AIDS ride weekend

I was signed up to do the AIDS ride Sunday – so I tried to take it kind of easy the rest of the weekend.

Friday I worked until 4:30, on a Friday, in the summer, which Rach and I agreed is like staying until 5:30, or maybe even 6:00 on a normal work day. We went out for a few errands, including buying me my first pair of Lululemon leggings, and came home and had turkey chili and chips for dinner. The chili was quite tasty but not very photogenic.

Saturday we got up and biked to the Market, and tried to keep buying at a minimum because I had just gotten a CSA box, and Mark was leaving Sunday for a trip to Denver to see his son. I got corn, garlic, a shallot, and a bunch of collard greens was the only impulse buy. Then I went to Madison Sourdough to get brunch with Emma’s mom, and Mark went home. I had an egg sandwich that I requested on toast instead of a croissant, but the toast was so buttery the croissant might’ve been less so. We talked about Linda’s recent trip to Italy when the airlines lost her suitcase, and the kids. I stopped at the co-op, and came home and worked the rest of the afternoon.

Until it was time to go to Lombardinos for dinner. We met up with David & Peter who had just been at the Kinney House (Peter consults on lots of FLW buildings so staying in them is a perk), and talked about why we don’t see each other more. For David it makes sense; he’s at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, but Peter’s living on the North side of Madison.

I didn’t drink anything in fear of being dehydrated for the ride next day.

We rushed out as soon as we finsihed our meals, because we had tickets for Waitress at Overture – Mark “won” some kind of lottery to be able to buy cheap seats, which was really just Overture acting like hotels.com – selling off the leftover seats at a reduced rate, because something is better than nothing. It was fun – we had liked the movie – and we like Sara Bareilles. Waitress came out the same year as Hamilton, though, and somehow “sugar, butter, flour” doesn’t have the stick-in-your-headness of “young, scrappy, and hungry”.

Sunday morning I crammed my bike into the car, and headed over to Susan’s house. We went and got free coffee and bakery samples at Jenny Market, and by the time we got back, Susan’s friend Connie was there with her truck to take us and our bikes to the start of the ride. Connie had done what I was afraid of doing the night before – drank too much – her kids came over with a lot of liquor, and she succumbed. So she didn’t ride, but took us to the start.

On the way there we were talking about Connie’s big family – she’s one of 15, and it was some of her kids and younger relations who had lured her into the over-drinking the night before. It took us awhile to find the right shelter at Lake Farm Park. We first turned in at the campgrounds & Lussier Center and parked the truck there, and Susan and I went off to look at a map. When we got back, Connie was holding a baby. Turned out that another of her younger relations, who was the mom of the baby, knew the couple who’d gotten married there the day before and had come to clean up, thus proving that Connie’s family is so big, they’re just everywhere. We headed over to shelter 3 and eventually got checked in and got our route sheets and instructions, and took off on the route. There were only about 7 of us doing the 25-mile ride. It was a beautiful day for a ride. One of the nice things about it being the AIDS ride and the gay community is there’s more tolerance for people who don’t look quite right.  There were people biking in tutus and clown costumes, so a couple of old ladies in tie dye T-shirts and denim shorts – instead of spandex biking gear – didn’t feel so out of place. It was 27.7 miles, a little more than the advertised 25. They gave us lunch when we came in.