Many thanks to all of my subscriptions who kept posting tantalizing blogs while I perseverated  about the value of my Xanga account.  On one hand, I don't think I have $48 worth of stuff to write about, but on the other hand, it's good mental exercise and I will feel compelled to write to get my money's worth.  That's the trouble with being so penurious; one has to make every purchase worth the investment which often results in wearing shoes that cripple.  Of course, ascribing to the adage that, "If it's free, it fits" can have the same effect.

So, here's the latest news that's fit for print:

I finally took a vacation (after two years!!) and went to Michigan for a family reunion.  I stopped in Denver to spend the weekend with my favorite niece (MFN) Tamera.

The Chihuly glass exhibit was on loan to the Denver Botanic Gardens in Boulder.  We had passed on seeing it in Seattle last November because admission was $28/head and, again with that value thing, I didn't think I would enjoy it that much.  Here in Boulder, it was only $15 and what a bargain it was!  The Gardens alone were worth the price of admission and the glass, artistically displayed among the foliage, was spectacular.

Denver Botanic Gardens, Boulder, CO

Thankfully, what happens in Denver, stays in Denver so I won't go into any further details of the weekend but suffice it to say, we had almost all of the fun that's legal in that state.  Pot, in all of its glorious incarnations is legally sold and consumed now, but sadly I've grown too mature to enjoy that particular vice.

The flight to Grand Rapids was uneventful except for the seatmate who worked on designing his parents' kitchen on his laptop with his elbow firmly planted in my ribs, oblivious to the fact that I was forced to scrunch into the little recess of the window to escape.

My lovely cousin, Karen, met me at the airport

and we proceeded to ransack her pantry for provisions for a week in the woods at cousin, Mila's house.  We first raided the garden where she picked some deep purple beans.  The summer has been cool and wet so her garden was not yet at it's peak production but as it turned out, we didn't make much time to cook anyway.  Her hens gave up their unborn and her neighbor's cow donated her child's breakfast to lighten my coffee.  I remembered to bless them each time I enjoyed their bounty.

At Mila and Ted's B&B we enjoyed all the amenities.

A "Girls' Night Out at Boatworks, on the shore of Lake Macatawa would have been memorable but for the copious amounts of liquor consumed.  I believe I had TWO glasses of wine.  Thank goodness for the photographic memory of my Nikon!  MFN, Tuesday, was as always, the life of the party, laughing uproariously at my jokes.  (or did you forget this is ALL about me?)

We spent the final three days of the week with MFgreat-N, Ricky, who recently bought a house in Grand Rapids.  Big city life was fun after the idyllic stint in the woods.  More eating and drinking ensued, interspersed with walking the dogs and shopping.

And we prepared our contributions to the potluck family reunion, hence the onion in my hands in the photo above.  I made three pans of black bean/corn enchiladas, which to my surprise, were quite a hit.  My mid-western cousins seem to be developing more eclectic tastes than I remember from past reunions.  Years ago the buffet table consisted mainly of hamburger helper type casseroles and jello salads/deserts.

My dad joined his former in-laws' reunion too.  He seems to have better relations with them now than when he was married to my mom.

MFN  Tamera met me for dinner at the airport on the way home for one last hurrah (or is that spelled Merlot?)

Nearly a month later, I'm still basking in the memories of my loving family.  I am indeed the wealthiest woman alive!

The spring weather has made riding the bike to work an absolute pleasure this week.  It's an easy cruise of about five or six miles, through mostly residential areas, and predominantly downhill.  I arrive at work warmed up and brimming with good cheer.

I set off this morning a bit earlier than usual remembering that some of my usual route is being repaved, so I would need to detour around it.  In some places, I simply rode on the sidewalk since there was almost no pedestrian traffic.  I encountered an elderly man who was striving vainly to control an exuberant black Lab puppy.  The young dog was just too cute to pass by, but remembering lessons learned watching The Dog Whisperer, I ignored the excited dog and chatted up his chaperone, who was pretty much deaf as a post.  When the adorable little guy calmed down, I gave him some attention, which riled him up all over again.

