Back in the Saddle

I could mean this literally and figuratively.

The figurative part comes down to being back here, on my blog, writing again.

Man, it feels nice to write.

I have had one hell of a busy summer.

There’s been this pandemic thing.

Social distancing.

Working.

Working some more.

Working on my dissertation proposal–turned in my third draft this week.

Oh yeah.

And moving.

I don’t believe I have written about that at all.

You know, that little thing, moving during a pandemic.

Or maybe I did and I already forgot because it’s been a minute since I have done a blog.

(at least on this platform, I’ve been posting to my therapy website, but that’s a different kind of blog)

And it’s been a minute since…

I have been on my bike!

Today, however, I got back in the saddle.

I cannot tell you how good that felt.

And, heh, it was just like riding a bike.

I won’t lie, I was a little nervous, it’s been over a year and a half since I had ridden.

I didn’t ride once living in my previous place.

My bike simply hung on a hook on the wall in the hallway entrance to my studio in-law.

Once in a while it would beseechingly call out to me and I would feel some guilt and I would say, yeah, this weekend, go do a ride.

But it was windy or raining or foggy or miserable, as it can be in the Outer Richmond.

And I live on a gigantic hill and it’s a one speed.

And.

And.

And.

Cue not riding at all.

It just never happened.

Until today.

I have been in my new home officially now two weeks.

It’s been a big two weeks.

Getting all the things set up.

Aside.

Today I got my Ihome pod set up.

Soooooo happy.

I got my music speaker back.

I have an old one, like a really old one that docks a first generation Ipod music player and it’s cute as shit and it glows and I can play all the music I loaded on it years and years and years ago.

But.

It doesn’t run off my phone (unless I want to get a cord that will connect it to the speaker and whatever not being a tech kid I will probably not do that, although I suspect the actual accessory is probably pretty cheap, anyway) and I can’t play my music apps–Spotify or Bon Entendeur.

Mostly I want to hear Bon Entendeur, which is a French house music app that I just fucking adore.

My Ihome pod was a gift from the family I used to nanny for when I graduated from my Master’s program in 2018.

I didn’t take it out of the box until I moved into my previous place, so I had it for six months before I actually turned it on.

Game changer.

I really love it.

Great sound.

Great speaker.

Connects right to the internet.

I never use the Siri part of it, just connect my music apps on my phone to it and voila, dance party.

Except I couldn’t figure out how to get it connected here.

A friend tried to walk me through it, but it didn’t take.

So today, after my bike ride, I’ll get to that, I sat down on the kitchen floor and googled all the things.

And.

I got it to work!

I am so proud of myself.

I know, a small accomplishment, but it felt really good and I’m happily listening to my music right now.

I’m also feeling very happy in my body, which got to go on a bike ride.

I moved to Hayes Valley in San Francisco.

It’s pretty damn flat.

I’m at the foot of some hills, but I don’t have to ride up them, I can just head out towards Market street and ride my sweet one speed through one of the flattest parts of the city.

And.

Yes, there are people out (and I was horrified to see people lined up to get into Ross Dress for Less.  Really?!) but not nearly as much as there would be, see previous note about pandemic, and there were very few cars and buses.

It was a glorious ride.

I rode all the way down Market and then along the Embarcadero until my legs got a little sore.

I knew better than to push it.

I don’t want to be sore tomorrow and it’s been a while since I had ridden.

Easy does it.

And easy does it again.

For I will be riding a lot more.

I am going to get my parking permit for my neighborhood this week and then I don’t plan on driving my car anywhere for a while.

I won’t be going into my office for a while yet, so no need to drive there.

My office is small, even if I wanted to socially distance I couldn’t.

I will continue to be doing telehealth for the near future.

Which means, aside from once a week when I need to drive to Daly City to work at the youth health clinic, I don’t need to move my car.

And now that I got back in the saddle, I will definitely be using my bike.

It was dreamy.

