Tag: Vespa

Spin cycle update

The other day, when I was caught in the rain, the black from my glove rubbed off on me in a kind of purpley black. I thought that had happened again tonight…

Turns out, it is just bruising finally coming through on my palm

………

That’s two messages I sent to my mom tonight, after I’d gotten home.

I only went out briefly today, after having amassed a grand total of not even a thousand steps for the day by three p.m., in an effort to rid myself of my cabin fever and to get in some steps, all while carefully aiding my recovery by moving slowly but surely on flat surfaces.

I walked around Target for a bit, and was surprised to find it a loud and somewhat annoying environment.

So, I rather quickly left and went to hang out with my mom at the office where she works, so I also could work on some photos and use the Internet.

I made a quick and delicious pasta puttanesca again when I got home – with zucchini that I spiralized myself, of course – and then headed upstairs to get ready for bed.

Fortunately, I had already done it last night, so it didn’t take me long to figure out what all I needed on the first run (meaning super slow limping hobble) up to my floor, in preparation for the process of showering.

So, when I hobble back down to use the bathroom again in a bit, right before going to sleep, it will be only the second time I’ll have had to go down tonight…, which is much more ideal than the constant up-and-down I usually do each night.

Anyway, the point of all of this is really to share with somebody how my day was – lonesome a bit, but only in the send that I didn’t really have much of any physical contact today, and was somewhat surprised to find that it was all I really wanted, aside from ice packs… to have someone hold my hand, or lean against my skin somewhere, just to prove his or her existence and presence (and thereby love for me)…

I actually daydreamed about it… an arm or a thigh, just casually pressed against me, much like how a dog or cat will snuggle up against a person, when it wants to be nearby to sleep, but not necessarily to be pet.

I wanted someone to be with me in my room, so I could rest without worry, and know that I am being watched over and cared for…

My chest actually longed for the pressure of a hug or hand today, the feelings of slight panic taunting me ever so slightly… I wanted someone to quell the stirrings of panic within by his/her loving touch.

(And no, this is not at all in an erotic sense, but in a caring for someone, loving someone sense.)

But all my family is too far away for that, and my friends, too…, so I just daydreamed instead, breathing deeply, as is my custom, and going to walk around Target, so I could at least be around people, even if I had no loving touch from any of them.

Eventually, I got some love from my mom, but it was tiny in comparison to what I had been aching for all day, so it only eased the feeling temporarily.

It was nonetheless valued and valuable for me.

Now, I am home, carefully getting the rest of my steps before bed, considering the finally darkening spots around my body that are the near-only visible signs on my body of what happened last night…

And the palm of my hand looks like I’ve smeared ink on it somehow, again, just as it did when my glove got soaked in the rain… if only that were the cause of tonight’s “stain”… ::sigh

Anyway, I’m feeling better physically, but I’m really tired tonight… I’m thinking my body put forth a lot of effort today in dealing with healing, and so all the other little bits just put me over the edge baring exhaustion…

On that note, signing off for now, off to heal my body some more, and then discover more bruising in the morning. 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Zoom, zoom

Today, with great excitement and delight, my mom and I had some fun together on the Vespa.

It was my first time having a passenger on it, and I was cautiously excited.

Thinking back, I used to ride the dirt bikes with a friend on the back, and that always seemed to be fine – I have no recollection of even thinking about how it might be different or difficult when compared to rising solo…, so, I guess, it really wasn’t any big deal back then.

We also weighed maybe a hundred pounds at the time…

Although, my mom and I both weigh not much over a hundred pounds, so there’s not too drastic a difference, however, it could have been a 40-pound difference then to now… and 40 pounds is a lot of added weight, when I am used to carrying and managing only myself and my own body weight for something.

Anyway, it went well, and I figured out along the way what I needed from her, which eased most of my concerns regarding having a passenger with me on the back.

