Miss Tasha’s Series of Calamitous Events

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

This is me, in the back seat of Mike’s pickup, realizing my bike is mangled somewhere on the highway. I’m in shock. The bike falling off the bike rack is every cyclist's worst nightmare, but it never happens. Except to me, of course. Mike has pulled over.

Me: WE NEED TO TURN AROUND AND FIND MY BIKE.

Mike: Where? What?

Michelle: Omg. Omg.

Me: TURN AROUND ON THE HIGHWAY NOW.

Mike starts driving, slowly. Just then – and luckily we’re already on the highway in Iowa and there are few other cars about – another pickup pulls up alongside us and tells us what the deal is.

Nice people in pickup: Your bike is dragging behind your truck!

Me: OMG OMG OMG.

We pull over and get out. The bike is indeed dragging behind Mike’s truck. Somehow, fortuitously, after we strapped the bike on, I spied an extra bungee chord and strapped my bike wheel to Mike’s bike’s wheel, and it’s still holding. Right, the thick rubber straps somehow didn’t hold my bike on, but the bungee did.

My bike is somewhat….mangled, but seemingly all in one piece. We can’t do anything about it now, so we put it in the back of the truck bed with the luggage, and drive on. I sit in back staring into space, in shock, thinking, fuck my fucking life, because seriously, what the fuck.

 * * * * * * *

Now, I should note that after Betsy dismissed my leg/hip/back pain YET AGAIN, I did in fact see a chiropractor, because, why not? I suspected a bulging or herniated disc problem, as that seemed like it could be pushing against nerves and causing the leg pain. For the entire month of June, I saw a lovely chiropractor in Silverton, and after a month, even he admitted that it had done absolutely nothing. He referred me to an orthopedist, at my request. Said orthopedist was also lovely, did an x-ray of my hip, which also showed nothing. He referred me to a back specialist, who I didn’t have time to see before leaving for Ragbrai.

* * * * * * *

I should also mention now the saga with Unhinged Homeless Asshole, or UHA. In May I had hired upon referral from Sarah W. (who runs Sheltering Services in Silverton) someone to clean out the washhouse. He then revealed that he was living out of his van, and asked if he could temporarily park his van on the fringes of my property; in a temporary fit of attempting to model the ideals of a “compassionate Silverton,” I said yes, based on the fact that Sarah recommended him, they had “known each other a long time,” would “vouch for him,” etc. This was what’s known as a Bad Move. And before I left for Ragbrai, I needed to talk to him to tell him to move on already, but he had disappeared for several days.

So to recap: I’m in nowhere Iowa trying to figure out my mangled bike, with little connectivity or cell phone reception, and there’s UHA back home and my neighbor who I’ve hired again this year to water the garden. For the bike, luckily at our charter we have My Bike Guy, ie a bike repair guy who’s there all week. I leave him to look over the bike, and I head off to the Expo to buy a new saddle. Mine has been shaved down with frightening precision from being dragged along the highway, such that only about half of it is left. I get a text.

Neighbor who lives behind me: Are you home?

Me: Umm, no, I’m in Iowa.

Neighbor: Half of your tree fell into my yard.

Say….what? Which tree? Wtf?

The old apple tree in the back of my yard has fallen backwards onto the fence, with part of it brushing against the neighbor’s shed. No, there’s no storm, no wind. Yes, this is totally random. I start trying to find someone who can deal with this. I get a text.

Garden Watering Neighbor: UHA thought he was going back to jail, but he left his dog here. And he put a lock on the washhouse so I can’t get to the tomato fertilizer. Oh, and he told Emma to move so he could take a nap on the patio couch. And the tree, he’s decided he’s going to “help” with it, and I keep telling him to NOT TOUCH ANYTHING AT ALL.

What. The. Fuck.

I text UHA to tell him to get his shit and get off my property. I find someone who’ll remove the tree. I limp to the Expo, find a replacement Terry Butterfly saddle, start limping back to our campsite. My leg is killing me. I wonder, can things possibly get worse?

Oh yes, dear one of readers. Oh. Yes.

The Art of the Potato

In preparation for RAGBRAI, I decided I’d forego my usual ramping up procedure and start training early. Yes, the mind reels. This meant that I started looking up any intriguing sounding bike ride in Oregon that I could find, which included the aforementioned The Art of Surviving the Potato century ride, down in Tule Lake, CA. I was debating signing up, given the long drive down there, when I came across this gem in an article:

“Every rider gets a sack of newly harvested local potatoes!”

