Monday I did three climbs (that would be one climb and two repeats, Scott); I was on my way home when I hit a patch of ice, felt my bike start to slide, and actually managed to fall well, in that I landed on the back of my shoulder, didn’t hit my head, didn’t hit my knees or hips. I actually remembered those obnoxious lessons my mother gave me in how to fall (she used the sofa cushions); I was ten at the time, so that was 46 years ago. This is not the first time it’s come in handy (once I actually managed to trip, roll, and come back to my feet, but I was twenty-three then), but it’s been a long long time.

So I didn’t break anything. I did bruise my shoulder pretty badly, and it will be a while before I can tug with Rush in training, but it’s healing pretty quickly. I actually think I didn’t tear anything either. If that’s true, I should heal nicely.

My corn is far from knee-high (is it “my” corn if my daughter did all the planting work but I’m watching it while she bicycles across the country?) but my potatoes are amazing this year. I think they liked the spring weather. I’ve taken to making myself potato pancakes for lunch. I microwave an apple and put it in the blender to make applesauce. I dig up a potato or two, wash it and grate it, squeeze out the liquid, mix it with an egg (and some salt), then put it in the pan in a bit of very hot olive oil. I push it down with the spatula to make a pancake. It takes about as long to describe as it does to make.

I also have grown beets for two years now. I love the colors! I like them as sprouts when they’re very tiny, roasted whole when they’re marble-size, and now that they’re bigger, I’ve been making beet chips–sliced thin, tossed with olive oil and salt, and roasted on a SilPat until crispy. Astonishingly good.

I just took the dogs out, and I stopped to pick a few blueberries off our blueberry bush. That was a mistake. Eating a hot–although fresh and tasty–blueberry is kind of like having a hot fresh tasty blueberry muffin… without the muffin part.

Which is downright weird.

His reply: “oh yes, I’ve lived here since before that young black jazz musician used to come down from Seattle and play on the corner near the Steel Bridge. What was his name, I know you’ve heard of him… He was great.”

He paused a few minutes to think. “Oh yeah. Jimmy something.”

“Jimi Hendrix?”

“Oh yes, he was GOOD!”

And he bicycled off and I took the girls back inside.

But the Obama family also needs a dog that won’t aggravate their daughter’s allergies, that won’t bite the press corps or the staff, that doesn’t offend the public. One hates to assume that they have done polls on the subject, but who knows? Everything else has gotten polled.

They’ve decided on a Portuguese Water Dog, an admirable breed whose sense of humor is almost as good as the Poodle.

And they want to get a PWD from rescue. This is not an easy task. The issues are beautifully addressed by this article from the LA Times: The Obama Family Dog Saga.

I wish them the best.

We went diving and my knee did very well. Sometime in the next few days I’ll post some of Jay’s pretty underwater pictures.

But much more importantly, I feel quite optimistic, surprisingly. In May, Jay’s brother decided he no longer wanted to live in the owner-occupancy-only condo we owned and rented to him; a week of my life vanished as I spent it in Tulsa (Oklahoma) cleaning and staging the condo; we sold it in late July for not too much less than we’d paid nine years before.

In mid-June, Stacia was hit by a car while riding her bicycle; her collarbone was broken and her knee badly bruised, but she has healed well and appears to be on the road to a full recovery. Insurance settlement talks are proceeding.

In early August, the bike biz was ravaged by a warehouse fire that destroyed all the inventory in that warehouse. The insurance has paid, so far, about half the value–but we’re back in business and things are looking up. We should get the rest of the insurance money over the next few months.

And last week, twice, I swam with spinner dolphins. TWICE. Spinner dolphins are possibly the coolest mammals out there, and I say this with all due deference to poodles. For one thing, they can have sex while they swim. For another thing, they often leap out of the water and spin around, clearly just for the fun of it.

And finally, spinner dolphin babies are the cutest babies ever. Possibly cuter than my own children were at that age. Seriously. The second day, there were two tiny babies with the pod I swam with. The babies were curious about me and approached me. Imagine a miniature dolphin, about a foot long, swimming over to see what and who you are!

Clearly, my luck has turned.

Pretty amazing.

It wasn’t a meth head.

In fact, we made the morning news. We made the evening news, and they were still showing the footage Monday morning. I don’t blame them. It was great video. Before I go on, I will stress that no one was hurt and the business was fully insured.

Check out this link: 3-alarm fire rips through NE business

This is what it looked like when we got there:

(I took that picture with my iPhone. Not bad for a camera phone. The iPhone really came in handy. By the end of the day Sunday I had emailed the photo above to at least ten people, including the fire insurance company and our insurance agent.)

The fire was still smoldering when I got there at 11 AM. At its peak–you can see it in the videos above–there were 90 firefighters there. The roof collapsed. (That’s blue sky in the picture. It was a gorgeous day.) No one got hurt. It happened at night and no one was nearby, and the firefighters knew it was just bike tires–and no one got hurt.

It did get a little exciting, I gather, when the 4000 CO2 cartridges that we had in stock (really useful to inflate bike tires) started exploding. Some of them were found out in the street.–about 300 yards away.

The investigation by the fire investigators–who are first class people and very kind–didn’t conclude until Monday evening. They had to take out debris with a backhoe, and before they could do that they had to brace the outside walls. The cause is listed as “undetermined” which means they don’t know it was arson and they don’t know it wasn’t. I know I didn’t do it.

What we do know is that it was a total loss. Everything in the warehouse is completely destroyed. If not by fire, then by water or smoke. (If you’re looking for Inov-8 shoes, they were in a different warehouse, and we’ll be able to start shipping again soon. Send me an email if it’s urgent.)

And I do have to thank the world’s finest poodle sitter, who took the dogs Sunday morning at 9 and kept them until last night at 9, and who made sure I didn’t have to worry one bit about their happiness or safety while Jay and I began dealing with the fire. Thank you, Cat.