We went to a lovely park, and walked out over the water together, being delighted idiots together, grateful for our blessed friendship with one another, as well as our opportunity to be in such a nice place and to be there together.

Awesome view of said water ^

We had many little stops we made, and we crossed loads of people who heartily shared their approval of and appreciation for our means of transportation.

And I think my mom was surprised at how much she enjoyed it all.

She, at one point, was sharing with me about her eight-year-old self’s first ride on the back of a bike – apparently she left marks on Uncle J——‘s skin from her having held on so tightly. 😛

We did not have such an issue today, but she did joke about and then genuinely compliment my awesome state of abdominal health (aka I’ve kind of got some impressive abs, which can be felt, even though they aren’t visible).

It was a really lovely bonding time for the both of us, for a silly set of reasons, but we just really loved being able to finish off our day full-o-whatever-nonsense-we-for-some-reason-has-to-be-handed today by being silly and happy idiots together by the water. 🙂

We eventually ended up at Kroger to get eggs and drinking water… aka two of the worst possible items to be managing on a bike of any kind, let alone when it’s a first go at riding as a duo on the thing…

We, of course, were fully aware of this thought before even bothering to go.

And, naturally, it was a total success, even with our snake-shaped stick we found on a beach during one of our many stops in our mini-adventure.

And it was a two-and-a-half-gallon jug off drinking water – aka the big ones – and not just a single gallon.

All-in-all, I had a wonderful time and feel totally accomplished.

Post-a-day 2019

Latenight chats

Tuesday morning, 12:45am

………………….

I am sitting at a red light, on my red scooter, contemplating the cool air and my decision to stick with my shorts for the short ride home, instead of putting back on the still-damp bluejeans I had worn earlier.

A large red, lifted truck pulls up next to me on my right, and stops at the light.

I both hear and see the driver’s window going down, just before he, the driver, leans out toward me and, in a completely sound and sober yet slightly twangy voice, says to me:

“Hey(!)…”

“Hi-ii,” I reply with with an extended double syllable.

“The other day,” he continues, without missing a beat, “I was out drivin’, and I saw you out goin’ down f**in’ 59…, and I thought, ‘Shit…, she can go anywhere on that thing.’ You can just drive it everywhere, huh?”

I laugh and give him a ‘basically, yes,’ kind of reply, and tell him how it is 300ccs of power that allow me to drive so comfortably and easily on the highway.

“Did you just one day decide, ‘Okay, I’m not doin’ this anymore,’ and you switched to this so you could reduce your carbon footprint?”

Though his words somewhat shocked me, they were rather applicable to my situation…

“Haha… I mean, kind of, yeah…”

He then tells me how he has one that he rides, but it is not over 150ccs (so he can’t really go much more than, say, about 35 miles per hour on it).

Mine, by the way, can go just enough speed with me on it to time travel… I lack merely a flux capacitor… and some Plutonium, of course. 😛

The light turns to green, but no one else is around, and I am delighted both by the conversation itself, and the absurdity of it all – plus, the guy is clearly sane and sweet, and paying a compliment while being genuinely curious – he wanted to know how it was even possible, since his scooter wobbles even when big four-doors or fast two-doors pass by.

After the next cycle of the light, however, a car was pulled up behind me, so I went ahead and slowly started moving as we finished up our final exchanges and wished one another a great and safe night.

I then sped my way home in the slightly too cold for comfort air, and rushed to lock up, shower, and get to sleep, grateful for the lively experience of Southern Hospitality and connection – my day certainly has ended on a lovely note.

Now for the sleep part of my nightly plans…

Post-a-day 2019

Just chillin’ after work?

How do you spend your afternoons and evenings after work?

Napping in your chair at your desk, because you hear rain and thunder (despite a stated 10% chance of rain)?

Followed by finally leaving after you awaken, accomplish some more work, and hear that the rain has stopped?

Followed by stopping for gas just in time for a torrential downpour, with extremely strong winds blowing in varied directions, shooting sheets of water every which way, on three-minute increments?

