The Caveat Doctor had posted a photo on his blog of a seat on a bus on which there was written a warning.  Evidently, some unfortunate young man had found out the hard way that one of his acquaintances had a sexually transmitted disease and felt compelled to warn anyone who chanced to ride the bus.  It reminded me of an incident in my distant past that I promised to write about but then thought better of it.  Now that he has commented on my comment on my site, I feel obligated to tell the whole sordid story.

Many of you may not know that if you contract a sexually communicable disease you must report all of your sexual contacts to the county health department.  The county then contacts each of them and demands that they come in for treatment and provide a list of all of their recent dalliances.  Well, I had the misfortune of having dated a young man who sought treatment for the clap.  It was only one date and we were not intimate but perhaps he felt he had to pad his list to impress the county nurse so he gave my name (along with several of my friend's names). 

I dutifully went to the clinic to explain that I was untainted and my "friend" was a braggart.  Upon entering the waiting area, I was startled to see a married couple who were friends of my older sister.  In my discomfiture I blurted out, "Do you have the clap too?"  They looked at each other with a mixture of horror and disbelief.  It turned out they were there to complete some blood work for the adoption process they were going through to adopt their first child.

I still have that taste of foot in my mouth when I retell the story.

Oh, this is such a trite question but so easily answered that I simply can't resist.

I drag myself out of bed with the first lightening of the eastern sky and roll my mountain bike out of the garage.  In the predawn hush I lubricate my chain, fill my hydration pack with water and toss in a baggie of triple ginger snaps.  By now the pot of French pressed coffee is brewed to perfection so I pour a cup and put the finishing touches on my coiffure (that would be a rubber band around my ponytail).  Six of my favorite cycling pals pedal up the driveway just as the sun crests the mountains. 

Having rained overnight, the trails are compacted to perfect traction.  The air is brisk, the conversation lively, as we pedal through the quiet streets to the trail head.  On the trail everyone settles into his/her own rhythm, enjoying the coiled spring sensation of fresh, fit, muscles.  By the top of the climb every one is suffering, ragged breathing has long replaced the sociable chatter as the spirit of competition spurs us on to our best effort.  We regroup at the top.  Some cram down whatever food lies at the bottom of the pack, some don leg and arm guards (more to protect skin from the encroaching brush than for crash protection) and then the real fun begins.

We've all ridden together a hundred times so we know our place in the hierarchy.  The most fit and skillful riders lead out with the half-fast riders trailing behind.  The object of the race is to go as fast as you can without crashing and to push the rider in front of you hard enough that he makes a mistake that costs him his position in front of you.  Ideally, that doesn't mean you wreck him but it makes for good story telling later if you do.  With each perfectly carved turn, every smoothly navigated rock garden, your confidence builds until you feel like the bike is an extension of your own body.  

At the end of the ride everyone is famished so we descend in mass on the local family run restaurant where we order copious amounts of freshly prepared food and devour it without guilt.  Tall tales of our death defying feats of cycling prowess and reports of observed wildlife keep the table banter going long after the waiter has cleared the empty dishes.  At last everyone heads home to face the more mundane but pleasant weekend chores and family obligations.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

Just when I thought it was safe to go into the garden, I bumped into these guys (He's the fat thing with the white hash marks just above the point of the clippers.  There's another one on the leaf at the very right of the picture).  I had my face in the tomato plants looking for hidden tomatoes and suddenly realized I was face to face with this gianourmous critter.  Knowing that they don't travel alone, I scouted for his family.  Sure enough, I found his twin brother and little sister munching their way through my tender, young plants.  I collected them in a small plastic bucket and put in enough foliage for them to feed on for a couple of hours.  Then, because I have a strong aversion to killing things, I set them outside the back door.

I have a young opossum who comes by every evening to clean up the crumbs of cat food my sloppy cats leave behind and I had an idea that he might find these jolly green giants a tasty treat.  Shortly after dark I went out to check on them and found the bucket tipped over, all the tomato vines pulled out and two of the bad boys missing.  A dark green stain on the concrete was all that remained of the two.  My little henchman, seeking more variety, had moved on to a pile of undigested cat food that one of the cats had puked up.  When he saw me, he reluctantly scuttled off but returned later to finish.  I tried to get a picture of him for you but he's a little camera shy.   If the third caterpillar is still in the bucket in the morning I'll have to take him over to my neighbor's rooster to be dispatched.  This organic gardening is kind of gross sometimes. 

