weather

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My hands are cracking a lot this winter.

February 25, 2010 | 3 comments


I’ll spare you the photos, not that I took any. It could be washing more dishes than usual or not wearing gloves. I generally don’t wear gloves unless I’m cycling, and I’ve been outside far more on foot than on pedals this winter. It could also be that I keep forgetting to drink water. Or the breakdown of my bass-guitar calluses, since I have not been playing my bass. Or a combination. Or I’m getting old.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering. Yes. This Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream does, in fact, taste like lemons, too. I ate some.

COLD!

January 5, 2010 | 2 comments

wntrwndr0110
Wow, Baltimore is cold.  Given my complaints about the lack of winter in Southern Illinois, I don’t mean to complain now.  I like when it’s cold in the winter.  Just saying.  It’s cold.  I’m wearing a scarf in my office, on my lunch break, relaxing with my mp3 player and the internet. My feet are cold. Though, I am wearing socks and sandals.

Shoveling snow two weeks ago when we got the mini blizzard, I was wearing shoes. Wet shoes. My broken toe was killing me. I don’t know if it was the cold, the wet or the shoes. But I do know it feels better in socks and sandals. Too bad everyone stares at me. One bus driver gave me such a look just before the holidays that I was not completely sure he was going to let me on the bus.

My recent injuries hurt a good bit this winter. The non-broken right hand is stiff and painful in the morning. The toe doesn’t like the cold, like the one I shattered pinky toe from 2003. My broken wrist predicts rain, and snow makes it hurt like no one’s business. I was talking about my two metal teeth with my co-worker yesterday, and he said I’m like a roadmap. I think that’s funny. I do need to invent better stories to go along with my defects. My broken teeth? No accident! I defended someone’s honor in a bar fight and got bumbled by three bikers! Etc. Maybe for Baby, when he/she asks why Daddy has metal in his mouth and foot and why his wrist makes noises.

Nothing looks like this, not lately.

November 14, 2009 | 5 comments

brightleaves1009
This week: grey, rain, rain, rain, grey. With recently broken bones and my still-smashed right hand, I’m tempted to sound like one of those people who acts like crappy weather was invented just for suffering and just for their suffering at that.  It doesn’t feel good.

However, in search of better times and making the best of what’s left of autumn, Mrs. P. and I will venture to our very favorite bookstore and perhaps have dinner somewhere in Charles Village, Hampden or Roland Park.  I will have a waterproof messenger bag, so treasures will make it home unscathed.  At least it’s going to be in the upper 50s/lower 60s.  I hate when it rains just shy of the freezing point.  Unless I’m cycling.  I do get a kick out of that.

Curiously, Normal’s is on 31st Street, where I blew a spoke last Sunday and had to miss the ride I’d spent so much time helping to plan.  Much better tidings today, I think.

My bike is out of commission currently.  Yes, breaking a rear spoke on the drive side can make your wheel no longer turn without hitting the frame.  No, this does not, as has been suggested, make me a wimp or perfectionist.  It’s a matter of my understanding bike wheels, at least a little bit.  Plus, there’s the empirical smack-your-ass part where my wheel literally does not turn.  The shop will take care of it; it’s under warranty.  It’s a good excuse to visit my favorite bike shop.

I need to get some new books and spend quality time with the Mrs. and our little belly/Baby.  As if it’s not obvious, I’m growing increasingly less patient with people’s bullshit.  A nice walk usually helps a lot.

Very crappy weather now, but you should have seen Thursday.

October 27, 2009 | 2 comments

bike1oct1009
It looked like this.

The heat is here.

July 28, 2009 | No comments

jfr0709_1
OMG. Bike helmets do not help. But it is Okay. Peppermint soap showers, AC and iced coffee.  And the faster you pedal, the better the breeze.  (What?)

Grey June days.

June 16, 2009 | No comments

….always remind me of summer 2002, when I lived  in Massachusetts.  June is lovely there, especially early on.  I remember frequently wearing a sweater there in June.  It’s a nice, relaxing atmosphere today, before Baltimore’s heat and humidity set in.  I’ve been enjoying our window fans at night.  I’m helping with a mural today, so I get to be outside, too.