I pumped up the deflated tires and I got my messenger bag out of the closet, grabbed my Ulock and my Palmy lock, my wallet, hooked my keys on my belt loop, grabbed a Sigg bottle of water out of the fridge, put on my bandana mask, a pair of sunglasses and hit the road.

Like I mentioned.

Little traffic, either car or foot, some, but not a lot.

It was surreal, I have not been downtown since shelter in place went into affect and it was surreal to see it, and there are people out, like I said, line for Ross, but not that many, certainly nothing like what I would normally see on a Sunday in downtown San Francisco.

I felt really good biking again.

And on my return from the trip I swung into the Farmer’s Market at the Civic Center plaza and grabbed some stone fruit from a vendor as the market was closing down.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to be so close to a farmer’s market again.

I got yellow nectarines, which tasted like how I imagine sunshine should taste like, sweet, and thick, and full of light and golden tones, and I got apricots.

So good.

Came back to my place, stashed the bike in my bathroom–which is huge and my bicycle fits without any trouble, and prepped fruit for the week and stashed it in the fridge.

I’m home.

My bicycle is home.

My Ihome pod is set up.

My home is set up.

My pink couch is hella cute in my living room.

I got up privacy shields on the bottoms of my windows in my bedroom and living room.

I got cute little coffee tables to flank my couch.

All that’s left is to set up my bike stand so that I can store my bike standing up in the closet (I have a walk in closet in the living room) and to get my book shelf delivered and set up.

I feel happy.

I am very grateful and very lucky and very aware at how good my life is right now.

Even without being able to really engage with and connect with my friends and fellowship.

I am in a good place.

And I am.

Very.

Very.

Very.

Much.

At.

Home.

Bunny Slippers

And the Glee Christmas album.

Fuck you.

I had a hard day.

Shit.

I had a hard week, but today really took the cake so to speak, even though I told myself to not go into it having any expectations I still didn’t expect it to go the way it did.

Oh well.

It’s done.

Christmas by myself this year.

Sadness in my heart.

And.

Yes.

Thanks Santa.

A cold.

I have it off and on all week, I’ll have moments of being completely fine, then like last night, I woke myself up coughing.

Happy holidays!

And here’s some rain too.

Yay!

Fuck.

It’s actually kind of funny now that I’ve made it out the other side.

I’m home.

My Christmas tree is lit.

The house is clean.

I have my bunny slippers on and my feet are finally warming up, it rained on me on the way to work, despite the weather report showing no rain, it rained, and wet feet at work.

Yuck.

And work.

Well.

It was hard.

Hard to say goodbye.

Hard to believe it’s done.

And my time was wonky.

The mom and I had some miscommunication about my hours and I had down in my calendar totally different hours than the ones she was expecting me to work.

I mean totally off.

Even though I double checked all week-long, I guess I missed the memo and yup, my last day of work I was a half hour late.

Mortifying.

The only time I have ever been late.

My last fucking day.

And.

Instead of getting off at 1 p.m. when I thought I’d be getting off, she had me down until 3:30p.m.

There were groceries getting delivered and soup to be made.

Ugh.

I was aghast.

I mean.

I didn’t have plans per se, I was going to book myself a massage, but the place I was planning on going was closed, then I thought maybe I’ll girl treat myself and go to The Balm store on Valencia and buy some eye shadow and get a manicure.

Nope.

Instead I was making broccoli soup and roasted cauliflower.

It was not how I thought my last day would be.

The boys spent most of the day with the mom and I spent most of the day cooking and cleaning.

It was really hard guys.

I mean really awful hard.

We never had a moment alone.

I wasn’t able to take them out to the park or to the cafe or anything.

Thank God I had a lot of solo time with them earlier this week.

In retrospect, maybe it was for the best, as I burst into tears a few lines ago, I might have done that all over them.

“Carmen I hate you!” Sound of slamming door. “It’s your last day,” little sob of sadness, as the youngest did the first big cry of the day.

“Carmen, I love you, I didn’t mean that at all, I love you, cuddle me,” he demanded and crawled into my arms.

That was about the amount of cuddles that I got.

It was, like I said, an odd day.

