Pandemic Holidays

The lights of Ferndale

With the holiday shopping season beginning in December, store hours have been extended and I have some 8am start times, meaning I am back to winter bicycle commuting two or three days a week. Last week I rode in a couple of big wind and rain storms, but the weather is looking a bit milder for the next couple of weeks. I hope, because even though it has felt good to be more active, leaving home in the dark at 7am is already wearing me down.

Sometimes I think retail workers aren't really essential. It's more that we are expendable.

Tightened COVID restrictions this month are showing how car-centered and car-dependent many communities are. Sunday mornings when I go out for my morning walk, I skip stopping for coffee and pastry afterwards because customers are no longer allowed to sit inside, even socially-distanced. The Ferndale Starbuck's usually has a line of cars at the drive-through window that goes all the way around the building, through the parking lot, even backing up around the corner on Main Street. Standing outside on the sidewalk to eat and drink just isn't appealing, I'd rather go home for homemade coffee and a snack.

Less trivially, free public COVID testing sites at first required people to line up in cars and submit to testing through their rolled-down windows. The sites had to improvise walk-up testing for carless people. 

Back in October, I was ill for a few days with (probably) a combination of seasonal allergies stirred up when the heat started coming on in my apartment, plus a sudden, violent stomach bug. At my job employees are required to complete an on-line health questionnaire every day before coming in, and have our temperature taken at the entrance to the store. When I reported nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, chills, headache, sore throat, runny nose, fatigue, muscle and body aches, I was barred from returning to work until after either a negative COVID test or a 14-day quarantine.

I called around to some Urgent Care clinics for information about testing and learned that the offices in Bellingham allowed people to walk in to the front desk to check in, then go back outside and wait in their cars for a lab technician to come out to collect a sample.

My regular doctor's office is about a mile from where I live in Ferndale, but they usually can't take unscheduled walk-in emergencies. First I had a phone consultation, then they scheduled me for a video chat the next morning, before agreeing to let me come in for testing. I had been very ill the night before and didn't want to take the bus in to Bellingham. (I also wasn't really up to managing the technology required to set up a video consultation.) I wasn't allowed to enter the clinic building, instead a lab tech and physician's assistant met me outside with a sample kit so I could stick a swab up my own nose myself.

Luckily, my test was negative, and I was cleared to work after two sick days. And now I'm back to riding the storms in December.

Self-Treatment

One of the advantages of my retail job is that I can try out bicycle-related clothing and accessories at a discount. One of the disadvantages is that I've been injured a couple of times in the past year while riding my bicycle to work. Since my most recent crash in June I have been trying out a couple of products that turned up in stock in the store. Please keep in mind that I am totally unqualified to give medical information or advice - just relating my experience. Also, Sierra buys up overstocks and past season merchandise as available, and doesn't consistently carry any particular brands or products.

Cannabis products have been legalized in Washington state for a few years now, including recreational edibles and smokables, and also medicinal and cosmetic products that contain cannabinoids but not THC, the chemical that makes you high. Back in my crazed youth I tried smoking marijuana maybe a dozen times, but always found it made me so nervous and anxious that before I was 21 years old I decided it was just no fun and quit trying. Since becoming an arthritic old person I sometimes thought about trying topical products for pain and stiffness, but worried about having a bad reaction. But the impact of my most recent crash caused quite a bit of soreness in the bones around my shoulder, ribs and neck and off-the-shelf pain meds either didn't work or made me too spacey to use at work.

The first topical that turned up in the store was a Pachamama brand roll-on that contained CBD and "ancient Chinese herbs" in a menthol and camphor solution that created an intense hot-and-cold sensation which pretty much obscured any effect the CBD might have had. It felt really good, though. At bedtime I put on my PJs, rolled the gel solution across my shoulders and upper back and up my neck, sighed in relief and went happily to sleep. When my cuts and scrapes healed up to the itchy stage I rolled the solution about a half-inch around (not on) the broken skin and instantly stopped the itchiness. It may have been the hot-and-cold feeling, or a placebo effect, but in just a few days I began to feel a bit psychologically dependent and used up a two-ounce roll-on bottle in a few weeks.

