An Aphorism In Time Saves Skin

•October 10, 2007 • 1 Comment

A WOMBATS dozen tips for women who love mud

1) You’re never totally out of the woods –L’Austin Space

2) A bike tire in the sun is worth two in the bushes –Byrne Doubt

3) Live long & perspire — Sal Teen

4) Nobody said you had to ride everything–Heike Bike

5) A gentle cough in time saves nine hikers’ nerves–Dorothy DeMure

6) Momentum is your friend–Rhea Lax

7) A moment lost in thought at speed can be costly indeed-Paia Tension

8) Women who love mud too much should clump together-Carmen DeNominator

9) When in doubt, go down a gear and pedal it out–Lena Little

10) A bicycle battalion is a bummer on the trail–but a string of pearls is welcome anywhere–Jess B. Kind

11) Where there’s a WOMBAT, there’s a way –Dewey DeWitt

12) Skidding is for dwids–Faye Traction

Posted in Jacquie Phelan, WOMBATS

Bread salad

•October 9, 2007 • Leave a Comment

Panzanella, an italian bread salad

1 onion (red, white or yellow) diced
1/4 C olive oil
1/4 C balsamic vinegar
Kosher salt and fresh- ground black pepper to taste
1 loaf of Italian bread, cut into cubes
1/4 C reduced stock, either chicken or veggie
2 C arugula or dandelion greens
Options: diced celery, boiled chopped nettles.

2 C. cherry tomatoes, cut in half, or 2 cups of heirlooms chopped large
1 TB pine nuts (be sure to toast lightly)
1 TBN fresh thyme, chopped

Vinaigrette
1 tsp shallots, chopped
1/2 c sherry wine vinegar
1 1/2 C olive oil

Fry the onion in 1/4 C oil til golden. Add 1/4 balsamic vinegar, let cool. Put in non-reactive bowl, whisk in 1 1/2 c olive oil—it will emulsify.
Boil stock, mix in the vinaigrette emulsion, put bread in steel bowl, add hot stock/vinaigrette. Allow to soak in a half hour.
Then add remaining salad ingredients (greens, roasted onion, etc)…
You can serve a piece of chicken or a piece of braised tofu on a bed of this. I like all by itself.

Posted in food, Jacquie Phelan

one candle two flames

•October 9, 2007 • Leave a Comment

I need to train for Late Nights, so I’m not sleeping at four in the afternoon sitting in a chair.

It is with a heavy heart that I let go of the opportunity to see the Anita O’Day docu this evening. It begins in another ten minutes, and I just canna be there in San Ruffle, when I’m unruffled here, bath-warm and again calling into the Void.

Most of the day was computer-whacking, hours of it, just to get to the point where I could have e-mail like I am used to having it (cracked, not crushed….with no adverts). Finally got to have email both in and out.

So I’m back where I started last Thurs when (expletive deleted) company crashed all their computers. And we also bought high speed service, so all the probs got intertwingled. I know how much you care, faceless rider. Mid afternoon, instead of riding, I found myself editing my story about Scotland. Beats organizing the linen closet. But by five I had to escape Taj Mahovel. Rolled “Columboham” out and rolled away without even a goodbye.

Riding when you really really want a nap can be like those Ambien Contests Marla Streb refers to in the movie Hardihood. “We’d arrive somewhere, let’s say Tokyo, and all take Ambien and go out to dinner and then bowling or something. The person who stays awake the longest wins.”

The visual in the film is very effective: a face-down Streb somewhere, maybe a hotel floor?

I had to proceed carefully, and it worked. Got up to the lakes, did what I always do when Circumstances Permit, and came back down all refreshed. A rider passed me and said my name, it was a person I didn’t think I knew but of course he’s ridden here for 30 of his 40 years. Alone, always. “But you always make me smile” he said kindly. I have this effect on eremites.

It was nice to have company for that stretch of my very very short ride with the curry-scented gnaphalium back lit on the hillsides and the coyote brush (baccaris pilularis, now going to seed) pumping out the great autumnal fragrance that lends the Bay Area its distinctive scent, mostly obvious when you’re returning from an extended trip, and all the smells together clobber you.

The longer the trip, the more intense the emotion. It’s usually a good kind of sadness, maybe nostalgia. It hit me when I went to LA for the first time since 1983.. I sniffed the sycamore arroyos in Tarzana where I hiked almost daily in the late sixties with my Dad. There is no place that smells like that area (so much of it before, now less due to sprawl).

So “Columbus Day” (hey, on my fat tire Cunningham with shocks, every day is Columbus day because Antonio Columbo sent us the aluminum tubing to make that bike…coolllll) was a goodie. At home I realized how starved I’d gotten, and sliced all the figs I’d gathered from the very same houses that I got them in that Doris Doerrie film yesterday. It’s exactly a year since she taped that segment, man that slid by fast.

