Here comes the cold again

Here in Western Massachusetts it's gotten cold lately. We got hit hard with a crazy storm the night before Halloween and many people in the area are still without power. Seeing a foot of snow on the ground in October has made me miss nice warm bike weather even more (especially since today on my ride to the Dam Cafe I had to wear gloves and the wind left my eyes watering) so I'm going to reminisce a bit to this summer.

See this beach set-up?

Two chairs, two towels, two lunches, reading materials (I think I was reading Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake at the time), there paddle-ball in there somewhere, and sunblock and other beach necessities. Well this is how it got to the beach:

Chair backpacks and bike racks! So incredibly useful.

My aunt has a house about 5 miles from the beach. Free parking when you're on a bike! (Otherwise it's $10 - and that's if you can find a spot!) By the time we got there we were dying to get in the water and cool off from that hot ride.

So, what am I reading now? Well, unfortunately I'm so busy with grad school and two jobs that I'm not reading very much, but I'm slowly working my way through E.M. Forsters's A Room With a View. I've read A Passage to India, but that was as part of a course during my undergrad and I had guidance. I don't really know how to approach this text. There's something about the way people have conversations in it that leaves me utterly confused about what is happening. Is it the way people talked during that time period or is it Forster's writing style that's throwing me off? I'm about 60 pages from the end, so I'll be sure to put up a review on my Shelfari page when I finish.

Four Around the Fourth

The president of my running club has a race timing business, and every so often I'll work a race with him - getting runners into the database and entering bib numbers in to match up with places. Northampton has a race near the 4th of July called "Four Around the Fourth." It's a 4-mile race through downtown Northampton, where you're much more likely to see people on bikes than in my town, even though it's only about 8 miles away. Saw this woman with a pile of leafy greens in her panniers and on her back rack:

Go runners! Finish strong!

Spotted this woman with her adorable daughter and her adorable dog in the basket! I had to snap a picture.

Turns out she was there to cheer on her husband, who was running the four-miler! They chatted with other runners at the finish (where there was also a delicious pancake breakfast.) I was so thrilled to see such a happy bikey family. Plus look at all the cargo on the husband's bike - possibly an Xtracycle? But it also had a second set of handlebars behind the seat, I'm assuming for a kid to hang on?

And I forced myself to get up at 5:30 am to give myself enough time to bike the 9.5 miles from my house to the race. The weather for it was perfect.

See you next time!

New Basket

Sorry for my long absence, blog, it's been winter! But now the weather is warming up and I've biked to the grocery store twice and to my classes once.

I finally attached my new basket to Marin! It was a little harder than I imagined it would be since the metal parts meant to attach to my rack were a little small and I had to bend them out of shape to get them to work. But eventually, success!

The main basket covers up the side one a little, so I have to take it off to put full bags into the side and then put it back on, but it works. My mom and Brian have asked if I felt off-balance having a basket only on one side now, but I actually feel much more balanced than when I used to carry heavy things just on my 1 rear basket! I think because this is lower to the ground it gives me a lower center of gravity?

Anyway, with the warmer weather I can wear shoes like this:

and my feet weren't even cold! This Sunday when I went grocery shopping I regretted taking a coat.
The side basket folds up. It's nice that when I'm not using it I don't have to have it in the way. Here's what I can carry now with my additional cargo space. This is what went into the rear basket:

• 3 fresh beets
• gallon of milk
• full-size orange juice
• family-size Kashi Go Lean Crunch cereal
• large container of arugula
• carton of vegetable stock

And here's what went into my side basket:

• 5 small yogurts
• 1 jar of pickles
• small bunch bananas
• 5 cans of cat food
• 1 can corn
• bottle of white wine vinegar
• 1 orange
• 1 onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 pears
• 2 pickling cucumbers

So if the weather is nice where you are - get out there and bike or walk or do something outdoors. I can't wait for sundresses!

Madame Bovary and Winter

It's winter, which means I ride my bike significantly less than I would like to. I miss the fall when I could dress like this:

and truly be warm enough. Now I need a heavier coat, some tights under my jeans, a scarf, thicker mittens, and a big ol' hat. I do still bike to Wistariahurst every week since it's so close, and they say "I can't believe you rode your bike! It's freezing out!" But then I think about people in Canada and Denmark biking in snowstorms and much colder weather than here so I feel guilty if I don't brave the cold at least sometimes. I will admit that it's way too cold to ride the 18 miles to work. Plus, with the short days the sun is right in drivers' faces when I leave work so I wouldn't want to risk getting hit by a car. Even a bike-aware driver can't see you if the sun is in his face.
But I will long for days like the one above. I saw this girl locking up outside the Dam Cafe while I was working inside. Fabulous red fall coat and I was happy to see a fellow biker. Here's what my table looked like:

For Christmas I got a new basket for my bike as well as a new light, so I'll have to set those up on a warmer day. I'll post pictures soon. I'm very excited to be able to haul slightly more groceries now!

You would think that with winter here and me holed up inside more often, I would be reading a TON. Nope, I have instead been spending a significant portion of my time playing Scribblenauts and the Professor Layton games on my Nintendo DS. However, last night I finally finished reading Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. I wasn't sure I would like it at first since I didn't like Madame Bovary herself (and the last time I didn't like the main characters - in Lady Chatterly's Lover - I hated the book and it took a lot of work to get through it) but I ended up enjoying it.

It's actually a wonderful comment on "the grass is greener" viewpoints and the influence that novels can have on us. Emma Bovary is so miserable in her life because she thinks that all love must be like the love in novels and that fine things will make her happy. She is just so deluded that when she is confronted with reality it completely unravels her. This is the kind of book I wish I had read in college so I could discuss it with other book-lovers with the guidance and insight of a professor.

And I think even now people can be influenced like that by novels. If I expected love to be like novels I would probably be disappointed with what I have with Dave because it's not a constant torrent of passion and heightened emotion. Most of the time we are simply content together, but I'm a realist and I like it that way.