The Bike and the Snake

Van agonized for months over whether or not to buy a road bike. He already owned a mountain bike, but most of the triathalons in which he hoped to participate required a road bike. Yes, he could rent one the day of the race again, but it would be helpful to be able to train with one. He scoured craigslist, and finally found one that he loved at Bear Mountain, the locally run camping/bike store. Everything local is named after a bear. "The Dancing Bear" is a pub, "Oso" is a frozen yogurt joint, and that's all I can think of right now. So, he headed over to Bear Mountain the first chance he got, and the road bike had just been sold.

A few days later, he signed up for the Xterra, a mountain bike triathalon in hilly Cameron Park. He had two weeks to train, but hey, he had a mountain bike. He met me at the YMCA to help retrieve the children after their swim lessons with the intent to bike afterwards. He returned to his truck and found it lacking the mountain bike. The poor fellow went back into the Y, but they could do nothing because there are no cameras on that side of the building. In the next couple of days, he returned to Bear Mountain and bought a great MOUNTAIN bike. Ugg. He did his best to catch up on the training.

The day of the race arrived. Van cruised up and down the hills feeling the quality of the new bike, when at mile 4 (out of 8), the chain snapped and the end of the handle bars hit him full force in the gut as he crashed to the ground. He checked himself over, tried not to sob like a baby, and told his urologist friend that was with him that he might need an MRI later that day. Along came the nice race folks who picked up both Van and the bike, and commented, "Is that a new bike? Yeah, sometimes the chains are a bit loose at first."

The kiddos have been mostly fighting like cats and dogs since school let out with a few sweet breaks in between. The puppy dog has been learning quite a bit and mostly obeys. Mostly. She still has a weakness to jump on the table if we are not looking. Thankfully, she loves outdoors and does not seem to mind the heat, so we let her in and out thoughout the day, and can kennel her outside in the morning if we need to go somewhere. She is a quiet dog, but raised a racket yesterday when she came upon a snake. Of course, Van was out for a jog, and I had just gotten the last child down for a bed. Cade was concerned, so he went outside to check things out. I told him that it was either a frog or a snake. Sure enough. I yelled at him to come and get his boots. Of course, that stirred the whole house. I made Avi and Zane stay inside, and I grabbed Van's boots for me. I started looking around for the hoe, but I realized that I was definitely going to fall in those cavernous boots trying to kill the snake. I asked somebody to get a treat for the dog who was very excited and proud of herself, and that amazingly lured her into the house. Cade quickly found the plastic fold-out snake field guide, and we tried to discern which snake it was. Van arrived home not to three sleeping children but to three frenzied children climbing the walls and a very tired wife. The man went into a frenzy himself (I love this about Van.), and grabbed some thick gloves and his snake stick that he got at the rattlesnake festival a couple of years ago and has never had the chance to use. I yelled after him to put on his boots, and he did. I guess I have a thing about snakes requiring boots. So, he and Cade worked on capturing the snake, and they did after many whoops and hollers. I think they were as proud as Scout. They posed for a picture and put it in a garbage bag. The whole lot of them loaded into his truck and took it down to the river as it was decided that it was a diamondback water snake. I kept the dog and watched an episode of Pioneer Woman. Then, about two hours after we had first begun, we started the bedtime ritual all over again.

I am very weary of medical stuff. It feels like two steps forward and one step back. The past few weeks have been especially hard, and my mom and my sister have been so kind to care for my kids. I started some new medicines this week that knocked me off of my feet, and I could literally barely walk because I felt so unbalanced and weak. It took awhile, but we finally narrowed it down to the medicine that was causing the trouble, and I stopped using it. My balance has almost come back, but I am still seeing double sometimes. I expect that by the end of the day my eyes will be working together again. To top it off, I had some significant muscle pain in my back and ribs. This one was new for me, so I wasn't sure what to do. One thing that has been helpful is that I took my handy-dandy 20% off coupon to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a back massager that straps to a chair. So, in the middle of the night, I slip into the kitchen, grab a Gogurt, and sit in that chair for 15 minutes. It helps so much. My lungs do seem better and so do my eyes. I am thankful. Mom and Dad are coming today to take care of the kids while I do the photopherisis treatments in Dallas, then we will celebrate the 4th in Utopia. Cade is looking forward to chicken and dumplings.