Flowers & Food

At a recent birthday party for the two-year-old son of some friends, we spied this in their backyard:


Passion flower (at least I think that's what they're called) in full bloom

I swear, every time I see these flowers I think they're fake. They seem like they'd be more appropriate on a sci-fi movie set than growing on a vine in suburbia.

And tonight, Chris made what is fast becoming a summer favorite - pizza on the grill:


Summer dinner al fresco

His pizza was still inside, getting sliced, when I snapped this picture. The other plate has a small pile of grilled zucchini, which I made (I know, I find it hard to believe myself) and which were fabulous as well. If it weren't for the 90+ degree heat, I could really love this whole summer thing.

Confirmation

Until I have a ticket confirmation number, any trip I take feels unreal. I can surround myself with guidebooks, but planning isn't possible to me when the plans are nebulous. Well, I now have a confirmation number, so I'm breathing a big sigh of relief.

Chris will leave for Berlin on September 2 for the tradeshow, I'll leave on the 8th and we'll fly home together on the 19th. The last time we talked about it, the idea was to do Berlin, Prague & Munich as the big-city stops - longer stays in each place leaving ample time for day-trips. So, now the guidebook-reading can begin in earnest, and I can start sending off emails about hotels. I do love this part, the research, the planning, making the arrangements - really, I do. It's good that the planning takes so much time, it makes the trip itself feel longer.

Reminiscing

All this talk of my Mystic trip the last week made me dig out my journals from that semester. In the third book there are several pages torn from one of my class notebooks on which I gathered quotes from the many books I read and songs I heard. The quotes almost tell me more than the journals about who I was then. A selection, for your reading pleasure...

"I am interested in me. I am a long way still from the fulfillment, the total self-understanding that I long for now. I remain a mystery to myself. I want to get right down to the core, make a final perfect equation before I am through, balance it all up into a tidy whole."
- May Sarton, As We Are Now

"One could make oneself mad by pretending to be, I have sometimes thought. The borderline between reality and fantasy is so thin in this confused, dreadfully lonely place."
- May Sarton, As We Are Now

"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones."
- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

"Ending up where I started again makes me want to stand still"
- Indigo Girls

"Words are a road that leads out of town"
- Transvision Vamp

"Far more mysterious than the call of sex to sex is the tenderness that we throw into that call."
- E.M. Forster, Howard's End

"...it was not until Sebastian, idly turning the pages of Clive Bell's Art, read; 'Does anyone feel the same kind of emotion for a butterfly or a flower that he feels for a cathedral or a picture?' Yes, I do' that my eyes were opened."
- Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

"We live as we dream - alone."
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

"Everyone around me is driving me mad"
- The Sundays

I can't believe they gave me the job...

I just got hired today to teach a level one Italian class. I'm excited and nervous all at the same time - it won't start until January, so I have a little more time to prepare (read: freak out), which should help. I've been re-acquainting myself with level one this term by shadowing my first teacher - it was his idea that I should teach, so I blame this entirely on him - and that's helping immensely. I'll be presenting material this coming week, which I haven't done yet, so that'll give me a taste of what I've signed up for... I hope I don't run screaming from the building...

Anyway, if you've always wanted to learn Italian and you'll tolerate being my guinea pig, by all means - sign up for my class!

Mystic Picture

I remembered to bring in the Stonehenge photo from home today (story from yesterday). It's really a horrid picture - it wasn't nearly that dark, but somehow my camera didn't adjust well to the dim light. And there are raindrops on the lens. But I'm a firm believer that a photograph only has to evoke positive memories in order to be classified as "good." It might not win any awards, but it makes me smile each time I see it. And that's enough.


See if you can find me. Here's a hint - no one told me that the requisite British university garb was a black or army green jacket. Matt is two people to the right of me, holding his jacket in his hands. I also totally love the two people to the far right who just couldn't wait for the picture to be taken before they lit their cigarettes.

Solsbury (Silbury) Hill

A friend recently made a Peter Gabriel mix CD for me, and I’ve been uninterested in listening to anything else for the last three days. One song in particular brings back memories.

