Friday Afternoon

It's been a long week and I'm about ready to call it a wrap. As usual, it has finally gotten very quiet around here in the last hour or so and I'm wishing I was sitting somewhere pleasant, a glass of merlot in my hand, a dozen cold raw oysters on the table, and music in the background. Alas, I have only a bird's eye view of the Mississippi under grey skies and the cup on my desk contains just the dried-up remnants of yesterday's coffee. Last weekend seems already like ancient history, but at least there's a race on Sunday here in town to look forward to, or fear, as the case may be.

I had a visit last night from Joey D' who's in town through the weekend. When he arrived at the house I was just inserting the cassette body back into my rear hub after a quick re-greasing that was necessitated by the trip the bike took earlier this week atop the car in a rainstorm. Black gunk oozing out of your "sealed" rear hub can't be a good thing. Anyway, I was glad that I got it all back together again without any of the little pawls or springs ending up on the floor as usually happens, even though the cones are already hoplessly pitted from prior abuse. He met the levee ride group this morning for our usual Friday ride that involved more conversation than heavy breathing. My legs were feeling awful. Perhaps I wasn't quite recovered from yesterday's ride, or maybe I was just feeling my age. I've been having trouble all week with what I assume to be sciatica. That nerve that runs around my right butt has been literally a pain in the ass lately, and if I sit for any length of time, especially with my wallet in my right rear pocket, I can feel the inside of my right calf starting to twitch. So anyway, I've been sitting in some strange positions all week at work hoping it will resolve, but so far I haven't seen much improvement.

Tonight the sister-in-law and her daughter, who is the same age as mine, will be over for a little birthday dinner. Since nothing is prepared, I assume that means a trip to the grocery store at the worst possible time, and then me standing outside alone grilling an overpriced slab of meat.