At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old lady, I just have to vent.  What is up with the current fad of fatsos on loud motorcycles?  I am so sick of their desperate need for attention that I'm on the verge of expressing my attention with a very unladylike gesture.

There's a dumbshit in my neighborhood who rides his scooter to work.  While I applaud his effort to conserve fuel, he totally loses me on the need for loud pipes and ape hanger handle bars.  He not only sounds stupid, he looks like an idiot to boot.  Every weekday morning at 5:55, he roars past my bedroom window, announcing to the world "Hey, look at me, look at me!  I'm an inconsiderate jerk and you can't do a thing about it".

In that same vein, I fantasize regularly about obtaining a surface to air rocket launcher to blow the aerobatic plane that flies over my house by the  hour out of the air.  Again, why does this self absorbed pilot feel the need to pollute the entire valley with the angry roar of his motor?  I've talked to my friends who live literally miles away and they too are annoyed by his nuisance noise.  When I called the local office of the FAA to complain, they told me I had to get his ID numbers.  Well, like that's really helpful!  How can I see his numbers when he's a mile away?  Don't they know who filed a flight plan for the aerobatic box? 

And then there's the minor annoyance of neighbors who play their music too loud, set off fireworks in the wee hours, keep a rooster caged just feet away from my bedroom window, ignore their hysterical dogs barking their fool heads off and allow their drunken teenagers to party on the street.

Oh, yeah.  One more pet peeve:  Why don't they teach kids adjectives and adverbs in school anymore?  What, did they go the way of music and art?  Oh, that's okay, kids don't need more than one adjective.  The "f" word will suffice for every occasion.  As a matter of fact, let's use it in place of so many nouns that adults don't even know what we're trying to communicate.  And, if it starts to get boring, using the same fucking word twenty-five hundred times in the same conversation, just say it louder so every crotchety old lady in a 100 yard radius can hear just how cool we are.

Ooh, that felt good! 

I suppose every gardener has volunteers in his/her plot; I know I have my share.  I let them grow if there is any space at all for them, hoping that they will turn out to be something that doesn't need much space and that bears something that I like to eat.  First there were a couple of viney things that looked like they could be cucumbers, but then I noticed that one of them had a couple of baseball-sized fruits on it that looked suspiciously like cantaloups.  How fortuitous!  I had planted cantaloupe seeds (twice) but they hadn't germinated.  Granted, I had planted them in a large empty space and these had sprung up between the beets and the beans but beggars can't be too choosey.  Another volunteer sprouted right at the edge of the garden and it quickly developed into a squash plant.  Oh goody!  I only have four yellow squash plants and three zucchini squash plants and two spaghetti squash plants and a butternut squash plant.  Fortunately, it appears to be a different variety, one of those scalloped edged types that are called by a variety of names.  And then I have a few tomato plants that will definitely have to be pulled out eventually unless their neighbors fail to thrive.

A variation on the volunteer theme:  In the early spring I started some plants from seed indoors, in anticipation of having them well started when the weather was suitable for planting.  Being of sound mind but limited memory, I should have labeled them but didn't.  So, when it came time to plant I was happy to find that despite a poor germination rate, I had a couple of each thing that I'd started.  I planted the peppers and Purple Calabash tomatoes in the garden and the lavender in the planter box in front of the dining room window.  The other day I was examining the lavender, hoping to see some sign of blossoms, and lo and behold, my lavender had bell peppers on it. 

This is the lattice that Mike put up for my new grape vines to climb.  They're made of plastic and the 2 x 6 supports are Trex so they won't rot.

And last, I noticed this face in the fence and had to share it...

Kinda creepy.

I was just sitting here bemoaning the fact that not many of my Xanga subscriptions have been posting much lately when it occurred to me that I've been a bit lax myself.  It's difficult to think of anything interesting to write about in the evening when I finally have the time to sit down, unlike the morning when my brain is bursting with ideas. 

Mike, Guy and I rode Lower Workout yesterday, early enough to beat the heat.  Guy was still recovering from a bout of food poisoning so, in spite of the fact that my new brake pads were dragging on my new rotor, it wasn't hard to torture him.  Mike spotted a deer at the base of the first steep climb and alerted us.  She was upwind from us and, though she seemed to see us through the brush, she continued to walk cautiously down the canyon in our direction.  When she was about sixty yards away the wind shifted and she realized what we were and turned away, leaping up the steep, brushy hillside until she disappeared.  Our trail ascended the same hill and we marveled at how slowly and painfully we climbed compared with her effortless flight.  Guy thought he might lose his breakfast before he reached the summit.  We encountered only one small snake, a Chaparral Whipsnake, even though the temperature was ideal for snake activity.  It was lying halfway across the trail and was easily avoided. 

