Category Archives: My Life

Twas a great weekend . . .

. . . to go by bike! And by weekend, I mean four days — in addition to my usual three-day weekend, I took an extra day to eat up some comp time.

On Thursday afternoon, after a morning making tomatillo salsa and granola, I biked to the library and then on to City Greens Farmers’ Market. On my way to the market, I was wishing for a juicy, refreshing snack — fortunately, they had grapes again — big time yum! In addition to the grapes, I filled my bike crate with eggplant (soon to be baba ganoush), sweet potatoes, and green peppers.

I started Friday with a bike trip to the dentist. I survived the little girl puking in the waiting room, only for the dental hygienist to say she thought I had a little cavity.Continue reading “Twas a great weekend . . .”

Hungry in Chattanooga

So, Chattanooga.  Where were we?

Sadly, I spent most of my visit to “the highest rated aquarium in America” searching for food, since the planners of the Pro Walk Pro Bike networking party felt the need for the food to be spaced out ALL OVER the place.  Lucky for the aquarium inhabitants that I’m not a pescatarian.

This guy, on the other hand, holds no qualms about eating fish.  By the time I found the station with great vegetarian options and refueled, I felt totally wiped out.

I skipped the after party on the Delta Queen in favor of the private party in my hotel room — a little thing I like to call sleeping.  By invitation only, of course.

I woke up bright and early on my last day in Chattanooga for a bakery run (or, more accurately, a bakery bike).  If I’d had any foreshadowing of what was to come, I would have stocked up even more.

The closing plenary of Pro Walk Pro Bike 2010 was scheduled from noon until 2:00pm (and the last breakout session ended at 11:45am).  We shuffled into the room shortly before noon and were met with the sight of a decidedly unlunchlike set-up: just chairs.  No tables and no food.  What???

Stay calm.  Maybe they would talk for an hour and then feed us at 1:00pm.  Not ideal, but I could handle it.

But no, there was no lunch, and everyone else seemed equally baffled and annoyed by this turn of events.  Especially when the closing remarks dragged on PAST two o’clock.

The St. Louis contingent finally managed to escape and make a much-needed lunch stop (was it even lunch at this point?) before embarking on the bus ride back to the Lou.  All-in-all, Pro Walk Pro Bike 2010 was a decidedly amazing conference with an anticlimactic and disappointing finish.

And the thing was, it didn’t have to end that way.  At one point during the closing plenary, one of the speakers had the entire (hungry and tired) audience on our feet, a crowd of people working to push this movement up to and past its tipping point, with our fists in the air, responding enthusiastically to his prompts:

“What do we want?”

“More walking and biking!”

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

And that’s how I want to remember Pro Walk Pro Bike 2010 in Chattanooga.

If it rains on your parade . . .

. . . climb back into bed and let the thunder roll.  Then get up and do some baking.

Sunday morning, the day of the third of four St. Louis Open Streets events, we woke to rain and thunder.  We were scheduled to volunteer as roving route marshals starting at 7:30am, meaning we needed to leave by 7:00am to bike to the volunteer tent.  We woke up early, checked the weather, ate breakfast, and decided that it didn’t make sense to head out into a thunderstorm.  Would there really be anyone on the route anyway?

Tired from Saturday’s long day of gardening, we climbed back into bed to see if the rain would let up so we could venture out.  The rain did not let up, nor did the thunder, not until 11:00am at the earliest, well after our volunteer shift passed.

We rolled out of bed the second time and started in on some baking and cooking: apple crisp, cornbread, and chili — perfect foods for a rainy day.

Though they never officially canceled Open Streets, I’m sure the weather more or less had that effect, which is too bad given the time and work that went into the event.  Also, on the tails of my awesome week at the Pro Walk Pro Bike conference, I was really looking forward to seeing large numbers of people out biking and walking the streets of St. Louis.

There is good news.  We have one more shot at Open Streets this year, the fourth and final event scheduled for Saturday, October 9th.  I’m hoping for some fabulous fall weather and a large turnout.

Strange bean

I really want to tell you all about the amazing time I’m having at the Pro Walk Pro Bike conference and how much fun I’m having exploring the host city (to be revealed in a later post), but time is short, so I bring you a little garden tale.

While picking a very large quantity of green beans on Sunday, Pam remarked, “I’m just glad I haven’t picked any of the black with green stripes variety.”

Only a short time after making that comment, she came across this guy.  Harmless, but not exactly what you want when you’re expecting a handful of green beans!

Driving on car-free Friday

Big Bertha interrupted my usual car-free Friday with a trip to the MO Extension Services office in Clayton for some testing.  (You’ll meet Big Bertha later,when she returns to the apartment and is ready for her photo shoot.)

Our destination was totally bikeable, and also conveniently located near a MetroLink stop.  However, there’s a reason for the “Big” in Big Bertha’s name, and the bike’s cargo carrying capacity, as well as my lack of willingness to put in the necessary walking for public transit with Big Bertha, limited our options.

I arrived in Clayton, and SURPRISE!  The Saint Louis Art Fair is this weekend (yeah, they call it the SAINT LOUIS Art Fair, although it’s in Clayton, but I digress), meaning I was immediately mired in horribly congested traffic, what with the blocked off streets and the vendors’ cargo vans and trucks clogging all of the non-closed streets.  Ugh!

If you go to the Saint Louis Art Fair (in Clayton) this weekend, please take my advice and get there by any means other than driving.  Ride your bike or take p-trans — MetroLink stops right in Clayton, and you’ll end up walking less than you would if you drove and parked really far away.

Anyway, after much ridiculousness and navigating the craziness, I found a parking spot, one with money already in the meter.  Score!  Things were looking up for us.

After Big Bertha’s test (which she failed, but all is not lost), I set out to make the most of the car trip with a Whole Foods run.  I hit the bulk bins hard and fast — and succeeded in my goal to use no new plastic bags in the bulk bin aisle.  Heck, I managed to avoid using any new twist ties 🙂

Errand completed, and too much money spent, I drove to the CWE to drop off the car for Matthew.  He should be walking to the car to drive to his doctor’s appointment right about now, and I’m anticipating his call telling me that it’s not in one piece anymore.  Or maybe that it’s in one severely dented piece.

See, I realized too late (i.e., after paying the meter) that my sweet parking spot on Kingshighway was in a highly dangerous position with high potential to get rear-ended by merging traffic.  Yep, I picked the spot where what was previously a lane of moving traffic turned into a lane of street parking.

After parking and paying the meter, I resisted the strong temptation to just stand there with the car, staring down any potential rear-enders, ready to jump out and protect the car if necessary.  Quite ridiculous, but as much as I don’t even particularly like owning a car, repairing or replacing an accident-damaged vehicle would be less fun.

As it was, I managed to make myself walk away so I could make the next #95 bus and get home for some lunch.  The bus ride was soooo relaxing and pleasant after a morning navigating traffic — what a refined way to travel!