Biking in Ames (Part Flood)

You know what is so disagreeable about biking in Ames? No, not the flooding. The flooding is Sight-Seeing. We are all natural disaster voyeurs. We stare at tornado damage (and tornadoes), earthquake damage, fire damage, etc. Anything that rips that thin layer of "we've got it all under control" off.

To be fair, I'd stare at tornadoes, if I could ever see one. Lived in Iowa seven years and still haven't seen a tornado. I didn't have to live in Turkey this long before I was in an earthquake.

No, the thing that is really annoying about biking in Ames is this:

You see, that is a path. That is the path I was biking on. And that is where the path just ceases to be. This really isn't the first time it's happened. However, in Des Moines, most paths actually connected you somewhere, or worst case scenario, put you out at a sidewalk. Ames sometimes does that with little paths that don't last more than two minutes, but it also has a tendency to put you on paths that just end.

But I was biking during the high river waters, which also made it interesting. I don't know if it was an official flood, but some areas were flooded.

I also had a few more paths end on me, though it wasn't the city planner's fault this time.

That was a path at one point. Now it is a river.

And this.

That mud covers a path. I kind of got the hint as I was biking toward it because I was heading downhill and I could tell the stream was higher than the underpass.

Of course, technically Brookeside was closed. I figured I wouldn't sue them if I met my untimely demise by ignoring the barricade. Above was only one of the reasons it was closed. Here is another.

I also biked through puddles deep enough to cover my pedals at the low point and kept having to turn around because of blocked paths. But it's all sorts of fun to see what's happening. Well, depending on how long it takes them to get Brookeside running again. It certainly won't be fun a month from now.

Wanderlust

I know I attempted to post about this before, but somehow the use of Blogger between the computer and my phone ended up with the post disappearing.

I just picked up a book called Wanderlove, one of the staff picks from the YA section at the library. It appealed to me. It's about a girl who wants to change herself in the aftermath of a bad breakup. She wants to get back into art. Dress bohemian. Travel. Be independent. But in all this, she's trying to push against her own fear and reluctance and emotions weighing down on her.

I feel like I understand. Thing is, I didn't even have an identity when I got back to the States. Nobody here knew me and everyone I grew up lived elsewhere. It's a weird place, because on one hand, you aren't trapped being who you were growing up. We get so caught up in patterns I think we keep repeating them as long as everyone else expects us to. And as long as we are around those we grew up with, people can't see you changing things for the better, it's just a lapse. And then you come to expect the same thing of yourself.

For me, I could no longer rely on my friends and who I hung out with to be my identity. Not like it was everything I was, but I never had to think about it in high school. I was just one of the group, the emotional sensitive one, who preferred to hang out with boys and liked capture the flag more than everyone else. Oh sure, there were more differences, but that sums up about the only things that really separated me from the rest.

And then all that was gone, along with all the problems that went with it. So who was I? What could I become with the choices and opportunities offered me in America? What parts of myself could change and adapt and what would remain the same at the core? What did I WANT to be?

In Wanderlove, she approached it differently. Don't lie about who you are. You want to be something different, change yourself, not just what you say about yourself. She gets embarrassingly caught in the lies in the next chapter, so it's a good policy I think.

But she signs up for a tour of Central America and then meets some backpackers who are touring in a completely different fashion and ends up going with them. It's dirty and carefree and exciting and scary. And it makes me ache with wanderlust.

I get wanderlust frequently. I love Ames, my only home here in this country, but I have never been stuck in one place for so long in my life. I've been here longer than I lived in South Korea. It's getting close to rivaling my formative years in Turkey. And even in those places, I don't think I was ever in the city longer than two years without flying back to America. I haven't flown in maybe four or five years now. It's been the longest I've been grounded in my entire life.

About every changing of the season ('cept winter), I hit a point of really really wanting to just take off and go somewhere. The book and cool spring day makes me want to hike in a jungle or view Ireland or camp in a forest (with lots of extra socks) and grill food and find firewood. Summer makes me want to visit somewhere with sparkling sand and turquoise water and green leaves everywhere. Fall makes me just want to pack up my bags and travel Europe and see buildings, markets, museums. And actually, I suppose winter makes me want to go somewhere as well, if only to be warm. If I can make myself leave the house for it. I tried to get David to take me to Texas with him on the company plane, but it didn't work.