Moving on down a shady road that winds along behind the university, next to an irrigation channel (which was dug by indigenous people in the 1800s), I spotted a large bird on the ground behind one of the huge eucalyptus trees.  When I passed the tree I stopped for a better look.  It was a small red-tailed hawk.  She eyed me suspiciously, then lifted off effortlessly with a ground squirrel clasped in her talons.

I ask you:  Why don't more people slow down and enjoy their commute to work?  It takes about twice as long but oh, what a joy it is.

Oh, I forgot to mention here that the kitchen remodel is finally finished.

This is the before picture

And this is how it looks now.

It was a difficult project as this old house was built by an amateur (owner-builder) on a shoe-string budget, nearly 75 years ago.  Everything, the electrical, the plumbing, the drywall (formerly button plaster), had to be replaced.  Mike built the cabinets from lumber he had been cherry-picking from lumber yards for the last twenty years, sometimes one board at a time.  One of the hardest things to replace was my 50s era Maytag range.  We finally settled on a Blue Star.  Every bit of it is made and assembled in the U.S.

My friend's teenaged granddaughter received the liver she desperately needed today.  Cancer had destroyed her own and her life depended upon finding a previously owned one.  Upon hearing the news, I cried for joy and for sorrow simultaneously.  Pressley will live while another family grieves the loss of the doner.

I've always had that little pink dot (I'm dating myself as they don't do it that way anymore) on my drivers license indicating that my parts were up for grabs when I couldn't use them anymore.  Pragmatic by nature, I believe that the body is just recyclable material once the consciousness has permanently left.  Even reading about the use of cadavers in the space program (Packing for Mars by Mary Roach) to test the effect of impact didn't give me the slightest pause.  In fact, I quite like the idea of looking down dispassionately from above, and seeing my corpse being carved into its useful parts.  Corneas to the young person blinded by injury; skin to the burned (though I pity the person who gets my rough hide); organs to anyone who will nurture them with the care that I gave them; and now that I'm too old to benefit the typical recipient, whole body to test dummy status, all make an untimely demise more palatable.

A farrier once told me that at the school he attended in Texas, they practiced on the frozen hooves of slaughtered horses.  I visualized him holding the thawing leg between his knees with the same gentleness with which he was now holding my mare's fore leg, and I was grateful to the horses who had facilitated the learning of his trade.

I feel the same gratitude when I grill and savor a salmon steak.  The only crime is in wasting the gift.  I'm careful not to waste any part of that fish's flesh.  Even the inedible parts are buried in the garden to be born again.

Part of the celebration of the resurrection (Easter) is reconciliation with the concept of "dust to dust".  I'm still not sure about The Resurrection but I'm totally cool with the "ashes to ashes and dust to dust" concept and if we do live again after physical death, I'm confident we won't miss our corporeal body.  Please let me know if you find out something different.

Every so often I discover a new author and wonder how I made it through fifty-five years of reading without crossing paths before.  (It may have something to do with the fact that for the first ten years I read nothing but horse stories.)  Frequently, I find them when one of my current favorite authors mentions her (or his) most memorable books.  In a way, it's similar to the way I find new subscriptions on Xanga.  I think all of my subscriptions have been gleaned by perusing the comments on other subscriptions.

By the way, I really miss the way Xanga used to email me when one of my subscriptions had posted a new blog.  Is there a way to get that or is it a thing of the past?  I'm sure Janet would know.

I think it was the late Nora Ephron who turned me on to Doris Lessing.  It seems that lately, I've been reading more books by women: Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein; Packing for Mars by Mary Roach; Wheels Within Wheels by Dervla Murphy; Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.  And I'm more and more drawn to non-fiction.  I think that it's partly due to the recent popularity of the creative non-fiction genre which turns learning into entertainment.  Even the novels that turn my crank include history and social issues.  What a palatable way to broaden one's view of the world!

Doris Lessing on Cats would hold absolutely no interest for non-cat people, but for the cat aficionado, it will dredge up every emotion you have ever experienced with your feline companions.  I leave you with a quote from her book which sums it up succinctly:  Knowing cats, a lifetime of cats, what is left is a sediment of sorrow quite different from that due to humans;  compounded of pain for their helplessness, of guilt on behalf of us all.