Since 1992, the song “Solsbury Hill” reminds me of a trip I took during my semester abroad in college. I was in the UK, and very shy about meeting new people or joining groups. I registered for the “Mystic Society” at the “freshers faire” before the term started, because they said they’d be doing a weekend trip to Stonehenge and I didn’t think I’d get to go otherwise. I didn’t go to a single meeting, though, because I couldn’t convince any of my American friends to go with me and I was terrified of going into the campus pubs (where the meetings were) alone. I finally bucked up enough courage, though, when the time for the trip came - again, because I wasn’t going to get to see it otherwise - and so after dark on a Friday night I brought my dorm comforter to the carpark outside the campus pub and met up with the two minibuses (the size of small VW vans) full of British students - I was the only American on the trip.

We drove for several hours before arriving in Avebury, where we parked. One of the guys - the president, I think - said they were going for a walk, and did I want to come? Well, if the alternative was sitting alone in the van in the cold (it was mid-November), then sure - I wanted to come. We had no flashlights, and could barely see, but we walked through cowfields and climbed to the top of the earthen mound in Avebury, called Silbury Hill, that’s said to be somehow “mystic.” You know, they have no idea what it’s for, it’s not a burial site, they dig to the center and find sod that’s still got green grass on it even though it’s been buried for centuries, etc. etc. File under the same category as standing stones, crop circles and chalk carvings. We couldn’t see a damned thing - it was something like midnight - but it was grand fun. Nearly bumped into a few cows in the fields, too, which would’ve been amusing.

We slept in the vans (hence the comforter), and only in the light of morning did I finally see what I’d climbed. It’s one of those things I probably wouldn’t have done if I’d seen it. Kind of like if you know what you’re eating you’re less likely to enjoy it sometimes. We wandered around the standing stones, and then hit the road again. We spent some time in Salisbury, where I learned how to play pool, and then went on to Stonehenge - the group had made arrangements beforehand, saying they were a university class studying pre-Roman history, and they wanted to see if they could get a tour or a group rate. Turns out we got even more - they let us in as the place was closing, and they dropped the ropes so we could walk among the stones. (They told me not to say anything, lest my American accent give them away.) It was surreal. We touched the stones, we sat down on the stone at the center of the circle. I plucked a tiny piece of moss from one of the stones, and it’s in my journal to this day.

The next day we went to Glastonbury, where we climbed the Tor (in daylight this time), and then headed back to campus in Nottingham. It was on this weekend that I met the only remaining friend I have from my study abroad - my dear friend Matt, who drove one of the vans and became my protector (as I recall, one of the Mystics was hassling me the morning in Salisbury when Matt took my arm and whisked me away). It was Matt who had tried valiantly to teach me to play pool, only telling me later that he was on some kind of off-campus pool team at the university. Serves him right, therefore, that I accidentally (?) whacked him in the forehead with my cue.

So even though the name isn’t the same, “Solsbury Hill” becomes Silbury Hill in my head. Which makes me smile every time I hear the song, remembering a weekend where I took a chance and it paid off handsomely.

A Pile of Travel Guides

Our coffee table has been taken over by travel guides and atlases. I've checked out books from the library on Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. And while this sounded like a good idea at the time, it now feels overwhelming. Every time I open one of the books I find enough interesting stuff that I want to spend the entire holiday in that place... Until, that is, I pick up the next book.

Last week, I wanted to see only Germany, perhaps visiting the town where my father was born. Then when I was unable to find an English-language tourism website for that town (or, frankly, much information in the guidebooks) I sort of abandoned that idea - I'll do it someday, but hopefully with someone who speaks German, since I don't.

The next incarnation of the holiday was to see Berlin, Prague & Vienna. Then I heard from a friend that she wasn't a big fan of Vienna, but that she loved the Austrian hilltowns near Germany's border. So then we thought we'd do Berlin, Prague, the Austrian hilltowns, and Munich. And that sounded fine, until I opened the Czech Republic guide last night. Then I wanted to spend a week there...

