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Cats and bikes and jellies

No matter the day of the week — and it should belong on Monday, but there was already a lot of material here on Monday — the weekly check with the cats is the most popular regular feature on the site. So we, the cats and I, are always pleased to bring you what you want most.

Phoebe will spend part of any afternoon in a shopping bag if you let her. That is, of course, between pets and chasing the birds just outside her windows and looking for milk.

And also her naps. This is a late afternoon nap. And I’d like you to study that face. No one relaxes more intently than this cat.

Poseidon has lately discovered the watering can. The plants on the front porch were thirsty for a few extra seconds while this took place. First, I filled the can. Something about the process got Poe’s attention. Ever helpful, he jumped up to peer into the sink and, then, into the can.

I think he could hear the water moving around in there, and so he decided to investigate, first with a look and a sniff, and then, as you see here, with his paw.

He swished it around, and realized he had water on his paw. He, being named after the god of water, put his paw back in the water, swirled it around, pulled his paw back out and then licked the water off. He did this two or three more times, like he doesn’t have multiple water bowls conveniently located around the house.

Had a nice little bike ride this evening. The weather was pleasant and the company was better. We did about 15 miles together, and then my lovely bride took a left turn into the neighborhood and I did the first big triangle shape of the year.

Just before the golden hour.

Which quickly turned into the golden hour.

You know how trees will line a road? Sometimes these are called woods, but sometimes, it’s just one thin little row of trees between the road the field behind them? Sometimes, when you’re dealing with that thin little row, a gap will appear. And, sometimes, you can see that coming up. Those narrow little spots where the tree gives way to the crops or the pasture or the yard behind them are all about timing. Even at cycling speed, I have to reach in my pocket, open the camera app and try to frame this shot before I glide by.

Sometimes you get lucky with those.

I picked these things up in those last 10 miles. If you know anyone missing these items, send them my way.

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And if you don’t know anyone missing those items, send someone else my way. I just want to get this stuff off the shoulder of the roads.

Back to last month’s trip to California, here’s one more view of the purple-striped jellyfish. They are highly localized to the central California coast. They can sting you, and it would hurt, so you’d be better off staying away, though human interactions with them are rare.

The bell on these can grow to about three feet. In the wild, those frilly arms can be twice as long as a human, or more.

That’s the last of the purple-striped jellies, but not the last jellyfish. We’ll see several more beautiful specimens in the next few days. You’ll love them, of course.

adventures / California / cycling / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
15
Apr 24

Shakespeare on the breeze

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. Or close the wall up with our weekend now behind us. In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of Monday blows in our ears, then remember, you are a tiger nearing the end of a semester. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage; then lend the eye a terrible aspect.

And so I wrote the many messages required of my classes to begin the week.

They all started with, “Hello everyone. We’re almost there.”

And that’s a Monday. Class this evening, working work before that and after, and so on. We must close up the wall, as Henry the Vee said.

Seems to me, if you’re a king and you have a hole in your wall, you summon the stonemasons, not the peasant army from the countryside. But that’s the difference between the kings of antiquity and me. That and 5G. And a full spice cabinet. And satellite communications. And air conditioning. And dependable refrigeration.

Kings had it rough, didn’t they?

Let us wander the grounds and check on the things, perchance they have grown overnight.

We have tulips elsewhere, but this brave tulip, standing alone, captivates the attention.

The surrounding weeds have certainly noticed it. But we’ll get to those too, eventually.

I am tempted to stand next to the fig tree and give it a countdown. The suspense is just too much. Maybe tomorrow, though.

In the greenhouse we are seeing great progress. Peas are emerging. The first sprouts are coming up from some of the tomato seeds. The squash and cucumbers are stealing the show.

On another shelf, however, the onions are holding hard the breath and bending up every spirit

I promise not to misquote Shakespeare with every plant, photo or paragraph on this, or any other post.

Two little bike rides the last few days, just 40 miles trying to dodge the winds, which were brutal this weekend, but nice and mild today. This was a cornfield last summer, and it’ll soon be verdant once again.

Right through there, you had corn on either side of you, and that was usually a pretty decent wind break. Just now, however, you can feel go one way on that road and think you’re dragging a deep freezer behind you, and then set personal bests coming back from the other direction. The wind has been impressive, and is just part of this part of spring around here, we are told.

