Rocky Mountain Randoms - The "HA! Girl can cook!" Edition

So, here's a wee tidbit of updates until I get my blogging groove back, post-laptop crash:

- In an attempt to train for my next tri, I rode my bike to and from work today. It's a six-mile trip (each way, for a round-trip of 12 miles, the distance for bikes in a sprint triathlon), half on paved highway frequented by cyclists and perfectly flat (but windy). The other three miles are half paved hilly road and half hilly dirt and gravel road.

Every meter of it is hell. Even the flat bits.

I am the world's worst cyclist. As I told someone recently, the only thing thing Lance Armstrong and I have in common is surviving cancer. I'm trying, I really am, but I am slow and weaving and unsteady and miserable the entire time. I need an enthusiastic but patient cyclist to explain shifting to me, to reveal how one can stand up on the pedals without falling over, or let go of the handlebars to grab a water bottle or pick the bugs out of one's teeth, also without falling over. Sigh. I finally checked my times from the Danskin Triathlon. As expected, I was good in the swim, slow but not horrid in the run and only ten people from being dead last in the bike portion.

Ugh!

- On my Spectrum of Grossly Over-Generalized Opinions of People Based On Geographic Location, Coloradans rank only slightly higher than Las Vegans, mostly because the people here at least know how to drive. Coloradans generally interpret the "independent pioneer spirit" as meaning they'll do what they want, when they want. Case in point: the Denver Danskin Triathlon I did last week. Spectators were roaming around the transition area (closed, theoretically, to everyone but athletes) with dogs and strollers and not caring one jot whether they were in the way of a woman trying to rack her bike and put on her running shoes to finish her race. There were even several spectators who simply joined their wives/girlfriends/whatevers on the race course, clogging up an already narrow path. One guy biking the cycle course (clearly neither a participant nor volunteer) shot back at someone who told him to quit: "It's a public road!"

The women in the race also displayed more "mememe" attitude than other Danskins I've done. People were more surly about passing aggressively on the bike course (granted, like the run, it was a too-narrow out-and-back rather than a roomy loop, but still.). One woman wouldn't move over to the right when a faster cyclist was trying to pass. The faster biker was just shouting "on your left! ON YOUR LEFT! MOVE IT!!" until the slower (much slower) woman shouted back "I'm in this race too!"

Not at your speed, honey.

The triathlon got me thinking, in fact, about a recent book I started reading about, then stopped because I knew it would only irk me. The author cherrypicked stats and data to "prove" Republicans are nicer, more charitable and generally more decent humans than Democrats. Now, I subscribe to the position that jackasses come in all stripes and colors and political persuasions, but after the Denver tri, I'm not so sure... Colorado is, after all, the reddest state I've done a tri in by far. If anything, the people I encountered at the tri were more selfish, less considerate of others and generally crankier than in either Massachusetts or Wisconsin. Go figure.

Despite the less-than-wonderful experience at last week's tri, by the way, my enthusiasm for appearing in front of thousands in my swimsuit in exchange for free water bottles has not ebbed. I'll do one again. In fact, I am doing one again, at the start of August, back in Denver. Coloradans, it's a chance to redeem yourselves in my eyes and prevent you from sinking, as a group, to the level of Russian cops and urban Tunisian men on my Spectrum of Grossly Over-Generalized Opinions of People Based On Geographic Location.

And trust me, you really don't want to be stuck with the urban Tunisian men.

- Wiley is doing his best to adjust to our new apartment, which is in a town just south of Bullwinkle Ranch. We live in a bit of a white trash 'hood, with lots of trailers and half-assembled trucks in the yard, but it's quieter than our old place and much roomier, with plenty of walkie opportunities. But there are the dogs. Everyone here it seems has at least one dog, usually two or three or four, and, well, with the exception of a miniature Schnauzer with a Napoleon complex, Wiley, at 75 pounds, is the smallest dog in the 'hood. There are Labs and big mutts and many, many Malamute-type behemoths. Few are on leashes. Poor Plush Smalls was extremely anxious about going outside the first several days, but has slowly gotten used to three or four or six dogs running up to him all at once to sniff his butt. He's even made a few friends in the 'hood, which is heartening. But he's also developed an adorable morning ritual: every morning, he tentatively sniffs the air as I open the door and then sticks his head out cautiously. If he sees another dog, he slinks back inside. If the coast is clear, he jumps out, puffs out his chest and gives the 'hood a good, solid "WOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF!"

- We have family meal, like many kitchens, every night about an hour before service starts. One of the cooks, almost always Keanu, throws together the scraps, the random bits of things we're trying to get rid of and serves them up to the cooks and servers. Last week, I had to make a lot of pizza dough for an event. Chef told me to make a couple extra half-sheets for Keanu to use as family meal. I asked if I could make it instead, and whipped up a Central Asian style pizza.... spinach, garlic, onions and a lot of meat from the "mixed meat" container of all the ground scraps, heavily seasoned with cumin and curry and cinnamon and other secret spices, all the flavors I experienced traveling in the 'stans and to a lesser extent Turkey and the Middle East and, dare I say it, Russia.

While Keanu is an awesome cook, he never makes stuff like that; his family meals are always either Mexican or cheese pizza. The cooks kept drifting by as I worked, lured by the exotic scents. When I finally took it out of the oven, they descended on it with such fury that very few of the servers even got to try it. I saw a few of the cooks wolfing down four pieces each.

I asked Jerry, my favorite line cook, if he liked it and he was ecstatic. "Ha! Girl can cook, huh?" I said, much to his merriment. "Yeah, finally you made something worth eating!" he laughed... he, the guy who devours all my scraps and actually lingers around my station when I'm cutting brownies, knowing I'll give him the end pieces.