Cat lovers everywhere know full well that we can't save them all; and yet we try.

Hallelujah!  Sally and I rode the motorcycle trails again today.  To be absolutely truthful, I rode the less treacherous sections, keeping to the fire road when we came to the section now known as Judy's Nemesis.  Sally opted to ride it but admitted that when she came to the section that wrecked me a few weeks ago, she got off and walked.  No fool, that girl!

We had a gullywhomper downpour a couple of weeks ago and rumor had it that Escalator had suffered some erosion below the burned area.  We had to see it for ourselves.  The damage was confined to the lower section where the runoff had been funneled into a single drainage which happened to be where the trail was created.  The rut that ran down the canyon looked to be about two or three feet deep in places.  Knowing that "you go where you look", I avoided looking directly at the narrow chasm, and rode discretely well to the right of the edge.

Surprisingly, the Motorcycle Trails were no worse than before the rain, either because they were as bad as they could get or, more likely, they're so densely compacted that the water can't erode them.  The traction, as usual, was skimpy but adequate if you're comfortable with a little speed...which sad to say, I was not today.

An accident that results in injury, no matter how minor, undermines the confidence making it especially hard to ride trails that demand absolute commitment.  Rather than looking down the hill, committing yourself to a line, and letting the quiet one do the job, I give credence to the blabbermouth that's screaming at me to look for the place that's going to mess me up and look for a place to unclip from my pedals.  Not a recipe for success.

I realized that not riding the steep sections wasn't going to restore my confidence so when Sally lobbied for taking Joint Point North, instead of the less steep South trail, I acquiesced, though not without trepidation.  We slid down the face of the hill, Sally taking the lead.  She pointed her bike straight down the bald trail, expertly applying both front and rear brakes evenly to keep the bike sliding in a straight line.  Confidence plays a big role in braking too, as it's essential to bring enough weight to bear on the front wheel to give it purchase.  The verbal side of my brain was squawking like a flustered chicken as I steered for the softer grassy area at the side of the trail.  While the traction was marginally better, I was loathe to force myself to put my weight over the front of the bike fearing a ground squirrel hole would grab the front wheel at any moment.  The result was more speed and less choice of line, but the Force was with me and we paused at the first flat spot to compliment ourselves on our biking prowess.  Admittedly, I'd anticipated the worst, not ridden the most skillfully, but had conquered my fear.

Joint Point North ends in an orange grove with wide, cool alleys.  It was in the low nineties today so the shade was prized.  It's irrigated by sprinklers, rather than ditches, so the path is smooth with only the windfall fruit providing diversion.  Citrus blooms in March in these parts and the bee keepers in the area take advantage of the bounty. If you have never passed through a citrus grove in bloom, you should put it on your bucket list.  The aroma is intoxicating.

We rounded a turn at some speed and were confronted by several bee hives positioned on both sides of the road.  I skidded to a stop about 50 feet from the hives to consult with Sally.  According to the local bee keepers, most of their hives have been infiltrated by Africanized bees so we've taken to giving them wide berth ...when possible.  Sally voted to pedal between the hives as quickly and quietly as possible and, faced with climbing back up hill to go around them, I agreed.

Sally, in the lead, gave them a heads up, and a half a dozen of them came in to inspect me as I spun furiously behind her.  A few of them bumped into me but apparently deemed me unworthy of attack and granted safe passage.

At the bottom of the grove, someone has planted a hedge of fragrant roses.  The roses competed with the citrus blossoms for the bees' attention and ours too.  The sun was warm; the breeze refreshing; and the air was redolent with spring.

Today, I sat and watched a movie, in the middle of the day.  Then I read for a while and now I'm blogging.  With my leg wrapped and propped up, I only move from chair to toilet via hopping on one leg.  I'm considering giving up coffee so I don't need to hop so often.

I recently discovered James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels and, though I don't normally read crime fiction, I was instantly hooked on his writing.  His stories are populated with evil, violent people, and Dave Robicheaux, the protagonist, is himself deeply flawed.  Yet Burke's vivid descriptions and beautiful prose lure me into "just one more" of his disturbing novels.