Which leads to just sitting on the ground, already soaked in your jeans, semi hiding behind your bike as wind/rain protection?

Followed, finally, by a release in the rain that allows you to resume being soaked by it, but that is safe enough for driving again, and so you head home super cautiously, get super soaked, and arrive he to blue skies and no rain, because the clouds have pushed through so quickly, but flooded street sides and driveways bottoms?

Despite a 10% chance of rain?

Yeah, that’s about how I spent my afternoon and evening today, too.

😂

And this was after the initial explosion

Post-a-day 2019

Saturday

(I’ve decided to share about Class 101: the laughing out loud class, instead of 100, so that’ll come next week.)

I went to the workout this morning, and it was rather uneventful but that my friend and I finished second in the workout, and there were a lot of people there today… we just found a beautiful way to get through the push-ups, and it worked perfectly – when other people seemed to take forever on the push-ups, we slammed through them quite quickly.

After the workout, I practiced and improved my double-under jump roping, and was glad for it.

I then went home and made a spice cake from the grain-free/flour-free zucchini brownie recipe I’ve been using, but this time used cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger instead of cocoa powder… and it was delicious.

I discovered that I have no interest in going to Minute Maid Park, due to their security requirements that prevent me from having any form of protection, as well as a reusable water bottle (even empty)…, and so I did not go to the Astros game to which I had been just invited.

I did go to a house party – not the jammin’, drug kind, but the friends hanging out together kind – instead, and it was wonderful.

However, on the way to the party, on my way to stop at the new grocer to pick up plates that were requested for the party, I found myself at a stoplight next to car crammed with young guys (adults, but still younger than I am) who clearly had just played a soccer game together – the matching jerseys and sweaty hair kind of gave that one away.

As I turned and saw the front seat guys looking my way, the back window rolled down, and three faces looked out at me, smiling.

“I like you’re scooter.”

Ha…, “Thanks.”

“Does it go fast?”

I shrug, knowing fully that their borderline joking comment is about to choke them, “I’ve gone eighty on it,” I say, quite casually.

Their eyes pop open wider than one could have imagined, and their mouths opened wide, ready to catch some flies…

“Eighty?!”

“Mmhmm… It’s a big scooter, 300ccs,” I add quickly, smiling, before driving off, for the light has turned to green.

At the next stoplight, the car pulls next to me again, the back window still down, the boys smiling bigger than ever.

“Long time no see,” they laugh together.

I laugh and smile broadly.

“Do y’all know where the HEB is?” I ask, having just been wanting to be able to ask someone (which was why I had even looked over to their car in the first place).

“Yeah! It’s on this street,” one says, pointing forward and to the right side a bit, confirming my thoughts.

“Okay, thanks!”

“Are you going grocery shopping?”

“Can you put your groceries on there?”

“Are you going to carry groceries on that?”

“Do you need help?”

The sudden rapid fire of their near-simultaneous questions knocks me back a tad, and makes me smile and chuckle even more than I already had been doing.

“Yes, I can carry groceries, yes, I’m going to the store now,” – “Really?” – “and no, I don’t need help.”

I then drive off again at the newly green light, and see them take off not far behind me.

As I slow and pull into the HEB parking lot, I both see and hear them passing me one final time, saying a few more positive comments that make me laugh (though I do not at present remember what exactly they were – I was focused on the turn and figuring out the parking lot and watching out for stupid people in cars in the lot, but I remember that they were pleasant comments of well-wishing).

I enter the garage fully chuckling fro the hearty spot on my belly, lips super wide on their glorious, teeth-filled grin position – I just had my first fanboys, I think to myself, and smile all over again.

Post-a-day 2019

A mouthful

I tend to sing when I’m in a good mood.

Not always, but regularly and somewhat often, if I am in a good mood, one can find me (by sneaking up, typically, or else I’ll quiet down somas not to bother others) singing and humming songs as I go about my day and night.

