The gang's all here

The night before we’re leaving London to head to the Alps, I wind up with a migraine. Great. Not the most auspicious beginning. We land uneventfully in Geneva, and camp out in the airport, since it’ll be a while before the Alps Cycles people will be by to pick us all up. In the meantime, we start looking around for any likely compatriots.

Stacey: There, those people have bike boxes!

Me: I thought you said it was mostly women in the group. Notice how those are all guys?

Stacey: Oh, right.

Me: So what do you think the other women are like? I’m envisioning a coffeeklatsch of semi-schlumpy women who thought it would be fun to do this as a lark. Ride around in the Alps, stop for baguettes, that sort of thing.

Stacey: Umm, sure. It could be that. Or they could be uber-fit women who’ll kick our asses.

Me: I’m going with semi-schlumpy. It makes me feel better. What do you think the chalet we’re staying at will be like?

Stacey: Don’t get your hopes up. In most places “chalet” is just another word for “barracks.” I’m not saying it’ll be bread and water, but…..well, don’t get your hopes up.

At one point, I see a guy across the arrival area who has a bike box, and looks like he’s waiting for someone to pick him up. He looks really fit though, so he obviously doesn’t fit into my little scenario of women and the random couple of male wanna-be cyclists who don’t know how to change a tire and put in a hundred or so miles of riding a week. You know, the guys that’ll be on this trip. Then a girl with a bike box walks up to him, but she too looks young and insanely fit, so I discount her as well.

That is, until I see a guy with an Alp Cycles sign walk up, and those two gravitate towards him. Great. 2 down, 2 to go. There’s still hope.

We all pile into the van and set off, at which point I realize 2 things: a) France is really hilly. I guess it has something to do with that whole Alps thing they have going on, and b) Migraine + twisty windy roads+ tendency to get motion sickness = not a good thing. Making a great first impression as always, I spend the whole car ride trying to not get sick, especially as we go up the 10km winding hairpin switchback road that leads to the chalet. Please don’t let me be sick, please let this ride be over soon – these are my thoughts, so I don’t pay too much attention to the roads we’re on. This will prove to be a mistake later on. A big one.

Finally we arrive at our barracks, aka chalet, which is……stunning. Cozy, warm, delightful, gorgeous. And the view is amazing – as again, we’re basically at the top of a mountain. Or what most of us Yankees would call a mountain, though which is probably nothing more than a speed bump around here.

And not only are we greeted by this beautiful chalet, but there’s also a feast laid out for us, of tea and bread and jam and delicious homemade cake, made by Amy, who’s cooking for us for the week and seems hell-bent on insuring that none of us loses any weight this week.

In addition to the 4 of us picked up from the airport, apparently there’s one more woman coming, Penny, whose flight got delayed. The other woman supposed to be on this trip stopped contacting the Alps Cycles people a few weeks ago – hmm, I wonder what she knows that we don’t. “Penny”, though – that sounds to me like a good, sturdy sort of name. I picture a German hausfrau type wearing a housecoat, schmata wrapped around her head, kind of like Fraulein Schweiger in the Sound of Music, i.e. the one who wouldn’t get off the stage. She’ll be slightly giggly and will have brought her own basket as the most important piece of bike equipment, so as to be able to tote around the jars of jam she’s planning on buying on her biking excursions around the French countryside. Yes. That sounds right. Penny will be my savior, make me look good in comparison.

* * * * * * *

“Hello! I’m here!”

We look up from the first of many delicious dinners to see a thin, uber-fit blond woman bounding into the chalet, full of irrepressible energy, vim, and vigor. I’m tired just from looking at her. Of course it’s our wayward colleague Penny. So much for my vision of the giggly hausfrau. Sigh.

But hope springs eternal and all that, so later after she sits down and we’re all chatting, I see the M-dot necklace around her neck, and ask her which ones she’s done, thinking that she’s probably done a token Ironman and figures that’s enough to get her by for a week in the Alps.

