Infinite Excitement

My new jet:

Tim and Niki were real champs and helped me put my new ride together Monday night. Yesterday I spent the majority of the day on my Pro Machine in complete awe - I couldn't drag myself off the bike! Its incredible! Smooooooth like peanut butter :) and fast.

I am so lucky to have the support of ProMan and BMC; they have made it possible for me to ride this amazing piece of equipment for the 2009 season. Thank you!

When we were assembling the bike, I couldn't stop starring.....well, I still can't. I have been showing it off to everyone and anyone who will listen, look, and drool.

Winter Classic Ominium - LA Velodrome

Another whirlwind of a weekend!

My first road trip with the juniors on Proman (Claire and Kristina) and Hanan. Rob (Claire's father) was kind enough to invite me down to the Winter Omnium at the LA track this weekend. We all headed down Friday morning in Rob's van - really nice set up, bike racks galore on top and spacious inside, we were able to sprawl ourselves out during the 6 hr drive. We arrived in LA in time for the opening training session and it was really nice to get some time on the track since its a world's difference from Hellyer.

Friday evening Ashley (a new Proman rider) was gracious enough to allow Hannan and I to crash at her place in Venice. Awesome.

Saturday: Racing. The Women's P1-2 field was by far the smallest field of the day. 6 of us. Fortunately it didn't turn into a paceline which sometimes happens when there are so few riders in a race. We raced pretty hard, attacks, and all....not too much rest, ever, since there wasn't really a pack to "sit in". I made some silly errors, like completely spacing on the miss-n-out and being the first eliminated; others were sympathetic to my foolishness saying that it is a little more difficult when they pull every other lap, opposed to every lap. Honestly I do not know where my head was, apparently it wasn't in "miss-n-out" mode.

Track racing is a bit of a tease: you do an event, you get all excited, and then you sit down for another hour and wait for the next 20 minutes of leg shattering intensity. I like it.

Not a lot of photo ops this weekend, so I stole this one from Niki's facebook account. I had to do something with my time in between events, might as well hop on the rollers.

Oh yea, and you see those weights in the background? I threw in some bench presses as well.....

There must have been a sale on crazy-pants at Wal-Mart this week.  

I have never had so many negative encounters on the bike on Hwy 9 (Saratoga Gap).  Yea, sometimes you get the disgruntled motorist who thinks flying by you or rev'ing their engine is cool (motorists feel invincible in their vehicles), but today there were some real gems out on the road.

For instance, on Hwy 9, climbing away in my interval, I had a motorist in a stupid little car come up beside me and just lay on the horn.....what was the point?  He continued next to me, a really fat man in a really tiny car (typical), just letting that horn rip.  Instead of harassing cyclists, this man should consider taking a walk once in awhile.  Maybe he can postpone that heart attack a few months.  I put out some decent watts in this interval - you know how it goes.

During my recovery between intervals I was descending,  during which I was much obliged to have a dude all kitted out in flannel on a tin motorcycle pass me only to gesture that he (pointing at himself) was going to kick (shown by the gesture of his right leg making a kicking motion into the air) me into the ditch (shown by him pointing into the ditch).  

Hmmm.....I wasn't even over the white line in either of these encounters, nor was it difficult for these anger-ridden men to pass.  In each instance, they could have carried on their way without even slowing down.  As I was saying, there must have been a crazy-pants sale at Wal-Mart this week.

This makes me reach back into my memory of when I first moved to California.  I was told, "Nice weather all the time makes mean people."  I might have to agree.  Shouldn't people be happy that it is 70 degrees in January?  Shouldn't this make people want to get out and enjoy the sunshine instead of perpetuating hate? (Yes, that is how I see it - they are full of hate and are lashing out at the defenseless) 

I would love to be able to swap the weather in New England with that in CA for just one day.  If New Englanders were blessed with a day like today, everyone would be ecstatic and appreciative.  They would live it up to its fullest and talk about it for weeks.  