After that I tried a Pachamama cream containing CBD in a menthol, arnica and capsaicin lotion. This had a milder warm-and-cool feeling but I seemed to notice more muscle relaxation and pain reduction, without the instant happy relief I felt before. It did have an odd smell, a combination of hot peppers and peppermint. The roll-on had a strong medicinal smell, though.

This week the store received a Sagely Naturals brand CBD Relief & Recovery cream which has a mild peppermint scent and only a light cooling feel. It is quite a bit less expensive than Pachamama - I'm getting these at about 50% off, full prices range from about $20 for 4 oz. for the Sagely Naturals, to $45-$60 for 2 or 3.5 oz. Pachamamas. So it will probably be best to wean myself off them.

To the right is my left elbow after I collided with a recycling wheelie bin in the dark about a year ago. So that's what a hematoma looks like - the skin wasn't broken or bleeding at all and I think I had some crushing injury to the bony point of my elbow.

Below is my left elbow and knee about ten weeks after my wipe-out in June. I'm just attaching these for clinical interest.

Left elbow

Left knee

Happy Monday

Weather forecasts are stormy for the rest of the week, so I took Monday off for a late season ride to Blaine and Birch Bay, with a stop for lunch at my new favorite Mexican Grill, where I enjoyed my new favorite fish tacos, with an americano from the Starbucks next door. It was a fifty mile round-trip ride, probably the longest ride I've done this year, and I came home with a pinkish sunburn across my nose and cheeks.

The hillside beyond the marina is White Rock BC, and the highrises behind the hill (slightly obscured by trees) are in Surrey BC.

It still surprises me to see how much these Canadian border cities have grown since 1995, when I moved to Whatcom County.

Inspiration for the remains of 2020

Sunday evening I bicycled home from work in the dark in a downpour, but that will be my last winter commute for this year. I put in a schedule change request so I will only be working mid-day shifts and won't have to ride my bike. Back in the days when I was broke and working at the airport cafe I found foul-weather night-time bike commutes were challenging and invigorating, but I just can't keep myself convinced of that now. I don't have the endurance for repeated bouts of near-hypothermia, and I've had two painful crashes in the past year. Besides, I'm just not that desperate for a paycheck anymore.

Affordable beachfront living in Birch Bay

Not yet, anyway, but who knows what will become of the job market and what's left of the social safety net.

That's too much pessimism and negativity. It was a lovely ride, just like a normal summer day.

p.s. Beach Drive in Birch Bay was reduced to one lane because of road repairs. That road is usually flooded at least once every winter because of storms and high tides.

Amazing True Story

I'm not sure why I've been remembering this lately, but here it is. I've had a lot of crappy, badly-paid jobs in my life, working with obnoxious people - unfriendly, hostile, verbally abusive, and sometimes even physically threatening or aggressive (usually in a sneaky, passive-aggressive way). But this is worse than anything I have ever experienced, or even imagined.

Many, many years ago after I burned out the automatic transmission in my last car, I let it sit in the parking lot over the summer while I tried out bicycling for transportation. Finally the battery died, the car wouldn't start at all anymore, and I decided the time had come to junk it. I found an ad for a freelance auto-hauler in the Little Nickel Classifieds paper, or maybe it was one of those signs with the little tear-off tabs you see posted on the bulletin board at the laundromat. I forget now, but I called and made arrangements for them to come by to haul away the car.

Two guys showed up, driving an old flatbed truck with a winch behind the cab. One of them was in his mid-thirties, stocky, dark and Mediterranean-looking; the other was a little, wizened up old guy in his mid-to-late seventies, or older; neither one was above five and a half feet tall. I walked with them out to the parking lot, signed over the title and paid $50 cash while the older man backed their truck up behind my car, which was parked on a slight uphill slope. The younger man jacked up the back end of my old car, pulled a heavy hook on a cable from the winch, then got down on his hands and knees to hook up to the axle. It made me very uneasy to see him with his arm and head under the car which tilted backwards toward him, supported only by an ordinary jack.

"I think there are some cement blocks over by the fence to help brace up the car," I suggested helpfully and nervously as he groped around with half his body out of sight beneath the car. Meanwhile, the old guy skipped around the front end of the truck and began cranking wildly at the winch, trying to wind up the slack cable, while I squawked and dithered.

The young guy got the hook set, then let the jack down. Back on his feet, he said, "Nah, thanks, I'll just use my head."