Quick! Throw under flame in broiler, boil one ear of that fat corn from two night’s ago, dice the chard from the yard, the basil from the aisle, and the tomato from the bottom of the er, you know. Beautiful solitary Green Stripe tomato, perfectly ripe. Sliced, rosemary/sea salt/pepper mix I keep always at hand, alla voil, and parsley. Then I put Serra De Strela cheese under the flame on top of the two types of halved figs, halfway done. And last, diced up a couple of crusts of the breakfast toast that I’d forgotten to finish but was damned if I pitched. Chopped the dry hard artisan bread so small I could make a panzanella, w/those mini-cubes soaking up all the super ripe tomato juice and oil.

Poured a glass of white, called Ed : “Hey how was your day?”
“Doing press stuff in the city all day.”
” Wanna eat the goodies I ‘ve got on now?” and I ran the menu…
“Hmm. I need a quieter meal…is that OK?”
“Oh, god yes. You’re taking care of yourself. ”

I think it takes some guts to turn down invitations, but that ‘s because I’m convinced people get angry if I don’t say yes. This is patently untrue (cliche alert!!!) but it’s still got a grip on me and makes it exceedingly hard to get down to the What do I REALLY wanna do if I have the option of doing what I want?

I took his lead, and after quality time with Charie and that soak in the tub, I told myself a docu on Anita might be available on some other night than this, my own first quiet night. Thanks, Ed, for helping me arrive at that…there is this thing called Fear Of Missing Out, that afflicts conventioneers and Burning Man participants alike. And folks at Strictly Hardly Festival. With five stages, there is no way you’ll see all the acts you want to because you haven’t got an extra you.

Instead, my evening was: taking the three platters of food (corn, chard mix, and tomato panzanella) and the wine, tottering into the NOISY yard where every cricket in the canyon is wailing away, some throbbing and most trilling steady-steady. (whisper) The dogs were all indoors too! Have to say it softly, the hound next door might pick up my voice and go nuts.

It was only ten minutes, but the sky grew much darker, and the street unaccustomedly silent.

Up to the treehouse now.

Posted in Cycling, Doris Doerrie, Film, food, How To Cook Your Life, Jacquie Phelan, movies

Let the record reflect that on Oct 8 2007

•October 8, 2007 • 4 Comments

jplifecook.jpg


…between nine-thirty and ten-thirty p.m., every street between Throckmorton Mill Valley and Dogbark Lane was devoid of moving automobiles. Perhaps a neutron bomb went off. Or more likely, being a Sunday, everyone was already home and in bed.

I’d been at the Mill Valley Film Festival, attending the opening of How To Cook Your Life, a film (trailer – includes JP!) by Doris Doerrie. My friend Ed Brown is the subject of the documentary, and I have a brief minute or two in there robbing fruit from my neighbor’s trees, and picking our own blackberriy fence while cheerfully outlining my reasons for diving into supermarket dumpsters.

For a couple of hours after the movie, at the post movie bouffe (beautifully and bounteously catered by Back To Earth) I met people who seemed enchanted by my Warholian Moment. Some just passed the time with me until Ed was not engaged in conversation. I passed out cards galore, met mountain biking moms who call themselves the Hot and Flashies, and i said damn, finally a club name better than ours. Say, want to manufacture an embroidered badge?

One of the people was Thorns Craven, Tom Craven’s papa. Tom’s a former pro roadie, was on the 7/11 team, and his dad is so proud of him. And dad likes to ride hard, might talk him into doing SSWC08 in Napa…

The wine poured freely, assuring much merriment, and somehow someone pressed a movie ticket for “Blame it on Fidel“, a directorial debut by Julia Gavras, about a child who observes her parents involvement in the 70’s social justice movement in France and Chile. Remarkable little girl (Nina Kervel-Bey) works out her own political beliefs while testing her parents and their friends and family.

But the ride home (just like yesterday) turned out to be the Dark Horse Winner. Camino Alto, the winding, hilly back road connecting MV to Corte Madera usually has loads of high speed drivers “saving time” from the clogged freeway. Some drive erratically. It’s wild and reckless to take this unlit road at night. Guess how I was feeling?

To my delight, I had it all to myself. Every passing curve without an oncoming or an overtaking car made me realize how much the stress from being On Alert for possible car-mayhem saps one’s energy.

I was pulled up the hill by my incredulity, my flashing headlight feebly illuminating the underside of all the overhanging oaks, horse chestnuts giving the sensation of riding in a cave with pretty tree-branch designs painted on the sides. Painted with light.
But I was barely halfway down this dark, twisty road, when I realized that the flashing light was about to give me a seizure if I didn’t watch out. Took one hand off the handlebar while integrating the forces of about 7 different vectors –

a) the social cyclone I’d just popped out of
b) fine free meal with red wine
c) actual velocity= 20 mph
d) limited visibility, OK more like pitch dark
e) steepish decline, about 7 %
f) possibility of a deer leaping out at the Perfect Moment
g) instant access to all the stories of other’s dreadful moments, i.e. the G. Garcia meets a Deer on Fool Moon Night 1986, has lifetime of head injury issues to cope with (and very well, by the way) and the Deer That Ambushed Glen Winkel on Tam at 35 mph, which really racked him up.

