broke down and called AAA for some help. then we sat in the car and waited for something like a half hour and then got a call from them saying it'd be another half hour before the town truck got there. jesse drove us into montpelier, where george's mom, susan, met us, we ran into my aunt susi and then susan brought us the rest of the way home.

before we left montpelier i got a call from the tow truck guy who told me that the car started fine-as long as it's in neutral instead of park. so he didn't tow it anywhere because it didn't need to be.

after finally getting home i rang the door bell and surprised my mom! she was very, very, very, very surprised and happy. i managed to keep the actually dates of our trip home a secret from her and let everyone else know. woo hoo! i started to tell her the story of the car and she interrupted with, "oh, ... and it has to be in neutral, dad knows that. halley knows that." ... .. i'm SO GLAD they let me figure this one out on my own.

jenna's managed to keep all the plants i left behind alive-except the avocado tree which may or may not make it because one of the four cats in the house used its pot as a litter box. excitingly, her chinchilla, chillbert, has learned to use her excersize wheel! and all the cats got fat!

birthdays!

happy birthday to:
- my mom, kim!
- george's brother, jonathan!

nothing will make a birthday more special than being in a bulleted list of other people celebrating a birthday.

as it turns out these people also share a birthday:
- george
- liz o.

some stuff about some things

this is the worst of my injuries:



it's looking pretty good today, it's been pretty black and purple for a while.

friday night we drove into the city and had dinner and went to a movie with hope and mal. and i highly reccomend that everyone go see (or rent when it comes out) hot fuzz.

saturday george worked on fixing a chair most of the day and i went to work most of the day. for dinner we had roasted yams and asparagus.

sunday we drove back into the city and went to the alternative press expo with our friends karl and lindsey. it was kind of overwhelming and i felt a little too ignorant about comics. i did buy a little book that's portraits of werewolves among the roman elite; i appreciate it because these guys obviously put a lot of time into it (the illustrations themselves and the folder the portraits are in is handmade) and it gives me hope that if they can do something like this and make some money from it then i could probably do something like this and make some money from it. i also bought a hat just as the expo was closing down, it's a nice brown corduroy cap with some leaves stitched in orange on the sides. hope got a really beautiful blue wool(?) one with a bird stitched on the side.

after the expo was over we drove hope and mal back up here to the north bay so they could see our little apartment and more importantly meet our adorable cats and slightly more importantly eat some delicious dinner. butternut squash ravioli, melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi, beet salad, creme brulee, chocolate mousse torte... hope and mal are two of my (and assume george is with me on this) absolute favorite people to hang out with-there's just enough similarities and differences between us that everything is interesting.

our friend liz leaves to go back east for the summer tomorrow and we're bummed that she's leaving but are confident she'll come back-if not for her car then for her le creuset pot.

as an aside, i think one of the most wonderful things about bicycles is that they're simple machines and, with a little effort, easily understood. would a chainless bike be even easier to comprehend and repair? i'm undecided.

super exciting wednesday!!

the excitment is absolutely non-stop here in san anselmo. my schedule for work got rearranged a little so i can go somewhere this weekend, so today i was supposed to work all day. this morning i got nice and early and cancelled the dentist appointment i had today and ate my cereal and even got to enjoy my coffee. i got all dressed up in layers and headed out for work on my bike.

i was promptly hit by a car!

luckily, i'm okay. my legs are bruised and swelling in selected places, but other than that i'm clean. my bike is even all right! which, deep in my heart, is the most important thing.

now i'm drinking hot chocolate and already going crazy from sitting around. entertain me! or not. whatever. i'll be here.

excitement tuesday

yesterday i had the chance to spend the afternoon with my friend sarah who is going to grad school in england! things would have been more exciting if i'd flown over there on a whim, but it turned out she was in the area for school break. we had sushi and walked around berkeley. she bought a hat. the excitement continued after we parted ways and i returned to the car to discover a $30 parking ticket! woo! on the way home i didn't even get stuck in rush-hour traffic, though it would have been all right because george just installed...a new stereo in the car! that's right, if you keep turning the volume up you can almost drown out the shaking and rattling noises the car makes, it's very exciting.

but the excitment doesn't stop there: about a mile and a half from our house, just past a heavily traveled intersection where two lanes merge - the rabbit broke down! she just turned off and left me in the middle of the road. luckily there were some guys waiting for the bus across the street and pushed me out of the road and into a 20 minute parking spot. i tried calling george - no answer. i tired calling andy - no answer. i called george something like four more times - no answer. i assumed they were in a meeting but walked up to the office anyway. it turns out he hadn't turned the ringer on his phone back on after we went out for chinese food the night before.

we went back to the car and george tinkered on it for a while and concluded that it's probably something to do with the fuel injector pump. just before we called AAA he tried starting it again and it did! we only made it about a quarter of a mile before the rabbit broke down again. this time we pushed it off onto a side street and called for a tow truck. the first time i called AAA told me that my card had been cancelled and that they'd transfer me so i could sign up again, i told her i didn't really have time for that at the moment, but thanks anyway. then i called back and talked to someone else without any problems.

the guy in the tow truck turned out to be a nice guy not much older than us. he had the car up and ready to be towed in a short bit and then when we got to the house he managed to back it into the driveway and even into a parking spot - which, considering our driveway, is quite a feat. sometimes we can't even back the car into a spot.

we're glad it didn't happen far from home and that it was nothing catastrophic, but i'd prefer it didn't happen at all, or if it could have happened on, say, monday. this is the one weekend we actually had planned to go somewhere in the car. so now we're hoping it'll be either an easy fix, the buses run with some frequency on the weekend, and/or that we're up for riding our bikes in and out of the city. or that our friend liz wants to leave her car with us sooner than she'd anticipated. =)

george and i are both relieved that we don't have to drive to work. and now we're leaving for work.