Penny: Oh, let’s see……Cozumel, Rosenberg, New Zealand, South Africa…….(goes on to rattle off about 15 IMs)

Sigh. She also doesn't ask me which Ironmans I've done. I can guess why.

* * * * * * * *

So to sum, here’s our Cast of Characters for the week:

Kevin: The guy we saw at the airport, who has the official title of Nicest Guy on the Planet. Seriously, he’s that genuinely nice.

Sarah: The other person from the airport. Young, obviously fit, and also a racing cyclist. Of course. I want to hate her but she’s too bubbly and nice.

Penny: Not only uber-fit, but also a journalist for Cycling Weekly. Since she apparently kind of fell into the writing/editing gig, I want to hate her, but I can’t because she very nicely helps me set my Garmin so that it shows gradient, and also takes the time to show me a bunch of other useful things on it. Damn!

Clive and Viv: 2 other people who come in late, and are here to do some off-road cycling. Both sweet as can be. And of course uber-fit.

Ade and Shelley: Officially the Nicest Couple in the World, who own the Alp Cycles company and will be taking care of us for the week. I don’t think they know what they’re getting into, poor folks.

Chris: Works for Ade and Shelley, very nice, I’ll be seeing a lot of him during the course of the week.

Then of course there’s me and Stacey. Stacey, who is perfectly capable of climbing mountains but doesn’t think she can, and me, looking like the token fat lazy American who didn’t do any training for this. Well, at least the fat part is right.

That night, as I go to bed, I remind myself of all the training I’ve done. You can’t come from a base of doing Ironman races and then ride 1400 miles in the 5 weeks leading up to your trip and still be totally incompetent on the bike, can you? Umm…..you can’t, right??

Adventuring in London

Day One

Of course, while the weather has been lovely in the UK all summer, now that I’m here, it’s rain rain rain. And cold. Naturally. Stacey and I plan to go riding, but first we need to pick up my bike, NOT from the “Tri ‘N Run” people where we rented the clown bike from last time. That was the one that didn’t shift, didn’t brake, and had an unstable seat clamp so my saddle would suddenly go lurching into a rather severe and precarious backward tilt.

We have breakfast – I have yogurt, planning to stick to my stringent nutrition plan even while on vacation – and off we go. And amazingly enough, the bike from this We Ride Bikes place is, in fact, only a semi-clown bike. Sweet! The brakes at least seem to work, the seat doesn’t shift around, and the shifters, well, they suck, but at least they kind of work. Better than last time at least.

Today’s highlights:

· My almost falling in front of a car, in heavy London traffic. Oops. Luckily I managed to clip out in time – thank god for all the riding I did this summer, where that’s second nature by now. Otherwise I’d be looking like a pancake at the moment - or a flapjack, as they call it here. I think.

· Stacey and I riding to Windsor, getting stuck in the rain, it starting to get dark, and then having the following conversation:

Me: Aren’t you hungry? It’s 5:30. We haven’t eaten since breakfast.

Stacey: But we haven’t even been riding hard, just toodling along.

Me: Okay, let’s ignore the fact that my heart rate has been through the roof all along due to weaving and dodging in and out of cars. But even if we were just standing around all day, we’d still need more calories than that. Or at least I would. You’re about a third the size of me.

Stacey: But ^&*hakjdhY&*&#$^*IUFE*&hmph…….

Somehow Stacey suddenly wound up with a sock in her mouth, though I have no idea how that happened. Odd. I was busy eating an oatcake, so what do I know?

· The letter I composed to Shimano in my head, which started out thusly: “To the good folks at Shimano: I’m not quite sure where your fine engineers got the idea that people who buy inexpensive bikes deserve shifters that don’t quite work properly and that clink and whine and clunk horribly once they do deign to shift, curmudgeonly at that. In other words: how dare you make such pieces of crap as these horrible Sora shifters, that deserve a special rung in hell for all the misery they’ve caused?” It went on, but you get the general idea.

· I suddenly and inexplicably start speaking with a British accent, on Titchfield Rd. Somehow that kind of road calls for it. Bloody hell and all that.