These are good problems to have!

The newest version is to do Berlin, Prague, & some of the Czech Republic en route to Munich. If we aren't moving to a new town every day, we can take some time to do day-trips (which could include Austrian hilltowns, concentration camp sites, and the Porsche factory - that's for Chris). That feels like a reasonable amount of travel for a 10-12 day trip, and I'm excited about seeing Germany for the first time and about revisiting Prague.

And then I do a silly thing - I look at a map and see that our friends in Northern Italy really aren't that far away from where we'll be, and I think, "Wouldn't it be great to see them, and speak/hear some Italian again?"

Yeah. Very good problems to have, indeed.

Withdrawal

I wasn't kidding yesterday when I said I can't remember what the hell I wrote about before the Tour. Hell, I don't even remember what I did before the Tour. For three weeks (minus two rest days), we've been getting up early, watching live coverage on TV, getting to work a tad late, and racing home in the evenings to watch the re-broadcasts of each stage two or three more times before going to bed. We've had such singular focus on the race that we're going through serious withdrawal. Chris looked at me this morning before leaving the house and said, "What are we going to do tonight?" I had no answer.

This is temporary, I know that - it happens every year. This time it's only slightly different in that the era of Lance is over. We'll still be watching the Tour next year, though, cheering on someone else.

And we do have other things to talk about. Namely, we're still supposedly going to be traveling in September, though we don't yet know where (we're starting in Berlin, but after that it's a mystery) or for how long. I don't generally leave planning for a trip until this late, so it might be, by default, more of the spontaneous kind of travel Chris is always wanting to try (and which my Type-A personality resists mightily). Even before that, Chris' sister is coming for a week-long visit in August, before she begins her work-a-day life as a music teacher, and we're coming up with a list of possible activities to interest her (though she's already put in a few requests, all involving food - I like her style).

So, there's much to do, and much to talk about. But I'm sure you won't begrudge me this one day of Tour mourning, will you? Gee, thanks.

Last Tour Photos

Here are some of the pictures that weren't available when I posted this morning. (Can you tell I'm not willing yet to let go of the whole Tour thing?)

• Lance savoring the taste of victory on the roads into Paris.
• Team Discovery after the trophy presentations, on the parade lap.
• Another great photo of the Devil, who's just so hysterical. I love this guy.
• A good look at the Discovery kit for the day.
• Bend's own Chris Horner went out in a break in Paris, hoping for a win. He didn't get it, but he got more face time on TV, which his sponsors certainly love.
• Lance's teammate, Ukranian Yaroslav Popovych, won the Best Young Rider competition this year, and apparently stuffed the trophy down his jersey for the victory lap (it's the large square-ish thing bulging where his stomach should be).
• The final jersey winners of this year's Tour. Oh, and Lance's kids.
• Ivan Basso brought his daughter, Domitilla, onto this podium (just like last year). She was a bit shy when Jan Ullrich tried to chat her up, and completely disinterested when Lance was talking to her.
• In an unprecedented move, race officials handed Lance a microphone on the podium, so he could say goodbye to the event he has dominated for the past seven years.

This is only a few of the many photos of the day. You can check them all out here.

And these next photos are from here.

As for me, I have no idea what the hell I wrote about before the Tour, so bear with me while I get reacquainted with my non-cycling-fan life. And hey, we still have the Vuelta a Espana to look forward to in September! (You're really excited, I can tell.)


Basso, Lance & Ullrich riding toward Paris and the Tour's end.


(L) Lance can count! At least to seven, anyway... (R) He borrowed teammate Popovych's number for another demonstration.


The commentators brought up the fact that these champagne glasses must, by race regulation, be made of plastic - because having a rider crash while holding a glass could be ugly.


Something tells me Lance won't really miss this part...


Lance with his kids on the podium. "Smile for the camera!"


Basso looks on while Lance gets a friendly hug from Ullrich.

