Drink Before You Are Thirsty: A Kentucky Woman's Guide to a Glistening Bicycle Commute

I've been doing it for two months now--riding my bike to my new job up the hill from downtown Cincinnati. You can, too (ride your bike to my new job) if you follow these easy steps:

Materials:

• a trusty bike
• a cool helmet with a visor (a must for coolness!)
• clothes for commuting (bike shorts + shorts, t-shirt)
• clothes for working (skirt, different t-shirt)
• something to carry the clothes in (panniers are ideal, and a steal from nashbar.com)
• a towel
• a rainjacket (just in case)
• a hair tie
• tire levers, a patch kit, an alan key tool kit which you can also use in class to demonstrate certain verbs)
• water
• almonds

Step One: Packing Your Panniers*

*(A backpack is also acceptable here, but I tried it for a few weeks and don't recommend it--sweaty and heavy.)

Ideally, I like to do this step the night before. Pack or wear all of the items on the list above, plus lunch, graded papers, Talking Heads listening cloze exercises, etc.

After breakfast (important!-but don't eat too much!), I check my tires and inflate them every couple of days.

Step Two: The Morning Of

Wake up. You will automatically be in a happy mood if you wake up knowing you will soon be on a bike. I open the curtain as soon as I wake up and like to lie in bed for a bit (anywhere from 20 seconds to an hour). Then, after getting out of bed and accomplishing all of the basic banalities of morning hygiene, I do a bit of yoga, which I find essential for a stretched out body and a flexible mind.

After breakfast (important!-but don't eat too much!), I usually check my tires and inflate when necessary.

Step Three: Take Me to the River!

Carry your bike downstairs/ unlock it from the front railing/ wheel it out from the garage/ maneuver it through the front door/ do whatever you have to do to get that bike outside! Click those helmet straps and hop on, still looking as cool as possible. Head toward the Roebling, taking in Covington's business district and the cat calls you can expect to encourage your commute. Oddly, these whistles and "get it girl!"s will cease upon crossing the state line. Remember: you are car! Take the lane!

Step Four: Hello Ohio!

Version A: Covington

The best part! My favorite part! The Majestic Roebling Suspension Bridge, built in 1856. Here is where your "car" becomes a bike again. Take the sidewalk on the west side. Feel free to stop and watch the river--I do it all the time! Another fun thing to do on the bridge is to think about all the people who have used the bridge and are dead now, as my little sister suggested.

Important: communicate with other bridge-goers! Be respectful! Warn them gently when you are approaching. Don't just ding your bell and say, "Move it, fattie!" Be polite. This is not Critical Mass.

If you are early enough you can glimpse the Ohio River Valley fog still floating on the river. Lucky!!

Version B: Newport

I recently moved across the Licking to Newport, enabling me to take the Purple People Bridge instead. This is a pedestrian bridge, and the vibe differs greatly from the Roebling. Expect to see unsmiling joggers, dog walkers, and spandex cyclists, all taking up more space than they need, ignoring both the pedestrian-only path and you. Don't let it get to you, and don't look longingly toward the Roebling unless you can do it without running into one of the cyclists who just turned a deaf ear, a blind eye, and a cold shoulder to you, no matter how tempting it may be. Here, it is appropriate to ding your bell and say, "Move it, fattie!" especially at night when the bar is open and the baseball fans are loaded.

Despite this, some beauty still remains on that old railroad bridge. Take the fiddler, for example. If you want to enjoy the Ohio River on a cool summer night, why not sit on a bench near the violinist and pretend you are Huck Finn? I must also mention the beautiful flowers growing in overflowing pots along the bridge, and in one row--vegetables, courtesy of the Findlay Market!

Step Five: Livin' for the City

Downtown. Welcome to the Gateway/OTR district of Cincinnati, Ohio!!! Wink at the handsome suit-and-ties walking up Vine to their respective corporate headquarters (P&G). You never know when you will need toothpaste! Ha!

Here, try to keep uo with traffic, which is usually pretty easy during rush hour. Suckers! Covingtonians: Make your way up Vine; Newportites: I recommend Main--> Findlay --> Vine. Wink at the firemen on Vine and Findlay! You never know when you'll need a fire out! Ha!

Step Six: The Hill

I like Vine because it gets me to my UC campus destination pretty straightforwardly. But it's not straight! At least not horizontally. There are two main curves you can use as mental checkpoints: The "3/4-Way House" (where the Olsen Twins go to get clean....ba-da-bing!) and the Pope's cafe. Unable to keep up with traffic or allergy-induced asthma, at some point I usually hop on the sidewalk. If you haven't done so already, drink some water.

Don't fret if a rat runs faster up Vine than you do. The rat does not have a cool helmet with a visor.

