Colder Air and Long Shadows

It was a very busy night on Neron Place

Well last week was a total write-off for me. Wednesday and Thursday mornings were rainy, and then on Friday I had to be over at the uptown campus early for some Homecoming volunteer assignments. By the time I left there in the early afternoon I was feeling kind of bad. My stomach had been very unhappy all morning, and I felt like I might be running a low-grade fever, so I just headed home.

We'd had a busy Halloween night on Thursday but I couldn't really attribute how I was feeling to that. Candy  had been home all day Friday (over-)preparing for our annual Halloween party for the neighbors, cooking gumbo, making cookies and cupcakes, picking up stuff from Whole Foods catering, etc., so although I would have liked to have climbed under the covers under the circumstances, there was still much to do. For one thing, the car was showing low air pressure in one of the tires, and just that morning one of the headlights had burned out. So I checked all of the tires, all of which were at least 5 psi low, got them all up to spec, then ran over to the auto parts store for a couple of new headlight bulbs, installed those, topped up the coolant that was just a bit low, and foolishly thought I might be able to lie down for a while to see if I'd recover. That's when she asked me to pick up ice for the drinks. When I got home from that we discovered that two of our ice chests were missing, so I had to go out and buy another one to fill with ice and Rogue Dead Guy Ale.

Reggie, Andrea, and Dennis at Swamp Otter on Sunday

By the time it was party time I was not feeling well at all. I made a few brief appearances but ended up in bed with an ache in my upper right abdomen, a little nausea, and I think a mild fever. I hadn't eaten much of anything all day.

By Saturday morning I was starting to wonder if it was something serious, so we made a trip over to the ER for a "calculus of gallbladder without cholecystitis without obstruction" diagnosis with otherwise normal ultrasound and x-ray and blood work, and referral to an internal medicine doctor and general surgeon. To be more specific, the pathologist said cholelithiasis without evidence of cholecystitis with three tiny nonmobile echogenic foci at the gallbladder neck and a single mobile 0.6 cm stone. Fortunately, by then I was feeling considerably better in general. Later that afternoon I walked over to Tulane Stadium to watch the second half of the Homecoming football game where Tulane pulled off a victory despite at least a hundred yards of penalties that included two called-back touchdowns.

Sunday we finally, at long last, set the clocks back to standard time, which made it so very much better when I had to load up the car and head over to Chalmette to officiate the Swamp Otter cyclocross race. The weather was pretty nice - a little chilly and windy, but with a nice blue sky. The races went pretty well since field sizes were generally small and manageable, so I was back home by 3:30 or 4:00. I might have tried to get out for a late afternoon ride, but figured I'd wait until Monday under the circumstances.

Nice to see the sun in the morning again!

Monday morning the temperature was around 50F, and since I was planning on a nice easy ride, I dug out a pair of knickers and a long-sleeve jersey and wind vest for the first time this Fall. I was definitely not willing to be cold for my first ride in five days. The legs felt fresh, of course, so it was a nice ride. I turned around with a few of the Tulane riders and got a few bonus miles before heading back down Oak Street through the remnants of Sunday's Po-Boy Festival. It was great to be able to go out to ride at 6 am without it being pitch dark for another hour. As it was, I used my lights just to get from home to the levee. By then the sun was almost over the horizon. Looking forward, we have the Varsity to Varsity ride scheduled for Sunday and I expect I'll do what I usually do for that, which is to shuttle riders up to Baton Rouge, and then ride from New Orleans upriver until I run into them on their way back. The only complication this year will be the Spillway road which is still closed and showing no signs of being repaired any time soon. I think we can get through there anyway with a little walking where the asphalt is washed out, but there's always the option of taking the Airline bridge if necessary.

So it's late afternoon right now and feeling even later with the sun already pretty low in the sky. I put the old headlight on the commuter this morning before riding in to work. It will probably be a few more weeks before it's really essential for the ride home, but what the heck. It's looking like morning temperatures in the mid-upper 50s with maybe a morning or two dipping down to the upper 40s for the next week or two. Probably won't need to pull out the full tights and winter jacket for a while.