seen on my bike ride

I wonder if there was an incident that caused them to have to put this sign up or if it is just to be funny.  It looks more serious and official than whimsical and kitschy.

I also found myself in some fancy neighborhood at one point, the kind where the houses have real gas lanterns on either side of the driveway gates, and I saw this spectacle:

What do you think they have in the garage that merits parking both of these in the driveway?  It didn't seem to be a temporary thing either, both cars had a large amount of tree debris and the cloth top on the Bentley was even starting to mildew.

Maybe they are just inundated with luxury vehicles and need a good samaritan like me to take some off their hands.  I should have knocked on their door and offered my services.

shift change

I came home from my bike ride to find he had taken over surveillance for Mia.  You can barely tell he's even there.

Don't worry though, he's always watching from the shadows.

Watching and waiting.

The thing I like about him is how he is nice.

we made it to the beach

It hasn't been the nicest weather for Kim's visit but we did at least get down to the water this morning so she could go for a swim.  Afterwards we went for a bike ride and it did actually end up getting sunny enough that I got tan lines from my tank top.

I'm hoping that it will be beautiful tomorrow and that we can spend all day at the beach.  For now we're watching the Golden Girls and trying to motivate to go out for dinner.

another great day off

Even though I really just wanted to curl up in bed all day and avoid the world, I pushed myself to go out for a bike ride.

I made it maybe a mile before I hit a patch of uneven pavement that threw me off my bike, causing me to slide across the pavement before coming to a stop in the grass.

I basically slid in baby cobra so as painful as those look, I think I took most of the impact in my shoulder.  It really hurts and when I move it it pops in and out of place.

I decided it would be wise to tend to my wounds with proper first aid as, knowing me, if I didn't I would surely get some sort of infection or something.  At target I found bandaids that I would have gotten had they been a little sturdier and better equipped for gaping wounds:

At least Nori would have approved when I hobble in to work tomorrow.

senor spielbergo

After an extremely not fun day off John took me out on a bike ride down the beach.  We ended up stoping at a restaurant here to get a bite to eat and he told me that's Stephen Spielberg's boat.  Apparently it's true too as one of the waitresses commented the same thing to her customer, causing the restaurant to erupt in murmurs.

It was pretty cool.  Except that it does block some of the view from the restaurant.

Still, no complaints.  It was a nice way to end a stressful day.

last day of staycation

This morning I got so wound up thinking about the errands I needed to run out west of town that I ended up just rallying to go get coffee and drive all the way out there right when I woke up while the traffic would still be bearable.  I needed to return something to an outlet store and then while I was in the area I decided to go to Ikea.  It didn't take long before I couldn't handle it though, at which point I called Daniel for help.  His immediate response was, "weren't we supposed to go do these errands together today anyways with one of the dogs?"

That plan made a lot more sense than me going alone and barely caffeinated.  As a back up plan Daniel offered that I could come down and walk his dogs with him.  I think he thought that idea would sound boring.  Quite the opposite.

I would much rather hang out with these nice guys than try to organize my life with cheap particle board furniture.  How is he so nice?  He just stands at that door slowly wagging his tail and methodically licking at the glass, as if it's a giant lollipop and he is making his way to freedom.  Sweet sweet freedom.

After dog walking (6 different dogs that each need to be walked individually so they all feel like they get special one on one time) we did make our way to lunch followed by the bed bath and beyond where I was forced to purchase things like fabric baskets to conceal my underwear.  I hate being an adult.

It was a good thing I had a support dog there:

He's so happy and just smiles all the time and doesn't ever bother anybody.  I love him : (.

While a part of me wanted to spend all day playing with the doggies I had also made plans with John to take a bike ride now that he's finally rolling in style on his own set of wheels.  I left Daniel and headed home, still not having showered or brushed my teeth from my unnecessarily rushed morning to run errands.

You can imagine my displeasure when I got home at 5 and discovered that my blue tire was once again flat.  I am not going to have any further comment on the subject as the good part is we still managed to salvage some daylight and get a good ride in.

It's just weirdly cold all of a sudden today and I would have preferred to have been able to ride more during midday.  Despite the chill it was a good time of day for sunset views.

And John even treated me to taco tuesdays for dinner.  The perfect end to my little staycation.  I'm ready for my haircut tomorrow, then heading back to work fresh and refreshed, ready to hopefully get my new uniform!

rabbit rabbit rabbit

source

Jon came down to help me move (which didn't happen) so I asked him to help me pick out the rabbit picture for today.  I eventually had to put an end to it and pick this one for him, otherwise we'd be here all day still looking at pictures of adorable bunnies.  "Just keep scrolling down, just a little further"

It's been fun having Jon here, especially since we didn't end up having to do anything in particular.  As you can imagine there has been a lot of this:

Stink face all around.

We did manage to get off the couch though, we even met up with my friend John and went for a bike ride.  I took some pretty great photos, I present them to you without comment.

It's really worth zooming in on his face for most of those, but I didn't want to cut out the beautiful scenery.  It's like biking through an episode of the golden girls.

It sucks that it's been so gloomy and cold for Jon's surprise vacation but at least I got the afternoon off of work today so I could enjoy his company for a bit longer before he heads back to Boston.  Hopefully he will be back very soon to help me move for real this time.  For now we're going out for lunch though.