Oooh this is taking too long. My corpus callosum somehow does all this instantaneously…so take my hand off the right grip.
Yes, all this carefully worked out stuff is so I can take a hand off the bars at speed. Then groped lightly for the button on top of the Feeble & Co. handlebar flashlight (Planet Bike El Cheapo Beamer) and clicked the headlight into a steady glow.

I manage to survive this move.

Dead empty streets in San Anselmo were lined with cricket chorus, the fragrant wood smoke made me think of winter, and how soon we too will be burning wood, stinking up our canyon.

Posted in Doris Doerrie, Film, food, How To Cook Your Life, Jacquie Phelan, movies

Laptop Dancer Has a Fine Day

•October 7, 2007 • 1 Comment

As with most ‘big days’ where I have to be somewhere early, I slept barely at all, and jumped out a five a.m. to make tea for twenty, typing while waiting for the 2 gallons of water to boil.

As I huddled over the keyboard semi blinded by the screen, Emily came in from her night in the Airstream.
“You didn’t sleep!”
“No this isn’t early for me..”

Emily had come the night before to hold my hand, help me remember to pack very carefully so there wouldn’t be a race back to the house for the thermoses, or my bike or something crucial.

We set about fixing the tea, and I tried to keep a conversation while heating up last night’s untouched vegan ‘glop’ (aka Solanaceae surprise: diced tatties, roast red peppers, some rosemary salt, and some olives with pits still in – the ‘surprise’) but gave up because I am usually already doing three things while I cook.

So Emily spoke up.
“This house reminds me of my grandpa’s cabin in northern Ontario….you know, a place where….there’s not much to the inside….the emphasis is on getting outside. I didn’t know you could live like this so close to civilization…and your food, whole, like his food. You even eat like him. He licks everything perfectly clean, so he doesn’t have to do dishes except about every couple weeks.”
“No calorie left behind!”.
” Heh heh. You know, he was a chemist… he invented epoxy. It was in the war years…he was working with, uh, polyethyl whatthehell and when it oxidized, boom! Permanent bond… he had this ability to see chemicals three dimensionally, and so he could imagine parts of the compounds, and what would fit in, and that…he also understood food hygiene in a professional way, only caring about the big stuff, and not sweating smudges left on a glass, a spot of egg on a plate.”

She left at eight (after helping organize what I was to bring) and I went to the school picninc area. Achieved a tea- party atmosphere with help from gay Portmeirion pottery, teapots, plates, silver.

But forgot milk for the tea.

Jeannie and Tom live right around the corner, so I pestered them for a drib of moo juice. Upon returning to the picnic table, five women and one guy, Walt ( “The few. The proud. The male wombats.”) stood around waiting for me…

Apparently my flyer says 9:30, where my email says ten. Classic JP conflicting messages! Get flustered…how unprofessional!
“Tea, anyone?”
The Wombat pantheon was there:
Peggy Hosmer (president of Wombats in 97-2000)
Lynne Hoerle,
Nancy Castellucci,
Alicia Yballa,
Joan Murakami.

Soon there were about a dozen folks jabbering away, with the occasional Recognition Outcry when another person pedaled up. There were even a couple of completely new (young) faces.

We rode around Lake Lagunitas as always, and Alicia dutifully snapped shots (I’d asked her to pack her camera, she’s very good with a computer camera) at my pleading….Bonnie (Phippen) art directed when it was time for the group shot…

Up at the dam, hardy turtles perched on the long logs. These animals are great weather forcasters..they don’t bother with a day bodes chill. Soon theyll just swm to the bottom for a few months.

Around the lake, barely anyone out! I show off by skimming across my “trials secton” – a long line of tall rounds of some huge tree. Ellen Clary gamely took up the challenge When she stacked (very gracefully, I might add) she got up covered with oak leaves stuck to her black tights.

We all noticed how empty the MMWD felt, especially for such a gorgeous day. One usually passes walkers every couple of minutes. We only saw two parties of hikers the entire ride. Donna Dubose drove up after we got back.In 1993, Donna was the first person to suggest (and organize) a club meeting. In six years I’d never had a meeting. By contrast Peggy and Marilyn (Brewer Schultz) had monthly meetings, and they went to weekly as WOMBATS tackled more and more projects…I guess you can really get shit done by having meetings, huh?

We had to eat a daunting amount of food. Hey, thanks, Ellen for the Cowgirl Creamery Mt Tam cheese) as we piled into Joan Murakami’s famous cinnamon bread, and “Back Door Catering Co.” pies, bagels. You’d think we’d ridden over Tam to Muir Beach and back, not eight super social miles around a reservoir.