A couple of his books have been made into movies so, with nothing better to do, I downloaded In the Electric Mist, based on the novel In the Electric Mist of the Confederate Dead.  With a stellar cast, Tommy Lee Jones (who coincidentally resembles the author), Mary Steenbergen, John Goodman, Peter Starsgaard, and a familiar cast of supporting actors, the movie was true to the author's style.  If like me, you read about a place and long to see it, this movie will satisfy you.  Burke's descriptions of the bayou country come to life on the screen and you can almost smell the barbeque and feel the moist air gathering momentum before the storm.

All that considered, if you watch the trailer you will question my genteel nature.  Burke's novels are so graphically violent that it's sometimes hard to stay with them but his revelations of the nature of men are worth it.  How they love, how they protect, how they self-medicate to salve their wounded psyches, are woven into into the story making even the most damaged characters, if not sympathetic, at least understandable.

Life is rich with pleasures physical, cerebral and emotional.  I'm grateful for this forced respite from the physical that allows me to enjoy some of the great books that have been waiting for me.

Every single time I've ridden Roller Coaster I've wondered if it's the last time.  Thrilling under the best of conditions, it's ill advised to ride it at all when it's dry.  Steep and steeper with challenging technical aspects, it requires as much confidence as it does skill.  Accordingly, Sally and I ride it only after the spring rains, which means that we have a couple of chances each year as the time between spring rains and summer heat is often a matter of a few weeks.  This year, there have been no spring rains and it looks like I may never ride it again because at my age, I am noticing a decline in strength and agility.  By this time next year, it will only be more daunting, I'm sure.

The Motorcycle Trails aren't quite as steep (at least the steep sections are shorter) and the technical difficulty seems easier than Roller Coaster even if only because we ride it more routinely and it's more familiar.  It has grown gradually more sketchy as the trails have become dryer and looser but, though my enthusiasm for riding these trails has diminished in my mind's eye, each time we successfully navigate their rubble-filled ruts and descents devoid of any traction save a few ball-bearings, the feeling of accomplishment  at the end of the trail lures us back week after week.

This week, as usual, I felt a little trepidation as we started the first climb to the ridge.  Each time I have to remind myself that once I roll off the first drop, it feels good and if it doesn't, there's no shame in walking.  Most of the time it feels great.  Today felt comfortable as I relaxed into the first easy drops, coasting to the top of the next rise with scant pedaling.  Approaching the first difficult drop, a fairly steep descent that becomes steeper and then goes off camber before dumping you into a rubble field of small, loose, sharp rocks that pass for a roll out, I reminded myself to look as far ahead as possible and to stay off the brakes when I reached the part where the trail slants steeply off to the left side.  Some motorcyclists had spun up the trail creating a small cut running the length of the steepest section, about three or four inches deep.  My plan was to stay high, just to the right of the cut because the downhill side of the cut was rough and unpredictable.   Just before I reached the touchy section, I started picking up speed but there wasn't much I could do with the absence of any noticeable traction.  I came into the off camber part with far too much momentum and had no choice but to gingerly apply some brake.

Have you ever been faced with two choices, neither one good?  Then you understand.  It was a choice between attempting some speed control and risk sliding off the little ridge or letting the bike hurtle unimpeded to the unpredictable roll out.  I figured I could risk sliding off the ridge better than attaining speed that was above my comfort level.  I managed to keep the front wheel on the line I wanted but the back wheel slipped into the cut and before I knew I was in trouble, the bike pitched hard on the right side flinging me, right foot still attached to the pedal, into the rut that runs parallel to the trail (it's actually the original trail that has become unrideable).  Before the cleat was released from the pedal, my ankle was twisted in an unnatural direction.  Even after I was released from the bike, I continued to slide and came to rest several feet away from my bike whose lovely, carbon fiber handle bars were twisted all the way around as far as my 4"Fox fork would allow.

This time there was no bad language.  This wreck was so unnerving that all I could do was sit in the rut and wait for the pain to subside.  Sally managed to slide to a sideways stop before running over my bike which was lying across the trail, a testimony to her skill that she could stop without crashing herself.

