Moosey Fate

Rant

So, I have been trying to get my road bike tuned in. The first step was to drop a chunk of, WAY too big. Thus, Shimano has ensured that most women buying a road bike (who do not purchase a women's specific design bike) have to immediately put $300 into the bike to make it rideable. It is not terribly difficult apparently to make the brake levers adjustable, since they do it on their cheaper levers.

random im conversation of the day

me: i have found the worst name for a bike yet
boy: ok....shooot!
me: the giant kids bike name is
me: the lil'puddin'
me: now, i like pudding, but this is horrifying
boy: indeed
me: what the hell does pudding have to do with bikes?
boy: Absolutely nothing.
me: except i like to eat pudding after i ride
me: but i always like to eat pudding

Recreating college days

So, I have realized that there is not too much different between very active people and very inactive folks; for instance, both tend to sleep and eat more then the general population. Today, I rode 14 miles and averaged 13 mph (a bit less then normal, demonstrating that I need to ride more) and have come back and collapsed with cereal and pudding. I am watching "Everyday Italian" on the Food Network and the host is showing the best looking food ever. The Italian version of smores is a slice of baguette, brushed with butter and waith granulated sugar, heated, and topped with a piece of bitersweet chocolate and a toasted marshmallow. I might die fromdrooling too much.

I just finished off the milk in the carton rather then get up and take it to the fridge. Wow.

Oh, now she is making a pasta salad with orzo, garbanzo beans, red onion, basil, mint, and grape tomatoes. Why am I watching the Food Network, because all I want to do is eat everything I see?! However, the background music is horrible; it sounds like something from a film starring Ron Jeremy.

The big agenda for today is doing the dishes. Right now this seems like a monumental task.

The Bike Trails will never dry out

There seems to be a vast conspiricacy to ensure that I do not get onto my bike. Last Sunday we did a 20 mile ride that was pretty fast (averaging about 15mph). I have not been riding since then, with the rain and a sinus infection. I was also stupid and went to the midnight showing of "Revenge of the Sith" and then had to work at 6:30 the next morning. This was not smart.

Many,many people have written about that movie. I had never been to one of the "Star Wars" on opening night. I want with the boy and a good friend, both self-avowed Star Wars geeks. We arrived by 9:30 and sat in the first theater that opened. There, I got my first taste of the true devotion of many SW fans. There were a lot of people dressed up, lightsaber fights, etc. At one point the boy looked at me and stated that he guessed that the vast majority of women who were there wrote fan fic.

Sometimes its hard to be a woman

For the last few days, I have had the punk version of "Stand by your Man" stuck in my head. I will just randomly sing out "He'll have good times, doin things that you don't understand."

I am now officially done with all of my grad school duties; all of the exams are graded and the full course's grade sheet has been sent in. I was planning on doing something celebratory, but I am not sure what. Maybe I will cook something later today (though I will probably sit on the sofa and watch DVRed TV) and reading more of which has the most horrifying wedding stories one can imagine. I am so very relieved to be finally done with this year and feel likeone very very relaxed Moosey.

Gurgle gurgle floooooop

Is the sound of my stomach. I realize this is reminiscent of the mattresses in one of the Douglas Adams' books. Today has been a day of completition; I finished my last grad schoolpaper, turned it in, proctored on exam, am in the middle of proctoring the second, and (most excitingly), got Tiger for my iPrecious. Oh Apple, maker of phenomally designed and user-friendly products!

Tiger is so cool
Name a widget for me please
I love my dashboard

But arghhh am I in stomach hell and it is making the most interesting noises; like "glooop" and "mrrrrrop" and several other that can not be articulated but sound like Chewbacca while angry. .
I just have to get these exams graded and then no more grad school worries for awhile.

I have been having fun looking at wedding stuff. I have been looking at different places to have them, mainly because they have the food and drink and I like food and drink. Here are thoughts I have preliminarily had: Loring Pasta Bar and Forepaugh's currently look kind of interesting. Any thoughts? (No Katie, this won't become a wedding blog, I promise!!).

Only 8 kids left taking their exam with (officially) 30 minutes to go.

Well this is shocking:

You Are 60% Normal (Really Normal)

Otherwise known as the normal amount of normal You're like most people most of the time But you've got those quirks that make you endearing You're unique, yes... but not frighteningly so!

