Foiled.

In an attempt to keep the New Year's Resolution I made day before yesterday, I set out on my ride today with a camera in the pocket where I normally put my jacket (thus, no jacket on the ride - but hey it was sunny and I would totally be back before dark!).

I planned my route so that I could ride along Grizzly Peak during the 5 o'clock hour and maybe get some shots of the sunset. But as I headed up Wildcat towards the ridge, I suddenly realized I had a flat front tire!

I got a flat one time a couple years ago. It was during a race. I got a spare wheel. I didn't have to actually fix the flat out on the road.

Ugh.
I dumped out my saddle bag.
I had no tire lever. There was a chain tool in there, but no lever.
I couldn't get the tire off.
I remembered that the tire was so tight when I initially put it on the wheel that I actually wasn't the one who got it on, I had to enlist the help of a boy at a shop.

Phooey (that's not actually what I said).
I realized I was cold.
I sat down.
I still couldn't get the tire off.
I tried the flat head screwdriver on my multitool as a makeshift lever. It didn't work.
Molly rode by at warp speed - "I'm doing an interval - I'll come back!"

I of course had made no progress by the time she came back a good 10 minutes later.

We saw no other cyclists.
We both struggled.
"Funny that the only other person out here is equally incompetent at fixing these things!" she said.
We laughed.

And then we gave up. I filled the old tube-and-tire combo with a CO2 cartridge, and rode gingerly and shiveringly down the hill to BART via LaMorinda Cyclery, where I paid a nice boy to please fix my dumb wheel for me while I played with the dog.

So anyway, my attempt at taking pretty pictures for my blog was soundly foiled. Sorry! Maybe tomorrow, when I will arrange my pockets to accomodate a camera, a jacket, AND multiple tire levers.

*****************************************************************************
P.S. Here's karma for you - today I sent a slightly petty email to a co-worker about not using ginormous sharp heavy-duty staples on stuff that's like 10 pages thick because I cut my finger on one of her staple arrangements that had all this extra heavy-duty-staple-metal sticking out.

It was a staple that gave me the flat tire.

The County Line Sprint

Setting: Sunday evening, Devon and I are pedaling across the Carquinez Bridge into Crockett. We are approaching the Contra Costa County Line sign. For all you non-cyclist blog readers, geographical limit signs are universal sprint lines for bike riders. Winning the county line sprint gives you license to fist-pump and woot-woot for at least 20 feet...

Me: And you know what's dumb? The Golden Gate Bridge!

Devon: Oh really? Why's that?

Me, eying the sign: Um (shift gears)
bbbbbbbecause apparently (shift again)
4444444445 people a year (one last gear shift)
jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjump off it? (get up to sprint)

Devon: (putting his hand on my shoulder like a parent blocking a toddler... we cross the line together, and no one gets to fist-pump) Ha! Nice try.

Me: Dammit! I thought I was being so sneaky!

Devon: Yeah, three gear shifts in one sentence, glancing at the big green sign, you are sooooo sneaky!

Me: Well anyway, they want to spend like 2 million dollars building some fence on the bridge so that people don't jump off it.

Devon: Yeah, that's pretty dumb. In a lot of ways... What do you think would happen if you jumped off this bridge on your bike? It's a lot lower than the Golden Gate Bridge. What would happen when you hit the water?

Me: Well, you'd probably get castrated by the impact. Not that I want that to happen, even though you didn't let me win the sprint, I am just saying.

Look Ma! No Hands!

More accurately: look Ma, I don't look like a startled animal in the photograph!

Honestly, I have gotten so used to making dumb camera smiles that when I first saw this photo I was like "whoa that chick looks kinda like me! And I have that bracelet, too! Crazy!"

When I first started blogging, I pretty much had a photograph in every post. I have gotten lax in that department for many reasons (I could blame it on there being no bike races for me right now, but I think laziness is the primary reason). So, I am aiming to get back to posting images.

O.K. I guess that counts as a New Year's Resolution? I never actually made any ;)

Delerium #2

Just in case if you are wondering: I did it. I finished my 32.5 hours, my 500 miles, my countless kilojoules...

That was pretty much the funnest week ever. I don't know, maybe it was escapism in its purest form, but everything that happened when I was not on my bike seemed incidental and trivial at best. I guess I gave myself license to be almost a total slacker in all areas but one!

