kengr

Had a doctor's appointment for a diabetes checkup. It was at 6:15.

Of course, the day *after* I make it, they announce they are having a pizxza party at the apartments from 4-6.

I managed to get a little of the pizza before I left for the appointment.

I decided to use my bike becausde I could leave a lot later (on the bike, it takes about 30 minutes. On the bus it takes 90).

Unlike the forecasts earlier in the week, it wasn't cloudy *or raining. So I half melted on the way. also, as usual, going from working on the bike in the hot air to sitting around in the air conditioned waiting room meant I was *covered* in sweat. Bleah.

Appointment went ok. I have new doctor. It's a guy this time, but he seems nice. got thru the checkup ok, and I even remembered to bring up the two other things I wanted to ask about.

First was getting back on zoloft. My depression has sort of snuck up on me again, and I'd been blaming some of the extra sleeping and lack of interest in stuff on the heat. But I finally decided I should get back on zoloft to see if it'd help like it did before.

No problem with that. The prescription might even be ready now, but I'll go check tomorrow.

The other issue is that over the last few years I've been making an increasing number of typos. Used to be I'd make maybe 1 typo in a few paragraphs. These days, sometimes I'll have several in the same *sentence*.

For now looks like it'll be "see in the zoloft makes a diff, then look into things further if thatisn't the problem.

Definitely gotta ride the bike more often.

stats

distance: 6.92 miles
max speed: 16.3 mph
moving time 54:46
moving average" 7.6 mph

Saturday was Produce day. I went to the food pantry for the regular Saturday produce distribution.

Had to turn down a lot of things as I already had them. The red lettuce in the garden had looked more than ready to harvest and when Fay did so on friday it pretty much *doubled* the amount of lettuce I had. Which was way too much to start with. I did grab a few leaves of swiss chard to go with the red chard I already had. Wound up with more broccoli (I can always find a use for broccoli).

Got some apples and an orange, some juice and several other things.

Fay had been going to go with me, but her alarm didn't go off. Oh well, that meant I could go by bike and take less than half an hour round trip instead of a couple of hours.

Still had to wait over an hour at the pantry though. They "start" at 10, but at 9 there are usually half a dozen folks in line. I got there early enough to be #5.

Afte I got home, I rested a bit then Fay and I went to check out two of the farmer's markets I've mentioned. Rossi Farms is nice, but their prices may be a bit high. I got some purple potato fingerlings, some green and yellow beans, and they threw in 3 zuccinnis (green, yellow and striped) for free.

They've got some jams that looked interesting, but I need to see if the Moppethill Farms booth at Saturday market can take those senior produce checks. If they can, I'll stick with them.

We also swung by the Ron Spada Farms booth (and it was a literal *booth*. Most fireworks stands are bigger!). They had various berries and other fruit. I note that their cherries were almost as cheap as the ones I got thursday.

Didn't get anything there.

Walking between the two "markets we passed a 7-11 and I suddenly remembered what day it was. So Fay and I each got a free slurpee.

We took the 21 bus home so I could stop at the hardware store and replace the sprinkler that had disappeared from our garden plot. Yeah, the other day somebody cut one of the hoses and used it to siphon gas from someone's car. They also broke another sprinkler (still usable, as it was just the "frame" that got busted). And for whatever reason, they seem to have taken our sprinkler.

$7 poorer I have a new one. And it comes back inside with me after use.

If I'm feeling ambitious I may make a run to the storage locker and/or Saturday Market (it's open on Sundays too) later.




stats
total distance: 3.03 miles
max speed: 15.5 mph
avg speed: 6.8
moving time 26 min

As of Midnight, recreational pot use is legal. *Getting* it is the tricky part.

Untiil y=the OLCC works out rules (many months down the road) there's no place to *buy* it.

So the only legal way to get it is to have someone giove it to you or to grow it yourself.

To celebrate legalization and mke a gesture at solving the "how to get it" Problem NORML was giving away pot at midnight. Supposedly. pot & seeds.

Silly me, I figured that if I left home at 10:30, I'd be ok.

I got to the Burnside bridge at 11. The giveaway was at the west end. When I realized I was riding past a *line*, I had to backtrack until I was three-quarters of the way to the *east* end.

There was a long, long wait. Eventually around onethings started moving faster. Which turned out to be because they were out of pot.

A guy with a bullhorn was saying to go to a medical marijuana dispensary near the Hawthorne bridge and they'd have pot to give out. He said "right now".

Well, there wasn't anybody there. Finally, at 10 to 2, someone arrived and said they'd be giving free pot to folks with medical marijuana cards.

I gave up and left. In part because I'd mostly been interested in the seeds.

