Friday, September 7, 2007

Victory Lap

On Sunday, Sept 9th, I'm shimmying into the spandex once again and riding down the Pacific Coast to San Francisco to see a very good, old friend who I miss quite a bit. This time, I will not have the support of Ross and Julie who were just amazing people with whom to travel. Before we left NJ, I never thought we'd be able to get along so well considering the mental and physical strain we'd all endure, but I couldn't have been more wrong. They were fantastic riding partners.

And the most important thing to remember between riding partners is honesty. So here are some things I meant to confess to both of them about this ride.

1. I was breaking all my spokes purposely because I wanted attention from the bike shop repairmen.
2. Once Julie and Ross got ahead of me, I stopped peddling and started hitchhiking. Then I'd ask to be let off a quarter mile from where we were supposed to meet (not unlike a seventh grader asking his parents to drop him off a block before the school) then I'd pour my water bottle over my head so it looked like I was actually riding.
3. This one's actually true: I like tomatoes. For a while now, tomatoes headlined a very short list of foods I didn't like. I didn't want to look like a food whore (oh, armin, yeah, he'll eat ANYTHING. There's nothing he won't put in his mouth), so I could always say, "Ewww. Tomatoes. No thank you!" But, Ross started buying grape tomatoes which were a nice, fresh change of pace from Oreos and jerky. And then I moved onto the slightly larger cherry tomatoes, until finally I was hooked and ate a normal sized tomato just like an apple. So now the only thing I guess I don't like is ketchup and any dish that has human placenta in the recipe.


**********************************************************

Q and A

Q: I think that your "rock like a light socket" is a good one, but I may choose to use "rock like a light sucket"? Will it be okay with you I mean if I use that as an encouragement to you, not to me?

A: Mrs, Shu, EVERYTHING you write to me encourages me to continues blogging, so thank you for your support. I certainly have no problem if you change the saying to what you feel is appropriate, especially because it didn't mean anything to begin with. My only apprehension is that "sucket" is not a word, but teeters dangerously close to "suck it" which, where I come from (north JERZ) is a somewhat offensive thing to say. But I'm not the FCC, nor do I care to be, so to borrow from the Isley Brothers, "It's your thing, do what you want to do. I can't tell you who to suck it to."

Q: If you were a viking, would you have taken a boat instead of a bike?
A: actually, if I were a viking, I'd take scandanavian airlines to the chicago, IL to enjoy the Viking breakfast at Sven. As an aside, once I asked my Swedish roommate if she had ever had swedish style pancakes, and she said, "Yes, but i just call them pancakes."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Armin:

Thank you for writing about your feeling of being called "light sucket". Here is the true meaning. Sucket is a sweet morsel. Light Sucket is a sweet candy.

Northern Jzees seem to do differently than others about teeters that sound like "suck it". So sorry about using that word.

I am glad that you like tomatoes now. It is a good veggie fruit especially for getting rid of the toxins that cause bad smell in human bodies.

When going through SF, will you see Julie again? If you will have time, pay dan shu, my son, a visit. He is near to mission street. His email is danielhshu@gmail.com. Tell him that you just rode with Julie across the nation. Julie is our neighbor and Dan's college friend. Dan told me the other night that he and his friend were reading Julie's blog. I am sure they also hit your blog and Ross's blog.

The world is pretty small. Dan will enjoy having you to visit him at SF. His brother Mike used to be there too.

Dan and I may meet together at SF in November of this year.

Hopefully, someday, we will meet too. You are a character adding to the trip a lot of pleasant moments. Your senses of humor are contagious. The other day, when I read Mike Riscica's journal, I found he began to use "horrendous" to describe their body smells after many no-shower days. This I found after reading how Julie describes your smell when sleeping on your sneakers in nites.

You guys and your journals crack me up so much beyond you can tell. Better than "one joke a day".

I did at times go to Jersey. Dan and his brother shopped school clothes there when they were young, more in Penn to be not paying taxes.

Hope that you will see Dan, and happy travel,
Mrs. Shu

Anonymous said...

bro! i csn't believe you answered my question on this blog. i feel so famous! LOL 5 lbs. is nothing to gain back -- you totally deserve it with your push to SF anyway.

your writing always puts a smile on my face. meant to ask you last we spoke: did you find what you were searching for during this summer trek?

oh, and the ford . . . mama told you that it seems the battery might be dead, right? if it's not your bike, it's your car.

can't wait to read your next posting. hope the ride south is treating you well so far.

Anonymous said...

ps - cordy and lucien received the tops. very cool. i haven't quite figured out how to operate the one that sits on the lechon spit, but i'm close to cracking the code. we love you.