Bicycle Posture

A group of us were discussing bicycles and bemoaning the evolution that has brought the bike to its current design.

We were remembering when we could sit comfortably on a bike, spinal cords vertically aligned with our heads.

What committee decided that leaning forward in a bladder pinching crunch would be the ideal pedaling position? Did the committee take into account that, ideally, a cyclist's eyes should be focused on the road ahead and not the asphalt directly beneath the bike tires?

And just how were cyclists sold on the concept of a backward neck lock in order to keep the road ahead in view.

Standing on two feet, that same neck position would afford a view of nothing but the ceiling. Comfortable? I think not.

Seats should provide support - not wedge into uncomfortable places. - Handlebars should arch gracefully back toward the cyclist - not spiral downward like an inverted set of ram's horns.

Rodeos are the place for wedgies and grappling with horns. Bicycles are intended for comfortable transportation.

All in all, we decided, today's bicycle is a product of salesmanship, not superior engineering.

Beach Walkers

One of the things I most enjoy about summer in a beach town is watching the dedicated beach walkers.

By dedicated I mean the folks who traverse the water's edge religiously weekend after weekend. These are the people who either reside in the area year round or travel to their vacation homes religiously.

I have learned there are as many styles of beach walking as there are personalities.

There's the farsighted shuffler whose feet kick up a continual storm of sand while he or she stares off at the distant horizon. I'm continually amazed that this walker somehow manages to avoid the excavations and castles of the younger crowd.

The determined pacer has a head down, long-legged stride that causes other beach goers to scramble out of the way. This walker is either trying to beat last the previous weekend's time or is in a hurry to reach certain facilities.

The fleet footed gawker constantly scans the crowds while pirouetting on the balls of their feet. There is not a single act of beach behavior- behind, in front, or to the side - that goes unnoticed by this shoreline traveler.

Outdoor Evening

The weather finally got straightened out, we had a beautiful summer evening, and I was finally able to make use of the screened patio.

Book in hand, I settled into the cushioned wicker chair beside the backyard waterfall. The gurgling water soon had my mind drifting. My book fell forgotten into my lap as the gurgling mixed with the whisper of a gentle evening breeze weaving through the trees.

The breeze swept the aroma of blooming Easter Lilies across the patio just as the sun settled low enough to send beams of light between the tree trunks, through the screen mesh, and into my face.

I squinted against the orange glare - which led to heavy, fluttering eyelids - which led to complete tranquility.

Though I could have sworn I never missed a second of trickling water or sweet smelling blossoms, I blinked my eyes open to darkness.

It had been the perfect outdoor evening.

Phones and Heroes

I was navigating the highways and byways yesterday when a informational sign for a roadside pay phone caused me to do a double take.

I can remember when neither a phone booth nor a blue sign showing a white telephone handset would have made the slightest impact on me. Both used to be a as commonplace as the Walk and Don't Walk signs at the intersections of city streets.

It occurred to me that while pay phones have become few and far between, an actual phone booth is now as rare as an Indian head penny.

And I got to wondering - what would Clark Kent do today? Without a phone booth to slip into how would the mild mannered reporter morph into heroic Superman?

I was on the verge of despair - fearful that Superman would fly no more - when hope arrived in the realization that synergy could yet save the day. Clark could use a cell phone to summon a Transformer. The Transformer could shift into a rolling phone booth, and Superman could still come to our rescue.

Media Girl and Sleepware

I don't know why, but it didn't really register until I was folding clothes the other night.

Media Girl's latest sleeping attire is a pair of men's basketball shorts.

How did this happen?

I acknowledge that my little girl is growing up - have been forced to acknowledge it by virtue of her boyfriends (yes, plural) joining us for dinner.

Those dinners consist of Motivated Mom politely but thoroughly quizzing the visiting boy while I do my best impression of a psychotic mountain man.

...But it never occurred to either of us to inquire if the boys had intentions to gift articles of clothing.