Day Two

We have to return my bike today, so to “simplify” things, Stacey is going to use one of the new rental bikes around the city, and we’ll bike to the shop and return the rental bike there. The only problem with this is the following: the thing weighs about 100 pounds, is clunky and unwieldy, and Stacey looks like the Wicked Witch of the West on it as she rides in front of me. Okay, that last part isn’t a problem – it’s actually kind of funny, as I keep cracking up and humming the WWotW tune to her: da da de de daaa da…..

The other big problem with it is that it takes a lot of effort for Stacey to get it going, and just about as much effort to get it to stop. Oh, and surprise, the shifters don’t work very well. Which is why when we’re riding along, Stacey ahead of me, and she goes in between cars up an on-ramp and gets to the red light – she keeps going, turning to the left. And because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, I just follow her, as I’ve been doing all along.

Which is when the police pull up beside us and ask us to stop up ahead. Oops.

Police Officer/Gendarme (I like that word): Do you know why we stopped you?

Stacey: No.

POG: You ran the red light.

Stacey: Do you have any idea how horrible cars are in this city to cyclists? I ride my bike to work every day and I see so many of them breaking laws and I’ve been hit twice….

POG: BE that as it may, the city has assembled a task force to crack down on cyclists, so I’m afraid we’ll have to fine you and write you a ticket. It’s dangerous, what you just did. Just a few days ago I had to deal with an accident where a woman on a bike was crushed by a lorry.

Me: That’s horrible. But how do we pay the fine?

POG: You can’t pay now, you have to go to court and pay it.

Stacey: But we’re leaving for France tomorrow!

POG: When do you get back?

Me: We get back the 25^th, and I go back to the US on the 26^th.

Things aren’t looking good, Stacey is about to start arguing with them again, so I figure the time for action is now. And somehow I don’t think explaining how we got this horrible rental bike that means Stacey is trying to not stop at all……well, let’s just say I don’t think that would go over too well.

Me, earnestly: And I just want to say, I had no idea about the no left turn on red rule – in the US, you can turn right on red, which is the equivalent.

POG: Cyclists have to follow the same rules as cars…

Me, totally sucking up: Oh, I know! Absolutely! I just mean I thought we were, with the whole right turn on red rule that I thought was okay here.

This is where they start playing Good Cop Bad Cop.

POG 1: Well, what I’m going to have to do is make you both go to court tomorrow morning to take care of this…….except I’ll leave that decision to my partner here.

I turn my repentant yet pleading, beseeching yet conciliatory, Sad Cancer Face to POG #2.

POG 2: Lecture lecture lecture etc. and so on……… “…..so I won’t make you go to court this time, but consider this a warning.”

Whew! They were actually quite nice about the whole thing, and I guess if you’re stupid enough to – right in front of police officers - break a traffic law you didn’t know about (at least in my case) or are trying to pilot a tank-like bike through the streets of London (Stacey), then you at least deserve to be chastised.

Next up: Getting out of London while the getting is good, to start our awesome Alp Cycles trip! Oh yeah, and my bike crash on day one. Five miles in. No, really. No lie.

Little victories.....

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The first sign that things are going to go smoothly occurs when I step up to the United counter to get my boarding pass and check my luggage, which I weighed that morning to make sure it wouldn’t be overweight, as I believe the airlines now charge something like $89 and your firstborn for each pound the bag is over.

I heft the bag onto the platform, and wait, breathlessly…….waiting… ……50.0 exactly!!

I immediately lift my hands over my head in the V-for-victory sign. “Woo hoo!” I proclaim. “Am I awesome or WHAT?” I’m about to do my little “uh-huh, Miss Tasha’s got skilz” dance, when I notice the check-in guy looking at me a little strangely, so I decide to not press my luck. Especially since he’s now looking at my passport, then at me – up, down, up down. Uh oh, now what??

“Miss….”

Shit, here it comes.

He continues, “Miss, you forgot to sign your passport. Would you mind doing that now?”