I might have signed up so fast such as to set a new land-speed record. And one lovely Airbnb reservation later, I was all set.

* * * * *

I will now use a technique known in literary circles as “foreshadowing” to mention the injury-but-not-an-injury that I’ve been dealing with for lo, the past year or so. It started in May (!) of 2018, when suddenly…..I couldn’t walk. I mean I COULD, but not without serious pain radiating up and down my right leg. Since it was towards the front of the leg, I figured it couldn’t be a sciatic issue, but Dr. Google was of little help. It was so bad that I tried to not leave the house – because it was too painful to walk – and when I did have to, say, go to the post office to drop off packages, it was an ordeal. Assuming it would go away, I put off going to the doctor’s office, until I decided enough was enough.

Scene: the office of Betsy Devos, aka my Nurse Practitioner that I was shunted to after the PA I was seeing left that practice. I assume Betsy was a doctor and only realized much later that she was an NP, and that I’ve never actually seen a doctor at this office. Why Betsy? She’s the spitting image of Devos, even some similar mannerisms. It’s eerie.

Me: So I’ve had this right leg pain since May, and it’s better than it was at first but still there.

Betsy: Let’s move your leg around randomly. Can you stand? Raise your knee? Move your leg to the side?

Me: Uhh, yes.

Betsy: I’m sure it’s nothing, just a joint thing.

Me: But it’s been going on for a while.

Betsy: Does it hurt all the time?

Me: Well no but…

Betsy: Then it can’t be serious. If it were serious it would hurt constantly.

Me: But…..

Betsy: It’ll go away, I’m positive.

Of course it didn’t go away, but it was tolerable-ish, until it wasn’t.  Before the Potato ride, I contact Julie:

Me: When I last saw you I had shooting pain up and down the front of my right leg, and now it’s not just leg pain but also hip and back. I’m hobbling along hunched over, can’t lift or carry things, etc.  Isn’t there a scan you can order that would indicate what’s going on?

Betsy: It’s your hip or your back but as it comes and goes and you are a very active person, I am not worried. I’d recommend going to chiropractic.

Okay then. I do the Potato Art bike ride and happily collect my hard-won sack of potatoes, but when I’m not actually on the bike, I can barely walk. This is the oddity – I can ride my bike just fine, but once I’m off it, I’m worse off than before. Much as I'd like to explore the local towns, the most I manage to do is find a musty antique store and buy a book of old recipes that includes such gems as "Supreme Clam Loaf" and "Festive Potato Cake."

This continues through the other bike rides I’ve signed up for: the Gran Fondo, the Joyride, etc. – and then we’re at RAGBRAI.  Whereupon Michelle, Mike and I are driving to Iowa to start the week-long bike ride……..and Mike looks into his rearview mirror.

Mike: Tasha. Your bike. Where’s your bike?

Me: Whattheeverlovingfuckareyoutalkingabout???????

My bike has fallen off the car. My. Bike. Has. Fallen. Off. The. Car.

And then all hell REALLY breaks loose.

Hell be a gooseberry

Well, one of reader, it’s certainly been a while, has it not? Things fall apart, as a famous writer once said, and then they come together again in patterns of chaos, pathos, despair, joy, insanity, WTFedness, laughter, tears, rallying to laugh again. So let’s get on with it, as there are things that need to be said.

Like the tale of the gooseberries. Now, I clearly  - CLEARLY – recall having nostalgic and winsome conversations with my mother about her time growing up in the old country.

My mom: “Oh, gooseberries! I remember picking them as a child in Ukraine, and then we’d make pie. Gooseberry pie has always been my absolute favorite.”

Now. I’m not saying necessarily that talk of obscure, hard-to-find fruit is an early warning sign of dementia, but. Well. You be the judge.

I of course took this as a given, that I needed to find gooseberries. Here I’ll note that there’s a very valid reason one never sees gooseberries sold in stores, and that’s because they are Satan’s Own Fruit. Yes, it’s true. Go look up “gooseberry” in the dictionary, and there’ll just be a picture of Satan himself.

 

I naturally laugh at such minor challenges, which is why one day this summer I found myself at Fordyce Farm in Silverton, whose sign proudly proclaimed “u-pick black currants, goose, blue,” using the short-handed vernacular familiar to all. First I decided to pick black currants, because those too are difficult to find already picked. They’re tiny, don’t come off their strands easily, and grow in said strands instead of big clumps like the glorious blueberries. Yet, I persisted, and picked a full bucket, grumbling all the while.

