Public Streets and Out of the 'Hood

Monday morning I woke up feeling half stoned. And not the sort that has led to profit for Taco Bell with ingenius concepts like "4th Meal" and Mountain Dew slushies... more like several people stood around and threw rocks at me.

I should have taken some Ibuprofen before I went to bed on Sunday.

The thing with a TW200 (I refer to mine as "the Wombat") is that they don't go fast. And by not fast, I mean slow. It likes to cruise between 30-35 mph. If that's all it did, it'd be happy.

But we live in a wide open, flat, rural landscape with long, straight, country roads. Roads that stay straight and reasonably traffic free  for miles at a stretch. Roads where most people open it up and regularly hit 70 between stop signs.

Between the Wombat's red line at 55mph and my beginning-rider-feels-like-light-speed-at- 20, leaving the womb-like comfort of the neighborhood or private roads (and I did put 40 miles on the odo a few weekends ago on some forest roads, of which I have no pictures) took an act of bravery I wasn't sure I posessed.
At some point, I have to cross the road, right?

So the BF and I saddled up the ponies and made a basic plan.

First, the Wombat was going to need gas. The TW is reported to get about 80 mpg. Great mileage but still doesn't get you far when you only have a 1.8 gallon tank. With 97 miles on the odometer, the Wombat had yet to see a gas station in real life. (The Wombat's been living in the BF's parents' barn. We've put plenty of miles on it on their private road.)

$7.15 later, we'd topped up the tank in both the TW and the BF's DR650 and did some serious damage to a 32 oz Pepsi before heading through our downtown district on our way out of town.



Matt checks the Wombat before we leave the driveway

We planned our course to avoid sensored traffic lights that don't know we're there, and as much traffic as possible. Naturally, that landed us on a senseless traffic light sensor in the midst of going-home traffic right next to a popular church. Unfortunately, none of that church traffic was going to help us out by needing to make a left turn at the signal where we were stuck. So after 3 full cycles of the signal, I got to legally run my first stop light.

Much to the dismay of the nearby traffic.

So, on that note, Yes. California vehicle code 21800 does specify that when a traffic signal sensor fails to sense traffic, it is permissable to procede through the light after determining it's safe to do so. California vehicle code also says that all traffic lights are supposed to be equipped with sensors that will sense traffic such as motorcycles and bicycles-- but in the meantime, at least someone in Sacramento has the good sense to realize it's not a good idea to leave motorcyclists and bicyclists stuck at stubborn traffic lights for weeks on end.

Our route took us through some lazy neighorhood roads and almost-deserted-on-a-weekend streets that didn't mind our comfortable 35 mile an hour gait. And then, there I was, at the stop sign of a tiny cross street, staring at the Big Road.

This was the one that had to be done. This was the one that was going to test just how fast the Wombat and I can go. (For the locals, it was Houston/Visalia Road heading east.)

After a couple of deep breaths, and several checks for traffic, I turned onto the road and got up to speed as fast as I could. Holding the throttle at 50 took some effort, but the Wombat and I were good.

I didn't worry about traffic, I kept my head up and my eyes on the horizon and we just went for it. Passed Cutler Park, around the big curve, and over the river till we made the turn on to El Rio.

At this point, we're out of the town we live in (Visalia) and pretty much in the town I grew up in (Ivanhoe) albeit, out in the boonies. I've travelled El Rio many a time by car and bicycle and never been impressed with the quality of the road.



TW at Charter Oak
 

On the motorcycle? Damn glad I spent a weekend on those forest roads learning to stand on the pegs and just throttle over whatever gaping holes might suddenly appear beneath me.

So once I was relatively certain that what should be a lazy, shady country road that peacefully winds along the river bed, wasn't going to kill me, I settled into it and and relaxed a little... ok. I wasn't relaxed, I was on the watch for psychotic, feral dogs that might run after me from any number of directions.

But we made it to the next intersection unscatched and proceded out to Charter Oak. That's the Wombat parked in front of the plaque that explains that this was the spot where our county was formed. Yes, there's a giant oak tree too, just not in the picture, hence "Charter Oak." By this time I was feeling pretty good.

 All was going well and I was feeling like I might not suck at riding a motorcycle afterall. It's even kinda fun!


the Tipsay Wombat and Dr. Feelgood east of Venice Hill, Ivanhoe, CA.

 Our continued route took us further into the countryside, riding along stretches of country roads lined with citrus orchards with the wind in our... well, not hair. We wear our helmets-- and not just because there's a law that says we have to. But I have great Olympia Airglide gear and the wind just vents right through it. It was a beautiful day to be outdoors doing pretty much anything really.

We tried to remember to snap lots of pics of the bikes out and about since we don't have many photos yet.

We stopped by this pond and took some pics. The cow that was there was camera shy and moved away. It's already pretty hot and dry down in our valley, so there aren't many wild flowers to stop next to. I found some little yellow ones growing on a bush that looked very angry-- lots of spikey,pointy things growing on it.

A few laps around the country roads and we stopped for a bit beside a cornfield in the shade of some oak trees.

Got a great shot of Dr. Feelgood (The BF claims his bike's full name is Dr. James "Jigsaw" Feelgood) taking a break in front of the cornfield.

It was a nice spot to rest for a bit and discuss further plans and the impending need for lunch.

We have friends in Exeter, so I sent off a text message and we headed in that direction. Which meant another road where 50 mph wasn't going win me many friend with the rest of the traffic.

Nevertheless, and despite the BF's irritation at my lagging behind him on the open road, I managed to keep the throttle open and not be in too many peoples' way as we made our way to downtown Exeter. Where following the BF proved to be an exercise in staying calm and zenlike.

Exeter, CA

He never cancels his turn signals so I never knew for sure which way we were turning. I finally put the bike in a parking space. Exeter is a tiny little town, there is absolutely no just cause for circling it 20 times on the bikes.

We had lunch at VIP pizza without hearing back from our friend.

It was only after we were done with lunch that it occurred to either of us to have actually used the helmet locks on the bikes. Which would save us some table space in restaurants, but our jackets are still a bulky burden when off the bikes. Oh well, we'll adjust.

Not much going on in Exeter, CA on a Sunday afternoon. So we set a homeward course and got back on our bikes.

Pulled into the driveway with 60.1 miles on the trip odometer. Not to bad for my first time on the open road.

But I wish I'd known how sore I was going to be in the morning. It's gonna be awhile before I'm ready to ride around the world.










Burgeoning Biker Chick

 It started with the DR650.

The BF finally caved to his yearly bout of bike fever and next thing I knew, we had a couple of shiny new 2012 Suzuki DR650SEs waiting to hit the open road with us.

Problem is, we were less ready to hit the open road on a  couple of 650cc dual sports than the dual sports themselves.

And we are both old enough to recognize this. So it was never our plan to buy a couple of bikes, throw on a backpack, and ride to glory.

The BF has slightly more motorcycle riding experience than I do. But only slightly.

I dated a guy who briefly owned some sort of street bike. It was blue. He taught me how to ride it, but I never left the parking lot. (I also never dropped it.) (It was a Kawasaki, 650cc, ummmm...errrrrr.... K-something.... maybe had an X in it? "naked street bike" is what he referred to it as. It was not a Ninja. It was blue. I am not a fan of all these models that consist of nothing but letters and numbers.)