By the time we got off the hill Guy had had enough.  He said he was going to jump on the highway and make a beeline for home and the comfort of indoor plumbing.  I suggested that the trail might afford more opportunities for emergency pit stops and he appreciated the logic.  Mike and I deliberated for about two seconds whether to continue climbing or to follow Guy's lead and head for home.  We both had many projects we wanted to work on so the decision was unanimous.

Mike was building a stand for his new router and I was working on refinishing the redwood floor boards in the cat run.  By the time I had washed the car, returned a dead nectarine tree to the nursery, got gas ($4.60/gal.) got groceries, mowed the lawn, ran a load of laundry, made lunch, and watered the garden, I needed a nap.

So, there's a summary of my uneventful but satisfying weekend.  For you weenie mountain bikers who didn't come out to ride with us, I have just one thing to say:  I MISS YOU!  That means you, Sally (aka Mountain Bike Momma) and you, Gloria, and all the rest of you former Rutriders.

I just have to share the joy.  After two days of good, hard, pounding rain, the trails were in prime condition.  Even the sand pit above Garnet was totally rideable.

Sally, who had been absent for some time due to her heavy class schedule and family obligations, joined Rita, Geoff, Gloria and me.  I was so excited by the prospect of good traction and riding with my favorite buddies that I rode off without my hydration pack which contained my arm and leg guards.  We were a couple of miles from home before I noticed.  It was borderline cold (in the fifties) so I figured I could avail myself of my friends' water without running anyone dry.  You know what good friends you have when they invite you to share their water from a bite valve and then share their dark chocolate, peanut M&Ms with you besides. 

We rode up the wash singletracks, intermittently pushing the pace and then cruising at a conversational pace until everyone was caught up.  At Edgewild a man we meet on the trail occasionally, was working a beautiful Arab mare in a round pen just off the road.  I just had to stop to watch.  The mare was so obviously enjoying herself, head and tail held high in that fairy-tale-horse fashion that Arabs have, as she cantered easily around and around.  When her handler gave the almost imperceptible signal to reverse direction she slid to a stop and pivoted on her hind quarters.  She couldn't resist giving a little kick into the air as she sprang into a fluid, collected lope, instinctively taking the correct lead. 

Seeing my unabashed pleasure, Sally asked if I missed my mare who died a couple of years ago.  I had to admit that I did not.  As much as I loved her, I was relieved to be free of the responsibility of caring for her after thirty years.  Pets are such a pleasure, and truly, caring for them is a labor of love.  But, as they age, it gets more and more difficult to keep them comfortable until at last it is a relief to see them beyond suffering.  At present I'm tending a twenty-year-old cat.  He needs to eat twenty-five times a day, can't find the litter box half the time, he's half deaf and can't see very well and totters around looking so frail you would think a strong breeze would knock him over.  Yet he purrs every time you pick him up and still enjoys all his cat activities.  I've had the vet out a couple of times, thinking it was time to put him to sleep, but each time he responds to her treatments and resumes his place in our cat menagerie.

So, back to the ride...By the time we got to the top, it was getting cold and the clouds were looking like we might be in for a soaking on the way home.  Without my leg guards, I was forced to be a bit more circumspect in controlling my downhill speed as the foliage is attempting to reclaim the trail.  Damn the brush!  Full speed ahead!  It's only skin; it will grow back.  Scratched and bloody, I came home grinning from ear to ear.  Mountain bike riding doesn't get any better than this.   

Okay, it's time for me to haul out my soap box again, so brace yourself.

I saw an interview on TV with a young couple who were explaining how they were being hounded mercilessly by a collection agency.  We, the viewing audience, were expected to feel compassion for this poor couple who had spent themselves into a hole, buying things they couldn't afford.  They claimed that they had no choice but to file bankruptcy.  This was a young, healthy, articulate, white couple.  They had suffered no calamitous natural disaster, no medical tragedy, not even an unplanned pregnancy.  They had simply bought things they couldn't afford and now discovered that the accumulated payments were making their lives uncomfortable.

The gist of the story was that they were the hapless victims of predatory lenders and bankruptcy laws that discriminated against the "little guy".  Not once did anyone suggest that these educated adults had any culpability.  The option of bankruptcy was addressed as a perfectly moral and rational course of action.    No one ever suggested that they sell some of their unaffordable possessions and pay off the remaining debts while they lived on beans and rice.  No, they were entitled to the American dream even if it was at the expense of someone else.