While everyone mmm’d and ahh’d, I described how a writer from Vogue once remarked that she’d never seen women eating “two fisted” and how I thought to myself, “isn’t that normal, alternating left fingers with right fork?” Mary Anna Rae appeared just as I’d loaded the Bluebaru to leave. I’d given up on the idea of making it to the City to hear the music festival,and esp. Robert Earl Keen.

But she was game. Within an hour we’d crossed the Golden Gate bridge, with Blue Angel navy jets screaming overhead, and a thousand sail boats dotting the bay below. Soon we were standing with 20,000 fans listening (but not rocking, and she commented on this) raptly to Michelle Shocked. Robert Earl Keen didn’t disappoint, but I didn’t catch his lyrics…a woman near me yelled the (usally interestng, like “Fresh Farm Onions” or “Five Pound Bass”. My Zeiss monoc helped a little when I felt like studying his dentition, and from 8 feet away you can pretty much get what a rock-n-roller is saying but his words are so out in left field you can’t get them even with an 8×20 lens trained on his mouth. But the vibe was good, and the sound excellent (I used plugs, natch). I danced in place, no waving arms (if everyone is doing that, you have to go to greater lengths. I kept my helmet on, for that Unmistaken In A Crowd look. And waved MY banjo a time or two. Yep. Groupies. Gotta love ’em. Over on my left some woman was trying to literally lead a cheer for Robert..Earl…KEEN…but only her three friends were biting.
I was at the very front, hanging onto the metal crowd barrier that gives the performers a moat of grass (guarded very seriously by jacketed “Security”.)

Wriggled out a song or two early through about 10,000 people, thank god I’m thin. As I unlocked my bike I realized I could now perfectly understand the damn lyrics!!

“I like doing nothing…it’s something that I do” and then he precisely described Charlie and my breakfast ritual…the paper, time to enjoy a hot cup (coffee for him, tea for me you know this–shall I abreviate it to T? Gimme a T..)
And off through the city, alternate routes because I knew everyone in the world was under some influence, incl. me.
I would have been happy to ride back in blowy fog,but instead I let my arms stay bare (we should at least have that as protected civli right) because of how much heat was coming out of me. This happens on sunny days when you’ve never been indoors at all…

On the Golden Gate bridge, I saw lots of couples walking along having very memorable evenings, picked up distince Love Vibes in several cases…and about 3/4 of the way across, there was a solitary man stood staring out to the inky Bay. Behind him, a black jacket draped over the low fence railing that keeps bikers from being pushed into traffic. After riding past him I hesitated, I watched him a minute….that jacket was so carefully folded …I rode back his direction.

“Hey are you OK?” I asked carefully.
The man turned to look at me.
Que? I..no…speak Inglis”
“Oh….OK.. Como Esta Ud.? Todo OK? ” I stumbled, and lapsed into Spitalian, “Tutto bueno?”
He pointed to the jacket and said “telefono …something something” and pointed to the wide gap between road bed and sidewalk and got down on his knees to see through the slot.
OH! just dropped a phone, OK. I mimed diving off the bridge and said, “mi credevo que…” (Dive)
A look of confusion spread over his face.

Back on the bike. As if he were going to jump! Right! Maybe he thought I was suggesting he jump?

The drop into Sausalito was a dreamy floaty whiz thanks to the post-concert fatigue and buzz in my ears.

All the bike paths were pitch black; the marsh path was so black I just prayed no one was coming the other way sans light..and my tiny flashlight flickred feebly to alert the usual jogger w/o flashlight..But there was no one. Truly, everyone the entire bay area was Doing Something Else.

I began to feel like I owned the entire County. Especially after turning onto the perpendicular-running bike path that aims straight for Tamalpais. The lookout light was on, Michael must be reading up there. Such a lovely feeling looking up at a massive hulk of dark mountain against a dark sky and having spent a whole summer there myself.

Verily it was turning into the most incredible day. I dragged it out a bit longer (peeped in the ANdrogeno’s Bounty Bin), stumbled into the house and tossed down my load. I’d ridden with the fretless banjo, plus my messenger bag jammed with the red wool coat inside. This coat talks back to people: I had “MUD LIFE CRISIS” embroidered in 3″ arching letters.

It was 9:30…Charlie was already asleep.
Thought of an excuse to deserve a bath all to my myself.
Marike Rosen’s wedding.
Normally, I’d washcloth the sweat and city grime off…
Why not this time have a REAL soak?

Pour in some unidentified orange goop, probably all dioxin-based…who can resist the sound of the softly clicking right bubbles and the towering soap sculptures? To offset the cheap-sweet goop, add a capful of “Just”</a brand Swiss Melissenbad. Guaranteed to de-stress, at least the Bernese say so.

In my exhausted-but-happy condition, I’m guessing I’ll liquify and only a mop of treadlocks will remain.
Bless the Swiss.
They have entire pharmacies devoted to herbal bath rezepts, tonics, pills, etc.
And then there are Apoteks, where ordinary pills and the usual other drug store junk is sold.
I love the idea of two types of drug store, one plant-based, and one chemical based.
Gives you a choice.