Spring means less need for sleeping?

March 31, 2009 | 3 comments

lovelylane0309
I am finding that I can’t sleep lately. Friday and Saturday, I had to wake up earlier than usual and get going, and I was out late Friday night, too. I tried to sleep late Sunday morning, but my body resisted. I didn’t feel very tired, though, and had even more trouble getting to sleep on Sunday night. Felt ready to wake up and battle traffic and work yesterday (Monday) on very little sleep. I had more trouble getting to sleep last night, but that could have been the family emergency (more later) that had me cycling like mad against a headwind yesterday afternoon. Maybe, because today I’m pooped. I hope it passes. The idea that I need less sleep/rest with the warming weather is very appealing to someone who likes to stay up reading at night and cycling early in the morning.

Stab winter for St. Patty.

March 17, 2009 | 3 comments

die_frosty_1
I am very ready for winter to be over.  I generally like it.  There are past instances on this blog where I was angry at a lack of winter.  I like wearing sweaters and flannel and cuddling up with the Mrs at night to watch movies, read and sleep.  Cycling when water freezes to your face is exhilarating, if for no other reason, for the looks of amazement you get from other people.  Longjohns are their own unique experience when you have them on under your work pants with nothing under them.
die_frosty_2
Maybe it’s barreling downhill for four miles every morning and getting watery eyes from the wind or my being tired of not being able to wear sandals sans socks.  Or of coming home from community meetings at seven or eight in the dark.  Maybe I’m tired of the bleak landscape on my way to work through the Jones Falls Valley and out of my window on University Parkway.  But I’m really ready for spring now.

I haven’t actually gotten tired of winter since 2003, when I lived in Boston and didn’t blog yet.  It was a particularly bad winter, full of blizzards and April snow.  St. Patty’s day that year was 70 degree weather, with students at Boston College sitting around talking in tanktops next to mountains of snow still piled up.  I remember wearing flip-flops and crunching on snow that April and wearing a jacket in May and June a few times.
die_frosty_3
There was snow on the ground two years ago for St. Patty’s Day, too, after a January that was so warm that plants were budding the week after New Year’s Day.  I guess it could be worse.  I get to work from home this morning for afternoon meetings and can probably get away with sandals later, if I’m willing to have cold feet, which I am.

I have a fridge full of Irish stout, cabbage, homemade soda bread from the Mrs and Irish music.  What, you haven’t heard the new U2 album yet?  It’s excellent.

Pocketful of dimes.

February 27, 2009 | 2 comments

Due to the suspicion that my sinus infection is coming back, being tired and sore and generally feeling like crap, I took the bus to work this morning. It was definitely not the incoming rain. I like riding to work in the rain. I feel as if I should feel like a sell-out for wussing out. But I don’t exactly answer to anyone else about how I get to work. And wussing out of cycling for the first time in over a month for me means taking the bus, not driving some gas-guzzling land yacht or lounging on the backs of servants or something. I have to admit that I have been dying to take some kind of transit since the transit summit the other night. But now my pocketful of dimes is half empty.

Universal weather balancing.

February 19, 2009 | No comments

While I refuse to wear special cycling clothes, I do have to watch the weather when I have a four-mile-outside trip to work.  Yesterday, I busted my ass to get to work before the snow and rain started because I didn’t feel like bringing extra clothes with me.  I just made it.  I literally got into my office, turned on my computer, turned around to look out the window and saw snow.  Today, I got in just before the sun came out and starting drying shit off.  Same thing, but sun when I looked out the window after a wet ride to work.  What a balanced Universe!

OMG, mega cold commute.

January 16, 2009 | 4 comments

The windchill was -2 this morning when I left.  Not counting the chill of riding downhill four miles to work.  Not as cold as some parts of the country.  But very very very cold for Maryland, where our summers are beastly.  It was awesome.  Read more.

Cold early this year?