This includes when I am in transit between locations, my singing habit.

However, seeing as how I typically drive a Vespa most of the time now, it has been a funny transition to not singing while driving.

Why is that, you ask, that I must not sing while driving?

Well, even though I am in a good mood just about every time I get on that scooter, and so start singing a good amount of the time, of I were to continue singing once going, I would end up not so happy, due to a mouthful of bugs.

Yes, an open mouth with no windshield while driving is almost always a bad idea.

And so, unfortunately, whenever this thought occurs to me when I am singing as I start out on my bike, it makes me smile really big, making it hard to keep my lips together, which makes me smile and laugh even more, and then makes it even harder not to have a huge and toothy grin showing… it is a tiny but important battle I have with my lips in these situations, and it is utterly hilarious.

In short, singing in my bike would result in a mouthful of bugs, so singing is not really allowed while going faster than about fifteen miles per hour. 😛

P.S. I have discovered two things from my highway travels to work each morning.

First, heading in the opposite direction of rush-hour traffic on this highway apparently does not have “Going the speed limit” on its list of approved activities – it seems that ten to fifteen over the posted speed is more the norm for people, while the opposite direction chugs along at around thirty in its morning traffic.

Secondly, my neighborhood smells like amazing fresh breads in the early mornings on weekdays, and like sizzling bacon on Saturday early mornings… I’m not sure yet about Sundays, though… 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Borrowed(?) Memories

Some of my most beloved memories aren’t actually my own memories.

How my cousins would marry multiple friends at their school’s spring fling – marrying was one of the booths at the event, and so you could pay a dollar and be spring fling married to as many people as dollars you wanted to pay…

How my mom came across my brothers, aged about four years and one year, in a room with “MICHAEL MICHAEL MICHAEL MICHAEL” written a few feet off the ground, all over the walls… A—- could barely hold onto a marker, let alone stand tall enough to reach the words, as well as being able to write letters, and yet Michael says honestly to my mom, “A—- did it.”

When that same brother, aged maybe a year more, was angry at my mom at home, and declared in a huffy huff, “Well, you’re a…. you’re a damn!” and then stormed out, while my mom did her best not to explode in front of him with laughter.

And, once more, when that brother was a little younger, and he was with my mom at the store, and he began throwing a fit about not being allowed to have a toy of some sort, and my mom told him to hang on, and she asked the lady a few feet away from them, “Excuse me, ma’am, is he loud enough? Can you hear him okay?”… and my brother shut up really quickly…

One of the best memories is from a video in which A—- receives a birthday present, when aged around four or five years, that is inside a massive cardboard box in the garage… Michael stands within view, his back to the camera, awesome bicycle shorts on full display, and then picks a massive wedgie… a few moments later, A—- walks inside the cardboard box, disappearing from view, and everyone suddenly hears, in a little boy’s imperfect pronunciation, “Batman bike!!!”

He then appears, walking out of the box, pushing an awesome little Batman bicycle with training wheels (and all the boys are instantly envious).

These are a few of my favorite memories…, and yet none of them even had me present, and most were before I was even born.

They aren’t exactly my memories…

That someone how doesn’t change the the fact that I love them dearly, nor that I share them regularly with people.

I still find it somewhat weird, nonetheless, because, again, they aren’t even my own experiences that I’m remembering – just the stories of the experiences… perhaps that is how things are when people love events from history, you know?

The great wars or movements or, even, fashions or movies…. they are, in a way, borrowed memories…

Hmm…

P.S. A big bug hit me in the face on the way home today, and it hurt. 😛 haha

Post-a-day 2019

Wakey-Wakey

Some days, your body just takes over, and, if you’ve been taking really great care of it, it does this responsibly.

Today, I missed three alarms.

I still made it to school on time, but just barely.