The weather is taken for granted out here.  Maybe a good -25 degree day complete with snow in California would help these people to realize just how beautiful and mild it is in CA.  Maybe they wouldn't be so darn miserable for no good reason.

Sorry I had to rant.  Done.

Already

A weekly or biweekly reminder was previously suggested for orchid care. At first I thought, "Outrageous!"

I set a schedule: Mondays. Mondays I water the plant. Mondays are usually recovery days, so I can focus on other things. Well this Monday came and went, and I was negligent.

It is week number 2, and I already slacked off. Even after writing an entire blog post about how this time I am not going to be the faineant orchid owner.

I only "remembered" my plant duties upon receiving a "comment notification" on my previous blog post to which my cousin suggested a plastic plant.

The only place I would consider purchasing a plastic plant would be from the Butabi Fake-Plant Store ("A Night at the Roxbury" - a ridiculously amazing movie.......oh high school swim meet past-times).

My Green Thumb

I have inherited my green thumb from my mother. (The Guarnier side seems to be quite adept at maintaining gardens.) However, despite my most valiant efforts to keep plants alive, there seems to be a pattern in the outcome: I end up parting with the plant for an extended period of time, ultimately leading to its demise.

Take for instance my Christmas Cactus, which sits in the dining room converted to "Megan's desk room" in Upstate NY. I have had a long standing fixation with cacti ever since I can remember; cacti come from exotic places.... like Arizona, which is quite enchanting when you are 5 years old. More importantly, you rarely have to tend to these plants. What a concept!

Anyway, after freshman year of college I "plant-sat" for a classmate who couldn't haul her Christmas Cactus all the way back to Alaska for the summer. I will not go so far as to say I was a great plant-sitter, but it stayed alive. Subsequently, I went out on a limb and purchased my own Christmas Cactus - a plant that blooms mid-winter is simply fascinating. In my 4 years of ownership, this plant only had one good Christmas bloom with brilliant pink flowers. It shouldn't be that hard to keep a cactus happy, right? I beg to differ.

I think the more important point here is the fact that in the past YEAR this plant has only been watered TWICE - both at 6 month intervals, as those are the only times I was in NY. My mother refuses to water it, as she deems it "ugly." I think we should build a shrine to the Christmas Cacti's resiliency.

(This is not my cactus, I pirated this image off the web. You can make your own conclusions about its aesthetic value.)

In my Mom's defense (and thus the defense of my own green-thumb), post-college graduation, I decided that I was going to have a garden. It consisted of hot peppers and pink tiger lilies. I spent a total of two weeks at home from May until October of the Summer of '07....guess who ended up taking care of those plants while I was busy pedaling around the US. Mom. Thanks :) Those were the hottest dang peppers ever; when I cut them, my fingers burned and my eyes watered. Intense.

In addition, I will mention my long-time companion, Sebastian, my brilliant red Beta fish. He was probably THE most travelled Beta fish that ever swam fin in the North East. That fish went to more ski races, ski lodges and random houses than one can count, and we had our "travel" down to a science. Sebastian was a trooper for three whole years, and yes, I am going to give myself a pat on the back for that one. This is Sebastian's twin:

So where am I going with this whole string of jibberish?

Most recently I have come into ownership of an orchid. Upon acquiring this beautiful plant (see below), I thought: "I am going to do this right." So naturally, I googled "how to take care of an orchid". Its quite simple: in dry environments water twice a week, in humid environments water once a week and keep within a temperature range of 50-75.

I have kept a fish alive for 3 years, my Mom is good at maintaining the gardens that I enthusiastically plant and subsequently abandon......so what are my odds with this orchid?

Props to my Boy in Belgium

I have neglected to tell you that the one and only, William Dugan, WON Cross Nats (DI).  

He has been busy in Belgium being legit and has begun a blog (the alliteration just happened....that wasn't purposeful).

I would post a fun picture here, but since I haven't seen Dugan in ages, a link to his blog will suffice.