Birthday surprises

Hear that whine?  That continuing whine over the years, as I tiresomely complain that my far-flung family members so rarely visit Seattle?  

Well, that whine settled down to a purr this past weekend, as I reached yet another in a succession of scary birthdays.  I had known for months that my sister planned to visit me for my birthday, much as good-hearted women have always visited the sick and the lonely and the bereaved.

And she arrived five days before my birthday, for a week's stay.  Her travel from central Idaho was not without incident, however, as her new car was crushed by a falling boulder not long after leaving her house.  Repairs would take days, if not weeks.  Luckily, the repair shop already had custody of her youngest son's ancient car, awaiting a new suspension system.  Yes, she could exchange cars, her son agreed, and so she engaged the manual clutch and lurched and bounded across two mountain ranges like a character in a jalopy in a 1930s cartoon.  

But she arrived safely, if somewhat dizzy and showing signs of shock.

That was on Wednesday.  So we had good times, good conversations, some hiking in nearby parks, some eating at Seattle restaurants.  And I awaited a quiet but enjoyable birthday celebration a deux. 

Then on Sunday, I awoke from a brief afternoon nap to hear voices downstairs.  I thought that either my sister was on the phone, or we had been visited by a mutual Seattle friend.  I arrived in the living room, and saw the back of a head on the sofa, a head that was quite unlike that of the female friend.  I cautiously walked into the room and -- it was my brother!  A brother who doesn't do all that much travel out of California.  He had flown up from Palm Springs, just for the occasion.  I was stunned and delighted.  We all three went out to dinner at a very good neighborhood Italian restaurant.  (Yes, the lasagna was excellent.)

The next day, Monday, my birthday, the three of us were chatting in the living room, in preparation for a dinner at a very good seafood restaurant overlooking Puget Sound.  I had been half expecting our Seattle friend to join us -- if not for dinner, at least to wish me a Happy Birthday -- so I wasn't surprised when I heard a loud knocking on the door.  I was surprised, however, when I opened the door.  There, grin on his face, stood my oldest nephew, up from San Francisco.  He had expected to join us the day before, but there had been mechanical problems with the flight from San Francisco, and he had departed a day late.  

I now understood the number of changes that kept being made at my sister's request to the number of guests on the dinner reservation -- changes that had been attributed to supposed questions as to whether our Seattle friend was able to attend.  Instead, both my nephew and his father, himself a resident of Seattle, joined the three of us.

The dinner was topped off with a birthday cake my sister had brought with her, which was put on a plate and  served for a mere $20 restaurant "corkage" fee.  Well worth it.  And I think there were five candles on the cake -- I was grateful that the full actual number were not displayed, which would, in fact, probably have violated local fire code regulations.

So it was one of the best birthdays I've had in years.  And it would have been so, even if we had done nothing but gathered together at my house and talked.  

You just can't beat a family get-together, regardless of the pretext.  Especially when you live isolated in the "Northwest Corner."

Septdecennial

 

Yes, today is the seventeenth anniversary of my first blog post.  On March 20, 2007, after several hours fiddling around with setting up a blog, I posted:

Ok, my friend. Now that you've spent too much time deciding how this blog page should appear esthetically, and even more time deciding how best to present to the indifferent world an idealized description of your ever-important Self, you really might want to decide what it is you're going to write about. Don't you think?

Gosh and golly ... I stare off into space ... and await inspiration.

After 1,580 posts, I still find myself at times asking myself the same question.

In calendar year 2023, I posted 52 times -- the worst showing in all of my seventeen years.  I can't explain it, even though it was the end result of a three-year downward trend.  I just hope it was, in fact, the "end" and that things will be looking up in the future

As for this past year, I'll follow last year's example and not provide a "most popular" list.  The constant activity of robots scanning blogs now makes those figures somewhat meaningless. 

I do have a few personal favorites, but this year those almost all were related to my personal travels, not to issues of general interest.  I'll try to be more generally appealing in the year to come.

 

Friends again with my trusty bike

 

The photo above shows my road bike when it was still young and bright and shiny.  It was used to illustrate a short essay that I posted in June 2008, when I was considering joining a friend in a group ride across the wilds of Darkest Iowa.  My friend did it; I seem to have chickened out.

In my essay, while still pondering the Iowa boondoggle, I considered some preparation:

Ok, I'll dust my little friend off this weekend, fill his tires up (I see they've gone flat) and oil his chain, haul him upstairs, and take him out for a spin.

That was pretty much the last time that I gave my bike much attention; it has sat brooding in the basement, its spirits and its tires deflated, until now.

Today, I pushed it, deflated tires and all, some three or four blocks to the bike shop.  They will give it a careful examination -- cleaning, lubing, tightening -- as well as inflating the tires.  They will do this for only $90, unless the tires prove no longer sound enough to be safe for driving.  With new tubes, they would add another $70 to the bill.

I should have it back in my hands by tomorrow afternoon.  My test ride of an e-bike last Friday convinced me that the biking we plan for the Loire Valley in May will neither injure nor irritate my arthritic knee.  But it also showed me that my leg muscles -- those used for pedaling rather than walking  -- have been disused for too long.  They need a work out.

And that's what I plan to give them between now and May.  With my old pal, the road bike.  Who was already perking up at the attention I gave it before taking it to the bike shop.  He'll be beaming with happiness, like a puppy coming home from a kennel, all shiny and polished, when I go to pick him up tomorrow.