I've been trying to find my own adventure where I live. I take bike paths without knowing where they go. I had a small lake nearby in West Des Moines and would swim there. Here I have an aquatic center. Ames tends to have a lot to offer in the summer. They like to have farmer's markets and bands come and play and art fairs along their little main street. And I'm biking across Iowa for RAGBRAI. There will be things to do.

I just don't know if it will be enough to satisfy the craving I feel for somewhere else.

Family Business

I wasn't even really sure about family businesses. How do you fire a family member? Hopefully not Godfather style, strangling them in a boat before dumping their body in the water. How do you take orders from a family member? And then the classic, "My entire family are toy makers, but I want to be a dentist!" or some variation of that theme and the resulting familial pressure and disownment and Isle of Misfit Toys with a clear lack of teeth.

Why, I asked, would you want to run the same Italian restaurant that your parents and grandparents ran?

And yet, when faced with a similar, but less tasty, situation, I willingly ran into the arms of family related employment.

Dad has always had his hobbies, which tend to be an awful lot like a business. Back in the day, it was the stock market. These days, it's real estate. He is a landlord. And like any business, life is easier when you can just get your kids/spouse to do things. Don't have a delivery guy? Get your teenage son to drop whatever off. The store is a wreck? Pay your gaggle of girls in ice cream and pocket change to spend a Saturday cleaning it. I'm not saying that we're all being ripped off, just that we tend to be a low risk help. We don't work out, they didn't have to go through the hiring process and offer full-time or part-time hours and so on to get us. We do work out, hey, I could use some extra cash.

In the case of the landlord business, several of us could have potentially gotten involved. Dad's mentioned things like this before, where each of us contributes something to hold the monopoly on some commodity in Ames. Before we had a Craig's List, I think he might have been musing over a website of similar properties. With the housing, he hires Mom to clean the houses in between clients and my youngest brother Jacob to mow the lawns. If Nathan were around, Dad would set him to fixing things, hopefully without having to replace it, which Nathan's common sense and innate understand of things would come in handy. And right now, he's hiring me as a leasing agent. I get paid commission, and only commission, but as I don't have a real job, any extra cash would be helpful and I certainly have the time to do it.

And so, The Family is in business.

Now, Dad seems to have had a lot of luck in leasing in the past. He said he averages about fifteen people interested and about five showings before he finds a leaser. I'm using the same advertisements as him, the same strategy (show it a few days after the ad is posted), and I have averaged four contacts, three headaches, and a scam. I haven't even made it to a showing date and already I'm despairing of finding normal people out there that just want to lease. Is it because I'm trying for an August lease in May? Dad said he wanted it done by the end of the month. I was hoping to post the ad, take down information, schedule the showing, show it, and then go over a long list of potential consumers to pick the best one with Dad. At this rate, I'll be lucky if I don't have to call the renters and be like, "I said I needed three to six, and I know it's only three-fifteen... but nobody else is coming. You can have your house back."

What magic does he possess? Should I go home and rub his head? Steal is owl marble? Sit RIGHT next to him when he's working on his laptop in the back yard? Change my last name back to Lubinus? Collect pennies?

I need to learn how to channel this "family business." Or make 'em an offer they can't refuse.

The Return of the Medical Thriller

Well, maybe it won't thrill you. But like I said, I find the medical world to be fascinating. And so, in search of answers to the Case of the Mysterious Lump, I return to McFarland Medical Clinic. No, not the same one as last post. This one is much closer. And though I didn't really think of it when I went through the doors, I had been there before. It's funny how memory can sometimes cling to places that seem so inconspicuous. But I shall explain that in a moment.

I made my first gaffe as I was chaining up my bike. Somehow, I scraped my finger in the process and even a good rub against my pants didn't make it go away, though it got ride of a bit of the dirt. So by the time I was checking in, I had to grab a tissue. I figure hospitals and clinics frown on uncontrolled bleeding.

Then they told me I had checked in and it was like I was dismissed... but I was still in the lobby. "So...?" "Oh, go down that hallway to Radiology." I suppose it did say radiology on my appointment card, but it's not like a frequent the place. I don't know procedure. Then I had to check in again once I got to radiology and then I popped out my book. Hmm, on thinking back to it, I probably should have read some magazines. There's been an issue of National Geographic I've been wanting to peruse, but checkout time at Wal-Mart doesn't take long enough.

