Turning Back Early

Halloween night was pretty good this year. Most of the neighbors came by for our usual Halloween open house, and there was an ample supply of trick-or-treaters all up and down the street. A number of people who had come all the way down Neron Place from Carrollton commented that the mayor was having some sort of thing down at Palmer Park. Imagine that. The mayor has a party and doesn't invite the neighbors! I guess we were just from the wrong side of Carrollton. Anyway, we had a ton of food and drink, thanks to The Wife's pathological need for excess. Had it been me, there would have been wine, beer, coke and chips. Maybe a fruit tray from the grocery store. As it was, we had a big pot of seafood gumbo, a huge salad, a bowl of mixed olives, three kinds of bread, two kinds of sliced sandwich meat, etc., etc. I think Whole Food made a bundle. As usual, I drank far too much vino, hoping somehow that it would relieve the headache I'd been nursing all day. It didn't, but you can't say I didn't give it a chance. It was about 10:30 by the time I finally blew out the candles, and it was around 3 am when I awoke with a headache.


So 6:15 rolls around and I'm up on the levee again, but not feeling too good. My head's still hurting and when I move it suddenly my balance goes momentarily awry. Not really the best situation for a training ride in the dark. This morning we had three guys with really bright lights, so seeing the road wasn't too much of a problem. Matt took the lead at one point and just stayed there forever. Chad was trying to push the pace, but mostly just ended up off the front by himself because I, for one, wasn't in any condition to be playing that game. In fact, I wasn't really in any condition to be riding my bike. Of course, I may be stubborn but I'm not stupid, and when the pace started to pick up I started thinking about turning back early. I obviously had a little bit of a head cold or allergy thing going on, and together with the prior evening's merriment, riding myself into the ground wasn't likely to accomplish anything good today.



I rode as far as The Dip before turning back. The sun still hadn't risen, but the sky was brighter by then and despite the light headwind I was enjoying the easy pace and solitude. When I got home I took a couple of Advil and raided the jam-packed refrigerator before hopping on the bike for the ride to work. As luck would have it, my morning at work was pretty hectic. In the middle of it all I learned that the LAMBRA LCCS Championship jerseys had been delivered by UPS to the wrong address a few days earlier and were now in danger of being shipped back to the manufacturer. After checking the tracking information I knew what had happened. In fact, I'd seen it happen myself. I remembered being on my front porch Monday after work and seeing a UPS man walking down the street with a box that he left in front of the apartment across the street. Well, turns out those were the jerseys. The folks in that apartment moved in just a couple of months ago so they don't know my name or anything and so they had called UPS to have them pick the box up. When I finally tracked down the delivery guy, he said he hadn't actually picked it up because nobody had been home this morning, so I'm hoping this will all get straightened out by the end of the day and they don't end up being shipped back to the manufacturer.



I took a few photos last night, most of which were pretty bad, but a few of the less-bad ones are here. The headache is finally going away and I'm starting to feel more or less normal again. Onward....