http://www.cyclingnews.com/cross.php?id=cross/2007/sep07/crossvegas07

NO!!! WHO KNEW???

DHL…I’ve never had much luck with DHL as a shipping company.  Why?  It seems that their company motto is, ‘Don’t find us, we’ll find you’.  That’s been my experience, at least.  My insurance replacement phone was sent quickly, more quickly than I was told, and I had it sent C.O.D. to pay the deductible, like people used to do in the old days since I don’t rock a credit card.  This is just another example of how unAmerican I am to not run through life on credit cards.  But back to the mystery of DHL..

I missed the delivery after pulling an all-nighter finishing a proposal for work.  About mid-afternoon, I talked to my roommate who told me that I can get my package ‘between 5 and 5:45 out by the airport’, so I hit the trail for a quick run and embark on the journey ‘out by the airport’ to get my phone.  The mission was complicated by not having a phone.  And, further complicated by the fact that DHL didn’t leave a slip and doesn’t have a listing in either phone book, yellow or white pages.  I google them.  What comes up is “Broadway”, but East, not near the airport which is West, so I start at the airport anyway and drive the length of Broadway til I hit the listing, 1001 E Broadway.  It’s a shopping center with an Albertson’s and a little Shipping Depot and it’s now 5:47pm.  I explain to the guy that I missed my package and have to get it and get my money order to them…where the heck do I go?  He tells me the DHL guy hasn’t been by yet and I should wait.  DHL guy gets there and says it’s his first day and “I didn’t anticipate something like this OR ALL THESE DAMN PACKAGES THAT I HAVE TO CARRY”.  I’m confused.  Did DHL tell him something altogether different during the interview?  How illusive is this company?  Did they even have an interview with this guy?  WHO IS THIS DHL IN THE SKY SOMEWHERE and what are they doing??  …I’m beginning to think DHL is up to something grander all of a sudden.  I snap out of my paranoia and get frustrated.  Really frustrated.  I even choke back tears I’m so frustrated because the guy is telling me over and over how he hates packages and I NEED TO LEAVE HIM MY PHONE NUMBER! so his supervisor can get ahold of me.  Finally, I snap and say, “You’re not understanding me.  If I leave you my phone number, you’ll be calling my package.”. 

I write a note, place the money order in it, make copies at the Shipping Depot, and will now wait for this DHL entity to come to me, like a cat that doesn’t like to be held.

Later, I’m coming back from the Good Food Store, going just above the speed limit at 28 mph after getting a speeding ticket last week.  Turns out, I was wrong.  People in Missoula don’t drive slow cuz they don’t have anywhere to be or don’t know how to drive with a purpose, they drive slowly because you get ticketed if you don’t.  In any event, a car rushes me from behind, about 4 feet from my back bumper, so close that I can’t even see his headlights in my rearview.  I am determined not to speed it up, especially after he honks and honks and hooooooooooooooooooooooooonks. I hit the brakes because I am like that.  To my surprise, it escalates.  I take it down to 13 mph, not understanding what he wants.  I guess I mistakenly thought he was warning me that I may be going too fast.  We arrive at the stoplight, head to head, him turning left and me going straight.  I stare at him and then calmly give him the finger.  He has a handicapped sticker in his rearview mirror which may make me feel a tinge of guilt, but not in this case, so I continue starring.  Then it dawned on me.  I bet this guy is somehow affiliated with DHL and am more puzzled than ever about this company.

BB

I made it longer than I thought I would, actually, and I’m keeping some of what I learned from my experiment, refining it a bit and adopting some things and incorporating them into another experiment.  This one is as follows and is by the force of the universe, not  the force of my choice.

I’m terming this experiment: Can I live without a phone?

I dropped it into tea (this is the mayhem that comes out of caffiene-free living, mind you) and it’s dead. Assurion is sending me one on the 19th. On top of that, yesterday, I was told that I can’t get my numbers out.  This sort of thing is exactly what I was aiming for when I embarked on the previous experiment.  A purge.  This sort of purge though, is more than I bargained for.

My hotmail will not come up on my computer and several others and hasn’t been able to open for several days.

Add to this sugar free, dairy free, caffiene-free, meat free, wheat/gluten free, alcohol free, medication free and sex free for 12 whopping days and you have….a panic attack, of sorts, that kind of comes and goes like the tide.

I went to the River City Roots Festival last night with some friends after not looking at my email for three days, and having lost my LG (’Life’s Good’, yes, we had some good times) phone with no hope of speaking or seeing the friends in my phone ever again I thought, and drank about 7 beers and ate one ground beef taco and a big, fat burger with American cheese douced in a half pint of ketchup.  F-n hell, it tasted good.