Whew! Disaster averted.

The next exciting moment comes as I’m going through the metal detector, and it beeps. Sweet! Could this mean my titanium collarbone has finally gotten the attention it deserves? Could it be, could it…..

“Please take off your hat.”

Sigh, my Sox hat. I take it off, go through again, no beep. Maybe next time, titanium collarbone, maybe next time…….

* * * * * * *

I’m trying to kill time on the endless, interminable flight, as there’s just so much book reading and napping one can do. I idly start flipping through the in-flight magazine, when something extraordinary catches my eye.

“Exercise in exactly 4 minutes per day!”

What fresh hell is this? Someone is trying to steal my patented uber-efficient workout methodology?? I read on. “Expensive but fantastic!” it proclaims. “Total disbelief of a cardio workout done in only 4 minutes!”

Yes, the ROM machine (it doesn’t say what ROM stands for) can be yours as you astound and amaze your friends and family with your newly toned and muscular physique, from using this weird-looking machine for just the aforementioned 4 minutes. The cost for such a marvel? A mere $14,615.

Why the hell didn’t I think of something like this?

* * * * * * * *

We finally land at Heathrow, and I briskly stride off the plane and towards customs. And stride. And stride. Good god, just how big IS this damn airport? After a while it brings to mind a Monty Python skit, where you keep turning a corner and lo, there’s another walkway! More stairs! Another long hallway! Personally I think it’s a test, to see if you really want to arrive in London or not, or just decide it’s too much bother and get on the next plane going back. I persevere. Finally, customs.

And as a note, lest you fourteens of readers think I’m making this up, some astute fellow traveler friends informed me on Facebook that yes indeed, the Heathrow Half-Marathon as they call it is quite a hike – 1.8 miles, to be exact. Hmm, so much for my Big Taper Day. Hmph. Heathrow, if this screws up my carefully designed Alps Training Regimen, I’ll know who to blame……

And while I thought that my initial perfect bag-weighing-in might have been a harbinger of smooth sailing to come, I was disabused of this notion when my driver got hopelessly lost taking me to Stacey, who lives in Chelsea, which is the equivalent of Lincoln Park in Chicago. His Garmin stopped working, so he had no idea about anything. 2 calls to Stacey, 3 calls to his dispatcher, and 6 pull-overs so he could study the map later, we arrive. Whee, let the adventure begin!

(Next up: how Stacey tries to kill me on Day One, by sending me off on a bike in heavy London traffic. In the rain. With nighttime approaching. And oh yeah, then there were the police officers who pulled us over and threatened to make us show up in court the next day. Whee! Also, why Shimano should be boycotted…….)

CACTASS is here.....

I’ve spent the summer on my bike. Riding those 1,200 or 1,300 miles or whatever the final total turned out to be, here in the IL/WI countryside, dodging idiot cars who decided to try passing around blind curves, or marveling at how every single truck that passed me – yes, every single one – gave me such a wide berth all summer. That in and of itself is a wonder.

And it’s been a hot, humid, windy summer, though I can’t complain about that, as it’s better than a cold one, like last year. I’ve met a lot of cool people along the way – Kelly in Sharon, WI, the neat guys at the Agonizing Perk bike/coffee shop near Madison, and of course my mom’s neighbors here at Sun City, who sure as hell do get up early for a bunch of retirees. Sheesh. Relax and sleep in a bit, would you all?

And because I go over a couple of overpasses over the interstate on my usual routes, I’ve been able to observe from my perch just how many lousy drivers there are out there. Slower drivers to the RIGHT, okay folks?

I've learned yet again just how great my friends are, for checking in with me to see how the training was going,

but understanding why I was hardly around all summer. Motya and Tessie, there are a couple of berets out there with your names on them!

I’ve discovered my mom is pretty cool to

hang out with, though she’ll be glad to see me and Kona out of here, so she can have her peace and quiet back.

I’ve discovered that if you eat enough of anything on the bike, you get sick of it. No matter how good those Clif Mojo bars are, the millionth one is just….too….much.