I stood in the kitchen standing up in a corner, hiding, and crying over a pot of broccoli soup while the neighbors dropped in and the family opened Christmas presents.

The boys colored.

I cooked.

The boys did quiet time.

I cleaned.

I was sad, I am sad, but I also know how much the boys love me.

The little guy was nonplussed when I left at 3:30 p.m. today, the boys had a classmate whose parents were throwing a birthday party at the Roxie Theater and the movie was Star Wars.

The boys were dressed up.

The oldest had saved up all his allowance and had gotten a flight suit like the one Luke wore piloting his ship and he looked so handsome, it about broke my heart.

The little one was dressed up as a Storm trooper, raspy talking voice box mechanism and all.

“Tell Carmen goodbye,” his father prompted him, “she’s leaving, this is her last day.”

“She’ll visit,” he said, glibly, playing with his helmet.

“I will visit, I promise,” I kissed his forehead, “I love you, bunny, have fun at the party.”

The mom couldn’t say good-bye to me, she apologized and excused herself with tears in her eyes, “I understand,” I said as she walked back to the office, “I might be a little teary in here.  Thank you for everything, so much, thank you.”

I got my jacket on, grabbed my purse, I’d turned in my keys already, put my nanny clogs in my scooter basket liner, pulled on my scooter jacket and walked to the door.

“Let me give you a hug!” The dad jumped up, and then ugh, I did tear up, I wasn’t expecting that.

“Thank you for the last few years, you’ve been amazing, whoa, you’re like in armor!” He said and patted my jacket.

“Yup, safety first,” I smiled.

Then I looked at the older boy, he’d paused in the costuming and looked at me.

“You’re going to visit, right?” His eyes great big brown eyes saucer plates of sadness.

Ah, fuck, cue some more waterworks, I swear I am going to get through this blog, I am.

“Of course I’m going to visit, I promised you.” I looked at him, his eyes full of tears and my eyes too, he was too far away for me to hug and maybe that was alright, it has to be, it’s what happened, “I love you, I will always be in your life, I promise.”

I blew him a kiss and walked out the door.

I made it three doors down then crumpled up and cried for a minute.

Then I got on my scooter and went to the post office.

Santa had tried to get the post office to deliver me a package yesterday, as I don’t have a chimney for him to descend, but the postal person failed to get it through the gate.

So off to the post office.

Nine people in line and two grumpy, tired, over worked workers.

“What do you mean it’s too late to get it there overnight?” A woman screamed at one of them.

High, holy, hell, this package better be fucking worth the ninth circle of hell I just descended into.

Then I realized.

I’m done.

There’s no job to go to, no plane to catch, since I cancelled my travel plans, all I had to do was stand grateful in line that I had already sent my packages and cards and that I was a lucky girl to be getting packages.

Lucky indeed.

Turns out Santa sent me some end of the season persimmons.

THANK YOU SANTA!

So nice.

Christmas persimmons.

See nothing’s wrong.

In fact, I should wrap this up, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” is playing, my bunny slippers are warming my feet, and the tears are drying on my face.

Happy Holidays.

I hope where ever you are you know how loved you are.

Seriously.

You.

Are.

So.

Loved.

Slippery When Wet

A. The name of an album my sister gave me when I was a sophomore in highschool.

B. The roads this morning and evening on my bicycle commute through the wilds of San Francisco.

C. The two-year old jumping in and out of the bathtub this evening.

D. All of the above.

It was an intense day.

Not a horrible one, but lots of small things that put me just a tiny bit off kilter.

I don’t believe that I acted off kilter though, or mean, or upset, or anything generally, other than serene.

I gave myself extra time this morning to ride my bicycle to work–it’s rainy out their folks go slow–the roads are slick, the paint on the roads is slippery and the leaves and acorns and walnuts strewn across the bike paths are a veritable mine field of slick danger.

Plus, there’s the drivers, the weird that comes out of the drivers in the city when it rains, I just don’t understand it, even after being here in the city for twelve years and actively riding a bicycle in the city for the last eight years, it never fails to astonish me the odd things that people do in the rain.

