New Shoes

My new Giro Petra cycling shoes got their first test in the rain this evening. The uppers are part mesh, and let in enough water to get my socks soggy, but I'm hoping they (the shoes, I mean) will dry out fast. I'll just have to remember not to leave home without my shoe covers for the next several months. I'm pleased with the shoes so far. They're more comfortable for walking than most of my street shoes. The soles have enough tread to catch on the pedals, but the material is a bit smooth and plasticy, so my feet slip off at awkward moments, especially if it's wet; I'll probably put cleats on them soon. They fit high around the front of the ankle, so the tongue rubs a bit when I walk, but with my toes dipped down while pedaling that's not a problem.

I've always liked cute, chunky oxford-type shoes, a big style advantage for a bicyclist. When I first started commuting by bicycle, riding five miles each way, I wore Skechers or similar shoe styles. The nubby tread was enough to keep my feet on the pedals without straps or clips, and the soles weren't too thick, without the wide over-hanging heel that athletic shoes often have - the cushy heel can bump against the crank arm and knock your foot off the pedal.

Then I started riding with Team in Training, training for the 200-mile Seattle-to-Portland ride. By the time I got to the point of doing forty or fifty mile rides, the knuckles and tendons in my feet began to get sore, and I realized I needed some real cycling shoes with stiff, substantial soles.

I bought a pair of men's Shimano mountain biking shoes, which are still in pretty good shape, though the padding at the heel is worn. The men's sizing wasn't a problem, and the shoes were on sale for ten or twenty dollars less than comparable women's shoes. Six years is a long time for a pair of shoes to last, so they were a good buy, but my feet are six years older now, and don't fit in to them so well - the joints at the base of my toes have widened, making bumps like small bunions by my big and little toes. So that's my excuse for buying the Giros.

I also had a pair of women's Pearl Izumi X-Alp mountain biking shoes. I wore those without cleats, and often wore them at work, doing light warehouse work and even at my coffee shop job. They had light mesh uppers, and got drenched and saturated many times, until they began to smell so bad I threw them out. But I did get a lot of mileage out of them for two or three years.

update: The Giros were dry by morning.

The Dirt in Ferndale

The Ferndale bike jump park is now a work in progress, next to the American Legion Hall at the end of Third Avenue. On Sunday a lone man with a shovel and a bulldozer was working at the site. The dirt piles appear to need some forming, smoothing and packing, and the guy could probably use some help.

Several years ago I joined a volunteer work party to spend a Saturday clearing brush on the Bay to Baker Trail, a much more ambitious local bike project. Five or six people showed up, all between the ages of 45 and 70 years. My feeling now is that kids should beg their elders to build places for them to play, and then show up to help with the dirty work.

Or, you could go fishing

Flashbacks

One morning this week, as I was studying at home, I heard footsteps on the walkway outside my apartment, then a shuffling of papers, a light tapping on my door, and a noise like adhesive tape unspooling to stick up a notice. Like that dreadful blue painter's tape they use for eviction notices. I looked up and saw a young man with a sheaf of papers in one hand pass by my window, walking away from the building while punching the keypad on some type of hand-held device. My heart started thumping and I broke in to a sweat. I checked my wall calendar, noted the date was past the 10th of the month and told myself, "It's too late for a 20-day notice." Still, my hands were shaking as I reached for the doorknob, pulled it open - and found an election campaign flyer taped on my door.

It's three years now since the beginning of the dispute with my old landlord that landed me here in Ferndale. I could think of plenty of negative things to say about my apartment, and the whole town, but the place still feels like such a safe refuge that I've pretty much always been pretty happy here. Still, it's probably good to get over that childish sense of denial that says really bad things won't happen to me, and everything will work out OK.

Somewhat belatedly

Classes began two weeks ago at the community college, and I had my first quiz yesterday. It's been difficult to adjust to studying after several years of working routine, repetitive jobs where I didn't have to think about what I was doing, then spending my off hours scanning on-line job listings and randomly browsing through websites. At first it was hard to focus and retain material from reading and in class, but my mind is beginning to recover.

With classes scheduled roughly 4-7pm, I can ride the bus to campus, but I need my bicycle to ride home in the evening. Since the bus runs only once an hour, I'm finding the best plan is to leave home early in the afternoon and get to campus at least an hour and a half early. Otherwise, I'm likely to get preoccupied with studying or doing chores at home, then suddenly realize I have to rush to catch the school bus. If I missed the bus by a few minutes, I could still ride my bike all the way, but I'd arrive just before the bell, sweaty, flustered and disorganized. By taking an earlier bus I have time to study on campus before class.

The Skillshare Faire convened at Hovander Park the weekend before school started. On Saturday the weather was warm and sunny, and I hear the fair was crowded with resourceful, multi-talented people demonstrating food production, preparation and preservation, skills in textiles, wood-working, jewelry-making, as well as music, dancing and much more. Foolishly, I chose to do boring errands that day, and went to the fair on Sunday, when it was cold, wet and stormy, and only a few resilient and dedicated participants were still there.

The llama wagon

A bicycle-powered grain mill

Next year I'll plan to be back on a sunny day, but it was still worth walking in the rain to see the remaining exhibits, and test out my new winter coat.

Lifestyle Changes (phase 2)

If my life was fiction, I would have been going through a deus ex machina experience this summer. For three years I have been plodding along, diligently checking job listings, filling out online applications, emailing resumes, and attempting to find the legendary "hidden job market" where, they say, 90% of all jobs are found. Knowing all the time I should be doing something to change course instead of following the track of my own front tire.