Half of the riding was spent alone, thinking about myself and my life and me me me. To be expected, since I am a bike racer and therefore self-centered by necessity and nature.

The other half was spent with/drooling-and-suffering-on-the-wheel-of someone I have missed so much. In a beautiful miracle of convenience and luck, we had the same borderline asinine series of workouts this week.

Now I am trying to put my apartment back together after 2 weeks of ignoring chores. Bleh!! Someone please distract me!

Delerium

O.K.

I don't like to use this blog as a forum for bragging. Generally I leave that to the boys.

That said... I am in bed after seven and a half hours, supposedly 9ish thousand feet, 115 miles, a couple drooling intervals, and 4000 kilojoules on my lovely bicycle. In the rain. With company that was pleasant enough to make it seem like a 2 hour summertime recovery jaunt.

Whoa.

But wait, there's more: if tomorrow goes as planned, I will be at 31 hours and almost 500 miles for the week.

AND I am getting ready to email last year's bike sponsor to tell them how much I still love my lovely Time bicycle.

Triple whoa. Aren't I supposed to be hating that contraption by now?

So yeah, if this week I leave you bizarre comments (example here), accidentally ignore you, or blatheringly reveal too much information about my personal psychoses, maybe this training stuff is a good explanation.

Wish I had excuses for other times of the year...

A Photograph

All these long winter rides mean that my pockets are stuffed with gels, baggies of drink mix, and extra clothes. I have no space for a camera. But I see so many amazing things on my rides.

I am just going to have to stock up on little bitty canvases.

Surrender

Dear Peet:

I give up.

I have given you so many chances to be more than just another cookie-cutter coffee chain, but I can't do it any more, I can't handle the constant disappointment.

So I surrender.

My standards are officially,

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssadly,

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllowered.

No longer yours,

Courtenay

Futile

Warning: more Peet's-related complaining below. Exacerbated by the fact that today's lunch place is gross... messing with my comestibles makes for irritated blogging!

Last week, after posting about the end of the world and after realizing that my daily coffee from Peet's was generating a good amount of trash each week, I decided to suck it up and buy one of their ugly travel mugs and thereby reduce the waste I produce. Buying and using something unattractive... whoa I must be really committed to this cause.


Anyway, now I am not sure WHY I am so committed. Two days in a row, I ordered a small (i.e. 12 oz.) latte to go in this medium (i.e. 16 oz.) travel mug. I paid for a small both times. The order taker repeated back to me "small soy latte" both times. And both times, I was handed a medium.

Yesterday when I said "um, this was supposed to be a small?" the girl was like "this is a small, I steamed the exact amount of milk for a small." Which was baloney. I was a barista once too and I am not that dumb. "So," I said, "you're telling me this is a 12 oz. mug right here, with 12 oz. of latte in it?" She shook her head and sheepishly asked if I wanted her to remake the drink. I didn't, I can deal with some extra soy milk once in a while, but I really just want a small.

Same thing today, different cast of Embarcadero Peet's characters. Once again I kept the medium, I hate how they just pour wrong drinks down the drain and it's not like I was handed a catastrophe of whipped cream, but honestly...

Why am I trying to save a world full of (yes, lambaste me for cruel word choice) morons?

Partner in Silliness

SO, Holly thinks my tri idea is a great one and wants to do it with me! How exciting! I am actually looking forward to becoming a multisport dork.

In other news: I have very minimal other news. I am riding my bike a lot and napping a lot. Yet somehow it doesn't feel like I am doing either one enough.

But I can't complain about long days on the bike. Especially when blessed with lovely weather and good company. On Saturday I went for a nice long ride with the girls, and since I am so homestar runner obsessed it was all I could do not to be like "okay, my spanish galleons!" all day. Anyway, this is when Holly got suckered into teaching me to swim! I also caught up on gossip and compared food obsessions with Tracie, I talked team with Martina, I admired Taitt-who-doesn't-blog's new shuffle (which she uses while riding, but she doesn't listen to music, she listens to news podcasts! How grown up! I meanwhile rock out to AFI and the like), got some good equipment and training advice from the lone boy on the ride, and I narrowly avoided a sideswipe/decapitation attempt made by "the competition", no links or naming of names here because it wasn't intentional, just really very scary because of speeding cars and lots of metal and all that... and, amongst all the chitchat and girly giggling, I got in a great ride and felt even more excited for the upcoming race season.