So there we were, the current BF and I, he in his late 30's, me in my early 40's, with probably 6 hours of combined motorcycle riding experience between us, staring at brand spankin new DR650s.

Now what?

We had every intention of taking the motorcycle safety course ASAP. Looking back now, I'm not sure why we didn't do it before we bought bikes. But somehow the actual purchasing and taking possession part came before the safety course. Nevertheless, we were not fool enough to think all it takes is a helmet and a copy of "Born to be Wild" on the iPod to start racking up the miles.

So our plan was to spend a Saturday morning at the BF's place of employment, riding the bikes around the lot. (The BF is a mechanic, so his place of employment features a significant amount of parking lot and happens to be located directly next to the Suzuki dealership, which is how the bikes got to be in our possession to begin with. It turns out, a man cannot look at motorcycles all day without eventually owning one-- or two-- or....)

Then we would practice riding up and down the side street for awhile which would allow us some more space for working through gears and getting the feel of things at traffic speeds-- the side street, btw, totally deserted on a Saturday morning.

Things were going splendidly. My DR had been set in the "low" seat height for me, but it was still a couple of inches higher than I would have liked. But I could touch the ground with both feet at the same time and could get at least one foot stable, if not flat. This was the primary reason we ended up with the 650 as opposed to any other bike we considered. It was the only one that was low enough from the git-go that I could even touch the ground!

We'd opted not to consider a 200-250cc bike because they just don't have the gusto to do the 70mph+ speeds of the local freeways... we don't want to do a lot of freeway riding, but if we need to, we need to be able to keep up and get out of the way!

But back to our Saturday morning practice ride: After making several successful tours of the parking lot in all of up to 2nd gear, we decided to hit that side street.

All I had to was pull out of the driveway and make a sweeping left turn onto the side street. I pulled in the clutch, shifted into 1st, let off the brake, let out slowly on the clutch and twisted slightly on the throttle-- riding motorcycles takes a lot of coordination-- and took off smooth and easy.

About halfway across the street it occurred to me that I was not going to complete the turn in the space remaining. What I really needed was to be going slightly faster and leaning a little more. You can't really turn a bike, motor or otherwise, by just turning the handlebars. There's this whole leaning, counter steering, gyroscopic stabilization thing that has to happen.

Since I was not comfortable with the notion of gassing and leaning, I decided I would simply stop, duck walk a tad, start over.

I pulled in the clutch, missed the rear brake pedal with my right foot (not too big a deal, I'd already come to the conclusion that the stock brake pedal was going to need some modification as my foot consistently missed it,) and then my gloved fingers slipped right off the front brake lever.

Now I was enjoying that slow-motion phenomenon while I assessed all that had just happened and gone wrong, what was happening, what was going to happen and what my options for dealing with it all were, as I coasted toward the opposite curb at-- yes I looked at the speedometer-- about 3 miles an hour.

I didn't have time to grab for the brake again. I still had the clutch in. I doubt hitting the kill switch was going to help.



After ORIF surgery. You can still see the crack in the Ulna.

I hit the curb with the front wheel. The bike came to an abrupt halt. I let go of the clutch and the engine stalled. The front wheel had hit the curb exactly parallel, so the force of the stop threw the bike's weight sideways.

That's 360 pounds of hot bike that's leaning a little too far a little too fast and is threatening to land on my right leg. I don't think so!

So I jumped off.
The bike went down. I landed on the sidewalk, on my feet, clear and safe.... uh uh uh.... step, step, TRIP! FALL!!!

Yup. That's the story of not just my first bike crash and my worst injury to date.

I tripped and fell! DOH!

I had my left wrist tucked underneath me and broke 3 bones: Snapped my radius, busted the ulna, and cracked a carpal. I have never broken a bone before!

The BF picked up my bike, eventually realized that I was not ok and took me to the urgent care.



yes, the scar has smoothed out

A week later he had the bent front brake lever replaced, the rear brake pedal replaced and modified, and the seat replaced with a gel seat that brought the seat height down another inch...
and I had a fancy surgery to bolt my radius back together.

I missed two months of work from a job that I dearly LOVE, at a small business that I own, in an industry where I can't really just call a temp agency. I found out how my health insurance worked, I found out how my accident insurance worked. I thanked my lucky stars for having both of them, and went through some melancholy times, missing my job, and not being able to do jack shit with my time off, since I happen to be left-handed.

The worst part? The BF's mom did not know we had bought motorcycles!

Having to explain how I broke my wrist did not go over well. And it turns out she might like motorcycles a little less than her son originally expected.

I got back to work at the first of the year (2013) and a few weeks later, despite the grief my orthopedic surgeon plainly expressed, I got back on the horse that threw me.

I think the hi-viz jacket gives me super powers.

Up and down the cul de sac.Up and down. U-turns in the cul de sac. Up and Down.

This is scary now.

We ordered a lowering link and dropped the bike another inch and a half. I can almost flat foot with both feet now.

I finally ventured out of the cul de sac. Rode all around the neighborhood. Remembered to turn on and off the turn signals. I was doing pretty good.

But when all was said and done, I still came back to our garage and put the bike away feeling more relieved to have lived through it than stoked that I was riding.

Meanwhile, the BF was getting better and better, and gaining more confidence with his riding.

I started worrying that the BF was going to lose patience with me. That he'd be ready to get out of our neighborhood and onto "real" roads soon while I was still trying to avoid hyperventilating every time I put it in gear.

I considered the possibility that riding a motorcycle might not be my "thing." That, as much as I like bikes, and like the concept of riding, maybe I was destined to read other peoples' ride reports on ADV while I went about my adventuring on 4 wheels.

I worried a little how that would affect our relationship? We're talking dual sports here. Not cushy Gold Wings with cup holders and air conditioning... this is not a two up sort of motorcycle relationship.

Meanwhile... while I was still grounded with the busted wrist, the BF came across the opportunity to purchase a Honda Fat Cat.

In case you are unfamiliar, it's sort of a 2 wheel ATV. Or a 200cc motorcycle with really fat tires.

Somehow, the Fat Cat does not register in the MIL's mind as a motorcycle. When the BF and his dad brought it home, she was pretty excited about "putting a track in the field" like when the BF and his sister were young and they had a quad.

So, since somehow it was totally cool if the teenage grandkids rode a motorcycle, but the middle aged adults were fools for such nonsense-- we taught the teenagers to ride the FatCat.

Once I was cleared to ride again, I was reluctant to get on the Fat Cat myself. I can't quite say why. Just sort of a "I already have a motorcycle" sort of thing. But eventually, I got on the contraption...

WOW!

The Fat Cat is different than the DR650. I mean, DUH, right? But what's different about riding the Fat Cat is that when you kick it into 1st gear, it doesn't do anything. It just sort of idles. You don't actually start moving until you rev the throttle a tad. And once you are underway, you are moving so slowly that it's perfectly feasible to keep your feet down in case you misjudge the balance thing. So slow that you can putter along in a straight line and have plenty of time to get the feel for the controls.

I really liked riding the Fat Cat.

Suddenly, I had a better understanding of why so many riders suggest starting on a "small" bike. I think "small" might not be the best way to describe what you want in a starter bike. It's not about displacement alone-- a Ninja 250 is faster than our DRs. There's all this other stuff about gearing and engine efficiency and stuff that determines how bikes work.