The question now is... do I want to know exactly how the clothing came to be gifted?

Summer & Hot Chocolate

June 21st ushered in summer. Right along with summer came - a run on hot chocolate.

Yep, that's right. This year's favorite summer drink is steaming chocolate.

I was working my bridge job at the local convenience store Sunday morning. The sky was gray, the wind was blowing, and frustrated vacationers were lining up for cups of piping hot cocoa.

Tanned faces were few and far between. Frowns were the expression of the day. If I could have produced a couple boxes of scarves and mittens I'd have turned a profit that would have made Donald Trump envious.

As I watched the customers standing in shivering expectation, a Dr. Seuss-like string of words played through my mind:

Something's not right, something's gone astray.
The temperature should be climbing past eighty and three.
There should be no chattering teeth, no shaking of knees.

Father's Day

Happy Father's day to all the fathers out there.

May you enjoy the quiet moments of building towers of blocks and reading bedtime stories.

May you know the smile brought by a kiss on the cheek.

May you know the pride of your child's graduation.

May you witness the happiness of your child's marriage.

May you know the joy of grandchildren.

To those fathers whose duty and service keeps them apart from loved ones - may you soon know the joy of reunion.

To those fathers who suffer strained relationships with their children - may you know the peace of reconciliation.

To those fathers who suffer in health - may you know healing.

To fathers who have recently left us - may you know eternal joy.

Viewfinder weather

This evening's weather had me thinking I was looking through a viewfinder rather than staring out my living room window.

Ten minutes of thunder, lightning, and rain was followed by five minutes of sunshine. The sunshine lasted long enough for a wispy rainbow to form, then another ten minutes of stormy weather rolled in. The cycle repeated itself again and again for nearly two hours.

I imagined one of those viewfinder disks. You know, that piece of round white cardboard holding a dozen pieces of film. The disk drops into a plastic viewfinder housing with two extended eye pieces. Depressing a lever on the right sight of the viewfinder causes the cardboard disk to advance from one picture to the next.

Think of one of those disks containing photographs of a storm. The pictures would cycle from clouds, to lightning, to rain, to sunshine, to rainbows, and back around to clouds again.

Just as today's weather was doing.

Had I stepped outside my house, I would not have been surprised to find my windows were not mere pieces of glass, but twin projections resembling a pair of binoculars. Nor would I have been surprised to discover a rotating disk the size of a Ferris wheel circling past those projections.

Trains & Ringo

I was reading that railroad lines have idled over 5000 locomotives because of reduced demand for freight transport.

Thomas the Tank train engine came to mind. I pictured poor old Thomas muttering oh dear and oh my as he was routed to the inactive train yard.

I went to the web site for Thomas and was relieved to see that Thomas and Percy are still hard at work hauling rail cars up and down the rail lines.

Which I guess means that Ringo Starr is secure in his conductor position and that Shining Times station is successfully navigating the difficult economic times.

It's relieving to know that the important things in life remain consistent.

(For those of you who don't have children - you can google Thomas the Tank Engine to find out what this post is all about.)

Searching for a Bagel

One of my favorite morning treats is a toasted pumpernickel bagel slathered with cream cheese.

Living near a resort area, I'd think pumpernickel bagels would be readily available. Not so.

Oh sure, there are dozens of bagel shops in the area. And those dozens of shops offer a wide assortment - onion, egg, plain, cinnamon raisin, spinach, everything, rye, poppy seed - the list goes on.

So why isn't there a place of honor for pumpernickel?

My search has been just as fruitless in the grocery stores. I don't get it. There are reserved slots for both fresh baked and packaged pumpernickel bread in every store. So why not bagels?

I was considering starting a one man picket line when I stumbled across a shop offering the elusive pumpernickel. Alas, the bin was empty.

I'm going to have to set my alarm extra early tomorrow, beat the breakfast rush, and stock up on that dark grained taste treat.

Hmmm.. I guess I better get some fresh cream cheese too. The stuff in the refrigerator has probably turned an interesting color by now.