The other day my lovely bride dropped me, because she’s better in the wind than I am, usually. I missed the turn she took, which added a few miles, which was fine. Eventually I found a road that looked familiar, and I turned on it, and this barn, which I’ve never noticed before.

Hey, look. here’s that same truck and tractor as before, but from the other side. With the direction the wind has lately been traveling, this is the fast direction.

And here’s another barn I found. This one was today. I was not lost this time. I’d actually paid attention to the route map and caught the left, which saved me about four miles. This was fine for time, but a shame since I wasn’t vainly pedaling into gale force winds.

After I got lost on the weekend ride I went up a road I know I have done in the mid-20s, but was struggling and straining to stay upright at 8.5 mph in the wind. Same road today? I wasn’t even thinking about it, my mind was anywhere but on the road or Henry the Vee, and I glanced down on that same stretch and my Garmin said I was doing 21 while soft pedaling. That’s the difference in no wind and Shakespeare urging it on. Blow, blow, thou spring wind.

The wind has been impressive, I think because we are close to the ocean and a river besides. We’ve been told it’s just part of spring around here in the open farmland.

I’ll take it.

Over on the other coast, things are nice and peaceful for this jelly, which lives at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This creature is definitely enjoying itself, and you should too. No reason necessary.

Relax. Enjoy. Repeat.

Happy Monday!

adventures / California / cycling / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off
11
Apr 24

There are only 632 words between you and an incredible video

Did you notice that I didn’t write about a historical marker yesterday? I didn’t either! At least not until it was much later in the evening. Sometimes extra things get added to the site; sometimes things disappear. Sometimes thing wander off, never to return. The marker feature will return next week, though. There’s a plan and everything.

No really.

And now that we can get outside to ride again, I can finish photographing the markers in the county. I’m a bit more than halfway through them now, so it can’t just disappear as a feature. We have to see them all, and only then can we decide what will fill the feature space on Wednesdays.

It was incredibly windy today. We set out to try a little course for an upcoming event we’ll take part in. Home roads and all that. Except much of it was in the face of 30 mph gusts. It made for a 9 mile per hour difference in splits, headwind to tailwind. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but what it really seemed like was the difference in wondering if your legs were telling you that your legs have done the best that they could do, that you’re done, and your best days are behind you, and, coming back with a tailwind, freewheeling to speeds that don’t seem quite natural, that you might still have a shot at being some kind of rider someday.

Your chest is an anchor, your back is a sail. That’s the dichotomy of the human torso.

Along the way we found this barn, and I found myself wondering what all it has stood for the people that have lived next to it all of the years.

Those old buildings embody a lot, even when they need a fresh coat. Maybe especially then.

I didn’t see it then, but can’t escape it now: there are three different roofs on that barn. Says to me that this barn is still important. Maybe all of that wood out front has some important use in the future, too. Don’t discount anything sitting out front on a small farm.

But over here, in our backyard, things are growing into importance. I went out for the nightly chore of watering things in the greenhouse, and saw something new, on the wire shelves to the right, in the onion tray.

And straight ahead, in one of the squash trays.

We just planted those on Saturday. At this rate we might be eating fresh garden salads in another eight or 10 days.

Also, the honeysuckle looks nice.

We should all spend more time with honeysuckle. The sight, the smell, the taste, just do something evocative to us, I think. No matter where you are, they can take you somewhere else. And that place isn’t always to some childhood day, which is surprising, but sometimes it is, which is delightful.

I can’t enjoy honeysuckle without the memory of learning, as a little boy, about those sweet little drops inside. And swiftly following that one is a more distinctive memory of smelling fresh white honeysuckle on a particular crisp spring day as an adult. Then I remember we had a yellow and white honeysuckle that grew along the old clothesline in the backyard of my childhood home. Then, sometimes, I have a little flash of moments when I’ve enjoyed honeysuckle in the woods here, on a trail there, and I think of those same moments. I am recalling moments where I remembered moments. And, now, we have this great big plant, there in the backyard. Near the door. They turn into a deep, red flower. It looks like a dried wine. And they’re all mine.