Chas spends about an hour a month studying the ingredients of my products on a toxics list (http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov). Now, if it sez “gov” does this mean OUR “gov” ? Or a government with some oversight?

How can anyone trust any U.S. agency?

I hopped into the steaming Melissenbad full of cozy anticipation but by dumping in”products” I’ve done a 180 and I’m laying back against the porcelain, worrying about toxic waste ingredients in typical household products. Now I’m fallng asleep, having heard Minstrel Banjo record and more Tannahill Weavers, it’s midight. I must peel away from you keys, you people, you gentle riders. My invented family.

Posted in food, Jacquie Phelan, WOMBATS

Women’s Mountain Bike & Tea Society Reaches Mile-scone

•October 6, 2007 • 2 Comments

Box 757
Fairfax CA 94978 For immediate release

Precisely two decades ago American offroad bicycle champion Jacquie Phelan took the cow by the horns to steer the direction of the sport she ruled unbeaten for six seasons.

By creating an insanely silly sounding club name and adding her own inimitable feminine flair (and repeated pourings of hot black tea, day-old pastry and juicy gossip), she set a high standard for future champions to aspire to.

Phelan was invited to speak and teach at shops all over the USA. Christy Lawyer and Sue Edwards of Boston, Sue Bannay and Jean Galli of Connecticut, Jennifer Buntz and Bonnie Nuttall of Albuquerque, and Rose Austin and Karen Lee of Anchorage have made such an impact with their WOMBATS chapters that trails are named for the club in a few states.

Nowadays there are even more women’s mountain bike clubs to serve new riders around the USA, taking their cue (and sometimes even their mission statement) from WOMBATS’ inclusiveness goal. MadFORCS, Glittergirls, VeloBella, Velogirls, WOMB, BOMBB, Pedal Queens, and WILD are carrying on the job of welcoming women into the soi-disant men’s club. This trend, Phelan predicts, will augment as long as the bike industry struggles to get a clue about what women want.

A brief list of the accomplishments of WOMBATS:
First fat-tire instructional camps in the world – for anyone, women OR men.
First club rides where leader is last (i.e., nobody gets dropped) Admittedly, this is unverifiable.
First time mountain biking was prominently featured in Vogue, Elle, O, Ladie’s Home Journal, Sunset and other popular periodicals. It is necessary to point out that these magazines remain out of reach of the advertising budgets of bicycle manufacturers, by dint of their circulation in the millions. Hence Phelan, without a industry funding, reached millions of women in their own magazines while (to this day) bicycle companies and trade magazines scratch their heads about how to “reach the women’s market”.

Jacquie organized countless WOMBATS retreats for beginner riders, as well as hosting symposia for women in the bicycle industry (Women of Power in The Industry, aka WOPITI) which inspired the outdoor equipment industry to do the same.

JP designed the first skills games for new riders, which have now been put to use in the nation’s Safe Routes To School programs)

To celebrate two decades of frivolously serious feminine fun, Marin WOMBATS will host a tea at Deer Park School picnic area in Fairfax Saturday Oct 6th, after a two hour ride around the legendary lazy Lagunitas Loop (8 huge miles) The ride starts at 9:30 and the tea begins at 12:30 lasting until 2:30 .

Full report of the day can be found at:
http://www.frap.org/Blog/2007/10/babys-first-wombats-ride.html

The photos and the movie link are here:
http://frap.org/Wombats/wombats20th.html

PLEASE WRITE YOUR COMMENTS, DEAR RIDERS I NEED TO HEAR BACK she yelled, perhaps a bit loudly.

Posted in Cycling, Jacquie Phelan, WOMBATS

St Packrat at home in the hills and in the dumpster

•October 5, 2007 • Leave a Comment

Decent day for pedaling, provender, and even a little pathos.

Began at noon with a 35 mile (mountainous) loop on road bike,back side of Tam (Bolinas Fairfax Rd past Alpine Lake onto Ridgecrest, famous (alas) for car commercials– there are a dozen sexy s-turns with clean double yellow stripes, winding through peroxide-blond oatgrass hillocks.

!Zero cars on the ridge! The crest is a six mile ascending stretch about 2000 ft above sea, visible wa-a-a-y down to my right. On the hills between me an the beach lies a single line of huge boulders, placed there by a cosmic baker with very few raisins left for this loaf. Spectacularly good weather: cool but sunny with autumn breeze. Thinking of Scotland, how it’s already rainy there again…and wondering: could I live in a wet country? Would I ride as much?

I used to be so good at blowy, cold races because San Francisco is so cold all summer long, plus I noticed my competitors all but gave up before the start gun, just from fear of crashing. I learned to pretend I liked hard driving rain. Damn if it didn’t work.

