Equines, Pats and Whippets

I think Portland poop scoop laws should extend to horses.

In my quest to navigate my new neighborhood, I struck out on yet a new route in my commute to the house for the "van exchange." This time I decided to be adventurous and follow out the road that runs parallel to my apartment. As it turns out, this is the perfect route. There is only one little hairy intersection/jog that is a bit life-threatening, especially if you have a big semi-truck turning left and half of its trailer is encroaching on the right-side bike lane (true story. I STILL have all my limbs). Anyway, after you get past having to become a cyped (a hybrid between a cyclist and a pedestrian. I think I startled the pedestrian as I swerved into the crosswalk to avoid getting flattened by the semi's tires) in that little bit, it's fairly low traffic until you get to the Springwater Corridor, which has always been my favorite bike trail in the Portland area.

As I'm cycling along Springwater, I start having to dodge foot-high piles of crap left on the multi-purpose path by the horses that have passed by previously, MANY of them. For a good segment of the path, it was smelling like a cow pasture...er...horse pasture. Cow/horse. Poop smells pretty much the same, only horses' waste may smell a little grassier. It started me to thinking about what that would look like if people had to scoop up after their horses, big packs on either side of the saddle with hot steaming horse excrement. That would probably curtail horse rides on city trails pretty fast.

I also observed that the closer I get to Portland the more "Pat" moments I have, those moments where you encounter someone and it takes you a really long time to figure out if they're male or female, EVEN when they are wearing a tank top AND I was wearing my contacts! There was one where there was a good 2 minutes or so where I was going back and forth, "male...no female...no male...no DEFINITELY female...wait...no male...no..." I'm STILL not sure, really.

Another amusing sight was there must have been some kind of organized bike ride going on or something because just a few miles into the path I passed under a great big banner with the words "Rest Stop" emblazoned on it. There was a big tent and tables of refreshments and brightly hued whippets EVERYWHERE in various stages of repose. Have you ever seen a whippet (I have blatantly stolen this term from a friend who used this term to describe the rabid Portland cyclist) at rest? It is truly a rare moment, and a little startling, all that spandex and neon, motionless and not streaking by in a rude blur.

Anyway, I think this is going to be my go-to route for commuting to Northeast. It's the least unnerving and quite enjoyable (also probably has the higher likelihood of a longer life expectancy--mine) and I think I actually made it in better time than I have in my previously more direct routes. Listen to me..."made it in better time." Pardon me, my whippet is showing.

The X-Files: Day 1

Wow, long time no blog. This is a bit of a departure from my typical blog topics (parenting, wifery, sardonic observations...okay, maybe not the sardonic observations), but I thought it might help me get back on that blog horse again and help ease the pain of what I anticipate to be a bit of an ego deflating experience.

I titled this X-Files because that's what I keep misnaming my upcoming adventure into pop culture (and because I suspect this experiment is going to have applicants with more than a passing resemblance to some of the creatures on that show).

You may or may not be familiar with a show that up to this point has been only in the UK called the X-Factor. It is the carefully nurtured brain child of Simon Cowell. As I understand it (having only seen clips of it on Youtube), it is similar to American Idol, except that there is no limitation on age (that's where I come in) and the acts can vary (I believe). Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X_Factor_(U.S.) has a good description of the process. You will note that they are already setting attendance records at their auditions, with New Jersey seeing 20,000 hopefuls. Yeah. I pretty much anticipate I have about a snowball's chance in hell. This is a process that is 99% sheer luck and 1% talent.

When I heard about this coming to the US last year, I decided, "What the heck? Nothing ventured, nothing gained," except I will be venturing my time and gas money to drag myself up to Seattle where the audition is to be held. Tomorrow, Tuesday, is registration day, and I am told to show up as early as 6 a.m. with two pieces of ID (one photo, I guess to prove I'm not under the age of 12, which is the only age limitation), signed wavers, banners (yeah, so I can be one of those idiots that you see in the background as the camera does a crowd sweep of the masses), along with various other items they have helpfully suggested to bring (hats and sunglasses being among them. Obviously, an LA person wrote up this list. Rain slickers and umbrellas were naively absent from the list). Today, I'm driving up to stay with a friend in Seattle, so I can show up bleary-eyed tomorrow morning at sunrise and huddle in a sea of faceless humans for an untold period of time so I can begin my walk/wait of shame. I plan to blog as time permits (and I suspect there is going to be A LOT of that) because, if nothing else, I just might (Oh, please. Who am I kidding? I will MOST CERTAINLY) glean some all too precious blog fodder from this experience.