You deserve a little moment. Here’s a beautiful jellyfish we saw at the Monterey Aquarium last month.

Relax. Enjoy. Repeat.

The purple-striped jelly (Chrysaora colorata) makes the waters of central and southern California home. Much of these creatures is still mysterious, but still learning things about them all the time. The bell, the body, can grow to more than two feet in diameter. Usually, you’ll see them with those long dark arms and four of the big frilly arms. At least one 15-footer has been seen in the wild.

If you like that, I’ll show you another jellyfish soon. Until then, just play that video on a loop!

adventures / California / cycling / overwriting / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
9
Apr 24

First ride of the year

After 1,323 miles on the trainer during a mild winter, this afternoon was my first outdoor ride since December.

Right from the start, and throughout this 30-miler, it was wonderful. The weather was perfect. The wind was in my face. My legs burned, but kept going, and I got a text that my lovely bride’s swim had been canceled, and that she, too, was going out for a ride. I managed to find her, and we did the last six miles or so together.

Now, at last, spring is here.

Erudite wheelmen would speak of the hum of their wheels, the grip of bar tape, bidons.

Poets would write of the power and purpose of getting back into the drops. Really, it’s heart and joyful freedom.

Freedom to ride hard, to soft pedal, to weave over the road like a kid. Freedom to try on that hill, or to not. And the thrill of coming down the other side, no matter the effort on the way up.

It’s the carefree feeling we rode with as kids.

Already, it feels like a great year of riding.

But maybe you’re here for a different sort of enjoyment and relaxation. Got you covered. Here’s another shot from an entirely unremarkable vista view on the Pacific Coast Highway.

They have so many of them that they don’t even name them or, really, even mark them all that well. But they’re each lovely. We assume they’re all lovely. We weren’t able to see each one.

Guess we’ll have to go back one day.

California / cycling / photo / site / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
2
Apr 24

A day doing prep work

This is another busy week. I am today working on a presentation for Thursday. I am creating a contemporary case study for a classroom exercise. The whole thing came to me, almost fully formed, last weekend. One of those ideas that was so complete it had to be perfect. Only today did I realize that the entire exercise requires on-the-spot participation from a group of strangers.

Much depends on their willingness to play along. And there’s not really coming back from it if the idea doesn’t land, or if they aren’t interested in playing along.

It’d be better not to have that realization, but once you have it there’s no escaping it.

No matter what happens, the graphics will look passably good. No matter how many of these presentations you make, it is amazing the time sink a good set of graphics can become.

Since it is the first of the month I have to also do the routine computer cleaning. It takes just a few minutes to delete a bunch of stuff from the desktop. Some of it I’ll probably need later. New directories must be made for the website. Statistics for the site need to be updated. I haven’t done that in two months. March was a good month! But the site has been done this year compared to last. I suppose people have found better distractions. But this humble little site attracted 137,000+ visits in the first three months of the year. We’re at 5.75 million views all time. No idea why that number is so high, but I’m grateful.

Also, I updated my cycling spreadsheet. And the chart still looks pretty good, despite the long lulls of March.

The green line plots a steady 10 miles per day average. The red line shows where I was at this time in 2023. The blue line charts the mileage of this year.

All of those blue line miles have been indoors. I’m ready to take a bike ride outside. Maybe next week.

Maybe next week, he sighed.

It’s gray and cool and April and I’m over it, quite frankly. The flowers don’t seem to mind.

That’s a brilliant camellia shrub and it’s just full of great, big, beautiful blooms. Spring hasn’t come, but spring is here. It should stay for a long time, at least until mid-summer, don’t you think?

We could then push the summer late into fall and just wipe out the next winter. What with all the leaping days and the stumbling seconds and springing and falling, would anyone really miss it?

No one would miss it.

What everyone misses is the beach. So let’s go there now! Here’s one last video from the big rock in the middle of Spooner’s Cove.

Not to worry, though, I still have … quite a few peaceful videos from California. And there are still a few more slow motion videos, too. Three, I think. After this one, that is.

And the slow motion views will change with the next video, so we’ll have that going for us, too.

Anyway, back to this presentation I’m working on.

I now hate the graphics.