“Black currants, you’re the bane of my existence! Surely the most difficult berry to pick!’

I believe the appropriate saying here is “man speaks, and nature laughs.”

Then, beckoning, were the gooseberries, in all their sparse-looking glory. My bucket was full, but ech, I had some plastic bags, and technically only needed 4 cups in order to make 2 pies. I’d pick them quickly and be done with it.

(half an hour later)

“AYEEEEE YOU FUCKER!” Luckily there was no other idiot intrepid soul in the field at that point, not that I would have really cared if there were. Because HOLY FUCK this was a nightmare. I quickly discovered that gooseberries grow in even more solitary existence than currants, and are guarded by a thicket of thorns. And not the painful but short thorns of the ubiquitous Oregon blackberry, oh no. These are inch-long thorns that bring to mind the Bre’r Patch of Peter Rabbit fame. So to get a lone gooseberry, one had to reach into this thicket to pluck the little bastard berry, which of course didn’t come willingly. Of course I hadn’t brought gloves, though in retrospect, the only adequate preparation would have been a full suit of Kevlar.

At one point, I was reaching for a fat-looking berry……and lost my balance and almost tumbled forward into the patch of thorns.

At the time of screaming, wasp #1 had bitten me on my hand, adding insult to injury and my scratched up and bleeding hands and arms. I assessed the haul in my little bag, and determined…..not enough. Grimly, I persisted.

 

(an hour later)

Wasp #2 has bitten me. My hands are actively bleeding, and oh look, it’s starting to rain. I look into my plastic bag and say, good enough. I start wandering back to the main building, small bag of gooseberries clutched to my chest, looking and feeling shellshocked. When I walk in, I have no words.

Girl #1: Hello?

Me: ……..

Girl #2: Do you need to weigh some fruit?

Me:….I….I….….goose….gooseberries.

Girls 1 and 2, in unison: Oooooohhhhhhh.

I show them my bruised, bitten, scratched and bleeding arms and hands, and they leap into action, offering Benadryl, Neosporin, tea tree oil, bandaids.

Me: I……I think I just need a drink. A big one. A big stiff drink, yeah, that’s it.

When I leave, I carefully place my little gooseberry jewels on the front seat next to me, cushioned by other material, as I bask in the glow of triumph, knowing how much my mom will appreciate this ethereal pie of her childhood. Well done, I say to myself, well done.

* * * * * * *

(2 days later, Huntley, IL)

 

Me, having arrived at my mom’s house pre-RAGBRAI, and having already taken the 30 pounds of cherries from my suitcase: Look! LOOK WHAT I HAVE BROUGHT! Behold!

Mom: What are those?

Me: Umm, gooseberries. You know, beloved fruit of your childhood, made into your favorite pie in the entire world by Baba’s capable and nimble hands?

Mom: What’s a gooseberry?

Codicil: I did make an incredible pie the next day, which is in fact now MY favorite pie, with the tartness of those little fuckers gooseberries lending themselves to the most amazing pie. My mom still claims she has no idea what I’m talking about with this “but you said that was your favorite pie from childhood story!” but also concedes that it’s a great pie. I think I win.)

Welcome to the Suckfest

You might be wondering how it is that I’m back in eastern Oregon, when I just made my way out of Malheur forest. Well, through the magic of this thing called “the blog that hasn’t been updated for 8 months or so,” I’m skipping forward at lightning speed, basically so that I can write about my epic achievement of 2018 (thus far). Of course this is the grueling .5K race that I did…..but more on that later.

Oh, but I can hear you all now, sounding for all the world like Cindy Lou Who: “But Miss Tasha, why? WHY do you keep going to eastern Oregon to ride your bike in the middle of nowhere?”

A fine question, but a number of reasons come to mind:

   1)   the quest for Hot Cowboy

   2)   There are few people

   3)   Turkey vultures

   4)   Really, very few people

   5)   Meetcute potential (albeit slim) with Hot Cowboy

   6)   Practically no people

Plus, my trip out there in October was on a whole other level of stupid. You see, I decided, in some epic leap into ridiculousness and folly, that 2018 (as my year of #DoingEpicShit) would be when I would bike all the Oregon Scenic Bikeway routes. There are 17 of them in different parts of the state, with varying degrees of difficulty, and it seemed like a good way to mark my 10-year Cancerversary year. Plus this gave me a good excuse to head back out to Burns last October, to get a jump on things. And of course, as a secondary motto to go along with Doing the Stupid Things So You Don’t Have To, I also have Always An Adventure. Namely, when things are going south quickly before my very eyes, I tend to find myself saying “Well, at least it’s always an adventure.” Which is true.