So finally someone called my name and led me back into the bowels of radiology. Or something more attractive than bowels. What do you call the twisting depths of a department that has some natural lighting, wood paneling, and soft yellow recessed lights?

Now for the memory. We passed a hallway that didn't look out of place in any way, just two doors to small rooms containing large equipment and some seating along the side. I surprised myself by remembering that was the hallway where I had sat for what seemed like forever waiting for David to come out of one of those rooms, watching as a nurse hurried out to later hurry back in. Why the hurry? He's just getting his neck x-rayed or something of that nature. It started to get so long that I was worried they had kidnapped him and were trying to sanitize the crime scene or something.

But all that was just a flash as we passed the hallway. The nurse/radiologist/whatever... you know, I'm going to call her Judy. She reminds me of a Judy. Judy led me to some familiar cubbies and found another shapeless hospital garment and then to some familiar dressing rooms with wood curtain doors. She called the garment in question a cape and I considered informing her I needed a large, but didn't. Which was good because it apparently was a cape. Or poncho. It just draped around my upper body and tied in the front. And I got to leave my pants on this time.

Judy came back for me and put me in a darkened exam room with an ultrasound machine and then proceeded to ultrasound my boob. Did you know they warmed up the gel? It was quite nice.

We also had a detailed talk on breasts. She apparently had a soapbox about women who complained about mammograms, as that was an important factor in the detection of cancer. "Isn't a limited amount of pain worth the greater benefit?" she asked. "I tell them they should just women up and do it."

"I suppose it would have to be worth it," I reply, "otherwise nobody would voluntarily conceive biological children." This was probably prompted by a discussion I'd had earlier that day about childbirth. Then I went on to talk to her about Angelina Jolie and preventive mastectomies and how even though I couldn't fault her for it, I didn't really hail her as the hero of all women when she came out about it, and with that, Judy and I agreed.

Then she went to find a doctor because that's how it goes. She takes the pictures, and then a doctor looks at them and tells us what we are seeing, and he came in and talked to me. Apparently, I have no reason to worry. Nothing about the lump seems anything but benign. And normally they'd tell me to watch it and come back in eighteen months, but since I kinda have been putting off this appointment for a long while... well, I don't have to come back. It might have grown slightly, but we can't really know that because you can get slightly different measurements with different people doing the ultrasound, the difference being only 2mm.

At some point during this conversation, another gaffe. I discovered that I may or may not have been jutting from my cape somewhere... and in front of a male doctor! I can only hope that with the low lighting, he did not see anything, nor my following blush. Although, if he is qualified to look at pictures of lumps in boobs, I can only assume he's seen far more than my meager endowment.

And with that, I dressed, wound out of the radiology warren, complimented the groundskeeper on his grounds, and was once again free.

The Mysterious World of Medical Things

I find medical things fascinating. I liked watching ER, Scrubs, House, all those shows because of the setting. I loved house because it was a character-driven mystery, Scrubs I found amusing because, well, it's a comedy, and ER was a bit of a drama. House is my favorite. Yes, I know House is a jerk. That's what makes it interesting. Sherlock Holmes wasn't much of a people person either. Granted, watching House too much will start making you freak out about all the random problems that seemingly surface out of nowhere to people living their normal lives.

But I always thought it'd be fun to work for a doctor's office, like a receptionist or something. Basically, I'm fascinated with the medical world right up to the point where it'd have to be me on the table. I don't want that. And I mean for anything. I could live very happily avoiding doctors offices all together and using Google to find natural ways to do things. Like lower pulse. Fish oil, regular cardio exercise, meditation, cold showers, etc. Aromatherapy for headaches. Whatever. I was raised on a religious exemption from vaccinations and all illnesses were treated by you spending the day on the couch. And not eating if it was a stomach problem. My only trips to the doctor's office was when I managed to slice my knee open and checkups whenever we came back to the states. Once, we went into the doctor's with clogged noses and were all proscribed antibiotics. Which Mom promptly took away from us when we got home. "If you use them for little things like colds, you will grow resistant and they won't be effective for worse sicknesses!" she said. Made sense to me. She got strep throat a few times and nobody would want them to not work for that. Did you know George Washington died because of complications related to strep throat?

