Chickens

They come home-- to roost. Every time.
This can be bad, and it can be good. But they will come. I've learned that this year.

In the case of LP, I'm hoping their arrival will be good. Work I did months and months and months ago will make an appearance this weekend. Work I did just last week will likely have less effect, which makes me feel a little helpless. Was the work I did this winter/spring/early summer good enough? Quality enough? Focused enough? Was it enough for the chickens to have a comfy little roosting come Sunday? I'm being truthful when I admit I don't deserve a whole hell of a lot in terms of comfy roosting in most other aspects of my life. But I think I do deserve it in terms of the effort I've put in to prepare for this race. Hopefully the chickens will view things that way as well.

I will stop speaking by way of analogy now.

I have had a really shitty weekend in some respects. The good was really good. Yesterday was gorgeous and I spent nearly the whole day on the beach with Alina and our troupe of kids.

The bad? Started with my seat post clamp splitting in half on Thursday's ride. Then I blew out two tires in succession on a ride on Friday. Then I tried a ride again on Saturday and blew out the same tire 20 minutes in. Finally I found the god damn piece of glass lodged silently and stealthily inside the tire.
Other bad: the plantar fascitis in my heel is like-- not good. I don't talk about being injured at all, so I will stop there. It is not so bad that I can't race, of course. It's just there. and it hurts. and I want it to go away.
And then there was the traffic on the way home last night: a two hour trip became a four hour trip. That would be the chickens again--roosting b/c I spent too long hanging at the beach before I headed home.
And finally, the kicker. My chocolate lab, the invincible, high strung, crazy 11 year pup of mine--is not invincible after all. She will go before her big, senile older bro. She has a tumor in her mouth the size of my fist. And it's mouth cancer. And that's it. Not going to write about it anymore than that because doing so brings out that big lump in my throat and the quiet tears that won't go away.
If you don't have a pet--well, I know it seems dumb to get all messed up about one dying. But she was not supposed to go this way. She had the energy of a 6 month old puppy. And she was one of the first things Andy and I decided to do together--as a unit. We split the cost of her 50/50. And she was with us all this time, escaping the yard and chasing squirrels and stealing our kids' food right off their plates. And she drove me crazy. And I love her.
And her death is just--

And I think maybe God wants to shift my atttention away from LP, so I can remain calm and so I keep things in perspective.
But I feel like I am being punished.
Which is self-centered and crazy. Because this can't be a case of the chickens, and if it is--it's an awfully shitty way for them to announce themselves.

Not sure what the old man is going to do without her. They had each other.
She was indomitable.
Sounds so tacky but maybe she'll send me her hyper-crazy-superdog powers for IM.
By IM she will be gone.