Jake didn't need teaching, he grew up racing.

Ultimately, it's not weight or displacement-- or even speed, exactly-- that determines why you want a "small" bike to start off with.

I think I have it boiled down to muscle memory. With the DR650, once I put it in 1st gear and let off that clutch, I am going! About 10 miles and hour once the clutch is all the way out. Which doesn't seem fast, until you're going 10 miles an hour on a 360 pound bike and you don't instinctively know where the clutch is, where the brake levers and pedals are, where the turn signals are, where the kill switch and the horn are. At 10 mph, you are going fast enough that you need to be paying attention to where you are going. You need to get your feet on the pegs so you don't rip them off. You don't have time to look down at your instrument panel, you need to pay attention to where you're going and what's in front of you.

You don't have time to develop the muscle memory so that you will know where everything is and instinctively be able to determine what needs to be grabbed and where it is.

I suddenly understand how you can build that muscle memory on a smaller-- slower-- bike, and then move up to a bigger bike and that muscle memory will translate fairly smoothly.

Like learning to drive stick shift-- once you know, you can drive another car with a manual transmission, it might take some getting used to, but you still know what you're doing.

So I shared my revelation with the BF and we had a discussion.

Then we started looking at options in the dual sport world for low displacement bikes that are geared low enough to putter in 1st.

Then I happened across a ride report on ADV about a guy who took his TW for a 3600 mile ride...towing a trailer.

A Yamaha TW200 is a 200cc dual sport bike with fat tires-- but not as fat as the Fat Cat. They are slow as heck and everyone I've heard say anything about them says they are hella fun to ride.

Some research, some shopping, and the realization that a new TW cost the same as my health insurance deductible and I became the proud owner of what I've affectionately dubbed "the Tipsy Wombat" (get it? It's a "TW")

The Wombat has turned out to, indeed, be a great starter bike for me. It's small and light weight with no modifications required. The controls are very intuitive for me so I haven't had to spend much time looking for levers and pedals, they are just where I think they ought to be.

We're finally scheduled for our MSF course-- by the time my wrist was healed, our local dates were filling up fast.

I still have the DR650 and have every intention of growing into her...but for the time being, me and the Wombat are having a blast going slow and enjoying the view.

Lamest Bike Crash EVAR

Yup, it's busted!

It's a Suzuki DR650se dual sport. Very cool. The BF and I now have matching ones and we were very keen on taking the safety course, getting some practice miles on the bikes and then embarking on a daring life of on-road/off-road cross country adventure!

We took posession of the bikes on Thursday, October 25-- maybe that wednesday-- and our plan for the morning of Saturday, October 27 was to go down to where the BF works (where the bikes were) and get the hang of riding the bikes by puttering around the parking lot a few times.

It's been awhile since I road any sort of motorcycle and the coordination required to shift and break all in the right sequence was something I wanted a little practice with before braving any sort of open road.

Yes. I dropped the bike right away. These are dual sports-- they have higher clearance than the average on-road bike and their center of gravity is higher than I'm used to. So-- !!! -- over we went, from a dead stand still right there in the parking lot. Not too hard on my pride, I expected I'd topple it over pretty early in the game. The dang thing weighs 350 pounds, once it started to lean too far to one side, I pretty much let it go and just tried to get out of the way.

No harm, no foul.

We picked ourselves up, laughed it off and proceded about aforementioned parking lot puttering. I was doing pretty awesome-- got all the way up to 7 miles per hour a couple of times, but never out of 1st gear.

Which we had suspected would be a problem. So, Part 2 of our plan was to take the bikes down to the corner and spend some more time riding up and down the nearly-deserted-on-a-Saturday-morning side street which would give us an opportunity to work through the gears.

All I had to do was make a wide, sweeping turn to the left out of the driveway onto the side street. I'm not sure what failed to go as planned, but the bike didn't turn when I told it to turn and it didn't stop when I told it to stop.

About halfway across the street I realized I was not going to complete the turn in time. So I decided to just stop and start over.

I pulled in the clutch, and reached for the front brake lever. My best guess is that my gloved hand slipped off the brake lever, while revving the engine at the same time-- fun things that twist throttles are. So there I am, in neutral, with the engine revving and not coming to a stop, watching the curb approach and trying to assimilate all this data flowing into my brain. At about 11 in the morning. I maintain that if we'd started this project at 4 in the afternoon all would have gone much better-- my brain genuinely does not function at its most efficient before 1 p.m.

And thus I proceded to execute the lamest bike crash ever: The front tire hit the curb at less than 5 miles per hour and the bike stalled. I lost balance and, in what I imagine was a desire to avoid having the now hot bike fall on me, I made a rather sloppy dismount. Tripping on the sidewalk and landing with my knee on the sidewalk and my torso in the cool, damp grass of the landscaping of the Visalia Pathology building on Dunworth Street.

Unfortunately, in an attempt to avoid hitting my helmet hard enough against anything that would result in the cost of replacing the helmet, I tucked my left arm up underneath myself and proceded to break 3 bones in my wrist.
My left wrist. I have mentioned that I'm left-handed, haven't I?

So I have since had a fancy surgery and am now being held together with titanium plates, pins, and screws. And, as you can imagine, have amassed far more in medical bills than the cost of a new helmet.

Official word is that I am out of work till January 1, 2013.

And yes, I will be getting back on the bike when all is healed and moving normally again. And yes, we have every intention of taking the motorcylce safety course. And maybe in the future I'll tell the story so it sounds like I went down in a blaze of glory and was lucky to escape with a mere broken wrist... because the bike crash at 5 mph/falling off a stalled bike story is pretty lame and doesn't come close to earning the "motorcylces are evil" and/or "650 cc's is too much bike for you!" admonishments that I keep having to put up with.













A Fish with a Motorcycle

Every spring for the last several years, the BF goes through a period of "motorcycle fever."


It's not that I don't want a motorcycle. It's just that, much in the same way it took us years to agree on what canoe to purchase, we haven't traditionally agreed on what motorcycles to get.


I am all about cruisers. Yes, I like me a Harley Davidson, despite many many boys over time making many a sarcastic comment about their mechanical reliability-- or lack thereof.


Not to mention the exorbitant cost of a Harley, and the aknowledgement that I am likely to lay my first bike down. Possibly several times, and with potential damage to both myself and the bike. which is why I had it in my head that I would love a Honda Rebel from about the time I was 15.


But boys will be boys and girls often grow up understanding very little about things like engines and power bands. And so it was, back when I still weighed 115 lbs and most of it was AquaNet-- that I got talked out of my beloved starter-bike because-- all the guys insisted-- a 250cc bike was not suitable for maintaining highway speeds of 70+ mph.


So I ended up never buying a motorcycle and I was in my early 30's before I learned to ride a motorcycle of any sort.

The fellow I was keeping company with at the time went out and bought himself a shiny new blue Kawasaki something-with-letters-and-numbers, 650cc naked street bike. Which was pretty fun to ride on the back of.

He and I spent an afternoon in the parking lot of my old high school with me learning how to ride the bike.