I hope you enjoy March's fat cat as much as I do:

rain riding?

Out my window it's bright and sunny but when I went to take my laundry I saw the dark clouds on the horizon.  So I am headed off for a bike ride now while my clothes are in the dryer.  It hasn't started raining yet but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a rain ride.

I'm also just glad to get out of the house and away from that weird cat and whatever it is that I caught him doing earlier:

Because that's comfortable.

hahaha RUDE

Andrew sent me that saying it's me on my beach bike rides.

Since he put the idea in my mind, I decided to celebrate my last day off with a bike ride to the beach.

The water wasn't so cold anymore so I actually went in for a swim at one point later in the afternoon.  

I'm glad I got out when I did, just enough time to enjoy the beautiful weather

Before the clouds rolled in

And I had to ride my bike home before it started raining.  

Yes I did imagine I was in Mario Kart while I rode home.  

love song #4 and biking on south beach

I seem to vaguely remember these "seasons" of which she sings about.  But when you spend your first Monday in February here:

You forget that it's actually winter in some places.

Oh you want a panoramic shot to really get the idea?

"Blue skies sunshine, white sands by the mile."

the hits keep coming

Yesterday when it was time to take Jon to the airport I said, "I'm going to run the trash to the dumpster and then we should get going".  When I returned Jon was standing outside of the apt with his bags in hand looking at me expectantly.  It was then that we realized we both thought the other one had the keys, and Jon definitely closed the door behind him.  The locked door.

My upstairs neighbor Mike tried to break in for me but to no avail.  I guess I feel slightly reassured about the security of my apt, but still I was hoping he would be able to get in.  Instead I had to pay A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY for a locksmith to let me in to my own apartment.  At least we were able to get inside and Jon made it on to the last flight home for the day.

Since I now have zero dollars to my name until whenever I get my first paycheck for my new job I decided to go for a nice cost free bike ride yesterday afternoon.  You can imagine how I felt when I was about 5 miles from home and realized that I had a flat tire.

This being the 2nd time I had taken my bike out I was a little discouraged.  Thankfully the bike store was still open when I got back to it yesterday afternoon and although they weren't particularly compassionate they did fix my flat at an extreme discount.  They said they couldn't help it that I got a flat tire and that it was just an unfortunate accident.  I had to push down all my emotions in to that dark place deep in the pit of my stomach and accept that things are just not going my way.

But of course, when you bottle up all your feelings they inevitably come back to bite you in the ass.  Cut to this morning when I get my bike out to go get coffee and I discover IT HAS A FLAT TIRE AGAIN!

At least this time I got a, "I've never seen this happen before" from the bike shop guys and they did fix it completely for free.  They also gave me a new super thick tire tube that they said should prevent it from happening again.  We'll see.

I'm going to ride it to the beach now, hopefully without incident.  Of course, knowing my luck both wheels will just go flying off once I'm as far away from home as possible.

WISH ME LUCK PLEASE THANK YOU.

my love goes on and on and on and on and ooooooooooooooooon

I took a bike ride the other day to my favorite nursery in hopes of finding some new things to plant in the front garden at my grandfathers house.

It wasn't until I was on the road the nursery is on and I saw the sign for Bliss Road that I remembered I keep trying to take a picture of it.  The problem with bliss road is that it's hard to catch it from the car, so I thought being on my bike it would be perfect.  It was not perfect however.

I was doing fine all the way until bliss road at which point the sidewalk promptly ended, as did the bike lane.  I basically had to time my sprints between cars and just go as hard as I could from side street to side street until I got to the nursery.  As a result I blew past bliss road in a similar fashion as when I'm in the car, unable to get my phone out and take a picture.

And just as usual I completely forgot about bliss road while I was at the nursery and actually would have completely passed it again without realizing or taking a picture had it not been for a very epic run in I had with a curb.  Thanks to the people of Sarasota being unable to share the road with bicyclists I was forced to hit the curb going up on to the sidewalk head on, which was apparently jarring enough to knock the chain off.  I slowed to a stop, thinking 'what am I supposed to do now' when I looked up and saw that I had come to a stop right at bliss road.  It was meant to be.

Plus I got to feel like a real live adult by fixing my bike on the fly, and riding the rest of the way home.  Of course I had Mariah running through my head to help me along my journey.

Soo 69?

I can't believe I missed the actual blessed event of it rolling over to 50,000 but I was pleased when I noticed it said that.  Almost as good as 80,085 miles.

When I bought my car it had 48,000 and some change and I felt like I could use the final miles up to 50 thousand as "fun miles".  Now that I'm passed it I have to start caring and paying attention to my mileage.  No more driving out of my way to go past the beach, or long moonlit drives along the coast.  Now I need to conserve my mileage, especially if I'm going to take my car on the various road trips that have been floating around in my inbox the past few months.

Speaking of conserving gasoline, my grandfather gave me his old bike from the 70s, once I get that bad boy spruced up I can be riding high all around this town.  I thought about trying to add a bike rack to my car but I think it would just look busted.  They didn't even leave room for a spare tire in my car, much less a bike rack.

Maybe I should ride my bike on all these road trips I want to go on!  That would get me the shapely dancer legs I've always longed for.  Hmmm, this isn't a half bad idea.  I suggest Andrew start researching bike trips that we can go on.