November 19, 2008 | 7 comments


Geez, it got cold quickly! I just started wearing shoes (not sandals) last week. Fall came so early this year that I feel like I missed it. But I’m glad to have some winter. It started early in the Dale three years ago, but then the winter was warm and depressing afterward. Maybe we’ll get some nice winter wonderland this time around in Charm City? I’d better get some better fenders for my bike!  My storm windows are closed at home, and I actually wore my scarf at lunch yesterday at a nice cafe’.

Wet seat, oh crap.

October 27, 2008 | 3 comments

My bike is getting rained on right now.  And there’s nothing covering the seat.  I am going to have a squooshy ride home.

October is here, and I am happy.

October 1, 2008 | 3 comments

I’ll be happier when I get a new camera to document the earliest autumn in recent memory though. But today, it’s raining, possibly storming later. My knee’s been bothering me, and I enjoy the bus. So I rode in that noisy beast’s belly today. Grabbed a coffee at work just now, crossing the street on cold sandaled feet and under the cheap black umbrella I bought at South Station in Boston eight weeks ago today. It reminds me of fall 2002, when I lived in Boston and when we had a spectacular fall. We went to Salem and celebrated Halloween like never before. Walden Pond on what might be the most beautiful fall day I have ever lived through.

It also reminds me that, this time five years ago, I was speeding (literally, doing like 90 mph because I was an idiot) toward Baltimore to get married. Regardless of how the wedding actually went (what, with certain family members who — admittedly — tried to ruin it because they didn’t like our style and our refusals of their suggestions), October 4th is my favorite day. And regardless of the stressful, infuriating, quick event our wedding was, October 4th was also the day that we got together, back in 1997.

So while people keep asking me how many years October 4th makes, I qualify my answer that it’s eleven for me. My wedding was not when I was committed. It was not even when I was publicly committed. It didn’t change how I feel about my wife at all. Nothing can.

A reading-kind-of-day.

September 9, 2008 | No comments


I wish I could sit home with a good book on a day like today. I like my job. Here I am, hyped up on coffee and with a few minutes to spare. And I’m blogging on company time, on a computer that is supposed to be “monitored.” But, like I said, I like my job. A lot. Being a VISTA is great, and I have a nice little office with nice people in nice little offices up here on the top floor.  I have a lot of lunch meetings, but not today.  Today, I get to do my favorite thing aside from biking up to Charles Village to meet Mrs. P.: get a coffee/snack and hole up in my office for an hour reading a good book.  It’s a good way to spend lunchtime.

I wussed out and took the bus to work today. I rode the bus three days last week, but that’s because The Duke was tire-less. I’ll ride my bike in the rain, and I have. But “severe storms” — no. Not if I don’t have to. Not today. The bus picks me up outside my apartment building and drops me at Penn Station, across Charles Street from my office. It’s a good deal. I am soaked now from a coffee run with a co-worker. My sandals are on the AC vent drying. My bike is at home with new rim tape, new tubes and new tires with frikkin Kevlar in them. I feel like I’m cheating or being disloyal.

I am tired. I went to see Candlebox with my brother Sunday night, tickets to which show (along with a Tshirt) were my birthday gift. It was a hell of a lot of fun, but I was beat yesterday. Yesterday, I worked from 9am – 8pm and ate pasta and green beans when I got home and watched TV and went to bed. I’m still tired, but that could be the weather now that I think of it.

This blog got all “this happened, and I did this, etc.” all the sudden.

Like this bird.

May 12, 2008 | No comments


Geez, with this crappy weather, I found myself like this little bird today, hunkering down in head-to-toe flannel and socks.  I did walk to the market in the rain, with a hoody.  I swung my folded umbrella, to alert people that I was in fact enjoying some rain, rather than forgetful of said umbrella.  Stupid decision, since I went from not feeling well to feeling worse.  I watched Broken Flowers when my work was done.  Drank too much coffee, too.

Did I mention that I learned how to use a sewing machine?

[This is from three years ago, when I had a balcony on which I hang stuff like birdhouses.  I didn't move.  Again.]