Back to reality…I’m fifty two yrs old. I don’t have to pretend anything. Oh, wait. Ahead here are two lycra clad fellows (matching outfits, but hairy legs!). I draw closer and closer as I top each little rise until…I pass them, hello’ing and hoping they don’t want to talk. I am sure they wonder why I had a tool belt tied around my waist and a bulging backpack, but they don’t match pace and they say nothing. Do men call each other the night before, asking what they’ll be wearing?

“I’m thinking of going with the US Postal, with the blue and white socks, silver shoes. What about you?”
At least this is how it looks to an outsider. Whole bunches of riders in perfect sartorial harmony.

I acted mulishly because I was hauling a few day’s worth of prepared supper and some fresh pineapple to Charlie’s mom . ..who got her first peek at my blog today. She stars in at least three posts now; so much for discretion and dotage. Whoops, wrong word. Nothing feeble about the ever-creative printer at Sunflower Press in Meal Valley, USA. We figured out a way for it to go “RSS” onto her email and maybe this will show up in black letters on the white screen. She hates the black, and verily on her machine it doesn’t look so good. I like it on mine though.

Afterward I zoomed into Meal Valley proper, and over the hill to the Ross Valley, where a special dumpster with my name all over it yielded great booty for me on this particular day.

First I spotted the perfect mango. Grabbed it, and lay it in the back pack. Lately I’ve begun carefully loading rather than sorting good stuff and loading at the end because the last few trips I’ve been spotted, and even once had a bit of a tug-of-war with a young fellow (clearly retarded) who could only say No! NO! and yanked the bag full of bread from my arms…I watched with chagrin as he pushed six loaves of artisan bread into the trash compactor. Michael Ismerio was with me that time (my first double-dive, he fully approved, Gottseidank).

Just as I was congratulating myself on a killer haul, I heard a young, high voice saying “Hello! Hello?” . It was a bagger, carefully rounding the corner I was hiding in. Damnnnnnnn . Overhead, Blue Angels (boo, hiss) scream by in close formation. When they pass, the kid’s saying, “What are you doing there?”
“Stealing fruit.”
He made a face. “It’s not very good”
I wanted to say, “here, taste this!” but there is no way a teenager earning a little pocket money is going to touch what is tainted by being stacked in a box out of doors all day.
“How about if I disappear?” I ask.
“OK” he says.

And I do. The pack already has: mushrooms, mango, english mufffins, both plain and raisin, and three perfectly intact, cello-wrapped packets of party napkins with a big blue rodent grinning on them….RATATOUILLE! I canna wait to mail one of them to Lynne Gurnee, the ‘liz dexic ratist” of Eurka CA. She’s even more into rats than I.

Posted in food, Jacquie Phelan

My day is always enhanced when I make a musical connection

•October 3, 2007 • Leave a Comment

Maybe I can grasp classical music after all.

It is a mere six mile flat run from College Of Marin where I take Alexander Vereshagin‘s Russian Music course. I do it mostly to spend a bit of time with Carol (world famous mother-in-love) and give her neck-and-back rubs during the listening sequences…Plus, this is one of those classes they are always threatening to close for Lack Of Popularity… “emeritus” classes. Every other student has silver hair, if any hair, there are canes under the chairs, and yet they perch intentlly as our prof, a wizardly stand-up comic and former conductor of the St. Petersburg Orchestra regales us with far-ranging stories that let us know about him and his life as well as passing his musical fervor on to us…

He commutes 60 miles from Redwood City in the South Bay, to get what, a hundred bucks or so per afternoon? It definitely doesn’t “pencil out” but I guess he’s as dedicated to his class as they are to him .Most have returned year after year to learn from him… yeah, I have come on over to it. Classical music. I couldn’t believe it when I actually recognized Tchaikovsky without realizing it. We were tuned into the 4th sonata by Tch, and I whispered to Carol, “doesn’t this remind you of that Yvgeny Onegin opera we heard last year?” She nodded.

Today, it was a bicycle connection…on my street. Upon return from COM class, the smell of figs drew me into Keith’s grassy yard, where the figs hide like Easter eggs (or in his eyes, shoe-goo) in the soft verdure.

The downstair’s renter’s door was wide open, and as I approached to ask permission to glean (with helmet already loaded) a young man greeted me.
“Hey, I’m gathering yr fruit, s’okay?” i smiled.
“Oh indeed. But here, the better ones are up here..”
Nah, those are YOURS I say, feeing generous.
I can only eat about 10 figs a day anyhow…Charlie too.

So we blither a bit about the Tragedy of Fruit Laying About in Marin, Unenjoyed. Somehow it led me to, oh, by the way, if you see the movie “How To Cook Your Life”, you’ll get 3 minutes of me.. and he replied excitedly,
“We saw the trailer when we were at Into The Wild at the Rafael…YOU’RE the one who was whispering about those apples being the best in Marin…but the people didn’t like to share? My girlfriend thought that was the best part of the preview..”
“Yep. It was on this street, just over there…those folks are the Only Republicans on Dogbark Lane”
and we were off and flying on the topic of Waste, Marin consumerism, his ten years at the Calif. Conservation Corps, and how he needs to quit, for some time to re-think his life..
“Move to Italy”
“We were thinking of living abroad, but don’t know what we’d get for work”.
“Just go, and muddle”
Typical JP career advice.
Ready, Fire, Aim.
Worked for me..
Ah, must turn into a bumpkin, it’s really late. Or early. J’ai besoin de sommeil.

