MY FIRST 100 PIAGGIO MILES

Last week, Naomi turned 100. What I am talking about is the mileage on my 2009 Piaggio FLY-150. She is the first powered 2 wheeler for this 57 year old novice, and here's what I found...

1. IT IS FUN ! I have at last reached a point of comfort with the skills, responsibilities and challenges to let me take in how much fun it is. This is more than a cerebral acknowledgment. It is the joy experienced from buzzing around on 2 wheels and feeling the acceleration - power that is provided by my right hand on the throttle rather than my legs painfully pumping harder on a bicycle.

2. THE SATISFACTION OF GAINING INSTINCTS With every turn I make now, I automatically press my left thumb on the turn signal to cancel it. How embarrassing it was on my first rides to look down and see my blinker still on a mile after I made the turn. Along with this seemingly simple skill is another one that means a lot - the comfort I've gained in accelerating from a stop, into a turn. It is a simple matter of where you place your center of balance - but I can still remember the practice times in the parking lot when I didn't lean enough and my weight was high, and the acceleration wanted to take me out of the turn. Now that it is behind me and the subconscious takes command, my conscious is free to pay more attention to everything else I need to be concerned about

3. A CYCLE OF APPREHENSION AND COMFORT - There is a difference between reaching a point of comfort and relaxing your guard. One means you are gaining skills, the other means you are being careless. So in the conversion of conscious application to instinctive motions, I find myself questioning if I am continuing to be vigilant enough. I think it's a natural reaction to not spending as much conscious effort on things like turning and leaning.

4. BUCKLE WHAT UP? Maybe the weirdest thing has been to question myself just before starting off - Am I forgetting something (something that has to do with safety)? I think it is the phantom seat belt sensation. That is, subconsciously questioning my safety by thinking shouldn't I buckle up before I go into traffic?

5. THE PLANE LANDING OVER MY SHOULDER Closing up the air slots in my helmet has stopped me from looking over my shoulder to see if a plane was landing on my head. However, with the warmer weather coming, I guess I'll have to learn to adapt to the noise.

6. THE FORCE OF WIND It was amazing to feel the force of the wind, the first time I drove over 45 mph into a variable head wind. As a bicyclist, I always understood how a small headwind in any situation made a huge difference to the work you had to put out. But on the bicycle, we are talking of speeds between 14 and 24 mph. The difference here is how much more it is magnified as speed increases above 40. The rule is that wind force increases exponentially with speed. As a kinesthetic learner, I can now say my knowledge of this principle has just increased.

7. RESPECT I am surprised of how much respect I get from other drivers (SO FAR). Much more than when I drive my Miata. They give you room. They don't jump in front of you. They stay off your bumper. BUT of course, I am talking about the drivers who are being responsible and paying attention. The enormous vigilance I keep - the stuff that makes me feel tired after even a short ride - continues to be needed not just for them but especially for the ones who aren't paying enough attention.

DISCOVERING CHELSEA LATELY

Appropriately enough, I came upon Chelsea Lately around 3:10 am last night -- about a half hour into another one of my now too regular middle night channel-surfing-and-sleep-therapy sessions. I'm not sure what to make it (her?) yet, but between my ambivalence, I found Chelsea different enough and interesting enough to keep me awake until about 4:30. (At which point I began dreaming of being late for a group dinner on the 6th floor of the mythical Parasol Restaurant in Peoria - where the tables are set in gondolas, suspended from the ceiling and shaded from the (ceiling lights?) by huge parasols... and PS, there are no 6th floors in Peoria. But I digress.)

I say "it" because after some research I learned that "Chelsea Lately" is the name of the 11pm talk show on E! while Chelsea Handler is the name of the comedian who hosts it. Not what I thought last night.

Stimulated by the novelty, I took a bunch of notes to try to capture my thoughts. But as expected I can't read hardly anything I wrote... something about how "she wears her bear" and the "southly dannliar in sploof". I'm pretty sure this last note was an important one because it had 3 exclamation points.

Her delivery is dry and sarcastic and I liked the material from last night's show(s?) because for the most part, it matched my sensibility - but I can see where this might not always be the case. Her supporting crew of comics however presented a mixed bag - sometimes funny but also often more cruel than necessary.

However, what got my insomniac, post mid-night brain twisted the most was when she did a monologue on Celebrity Apprentice and a Dennis Rodman freak-out. Her comments seemed so familiar - not in a deja-vu sort of way or like when you recognize that you've seen a movie before - halfway through seeing it again, but it was like I was hearing some kind of precursory future past tense. It was like she was reading something I WROTE, like something I might have written on this blog if I had seen Dennis Rodman and then commented on it. It was truely surreal and reflective of my own sarcastic tendencies. I think I could like this woman.

