Why does wind hate me?
Seriously. I’m getting in the miles again this week after last week’s Atrophalooza, in which my previous week’s training gains were allowed to dissolve into bittersweet memory and fat. But it is only May, and so waiting for the temp to come up and the sun to come out is key to an enjoyable ride. Yesterday I went out despite a vicious stomach bug and rode as softly as I could, and that was fine. Today I went out into bright sunshine that, as soon as I was into the hills, turned into dark ominousness accompanied by a vicious crosswind that always knew where my wheels were and how to dislodge them from the pavement. It was a low, evil wind — if you looked up in the treetops, it didn’t seem like much, but the long grass at road’s edge was knocked down flat. Several times I had to dial it back on the downhills just for fear of getting swept off, and as I crossed intersections (where currents get even funkier) I felt that old wobble and just hugged the bike. Twenty miles is twenty miles, but it didn’t have to be so hard.
I forgot to mention the find of the weekend, a marvelous movie that I had somehow never seen — not even a snippet of it was lodged in my memory: “My Favorite Year,” Peter O’Toole’s tour de force performance as a dissolute ’30s star of swashbuckling epics and his appearance on an early television variety show. Just one of the funniest movies there is, and I can’t imagine how I’ve never seen it. Now I have. Hail the digital video recorder!
I have given, “My Favorite Year”, as a gift to perhaps ten people whom have somehow never managed to have seen it. Parents dared to take us to see it in the theater when we were wee ones, and for a time it went into heavy rotation on HBO downstate.I agree, one of the funniest flicks ever, and my sisters and I (now well entrenched in our late 30’s-early-to-mid-40’s) still recite lines when the situation at hand begs for it.We’ve all owned a drunk suit, and realize why Philippino ex-boxers must serve parrot at some meals due to cultural dietary restrictions of their guests.I’ve been guilty of offering to buy pretty girls a set tires as an act of amour.One of my favorite moments is when O’Toole staggers into the ladies room and is confronted by the woman who coarsely reminds him, “Hey mister, this is for ladies only….”The look on his face, the devilishness of his smile, as he continues undaunted, unflapped, and replies, “This is too, Madam, but occasionally I must run some water through it..” is PRICELESS!So glad you found it.