So. My brilliant and well-thought-out-plan was thus: I’d head out to Burns, do some of my local rides, and then do the 184-mile John Day Scenic Bikeway route, the one that has about 6 billion feet of climb, give or take. I studied the weather incessantly, parsing out the likelihood of snow (nah), doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations on wind speed (not too bad), extrapolating temps based on previous years (balmy-ish). I was ready.

 

Saturday

My plan for Saturday is to head out on my usual ride to the Crane Café, using the theory that I once saw a Hot Cowboy there, so maybe someday I’ll see him again. This is basically what my beloved Kone would do – if something positive happened once, that meant it was immediately solidified in his mind as a given, rather than an anomaly. There’s one problem though. We all know the issue I have with wind, and I fret as I study the wind speeds for today.

15. 20. 23. 17. 25! (!) I start googling “how windy is too windy to ride.” There’s no consensus on this, as one person’s 15mph gusty is another person’s “ech that’s fine.” Most people agree that wind in the 20s sucks and is to be avoided. What to do?

On the one hand, I hate wind. On the other, this is my Crane Café day. On the third hand, how bad can it be, really. (This is known as “foreshadowing.”)

Plus, according to weather.com and weatherunderground, the wind is supposed to be from the north on my way out, and then it’ll switch to coming from the south on my way back, so that’ll work out. Could it be worse than the Windburn 100 ride that Deanna and I did once where we were pedaling hard to go down hills at a blistering speed of 5 mph? Or my last ride in Morocco, where the wind was pushing me UPHILL with no pedaling? Surely not.

Hahahahahahahaha! Hahaha. Ha. Ha…..

The ride starts out as usual  - I’m zipping along, looking for Rage Cows and jackrabbits, appreciating the desolate beauty of the high desert and the complete dearth of people. Then at one point I realize something. I’m really zipping along. As in, I tried to calculate things so that I’d be at the Café somewhat before lunchtime, but at this rate…..I’ll be there around 10AM. Hmm. This……this does not bode well for the return trip.

Luckily, when I get to the Crane Café at the crack of dawn thanks to the high wind, I find delightful company, Brandy and Shilo, who are from southern Oregon and road tripped to the eastern part of the state on a hot springs tour. Even though I hate people as a general rule, I find myself talking to them by butting into their conversation as they’re talking about how incredible the full moon was the night before (it was), and then we talk bikes and we exchange names and friend each other on FB. In other words, typical stuff.

Of course, as we’re sitting there chatting merrily, the wind is picking up, to the point that people walking in are looking disheveled and windblown.

This does not bode well.

Indeed, as I’m leaving the Café, I pass a couple walking in, looking…..windswept and disheveled. They see me with my bike.

Them: You’re not riding in this, are you?

Me: Unfortunately, yes.

Them: Hopefully going with the wind at your back?

Me: Sadly, no. Against the wind the whole way back to Burns.

Them: Get someone to pick you up!

Me: I’m out here by myself. Me and my bike. Alone.

Them: Umm….good luck?

So there’s that.  I set off, and honestly, this is so ridiculous, I almost start laughing. I’m hurpling along at around 6.8 mph, and I get an insta-headache from the wind blowing into my ears. It’s either a full-on headwind (bad) or a strong crosswind, which is almost worse because it’s blowing me into the road. Of course, since there are more cattle than people in this part of the country, that greatly reduces my chances of getting plowed down by a passing vehicle.

Yet again, I find myself gazing at the houses and ranches I’m passing on occasion, thinking of grifting a ride into town. Yet again, I stubbornly press on. It’s just me, out here on the tundra, with nowhere to escape the wind. I soldier on, because really, what else is there? That might be my metaphor for life: just keep pedaling. No matter how sucky it is. Until you decide you’ve had enough, and are weary. But I digress.

And sure enough, around 12 hours later, I wind up back in Burns, back at the hotel, shell-shocked and disheveled.  Once I thaw out, I get online, and see a message from Brandy from the Café. “We stopped to pee, saw how windy it was, thought of you!” Well, at least someone was in tune with my suffering stupidity aggressive athleticism stubborn delusional self.

Then, to add insult to injury, I decide to check and see just how windy it was. 25? 32?

38 miles per hour. Squarely from the north, ie a headwind. So much for the wind switching directions, huh, weather underground?

I shall have to write an angry letter.

Next up: We're goin' bear hunting!