You see, for the fifth day in a row, I was scheduled to get up just after 4am this morning.

At that time, I was scheduled to go downstairs and eat my first breakfast, then participate in the first part of the morning meditation that would be happening, starting at 4:30am, and then, with an extra backup alarm to make sure I leave in time, ride my bicycle down the road to the gym for a 5:30-6:30am workout.

I then would return home, shower, eat a second breakfast, now post-workout, and head off, with prompting from my third alarm, to school at about 7:05am.

This, of course, did not happen.

I awakened at 3:15am, in desperate need of a potty break.

I went downstairs and used the bathroom, then came back up to bed, grateful that I had another 45 minutes to sleep, and I passed out again.

I eventually opened my eyes to find some sunlight shining through my skylight curtain, and I panicked.

I jumped up and checked the time: 7:02am.

I threw on my clothes as fast as possible, and rushed downstairs.

I managed a basic breakfast smoothie, did my teeth-cleaning routine and used the bathroom, all in a borderline frenzy that was somehow calm, too – I kept my head about me, but I moved as quickly as I could manage effectively and safely.

Fortunately, the weather was expected to be rainy in the afternoon, so I was already planning to drive my car to work, which is significantly faster than taking my non-highway route with the scooter.

Phew!

I somehow arrived to school, used the bathroom, let the kids into class, swapped out what I’d brought to school with what I’d needed for class from my office, and greeted students before the bell rang for class to begin…

By the grace if God, I suppose… by my name.. 😛 🙂

And… it was a wonderful day.

Feeling good

I played ukulele today.

It was with my cousin from Indiana.

I hadn’t played in possibly a month, and then a few months before that time had been without playing, too.

I was delighted to discover that I either remembered or could figure out quickly most any of the chords we were using.

It felt good.

I need to do this more, music… my that that‘s anything new…

How about I clean my room tomorrow evening (after I help someone pack up her house), and set up the one guitar and the ukulele to be it and ready to play?

That sounds like a really good idea. 🙂

P.S. I’m going to the DPS office in the morning when it opens… ick!…, but it is to add the M endorsement on my license, so I need to do it!

P.P.S. I’m still enjoying the happy memories of the gorgeous guy from the gym, and I’m feeling almost over my little girl starstruck in love feelings about it – he is becoming just a person again… a gorgeous person, of course, but a person all the same. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

90° into the future

Last week, my only struggle in the motorcycle training course was making a 90° turn while looking in the designated direction.

Funnily enough, I was so paranoid about messing up the turn and dropping the bike or something while I was looking left (for a left turn) and couldn’t see directly in front of the bike anymore, that I always ended up cutting over the inner cones… aka I was scared of hitting the outside ‘wall’ of baby cones, that I made the turn even tighter than it needed to be..,

Seriously, Banana?

Apparently so… haha

And so, tomorrow is the final day of the course… I have already passed the knowledge test/exam for the M endorsement on my license (M for motorcycle, even though I own a Vespa, not a motorcycle – a very powerful Vespa, of course), and I have passed the first few stages of the riding portion of the licensing exam, the skills test.

Tomorrow, I have the rest of the skills to learn and to do well, including that 90° turn that is genuinely the only skill that has me concerned… everything else is so natural for me, and I have done probably all of it before (we had dirt bikes when I was a kid)… just not a 90° turn while looking so far to the side (it makes sense, of course, in terms of safety regarding not having other cars show up out of nowhere, but I always want to watch the road a bit more than they like for the test, even on my bicycle [Yes, I checked how I do the turns on my bicycle this past week, and I do a back-and-forth head turn thing on my sharp turns.]).

Therefore, I am thinking longingly of a set of fabulous 90° turns in my near future (tomorrow morning, to be exact), and safe, genius diving for myself.

So, here’s to a wonderful night’s rest, and beautiful day tomorrow, and passing my licensing skills test tomorrow morning: Cheers! 😉

Post-a-day 2019