Am I the only one who is offended by this?  At the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney, I have to object.  When I first left my parent's house, I didn't run out and buy on credit all of the things my parents had taken a lifetime to acquire.  I didn't live in a house as nice as theirs and I furnished my modest digs with hand-me-downs and things I could afford to pay cash for.  When my house was burglarized, I replaced what I could, paying for it from my savings, and doing without what I couldn't afford.  When I did borrow for my first car (a Ford Pinto), it would never have occurred to me to renege on my promise to pay.  Thanks to my parents, who began teaching me self-reliance at an early age, I had no sense of entitlement.

While I'm on the subject of parenting, I might as well explain the steps my parents took to create independent children.  Apparently, it's a mystery to many modern parents as I hear them complaining about their adult children who are living with them, unemployed, unmotivated and ungrateful.  First step is to teach kids how to work.  Let them know that their efforts are necessary to the running of the household.  Their responsibilities around the house should increase with their ability.  The modern approach is to teach children that their only duty is to go to school and get good grades.  That's like teaching them that when they grow up, all they have to do is go to work and someone else will tend to the details of maintaining their home.  How do they ever learn to do simple household chores if parents don't teach them?  I know, it's about five times more work to get a kid to do something than it is to do it yourself, but that's the price you agreed to pay when you took on the task of raising children.

Second, when your kid is old enough to work for pay (I started baby sitting and doing housework for neighbors at 11) teach them that their earnings are not theirs to spend on luxuries.  The lion's share should be used for necessities with only a small portion used for entertainment or luxuries.  I started paying my own dentist bills while I was a teenager.  You may think this sounds harsh but it made the transition to being self supporting painless.  By the time I moved out, I had been paying all of my own expenses and a token payment to my parents for room and board for several months.

That's not to say that my folks didn't help me financially.  When I wanted to buy a used car because it was cheaper, they loaned me the money for a new car and only required me to pay back half of the loan because they didn't want me driving something that might be unsafe.  And I was grateful.  I appreciated their generosity, unlike my friends who had nicer cars, credit cards and spending money provided by mom and dad as a matter of entitlement.

For parents who have skipped steps one and two and are now supporting adult children who are unmotivated and ungrateful, I suggest the following approach:  Immediately stop giving your offspring cash.  When he has no cigarettes and no money, he will be more interested in finding a job.  Nicotine addiction is a powerful motivational force.  Next, take control of your home.  Tell your kids they may entertain their friends when they have their own place.  No more hanging out with their unemployed friends in your house.  Finally, if he can't find a job, give him one.  My neighbor goes off to work every day to clean other people's houses while her kids sleep in until noon.  When she comes home, she cleans her own.  If your kid is unemployed, hire him to be your maid, gardener, car washer, painter, etc.  His pay is his room and board.  No cash.  Like any employee, he works a regular schedule with regular days off.  A real job starts to look more appealing when the job at home entails the same inconvenience to his vacation schedule. 

And last, you may insist that he stop doing drugs while he lives in your home.  Real employers demand no less.  In short, prepare him for the real world.  I know, you think your kids won't like you if you make these demands, and you're right, but at least they will respect you.  If your choice is between having your kids hold you in contempt, which is what they do when you allow them to run your household, and having them hate you, which they may when you make difficult changes, wouldn't you prefer their respect? 

Can you believe it?  You're getting all this good advice from someone who never had any kids of her own.  It all sounds so easy from my vantage point. 

You are not going to believe this!  I mean it.  I was here; I saw it with my own eyes; heard it with my ear-plugged ears and felt it pelt my skin, and I still can hardly give credit to my senses.  It not only rained in May, it poured!  It thundered, it hailed, it came down in sheets like you see on a Hollywood movie set. 

Mike and I were working on leveling a concrete slab in preparation for laying a wood floor for my former boss.  This has got to be the worst concrete job in the world.  If you tried to roller skate across any one of the rooms you would fall flat on your bum.  In addition to ridges and ponds, it has cracks big enough to stick your smaller appendages in.  Needless to say, we are taking every precaution against moisture coming up to damage the wood. 

I had heard that there was a 20% chance of rain so we assumed that we wouldn't get any.  You can imagine my amazement when the first drops began to fall.  So, I'm rolling out plastic sheeting over the slab that we have leveled and sealed and I notice a trickle of water coming out from under the wall.  I look out the window and see a puddle of water dammed up against the house.  Damn!  Soon the rain abated and the sun came out.  I went out with a hoe and a flat bar to dig the mud away from the outside of the house.  Evidently, the air conditioner installers had piled the dirt up when they built a pad for the new compressor.  Mike caulked the now dry space between the slab and the plate and we proceeded to finish the prep with doors wide open to encourage evaporation.  Shortly thereafter the sky darkened ominously. 