So I headed home. I swung by Voodoo donuts, as it being after midnight I had money in my account and could spend some on a luxury. :-)

When I got home I texted Fay and she got her pick of the donuts as a birthday present. She picked a bacon maple bar.

That left another for me, plus two apple fritters and a mango tango (I'd been worrtied she'd want that, I'd wanted to get two but they only had one)

I shall be crashing soon. The ride, combine with all the standing in line has tired me out.

stats
total distance: 12.6 miles
max speed: 17.2 mph
moving time 2hr 15 min
moving average: 5.5 mph

I've been worrying since late last month about the annual inspection of the apartments. Because of the "remodel" back in Sept I've had more stuff than usual in boxes, and since we have a new manager who is a bit of a pain in the ass, I was expecting it to be bad. she was actually pretty good about it.

But while I was (slowly) getting things straightened out, I haven't been riding my bike.

And the WNBR is Saturday. So I'm trying to make up for lost time.

Went out to hit a nearby geocache (GC5T5TA) Found it without too much trouble then tried yet another stab at one that has ben confounding me for years (GC39RJB) . Failed again on that one. Gonna have to ask for a hint.

On the way back, I saw a big bag of beer cans sitting at the curb and swung back. There was a woman just coming out of the door and I asked if they were just there for the taking. She said they were. And that she usually had a bag everuy day or so.

So I snagged it and hit tnhe bottle return at Albertsons before going home (it's literally next door, so no biggie).

Got $3.90. Gonna have to make a point of swinging by here on my rides. It's right on my preferred route home from points west...

Bike stats:

total dstance 6.16 miles (I'd only been planning on 3-5)
max speed: 13.6 mph
avg moving speed 5.7 mph
total moving time 1hour, 5 min.

Not bad at all.

Eeven so, the WNBR is going to be a killer. Suppsed to hit 99 or 100Satyrday. And oit won't have cooled off *that* much by 8 pm.

The folks who tried to do the naked 100 km (riding in all the naked rides that day) are going to *die* unless they are well prepared.

Okay, as Imentioned, Tuesday I went to the Multnomah County clinicto drop off my full sharps container and pick up a new one. I got the new one, but was informed they no longer took them.

I was told (and a *large* poster next to me also said) that I could take the full container to any fire station.

Well, I looked up fire stations and found one that was only about a mile and a half away. A nice ride for this early in the season.

So I get there. And get informed tthat there's been a recent policy change and *they* aren't supposed to take them either. (They let me do it this once, thankfully)

So after I post this I'm calling the clinic to let them know and ask where exactly I am supposed to take them *now*?

I don't expect to get much of an answer, so my *next* stop will likely be emailing a local TV station.Especially since they recently did a bunch of stories about used needles being dumped on riverside property that eventually turned out to be owned by the city or county. And they took the better part of a week to clean it up. And a week later, there were just as many needles.

So I'd say these policy changes are a reasonable followup story, yes?


I took a couple side trips on the way home, so I got some extra mileage. Speed is low because I had to walk the bike back up the hill.


bike stats
distance: 4.91 miles
moving time 55min 27 sec
max speed 12.3 mph
moving average: 5.3 mph

I decided to kill two birds with one stone today.

I've been a bit late getting back onto the bike this year and had only made a couple of short rides. I need to get into shape for the WNBR at the end of the month .

So I figured I'd ride my bike to the clinic and exchange my full sharps container for a new one. It'd be a bit of a ride for my current conditioning, but worst case, I could stop and rest on the way.

Well, I got there, only needing to walk a couple of slopes. Then I find out that in the 5 or 6 months since my last excvhange, they'd changed policy and the no longer accepted full sharps containers. They did give me a new one at least.

The notice said I could take full sharps containers to any fire station. Great! There's one only a couple blocks from the apartment.

So I headed back home. I did have to stop and rest several times. and I drank most of a bottle of water. I had second one though.

Even found a geocache on the way home.

So I ride up to the fire station. Only to find out it's been closed. *sigh*

Now I gotta find out which one will be most convenient to drop off sharps at.

I had tpo rest a bit before hauling the bike upstairs and I made a bottle of gatorade (diabeticcs use it half strength, so I buy mix and make it up myself. Also has the advantage of not spoiling that way).

Next ride, I take a bottle of that too.

Well, this time the ride started from a park only a mile or so from my place.Normandale Park if anybody wants to check it out.

I happened to wind up going by the park in the afternoon coming back from some errands.It was only 4 pm when I (by mistake, honest) got off the #77 a stop early. I checked things out (there's geocache in the park and I looked around the general area to get an idea of what I'd be in for when I swung by with the GPS. There were already 3 naked people hanging around.

I did *not* see signs of the angry neighbors the news last week had led me to expect.