Step Seven: The Glistening Arrival

After parking your bike, bring your hot bod and your panniers into the bathroom of the building for the Superman-style transformation from hot sweaty bike commuter to hot sweaty professional. If another lady comes in while you are doing something weird, like wiping sweat from your hair with a scratchy brown paper towel, be friendly and you will make a new friend. The weather is always a good icebreaker.

Here is where the towel comes in handy. And don't forget deodorant. Also, now is the time for those almonds.

And there you have it, folks! So easy! So fun! So groovy! And if someone asks, DO tell them that yes, you ride your bike to work from another state! DON'T tell them it's only four miles!

"Drink before you are thirsty" --as quoted in the recently updated Cincinnati Bike Route Map

spring, bike locks...

Ahem. Hello, dear and faithful readers. For nearly a year you have been checking your RSS Feeds (or whatever you do with those) for signs of life from hibernating blogger Carrie.

With a stretch and a yawn I have emerged from my den of Internet inactivity!

Speaking of dens, here is one of my favorite poems, March, by James Wright. You can find this poem the way I did, in a book called "Field Work," a small anthology of poems edited by UK's Erik Reece which a friend gave to me last summer.

March
by James Wright

A bear under the snow
Turns over to yawn.
It's been a long, hard rest.

Once, as she lay asleep, her cubs fell
Out of her hair,
And she did not know them.

It is hard to breathe
In a tight grave:

So she roars,
And the roof breaks.
Dark rivers and leaves
Pour down.

When the wind opens its doors
In its own good time,
The cubs follow that relaxed and beautiful woman
Outside to the unfamiliar cities
Of moss.

After a year of learning things (usually "the hard way") about life and love and speaking French, in the words of Wendell Berry, "here I am in Kentucky, in the place I've made myself in the world."

And it was in fact today that I bought a(nother) new bike lock for my bike (the one I apparently "have in Kentucky" is lost in transition). And it was in fact today that I marveled at the spring, again. There are beautiful white blossoming pear trees lining Mainstrasse here in the Gateway to the South. It's the change between seasons that's always exciting.

I don't need to be Joseph Campbell to notice my life's motifs!

I'm still taking trips, still teaching (disguising poems as integral components of understanding US Civics), still learning, and...still keeping up with No Pinkies!!! Back by popular demand! Don't forget to check--we will be posting regularly!

a little madness in the spring

A little madness in the spring
Is wholesome even for the king
But God be with the Clown
Who ponders this tremendous scene-
This whole experiment of green,
As if it were his own!
--Emily Dickinson

...Heard on the radio couple weeks ago, read by Garrison Keillor (sometimes I can get Vermont's closest NPR station; and it doesn't seem to get more Vermont than NPR. Or maybe the other way round...)

They say change happens gradually, and, well, I can't argue with that. I can't explain why exactly, but this morning I woke up feeling different, like I'd changed overnight while I'd slept. Like I said, I can't explain it. I feel a bit older, more full of life, maybe somehow more tranquil. Maybe it's hormones, or the moon, which won't be full again till next Sunday, or the weather: it's springtime.

I walked home from class (today my French teacher told me that my pronunciation gets better every week, and that I know beaucoup vocabulary for just a niveau 3, and that I should use more of it when I speak. I told her as well as I knew how that I was nervous to speak (the truth is at times that I'm gradually overcoming fright from it), and that's why I sounded like a robot.

On the way home through the park I stopped at the bike shop to get a bike lock (my friend picked up a bike for me from the Montreal city auction) and spoke to the shopkeeper at the shop in my own melange of French and English, something that would only fly in this city. When it was clear I was having a dilemma with my decision, she asked me if I needed help. I held two locks in my hands.
"J'aime cette...lock," I said, [I like this lock] holding up the one in my left hand, an exact replica of the recently purchased one that is somewhere in my parents' house. (Had I known I was staying long enough to need a bike lock...)
She nodded.
"J'ai cette lock" [I have this lock]. She looked at me, perhaps puzzled. I explained that I had this lock in Kentucky, that "J'aime le...cable...parce que quand il n'y a pas de....bike rack...c'est un bonne idée pour moi..." [I like this...cable...because when there is not a...bike rack...it is a good idea for me..." She agreed, and I ended up with it. It's to my chagrin that I spent a shorter amount of time choosing the same bike lock back in Lexington in the fall.