Pulling out in front of pedestrians, not using turn signals, suddenly and for no apparent reason backing up in the bicycle lane on the down ward slope of Oak Street as it’s about to cross Divisadero.

Without using a turn signal or flashers.

I couldn’t figure out at first if I was just going faster than I thought and coming up on the car, when, no, it’s moving and it either doesn’t see me or it doesn’t care, and I have to flash out into the traffic pulling up alongside me and I have limited vision with the hood of my rain jacket over my head.

Ugh.

It was nerve-wracking.

Slow.

Treacherous.

I had to get off my bicycle at the corner of 17th and Church Street and cross my bicycle over the MUNI tracks, I wobbled on them the last time it was wet and slippery and I had no desire to repeat the performance while skidding out into the middle of the intersection.

I had more than a few moments of fear fantasy monopolizing my brain with ankle breaking road accidents and broken arms and hips and legs.

However, despite the fear factory chugging along quite noisily on my way to work, nothing happened.

Which was good as work has been intense this week.

There’s construction happening and the entire kitchen has had to be packed up and moved out of the kitchen.

I walked into the melee yesterday with movers packing and crating and dismantling and moving.

A lot of stuff went into the downstairs bathroom and office, some into the house next door, and the kitchen there had to be set up and unpacked.

I was in charge of dismantling and putting away and moving the boys toys and books.

Up and down the stairs into the two bedrooms, plus pulling out and trashing a few things, organizing spaces, recycling a bunch of things, cleaning out the refrigerator, making food the best of my ability between the two kitchen’s until things got set up and dealing with two wild little monkeys who couldn’t get out to the park because it was too wet.

That’s a lot of intense little boy energy to deal with.

Bath time was a riot of monkey shines.

But in the end it all got done and I found myself with 45 minutes between work and my next commitment.

I went and did some grocery shopping.

I also picked up a few little gifts for the family.

Slippery When Wet.

That was the hint my sister gave me when I asked what she had gotten me for Christmas.

I was flummoxed.

What the hell was slippery when wet?

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the gift was.

I never in 100 years would have guessed it was the vinyl record for Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet album.

Never.

I had no idea who Bon Jovi was.

My sister, on the other hand, knew who the he was.

I suspect the gift may have been more for her than for I.

And that makes me laugh now.

It also gives me a sense of gratitude, for my sister, for my family, my mom, my nieces, my sweet female centric family.

I have been more in touch with them over the last few years and it is nice to have a family to think about at the holidays again, there were so many holidays when I wasn’t able to be in contact with them, it’s nice to have them back.

I love giving people presents.

It warms something in me and I especially love giving presents at Christmas time.

My mom used to call me Martha Stewart around the holidays and I suspect I was making up for the lost holidays of my childhood when I never quite got what I wanted and the tally of gifts that I did get was nowhere near the haul of loot the kids in school got or my cousins, for that matter, who were all too eager to share the tales of largess.

I still have aspects of that in myself and I am reconciled to it.

I have also balanced it out.

I know how much I can spend on others without hurting myself financially.

I am able to stand for myself and give to those I love.

I did my spending plan today during a moment of quiet when the little one was napping and the older boy was still at preschool.

I figured out how much I can spend on gifts and still take care of my needs.

I have my family and a new boyfriend to account for.

Lovely things to have.

Plus friends and family that I send Christmas cards to.

I have bought two boxes of holiday cards and a packet of seasonal stamps.

I am on it.

I even mailed my first card out today.

With the last payment on my scooter!

She’s mine free and clear.

Not that I have any desire to hop on her in this weather, but it’s nice to have that all done.

I don’t mind the rain, though, when it’s falling the world sparkles with a different kind of sheen and reminds me that beauty is everywhere, the neon red of street lights smeared on the bike path, the Christmas lights on the tree across the street from work, the reminder of the wet roads in Paris when I was there in the winter a couple of years ago now.

Things may be slippery and wet, but they are also shiny, sparkly, and new.

Look at me.

Already full of holiday cheer.