The night before this event, I spent two hours watching a black beer about 20 feet away from me eat over 50 apples in an apple tree.  He would get up in there, shake the tree, jump down and eat the apples I spied earlier up high, then go back up in the tree and gobble more fruits.  I was terrified, but sat there ready to jump behind the door, if I needed to.  I would have missed this event entirely if I had email, I bet.

So, back to porridge and fresh figs.  I’m seeing what the universe takes away from me next. The more I lose, the more I notice things around me.

Being a guilty Catholic kid most days, I was a little bummed that the first thing I went for was a PBR after work with the guys at work. Of all those things, I broke for PBR first.

Wonder what that says?

BB

Many changes for me.  I think I’ve done it.  I am a human test tube. I just can’t wait to see what I blow up in the lab…

Most cyclists like to get fat in the fall. Not me.  Nope.  I’m tired of these bulky legs.  They get in my way. They get in my way walking. My ass, too.  I used to have no ass. I dream of the day that I can shake my sorry white girl hip bones, like my genes intended.  So, just as I turned my body into a top-heavy swimmer in ‘98 after having my second stress fracture in my foot and being confined to a cast with only two things to do: work on my swim twice a day and lift, I am determined to look like something other than some sort of squat/deadlift queen. My goal is to actually wear normal jeans that fit my thighs AND waist (I’ve given up on hoping to design these jeans I ‘ve dreamt of for years for us types, for now at least). And, I hope to have some demons come out of me along the way.  I’m sort of kidding, I don’t believe I have demons.  I have angels and they have some not-so-good friends.  Like the kind of friends that Cheri Wiley wasn’t allowed to hang out with in highschool.  Friends that taught her how to smoke on a Chevette at the fairgrounds,and lie about punctuality, like me, for example.

I made it through the storm after several failed attempts at detox. I was determined to beat the awful grip of my caffiene addiction. And with free beer and a new festival every other hour in Missoula, I can’t say it’s been easy or fun. For the past seven days I’ve been booze, caffiene, dairy, wheat/gluten, sugar, meat, and all medication free.  It’s not bad.  I’ll do it til I get bored, which may be next week. I know I’m not meant to be this squeeky clean, but I do have a whole new appreciation for the folks that are.

Of course, this whole thing points to one thing, if you know me at all: I’m gearing up for one hell of a binge when I grow out of this phase.

Hey, speaking of, I’m going to need correspondents from Bermuda and Vegas.  Please drop me a line with a concise paragraph citing your intentions for each or either at beckybroeder@hotmail.com .

From the coffeeshop where I’m drinking a sad, cold peppermint tea that is doing nothing for me,

BB

I wrote the following words two days ago on the Five Valley Velo / Team Stampede listserve addressing a couple of young guys that got the beatdown from a fellow angry automotive specialist. The assailants were driving a white Avalanche, wearing backwards caps, dressed like every kid at U of A (they looked like Prolavito, maybe). One biker got his teeth knocked into his head during the altercation and was sent to the ER. I felt like I needed to make a reasonable point, but, I’m not a reasonable person, so the world got back at me today…I am in no place to say things, apparently.

“Although the assailants sound like absolute jerks, I think it’s important to consider a couple of things. There are two, or more, sides to every story, and given my experience with situations like this, it’s impossible to act reasonably when adrenaline takes over after being assaulted. Pretty sure some words were exchanged… I’m all for vigilante justice, but you gotta understand the math behind confronting asses like this. I stopped flipping off drivers about 5 years ago, and stopped inviting motorists that piss me off to pull over about the time that one did and I ran because they were going to win, without a doubt.

Somthing takes hold, though, and I have been guilty of becoming a superhero more than once when my friends/teammates and I have been assaulted. The unfortunate equation is that we are skinny cyclists and they, who hold our lives in our hands more often than not, are angry, possibly ‘roid raging, more possibly on meth, and even more possibly carrying a gun.

It pays not to escalate these sorts of situations, is what I’m trying to say, cuz you could lose a lot more than teeth. Get the license plate and fight that way.

My 2 cents,

Becky”

Well, today, yes Labor Day by the River (I know better, damnit), I got nailed by a thrown half full beer can. I was bitch-slapped. And Pissed. Pissed. Like, if I had a fucking hammer or a loaded gun, I’d have unleashed. Thing is, I go to my angry place on my road bike, pretty much every time I’m on it. My angry place is fucking ugly. I address my ugly angry place on my bike so no one else has to see my angry place and it looks like I smoke dope the rest of the time because I’ve gone to my awful fucked angry place. If you assault me while I’m raging in my fucked up angry place, I will want to hurt you. Badly. Fortunately, it ended with me pissed off because the beer made me sticky, which I hate. The fuckers were going about 50 mph. It hurt a lot less than it would have if they had stopped. I think I’d have gone nuts on them like that bitch that stabbed all those people at the Testicle Festival last month during a meth binge.

My 2 cents,
BB