The Muggy Summer Routine

Perhaps it's the weather, or maybe the hours I spent yesterday afternoon trailing The Wife as we shopped around for a birthday present for The Daughter. It certainly wasn't the nice little dinner we had at Bravo's in the shopping center parking lot. In fact, I think that was probably the highlight of the whole day for me. Whatever the cause, I have felt tired all day today. Up on the levee this morning the air was warm and muggy, as it has been for much of the summer, and the pale blue sky blended seamlessly into a hazy grey horizon. It always reminds me of the warning signs I used to see at the old Lakefront airport in New Orleans when my dad would take me flying. "Warning: Beware of loss of horizon ..." Indeed, I remember flying out over Lake Pontchartrain this time of year, straining to see over the impossibly high dashboard, when it was impossible to discern where sky met water. For "seat-of-the-pants" recreational pilots like my father, that can be a little disorienting. It seems the sky has looked like this nearly every day for a couple of months now, and I'm quite ready to see the crisp blue skies of Fall. Alas, as I sit here amid the steady drone of the building's air handling units, I know it will be yet another month before I dare expect that. The forecast has looked the same for over a month now and so I've basically stopped paying attention to the weatherman since it's always a low of 80, high of 90-95, with a 30% chance of scattered thunderstorms (which is code for "it might rain like hell at any time in any place but we have no way of predicting it). The one thing I like about this time of year is that getting dressed for the morning ride takes no thought at all. Any shorts, any jersey, and any socks will do just fine. Anyway, the grey skies seem to mirror the fog that seems to be inside my head today. Whatever it is, my head feels like it's full of cotton and it's making it hard to concentrate.

The morning training ride was a typical easy Friday ride with six or seven riders cruising along and chatting in a double paceline at about 20 mph. My legs felt heavy, though - maybe a little sore from yesterday's effort. It felt hard holding 20 mph at the front. It was the kind of feeling you get the morning after you've had a few glasses too many of wine the night before. Thing is, I didn't have any wine last night. Perhaps I should have?? No races for me this weekend, so I guess it'll be another Giro Ride weekend. I hope I'm feeling a bit more recovered by then.

Sister#2 got her car (Dodge Caravan, I think) stolen last week from in front of her house, which is literally a stone's throw from the levee bike path down by the Corps of Engineers facility. The culprits parked the car they had previously stolen there (with the engine running, of course, since it had been hot-wired), broke into and hot-wired her car, and had a nice time driving around town. The police found the car this morning a few miles away in a little alley that the locals call "death alley" near the Sewerage and Water Board facility. Amazingly, it hadn't been too trashed. They had stolen the two removable bench seats from the back, left a bunch of cigarette buts all over the place, and of course had popped out the door lock and steering column lock, but otherwise it appears to be salvagable, so I guess that's a bit of good news.