Me and my bike.  A team!

St. John Passion

On Saturday -- half way through Lent, and just three weeks before the Easter weekend -- I attended the performance by the Seattle Symphony, joined by the Symphony's Chorale, of the St. John Passion by J. S. Bach.

The work was  played by an orchestra considerable larger than would have been used in Bach's time -- a fairly full orchestra and a large chorale, with four soloists.  The Passion was sung in German with easily readable super titles provding an English translation projected high above the stage.

More so than do most concert pieces, even those with a religious theme, the St. John Passion tends to arouse actual devotional emotions in the audience, or at least it did so in me.

I was totally unfamiliar with the work; so far as I can recall, I had never heard it even from recordings.  The performance lasted for two hours, with a twenty-minute intermission.  As the title suggests, the "plot" follows the story of Christ's arrest, trial, crucifixion, and burial, as related in chapters 18 and 19 of St. John's Gospel.  The gospel is presented in sung recitative, with the voices of the major characters -- e.g., Jesus, Pilate, Peter -- sung by soloists.  

Most of us are well familiar with the gospel reading --  John ch. 18-19 is the traditional reading for Good Friday services.  But Bach's Passion goes beyond the words of the gospel, interspersing arias and choruses suggesting the proper emotional response from the congregation/audience,  and exhorting us to prayers of thanksgiving and of devotion.  Most stirring, perhaps, are the numerous chorales sung by the full chorus, based on Lutheran hymns familiar to Bach's original German audiences.

The music of at least one short chorale "Jesu Leiden, Pein und Tod" seemed clearly familiar to me, or at least reminiscent of a similar-sounding hymn.

A very full house in Benaroya Hall, with a larger than usual number of receptive children and teens in attendance with their parents.  I myself am sorry that I'd never heard this work by Bach before.  If I have the chance to attend another performance some day, I'll definitely do so.

The gospel story ends with Christ's body being sealed in the tomb.

Rest well, you blessed limbs,
now I will no longer mourn you,
rest well and bring me also to peace!
The grave that is allotted to you
and encloses no further suffering,
opens heaven for me and closes off Hell.

I left the auditorium looking forward to Easter morning. 

Getting prepared

As discussed in my last post, I fly to France in May to join friends on an e-bike ride down the Loire river valley.  I leave Seattle on May 10, spend three nights in Paris, and then take the train to Orléans on May 14.  My seat will first touch the saddle after breakfast on May 15.

May 15, which is just over two months from now.

In my February 26 post, about two weeks ago, I sounded more convinced than I actually felt that the arthritis in my right knee would not trouble my biking.  Even biking of twenty miles a day.  I recalled  that last August, when the arthritis was still less a problem than was my left ankle Achilles tendinitis, I seemed to do fine biking ten miles a day for two days.

But in France, I'll be biking an average of 21 miles per day, with one day requiring 29 miles.

I needed some evidence that my confidence was not unfounded.  And so, on Friday I conducted an experiment.  I rented an e-bike from my neighborhood bicycle shop, and connected to the nearby Burke-Gilman bike trail, which parallels the west side of Lake Washington up to its northern tip.  My goal was to bike from my house to the small town of Lake Forest Park, a total of eleven miles.  With the return trip, I would have biked 22 miles, approximating the average daily ride required in France.

I didn't achieve that goal.  I turned around at the 6.5-mile mark, for a total of 13 miles.  But my knee (and my left Achilles tendon, as well) did great.  I had no pain in either location while biking, or that evening after biking, or the next day.  I met my Waterloo at 6.5 miles, not because of my knee/ankle concerns, but because of a very sore butt!

The rental e-bike came equipped with a very narrow, hard-surfaced saddle, which became increasingly uncomfortable on my un-calloused rear-end.  Also, I was wearing street clothes, just a pair of jeans.  I think I can handle the seat problem with a pair of padded biking shorts, together with a substituted padded saddle.  Plus a little more time acclimating to the experience.

Even more unsettling, although it didn't occur to me until the end of the ride, was the fact that my thigh muscles weren't used to prolonged peddling.  I haven't biked for years, and my daily walks have been severely shortened because of my knee problem.. By the next morning, it was difficult to walk when I first got out of bed, and painful the entire day.  By today, the second day after my ride, that pain has pretty well disappeared.  But I have to be ready to ride six consecutive days in France, so I obviously need to get in better shape.

I have a standard road bike that I haven't used for several years, but that seems to be in good condition.  Except the tires have gone flat with time.  Once the tires are pumped up, I plan to spend some time riding it around the neighborhood, just enough to leave me with a little discomfort in my thighs after each ride.  I've prepared for similar rides in the past -- although not since 2007 -- and had no difficulty being prepared by the time of the group ride.

But I'll be careful,  My nephew and I joined a group bike ride in China in 1998.  One of the members of our group lived not far from my home in Seattle.  He didn't appear for the trip, but his wife did.  Her husband apparently had been preparing for the ride conscientiously, with daily rides on Seattle streets.  At some point, disaster struck and he was thrown from his bike.  No permanent damage, but a severe enough injury to prevent him from joining our China trip.

I'll pretty much stick to bike trail rides, but even there something can always go wrong.  But life is full of risks.  As we like to tell folks scared of flying, their greater danger will be an auto accident on the way to the airport.

Further reports in the future, as events warrant.