Doctors & U-hauls

The office of our family doctor is just a few miles down the road from us. Last night I noticed a U-haul truck sitting in the parking lot behind the doctor's office.

I'm wondering if I should be concerned. Is our doctor packing up all his files and preparing to leave town in the dead of night? (Sort of like the Baltimore Colts moving to Indianapolis while no one was looking.)

Or maybe our doctor is feeling the economic pinch and has started trafficking in illegal body parts.

Of course there could be a very mundane reason for the presence of the truck - but where's the fun in contemplating the mundane?

Car Intelligence

Why is it that cars break down when you most need them?

We had just scheduled an appointment to take one of our cars in for repair when the second car decided to misbehave.

It seems to me that cars have an intelligence that allows them to anticipate the schedules of their owners. When the schedule is maxed out, the car decides it's time to throw in an unexpected wrinkle - failure to start, an alarming noise needing immediate attention, or perhaps suddenly spongy brakes.

My dream retirement location will be a "soda fountain town" where everything is either within walking distance or on a bus line.

Mosquito and Goliath

The lowly mosquito is nature's version of David (as in David and Goliath).

The mosquito is so small as to be all but invisible, yet it can make an adult human scream uncle and run for shelter.

I believe the person who came up with the game Twister got the idea for the game after watching a friend try to fend off swarming mosquitoes.

Picture someone under mosquito attack. They swat their shoulder, swat their ankle, take a swipe at their lower back, then smack themnselves in the ear. See - just like Twister.

Heaven forbid (the David theme again) one of the little insects gains access to your house. Sleep isn't going to happen with the devil buzzing your head. The high pitched whine of an approaching mosquito strikes as much terror in the bedroom as an air raid siren does on a battlefield.

Silent Rap

Sorry for recent missed days. My schedule has been a little chaotic recently. I'll do my best to get back to consistent postings.

I wasn't sure what today's post was going to be until I typed the word chaotic - which brought the word chaos to mind - which led me to thinking about Get Smart.

Not the recent movie but the original TV series. Don Adams remains the best Control agent in my book.

One of my favorite "gizmos" on Get Smart was the cone of silence.

It occurs to me that it would be great to have a cone of silence that I could lower over Media Girl's room when she decides to crank the stereo.

I'm not opposed to loud music in general - but somewhere along the line Media Girl's DNA went astray and she developed a taste for rap music. Much as I try to be open minded I just have not been able to establish a tolerance for rap.

Missing the Backyard Basics

Whatever happened to clotheslines and playgrounds?

Clotheslines were in every back yard when I was growing up. I can remember thinking our family had hit the big time when we changed from a folding aluminum clothes tree with vinyl cording to a series of metal posts in the yard with cotton rope strung between them.

'Cause the latter offered SO much more to a kid. A metal clothes post could double as the anchor for a tether ball tournament - or a volley ball net could be strung between a pair of metal posts. And then there were the wooden support sticks used to keep the line from sagging that doubled as lances for imaginary knights of old.

The neighborhood playground has disappeared in favor of entertainment destinations - indoor gymnasiums with pizza and soft drinks. How is a kid supposed to get a respectable case of poison ivy playing inside a block building? And how are kids supposed to learn about the stomach cramps that come from sipping the water from the local stream?

Even more important- how are Mom's supposed to learn to deal with being traumatized by a group of neighborhood children running to announce that Jimmy just fell from the highest bar on the jungle gym?

Toad Puree

Toads love our lawn - it's a fact. Maybe it's because our lawn offers such a nutritious source of edible stalks other than green grass.

I'm always amazed by the amount of toad life in my back yard when I run the weed whacker and the lawn mower. Toads begin hopping by the dozens.

It makes me wonder how I can possibly walk across the yard without the sensation of the earth moving beneath my feet.

There are endless varieties of skin color and markings. Tan toads looking like they have a severe acne problem. Brown toads sporting an advanced case of the measles. Dark brown toads with a mix of stripes and dots.