OOPS, BETTER TAKE THE SEAL MEAT IS OFF THE MENU

LOOK! it's one of our dear Food Channel celebrity chefs on an ad on my facebook page.

Cat Cora - a woman who focuses her energy on among other things, bringing dead animals to our plate after carving and pounding and plying their bodies with spices and grill marks... now on a new campaign to help "end the Canadian Seal hunt".

I did a quick check before I put a foot in my own mouth to see if she was a vegetarian but according to Wikipedia, her favorite dish is Greek cinnamon CHICKEN.

Good thing CHICKENS aren't as cute as harp seals, huh ?

"POWER" BREAKFAST

Life has gotten complicated I know, but sometimes when good things happen in small ways, I am reminded why I believe in Karma and metaphysical phenomena .

My visit to Starbucks this morning went something like this...

1. When Mistakes Align to Cancel Each Other
After ordering a tall coffee and a bacon-egg-smoked Gouda sandwich, I remembered that I forgot to ask for the bold brew of coffee. (If you don't go to Starbucks, understand that when you don't specify what kind of coffee you want, they pour Pike Place. It's OK but it's under roasted and designed for cream and sugar - comes up a little short for my black coffee drinking taste.)

So I asked my barista Jenna (not her real name*) if she could make that the bold. But somewhere between not quite hearing me and saying something I didn't understand, she had already filled the cup, so I said "never mind" (my mistake).

Jenna handed me the coffee, saying, "Sorry. I poured you a bold because it was fresher."

"That's actually what I meant to ask for - but don't you default to Pike Place?"

"Yeah, but I messed up. I should have asked you if you would rather have the bold, but I forgot."

:-)

* Name changed to protect her identity and I don't know her real name, anyway


2. Instant Karma
Before the coffee exchange took place, and as I was entering the store, I held the door for the girl coming in behind me. Even though she was beyond the range of proximity for a natural courtesy, I waited - not because she was good looking (she was, but it was not my intent nor frame of mind) - but because I wanted to be nice. (I would take a poll of who believes me, but I already know the results).

Then later, after leaving the store with my hands full -- with my car keys and the breakfast sandwich and the coffee which had spilled onto my hand (through the stupid sippy hole in the lid), and now looking for a 3rd hand to pull napkins out of my pocket... I got back in my car. But where are my keys? After going through 2 cycles of a search pattern to find them -- not in the ignition, in my pants pocket, in my jacket pocket, on the seat -- but before I could plan a new search strategy, I saw that girl again (who I held the door for). She was backing her Audi A4 out of her parking spot and deliberately backing farther than she needed to in order to sneak one more look at me (my read, but it was obvious).

She rolled her window down. I rolled my window down. She said, "Are you looking for your keys?".

I heard the twilight zone theme song, playing in the air.

"They're on your roof".

OK.... but she had to have been looking at me already to have noticed the keys. :-)

BREAKFAST EXPERIMENT

I winged it at breakfast this morning.

With an image in my head of making a sticky bun pancake, I broke an egg and removed the chalaza, added some buttermilk, spoon of sugar, splash of vanilla & whisked it. Then threw in a scoop of flour and poured some baking powder, baking soda & salt in my hand, added it to the flour and blended with a little more buttermilk to get it to the consistency of thin plaster - or gesso - a thick crepe batter (pick your reference).

Placed a tablespoon of butter to a large, heated, no-stick* pan, cut up a granny smith, threw in some golden raisins, toasted walnuts & pecans, and a spoon of brown sugar. After the sugar combined with the butter and the apples started to saute, I poured the entire batter over top (first surrounding the pile of goo, then filling the middle).

The only problem came at flipping time. It was still gooey in the middle and I had nothing large enough to support the whole thing. It was too loose and probably stuck in the middle to flip through the air (remember the *). So I folded it, covered it with a lid and flipped it a few times until I was sure the middle was done. Plated it and dusted with powdered sugar.


It was really great - somewhere between a good buttermilk pancake and a clafoutis. Moist and sweet with caramelized apple, raisins & nuts, it did not need syrup. I doubt I can repeat it again, but just in case I want to try, I am documenting it here. Try it yourself. If nothing else, you will learn something from the effort.

(*) Do any non stick pans stay that way for long? Mine don't.