Posted in food, Jacquie Phelan

Books R Cool, so easy going down, so hard to GET down

•October 3, 2007 • 2 Comments

There’s a book in everyone (so they say). There’s sure a few in me – all competing to come out first. That’s why I’ve started (several times) but never finished.

Maybe now is the time, maybe it’s too late, everyone I know seems to have published a bike book
Mel Allwood
Charlie Kelly
Marla Streb
Glance Strongarm
Elaine Mariolle
Scott Tinley
JP Partland
Kay Ryan…
dare I add F. Berto‘s fictional account, “The Dearth of Bert”?

And if they haven’t written, they’ve made a film.
Ted White
Biily Savage
Greta Snider
Nicole Hahn

hey, wait.. I made a movie about Critical Mass (Oct 31, 1997. Full moon.) My first day of owning a movie camera. I dressed as the Critical Mouse. I know it can work as a schlockumentary…I did all the right stuff – interviewed the primly dressed and made-up newscasters, stuck-in-traffic drivers, and tons of riders in costume. So cool..but anyway, it’s never been shown so it doesn’t count (yet).

I’ve globbed and blogged but can never sit still long enough to organise the thoughts, chapters, etc.

My friend John Stilgoe (teaches at Harvard) has the right idea. He practically wrote his history-of-landscape volume “Outside Lies Magic” from the back of his tandem (His wife steers, he scrutinizes while stoking). And Koren (the cartoonist and avid cyclist) put it this way (picture a shivery-drawn animal hands clasped, on bended knee– a tandem leaning against the tree, and the girlbeast telling him “I believe the word you’re looking for is “stoker”).

But Charlie never made a tandem. Hey what am I saying – like he’d ALLOW me, who weighs what he does, on the same BIKE? Affecting his SAFETY! As the Three Stooges put it: “Nyagggggg!!!”

It is to laugh.

Anyhows – the book. Well, I’m picturing sort of scrappy tea table book, with recipes and paper stock that stains nicely and all the sordid tales of early life, athletic prowess, how I infiltrated the bastions of testosteroni, waving the shirt of feminine freedom and permanently got on a few people’s bad side while pressing myself into the sidewak cement of history.. Perhaps a chapter called ‘Marin in my mind’. I played a role in the early days of the folklore origins of Mountain Biking – and it moulded my life. My memories of the time create picture in my mind, which I’ll flow through key-bored to page. But need to relieve the reader’s boredom with some fine photos.

If you have any from the early days of Marination or JP in the fanciest dresses, please drop me a mail. I will probably be seeing Tom Moran (great photgrapher from the earliest Pleistocene to the present) because his birthday (#50) is this month, and his mom lives a few miles from me…he will no doubt have a handle on some cool shots. People that I was ‘captured’ by: Carlo DePisis, Bob Allen, Michael (Nick) Nichols, Bev Harper, Jan Oswald, Hermann Seidl, Luc Cave…where are you all?

My pal Richard Ballantine (he belongs on the above list: he has written so many books, he has good (wait for it…)
Shelf Esteem!

RB called his publishing colleague Emma Barnes, and zhoop! all I have to do is type 35,000 words or so, I think that is how many words Books Are, unless you’re J.K. Rowling or Messrs. Tolstoi, Dickens, Clavell. Then they will decide if it’s good enough. (He said WORK HARD, PUT IN A GOOD RIDE). If they don’t like it, y’all are going to be pelted for ‘subscriptions’!

Yes, it’s crass, it’s rude, it’s my new job. Flogging my evanescent prose. Your job: turn the page, and turn and turn, and LIKE it.

Or is my palaver pithy?

(Eubie DeJudge.)

Gladys Notmi

Etc..

PS I’m finishing with a poem of Kay’s: If the Moon Happened Once

If the moon happened once
it wouldn’t matter much,
would it?

One evening’s ticket
punched with a
round or a crescent.

You could like it
or not like it,
as you chose.

It couldn’t alter
every time it rose;

it couldn’t do those
things with scarves
it does.

(From Elephant Rocks, Grove Press 1996)

Posted in Charlie Cunningham, Jacquie Phelan, MTB racing, The Book

End of Summer Berry-Picking Ride

•October 1, 2007 • 1 Comment

The last four times I left the hovel in the late afternoon to get a ride in, I turned around after half an hour’s worth of spinning up the Bolinas Fairfax road, never an easy climb in the best of times. Pure dead vertical if you’ve Had A Day full of energy-draining dithering, my strong suit. This meant arriving back 2 hrs early and admitting I just didn’t have PML (Pine Mtn Loop) in my legs that day.