Anyway. That was Saturday.

Oh, then I went home and cleaned up and really wanted to do some artwork, but what I had in mind required a hugely unappealing trip OUT of the APARTMENT (major ugh) and IN the CAR (bleh!) to go to the art store (which is an inconceivably interminable MILE AWAY from my house) for some linseed oil, so I spent an hour and a half lying inert on my bed, trying to collect enough energy and psych myself up for said trek, before I blissfully realized I could do a different art project for which I had all the materials at home already. Pictures posted once it dries...

I guess I must be training right if, when I get home, the simplest errands seem impossible.

Ahh. Once again, I have succeeded in frittering away my first hour of work by blogging. I did try to start on the cash reconciliations, I promise I did, but my fingers and eyes have no interest in numbers prior to 8 a.m. regardless of whether I get decaf or regular on my way in to the office.

More Silliness

I have an admission to make.

Oh god.

This is so embarassing.

Anyway:

I am
gulp
well
I kinda want
to do
a
try
a
tha
lon.

O.K.

I said it. I want to do a triathlon. I love cycling. I love running. After a 5 year hiatus due to injury and the like, I am back running again, which makes me really happy. And I think I'd be a good swimmer. Somehow this harebrained multisport idea, at which I once scoffed, now seems awesome.

I think this world-is-ending-in-5-years thing must really be getting to me.

Speaking of Silly

This struck me as odd this morning:

This item is called the Women's Boxer Brief. Huh? Women's Boxer Briefs??

Why don't they have a Men's Sports Bra?!

Sexist pigs!

Just kidding, just kidding, but I still think the boxer brief thing is funny. They look like just a normal pair of spandex to me.

Kinda makes the 401(k) and other retirement plans seem silly...

You can find the original article here. I have asked a climate-change biologist friend for his opinion on the article, and I will let you know what he says.

And, since it's a bit long I am going to put my question first, in case if you don't get to the bottom. My question is: if this theory is correct, will we as a society and species all band together and work towards a sustainable life, or will we each jump on our own hedonistic I-am-going-to-make-the-most-of-the-last-5-years-of-the-world-and-do-whatever-the-hell-I-want-which-includes-buying-a-Hummer-and-throwing-my-trash-in-the-bay-since-there-will-be-no-such-thing-as-consequences-any-more toboggans and go flying into a crevasse that has no escape? Or is the collective impulse going to be to play ostrich and just ignore even the most obvious signs of a problem (for example: SNOW and ICE on Skyline Rd. in Oakland this morning?!)? I could explore other questions and scenarios but before I get too boring, here's the article...

Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012

Hydrate hypothesis illuminates growing climate change alarm

Compiled by John Stokes

A recent scientific theory called the "hydrate hypothesis" says that historical global warming cycles have been caused by a feedback loop, where melting permafrost methane clathrates (also known as "hydrates") spur local global warming, leading to further melting of clathrates and bacterial growth.

In other words, like western Siberia, the 400 billion tons of methane in permafrost hydrate will gradually melt, and the released methane will speed the melting. The effect of even a couple of billion tons of methane being emitted into the atmosphere each year would be catastrophic.

The "hydrate hypothesis" (if validated) spells the rapid onset of runaway catastrophic global warming. In fact, you should remember this moment when you learned about this feedback loop-it is an existencial turning point in your life.

By the way, the "hydrate hypothesis" is a weeks old scientific theory, and is only now being discussed by global warming scientists. I suggest you Google the term.

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing the Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to when we will pass the tipping point and be helpless to stop the runaway Global Warming.

There are enormous quantities of methane trapped in permafrost and under the oceans in ice-like structures called clathrates. The methane in Arctic permafrost clathrates is estimated at 400 billion tons.

Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2, and the atmosphere currently contains about 3.5 billion tons of the gas.

The highest temperature increase from global warming is occurring in the arctic regions-an area rich in these unstable clathrates. Simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) show that over half the permafrost will thaw by 2050, and as much as 90 percent by 2100.

Peat deposits may be a comparable methane source to melting permafrost. When peat that has been frozen for thousands of years thaws, it still contains viable populations of bacteria that begin to convert the peat into methane and CO2.

Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years. The west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70 billion tonnes of methane. Local atmospheric levels of methane on the Siberian shelf are now 25 times higher than global concentrations.

By the way, warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons have caused microbial activity to increase dramatically in the soil around the world. This, in turn, means that much of the carbon long stored in the soil is now being released into the atmosphere.

Releases of methane from melting oceanic clathrates have caused severe environmental impacts in the past. The methane in oceanic clathrates has been estimated at 10,000 billion tons.

55 million years ago a global warming chain reaction (probably started by volcanic activity) melted oceanic clathrates. It was one of the most rapid and extreme global warming events in geologic history.

Humans appear to be capable of emitting CO2 in quantities comparable to the volcanic activity that started these chain reactions. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, burning fossil fuels releases more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes.

Methane in the atmosphere does not remain long, persisting for about 10 years before being oxidized to CO2 (a greenhouse gas that lasts for hundreds of thousands of years). Chronic methane releases oxidizing into CO2 contribute as much to warming as does the transient methane concentrations.

To summarize, human activity is causing the Earth to warm. Bacteria converts carbon in the soil into greenhouse gasses, and enormous quantities are trapped in unstable clathrates. As the earth continues to warm, permafrost clathrates will thaw; peat and soil microbial activity will dramatically increase; and, finally, vast oceanic clathrates will melt. This global warming chain reaction has happened in the past.

Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 rose by a record amount over the past year. It is the third successive year in which they have increased sharply. Scientists are at a loss to explain why the rapid rise has taken place, but fear the trend could be the first sign of runaway global warming.

Runaway Global Warming promises to literally burn-up agricultural areas into dust worldwide by 2012, causing global famine, anarchy, diseases, and war on a global scale as military powers including the U.S., Russia, and China, fight for control of the Earth's remaining resources.

Over 4.5 billion people could die from Global Warming related causes by 2012, as planet Earth accelarates into a greed-driven horrific catastrophe.

Bibliographic reference courtesy of Brad Arnold who has an extensive resrarch background on Global Warming.

Conversation with Mom #6

My brother Than, calling from Honolulu: Hey Ma, what's up?

Sal, at home in Maryland, downstairs in the kitchen: Hi Sweetie! I'm cleaning out the freezers!

Than: Um, that's pretty cool.

Sal: I'm NOT going grocery shopping until Sarah and I finish all this stuff!

Than: Well. You sound busy. I'll let you get back to it.

Than hangs up.
Than then calls our sister Sarah.

Than, still calling from Honolulu: Hey Sarah.

Sarah, at home in Maryland in my mom's house, upstairs being 19 and useless: Sup!

Than, gleefully: Guess what YOU'RE having for dinner for the next week?

Sarah: Uhhh. I dunno, fig bars?

Than: Corn and Morel Mushrooms!

Sarah: (audible sigh and eye-roll) Is she downstairs cleaning out the freezer or something?

An Afternoon at Peet's

(I would like to preface this whole post by reminding you that I know I am a snot and I know I am difficult, demanding, impatient, etc. That's all. Now you can read.)

Sunday was a four-hour-ride day. The weather was picturesque, but blustery. Meaning: headwind no matter which way we turned!

So, a warmth-stop at the Peet's Coffee in Danville was definitely needed.

I did the ordering for the two of us (i.e. for myself and a friend-who-does-not-really-want-to-be-a-character-in-my-blog, to which I will periodically say "tough luck", today is one of those periodic times). Craving a teeny bit of chocolate in addition to my usual latte, I decided to go out on a limb and ask for both a teeny bit of chocolate AND a latte. Here is what I said:

"May I please have one double espresso and one small soy latte. In the latte may I please have a very small amount of chocolate? Say a half a pump? A very small amount. I do not want a mocha, nor do I want whipped cream, I just want a teeny bit of chocolate in my latte."

After re-confirming that all of this made sense to the chipper chick behind the counter, I entrusted drink-pickup to the friend and went to the bathroom where I spent ten minutes extracting myself from and then re-clothing myself in a bunch of sweaty windstopper fleece tyvec spandex.

There was a simultaneous separate drama going on at the drink pick-up counter during this time: Our drinks get called out by the same chick who took the order. She is dangerously wielding a large whipped-cream dispenser, squirting it all over my drink as she is calling out "Double Espresso and Soy Mocha for Courtenay!"

