The Second Half

The sun had not quite come up yet, and the wind was freakin’ howling. I had some mental momentum from yesterday’s pre-dawn ride so I made it out again today. The usual suspect was out, John – with the two black labs – but other than that, the tacky dirt was all mine. For me anyway, these consistent, 1-hour efforts go a long way towards keeping my base fitness in a good place. Plus, the workday seems all that much easier after a ride in the cool air, some hot homebrew coffee, and a hot shower.

Lyza and I went over to her school bookfair last night for the annual “soak the parents” fundraiser. Books are a minimum of $8 a pop, they have $5 posters of Cardinals players, and little things like twisty erasers and felt pencils. I realize it’s a fundraiser for the school, but I always walk out of there feeling like I just got out of the health food store with a ½ bag of groceries for $75. After that, dinner and homework and a little time on Napster with Lyza getting into Van Halen songs from 25+ years ago. Cool by me. I’m clearly becoming my father because I hate most of today’s music.

I think I wrote last week about a riding buddy who took a hard – and I mean HARD – fall right in front of me a couple of weekends back. I talked to him last night and he hasn’t seen a doctor because he doesn’t have health insurance, he can’t pay for an x-ray because he’s been out of work for 11 months, he has too much pride to walk into an emergency room and ask for help because he knows he’d be a burden on the system, and right now he can only walk with a cane for short spans. That’s f’d up. I gotta get help this guy. There’s a sliding income scale clinic that I hope he’ll agree to go to tomorrow. I may have to threaten futher bodily harm if he ruffles his pride feathers one more time. I don’t know the answer to changing healthcare, Obama doesn’t either, and the GOP SUCK for the way they have approached the points of contention – but there has to be some sort of starting point and then you make adjustments from there. Why can’t we “Rodney King” this issue and just start moving forward; and correct mistakes along the way? As if someone or some party is going to write a perfect bill/solution the first time around. I hate politics.