Well... I mean, it's a bike; riding a motorcycle is a lot like riding a bicycle (except for that "you never forget" part, but I'll get to that later.) The part that you really have to learn is the shifting and braking part. Pretty much, there's a lever and/or pedal for every hand and foot and they all have to be manipulated at just the right time in just the right sequence.

Nevertheless, I spent that afternoon in the high school parking lot doing pretty good at riding that bike. It was a heavy sonuvabitch-- I mean, not really when you compared it to other bikes so much as compared to then 145 lb me. But I didn't drop it! I didn't fall off of it, and I got pretty good at making turns and shifting gears.

So that was the next time I seriously considered owning a motorcycle, in my early 30's. That boyfriend was all about his street bike. I am notsomuch a fan. The naked streetbike thing wasn't so bad, but crotch-rockets and street bikes are not my idea of what's sexy in motorcycles.

So I started doing some serious bike browsing. I still wanted a cruiser, I still liked those Honda Rebels, and "all the boys" in my life at that time still insisted that 250cc's wasn't going to truck my happy butt down the I-5 at the speed of traffic.

But here's the "problem" with buying a motorcycle-- there aren't many options between 250cc's and 650cc's. And a lot of people feel pretty strongly that 650cc's is too much power to start off with.

Well... before I made any personal motorcycle purchses back in my early 30's, the fellow  with the blue Kawasaki wrecked it good. He actually walked away relatively unscathed for a guy who told me that he "came to" about 25 feet from the bike. But he didn't rush out and get a new bike, and he and I eventually went our seperate ways... bikelessly.

Life went on for me and I was pretty busy having adventures of other sorts, so I just never got around to owning a motorcycle.

And then the (current and  BF started coming down with "motorcycle fever" every spring.

The BF wanted dual-sport bikes. In fact, he insisted that dual sports were the only option. *sigh*

In case you are unfamiliar, a dual-sport bike is intended to be some sort of hybrid, Franken-bike cross-breed between a dirtbike and a street bike: part motorcross, part Ninja.

So not what I wanted. But the BF says he knows himself well enough to know that he will only destroy a low-riding cruiser, trying to explore "back" roads... by "back" he really means "dirt."

I have never had so much as an inkling to get on a dirt bike. I'm not greatly attracted to quads, I might like a buggy... but if I'm going off road, I want my Jeep.

I think it took 2 springs for the BF to convince me that dual sports would be cool. Maybe he convinced me, maybe I experienced a slight paradigm shift, either way, I started seeing his point about broadening our adventure possibilities-- oh! I know what did it:

That. That's a sexy bike. Something about a BMW touring bike. It's like those Land Rover commercials-- I want to go where it's going,  just want to scream "take me with you!"

So once I stopped hearing "dual sport" and started translating it to "adventure touring bikes," I was way more on board with the plan.

Then this spring (2012) came and went and the BF didn't say "motorcycles" once. This year we bought a Jumping Jack trailer-- which still hasn't earned its rightful blog post, but all in good time-- so I thought maybe that had him distracted from the seasonal bout of bike fever for the year.

And then it was September. And suddenly all I heard was "motorcycle."

"Motorcycle. Motorcycle. Motorcycle... motorcycle. MOTORCYCLE! motorcycle? MOTORCYCLE MOTORCYCLE MOTORCYCLEMOTORCYCLEMOTORCYCLEMOTORCYCLE MOTORCYCLE MOTORCYCLE MOTORCYCLEMOTORCYCLEMOTORCYCLEMOTORCYCLEMOTORCYCLEMOTORCYCLEMOTORCYCLE!!!!!"

Really. I heard it way more than that, but if I typed it out as many times as I heard it, you'd get as sick of it as I was.

This time it was bad. Before I knew it, he had 17 windows open on the computer and he kept spewing out specifications and telling me I was supposed to look at all those windows and tell him what I "thought."

He was very interested in the Suzuki DR-Z400S.

It made perfect  sense. They're reasonably priced and very capable for 400cc's. Plus, it represents that near-mythical engine size between the 250cc  and the 650cc range. Enough power to reasonably travel at highway speeds, not so much power for the beginning rider to get into trouble right out the door.

I saw one immediate problem in the specs page for the bike: a stock seat height of 36.8 inches.

I am smart enough to know that I should not try to ride a motorcycle if I can't even touch the ground.

But my ever-optimistic BF was quick to consider that this style of bike offers some squishy suspension, which, he figured, could lower it by a couple of inches just by sitting on it. So he dragged me to our local dealer to do just that.

Uh uh. No way. My feet did not reach the ground. Research into lowering options, seat shaving, etc, produced a disappointed BF who had to reluctantly admit that the 400 was not likely to be the right bike for me.

The Kawasaki KLR is just big and heavy. Yamaha does not even have a dog in the fight (The BF is too OCD and pays too close attention to the minutae to fall for the notion that putting turn signals on a dirt bike make it street legal) and Honda's line up is even taller than the 400... the only reasonable options came down to the Suzuki DR650 or a BMW G 650 GS.

Mind you... the Beemer comes with a 31.5 inch seat height right out of box and an MSRP that's still under $10K. And sexy as hell.

But the Suzuki was not only less expensive, but the dealership is next door to the BF's place of work. He could see those bikes everyday.

Next thing I knew, I had a message from the BF one afternoon announcing that financing was secured and bikes had been ordered.

It was official, we would soon be adventure/touring motorcycle enthusiasts.

Stupid Yellow T-Shirts

Two years ago, we successfully survived the first BIG FAMILY DISNEYLAND OUTING, consisting of the BF's family, the BF's brother-in-law's family, some close friends of the BF's family and possible some extra people that remain complete strangers to us to this day.

The BF (boyfriend) got really carried away during the planning phase of BFDO#1 and somehow convinced me that it would be fun to play parents for a day.

Ok, maybe not "parents," so much as "Cool uncle and aunt" by kidnapping the two older children in our lives and giving them a whole extra day in the parks before their parents arrived and expected them to do stupid stuff like behave.

Now, choosing to take responsibility for 2 12-year-old kids who are, in reality-- thanks to the miracle of the modern family-- in no way related to either of us, or eachother, is something that only sounds like a good idea when you've been drinking.

Taylor is our "nephew" only because we get tired of trying to explain why he's such a big part of our lives (Taylor's mom has been friends of the BF's family forever,) and Savannah is the BF's sister's husband's oldest daughter from a previous marriage.

Which means that they aren't actually related to either the BF or myself, and since they aren't actually related to eachother either, they can practice flirting with eachother in that bizarre and annoying way that 7th graders practice flirting-- by beating the crap out of each other as an excuse to touch each other while they adamantly insist that they hate each other.

Who's idea was it for us to be responsible for them for a full 24 hours without any backup?

Like many other groups enjoying an outing at a crowded amusement park, we decided to get matching t-shirts.

Now, seeing as how we'd already been through the "how are we going to tell his mother?" panic of losing someone else's kid, we opted for the absolutel most visible t-shirts we could find. So we opted for those intensely flourescent, high-visibility yellow construction worker t-shirts that you can get at places like Orchard Supply Hardware.

Then we figured we'd have a little fun with the shirts, and I made graphics to iron on to the backs of the shirts. Mine, the BF's and Savannah's all said, "I can't believe we have to wear these stupid yellow t-shirts." Taylor's read, "I'm the reason we have to wear these stupid yellow t-shirts."

