Rosebud Rides Again

The Nooksack River from Riverwalk Park, December 31, 2012
The lighting came out kind of grim, really it's much prettier.

This morning at eleven when I was getting ready for work it started snowing pretty seriously, so I pumped up the knobby tires on my old K2 hybrid bike and added an extra layer to my clothing. The snow had stopped by the time I headed home from work at eight this evening, and it might have been cold, but I was so bundled up I felt toasty warm all the way home. I only noticed a bit of cold wind on my face.

The ride on my old bike felt so smooth and easy compared to my Surly. Maybe an occasional change of riding position is good for the spine. Or maybe it's because I haven't given the newer bike a thorough cleaning in a few weeks and the chain and shifting mechanisms are kind of gritty. It's amazing how much sand my bike picks up on rainy days, considering that there hasn't yet been enough snow to require putting sand down on the roads. Usually it isn't this bad until after the snow is gone.

New Year's eve and all day I've been hanging on the edge of my own personal financial cliff. Last summer while I was working two jobs I stopped filing unemployment comp. claims, but after my bike shop job ended I found I couldn't cover my rent at the end of the month without some extra income, so I opened a new claim. My new weekly benefit amount turned out to be pitiful, something like $117, but luckily the Employment Security Department said I was required to continue claiming Extended Benefits until they ran out. Extended Benefits paid a higher weekly amount, enough to cover my rent when my earnings don't.

But the Extended Benefits program is due to end December 29, unless Congress passes a budget deal. All day at work I was checking cable TV news reports (only with no sound, just video and captions), and I keep checking online news now that I'm at home. It's getting so I have to check what time zone a news report is coming from to figure out how timely it is, and which way the pendulum is swinging. Probably best to just turn off the media, stop worrying, and see how things look in the morning.

Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve 2012

I'll refrain from being profound tonight.

Here's a scene from my ride home from work:

The first snowfall in Ferndale, around noon on December 18.

Turn on your headlights, and don't drink and drive!

A few weeks ago the batteries in my bike computer died suddenly, just as my odometer was about to turn 5600 miles. Now it's back to 116 miles, quite a come down, but at least I can brag here.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

In keeping with my annual November through January holiday custom of re-thinking and trying to remember what I've been doing for the previous ten or twelve months, I've been remembering this quote:

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

I'd been thinking this was Mark Twain again, but I did a little google-searching and found it was really Abraham Lincoln. Interesting that many historians believe that Lincoln was at times clinically depressed, and he surely must have been deeply troubled and worried, yet he must also have been deeply satisfied with his life and the great changes he brought about.

Pretty much all my life I've been living in a holding pattern, waiting to move on to something better, or different, at least. From the time I moved away from my family's home at eighteen, through going to college, dropping out then going back, every time I changed my major, through every job change and new place of residence since then, I've been working and just getting by while saving up money, trying to prepare for my next phase. Which was supposed to be the right one, the true path that I want my life to follow.

Over and over again my plans were derailed by job loss, or legal or family or health troubles, or economic slumps or crashes of some kind. Now it appears that the present Great Period of Economic Adjustment will be a long, slow and halting one, and many people will probably never be as well off as before the crash, though we may be content and prosperous again. In fact, as skimpy as my "lifestyle" is now, every day I see many people around me who are worse off, and more mired in hopelessness. So it seems to me now the best course is to make up my mind to find ways to be happier with what I have and where I am, in the here and now.

My google search also turned up this essay by Marc Sokol from Huffington Post,
http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/08/30/12-things-happy-people-do-differently/, which prescribes in twelve bullet points some ways to change your mind and be happier despite hard circumstances.

Compromising

Now is the season for just sucking it up and grinding it out, pretty literally if you're a bicycle commuter, if you'll excuse the indelicacy. I've been lucky to miss the worst rain storms, although headwinds have been bad enough to put me ten minutes behind on the way to work. On the worst days I've been loading my bike on the bus going in to work. Then heading home at the end of the day, I have a tailwind that lifts me right over the hills.

I'm very stubborn, which is probably why I've lasted so long as a bike commuter, but sometimes I insist on doing things the hard way for no good reason. After wearing myself out last winter, I decided to take it a bit easier, and maybe avoid getting pneumonia this year. I did have a cold in November, but I'm over it now.

Downtown Ferndale is lit up again, even more than last year, so Main Street is a welcoming sight coming home at night.