What Are They Doing At The Hyacinth House?

Dinner last night at the Hawthorne House, a place in Bethlehem I'd heard about but never visited -- Anne knew it because she used to go there occasionally. Pretty decent: bar food and $2.50/bottle microbrews. Smaller inside than the building looked from the outside. Leechboy was playing, the games were on the TV's, and we were just BS'ing over burgers & beer...

 

Anne's out of town this weekend, down in Washington DC at least until late Saturday night. It's a "girl's weekend," and she's checking out the monuments & museums with Judy, Erica and Emmy. I'll be doing trail maintenance at Allamuchy tomorrow, followed (most likely) by a ride, then a visit to my old friend and retired co-worker Vito in Parsippany. Sunday will be more trailwork & riding, this time at Sals.

 

Meantime, I'll be riding the towpath tonight with Larry, then going to Christian's Spring Hotel, where I should run into a bunch of Virtual Pubbers, looks like some kind of smart mob scene a-building. (We were supposed to go there last night, but there was a problem with the water in Nazareth & Easton yesterday, and CSH had no food service -- I sure hope one day makes enough of a difference in the food situation because I'll probably be starving.)

Under The Water Carry The Water

Morning weigh-in: 169#, 11.5% BF

 

Saw David Byrne play Tuesday night at Zoellner, first show of his new tour and it was awesome. Me & Anne, Doug & Lori; our seats were amazing, like third row center -- he was standing literally less than 10 feet away from us, front and center on stage with his guitar, and with the rest of the band a little bit in the background. He and the whole band (drummer, bassist, bongo player, three backup singers, and three dancers) were all in white, a strange look but it actually worked well.

 

The show itself was great, very high energy, and he did a bunch of 80's hits as well as newer or more obscure stuff. He got several standing ovations too, especially on the older songs, and people were standing/dancing by the end. (Just a by-the-way: David Byrne is a very good singer, which we all knew, but he is also a very good guitarist.) Lotsa older people there, and watching them dance reminded me of 80's fratboys-become-yuppies jamming to Springsteen's "Born in the USA," and that whole Subversive Artists vs Their Fans Who Don't Get It thing... That got me thinking about my own mondegreens and misunderstandings from that era; lots of resonances in those songs.

 

Speaking of dance: the dancers were a nice touch. Two girls and a guy, doing very modern-looking (to me) stuff, made me wish I had a bit more of a dance vocabulary.  It reminded me at times of African dance, or of hoedowns, or cheerleader moves a la "Hey Mickey;" then there were other parts that were more like Meredith Monk, and even times I picked up a porn-stars-from-Naked-Lunch vibe, when the dancers seemed somewhat older and tireder than at first glance...

 

Anyway, before that I got a post-work haircut at Eskandalo, where Alison said she'd be DJ'ing at Christian's Spring Hotel that night -- oh well, you can't be everywhere -- followed by a pre-show dinner at Tulum. Last night was the Chain Gang meeting at Bob & Karen's. Tonight is the gym, followed by dinner out.

My, What An Eventful Weekend!

Morning weigh-in: 169.5#, 10% BF

 

Jeez, you go away for a few days...

 

RIP David Foster Wallace: Dead by his own hand at the age of 46. So sad. Infinite Jest was one of my favorite books, a postmodern classic and the funniest book about depression I ever read.

 

Swirling the Bowl: So Big Shitpile strikes again --  Lehman is going bankrupt, and Merrill Lynch got bought, and AIG is teetering on the edge -- if they go down, does that mean I am no longer an insured driver? I guess I'll have to revise my "America Descends Into Civil War and Cannibalism" countdown, move things up by a few years.

 

Wasn't That A Mighty Storm? Hurricane Ike was bad enough, but most people heeded warnings and it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Our Houston office is closed though.

 

Meantime:

 

On Thursday I visited my friend Gary in the hospital after work. We used to ride and race together: me, Joe G, Gary and his girlfriend Gina, their friend Gerry, and a few others, the old Round valley crowd. Now they (Gary & Gina) have two kids and don't get out as much, but recently he's been getting back into road racing and triathlon. He was out training with a few friends on Monday, and a woman failed to yield at a nasty intersection (I know it well, I drive through it every day, and there have been a lot of bicycle and motorcycle fatalities there over the years) -- he hit her grille, smashed her windshield with his shoulder, then flew over and landed behind her SUV, breaking his femur, ankle, and wrist (and dislocating his shoulder) at various points in the process. Helicopter ride, femur surgery, aches and bruises and a couple of casts, but no head or organ damage -- and strangely enough, no road rash either. He seemed in good spirits, all things considered, and was scheduled to go home Friday.

 

I met Joe at the hospital. We were supposed to ride Sals after the visit, but he drove into the parking garage and managed to wreck his bike (which was on his roof rack) on the low ceiling. Broken fork, broken seatpost, damage to the rack and his car's roof, he was not happy...

 

Thursday night was dinner with Anne at Brew Works.

 

The rest of the weekend was the Rattling Creek Single Trackers "Bash;" I drove down Friday afternoon and arrived in the worst of the rain. More on all this as the week progresses -- and stay tuned for over 100 photos -- but suffice to say that it was an awesome time despite the early bad weather: the Friday night "Disco Party" was a huge success, making Saturday morning less successful, and the Saturday night dinner/concert was fun but a bit more subdued, and in between it all we rode and rode.

 

Last night was chores and laundry; tonight is errands, and dinner with Anne.