The shirts were a hit! Our reputation preceded us, Cast members would remark as we went through their lines "HEY! You're the yellow shirt family!" As though we were the subject of much backstage conversation.

While standing in line, people would read our shirts. They'd smile, or guffaw lightly, until they read Taylor's shirt-- then they would ask, "Ok, what did you do?" and Taylor would get to tell the story of his great adventure over and over again, always starting off with, "I didn't lose them, they lost me!"

Two years later, we are now about to venture off on our 2nd BIG FAMILY Disneyland outing. It will, once again, be a big trip with lots of people and, like many families, we considered the importance of being able to recognize members of our party at a glance-- probably at a distance... as they are running in the opposite direction. So we started thinking of ideas for new matching t-shirts.

Taylor and his family will not be making it on this trip. They have other vacation plans this fall. Shame, this time Indiana Jones will be off line, so Wilbur had a chance to make it through the trip without having a melt-down.

So the BF had a great idea, this time we'll wear ridiculously bright orange t-shirts! And the backs will say, "At least this time we don't have to wear those stupid yellow t-shirts." And then we'll take pictures of all of us wearing them and text them to Taylor all day so he knows we're thinking of him, and to rub it in that we're at Disneyland without him.

Paddling Uphill

 

BF and I on the day we brought our baby home.

You'll often hear people talk about there being two types of motorcycle riders: those who have gone down, and those who will.

We knew going into it that owning a canoe would be a lot like riding a motorcycle: eventually we would get wet-- and not on purpose.

The blogging of our adventure is long overdue:

It was last summer; July 2011. Our local river-- the St. John's-- was running high and fast, which is not to say much, it's not a very big river and even at it's fastest, the current is maybe 4 miles an hour. I really ought to learn nautical terms like "knots" or something, but no one would know what I was talking about, so just figure 4 miles an hour.

It was also hot. HOT. We're talking like 113 degrees Fahrenheit or so.

The problem with canoing our local river during the summer season is that we park downstream and then paddle upstream, against the current. Which is a lot of work that results in much internal bickering among the crew. But it is kinda cool that we can do it and then we turn the rig around and get to leisurely float back downstream to end up where we started. Which means that we can do a trip with only one vehicle.

That day was hot, did I mention it was like the hottest day of the summer? Like 120 degrees?

BF at his end of the canoe-- out of whacking range.

We planned to do a long day on the river. We packed up the ice chest with Gatorade and water, sodas, and a couple of beers. We went to Port-of-Subs and got sandwiches for lunch and added them to the ice chest. I put my cell phone, car keys, id, and miscellaneous items in my tiny little dry bag and hooked it to the front thwart.

The BF attached his Garmin Rhino GPS to his thwart.

We parked the car, unloaded the canoe, and hauled the dang thing through the small parking lot at the end of Lover's Lane, up, over the levy, and down to our put-in spot.

Carrying the canoe is my least favorite part of owning a canoe. The thing is 17 feet long. It weighs 63 pounds-- which doesn't seem so bad, until you have to carry it anywhere. And instead of flipping it over and portaging the beast over his shoulders by the center yoke-- in the manner that canoes are generally portaged-- the BF prefers for each of us to grab a thwart and haul it between us.

I find this awkward and often feel the need to set the canoe down so that I can get my shoulder back into its socket.

The BF has not come to peace with the idea of having the canoe come into contact with the ground yet. Which means that if I set my end of the canoe down, it rests on the top of my foot.

And he wonders why I don't love the canoe as much as he does.

Nevertheless-- on this particular day, even I was enthusiastic about our outing and looking forward to making it past Cutler Park and up to the railroad bridge. That would mean about 8 miles up river before we turned around for our down river cruise.

I had every intention of stopping at the Rd 168 bridge for lunch.

Did I mention how hot it was? Like 132 degrees or something. Seriously hot.

And not only do we have to paddle against the current to make upriver progress, but since it's 140 degrees outside in the summer time here, every person in Tulare County was out on the river, tubing down stream.

Some time in the last 25 years "tubing" has become "floating" in these parts, but no matter what you call it, it's the same thing: You grab some sort of floatational device-- from fancy multi-person rafts made for this purpose, to air mattresses-- you'll see it all-- and you strap your ice chest to your makeshift raft, put it in the water and start drinking.

We have had to navigate between vast flotillas of stoned, drunken, sunburned, people headed toward us on a collision path. Many of them are quite nice, good people having a good time. Some of them make me want to hurt them as I watch them casually toss trash, deflated rafts, and such into the river as though the river had some sort of magic janitorial service that comes through at night and filters out the trash.

No wonder so many private land owners along the river don't allow people to access the river through their property-- people are pigs.

Oh-- sorry. Little tangent there, just saying.

But most "floaters" are just having a good time and they wouldn't annoy me in the slightest if they didn't insist on calling out to us as we paddle past them, "Hey! You're going the wrong way!"

Ha ha. So clever.

But we always manage to steer through the throngs.

The banks of the river-- especially near Cutler Park-- are also filled with people cooling off. Families come down to the park to bar-b-que, wade into the river, jump off of rope swings, make sandcastles, etc. This means that landing the canoe for a break or for the portage over the weir at Cutler Park is fraught with obstacles...

In the "Side Channel of Doom"

Also, who knew kids loved canoes so much?

Seriously, the Pied Piper had it all wrong, what he really needed was a canoe. Kids point and shout at us as we glide along the river as though we were magical beings-- you'd think we were Santa Clause. And when we bring it in to the river bank so we can portage, the children gather around us, fondly stroking the boat and asking all sorts of questions about it from how much it cost to if they can go for a ride.

I am notoriously "allergic" to children-- I find this creepy.

The day in question, the river was highly populated with all of the above-mentioned groups. It was a really hot day.

It does not help the mood at all when it's 178 degrees outside, that I am in the canoe, not the river. All the floaters and waders are relaxing in the water, feeling fine, while I am inside a dry canoe, paddling for all I'm worth up river against a 4 mile an hour current. I am working up a sweat just from the paddling. Sweat is dripping into my eyes, but I can't drop a stroke to wipe it off my forehead. I have my hat and my sunscreen on, but the sun bouncing off the water all around me means that I'm still getting sunburned.

I'm tired, and I'm hot. And I hate being hot.

Owning a canoe was not supposed to be so much work. It was supposed to be leisurely.

We made it up river, through the throngs, around the park, back into the river, and past the park. Now we were headed toward the Rd 168 bridge and were in deeper, calmer, less populated waters. Also, this is where the banks of the river get steeper and covered with dense vegetation-- it makes for a pleasant paddle, even upstream.

Along the line, we passed one guy who refers to the BF as "captain," he makes me laugh. Then we are within site of the bridge. The water level was high enough that there were only slight hints of white water under the bridge.

There are several large, broken pieces of concrete placed in the riverbed under the bridge. I'm not sure why, but it means that most of the time, you don't just float your raft right under the bridge, you get out of the river, walk around and put back in on the other side of the bridge. But that day, the water was so high that floaters coming down river were just riding the small rapids under the bridge. It looked like fun, and I was looking forward to being able to do it in the canoe on our way back down river later that afternoon.

But right now, we are hitting the rougher, faster current downstream of the bridge. We have to dig in and paddle hard to maintain upriver progress.