It soon became obvious that my ankle wasn't going to tolerate a lot of rough stuff on the way home so we decided to ride the fire road.  It was painfully boring but we did run into some friends who were riding some skinny tired bikes without suspension.  Talk about gluttons for punishment!

So, I'm thinking that the Motorcycle Trails may be off the menu for me until we get some rain.  By the time the injured ankle is able to take the punishment of unplanned dismounts, it will be too hot to ride down here and we will be heading for the mountains.  My biggest fear is that, not getting back on the horse will rob me of the necessary confidence to ever ride this trail again.  Reflecting on the accident, I realize that despite riding at the best of my ability, I still wrecked.  I made no stupid mistake; there was no wavering or lack of confidence; I simply wasn't good enough or strong enough for the conditions.  Sobering, eh?

Every once in a while I go on Facebook to catch up on what friends and family are doing.  I've got some seriously conservative  (we're talking Fox News aficionados) "friends" along with some liberally liberal ones.  I have some young, silly friends and some old sensible ones and they all come together in an eclectic collection of entertaining posts.

I seldom post anything on my own wall but I comment frequently on what others post.  Of course, I keep it nice because that's what decent people do but sometimes it's really hard to refrain from voicing a more genuine opinion.  One of my shallower friends posted a question asking her friends to describe her in three words.  Since she really is a nice girl, she got oodles of people to send flattering adjectives but all I could think of was "narcissistic, solipsistic, and self-absorbed".

Honestly, I think part of the fun of blogging is the positive feedback we get from our esteemed Xanga friends.  I know I always glow when I hear from someone whom I consider to be far better educated than I am (that's pretty much everybody).  I'm flattered that they took the time to read my blog and then even more complimented that they composed a comment.  I admit I shy away from too much controversy because I don't like to upset people and then there's always the possibility that my employer might take umbrage at some of my views if someone from the church happened to stumble upon my blog.

I don't know how I got off on that tangent when I actually came here to take you on another mountain bike ride.  I'd been sick with the flu for a couple of weeks so this was the first time out in three weeks.  I had lost five pounds but I think it was all muscle because I felt pokey slow.  I'm the first to admit that I'm not very good on a bike.  I rely heavily on momentum to carry me through obstacles that better riders finesse with technique.  "Damn the rocks!  Full speed ahead" is my motto.

We came to a place where the trail skirts a locked gate, by ascending a small bank and threading between several pedal-high rocks.  The trick is to gather enough momentum going up the berm so that you can ratchet through the rocks and coast down the other side.  Feeling a bit puny, I came into the rock garden with just enough trepidation that I failed to believe I could make it and of course, that was my downfall.  Mid-way through the rocks, I tried to escape my pedals instead of looking ahead and pedaling as if I were going to clear it.  My pedals are almost fool proof.  They are designed so that the only thing you can possibly do that won't allow you to step off the pedal, is lift up.  Since the rock I wanted to put my foot on was higher than my pedal, this fool lifted her foot.  My weight shifted irrevocably to the side on which my foot was locked into the pedal and down I went, feeling like a rank beginner.  Sally kindly lifted my bike off me as I sat between the rocks using very unladylike language.  As I berated myself for riding like a beginner, Sally said, "Yes, but you landed like a pro.  A lesser rider would not have managed to avoid landing on the rocks."  I ask you:  Is that a true friend, or what?

We proceeded slowly up Windmill, which is a nicely sheltered trail, but when we got to the bottom of Yikes! the wind was blowing strongly across the trail.  We pedaled doggedly up the path until we called a halt to water the bushes in the lee of the hill.  As usual, Sally had no sooner dropped her shorts when we heard voices coming up the hill.  She's a magnet that way.

The hikers passed us as we got our gear on and humiliated me by gradually putting more distance between us as I strained to overtake them.  Again my friend consoled me as I grumbled about growing weaker.  "They're twenty or thirty years younger than we are and they're not carrying thirty pounds of bike up the hill," she soothed.  Ya gotta love a woman like that.