So for all of my interest in the medical field... no. Its interesting to go see people who are getting surgery for whatever, but please please don't put me on that bed. And no, I will never be a nurse. I'm not real into touching other people or stabbing them with needles or changing their bedpans or whatever. Yes, nurses provide a valuable service. Props to them.

Why am I thinking about medical things? Well, to go on birth control you need a prescription. To get a prescription, you need a yearly checkup and the occasional pap smear. And because of that lump that I've been ignoring since they told me it was a "fibrous mass" and things like that... yeah, I guess I should go in. So I had the appointment today. When they told me to strip, I didn't take off my jewelry cause I figured I didn't need to. If I'm going to have my legs sticking in the air and my assets bare for the world to see, at least my ankle will look nice. I HATE that part. I'm a very private person. So having no pants and my feet in stirrups and blaaaaah. Also, my gown was too small. Thank goodness I didn't have to leave the room, but I know to ask for a large if I ever get stuck in a hospital for whatever reason.

And then I've got to get an ultrasound again on that persistent lump. So maybe I was supposed to have done this a year ago... but I had to pay out of pocket for the ultrasound I did get and the lump hadn't changed as far as I can tell and I wasn't in any pain or anything... so yeah. Disobeying the doctor's orders! Yeah, I know I know. The doctor today was saying that ultrasounds couldn't really tell you everything you might want to know about intrusive lumps, so maybe a biopsy... It's in a good spot for a needle biopsy, she said. Doesn't that give you the chills? Make your fingers tingle? Let's hope I don't need no creepy large needles poking in sensitive places.

No. Not for me. I'll just be healthy all the time. And maybe rent House.

Shoes and Charity...shoes.

In my recent mental inventory process of my current shoes, I have discovered I potentially have a gap in desired shoe coverage and provided shoe coverage... no, my shoes don't have holes in them.

During the winter (December to May, apparently), I wear jeans. And with jeans, I wear my favorite shoe ever, Skechers Tredds-Interactive (whatever that's supposed to mean). They are big clunky leather shoes and I have a pair in brown and a pair in black and that's pretty much all I wear. Even in the winter cause my Bearpaw boots leak in anything less solid than ice and don't keep my toes warm either. But, in the summer this gets tricky. While they are the perfect shoes with jeans, they don't look any good at all with skirts, capris, shorts, and, you know, non-jeans. Non-pants. So usually I wear flip flops for more casual and skirts and a pair of worn out Merrils for more sporty needs. But I feel there is a gap between those two. What if I wanted better looking than my Merrils but not as... flip-floppy... as flip flops? Oh, you know what I mean! Flip flops are work! And not really the best shoe choice for biking anyway.

Now, I had heard of Toms previously. Overpriced name brand, I thought. Hipster stuff. And then I saw Bobs (apparently Skechers wanted in on the whole Toms thing) and I was slightly more inclined toward them because... I like Skechers. I still wasn't sold on the canvas-stapled-to-leather look, but I heard Toms were comfortable and Mom thought they were really cute.

And then I updated Sims 3 to University and all of a sudden these shoes appear in Sims that look just like Toms. So my rebel hippie Sims are running around wearing Toms and I'm starting to like the look a little better.

So when I wanted new shoes, something light that I could bike in but still not have to wear socks, I thought of Bobs. And then made a trip out to Shoe Carnival. And discovered Bobs were around $35 on sale, more like $50 when not. For canvas stapled to leather?

I walked through the mall stopping in at Journeys and other shoe places to stare at the equally high priced Toms. "Why so expensive for canvas stapled to leather?" I ask an employee who has come to help me, in the way shoe salesmen are wont to do. "Well, it is actually really well made, and the sole is leather, and mine lasted me a long time..." you know, all the stuff I expected to hear. They cost so much because they are popular hipster shoes.

"And every time someone buys a pair of shoes, Toms donates a pair of shoes to a child in need. And they even go back and resize them and keep giving them new shoes as they grow up, so it's like a pair of shoes for life."

Really? That's kind of cool. If you know me, you know I am a libertarian. No government handouts, no government charity. But being a libertarian is only a political position, not a personal position. I believe strongly in charity, just not from the government. Charity in things like giving money to a special offering at church, volunteering your time, or maybe buying shoes that seem overpriced because really you are buying two pairs of shoes, and one might be getting taken by donkey to a kid who needs it.