I am scouting the shore for a place to pull the canoe out of the river, rest, and eat lunch.

Groups of floaters passing by us start asking if we are going to try to paddle up river, under the bridge, over those rapids.

The BF starts babbling about trying it.

I start thinking the BF has forgotten who his paddling partner is.

We get closer to the point of no return.

The BF is making no move toward the shore.

I really want my sandwich and a beer.

The BF is still paddling with all his might toward the rapids.

I'm really hot. I've been paddling against the current for 6 miles, and 3 hours. Also, I'm hungry.

The BF keeps paddling...

A. Those rapids are closer than they apear.
B. Those are not the rapids we were headed toward.

Here's the deal: When you go hiking with another person, and they do something asinine like walk too close to a ledge or think they can swim to an island in a raging river, you can just stop. You can just stop walking. You can tell them they are stupid. You can tell them they are crazy. You can tell them they shouldn't do what they are thinking of doing. But you don't have to go with them. You have the option to just stand still and watch them plummet to their death.

If you are in a car with someone who has a sudden suicidal moment, you might not be able to get out, you might not be able to stop the car before they drive over a cliff-- but you can, at least, close your eyes and start praying.

If you are in a canoe, and your partner keeps paddling, you can't do anything but keep paddling.

And that's where I found myself: staring at the rapidly encroaching rapids, while my paddling partner continued to paddle.

What could I do? I kept paddling! Paddling for all I was worth. I determined that if we were to have any chance whatsoever of making it up that tiny spot of white water, we had to hit it just right... and we headed into it...

At one point, I actually started thinking we did have a chance. We had the nose -- err, stern? bow, I think it's the bow-- of the canoe headed in just the right direction with the rest of the canoe lined up and poised for success. I was paddling on the right side.. and this is where it gets hard to explain without hand gestures and video:

The current was pouring down from under the bridge and sort of created a trough that ran at a diagonal. At the very end of that trough was a little rooster tail like wave, just a cute little curl of water. What we needed to do was get the nose (bow) of the canoe into that trough, upstream of that curl. What I needed to do was keep paddling on the right (ummmm, starboard?) side of the boat, which would give us leverage against the current and allow me to use my paddle to pole against rocks if necessary to keep us going in the right direction-- mainly, upstream.

Things were looking good. Surprisingly good. Like, surging bursts of adrenaline "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS MIGHT WORK!" good-- when I hear the BF behind me bark out the order "switch sides!"

???!!!! Remind me to go over the concept of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" with the BF sometime.... I called back, "are you sure?"

Which is my way of saying, "are you F***ING kidding me?!" Because right at that moment was about the absolute worst time imaginable to switch the side I was paddling on.

For one thing, paddling on the right meant I was pushing against the wave, keeping us headed upstream. For another thing, taking my paddle out of the water to switch sides would mean dropping a stroke and with that wave trying to push us back downstream AND sideways, dropping a stroke could mean disaster.

But when the BF starts barking orders, it's often a good idea to just do what he says and let the consequences fall on his shoulders....

...and then suddenly, the day didn't seem so hot anymore...

In fact, once I realized I should stop breathing, it felt downright nice. Cool. Albeit a bit wet. No. Make that a lot wet.

I surfaced fast and close to our capsized canoe in time to flip the canoe over and recover most of our belongings-- we lost a beer and our beef jerky. We honestly tried to recover them on our way downriver, but they were never to be seen again.

The canoe and I floated peacefully down river for a moment before we met up with the BF. There were some issues with getting to the side of the river at a spot where we could actually get out, pour the water out of the canoe and take stock of the damage... then there was a rather serious issue with the BF barking more orders at me when I couldn't do jack squat about them; the river banks at that point are kinda steep and the river is deep. Despite the fact that the BF had managed to climb up on the bank and get ahold of the canoe, I was still unable to touch the bottom of the river, and found myself clinging to the side of the canoe on the opposite side from the bank-- so when the BF told me to "let go of the canoe" so he could pull it out of the river and start turning it over to dump approximately 180 gallons of water out of our little boat, if I had done it, I'd have been 50 yards down stream before he'd have had a chance to notice!

So, instead, I continued to hold on; figuring I'd already "listened" to his advice enough for one day.

Once all was said and done and I had scrambled up onto the bank and we had dumped the water out of the canoe, taken stock of our possessions, realized our Port of Subs sandwiches (that I'd so been looking forward to) were a soggy mess, and were peacefully drinking the remaining beers, I gave the BF hell about his whole "let go of the canoe" crap; laying down the law that if that was any indication of the way I could expect him to take my personal wellbeing into account in the future that he could canoe by his own damn self.

In the canoe-- getting along.

(For the record, he was quite apologetic for not realizing that I genuinely could not let go of the canoe and get on the river bank.)

We put everything back in the canoe. Discussed our mutual agreement that that seemed to have been a fair test of our life vests-- and yes, we wear life vests, even in the St. John's river, despite how many of the "floaters" laugh at us for it-- agreed that we were very sad about the sandwiches and wish we had more beer.

We also agreed that we didn't think we were going to continue up river that day, so we got in our little boat and headed back down river.

We never found our beef jerky or the run away beer, but we picked up some stray trash along the way to try to make up for it.

The canoe made it through its first roll without a scratch, and being as it was 220 degrees outside when we flipped over, I have totally and completely forgiven the BF for trying to paddle uphill-- because flipping the canoe was awesome!

But still, if I hadn't switched sides when he told me to, we'd have totally made it.

The Chili Fight



BF and I



January will make 6 years with the BF. Which is officially longer than any other relationship either of us have had. I suppose we were due.

The BF is a hunter. As in rifles, mossy oak camouflage, blaze orange, and deer tags type hunter. My understanding is that he's been hunting since he was legal to do so, and he comes from a family that hunts. It's just part of his heritage.

Which works out fine for me. Despite my weird peace-mongering hippy-like nature, I am no vegetarian. I firmly stand with the people who say, "There's room for all God's creatures-- right next to the mashed potatoes." Especially if those mashed potatoes came from my own garden and were cooked in a Dutch oven over real wood coals from firewood that I gathered myself.

Nevertheless, in all his years, the BF has yet to actually shoot a deer. Maybe, somewhere in the back of his head he thinks they're really cute. Maybe he secretly just doesn't want to have to drag something with antlers back to the car. Maybe he lives (and therefore does most of his hunting) in California-- which is not a terribly hunter-friendly state and truly does its best to make catching your own meat as big a pain in the ass as possible... or maybe deer just run really fast. But thus far, in those 6 years that we've been together, our freezer stays stocked with wild blackberries and homegrown butternut squash far more so than venison.

Which works out fine for me, despite my weird peace-mongering hippy-like nature.

And it turns out that, considering that I am not from a hunting family, I am pretty fond of wild game. It probably goes well with my Pioneer Woman thing-- whatwith the sourdough bread and the cooking with fire and such.

But it isn't uncommon for us to find ourselves in the occasional possession of venison from those who have had successful deer seasons. So for the last year we've been hoarding two packages of venison stew meat.

The BF shows very little interest in doing anything with it. He showed little interest in doing anything with the last venison stew meat gift we received from a friend a few years back. I finally made chili with that and it was delicious.

But one rarely finds oneself dreaming of a hot, hearty bowl of chili in these parts, where we only enjoy about 3 months of reasonably cold weather.