Sometimes I’m lucky and some unsuspecting rider passes – good as a start gun. BUT I don’t do this on bike paths, honest! I usually ride alone, though. I DO know that carefully crawling up the hill yields better results. So crawl I did. Overhead, a thin veil of mare’s tails to the west, a warm breeze . Crunch down the black wool arm warmers chopped from a tragically shrunken thrift shop sweater. A flimsy silken capilene shirt (thank you Matt Bussina) flapped against me coolly, and the black yoga pants radiated a nice heat to my legs.

There was a surprising number of hikers out. Usually everyone cruises out virtuously on Sunday mornings. Word must’ve leaked out: Sunday evening’s the uncrowded time up on MMWD land.

“THIS IS THE BEST TIME TO BE OUT, HUH? NICE AND PEACEFUL!” I’d warble, forgetting that just because the crunch of gravel renders ME deaf doesn’t mean THEY are. At least the 3 a.m. slot is still empty of humans. Ask me about the time I talked to the fox.

My ‘ham had recently gotten a new chain and last ride it skipped (= “Wombat De-Furred Maintenance”). I’ve had eons to fix it (Charlie does the work, but I have to point out the shark-toothed chainring cogs that cause the skippage) but we never got around to it. Somehow, the problem evaporated. No dremel tool . No waste of CC’s time. Just feathered the pedals around and pray a lot.
The air was clear. A delightful aroma of a fireplace says: it’s fall.

Inhaling those toasted oak and bay leaves reminds me I’m ALIVE. I feel the season’s change. It’s like you’re in a canoe tipping over a harmless little drop, and downstream the water is a completely different color.

I know dogs do a better job with their nose, but much hinges on my discerning sniffer. I (heart) smelling everything I pass and that passes me…but now and then there’s the cigarette-smoking motorist (here in FFX it’s marijuana more often) but a pox on the homes with the chemical plumes blasting out of their drying machine vents … Blech! I guess stiff laundry is illegal here, along with riding single track trails, using a turn signal when driving, and waving when passing another cyclist. Er, sorry. I’m off track.

Ah the trail…is decorated with tidy piles of undigested seeds of Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (bear berry, kinnikinnick, manzanita shrub)… The coyotes and foxes feast on those red berries. 3 years ago I began doing same. The Miwok ate them as candy I bet, yep, and just looked up medicinal use for the leaves. Yep, as I thought. You’ll have to dig that up yrself. But the shit, the shit: is a nice curled pile, usually arranged on a rock.
“Broadcast that stench, baby. Get their attention.”
I didn’t see any mtn lion scat (large-bore, lots of hair, a giant gray dreadlock).

The surface of the trail (Pine Mtn Truck Rd, technically) had that summer’s end layer of dry dirt on a bed of lumpy cracker-rock that feels like knakkebrod (Rye Krisp?) that bumps you for all two and a half hours. My tires were inflated at the “no flats” psi, so I shuddered along, carefully straightening my line through the marbly turns. No crashing. No crashing.

The bear berries are well-gleaned up to 2 feet, but above that there are loads this year (means a cold winter?) and I ate a couple of handfuls. They’re delicious, full of Vit C but mostly seed, not a lot of fruit. Still, all those bears (long since chased out ) and coyotes can’t be wrong.

Flowers still blooming: Silene californica and Aqueligia exemia, the latter specific to Marin…that’s the columbine that only grows in serpentine soil. This patch of them is at the last water crossing on the bottom of Big Carson gulch. They are red and yellow like the common A. Formosa. Must get Tommy (Breeze) and his young friend Keenan out here before the fleurs drop off. This is the next generation of bike racers. They’re in sixth grade, (or is it seventh, oh God) and totally into the long hard rides, like their dads.

I hope to get ‘em to look at native plants, animal turds, cloud design.
Fauna: a couple huge ravens sitting like Amish picnickers in the golden oat-grass hill overlooking Woodacre, looking straight into the burning sunset. Phil Frank and his alter ego, Bruce the raven, pecked into my mind.

I passed about 10 feet away but they remained stuck to the hill soaking up rays. Or watching the detectives. Who knows? No threat of dark overtaking me…I had an hour before the sky even dimmed. I was surprised with an impulse: “Hey, I’ll rip Repack!”

Looked at my watch (I need about 20 feet of clear road to get a reading—the numbers are squared off and all look the same. Or my sunglasses need a stronger prescription lens…), 5:49 How will I remember those numbers? No time to worry, the flat top section’s nearly over. The road has been groomed and this is my best shot at coming close to the five minutes forty five seconds I did in 1984, before suspended forks, and before they buffed the hell out of this formerly rutty gravity graveyard.

The familiar two dozen turns had no surprises, I never lost my adhesion, and of course it took me seven minutes to do. Twice as slow as Gary F. did it back in the day. Ah, but we were all so reckless then. I am WRECKLESS (knock on madrone trunk) so far…

Posted in Jacquie Phelan
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