Walking up toward the truck cab, he pulled a big cotter pin out of his pocket and shook it in the old guy's face, then stuck it in the winch and wound up the slack cable, before using the power winch to drag the car on to the flatbed. The underside of the car scraped horribly all the way up, gouging the tailpipe, muffler and whatever other exposed parts are down there. The car was now definitely an undrivable wreck.

As I say, I've had a lot of crappy jobs, but never one so bad I had to always be on guard against the possibility that my partner might take any chance to try to kill me.

Be Prepared

Summer has gone so fast, but then it didn't really seem to get started until late June when the pandemic restrictions were eased. There was a week of hot weather in August, several smoky, hazy days during the fire outbreaks, then some drenching rain and wind storms last week, and now we are back to the lovely, sunny, cooling autumn season.

After crashing out on my way home from my first day back at work I started riding the bus in whenever possible. Usually I work mid-day hours, but sometimes I work until closing at 8pm, and then I need my bike to ride home, and by now it's beginning to get dark by seven. I'm still a bit nervous on gravel and bad pavement and I don't like to lean in and go fast on big downhills like I used to. For some reason I'm more confident riding in the dark but I still ride Hwy. 99 to take advantage of the freeway lights.

At first I was riding on Northwest Drive, avoiding the roundabout on Hwy. 99 where I wiped out, but suddenly road closure signs appeared and Northwest was blocked off between Slater Road almost all the way to town. The #27 bus detoured on to Hwy. 99, and I when I rode my bike I had to go that way again. Luckily the road crews were nice enough to sweep up the loose gravel at the overpass. Then they started another paving project on Slater between the highway and Northwest Dr., and the bus had to find an alternate route for their detour. The project crews never give much warning when they close a road so I was never sure when I left home which route I could take by bicycle, and sometimes even the bus drivers got confused. Hovander Road was closed for a few days, cutting off one route out of Ferndale, until I began to think "THEY" were trying to cut the town off entirely from the modern, big city society of Bellingham. Pandemic paranoia.

The road projects are winding up with the end of summer now. There is a stretch of sweet, smooth new blacktop on Northwest, but they have already cut rumble strips in it. Best not complain, though.

Actual Miles May Vary

People often seem a bit doubtful when I tell them my regular bicycle commute from Ferndale to the Cordata shopping center in Bellingham is about eight miles each way. I'm not sure why, unless non-cyclists can't see how someone could ride so far then put in a full work day. Or whatever. But lately I've found there is real uncertainty about the distance.

When I first started commuting on my road bike with 700x25mm tires, the distance by my odometer was around 8.2 to 8.3 miles, until I got sloppy for a spell and let my tires go soft. Then I noticed the distance was creeping up to more like 8.5-8.6 miles. When I pumped up the tires to their usual firmness, the reading settled back down. Now I am riding my old hybrid with thick, knobbly 700x32mm tires and the distance on my odometer is down to only 7.5-7.6 miles.

Odometers use pre-set wheel measurements like 26in, 27in, 700mm, etc., and have a sensor on a spoke to count wheel revolutions, then calculate ride distance and cumulative distance, as well as current speed, average and maximum speed. The wheel measurement is the wheel diameter, but the circumference of the tire (obviously) can vary quite a bit, adding up to as much as a mile of difference in seven or eight miles, whichever it is I'm really riding. I suppose that means the speed calculations aren't very reliable either.

At least now I can explain that I'm not exaggerating - with more detail than most people would want to hear. Then they'll be sorry they doubted my word.

Still Surviving, So Far

Dinosaur Graveyard

2005 was my first year as a bicycle commuter. George Bush II was president, and that summer the US was building up to the invasion of Afghanistan. I noticed then that car drivers seemed to have a "don't cross me" attitude, as if they were using their cars to express their anxiety, frustration, fear and anger. I am sensing that again in this summer of pandemic quarantine measures, economic uncertainty, political tension over the presidential election, and demonstrations sparked by racial issues.

Possibly I'm feeling a little bit hostile toward cars myself just now. On June 18th I returned to work in my retail job, beginning with a store meeting where we were trained in safety procedures - wearing masks, routine sanitizing throughout the day, tallying customers entering and leaving the store, etc. - and the following day I worked my first full shift since mid-March. Since the buses are running limited schedules, I rode my bicycle, and that evening had a painful crash on the way home.