One difference between spring in Quebec and spring in Kentucky is that when spring hits the bluegrass it's as if there's been a county-wide mandate for everyone to leave their houses. People emerge as if from hibernation; they flock to the parks and remember their bikes and their dogs. Here in Montreal, it's clear that there are more than just the smokers outside. But this is a hardy bunch we're dealing with: there have, for example, always been many lucky dogs getting walks, no matter how frigid. The difference now is that the owners stand around in the dog area of the park, smiling and proud as their dogs play what today looked like flag football. The dogs are happier: I saw one wearing a blue bandanna carrying a big stick, and another leaping around a tree in a way only a happy dog can do. I saw another one with white front legs and a black rest of the body. There are more bikes around now, since it's quite dangerous to ride in a snowy city, and even the ones that were once hidden under the snow (see March's entry) are now, though still chained, clinging to the railings, revealed in their velo glory.

My kid brother visited a couple weeks ago. The flower picture is from when we went to the Westmount Library's spring flower show.

Evolution, Revolution, Vélorution

--a mural in Pointe Saint Charles depicting the stages of mankind

March in Montreal, Bluberries

Basketball was invented in Canada. (Though the original plan apparently didn't include a hole at the bottom of the basket.) But hockey was invented right here in Montreal, and the Habs are the city's pride.

My pride is having done very little complaining about the weather since I've arrived. It's true! In fact, one could call me a born-again winter woman. And a born-again blueberry lover. And most of it I've kept to myself. It's snowing and the city is on its way to breaking the snowfall record more than thirty years old. I took my usual walk through the Parc and this time took some pictures, of my street and of the park. The thing about this city is that when you come in from outside you smell so fresh, like you've been out walking in the country.

The snow, however, slows down public transportation. Yesterday morning on the way to school I waited for the bus for twenty-five minutes. "I'd better get there fifteen minutes early because of all that snow," I thought. There is nothing more delightfully infuriating than waiting for the bus. Will it come? Does it exist? Though these feelings aren't as strong as they are in Ireland. So, I ran to the metro, and I can honestly say I haven't been so warm since Kentucky's September. Today I took the bus from the library, where I (last-minute) cranked out a slam-bang lesson plan on onomatopoeias. But the Westmount Library isn't like Lexington's W.T. Young. No, no. This place actually closes. The lights flash at ten-till ten: a last call, if you will. It made me feel as if I was in the Roost in aul' Maynooth again. And let me tell you what, if there's anything more stressful than last call at a pub, it's last call at a library. But I made it out of there on time to catch the bus. Hunger and madness drove me to hop off at the metro so I could buy some essentials (bluberries).

I will pause here to tell a story of how last week I understood numbers in French, suddenly, and how yesterday I was able to "help" someone by telling him, in French, that I didn't know the street he was looking for. Tonight, after deciding to hop off at the metro station, everyone was standing at the turnstiles, waiting. I asked someone what the story was. He told me in French. I blinked, and nodded, slowly. Someone else told me, also in French. I thought it was a question, so I said what I always say: "Je ne sais pas." (Pavlov would be proud.) But he kept at it...eventually I asked him if he spoke English. There was smoke on the tracks, it appeared, and "it could be five minutes, or it could be three hours," until it was fixed. Having had to wait for the bus for "just one more minute" every morning since Monday, I knew that those minutes could very slowly, and with excruciating pain, add to thirty minutes if I wasn't careful.

Carefully, then, I walked home. And ate more blueberries: delicious when purchased from the freezer aisle and consumed with yogurt, oatmeal, soy millk, or in CORNBREAD.

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/TIP02838/Six-Reasons-to-Eat-Blueberries.html

view from my bedroom

HAM WALLET

I have, I say, set out again.
The days tumble with meanings. The corners heap up with poetry; whole unfilled systems litter the ice.
--Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk

Things I've Seen With My Very Own Eyes:

A firetruck backing into the station, a wonder in itself. Two men, firefighters, on either side, one guiding the truck in, waving his hand to motion the truck back, back, back into the garage, while the other threw snowballs at him over the truck.

A wall covered in clinging dead vines.

A kitten prancing through the snow in my 'backyard.'

A man in a peacoat running down the street, gracefully. Hands in his pockets, he used his legs only from the knees down.

A dog wearing snow boots.

A man on the bus wearing a Bengals jersey.

The words

HAM
WALLET

written in permanent marker on a red Canadian Post box on Sherbrooke.

Last week during a class break, Kent, Norman and I stood examining the world map in the hallway. Kent put his finger on England. "Do you know what this part of England is called?" "Kent," we said. I pointed to the bottom of Ireland. Kerry! Norman pointed to France. Normandy! Beautiful story, eh?

I've been taking walks to the nearby parc [park] and find myself always gravitating toward the ice skating rink. What grace! What hardiness! Braving winter conditions of blowing snow, desperately low Celsius temperatures, and the treacherous icy walk across the park to the rink, the skaters come to double axle and push baby strollers and hold hands. O Canada! O Montreal!

