Dreams

Don’t know what’s up with my dreams lately. Just dreamed that I got DQ’d from the local Race for the Cure 5K (which I didn’t even run this year) because my chip showed that I had crossed the line at the 5 minute mark, and I had gotten a little lost at the end of the race and took a wrong turn (so it looked like I had just hung around the finish line for the whole race and crossed when I felt like it). I got into a big argument with one of the organizers and pointed out that I raised a whole mess of money for a different race I do, which really didn’t help to prove my point or endear me to anybody, although he was willing to listen if I promised to pull in as much for his race as I did for the other. Then I got mad and stalked off, and woke up with a little twinge in my foot going off like an alarm.

Yesterday was one of those glorious days when life is really worth getting up for. It was sunny and got warmish (51 degrees), and I was able to get in a morning bike ride. I opted for the bike path in Niskayuna because I had to be over in that part of the world for a little Christmas shopping anyway, and I didn’t feel like dealing with Saturday traffic on the roads of Guilderland. So the bike path it was. Brand new parking lot at the Nisky train station, and permanent toilets are under construction, which is huge news — no more port-o-lets! Rode at a decent pace to Aqueduct, jumped off the path and crossed the river and rode up into Alplaus for old times’ sake. When we were teens, Alplaus was one of our destination rides, probably about 7 or 8 miles from home, a good ride along quiet roads (then – not now), and there was a general store to buy drinks, and a very good little bike shop combined with the local post office. The bike shop is gone, but the post office is still there. Pretty little town, one we looked at seriously when we were looking for a house, but just too damned far from downtown Albany and no quick way to get to anywhere. (I am compelled, against a demonstrated lack of interest on anyone’s part, to mention that Alplaus means “place of the eels” in Dutch. I could tell you why . . . ) Spun around, trudged back up the leafy hill and on back to Nisky. Remembered why I almost never seriously ride the bike path anymore: dogs, leashed or not, and the clueless people walking them. I make better speed on the open road, stop signs and all, than I do on the bike path where I have to keep slowing down to negotiate an opening among the confused who can’t seem to figure out to let me pass on their left, and their dogs, who are usually straining a leash, like a garotte for unwary cyclists, across the path.

Today? Perhaps just as beautiful!