I still can't afford them. And with a large selection of colors, I would need Mom to go shoe shopping with me. My ability to color select ends right after black and brown. Maybe I'll just go with a plain canvas. I want something that will work with pretty much every conceivable outfit I can come up with this summer. Because if I could afford a pair, it'd only be one.

Bobs donates shoes as well. Even Airwalk donated when they sold some of their cheap knockoffs ($15) when the whole thing was popular (I apparently missed it). I still get the vague feeling that Bobs is doing it get on the wagon. I went to both websites, and from the pictures it looks like Toms is donating... Toms, pretty much. And Bobs looks like their donating Crocs. I still have not seen any decent looking Crocs shoes. So, for the style of the world's sake, I think I might go Toms.

Biking in Ames (pt 3)

When I last left off (again. I appear to be very verbose), I was giving up the safety of the known path, which admittedly led up a hill I had no desire to go up, for the unknown of a residential area. Which turned out not to be laced with bike trails. Maybe that was some other area on the map. I can only remember so many directions at once.

So, now I'm in the middle of nowhere. The trees are all like ten feet or so, meaning it's a fairly new development, and all the duplexes look exactly the same. There is more variety in the mailboxes. Which makes me wonder. Why are the mailboxes not all the same? Did they really make all these houses without mailboxes? Or when you moved in, did you get to choose between a standard, a square, and one decorated with bunnies and pansies? Seriously, there were too many bunny/pansy prints for it to be a coincidence  Unless the residents of this strange place all go shopping at the same time.

I did have to go up a hill, but it seemed considerably less doom than the other one I was avoiding. And I managed to find my way out without going up to anyone and asking, "Which way to civilization?" It wasn't all bad. It was actually really quiet, and some people were out gardening. And some of the duplexes were built up against an area that had trees of a decent age, making them not look quite as abandoned. There were also little paths that said "Walking Path Only." I'm sure they must have been lovely, but at the time I was miffed about the discrimination. What, path, too good for bikes? Just a "no motorized vehicles" sign wasn't good enough for you? I passed a few more of these hater paths on the way out. The place was called Stonebrook.

And I came out and still didn't know where I was. Bloomington road? To quote Gandalf, "I have no memory of this place." For whatever reason, I decided to go right, as in west. Oh yeah, I thought I might come to the entrance of Brookside park at some point if I could get south a bit more. But the road kept going and going and I didn't see any major ways south. They all looked like those residential house traps that turn into loops that don't go anywhere. I saw a water tower that looked really familiar though. I'm not normally in the parts of Ames that have water towers. This one said, "Welcome to Ames."

I start to see a Casey's and a Fareway I never knew existed. Finally, I see Stange Road. I recognize that vaguely. It's the one that goes into campus, right? So I should be north of campus now. And I want to go south. I know Stange connects with 13th at some point.

But now, I'm getting really weirded out. I pass a bunch of houses that could have come out of Edward Scissorhands suburb, except they're not pastel. Doesn't look like Ames to me anymore. If I hadn't passed that water tower, I might have started questioning if I got stuck in some small Iowa town I never knew about before. And then I start passing what looks like a Main Street area that somehow got torn up from wherever it originally grew and planted out here in the semi-middle-of-nowhere. Why is there this main street area out here? And then I start passing apartments that look like they were modeled off of ones in cities except there is no city, and then a strip mall that I don't know if I've ever seen before. I start to wonder if I'm in some sort of Twilight Zone when I finally hit 24th.

The sign on the way out says Somerset. Aha! Wait, I still don't know what that means. The only time I ever go above 24th is when I go to the mall. But I know I've heard of it and I've seen that sign before.

But now that I'm on 24th, I know where I'm going and therefore quit thinking so much about the trip. It all gets kind of off in my own world after that. Except for the mental conversation on what order I will go to the library, Wheatsfield, and Fareway. I want to go to the library for books on herb gardens, Wheatsfield for $3.99 wine, and Fareway for a few things for supper. I had been planning on going to Wheatsfield first, but I'm pretty sure that someone somewhere will be unhappy about me bringing wine into Fareway that I didn't get there. I'm not real sure of alcohol licensing, but I think that was one of the things people get uptight about. So I end up deciding to skip the library for today and go to Fareway first. And they had $3.99 wine. Score!

And that is why biking in Ames is dangerous, kids.