When the trail flattened out, we passed them and never looked back.  We stopped at the summit to put our jackets on and a couple of portly, middle-aged guys came up from the other (easier) direction, pushing their bikes.  Sally was disdainful when one of them asked if we were okay.  As we rode away she mused, "Can you imagine that they thought they could help us?"  I had to laugh as I'd been thinking the same thing.  We're such bike snobs, even when we're feeling weak.

The little bit of rain we got a couple of days ago had created ideal traction and we felt complete confidence as we swooped and slid and carved the turns of the motorcycle trails.  I really didn't want to climb the hike-a-bike section that is necessary to avoid the hideously boring fire road but the wind was howling and tipped the scales in favor of the monster hill that really deserves a name of its own.

Sally was crowding me as I conservatively navigated the steep descent so I opened it up a bit.  By the time we reached the last steep pitch of that section, she was right on my wheel again.  I could see that the motorcycles had torn up the roll out at the bottom of the chute where we were going to have to initiate our turn to join the fire road below.  I came into the final drop as slowly as possible, looking for the two inches I wanted, and seeing nothing that looked very good, I opted for speed to carry me through and let 'er roll.  Just as I began the turn in the scree at the bottom, my front tire hooked on a loose rock and my bike pitched sharply to the side.  As luck would have it, I was looking far enough ahead that I managed to instinctively go neutral and let the bike straighten out.  Another "Oh shit!" moment that reminded me that mountain biking is 90% mental, the other half is physical.

The wind continued to have its way with us as we assaulted Joint Point, making an already difficult climb even harder.  When we reached the top, Sally considered taking the more sheltered JP South trail for a split second before hurtling down JP North.  The southern route is fraught with bull head stickers that wreak havoc with our tires while JP North is merely terrifying.  I followed her breakneck-speed descent with so much caution that she was a hundred yards ahead of me by the time we hit the flats.

The wind continued to buffet us the rest of the way home robbing us of the pleasure of a leisurely finish to a punishing ride.

My neighbor adopted a big dog three days ago and it's been barking and howling almost non stop ever since. He seems to take short cat naps between hours of mindless barking. I'm wearing ear plugs in the house but I can still hear him. What can I do?!?!?

We have long ago dispensed with the usual Christmas traditions, the gift exchange frenzy on Christmas morning, cooking all day, a huge meal, gastrointestinal distress, followed by the post -gluttony coma.  Now, we make a hasty agreement to congregate at someone's house and I gather the ingredients on Christmas Eve for a simple meal the following day.  Babs is the default pie maker (she is the only person still living who makes pie crusts from scratch) so it's incumbent upon her to bring the apple pie.

In years past, when we had multi-generational get-togethers, there would be pumpkin pie, cheesecake, apple pie, sweet potato pie, and the token mince meat pie for my dad, even though he had moved on to his second family decades ago.  But now, with our little family of four, Mom, Babs, Mike and me, we are content with Babs' amazing apple pie.  This year she experimented with whole wheat flour and the results were chewy but good.

I'm in charge of  the main course.  A simple chili relleno casserole, salad (freshly picked from the garden), and cracked wheat bread (hot out of the bread machine) comes together while Babs and I indulge in a nice red and Mom plays our old favorites on the piano.  There are no decorations, no mistletoe, no carols, and best of all, NO SNOW!

Southern California Christmases are sunny and bright so we work up an appetite with a hike.  This year, it was Morton Peak.

Babs drove her intrepid little RAV 4 up the Morton Peak fire road, an adventure in itself, to the gate which is about a mile up from the highway.  From there it's another hike on fire road to the single track.  We hiked a short distance down the trail, alternately known as 2E03 and the Santa Ana River Trail.

Babs paused to admire the view up Mill Creek Canyon.

There were some sandstone rock formations that captured our imagination.  You can see the evidence of the fire that burned this area a few years ago (the charred sticks in the bushes).  At the time it looked like it would never recover.

Mike noted the sign indicating curves in the trail ahead.

The trek back downhill jiggled and wiggled and tickled insider her and we old ladies were forced to make an inopportune pit stop at the side of the trail.  Unfortunately for Babs, I finished first and also was in possession of the camera...

And that's the end of my family's Christmas traditions.