(Mysterious Unnamed Friend) looks at her with pity, and at her messy lilting whipped-cream tower with disgust, as he gets the drinks. "You know, you're probably going to have to make her drink again. Just warning you."

Which explains her lack of suprise when a few minutes later I approached the counter holding an un-touched creamy mess as far away from my body as possible (see note above about me being a snot), asking for a re-do. Also, btw, a few years ago such a mistake would have reduced me to tears but I am happy to say I have matured at least a little bit since then.

Anyway, I guess I just don't understand what's so complex about listening to the customer's detailed description of what they want, and then making it. It's not like I said "may I please have this drink with this stuff in it and then other stuff on top of it?" and then threw a temper tantrum when they didn't deduce what I meant. Sheesh.

Today, (contented sigh), I and my usual drink order were back in the capable hands of Tahnee at the Embarcadero Peet's.

Conversation About Boys #1

Me: Sooo, how's the relationship going?

My Anonymous Friend: O.K. Kinda winding down. We basically just watch his Netflix together a couple nights a week.

Me: Oh. Well at least you don't have to talk much that way.

MAF: Yeah, except his taste in movies is kinda, well, it sucks.

Me: Oh.

MAF: Last week, he was like "Oh you'll really like this one. It's animated, but it has a really mature story-line."

Me: What was it, 'Princess Mononoke'?

MAF: NO! It was ICE AGE 2 !!!

Me: -speechless-

What am I saying?!

I got a massage last night. It was awesome, JD is very good at coaxing out whatever knots I have given myself.

But for some reason, I say the stupidest things when I am on his massage table...

Here is a sampling from last night's session:


Me: How are your kitties?

JD: They're good.

Me: And Jamiel, how is that kitty? (Explanatory Side Note: The cat's name is actually Unit, which is one of our mutual-friend-and-fellow-bike-racer Jamiel Danesh's old nicknames, so I call it Jamiel even though that's not its name)

JD: Jamiel's good. Still sucking his own nipple.

Me: What?! Jamiel Danesh sucks his own nipple?!

JD: No, the cat. You asked about the cat remember? It was taken away from its mom too soon so it still wants to nurse.

Me: Oh. I thought this was some new insult that the kids are using these days and that we were applying it to Jamiel the Person or something.

--------

JD: It's my iPod. Sue doesn't have an iPod, she doesn't listen to music.

Me: What?! She doesn't listen to music?! I have to listen to music all the time! Except when I'm at work of course. I can't listen to music there. So instead I look at my iTunes and pick a song to get stuck in my head and I sing that one in my head for a while and then when I get tired of it I go pick another one.

JD: You're so weird.

--------

JD: Yeah, we are just a couple blocks from Solano Ave. so it's easy to go grab dinner.

Me: Lucky! There is, like, NOTHing good near my house. I have to drive all the way to Rockridge. Oh. Wait. I take that back. Piedmont Ave. is like 4 blocks away. Nevermind, there is good stuff near my house.

JD: Another addition to the don't-listen-to-things-Courtenay-says file...

Bratty First-born Child Strikes from Afar

So, for those of you who have already forgotten what I did for Christmas: I was visiting my mom, Sal, in Maryland, as were my 19-year old sister Sarah (the useless one)(she is still there by the way, the lucky thing), and my 26-year old brother Than (the sleeper). It was fun. We all gave each other lots of grief and a couple presents, as usual my mom bore the brunt of the teasing but that's because we love her the most...

Anyway. Today I get this phone call:

Sarah: Hey Court (audible sigh). Sal wants to know if you ate half a fig bar.

Me, the Bratty First-Born Child: OMG. That was totally me! I had half the day after Christmas and put the other half back in the box. Ha! Is she freaking out?

Sarah: Yeah she is rampaging. She spent the last 10 minutes accusing me of doing it but then she was like "Go call your SISTER!! See if SHE did it!!!" So here I am.

Me: Well it's not like I took a bite. I broke it. Someone could have eaten the other half.

As I have indicated in previous conversations, my mom goes nuts with kitchen items. Deservedly so, because each of her kids has some annoying habits. We all stand with the fridge door open, although none of us see what's so bad about that, but she hates it. Nathaniel doesn't like throwing away containers so if there is one sip or one bite of something left, he probably did it. Sarah pours glasses of juice, drinks half, and puts the other half in the fridge. Ostensibly, it's for later. I like to eat apples but if I get one that I don't really like, I just put it in the fridge with one bite out of it. Someone else might want it, right?