On one of my rides to and from WI, I stumbled upon a gorgeous old farmhouse, which serendipitously turned out to be for sale, and I envisioned my alternate life that it seemed fate was presenting me with, complete with hobby farm, my writing career, and MiracleFarmerChild to help me bring in the crops. Alas, when I finally saw the inside of the house, it was dilapidated and water-damaged and had a basement caked with mold. So clearly fate was just fucking with me, as usual. I’m still kind of bummed about this.

And after all this, I’m pretty sure I’m nowhere near ready to climb an Alp. Unless it’s a Baby Alp. They have those over there, don’t they? Since our home base is 10km up a mountain, maybe I can just do hill repeats on that, while everyone else is slogging up slightly more formidable mountains. We shall see.

But regardless, Alp top or no, I’m sure to have a great time with my most awesome friend Stacey – I can’t imagine doing a trip like this with anyone else. Though if she tells me I should have trained more, she may find herself rolling down an Alpian cliff, “accidentally” pushed by unseen hands. Because we all know where and how I’ve spent my entire summer.

Though I have to say, spending your summer on a bike trying to prepare for a Great Alpian Adventure, well, it’s a pretty good place to be.

And as always, I will report back…..

Who knew it was so simple?

My mom recognizes that I’m known far and wide for my cutting-edge thinking with regard to diet and nutrition, and how I’m always ready to do what needs to be done to bring truth and wisdom to you, my fourteens of readers. It is in this vein in which I’ve tried Stillmans (fail), VLCD (mega fail), and of course who can forget the Pink Diet, in which I only ate or drank foods/beverages that were pink (okay, not big in terms of weight loss, but at least the mai tais were tasty. Hey, they’re kind of pink!).

So it should come as no surprise to anyone that my mom came running over to me eagerly a few days ago, after she came across a most illuminating article in the paper, entitled “Eat This and That!”

Now, this is different from the “Eat this not that!’ people, who’ve made a career – a lucrative one, it seems – out of informing the apparently clueless populace that yes, eating the wizened and desiccated bag of apple slices from Hardees rather than the Super Mega Monster Cheese-Buster ThickBurger will save you approximately 4,000 calories. Who knew?

Anyway, the basic premise of this article revolves around food combining. For those of you not in the know, this means that when you combine certain foods, there can be a synergistic effect, in both negative and positive ways. For example, with the Atkins diet, you’re warned to not eat any carbs with your proteins lest you want to blow up like a jellyfish that’s been left to fester out in the sun on a hot summer’s day. Conversely, eating celery with pretty much anything cancels out most of the calories due to the vigorous digestive processes required to do anything with the celery.

This article suggests that by combining certain foods, you negate the detrimental impact of one of them. To wit:

“In a perfect world, you’d eat healthily all the time, but let’s get real.

The good news: Consuming certain nutritious foods with harmful foods can help minimize the damage.”

And so we have the following suggested combinations: hot dogs and sauerkraut. A high-fat meal plus grapes. Salty food plus chocolate. And for the coup de grace: fried chicken (!) plus cherries, of all things! Two of the most perfect foods in the world!

Well. This completely changes things for me, as I’m sure it does for you. Now, while the article doesn’t mention anything about weight loss specifically, we all know that good health and nutrition go hand in hand with being svelte and lean and losing weight, yes? Right? I will report back.

Another best of....

Last week I’m doing my usual riding up in Madison, tackling the 18% hills and whatnot with ease – or rather, what I’m sure would be ease if not for the chipseal, the gravel, the bumps in the road, etc. – when I decide to stop in at what is unquestionably the best coffee/bike shop in the world, this Uplifting Grind place. Uphill Grind, I mean. I’ll get it right one of these days.

Anyway, as soon as I walk in, I’m hailed and greeted like a rockstar, as is befitting my status:

Cute nice counter guy: Hi!

Cute nice computer couch guy: Hi there!

Dapper older man: Hello!

