Success! And biking!

solarbird and I just got back from the Bike Quest to Woodinville, which was for the most part pleasant. The one unpleasant part, which I will get out of the way quickly, is that I have realized that I am scared of biking down the hill we live on. I think that a little part of my brain still remembers my bike accident from 2003, and that part of my brain is scared of any sign that I am losing control of the bike. The incline of our hill, combined with the curvy route of the main street that leads down onto Bothell Way, means that I get going too quickly to feel comfortable taking those curves. I actually freaked out a little and had to stop the bike, get off, and walk it the rest of the way down to the bottom of the hill.

Once we were on the trail, though, I was fine. On the way I spotted a heron on the slough, which was cool. It was standing there all long-legged in the water. I got no more than a glimpse, though. And we saw a positively ridiculous number of pigeons in the park where the feral chickens hang out.

We found that getting to the Woodinville shopping center from the trail is not difficult at all--you just have to diverge off the trail when you hit the park, and go down a few blocks down the road you come out on, and then cross the street, and you're there. Most of the way there's even a bike lane on one side of the road. When we got to Target we found that Dara had forgotten her keys. Oops. So we had to lock both of our bikes up together using my lock. And once inside, we bumped briefly into technoshaman, and said hi, and then we scampered off down to the DVDs.

It turned out that they had three of my four choices, and you'd know that the one they didn't have was Firefly. DOH. I wound up getting Remington Steele, because it was about twelve bucks cheaper than Lois and Clark. Also, unlike the MacGyver set, it comes with some extras on it. Plus, it's been longer since I last saw Steele.

This left me enough extra in the treat budget to go over to Barnes and Noble and get a book. Out of general curiosity I went back to their music/DVD section and discovered--DOH! THEY had Firefly. But I'd already bought Steele, and it turned out that they were asking $50 for the Firefly box anyway. Which is way more expensive than its price on Amazon, so I didn't want to pay that much anyway.

Nor did they have my first choice of book, either. So I wound up going slightly over the treat budget, which Dara was okay with just because I've got surgery and all, and I wound up getting the next Aubrey-Maturin novel on my list: The Fortune of War. I look forward to reading that!

On the way back we stopped at this hole-in-the-wall BBQ place near the trail and got BBQ chicken sandwiches. They were good. And messy. But at least the moist towelettes were plentiful!

Spotted another heron on the way home, and this one was cooler, as it was in flight along the slough. It let out a few calls, which was the particularly cool part. Its calls were raucous, even more so than a crow's, and sounded like something scraping along asphalt.

We were thinking about heading to the Lake Forest Park Town Centre Farmer's Market, too, but I started feeling overheated and decided to swing back up the hill for home, and get Gatorade on the way. Mmm, Gatorade.

Now comes the part where I flump on the couch.

Sunday miles: 14.0
Miles out of Hobbiton: 319.2
Miles to Rivendell: 138.8

I am SO DOOMED

Last night kathrynt and llachglin came over to play poker with spazzkat and solarbird, which was highly enjoyable for the socialness in general and for amusing quotes of the evening in particular.

I'd come to the table to look over Dara's shoulder as she was lamenting about her cards, and I offered to hit something with hammers for her. Q was lamenting about the resurgence of her TMJ problems, and said that I could hit the sore spots on her head with hammers. Erik asked her about the wisdom of this, to which she replied, "If she hits them really hard, maybe it'll hurt less than you touching them really gently!"

Naturally, I had to call her on that one. "Nice logic there, Q!" She blinked and then burst out laughing.

Later we were hanging out in the darkened living room, since Q was also having issues with being hypersensitive to light, and she said to me, "I want fudge!"

"Damn," I replied, as the desire for warm fresh fudge dominated my thoughts. "We have no fudge!"

Full of sympathy, Kathryn asked, "Where can we get fudge?"

"We'd have to leave the house," I pointed out.

"Not if we got on the Internet and went to 24hourfudgedelivery.com and it wasn't a porn site!" she chirpily replied.

I was dubious that such a thing existed on our Internet, and further lamented, "Stupid no 24-hour non-porn fudge delivery!"

Q burst out giggling at that, too, and said, "Congratulations! I don't think I've ever heard those words in that order before!"

"And that," I said, "is why I am a writer."

Paul trumped me, though, when he and Dara and Erik looked over at us from the table and demanded to know what we were giggling about. When we explained, Paul cried, "But I wanted PORN FUDGE!"

The merriment continued as, when Kathryn and Erik were on their way out the door, Kathryn got into a debate with Paul about which was worse: the 'Sci-Fi Channel original' Alien Express, which Q has on her Tivo, and On Deadly Ground, the theatrical run of which was described by Paul as 'so bad that it sucked the quality out of movies in adjacent theaters'. Q and Paul were both absolutely adamant about their contenders, so there seemed to be only one thing to do:

Volunteer to be the independent judge in a "bad movie"-off.

I figure, what the hell. I have nothing else to do this week after Surgery Day, and moreover, I'm going to be on Percocet anyway! And I shall have Q's charming company, not to mention backup for mocking the hell out of both of these productions.

But I have my worries that not even Percocet will be able to dull the pain of back-to-back Lou Diamond Phillips and Steven Seagal.

I am SO DOOMED.