But last week, the temperature finally dropped, the fog rolled in, we started burning our firewood and a big, steaming pot of chili sounded really good.

So while we were planning our weekly menu, I suggested we make a pot of venison chili.

So the BF told me I should go (right then) and take one of the packs of stew meat out of the freezer and let it thaw.

And then it was Thanksgiving. And our Thanksgiving is a two day extravaganza that prevented us from bothering with more mundane dinner preparation until Saturday. Saturday came and, although we now had thawed venison, we did not have a big pot of beans to add it to.

Ok-- I admit. Cooking dry beans has not yet made it to my personal list of "talents." I've tried a number of different methods and I've never experienced results that ended in total, inedible, disaster, but the beans always end up splitting.

Big deal, right? It's not  like the BF's "57 Bean Soup Plan" where he insisted on purchasing a bag of EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF DRY BEAN (and general legume such as split peas and lentils) that the store had in stock last year, then carefully measured them out and mixed them together with total disregard of differences in cooking times.

And that should give you enough information to understand that we are currently in possession of approximately 16 different types of dry beans and general legumes left over from his Bean Soup Plan... not to mention a gallon pitcher of mixed dry beans that I have no idea what we will do with because the Bean Soup Plan did--indeed-- prove to end in aforementioned disastrous results.

So, it was Saturday evening when we realized we had not planned appropriately for the chili project by getting a pot of dry beans soaking throughout the day... so I went to the pantry and fetched a collection of reasonably like-minded beans (black, red, and kidney) and started soaking them with intentions of then draining them in the morning and then starting them in the crock pot on Sunday morning.

However... come Sunday morning, the BF had had enough of the long weekend at home and insisted on getting outside and doing something.



Me: Doing Something

 I'm not opposed to "doing something." In fact, before the BF, I used to "do somethings" on a much more frequent basis. But I like to sleep till 11 a.m. (I also like to stay up till 2 a.m.)-- the BF is a morning person. He voluntarily gets out of bed at the crack of dawn... and sings. He thinks 9 a.m. is the absolute last possible time that you can start "doing something" and still get it done. Because, apparently, he's afraid of the dark. That's the only reasonable explanation I can think of for people who feel compelled to be safely back inside before the sun sets.

I have a whole theory about peoples' hunter/gatherer/caveman ancestry: My people definitely were the ones on night watch... the BF's did not like being left outside in the dark when the things they'd been hunting all day suddenly started hunting them. That's my theory.

So, Sunday morning came and the BF and I were on our way up to the foothills for a hike about 2 hours before my brain could even warm up to operating temperature. So the beans were left soaking.

Monday was the day of the local Christmas Parade, and my business neighbors and I open up our offices on the fourth floor of the building where we work for a big Parade-viewing party, so I left the house in a flurry of crockpots and apple cider on Monday morning, giving nary a thought to the beans. And so it was Tuesday morning before I remembered to rinse the beans and get them in the crock pot.

The BF gets home from work an average of 3 to 4 hours ahead of me. The plan was for him to sear the venison, chop some onions and peppers and throw it all into the pot.

The BF does not have a cell phone. But he had been IM'ing me upon his arrival at home in order to keep me apprised of his chili-related plans. He mentioned that there were a lot of beans. So I told him to just put what he didn't need into a bowl and I would repackage them for freezing when I got home.

And then I got home.

I got home around 9 p.m. to find my dear BF standing in front of a 6 quart stock pot on the stove top, still wearing his work uniform (he's a mechanic, he gets filthy everyday, so he takes a shower when he gets home,) and looking lost.

He looked up at me and said, "I don't really know what I'm doing."

And that would have made a great story. It was cute. I would have fixed the chili and come to work and told the story of how it was so cute that he didn't know what he was doing, even though he was the one who kept telling me how the chili plan was going to unfold, and life would have gone on.

But noooooooo.....

I walked over the pot to find a very full stock pot of chili. He said that there was a lot of chili and he thought we needed to add liquid.


Oh, This? I've always had this.

 I asked what he'd done with the extra beans. He looked at me like he'd never noticed the ear in the center of my forehead before and said, "what extra beans?"

I reminded him that we'd just had this conversation about putting half the beans away for another use. He said, "oh yeah, I forgot to do that."
This befuddled me slightly-- we'd just discussed it about an hour ago.

I also see that the venison is in rather large chunks, and I asked why he hadn't chopped it up into smaller pieces before he seared it.

He informed me that "I guess I kinda thought the venison was going to be for the dogs." And, "it turns out maybe I don't really like venison that much."

This was news to me. In a similar way that it would have been news to me if he'd looked up at me and said-- after 6 years together-- that it turned out that he wasn't that into girls.

I had no response to this new revelation of his. Other than to wonder why he pays for deer tags every year if he doesn't actually want one.

Then he mentioned that he was not exactly impressed with the beans.

To which I also had no response.

Then he concluded that perhaps he was also "not that fond of beans."

At this point I begin to conclude that my BF has suffered some sort of head injury.

Then he did it. He went from adorable "It turns out I'm not that sure how to make chili after all" to "and it's all your fault."

This did not go over so well with me.

As near as I can tell, his argument came down along the lines of accusing me of having not just procrastinated on the project, but downright just not finishing something that I'd started. He claimed that he had never claimed to know anything about making chili, but he had gotten tired of waiting for it to get done so he felt it was time to force the issue.

This is very unusual for him. Usually everything is "we" and "us" and here he was, basically handing me the blame for him not knowing what to do with the chili-- and I don't even know how it's my fault that he'd just realized he didn't even like venison and beans "all that much."

Apparently, I took the venison out of the freezer too soon and I soaked the beans too long.

Except-- where had he been? How had he managed to miss the whole last week? The part where we decided to make chili. The part where he told me to take the meat out of the freezer to thaw. The part where he told me that we needed to use the dry beans (I could easily have opened a couple of cans of beans and we'd have had chili that same night.) The part where he confidently announced that he was going to sear the meat, that he was going to add the meat and the veggies and the tomato sauce? You know, the part where he had the plan on how to make this into chili?

It's not that I can't make chili. But had I been aware that the entire project was resting on my shoulders, I may have opted for a different plan.

For one thing, I wouldn't have started thawing the meat the day before Thanksgiving. I also wouldn't have opted to have Thanksgiving dinner (the traditional one that we did on Friday) at noon. I don't believe in Thanksgiving lunch. I have never understood why so many people insist on having Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of the afternoon already, but 3:30 is about my limit of tolerance for an early "dinner." I swear I never got the memo about noon... which meant that we were out of the house for two meals that day, because, as all who do a traditional TG with family know, once you arrive at a relative's home, you cannot leave. Sometimes your grandparents simply hold you hostage, sometimes you find yourself sucked into some sort of hypnotic, fun-with-family-around-the-fire, Christmas movie-induced stupor... either way, if the whole day hadn't ended up coming as such a surprise to me, I could most likely have predicted that we would not be home for dinner-- real dinner, at real dinner time.

So it should not have come as any sort of shock that there was no way we were going to start the chili project until at least Saturday anyway.

But I wasn't the only one who totally forgot about soaking beans on Saturday morning! And I wasn't the only one who totally forgot about putting them in the crock pot on Sunday.