It was at the roundabout at Hwy. 99 and Slater Road, where I turn left to cross over the freeway to get to Ferndale. The pavement there is cracked and pot-holed, and some holes seem to have been filled in with loose gravel. As I started through the curve I heard a car coming behind me and I glanced back over my shoulder. It was big and dark and seemed to be gaining on me, but I couldn't guess what the driver intended to do. I signaled a left turn so they would know I meant to continue through the roundabout and turn on to the overpass. With one hand on the handlebars and my attention split between the pavement and the car behind me, I hit a patch of loose gravel and wiped out on my left side on the rough pavement, probably moving at around 15 mph.

Moments later a county sheriff came along and the nice young officer helped me up, wrapped some gauze around my elbow and gave me a big band-aid for my knee, which were both badly scraped. He suggested I should maybe go to the ER, but I was worried about the cost, and also tired out from my first day back at work, and just wanted to get home, clean up and have a nice dinner and sleep.

I didn't sleep very well. A deep cut on my elbow required a visit to Urgent Care the following day, for some stitches and antibiotics, and I took the next two days off work to rest up. Also tore up the sleeve of my nice new Goretex jacket. Bike was OK, though. Always fall to the left. On second thought, this is the third time I've landed on that left elbow. Maybe I should start going to the right.

Blooming spring

Perfect day for a postal run. For a while, reduced car traffic because of business and school closures has meant better road conditions for bicycling, but in the past few days that has seemed to be wearing off. Although car traffic is still light, more drivers are passing too close, crowding bike lanes and cutting off bikes and pedestrians at corners and crossings. And giving me irritable glares as they go by.

Since the border crossing is closed there are few Canadian drivers in town - they are famously polite, but often confused in local traffic. Today I noticed a lot of (ok, several) out-of-state license plates. People new to the area might not know our road conditions, traffic laws, bicycle lane conventions, signage and so forth. Besides, people who scoff at social distancing rules are probably not inclined to share the road nicely, either.

I'm not scoffing myself, of course. I wear a scarf or balaclava to cover my nose and mouth when I enter stores or the PO and keep six feet away from others on bike paths and sidewalks. But I need to get outside daily for exercise, and because I get so tired of looking out my windows, to see only the alley, dumpsters and back ends of other peoples' oversize pick-up trucks. Lonely and bored sometimes, too.

Beautiful day, though, temperatures in the low 70's, birds chattering everywhere, and blooming dogwoods and cherry trees.

Geometry Lesson

While I wasn't riding over the winter I was considering buying a new touring bike that could carry panniers and camping stuff, maybe one with straight handlebars that would be easier on my arthritic thumbs. My Cannondale is still a fun road bike, but I've had a few panicky moments trying to brake on a fast downhill on wet pavement wearing thick gloves, when I could barely grip the brake levers. Besides I probably voided the warranty twelve times over during the summer I was travelling between Ferndale and Friday Harbor with a week's worth of luggage on board. But with all the uncertainty caused by the COVID situation, I put that decision aside.

Instead I bought a new Terry saddle for the Cannondale, and switched the old-but-still-good-one over to my old but ever-reliable K2 hybrid, thinking I could take some experimental camping trips on the old bike when the weather gets better. As I began riding more in late March, switching between the two bikes, I started having pain in my right knee, usually a symptom that the seat is too low.* So I experimented with raising the seats by a millimeter or two at a time until the twinges went away. During a rainy spell I rested my knee and treated it with a cold pack, and once I was sure I'd found the sweet spot(s), I marked the seatposts with fingernail polish.

Just this morning, though, as I was looking at the two bikes lined up and leaning against the living room wall, I noticed that the top of the saddle on the Cannondale is actually a good half-inch lower than the one on the K2, though both have been perfectly comfortable to ride. For a moment I thought the seat posts had somehow slipped, and I'd have to start over with trial-and-error raising and lowering to make the two bikes equal and pain-free.

But the seat posts were still at the marks. After puzzling over the geometry for a moment, I looked closer and found that the bottom bracket on the Cannondale is about a half-inch lower than the K2, and the pedal came closer to the ground, making up the difference in the seat height up top.

