Star-gazing

Every night this past week I've been distracted with star-gazing on my ride home from work.  There's been a crescent moon, and I recognized Venus near it, but tonight another larger bright light appeared.  Jupiter, according to a Google news item I just read, and Mercury and Mars should show up soon, too.  Sunday night was clear, cold and windy - snow is threatening again - but it's been a treat to see the planets on my way home.  I'd never have noticed them if I wasn't out on my bike at night, and I'm too lazy and comfort-loving to bundle up and go out in the cold just to look for them.

PART II - March 9

Last week the crescent moon and planets were to the northwest as I rode home.  Last night there was a big yellow full moon near the horizon to the southeast, so it was behind me where I couldn't see it most of the way.

This sky-watching is an interesting change from the first year I tried bicycle-commuting.  Then I lived near the intersection of Lakeway and Lincoln Streets, worked near Bellis Fair Mall, at the corner of Meridian and Bakerview, and was taking a community college class by Cordata Parkway.  Meaning I rode from Whatcom County's second worst area for vehicle and pedestrian accidents, to the first worst.  Sometimes in the morning I would ride down one-way Holly Street through downtown.  Once I got through the first light at Ellis Street, I could get going down the hill at the speed of traffic, and ride along among the cars, while keeping a sharp look out for drivers making right turns, or cruising for parking, or trucks stopping to make morning deliveries.  It was an exhilarating half-mile that got my adrenaline going so I arrived at work or school feeling lively and alert.

I also felt a lot more twitchy and defensive, though.  Now when I have a good tailwind on the way home, I can kind of zone out riding in the dark.  I'm surprised when I find myself on the Smith Road overpass, heading in to the home stretch to Ferndale.

Whip It

This is not what real women look like

When I was in my early teens I read a book about a girl near my age (early junior high/middle schoolish).  She was an outdoorsy, tom-boyish type who lived outside a small town and enjoyed normal, active kid things like baseball, climbing trees, riding horses and chasing frogs in ditches.  But she had recently had her bedroom redecorated in frilly pale-pink and white French provincial, and was beginning to find her old interests embarrassing.  Over the summer, a new family moves in down the road, with a boy of her age.  Expected to be friends, they are awkward and tongue-tied when introduced, and when they're left alone they quickly become sulky and argumentative, get into a fight, and have to be separated by their parents.  This is, of course, because they are attracted to each other, but are too young and naive to recognize their true feelings (so are their parents, but I got it right away).  So they spend most of the summer moping, day-dreaming, but avoiding each other, and quarreling when they meet.


Eventually the girl's mother decides to have a heart-to-heart with her, the one starting out "your're getting older now, and going through a lot of changes . . . "  Mom comes in to the pink and white bedroom where Girl has been sulking all afternoon, carrying a pink and white paper bag from the local ladies' boutique, and says, "I think you should begin wearing these . . . a brassiere and a tight little girdle."  Girl has a shrieking temper tantrum, throws the bag against the wall, and slams out of the room.

Later on Boy comes over, bashfully apologizes for acting like a jerk, and invites the girl to the community club dance coming up at the end of the summer.  She accepts, then drifts dreamily upstairs to her pink and white room, to try on her new bra and girdle.

This is Victoria's Secret:  with the right lingerie, a girl is ready for anything.

I was so disgusted I would have thrown the book across the room, if it hadn't been from the library.

In case you're wondering what any of this has to do with bicycling, think of the difficulty most women have getting used to the idea of wearing spandex cycling shorts with no underwear.  Once we start riding frequently, or going on longer recreational rides, we find a little padding is necessary - in the shorts, but it really has no use in bras.  But there is no style of underwear that won't make panty lines under spandex, except maybe thongs, and I don't even want to begin to imagine how those would feel after twenty miles in the saddle.

During the dark winter months, when I amused myself with watching DVDs on my intimate 9x17 inch computer screen, I found an antidote to this stuff, and a welcome addition to the sadly limited young-woman-coming-of-age genre.  Whip It, starring Ellen Page and directed by Drew Barrymore, has nothing to do with bicycling, but it is the story of a rambunctious, non-conformist, but otherwise normal, ordinary young woman finding a path to independence on wheels.  In this case, the wheels are roller skates, and the heroine lies about her age to create a new identity as Babe Ruthless, a member of the Hurl Scouts roller-derby team.

For anyone still mystified by the depths of the female psyche, I also recommend The Devil Wears Prada, a more traditional chick-flick about a young journalism grad (Anne Hathaway) who temporarily sells herself to the fashion industry.  Plus, the DVD includes clips demonstrating the hazards of high-heeled shoes.

Here Comes the Sun

Monday while I was at Starbucks they played George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun."  It sent me off on a nostalgia trip so intense it was almost psychedelic.  I sat staring out the window at the dirty, wet street, smiling and teary-eyed.

Then this morning, there it was:  blue sky and sunshine.  I put every thing else aside, got out my camera, got on my bike, and went out to take pictures of it.

This looks like a golf course, but it's really pasture, with fir and cedar trees.

Windstorms bring down older trees and branches,
making trail riding interesting in the spring.

Another architectural eccentric

Snow on the Cascade Mountains and foothills, but only remnants left in the ditches down in the flatlands.
In the center of the photo is the Cargill grain elevator, a few blocks from my apartment in downtown Ferndale.