Surviving RAGBRAI

Remember last year when it was an insanely hot and humid RAGBRAI – the hottest one in the history of said RAGBRAI – and I very astutely noted the following: “Self, this sucks. Truly. But there’s no way it can ever be this hot again, so next year should be golden. Fucking golden, as we say in Illinois.”

Well. Hmm. Wasn’t it pretty to think so. Because THIS year? Yeah, it was even hotter – at least for the first part of the week until the cool front came in on Thursday and brought temps into the mere 90s. A veritable chill in the air, I tell you.

Oh, and did I mention that 4 people died this year during RAGBRAI solely because of the heat? Meaning, not because of the crazy crashes that always happen when idiot people careen in front of you and almost take you out causing your heart to jump out of your chest and go scampering across the cornfields. Not that that happened to me, of course. Well, not more than twice.

Anyway. Yes, the RAGBRAI chronicles you are eagerly awaiting from me will be coming forthwith, with the pathos! tears! hilarity! puffertjes! that you’ve come to expect. Right now, however, I am still in the throes of getting my house ready to put on the market to sell, and have a few more days of grunt work before I can get back to my real life, i.e. riding my bike, eating bonbons, and writing my blog. (I would add “doting on The Kone”, but let’s be real, that never falls by the wayside.)

Not to go off on a tangent here, but do you all know that just the act of getting your house ready to sell is as time-consuming (if not more so) than actually moving? Apparently these days one must have 90% of the shit in their house packed up, so that people who look at it only see a halcyon carefree existence of jaunty trips to the art gallery, as opposed to the dirty socks and zen of real life. It’s exhausting, quite frankly.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Basically because 2 more days of cleaning and I’m essentially saying “fuck it, this is as good as it gets.” So, bear with me, my 20s of readers, soon the miracle of how Miss Tasha survived RAGBRAI (and tips thereof) in the 110 degree temperatures will be revealed…..