It's the distance between the pedal and the saddle that matters, not the distance from the saddle to the ground, and standover height is just a rough measure. The current best guide is to sit on the seat and place your heel on the pedal to get a better idea of saddle placement and bike size.

They didn't tell us that at Bicycle Mechanic School.

*If the seat is too high you'll have pain in the tendons at the back of the knee, among other things, I have learned through experience. They didn't teach that at Bicycle Mechanic School, either

One Month of Semi-Isolation

It's been one month since my last day at work. Partial pay from my job has run out - I will pick up my last check tomorrow - and today I filed a claim for Unemployment Compensation Benefits. The online system was so overloaded that I had to come back to my computer and log in four times, twice in the morning and twice in the early evening, before the site finally came up and I could complete my claim. I should be getting $600/week in addition to my regular weekly benefit, plus the $1200 stimulus payment, at least twice what I've been earning working irregular retail hours. I'll believe it when the payments clear my bank.

I'd like to go travelling, on some day trips at least, but everything is cancelled, even the perennial Skagit Tulip Festival, and the Ski to Sea Race in May. About four days a week I get out for a bike ride, to the Post Office in Bellingham at least, about a 24 mile round-trip, and then I get out for 20-40 mile local sight-seeing rides. Normally I would stop for coffee and pastry but even Starbucks is closed, except for drive-through. Without a car I can only buy as much as I can carry on foot (or in panniers) so I still walk to the grocery store several times a week, wearing a scarf around my face to block my breath. I used to walk out to the store often after dinner if I was craving chips, sweets or ice cream, but then I'd have to buy bread or milk or nutritious green vegetables, too, so the cashier wouldn't think I'd come in just for junk food. Now I've foregone those binges, and with all the bike rides, I'm losing my winter weight pretty quickly.

So I've been reading a lot, and studying French again, a bit. I spend far too much time browsing randomly online, mostly Facebook, Instagram and my Google news feed. Sometimes I start to get irritable and take it personally when people make comments about not keeping an absolute quarantine. This isn't really, literally a "lockdown" or "shelter in place" situation, those terms have particular meanings that don't apply now, though I suppose things are more dire in larger cities with more dense populations. Around here it's not hard to go out and ramble around for hours and just see cows, no people.

I've been thinking about what is essential, and whether this enforced austerity will make a long-term difference in what people buy and consume and how they spend their time. I suppose if the economy doesn't bounce back immediately we will be forced to change.

My parents grew up in small farm towns during the Depression and WWII years, and I inherited their pessimism and frugality (before I inherited Mom's retirement accounts). I grew up during Boeing's Boom & Bust cycles, the Arab Oil Embargo, the S&L crisis . . . one thing after another every decade. I still feel fairly secure about my future, but when I try to look beyond the time when the immediate stimulus money runs out - anything can happen.

Life in the Time of Corona

Trumpeter swans

As usual I've been isolated, bored and restless in Ferndale over the winter. In the past few weeks the weather has brightened up, but just when I was beginning to think I might start riding my bike to work again, the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders took effect. A week ago my boss called as I was leaving for work, to say that the store was closing for at least the next two weeks. He promised that we'll be paid for all hours scheduled for those weeks, and then receive partial pay after that, until the store can open again, who knows when. Luckily I still have savings to keep me from too much worry for a while. Since they're mailing paychecks I will make weekly trips in to Bellingham to pick up my check and mail at the Post Office - by bicycle, weather permitting, or on the bus if it's stormy, which is not uncommon in March. Or April.

I am well, though stiff and out-of-shape from being sedentary and stuck indoors for so long. Early this month I had immunization shots for flu and shingles, which I think may have fired up my immune system to help me resist the virus (I hope). The injection site was very sore and swollen, with a lot of back pain and muscle pain in my arms and legs for a few days afterward. Vaccinations were a new thing when I was a kid, my parents were both skeptical and careless about medical insurance and doctors, so I've had to make up for that as an adult.

I've been out for some 20-25 mile rides. Yesterday I rode through Lynden to Everson and back to Ferndale, a 42 mile round trip. Car traffic was light, but I saw Moms with kids riding bikes in some neighborhoods (at safe social distances), and farmers out working in the farms and dairies, and big flocks of trumpeter swans feeding in the stubbly, greening fields.