won't you be my bikefriend?

It's been nearly a year since ankle met car, and I'm still not back to running. The pain in the little screwed together joint is actually getting worse. The weather is warm, and I need to get out and work off my winter lipid stores. Fortunately, my ankle tolerates biking well, so I'd like to get out for some nice long bike rides. I'm pissed, though, because the one cycling group in the area attempts to serve four counties, and most of the rides start in a county that is not my own. Driving 30 minutes to ride a bike is both absurd and a pain in the ass.

Also, I've been afraid to ride on my own since I was bitten by a dog on the local greenway. It's a little paranoid and silly of me, but I justify myself by reasoning there are many good reasons to have a biking buddy based on rational fears.

So, anyone want to join in on some slowish bike rides with a slightly out of shape lady who only has a mountain bike? Weekends are good, some evenings work too.

what do i do with this crap?

There are many things I like about living in Our Fair City, but the city services often leave something to be desired. For example, yard waste. Dick and I have actually started doing things to our yard - things that encourage growing, rather than, say, trying to kill the grass so we don't have to mow it. We planted a little herb and veg garden that we are very proud of. We check it hourly to see if any of our seeds have sprouted. We pulled weeds and raked up some of the leaves that have been clogging our yard since they fell off the trees several months ago.

So now we have a pile of the dreaded Yard Waste. Dreaded because Our Fair City will only dispose of your yard waste if you pay them to. That's not such a bad deal, I guess, if you have over $100 to spend on a big plastic bin and the fee to have the city come and take it away every now and then. I don't, and, frankly, I suspect there are many other people who don't have 'yard waste bin' at the top of their list of things on which to spend $100. If I pack up all of the crap myself and take it to the nearest recycling center, I still have to pay a fee. The city website suggests I could alternately buy one of their composting bins, sold at cost (a good deal, I admit), for my yard waste. But a big pile of leaves actually makes for pretty shitty compost, and the composting bins are currently sold out. Lovely.

I've considered sneaking my leaves and such into a neighbor's yard waste bin in the middle of the night, or perhaps taking part in the age-old tradition of piling it all in the back yard and setting it on fire.

In other waste news, any one want a couple bottles full of used cooking oil?

mystery fabric

In my pondering of what sort of fabric would behoove a spring/summer dress, I've become obsessed with Westfalenstoffe. Westfalenstoffe (which, I think, roughly translates to "fabric from Westphalia") is a kind of cotton fabric from eastern Germany. The designs combine geomtery and folk motifs in amazing repititions, and remind me of Paul Klee



The mystery is not so much locating the fabric - I discovered it among the many fine offerings at Reprodepot.com, source of the amazing cubicle fabric - but finding out something about its history. The manufacturer of the fabric (I think there is only one..) says this about it:

The workshop for Westfalenstoffe has been successful for more than 75 years.

It was found by german state-prize winner Professor Hanne Nuete Kaemmerer and other notable designer.

The designs are influenced by the typical art and traditional way of living found in the westphalian area of Germany.

Some patterns designed in the 1930´s are still part of the current collection and remain just as popular as when they were first designed.

But I can't find any other information on the innernets about Westfalenstoffe or Prof. Kaemmerer there (also, apparently, spelled Hanne-Nute Kammerer). My curiosity is piqued.

My dad travels to Germany regularly on business, and he'll be heading there in April. I think I'm going to send him on a mission to get me a few yards (meters?) of Westfalenstoffe, based on my guess that it's relatively common there and would be cheaper than buying it from a U.S. website and paying for shipping. Plus, it's fun to send people on international shopping errands for you.

day-after women's day post

The author of the wonderful Dress A Day blog has a post about the subtle sexism of men imparting their opinions on traditional aesthetics of femininity to women they hardly know. In her case, its "I really like it when women wear dresses."

I was asked once by a male colleague, in the midst of one-on-one meeting in which I was interviewing him about project for an article I was writing, if I ever considered growing my hair long. My response at the time was "No." In retrospect I wish I had said, "What I do with my hair is none of your fucking business, buddy." Because it's not, and what kind of asshole brings up the hair style of a woman in a professional setting?.

Oh. And there's that, too.

meltdown, or, just melty

Even after becoming an atheist, living in sin, and not attending mass except for when your parents make you go on Christmas, sometimes that Catholic upbringing comes back to haunt you. Sometimes it makes you buy Virgen de Gaudalupe air fresheners for your car. Sometimes it makes you unbearibly neurotic with the anger/guilt combo induced by your mother nearly weeping when you tell her you've chosen the Dark Path of Art School and she responds, "You're leaving me just like I left [my mother]," and "My stomach really hurts now." And then you want to drink a lot and also get a tatoo that says "I BROKE MY DEAR OLD MOTHER'S HEART" on your forearm, which, come to think of it, puts you in kind of the same league as Britney Spears, except that she's probably Methodist or whatever and did it out of spite/insanity and not as a penance for being the worst daughter ever and breaking your mother's heart with your selfish, selfish educational pursuits.

And sometimes it just makes you see the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese.

Mmmmmmm, grilled cheese.