Now, those of you who have not lived in Southern California for the past seven years probably can't really understand the mind numbing effect of day in, day out, week after week, month after month of arid weather.  For the first couple of years of drought, hope is ignited when the busty, channel 5, weather girl predicts a 40% chance of rain.  After the first few years, I grew cynical.  I learned to doubt her optimistic outlook when she promised scattered showers in the mountains and valleys.  Then, after the wild fires ravaged the beleaguered forests, denuding and destabilizing the mountain slopes, I began to have mixed emotions about my omnipresent longing for showers.  The drenching that makes my mountain bike trails feel like a monorail track under my knobby tires is the same one that washes my friend's house down the slope or fills my neighbor's pool with mud.

Back to the floor:  The low, heavy clouds released their pent up moisture like a bladder after a Starbucks grande latte.  They hemorrhaged rain as if to make up for seven years of hoarding.  Hail piled up on the patio umbrella until it sagged under the weight and sent mini avalanches cascading to the patio deck.  The fresh caulking streamed into the family room, seeping under the plastic.  We took it as a sign that we should knock off early. 

We've got good news and we've got bad news.  The good news is, I don't need to water the garden for a while.  The bad news is, my squash plants got shredded by the hail.  Good news, the bike trails are going to be incredible tomorrow.  Bad news, I have to help Mike on the job so I can't ride.  Best news, this will  bring out the late season wild flowers.  Ah, life is so good!   

I fear my organic garden may be the death of my dear, 83-year old Mom.  I may have to kill her.  Before you call protective services to report elder abuse, hear my side and see if it might be justifiable homicide.

There were a number of reasons that I decided to try my hand at gardening, the primary one being that I have some concern about the chemicals that are used to create the beautiful (albeit sometimes tasteless) produce available in the supermarket.  I did some cursory research into pest control in the hope that I could stay ahead of the insects enough to feed my family while still maintaining a friendly relationship with my friends of the bug persuasion. 

I had read that certain plants attract beneficial (predator) species that will aid in population control of the species that compete with me for the food supply.  Celery was one of the plants that was attractive to both predators and me, so I planted a few around my tomato plants.  They grew lush and fragrant.  A dark green, leafy bush, absolutely inedible, but so visually pleasing as to be well worth the space in the garden, was the star of my winter garden.   

That was my opinion.  Mom, on the other hand, thought it was a gross waste of space, water and nutrients.  For that matter, she sees no problem with dumping whatever chemical she finds in the shed on our food.  Her belief is that "they wouldn't be allowed to sell it if it were harmful".  And that might be a plausible argument if the label didn't say "unlawful to use in a manner contrary to the specifications on the label" which she rarely follows.

So, after she had uprooted all of my California poppies, because "they were depriving the trees of water and were just going to seed anyway", I asked her to refrain from pulling out anything that she had not planted.  I would be responsible for removing the things I planted and she could remove the things she planted.  Fair enough?  I thought so.

As you have probably guessed by now, I came home today and found that my celery had disappeared.  At first I was frustrated, angry, disappointed, suspicious that she might even be spraying insecticides behind my back.  But when I tried to figure out why it was so important to her to pull out the celery that she would rather face my anger than leave it be, it dawned on me.     

I have a friend whose husband is experiencing a form of dementia that does not allow him to form short term (or even long term) memories.  He has a compulsion to water the yard that is almost impossible to deny.  Normally a cheerful and agreeable man, he will get petulant if not allowed to water.  Even though the lawn is a perpetual marsh, he must water every chance he can.  My Mom's obsession with pulling up plants, be it grass, daisies, celery, poppies (have I forgotten anything, Babs?) is simply a manifestation of a creeping senility. 

Poof!  Anger gone.  I'm going to be in her shoes someday in the not-too-distant future.  Will the people who care for me be kind to me and forgive me for being aggravating, knowing that I wasn't always the way I appear now?  It's really hard to accept the fact that my dearest friend, my mentor, the person I always turned to when I needed advice, is not the same anymore.  She's lost interest in the myriad of things that used to be of vital interest and now focuses on the trivial (to me) details that make up her life (like celery using up water).  I guess the least I can do is accommodate her need to weed.