They all blend in so well that I never see them until their little accordion legs propel them airborne.

Which makes me wonder - how many have I pureed with the lawn mower.

Sea Monster

We (Motivated Mom, Queen B, and myself) were doing the beach thing yesterday.

We headed to the surf fishing beach where I do my imitation of a fisherman who knows what he's doing while those with me catch up on the sunning and reading. Truth be told, I get in a fair amount of reading too. Even with hopeful anglers lined up along the beach for as far as one can see, it is rare to see more than the occasional bluefish or skate being pulled in.

Yesterday though, the guy next to me hooked a real monster. With his fishing pole bending nearly to the breaking point, my neighbor struggled with his catch for nearly fifteen minutes. The first glimpse of what was on his line came when a wide, flat head appeared in the foam of a breaking wave. It was obvious there was a real monster on the end of the fisherman's line.

Nearly two dozen onlookers had gathered by the time the catch was hauled into view; a manta ray with a "wing" span easily four feet from tip to tip. The monster flapped angrily at the edge of the surf. I could imagine the thing becoming airborne like a kite and spitting curses at the gathered crowd.

Once the hook was successfully removed, the ray quickly headed back to open water - and Motivated Mom vowed never to go into the ocean again.

Ark Memo

I missed the memo about needing to build an ark, so now I'm scrambling.

Gads, I can't remember when it has rained so much. I'm beginning to think I should keep a pair of rubber boots with me at all times so that my feet will remain dry while I run for cover when the levee breaks.

I have to admit it might be my fault. I started putting a new roof on a storage shed last week. I started on a sunny, eighty-five degree day. I swear swirling clouds obliterated the sun with my first hammer stroke - and it's been raining ever since.

I'm thinking about putting pontoons on the bottom of the shed so the structure can serve as my ark.

Imagine the expression on the faces of the Aborigines when my little boat washes up on their shores.

Mousecicle

Yes, I seem to have ice cream, popsicles, and other summer fun on my mind these days.

During dinner tonight, one of our cats decided to share a feline summer treat - a mousecicle.

It was Queen B (my mother) who spotted the edible treat - and Queen B who nearly lost her dinner. Seems Queen B's constiution is a little fragile when it comes to watching a cat excercise its jaws on what was recently a scurrying rodent.

We shooed the cat out the door - no doubt leaving our pet confused. Everybody else eats in the dining room, why not her?

With our dinner guest gone, Queen B was able to finish her meal. I didn't have the heart to tell her that our feline friends have only just begun their summer hunting.

Holiday Ice Cream

The ice cream man came rolling through our neighborhood this afternoon.

The truck looks much the same as the ice cream trucks that I ran to greet as a kid, but the announcement of the ice cream man's arrival has changed. The jingle of bells has been replaced by music blaring through a loudspeaker.

Technological advancement is to be expected I suppose, but I found the music selections to be a little odd.

The first song to tickle my ears was a tinny version of Bohemian Rhapsody which morphed into Jingle Bells. Okay I can kind of understand the Jingle Bells thing, but when that song rolled into Away in a Manger followed by Oh Holy Night I was dumbfounded.

I was tempted to chase the truck down and order an ice cream cup just to see if the cardboard container was decorated with a Nativity scene.

Meeting Charlene

I met Charlene (not her real name) today.

Charlene is an eighty-five year old woman with the serene face of a saint and the rough tongue of a sailor.

Charlene loves to give advice and talk about the shortcomings of others. She, of course, has no faults of her own. She'll tell you quick where you can go if you don't agree with her opinions.

She's big on asking questions too. But since she keeps her hearing aide set to something like minus seven, Charlene never hears the answers.

It occurs to me that many of us go through life the same way as Charlene - constantly spewing out information, but never really hearing what others have to offer.

At eighty-five, Charlene may be entitled to her idoscincracies. As for the rest of us - we're missing an awful lot.