Fay and I headed out around 7. When I left her at the bus stop, the bus was expected in 10 minutes. I had to stop and change batteries on my GPS somewhere between Fremont and Sandy. Even so, I beat Fay to the park.

It was pretty crowded by them. And got more crowded as time went on. Still didn't see any signs of disgruntled neighbors

Lot of gawkers though. Noted several parents with younger kids. Even one cute girl in a pink lace "skirt" (one of those poufy things like goes with a tutu). And that was *all* she was wearing. Didn't notice here footgear, if any.

Several guys in various sorts of drag. Including one it a cocunut shell bra and grass skirt.

Also noticed a cute T-girl. She was wearing a short pink skirt and I clocked her because she had a huge trans symbol on her shoulder in body paint. Didn't have my camera on me or I'd have asked to take a picture of the symbol.

The ride started (almost 30 minutes late) at around 9:30. We started at the corner of the park (NE 57th & Halsey) and headed up 57th to Sandy. That involved the worst uphiil climb on the ride.

At Sandy, we turned onto Alameda. We followed it to 37th ave. While riding it I though we were on several streets, but checking the track on my GPS later, I found that Alameda just turns a lot. Rather sharply at times.

At 37th, we went for a block then turned onto Bryce. From there, it was 32nd to Alberta, Alberta to Miississippi, an Mississippi to N. Graham. Which was the end of the ride.

Crowds were a lot thinner than in previous years, mostly (I suspect) because we were on streets that hadn't been used in previous years.

Also, about half the ride was on *very* residential streets (only Alberta and Mississippi are "commercial" type streets. I was also a lot closer to the front of the pack than previous years, so I'm sure that had an effect too.

A lot fewer catcalls than previous years. I didn't hear *any* negative comments about my body shape, though there were a few "hand slapper" type that pulled their hands back as I approached. But several stuck theirs out as I got close too.

In fact the worst thing I heard was some guy at me(?) to put my clothes on as I went past. I yelled back "No, you take yours off!"

Getting home took longer as there'd been some *significant* downhill on the last bit of the ride.

The route home the GPS picked had me making up most of that in *one* block. Yeesh.

But I got home just before midnight.

6.9 miles for the WNBR, 13.3 miles total (plus another quarter to half miles that didn't get counted because I forgot to reset the trip counter until I was changing the GPS batteries). Not bad at all.

I even got "warmed up" enough to pedal a lot faster than I normally do. Well, run at higher gears actually, there's no way I cann pedal "fast" my leg muscles just don't work that way.

Around 6:30 I decided to go on a short ride. At least partly because too many of my recent rides had been at night, and I didn't want to get out of practice for riding in daylight)

I hadn't intended it when I started out, but I decided to head out to the caches I hadn't gotten last night. Still couldn't find the one near a post office, but I think that's because I just didn't feel like digging thru the bushes that badly.

The one I coiuldn't find and emailed the cache owner about I did find. I hadn't noticed that there were *three* of the key items there, partly because it was dark last night and partly because the GPs was pointing at one very clearly (the rare thing where it says something like 2 feet while you are standing next to the target).

This evening I saw as I was riding up that were were indeed three. And *this* time, rather than pointing at one on one end, it pointed to the one in the middle. And sure enough, there was the cache.

The two I didn't have co-ordinates for last night were easy finds except for people from the nearby stores making it hard to be inconspicuous.

I didn't try for the ones on the bike path because I was getting tired. Since I was only a few blocks from a Max station, I rode over and took it to the Parkrose TC where I was able to catch a bus home.

I only did 5 miles, but did it in about 45 minutes of actual riding. So that's not bad.

Monday, fayanora came over as usual for TVC watching and general hanging out.

However, this being the first of the month meant it was also grocery shopping day. I'd pointed out a day or three before that I was *not* going to go out to Winco when it was in the upper 90s. But Fay overslept and showed up later than normal.

Being her birthday, I told her to head over to the bakery section at Albertsons. Great minds think alike. She too wanted something from the cold case.

The ice cream cakes were way too big (and expensive) the cheesecakes were a possibility, but we'd done that before. I noticed they have some cream pies. I suggested either the chocolate cream pie or the lemon sour cream pie. She went for the lemon. Good choice, I'd had it before and it's nummy.

I also steered her over to the case of "odd" sodas they have at one end of the frozen foods aisle,. Stuff like Dad's Root Beer, various ginger alies anfd ginger berrs, Blue Cream soda, Blue Raspberry soda, several varieties of orange and grape sodas, etc. She spotted some Huckleberry sodas. SO bought two, one for each of us. When we tried them later, they weren't bad. Not necessarily something either of us would by again, but we aren't sorry we tried them.
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fayanora went with me to the ride again this year. This time she was even willing to ride in it.

Not naked of course, but she did go down to her bra and panties.
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