The day after my last post, I went to "Hillbilly Night" at the Wheel Club. My life hasn't been the same since that fateful Monday night. I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it with my very own eyes. It felt exactly like Kentucky--plaid shirts, bottles of Budweiser, smelling smoke though it's illegal indoors. But you should hear them say "y'all!" And pasta, these Montrealers pronounce pasta like "pass--ta," not "pahsta," the way we do. The way it should be. Forgive me, I digress., Hillbilly Night was great--in its 42nd year, the fun hasn't stopped. We sat next to Grandma Lorena, a woman in her 80s who still teaches dancing and sings Patsy Cline and her own bilingual tunes, closing the night with a rousing Franglais tune with a call-and-response chorus:
Lorena:"Y'all come back!"
Us: "Y'all come back!"
Repeat.

Speaking of bilingual tunes, on Valentine's Day I went with my roommate to L'Astral 2000, just a block away from my house: a karaoke bar I never thought I would experience in this lifetime. Todd's utterly pales in comparison. This place was decked out in Valentine's gear. The first song was dedicated to all the grandparents in the audience. Leah sang, in my honor, Dolly Parton followed immediately by Me and Bobby McGee, in Kentucky's honor. ("From the Kentucky coal mines"...) I think I'll become a regular, and, to improve my French, sing only French songs.

It's been snowing the past couple of days, and today, it was a balmy -18C. This is when the snow is like sand. They're plowing the sidewalks outside my house as I write this. By plowing, of course, I mean flattening the snow to create a glossy smooth finish.

Pictures, Poem

Rue Dorion, my street (the yellow leg hangs from my balcony)

Quebec City, view from the diner

Asking for directions

Quebec City

My first French poem, refrigerator-style

Listen:
You can hear soft wind blowing
among tall fir trees on Vancouver Island
it is the same wind we knew
whispering along Côte des Neiges
on the island of Montreal
when we were lovers and had no money

(from A Handful of Earth by Al Purdy)

Decided to stop into a used bookstore by the school last week. There were two men there, the owners, or one of them. Tiny place; I couldn't help but listen in when they talked about women, love, quinoa, the snow we were expecting...and they were playing a Leonard Cohen album. Very romantic. Very Montreal. To me, anyway. Bought a collection of Canadian poetry (Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, etc.) and they gave me 50c off on the condition that I return to tell them what I thought. I went back a week later. "Hello, dear," said the owner. "It's brilliant!" I told him.

How I'm the Warm-Dressingest Woman in Canada, or, Turtlenecks Can Be Cool

Photo: my apartment: the balcony with the yellow leg

The trick, you see, is to wear a shawl in such a way that it conceals the "neck" part.

Important things to consider when dressing for winter in Quebec:

How to read temperature in Canada. Here, temperature is measured, which, excepting the United States of America, is the way it is in every other part of the world. This morning as I walked to the metro, for example, it was -22 degrees Celsius. This converts to nearly -8 degrees Fahrenheit. And apparently, this is not the worst of it.

Southern readers may be squinting their eyes and re-reading the Fahrenheit conversion. It is true. And it is cold.

But fear not, dear readers! Weather/fashion guru Carrie is here to help!

Reading weather forecasts in Canda. Today, for example, it reads, "Blowing Snow, -8 C." Blowing snow, for those of you in the dark about this concept, is this: loads of wind + loads of snow already on the ground. Cover your face. (See below.) Walking on snow-covered sidewalks in Montreal is like walking on sand dunes: rather awkward.

Photo: kitchen window

Cover your face. This can be done using a scarf, bandit-style, wrapped around your head and tied in the back, or simply stretching the scarf presumably already surround your neck/shoulders upwards to include your chin, nose, and finally, cheeks. A good tip is: everything but the eyes. Breathing through your mouth while your face is covered in scarf is a good way to recycle the body's warmth and therefore, thaw the inside of nose/sinuses/lungs. The turtleneck is a good option here--your neck will not become exposed to the cold while the scarf is re-positioned for facial coverage.

Thick socks. And don't be afraid to reuse your favorites! I'm not! (Same goes for gloves.) Some winter fighters say "footwear, footwear, footwear," but I wear my Kentucky hiking boots and believe they suit me fine. But the woolly socks are crucial.

Down. There's nothing better than animal skin/teeth/fur/feathers. Over at least three layers of clothing. Here's my preferred order: undershirt, long underwear, long-sleeved shirt (turtleneck?), cardigan, wool sweater, down coat. Long underwear, leg warmers, thick socks, and pants will suffice to insulate the bottom half of your body. A down comforter will keep you snug in the coldest of living quarters.

And a hat, of course. But y'all even wear those in Kaintucke.

Photo: Fur is "all the rage" here in Montreal. remember: people who care don't eat animals; they wear them.

Good luck, friends.