So yeah, I ate half a fig bar. And I didn't even intend it to be a let's-annoy-Sal plot! Bonus!

More Music

I have been spending a lot of time on my iTunes lately, time that should probably be spent on cleaning my apartment or organizing more tangible areas of my life than my digital music library... But the appeal of the former over the latter is just far too great.


The cool thing is that, in rediscovering music that I owned but had forgotten about, I feel like have acquired a whole bunch of songs without spending a cent. Appropriate for miserly, new-year's-resolutiony, I-spent-to-much-money-on-Christmasy January. (Actually I did not spend too much on Christmas, my family will attest to that! But still...)

Anyway here's my latest iMix. Mostly older songs, mostly electronica, two Tori songs because I had forgotten how much I like her, and the requisite Cranes and Cure songs but both of them are ones I had forgotten about too, so they slipped in to this mix legitimately. Let me know if you want me to burn it for you, I am all for sticking it to the iTunes Man.

Butterflies

I remembered this story yesterday.

When I was 6, and my brother was 4 or 5, my mom got us bug-catching nets. We had a big yard and garden, so there were lots of bugs. We raced to the yard - the gifts were a hit.

My brother went looking for frogs, which was silly.

I caught a butterfly. Then, not knowing what else I was supposed to do, I stepped on it. Crushed after crushing it, remorse told me that was definitely not what I was supposed to do.

I had squished something beautiful and alive, and the damage and death were irreversible.

A painful lesson for a 6-year old, but since then I think that ants, mosquitoes, and roaches are the only living things I have willfully squished. (Yes I am one of those cyclists who stops to move newts, snakes, and turtles out of the road...)

Sigh

I have been pushing my luck lately, continuing to train despite a tenacious dry cough and not a few sneezes. As of this morning, mucous has invaded my chest, and I have officially labeled myself "sick". And not in the "tight", "rad", sauntering-around-the-mall-in-jeans-and-a-hoodie kind of sick, dude.

Conveniently, this afternoon's forecast calls for rain and 17 mph winds, but since I am "sick" I will be riding inside for only an hour. And THEN, I will take a NAP!!

Is it me?

Today when I was riding my bike home from BART, in the middle of the afternoon, a car pulled up next to me. Actually it was a truck, with a borderline sketchy dude in it. The truck was teal, which is itself a warning sign of borderline-ness. I mean seriously, teal?! Anyway said dude starts talking...

Lascivious Sketchy Dude in Teal Truck: How YOU doin'?

Me (pulling ipod from ear, I should not have been listening since I didn't have on a helmet, bad girl...): Oh sorry to block your way, I'll get out of the road.

LSDITT: No girl, I'm tryin' to TALK to you.

Me (slowing my pedalstroke, which does no good since he correspondingly lets off the gas): Oh.

LSDITT: You goin' for a ride this morning?

Ue: Um it's 2:30 in the afternoon?

LSDITT: Whatever. Morning, afternoon, same thing.

Me (yeah this conversation is going on WAY too long, in a direction that is WAY too wrong): Um there is a car behind us so I should get out of the middle of the road?

LSDITT: Can I call you sometime? You're niiice lookin'.

Me: Um I don't think my, um, boyfriend would like that?

At this point LSDITT drives off. Thank god. And I hide behind a car for a minute or two, to make sure he is long gone before going to my apartment building that's in an OK neighborhood but it's still the type of area where I am like "Whoa, there's a normal-looking couple walking down the street! And they don't even have a pit bull with them for protection!"

...How is it that I can simultaneously feel like such a bitchy white prudish chick jumping to conclusions about someone, and such a completely vulnerable and far too polite, even naive, girl?

Is there a line between protecting oneself and being rude?

Is that a question I should even be asking?

Sleeping Beauty

Speaking of bed:

My little sister is SO CUTE when she is sleeping, isn't she?

Hmm...

... can Courtenay convert this mess:
into a bed?

And, can she do so in time to sleep in it tonight?

Stay tuned for updates. This could be funny.

-----------------------------------------

Update: I am awesome. I did it!

Actually it wasn't that hard, Cost Plus beds are WAY easier to put together than Ikea ones.