Lifestyle Changes - Phase 1

After losing my full-time real job in September 2010, I worked a part-time low-wage no-benefits restaurant job for two years, from March 2011 to February 2013. I've been receiving at least partial unemployment comp. benefits for most of that time, except for about six weeks last summer, when I was working a bit more than forty hours a week in two jobs. It must be the combination of working part-time and the federal emergency benefits programs that have allowed me to claim for so long, but over this past summer I was always vaguely aware that my time was running out - in August I would move to Tier 3 benefits, which had been reduced by 20% because of sequester budget cuts. Sometime in July, in checking up on what I had coming, I found out that because the unemployment rate in Washington state had fallen below 7%, Tier 3 benefits would be phased out completely. My claim schedule fell just outside the deadline to qualify, meaning I would have no income after the end of August, with less than $1500 left in savings.

Here's where the deus ex machina comes into action. In mid-June I had received a phone call from my sister, with the news that my mother had died in an Alzheimers-care facility in the mid-West. Already aware that I was running out of money, I decided I couldn't travel from Bellingham to be with my family. My sister, who for several years had been looking after our mother's care, and her taxes and accounts, later informed me that Mom had left us a life insurance policy and some other investments, to be divided equally between us. Mom had also asked to be cremated, with instructions for burial in a family plot near Seattle.

This was the reason for my trip to Seattle last month, paid for from my half of the insurance money, which turned out to be more than I earned the whole two years I worked my coffee-shop job.

I keep thinking of that Cyndi Lauper song:  Money Changes Everything.

Several times I've thought about buying a car, for about a half-minute at a time. But parking isn't secure in my neighborhood, and to me a car still represents expenses, risks and liability, not convenience and freedom. I thought about moving to an apartment with laundry facilities, and looked around a little bit. But in the meantime, I made some other plans and commitments. Now my schedule for fall is filling up, and the weekly bus-trip to the laundromat in Bellingham is so much a habit that I decided to wait on making that major change, too.

In fact, the first thing I did when I found out I had enough money to live on for a while and didn't need unemployment comp. and an EBT card any more, was to check on the autumn class schedule at the community college and register for some business and foreign language classes. Soon I will be a bicycle-commuting student again.

I've also noticed my attitude is getting less meek and laid-back. Once when an SUV-driver yelled something rude at me while cutting in front of me turning in to a parking lot, I yelled back. Now if store clerks seem to be trying to hustle me out of a shop when I'm browsing through clearance racks, or baristas get snippy when I loiter in a cafe, I think "I don't have to put us with this crap anymore." I think I'd better get a grip on myself.

Chihuly Glass

Back in Seattle - we spent a day at the Seattle Center, including a visit to the exhibit of Dale Chihuly's glass works, which pretty much speak for themselves.

My sister, along with her husband and daughter, took an elevator ride to the top of the Space Needle. Being a local, I skipped that tourist trip. Instead I listened to a band of Peruvian buskers with guitars and wood or reed pipes, playing "Hotel California" while I enjoyed a Starbuck's frappucino in the outdoor cafe.

Last Day in Seattle

Check-out time at the College Inn is eleven in the morning, but my train to Bellingham didn't board until about seven in the evening. I'd packed a week's worth of clothing and essentials in two light panniers, which could be strapped together to make one piece of luggage for the train. These were easy to carry on the back rack of my bike, but turned out to be uncomfortably large and heavy to lug around town for several hours.

To spare my back and biceps, I saved a trip to the Burke Museum of Natural History, at the University of Washington, for my last day. After checking my panniers at the desk, I spent about three hours in the museum. Admission is $10 for the public; UW students get in free. The museum has permanent displays of Pacific Northwest plant and animal fossils, and exhibits on geology, volcanoes and earthquakes. The bottom level showcases artifacts from different cultures with many similar traits, from all around the Pacific Rim, including Alaska, BC coastal and Puget Sound tribes, Japan, Hawaii, New Zealand and more. I didn't take any photos in the museum, but appreciated the refresher survey course on the natural history of my home state.

  

After a snack and coffee in the cafe, I caught a Metro bus to downtown Seattle, then walked toward Pioneer Square, stopping in at the Seattle Public Library on Third Avenue to check my email. In the summer, footsore tourists can choose from several types of wheeled tours. I spotted a pretty white horse carriage with a driver in black jacket and top hat and a team of white horses, an old wooden open trolley, and an amphibious "Ducks Bus" all from one street corner in Pioneer Square - in addition to several energetic and good-natured pedicab drivers.

Car traffic and construction made street conditions congested, noisy, dirty and confusing in Pioneer Square. Besides, there was a football game of some sort going on at that new stadium they built a while back to replace the KingDome. I think it was the Seahawks, but it might have been soccer. There were lots of people wearing that vivid green shade that so many bicyclists prefer.

King Street Station has been cleaned up and refurbished, with most work completed early this summer. The old sound-dampening low ceiling panels were torn out, and high arches and ornate plaster trim restored. The waiting area was light and airy in the evening sun, without the cavernous echo people used to complain about. Or maybe I'm thinking of the KingDome.

My train was delayed for about an hour. During the wait, several green-wrapped airplane fuselages, about the same size as a train car, passed through. I guess they must have been on the way from the Everett Boeing plant, for another phase of assembly at the Renton plant. I don't think this was the reason for the late arrival of my train. Oddly, we were delayed again a bit north of Everett because a boat fell off a truck while crossing the railroad tracks.

Strange how paths can cross.