Down to only 5 kids left. DAMMIT, finish your exam that should only take about 45 minutes. Slowpokes. I can't blame them too much though; its just that I want my freedom. Wait, after today I don't know if I really have to come back over here for anything really. Wow, that is awesome.

A belated YAY for Katie and Baxter -- Congratulations on a successful comps passage (and congratulations Katie on surviving the lead up to taking comps). I soon will not be able to resist callng Baxter Dr. Baxter Baxter-Kauf. However, I think Hippo needs a PhD because Dr. Hippopotameow is just the greatest name ever.

At the bike race on Saturday, the boy and I both fell in love with a Great Danel. She was fully grown, the really gorgeous blue color, and fully grown (at 130 lbs). She was very curious about bicycles and sniffed the tires until sticking her head all the way through his frame and looking around. It might have been the cutest thing ever. We have both decided that we really really want one. Friends of friends have a Great Dane puppy named Norm. This might be one of the best naming jobs ever.

This is my homage to Virginia Woolf and stream of conscious blogging today.

Terrifying Finds

So today as we were cleaning up the apartment we were moving furniture, I came across a horrifying and scary find. Was it porn? If only. Instead, it is the Audio version of "Star Trek Power Klingon: Mastering the Language of Warriors." This was made worse by the statement the boy uttered a few minutes before hand; "I just wrote a script to take all the video files off this webpage!" In case you were wondering, the audiotape includes a phrasebook and argues that "You will learn how to think like a warrior -- to make the language an extension of yourself, to respect its power and be wary of its subtelties." All I have to say about this is "mev!" (Do not eat that). This weekend has been annoying; I got food poisoning on Friday night at a nice restaurant and spent the last few days being violently ill. Actually, I don't think it was food poisoning but an allergic reaction to Morel mushrooms. I suppose if one is going to have an allergy, having it to exotic and expensive foods is better than like one to tomatoes or wheat or something like that. I am very very excited; tomorrow is the last day of school and I have to proctor two exams and finish up a paper. After tomorrow, all I have to do is grade exams and then I AM DONE!!!!! FInally, I am further learning to extent of my lack of patience. My engagement ring is being sized and the person who does the sizing isn't at the store this week, so it has to be sent out. Therefore, the earliest I get my absolutely gorgeous ring is Friday. I have no patience at all.

lots of randomness

Engagement

The boy and I got engaged. To describe how excited I am would be impossible. Instead, I will just continue on my blissed-out state which wasn't even disturbed by neighbors playing their drum set at 4 this morning.
I am positive I am the luckiest Moosey ever.

Now this is getting ridiculous

This is the newest addition to the Moosey clan. Her name is Bonnie Blue or "ohmygod, I didn't know a bike could go so fast." The other bike does not seem to be too jealous, since I took him out for a 15 mile ride yesterday at the River Bottoms. It was cold (what is going on with snow on May 1st), but absolutely beautiful and the trail was dry and I did a lot of the dips and narrow singletrack. There however was a major moment of frustration yesterday; we got up early to go for a bike path ride on the West River Road, got geared up, biked over there and found the MS Walkathon going on. I wholeheartedly agree with the aims of this walk, however, was massively annoyed with the people walking in it. On the WRR, there is a bike path and a seperate walking path. The bike path has big painted pictures of a person walking with a slash mark over it; it is not supposed to be what people walk on. I understand it is wider, so 3 suburban moms and their strollers can all walk besides each other, but that is not its intended purpose. So, when we got there, the bike path was swarming with people, literally all over the bike path. This was annoying enough, but we thought that if we biked against the walking traffick, people would move. No, they did not, in fact they seemed shocked and horrified at the thought that they should make way for bikers, on the bike path. Through a lot of the few blocks we rode to get to the bridge over the river, we had to get off our bikes and walk since people would not move, didn't even seem to contemplate that there might be someone other then a walker on a path where walkers are forbidden. Indeed, because of these people, I could not bike on the bike path, but was forced to break the rules and walk. This same problem occurs on the paths around Lake of the Isles, where 2 moms will walk side by side and even if you yell "on your left," they won't move and look shocked when one (i.e. me) glares at them after having to pass in the grass. On multi-purpose trails, everyone should pretty much yield to everybody else and we slow significantly for hikers, who have been very pleasant and moved to the side of the trail in tricky spots. However, on a bike path, I should not have to yield to a non-biker. This is one of those annoyances that is really annoying but perhaps entirely personal, in that I don't know anyone else who gets quite so annoyed with thus as I do.