What's missing from this picture?

(no, it's not "you") 

(though you actually aren't in this picture)

Hint: it should've been locked securely onto the street post, in broad daylight in downtown DC on the same street as the White House, where I'd left it not three hours earlier, where I always leave it locked securely when I ride it to work... rode it to work... 

If you guessed "Shana's bike!" then sadly, you were right. 

It's missing.

My bike.  Li'l Dais.  

She has been stolen.

I am completely depressed.  I slept for 12 hours last night and seriously considered calling in sick to work today.  I also seriously considered "not resting until I found her thieves and brought them to justice," but I was too tired from being so depressed.  And in DC, where even filing a police report for a non-registered stolen bike is pretty much impossible/pointless, at least being well-rested was probably the better option anyway. 

I could say more but I don't really feel like it. 

I'm still in mourning. 

I probably will be for a while. 

(Even my blog is wearing black.)

sigh.

she was a good little bike... 

... such a good little bike... 

Ah, success!

Here's the deal:  

I've been to France a number of times.  In fact, I used to live there, in Paris.  

My little sister Caitie had never been to France... had never been, in fact, out of the country.  So it was determined that I would take her around France for a few weeks, which I did last summer. 

We had a classic good time.  As you can see:

The goal of the whole trip, from my end, at least, was to (have a classic good time, and) make Caitie catch the travel bug.  As you probably know, I've got it.  Bad.  So I'm a good one to pass this along to her.  It can be highly contageous.  

Well.  Fast-forward seven or so months, Caitie goes to college in Milwaukee, Shana moves to DC, dad gets a transplant, la de da de da, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now it's January, and Caitie's on her way to Orlando with the dance team from her school.  And when they arrived at the airport, she texted me and said: 

"you've created a monster.  

we flew into orlando international and i thought, 

oh, international?  where can i go from here?" 

I couldn't be more proud.  :) 

(... maybe she'll decide to quit school and come with me on the Russia-Australia-and-lots-of-stuff-in-between trip I'm planning for the fall...)

I biked to Mount Vernon.

It was fun.

But cold. Really cold.

The pictures are here. They are heavily captioned. Enjoy.

When I got home, I, naturally, baked some bread, some of the most beautiful, delicious loaves of bread I have ever baked in my life.

(and of course, I took a picture)

I also took a long, hot bath.

What an all-star day. 8-)

FDR Memorial

Is it wrong...

... for me to want to name my new bike "Daisy"?  

Daisy, as some of you may recall, is the name of my beautiful, beautiful '95 Eagle Summit wagon, who not only got me to work faithfully every day, but also kept me company on many a journey up and down Iowa's Great River Road. 

She's currently living in Wisconsin with my parents.  

I miss her every day. 

ahem.

Anyway, so I got this bike, and I've tried to name it several different things, some of which were cute and clever, etc., but nothing sticks, nothing, and I've finally realized that I have a hard time calling "that cute, dependable thing in my life on an undetermined number of wheels that gets me where I need to go and provides fun and good times along the way" anything but "Daisy."  

So what do you think? Maybe "Daisy Junior"?  

 

Anyway, the-as-yet-unnamed-new-bike and I went out for our

 first big spin together today (the Great Falls trip was on a borrowed bike, back before I acquired this beauty).  We did the "Zoo Review" trail, up Capital Crescent and then

 down through Rock Creek Park.  I discovered about halfway into the ride (though I could've found out beforehand, I just wasn't paying attention) that once you get past Bethesda, the CC trail isn't paved anymore.  And it rained last night.  Soooo we got a little muddy.  I spent the trip back down through Rock Creek trying to figure out if I looked silly or bad-ass, all covered in mud speckles.  I'm going to go with "bad-ass".  

I haven't blogged in a long time.  :-/

But you know, check all the other blogs you read (assuming you read other blogs).  I'm guessing they haven't blogged much lately either.  

That's because it's a busy time of year, and everyone is too busy to blog.  But now that present buying/wrapping/opening is all over, I have time to write.  And you have time to read!  AND and, I bet you're looking for something to do besides pay attention at work.  It's hard to go back after some lovely time off, isn't?  So this is going to go really well.  

It would be too much to try catch up on all the stuff I haven't blogged about for the past month and a half... so I'm not going to bother trying, and if you want to 

know the story about me having to drive home from DC for Christmas, you're just going to have to give me a call and ask.  

I know, right? 

There are pictures available here, along with picture of lots of other things I haven't captioned yet.  Because I've been busy.  Ok. 

I did have an absolutely wonderful Christmas... best ever, maybe, since all of us knew we'd already gotten what we'd all wanted most: a transplant.  

... and also, maybe, a snowstorm.  

"I never thought being young and poor could look so fabulous!"

... just one of the comments made about our Emmaus House Community Covenant video...

which you can all see (finally) here:



(if it doesn't work, try this link)

The assignment was for each of the LVC houses to make a "Community Covenant" - basically, something that represents us and our house and the fun and good times we have together, etc. At our last retreat (where I may or may not have also spent a significant amount of time canoeing...) each house presented their covenant. And every house did something different, of course, because every house is very different... one house told stories to illustrate things that were important to them, another read a list of some funny, some serious things that made their house a home, etc.... really, our only instructions were to be creative.

Our house, the Emmaus House, spent a lot of time sitting around thinking about what we wanted to do for our covenant. Obviously, it had to be something pretty spectacular, but it also had to fit in a pretty specific budget... so, like, souvenirs from a week of family bonding in the Caribbean was unfortunately not in the cards... Some of the other (very real) possibilities were: a collage, a poem, a family crest, an interpretive dance, and a special Emmaus House rendition of the hit song "Glamorous."

In the end, none of these made the cut. What did make the cut was this, a video of us sitting around talking about... ourselves. And each other. And maybe a little bit about LVC.

So there you go, here you go, the Emmaus House Community Covenant.

... just another thing on the list of things I am thankful for this November... :)
Oh my God I am SO corny.

When you're good, you're good.

... let's just say I'm practicing for next week...