And then he looks at me with total sincerity and tells me that he's "worried" about me because I keep insisting that nobody cc'd me on that whole "Thanksgiving at noon" thing. He says that "it was discussed several times" that Thanksgiving would be "at lunchtime."

And I am utterly convinced that he is doing that thing that men do where they assume that their significant other just magically knows everything they know--or are supposed to know. I think they do this because we are the ones who know when their niece's birthday is or why we're feeding their parents' dogs one weekend. So it stands to reason that if he was in on a conversation, he would assume that I was also listening.

So this is how the scene unfolds from my point of view:

• First of all, he realizes he doesn't know how to make the chili.
• Then, he decides that he doesn't like beans or venison anyway.
• Then, somehow the chili didn't work out the way he had planned because I didn't start making chili on Thanksgiving Day when we were busy doing other stuff and mostly not being at  home anyway.
• Then, somehow the chili didn't work out the way he had planned because I let the beans soak too long before cooking them because of all the other things we had to get done that weekend.
• Then, I've apparently developed dementia because I can't remember a conversation that I wasn't part of and somehow this is why the chili isn't right.

I was, shall we say, less than impressed with the way this conversation was turning out.

Ultimately the BF decided that fighting over chili was a stupid idea, we now have 6 quarts of perfectly edible venison chili, and I get a story to tell to other women who nod and laugh and assure me that they totally understand my pain.

And the BF admits that the chili turned out "pretty good" afterall.

Jerusalum Artichoke

The BF has this book called "Back to Basics."

This is not where it all started, I think it all started with growing up on stories of when my parents moved to Canada-- before I was born. Where they rented a small house that I imagine as being off the beaten path at the end of a long, unpaved road-- sort of prime real estate for a horror movie. They had to go to town to buy propane for the generator, which was housed in the generator shed, down a small path away from the house. And Mom had to heat the house and cook with a wood-burning stove.

Since propane was expensive and far away, Mom only started the generator for a few hours each night, so Dad could watch tv when he got home from working on a ranch. So she spent most of her day living Pioneer-style with out electricity, cooking with the wood stove, and washing clothes in the bath tub with water that she heated on the stove.

I've never seen photos of this house and, as I mentioned, this was before I was born, so I only have the images in my head from years of listening to Mom's stories about the brief time they lived there... but for some reason, these stories really appeal to me.

And then PBS came along with their twist on reality tv and I was absolutely HOOKED on Frontierhouse (and if anyone knows where I can get it on DVD please tell me!)

It's true: Someday, if I ever retired from doing nails, I hope to go live in a one-room cabin with out electricity, on a piece of land at least 5 miles from the nearest neighbor. My cell phone is going in the ocean-- or the bottom of a very deep lake-- I'm even trying to imagine a life without the internet! That'll be the real challenge. And, with luck, I'll get snowed-in every year by October with no human interaction (except probably the BF) until the following April. Awwwwwwww. Now that is what I'm talkin' about!

So the BF comes along with this "Back to Basics" book which is essentially all about living "off the grid" and being self-sufficient. Which I am all about.

So, when last spring, while we were planting our annual vegetable garden, I came across a little Hmong lady at the farmer's market who was selling "Jerusalem Artichoke," I bought a bag of the things.

What, exactly, is "Jerusalem Artichoke," you ask? Well-- it's mentioned in the Back to Basics book as being an excellent option for growing in one's garden. But it's not something I've ever seen in a grocery store. So I bought it from the little Hmong lady and decided to take it home and try it out.

Except, I had no clue what to do with it.

It's a rhizome, kinda looks like ginger root. Supposedly you can just crunch on it raw, or cook it up like pretty much any veggie. It kinda tastes like a very mild carrot, but is very crunchy with a texture like water chestnuts or jicama.

The BF eyed it suspiciously and wasn't very eager to have me experiment with using it in any of our usual dishes. So I wrapped it in a paper towel, put it in a plastic bag and set it on a shelf in the garage-- as per the "storage" directions that I'd come across online.

And forgot about it.

And then one day, we came across it again, only now it had two 6 inch green sprouts jutting out of it.

Being that it was early spring when we're all excited about the garden and growing whatever we can, the BF insisted on planting it. So I opted to bury it in a 10 gallon pot as everything I'd read about it said that it is very prolific and will take over any area where it is planted.

I will say-- if you are the type of person who has a "black thumb" and kills every plant you've ever had, try growing this stuff! You will feel awesome with your new-found gardening skills because it is impossible to not get this stuff to grow! And grow it did!

Jerusalem Artichoke is neither from Jerusalem nor is it related in any way to artichokes. It's a sunflower plant native to North America's eastern seaboard, growing from Georgia to Nova Scotia. It was originally cultivated by Native Americans and introduced to the settlers along with all those traditional Thanksgiving foods that kept us from starving.

From what I've gathered, the stuff was cultivated in European nations and here in the States and was fairly common in our diet until around World War 2. It was one of the few vegetables that didn't get rationed during the war (probably because it's so freakin easy to grow) so it appears that an entire generation pretty much got its fill during those years and, after the war rationing ended, refused to every eat it again. Which is how a few more generations managed to grow up without ever hearing of the stuff.

It seems to be undergoing a resurgence in popularity now.

Of course, I learned all this after the fact.

And so it grew in my garden. And grew...and grew.

The damn thing grew about 12 feet tall! And it looked exactly like all the wild sunflower plants that grow along the side of the road or the river around here. It was huge. Much too big for a plant that was growing out of 10 gallon pot!

The BF kept asking me what we were going to do with it and what it was supposed to do. I kept telling him "*!&@ if I know!" But the information I was able to find about it said that it would eventually flower and then die and then we could dig up the rhizomes and eat them. Which didn't seem like a very good idea seeing as how we hadn't been interested in eating the 5 or 6 pieces that I'd initially purchased at the Farmer's Market-- why were we interested in digging up a whole pot of them?

The plant flowered in September. It was kinda pretty in a very tall weed sorta way. But sure enough, as summer waned to fall, the foliage started to die back, the flowers wilted and dropped and last weekend we decided to cut the whole thing down and pull it up...

O... M...G! What are we going to do with this stuff?!

The pot was beyond root-bound. There wasn't even room left for dirt, the rhizomes had grown up against the sides of the pot so densely that they were just squished into little flat disks! We had to hand pick it out of the pot because it was so packed that it wouldn't come out.

We keep joking that we pulled 25 gallons of rhizome out of that 10 gallon pot!

If you decide to grow this stuff yourself, DEFINITELY put it in a pot! I can see how this stuff would entirely take over your garden..or yard. In fact, I'm now terrified of what will sprout next spring from the flowers dropping seeds into our yard.

I really wish we were that poor and hungry to be grateful for a bounty like this. But honestly, I'm looking at it wondering what I'll do with it.

It's not bad raw. I've managed to find several recipes for it. Rumor has it that it boils down and mashes very well-- great substitute for potatoes, and good in soups. Or stir fry.

What I wish I'd known before we dug it all up though, is that it doesn't store well once dug up. We should have left it in the ground and dug it up as we needed it. So I fear that 10 gallons of Jerusalem Artichoke is going to go to waste.

The BF is absolutely adamant that we will grow it again next spring.

But I don't know what we're going to do with it next year either.