Now, the last time I was here I was greeted similarly by the owner of the store, Michael, but not with quite as much unbridled admiration as from this crew. Clearly, word about me has gotten around.

CNCG: What can I do for you?

Me: Hmm, I need something, but I don’t know what.

CNCG: I’m thinking…..an icy cold coffee with milk, refreshing, sweet, caffeine.

Me: That’s it!!! Ah, you’re a genius. You see, that’s why I love this place. I write about you guys, you know.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

CNCCG: You have that blog, The Thighmaster Route to Kona – I’ve read it, it’s a great blog.

Me: Why…yes, that’s me. Doing the stupid things, so you don’t have to.

CNCCG: Exactly! Using equipment purchased through infomercials….

Me: Yep…

CNCCG: …or As Seen on TV…

Me: Wow, you’re good!

I can see the shiny admiration in his eyes, or perhaps it’s just the glare from the overhead lights, tough to say which. But it’s kind of the same thing.

DOM: Thigh…what? What’s that?

CNCCG: Thighmaster Route to Kona…

DOM: What?

CNCG, helpfully: Thighmaster. It’s a piece of exercise equipment….

Me, also helpfully: ….or if you just google Tasha and Kona, that should take you to the blog too.

DOM: Blog…?

Sigh. World domination via my little blog doesn’t always come easy, but I soldier on. Anyway, we’re chatting as I bask in my glorified status as a Triathlon Goddess, which naturally accords me this kind of attention and niceties, when some random person walks into the store.

CNCG: Hi!

CNCCG: Hi there!

DOM: Hello!

Umm. So. Well, I’m sure that person also has some kind of niche in blogdom…...or knows these guys……or…..something. Something just like that. Right?

Taking stock, part 2

The training

The training part of my CACTASS endeavor has at least fared slightly better than the diet part. In the last 5 weeks, I’ve logged 1,016 Garmin-certified miles across hill and dale here out in the boondocks. I mean, the bucolic countryside around Huntley, IL. Since I’ve been traveling the same roads ad nauseum, so as to not waste time driving elsewhere to ride, I now know every farmer, every chicken, every dog (fenced and non-fenced), every bump in the road, every place where the wind shifts, every water stop.

I know everything there is to know about the growth cycle of corn. I know the bartender at the Prairie Pub (hours 11AM – 2AM), who’s always nice enough to put ice in my water bottles before I fill them with bottled water. Kelly at Sharon’s Sweet Shop and I are pals, and I promised her a bushel of tomatoes when I get back from my trip. I’ve come to discover that the roads around Delavan, WI get suckier every year, even when they pave them and for some reason wind up with all these seams in the road. People in cars have stopped to ask me for directions. When I see my mom’s neighbors here in Sun City, the first thing they ask me is “How many miles today?” My mom, who’ll be happy to see the tail end of me and The Kone, as I don’t think she likes how we’ve disrupted her orderly existence.

The question, of course, is this – even after all the riding, am I ready to make it up the Alps, or even AN Alp? I have no idea, though I’m starting to think it’s doubtful. But I’ve done what I could in the time I had – and for those wondering why I didn’t start training sooner, well, those pesky surgeries got in the way. At least the Boobages will look good though as I’m gasping for air on the side of a mountain, having simply fallen over on my bike, still clipped in.

And I’m determined to have a good time, whatever may be. I’m still pissed off about the weight thing – since I haven’t had a burger, a bonbonbonbon, or anything else remotely tasty in months now –to no avail. I’m still fat, and will have to try to haul my fat little self up a mountain, which is hard enough when you’re thin. Fuck you FatSurly!

I actually got The Look yesterday from my brother – who’s seen how little I eat - when I idly mentioned that my ride that day had been 80+ miles to Wisconsin and back. He literally stopped in his tracks, looked me up and down, and said “What?? 80 miles? But….how…..”

Me: “Yeah, I know. I’ve been riding those distances for a while now, and you can see all the good it’s done me.”

Andrew: “But…..wow. Imagine what you’d look like if you weren’t doing all that cycling! If I rode that much, I’d look like an Ethiopian refugee!”

