The City of God

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 170.5#, 9.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday):172.5#, 10.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 174.5#, 10.5% BF

I've got a few minutes downtime -- I'm just back from yoga & breakfast, and I'm heading out to Weyerbacher when they open around noon, to buy a case of their new stuff -- and I thought I'd update a few computer things, ie posting here, as well as adding a few photos from the Sals trail maintenance last month.

It's been a fairly rough week, mainly because of two pieces of news that came my way.

Bad News The First: At the Chain Gang meeting this week (that was Wednesday night) we were discussing where to have our annual Christmas party, and someone mentioned the Christian's Spring Hotel, especially since we had such a good time in their barn at the weekend party -- maybe we could rent the barn for our own party. Rich called them up while we moved on to other business, then came back with the news that CSH is closing and that Saturday (ie today) would be their last day. Aaaargh!

Bad News The Second: This one is a little more serious. My friend Dan sat a few of us down at work the other day, and told us he'd been talking to Vito: his wife had been getting dizzy again (this was probably just after I visited), and passed out in the bathroom the other night. They went to the hospital, where they found out she'd had a stroke: she still has powers of speech, but her right side has lost some mobility. (She's been in rehab at Sloan-Kettering ever since, learning to use a walker and trying to get as much of her mobility back as possible.) Doctors say it was caused by her tumor, which means that the tumor is active again -- and the tumor is inoperable, and she can't have any more chemo or radiation, and so what this really means is that Di is now basically into her endgame. She'll be home in a few days; Vito's probably a wreck right now. This is so sad.

Both of these (of course) put me in a fairly bad mood for the end of the week, though I've been trying to be philosophical about them. Which Brew is gone, and now Christian's Spring Hotel is gone, but Anne and I met at WB and first started hanging out at CSH, so maybe they had accomplished something, like the booster stages of a rocket, or maybe the Roman Empire before it fell.

Di is a little harder to take. She and Vito have led exemplary lives, and I'm glad that she can take some
comfort in her faith and in the expectation of a better world, but that doesn't really leave me with much.

Meantime, I can't make lemonade out of those weights either...

Anyway, Tuesday night was Porters after the gym, where the girls had taken over one corner and were experimenting with a new scene: the "Brew Knits" is what they called themselves, and that's exactly what they were doing -- sipping brews and knitting.

Wednesday was the Chain Gang meeting, Thursday was the gym followed by a visit to Christian Springs -- the usual "Thursday night supper club" (me, Anne, Lee, Judy, and Sally & Joe) though there was no food, and last night was a towpath ride with Larry (Happy Birthday!) and dinner was a pot roast at Anne's. Not sure what tonight will be, but I'll be riding with Anne and a few others at Jacobsburg later in the afternoon.

Those photos are posted (go check them out) and I'm all caught up, so I'm outta here.

Monday Night Quarterbacking

Morning weigh-in: 171#, 10.5% BF

Doop de doo, just catching up on my bills, internet addictions etc, thought I'd post a little something...

Anne bought a mountain bike on Friday, a used Cannondale F600 to be specific, off a fellow VMB member. It had some minor issues so we did some work on it, then took it up to Jacobsburg -- we rode just about 15 miles total, pretty cool. (One very valid point she made though: she doesn't have to drive anywhere to ride her road bikes. But, she lives right around the corner from Sals, ditto Lehigh; once her skills/confidence are up to the challenges she'll have all the out-the-front-door, local riding she'd want.)

We saw Religulous that night with a bunch of people. Verdict: it was OK, but not much better than OK. I thought that they cherry-picked their religious spokesmen, who seemed a bit stupid, and were flummoxed by fairly standard anti-religious arguments -- ones that any decent theologian should have at least some answer to by now, even if it wasn't an answer I'd agree with. Dinner was at Pacifico, and was also just so-so.

Saturday we (Anne and I) did a road ride, a metric century over Little Gap and back through Wind Gap. The evening's entertainment was at Christian's Spring Hotel, where they had an Octoberfest party: German food, beer specials and three great bands out in their barn. These bands were not what I was expecting (punkish/rockabilly garage stuff, maybe?) but instead were more bluegrass than anything else -- one was actually a bow ties and straw hats, banjos and kazoos kind of novelty act. Great stuff. Tons of people there too, including a big chunk of Chain Gang peeps and pieces of the Which Brew diaspora, as well as the usual CSH regulars.

Sunday was mellow by comparison, did a little hiking -- walking, really -- in and near Bethlehem. Tonight after laundry & bills I'll be zipping around for a while downtown on the singlespeed. Dinner already happened and was Brazilian black beans. Tomorrow I'll be eating at Porters.