Lucky Number Seven

I'll admit that I teared up today as Lance took the top step of the podium today in Paris, the Arc de Triomphe in the background. I'm also certain I'm not the only one who did.

It was a pretty uneventful day in the early miles - the peloton rode at a leisurely pace (what the guys call "noodling"), Lance often riding at the front. Different guys would come up to congratulate him and have a chat, and then he'd drop back to ride solo through the team cars to talk to them one by one. And yes, he sipped a bit of champagne with his fellow Discovery Channel teammates.

His bike was new, full of iconography representing his life and his cycling career, and his teammates all wore new Discovery Channel jerseys with a yellow right shoulder. Lance's helmet also had a big yellow star on the front, and yellow straps. Nothing like the gold embellishments he sported last year, but a nice change nonetheless.

Lance's last day in the Tour (photos from here)

It was raining, as expected, and there were a few small crashes. No one got so hurt that they couldn't continue, though three of Lance's teammates did fall. Lance, close behind them, had to put his foot down on the pavement and skid to a stop (Fred Flintstone-style) to avoid going down with them.

In the end, the race officials wisely neutralized the final time because the cobbled Champs-Élysées, when wet, can be disastrous - especially on the hairpins. So the first time the peloton crossed what would be the eventual finish line, the clock stopped. After the eight laps of the Champs-Élysées, however, perennial breakaway specialist Alexandre Vinokourov (who has already confirmed he'll be leaving his T-Mobile squad next year, and will be a hot pickup for a new team) won the stage - a coveted win in the life of a Tour rider. There ended up being a small time bonus for Vino, as well, which - at the moment - has him in 5th overall, leapfrogging over American Levi Leipheimer. (I say "at the moment," because I'm not sure if Levi's team will protest the result, since the commentators were saying that the officials had said there would be no time bonuses.)

On the podium, Lance's three kids - all wearing yellow - joined him (Luke somewhat reluctantly, no doubt a little camera shy), and we heard the Star Spangled Banner on the Champs-Élysées for what is likely to be the last time for a long time.

Lance with his kids on the podium - the lion and flowers nearly as big as the twins

And yet there was one more first - race officials handed Lance a microphone, and he became the first Tour winner to be able to say a few words from the podium. Here's an excerpt of what he said:

"It's a dream podium I'm standing on here," Armstrong said. "Jan is a special person and a special rival." "Ivan, well you are just tough to race against. You're too much of a friend but maybe you're the future of the race for the years to come." Turning to both, Armstrong added: "So, Ivan: next year, this is your step; or Jan: this might be your step next year, I don't know, but I'm outta here, so..."

After briefly criticizing the doubters who claim that his exploits have been achieved through illicit means - he has faced accusations of doping in the past - Armstrong had only one thing to say: "Vive le Tour. Forever."

Indeed. Merci beaucoup, Lance, for seven amazing years.

Whew! What a relief!

I suppose it was inevitable. A storybook career can't end without one last triumph, really. And so Lance went out and won the last time trial of his career today, beating Jan Ullrich by a mere 23 seconds.

Lance at the start today, and finishing - with the armada of police and journalist motorbikes behind him. (photos from here)

Lance's three kids made their first appearance at this year's Tour today, and their apparent nonchalance about the gravity of the situation was refreshing - as was Lance's ability to play with them only moments before one of the more important days of his life.

Lance during warmup, and girlfriend Sheryl Crow minding Lance's three kids (son Luke is playing with Sheryl's camera, untempted by the stuffed lion).

Ivan Basso had amassed enough of a cushion above Ullrich coming into today's time trial that he was able to take it easy around the tricky hairpin corners and descents - he lost about two minutes overall to Lance, but retained his second place position. Ullrich catapulted over King of the Mountains winner Michael Rasmussen to third place overall. Rasmussen, who appeared to implode on international television, crashed twice, got one flat tire, and switched bikes three times. Not a good day for the Dane.