Sigh.

Of course, true to form, I’m still ramping up, so I’m off now for another long-ish bike ride in the 99% humidity, now that the rain has stopped. I have a whole week left, and I’m sure I can ratchet up my fitness level another couple of notches in that time. Right? Maybe? Bueller?

Squashless in Skokie

Thanks to the yuppie scum neighbors who moved in next door into their wretched-looking gut rehabbed place and immediately put up a 7-foot “privacy fence,” I no longer get any sun in my backyard. Their Taj Mahalian garage that takes up the width of the yard and casts a massive shadow over my former tomato patch doesn’t help either. This means that I’ve had to branch out, and now my main plot is in a community garden in the ‘burbs.

So I head out there the other day, eager to see what surprises await. The tomatoes are growing like hotcakes, ripening in July which for my tomatoes is unheard of. That’s the main crop, but then there are the beans (eaten by wabbits), the peppers (muddling along, though I don’t pay too much attention to them), the cukes (wee, since I started them late), and of course, the squash. Oh, glorious squash! How many odes have been written to your beauty, your versatility, your tastiness!

Come to think of it, probably not very many, since squash is kind of the Rodney Dangerfield of the garden. The classic joke being that people have to lock their car doors in summer not because crime goes up, but just so that they don’t come back and find a pile of zucchini on the front seat. And then you’re stuck trying to figure out what to do with the damn things. Some squash beckons to you at the farmers’ market, looking so adorable and healthy, so you buy them and take them home and they sit on the counter, mocking you, until you decide that they’d make a lovely decorative tableau along with other incomprehensible vegetables like rutabagas, so you arrange them and let their very presence do the heavy lifting, saying to all and sundry “Look at me! I’m a squash! Only people really dedicated to their health and svelteness eat squash!”

Until the day they all start rotting so you throw them out, happy to be done with it all until the next time you get suckered in. Umm, not that I’ve ever done anything like this.

Or you look up recipes on allrecipes.com, your regular go-to place for such things, and half of them involve cut up squash, milk, and saltines, in what must be some weird Southern ode to inedible casseroles. The other recipes follow the approach I do – to the squash add ground beef, Italian sausage, marinara sauce, lots of garlic, lots of cheese, bake the whole thing, and voila, you have something that’s actually pretty tasty – no thanks to the squash.

The point being, I wound up with a squash plant because I was at the garden one day when my garden plot neighbor was thinning out her plants, and asked me if I wanted a stray squash. I thought, why not? There’s plenty of room, I’ll just stick it in here where it’ll be out of the way.

Of course, a month later it’s the Squash Plant That’s Taking Over the World, growing with alarming speed, churning out pattypan squash with determination. I went there one week – no squash. Exactly a week later? 3 squash, one the size of a hubcap. No lie. I picked two, and left a small one because I wasn’t sure how big I was supposed to let them get.

Fast forward to yesterday at the garden. I hop over my fencing and go eagerly to the squash plant, to see what kind of behemoth we’re dealing with here, and…….what ho? No squash? Someone has STOLEN my squash??? I’m so dumbfounded by this that I look under every (immense) leaf, even though the squash are bright yellow so they’re impossible to miss. I then head over to the tomatoes, but I still keep looking over at the squash plant, as if the missing vegetable will somehow magically appear. Alas, this doesn’t happen, and I remain squash-less.

Now, not that I begrudge the squash thief, because quite frankly, I still have about 3 containers of squash casserole in the freezer from the last one, but……seriously? Squash??

And people think I make this stuff up.

On another note entirely, today I went for my usual 80-mile Donut Commute, passing through the Evil Nasty town of Capron, IL on my way to the Bucolic, Lovely Town of Sharon, WI. And as soon as I reached the sign that said “Capron,” a menacing shadow appeared immediately overhead – so I look up and see the biggest, darkest turkey vulture I’ve ever seen hovering and circling right above me. And staying there. Hmm. Coincidence?

I think not.