Weigh-In Wednesday: Beautiful Spring Day Edition

Oh my goodness, it couldn't have been more beautiful in Seattle yesterday! (Unless maybe it's today!) It was just glorious outside, so much so that look who I loaded onto the bus bright and early in the morning to ride home for the first time yesterday afternoon:

Aw, baby, I've missed you soooooooooo much.

Well, I did get on that scale yesterday morning even though, again, it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. I thought about skipping it, actually. Tuesday night had just SUCKED and I had fallen asleep feeling very sorry for myself, then I had lain awake from, oh, about 1:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m., still feeling sorry for myself. So getting on the scale was not high on the list of ways I wanted to make myself feel good on Wednesday morning! But I did it anyway. My logic was, it wasn't going to be any more fun on Thursday morning, haha.

Whatever. Maybe this is just what I weigh.

Do you just hate love how BRIGHT those numbers are on the scale indication? Your weight, seared into your retinas at 5:00 a.m. Lovely. :)

But now I'm going to stop talking about my sucky week and my sucky weight and I'm going to say that yesterday I rode my bike home and it was heavenly. Beyond heavenly, it was just magical. How on earth can bike riding be SO FUN?? I just love it. I may not love it in a wow, it's 42 degrees outside and pouring down rain, I think I will go ride my bike home from work in the dark way, but I absolutely LOVE it in a WOW, IT'S FIFTY-SEVEN DEGREES AND GORGEOUS OUTSIDE AND I AM COUNTING DOWN THE HOURS UNTIL I CAN BLOW THIS POPSICLE STAND AND GET OUT ON MY BIKE way!

Sure, it's a bit of a hassle. I simply do not have time to ride my bike to work in the morning. I maybe rather prefer the ride to work over the ride home (not sure on this one as they both have their merits!). You gotta get your bike to the bus stop (wha, put on all the cycling shoes and helmet and such for a few block ride??) and then you gotta load the bike on the bus. Pause for a long dramatic moment as your forehead breaks out into a light sweat as mine does...will there be space on the bike racks? Will it be easy access front space, or oh ufck, it's the hard back space(s)? Will cars honk? (Ok, cars don't usually honk, but mightn't they, one day?

So much packing involved. Yesterday was a very last minute decision to ride my bike. G wasn't going to work, it was supposed to be a very sunny day, and I needed to lift my spirits. Why not? My bike was not prepared, though, and neither was I. Bike shoes needed to be located, helmet dug out from a moving box in the garage. Tire pressure added. Stuff. What to bring? What not to bring?

Well, I made it, anyway. I forgot a water bottle, and my lunch, but I survived. :) And I FLEW out of the office at the end of the day and did a complicated strip tease in the parking garage, changing shoes and out of pants and, and, and...

(See, last year, I would have have walked out the office in my bike shorts and shoes, etc. But this year, I was just really happy that my bike shorts still fit - a relative term, I'll admit - so those pants went back on over the shorts to get me out of the building without undue scrutiny by my peers, haha.)

The ride home was glorious. I would have stopped and taken a picture to illustrate, if I hadn't been so happy just enjoying myself. Sure, the hills were hard. My legs were weak and weary. I didn't feel as much of the POWER as I felt riding late last summer, but hopefully that will come back. :)

And hey, I was riding through the most perilous part of my commute, the International District near the bus tunnel, a street fraught with buses and train tracks and pedestrians and cars and turn lanes and taxis and bums and OH MY GOODNESS that one block stretch of road is just STRESSFUL. And at the height of it, I kid you not, a fan man yelled out, "Go, Julie, go!" as I passed by.

I know a lot of people downtown, I would say, having worked here for half my life. And I will probably not ever figure out who yelled out to me at that busy train station bus stop unless they mention it in passing. But on a perfect sunny day, when I was so super happy to be back on my bike...well, heck, that just made my day.

Go, Julie, go!!