Tomorrow's largely ceremonial stage will be our last opportunity to watch Lance ride his bike in a race. Unfortunately, there's the possibility of rain in Paris, which would be disappointing - after the stage is done and the trophies handed out, the teams make a point of riding slowly along the Champs-Élysées, thanking the crowds who cheer them on. Doing that in the rain will suck. Not to mention that the final straight is cobblestones, which could make it dangerous for the sprinters (who are still competing for the green jersey). All in all, what should be a boring day of champagne drinking and waving at the camera could be a bit more interesting than normal.

Oh, and each year the folks who outfit Lance's team traditionally make a special uniform and bike for the final stage into Paris - they've been hinting at what Sunday's bike will look like, but it's all a big secret until tomorrow.


Sen. John Kerry arrived in France today, and was nearly as big a star as Lance...

Maybe there's hope after all...

I don't read the newspaper. I don't know why, I just never have. I get my news from OPB and online. But as I waited for my lunch to heat up, I saw today's paper lying on the table and was surprised by a headline about the Tour de France that didn't involved Lance Armstrong.

Today's story is about Ivan Basso. He's just just extended his contract with his team (CSC) through 2009. According to the article, with the retirement of Lance, Ivan will be second in the professional peloton only to longtime Lance rival Jan Ullrich in terms of how well-paid he is. More interesting to me, however, is a CSC Team consultant who says they need to make Ivan "a warrior. He has all that it takes to win big races. The last thing he needs to work on is being tough. He's a very nice person, a fantastic human being. To go the last step you need to be tough as a sportsman and still keep the good human."

One of the things I really love about Basso is that he does appear to be a good person - if he needs to toughen up, I hope he really can do that without losing his decency.

And if it wasn't obvious that the article was written by a woman from the byline, check this out: "He has a gentle manner, soulful brown eyes and a sentimental streak. Basso's bike has a decal bearing a heart and the initials of his wife, Micaela, and 3-year-old daughter Domitilla." (Not that he's only charming to ladies, just that I found myself nodding in agreement as I read those lines...)


Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the Italian housewives' favorite... (photo scanned from the newspaper article)

But really, what's most exciting to me is that if Americans can get hooked on a new cyclist - no matter where he's from - maybe long-term Tour Fever will really have caught on here, and not just a short-term Lance Head Cold.

Tour de France 101

So, I realize that with only two days remaining in this year's Tour that this is really, really late... But I just found it. And it's a pretty good primer on the Tour de France. It's from last year, so the specifics of last year's race don't apply to this year - but the general stuff about cycling do, and they're written in a way that everyone can understand and appreciate.

Why am I posting this now, even though the Tour is almost over? Because now you'll be prepared for the next bike race I write about. Nothing like planning ahead.

Nearly There

Another breakaway stage today means Lance is one day closer to a record-setting seventh consecutive Tour de France win. Italy's Giuseppe Guerini won his first Tour stage since 1999 (a stage Chris & I were there to see, incidentally), when he was knocked off his bike by a fan taking a photograph. He got up and still won the stage, but they were tense moments. Today's stage was nowhere near as dangerous, as the fans were behind barriers in the final straight.


Guerini winning Friday's stage (photos from here)

Lance and the bulk of the peloton finished just over four minutes behind Guerini, so nothing changed for the top five riders overall. Tomorrow's time trial will be the final reorganization for the podium. I can't wait...


The Tour de France star rides by an appropriately-named river...

Mom's Band

My mother's marimba band played at the Salem Art Fair & Festival this past Sunday, and I took a bunch of pictures. Unfortunately, most of them are complete crap. I was having a hell of a time getting the light meter to cooperate, mostly because the stage was in one of those mottled part sun/part shade areas, and the poor meter was having a heart attack each time I'd try to adjust it.

So, what I've learned from this (I have to have learned something from three rolls of mostly awful pictures) is that until I get a better handle on taking pictures in mottled areas I'm going to use the "automatic" settings on my damned camera. They're there for a reason, right?!?


Here's the band. My mom's the one in front, in the black T-shirt.


During one song, there's a bit of an interlude where the band members try to get the audience to clap. Some of them no longer have parts to play at that point, including my mom, who headed into the dancing area to encourage these two darling girls to keep clapping.


The stage the band played on was in what's called the "Family Area," which includes a large maze made of cardboard. I don't know why, this sign just cracked me up.


This was one of my nephew's friends, who had taken advantage of the many childrens' activities - including paper hat making. Man, I loved this hat.

My Neighbor's Flowers

One of my neighbors has this lovely little patch of what I think are poppies and bachelor's buttons, and every day when I drive into my driveway I smile when I see the color combination. So the other day I grabbed my camera and took some pictures, so perhaps you'll all smile now, too.


I really love the way the red and blue look together, and up close I especially love how the poppy looks like crinkled tissue paper.

Not Everyone Can Win

There are many teams who come to the Tour de France who will go home without a stage win, unhappy and promising changes. Today, the Liberty Seguros Team climbed out of that abyss and claimed their first win of the Tour.

Spain's Marcos Serrano won from a long breakaway that, in the end, finished over 10 minutes in front of the peloton. These stages with long breaks aren't the most exciting ones (I've slept through most of the last two days' stages), and they're practically designed for breaks to take off within 50k of the start. And so long as the riders in the break aren't anywhere close to the leaders, they're allowed to go. Yesterday, Lance finished over 20 minutes behind the stage winner, and today he was over 10 minutes behind. How can he do this and remain in yellow? Every member of the break is so far behind Lance in the overall standings (some of them by several hours) that 20 minutes doesn't mean a thing. It also gives the Discovery Channel Team a bit of respite from the hard work of winning a grand tour.

Tomorrow's stage is another perfectly suited to a breakaway, so I expect to catch up on more sleep then. Saturday, however, is shaping up to be the last exciting stage of the Tour, as Lance goes for a stage win in the individual time trial. Sunday's largely ceremonial ride onto the Champs-Élysées is for the sprinters - Lance will just try to stay out of trouble and probably sip a glass or two of champagne along the way.

Trust the Experts

The journalists said Lance's team wasn't up to snuff after they left him isolated the first time the road turned uphill. Some of the OLN commentators wondered what the problem was. We were concerned, too. And now we know we needn't have worried at all.

Italy's Paolo Savoldelli became Lance's second teammate to take a stage win in this year's Tour, outsprinting Norway's Kurt Asle Arvesen to the line after being in a breakaway that had gained over 20 minutes on the main field at one point. Lance's teammates have never won stages in his previous wins, and now there have been two Discovery Channel wins - and Lance himself has yet to win a stage!

In a brief post-race interview on OLN, Lance said that they were still pedaling along, over 20 minutes behind the breakaway, when a crackling voice came across their radios. They all looked at one another and said, "Did they just say that Paolo won the stage?!?" Great stuff. Especially wonderful because, as a two-time Giro d'Italia winner, Paolo has been doing nothing for himself in this Tour so far - he's been a workhorse for Lance, even carrying water bottles to him from the team car. That's humility. That's knowing your role on the team. And that's why it's got to be a great moment in the sun for him in a race that's about someone else completely.

Other Tour news - Andreas Kloden, Jan Ullrich's teammate, fractured a wrist yesterday in an incident involving another teammate, and though he started today's stage (in a cast, no less), he eventually pulled out. He had been in 11th place overall, meaning everyone below him in the coveted top-20 moves up a bit. Also, due to Paolo's great finish, the Discovery Channel team was able to move ahead of T-Mobile (Ullrich's squad) in the team competition. It's likely that with the individual time trial on Saturday, Discovery will be able to solidify that position. I can only imagine how sweet it would be for Lance to not only win this Tour himself, but to have the team on the podium's top spot in Paris as well.

Couple of Funnies

La Gazzetta dello Sport has a few good new pictures, including these two.


Not sure when this was taken, but it was clear from day one of this Tour that Lance was more relaxed than he's been in the past six. Here he's hanging out with George Hincapie.


Basso playing around with what La Gazzetta calls his "newest weapon against Lance." Very cute. Apparently everyone's more relaxed this year...