But It's a Wet Heat

I love summer. Absolutely love the sunshine and long days but hate the fact that you can't go outside for more than a few minutes at a time without sweating out several pounds. Maybe it's just July I dislike. I hate to wish for fall because I know that brings winter, and I hate winter no matter where I live. But it is hotter than snot out right now and not very fun. I am having some doldrums as I missed an entire weekend of exercise as it was just too hot and too stupid to be out there.

However, we did sit outside last night at a bar by the lake and the weather was relative perfection. The band though was relative to terrible. There was a guy with a synthesizer who was providing the keyboard, drums and bass guitar. There was a guy with a saxophone (actually 3 saxophones), who I don't think knew how to play the saxophone. It was karaoke with a band instead of singing..and I believe they were getting paid for their services.

We have had one other fantastic karaoke experience in Greenwood. It involved a crazy dive with patron's names on plaques at their specific chairs and about as much smoke as 10 smoke machines can handle...but ironically they don't have even one smoke machine. They have karaoke NIGHTLY and there are some reg-u-lars. Like folks who have a normal line up of songs they sing, there is some request taking and four part harmony. Karaoke is usually fun, upbeat and has a party-like atmosphere, however we went on "depressing country night" apparently. There are more songs that fit that category than you would think. The clientele was hysterically diverse and equally terrible with their song choices. There was a guy who thought he would be cute and sing the song "Strokin" which has some truly graphic lyrics that he was apparently unaware of because he got embarrassed and quit singing halfway through. We were also very disappointed when a large African-American man got up to sing and hopefully change the pace a little, and instead sang a painfully depressing LeAnn Rhymes song. The highlight of the night came with a rousing rendition of "A Coal miner's Daughter" sang by a 65 year old woman with a platinum ponytail wearing a flowered, short short onesy. You don't realize how much you don't want to see 65 year old butt cheek until you do. That is a life fact you can take to the bank.

So that's how I hit my hospital's CEO with my bike...

I didn't really "hit him", I hit his bike. He was riding in front of me and stopped suddenly without yelling the required "slowing" or "stopping" that you are supposed to yell to stop people behind you from hitting you. He was slowing down to wait on some slower pokes, and stopped right as I was looking down to grab my water bottle. I looked up and ran right into him going a little more than 10 mph.

Of course I fell off with my feet still attached to my pedals and was entirely too focused on trying not to yell the "F word" and ended up bleeding and in a pile on the street. I am the only girl on the bike ride with about 20 middle aged guys, and Jake skipped out due to an acute Chicken Fried Steak Country Breakfast overdose, so I hopped right back up and kept going like there was absolutely nothing wrong. Only a few guys saw, so I wasn't totally mortified. I even pedaled extra fast and got in the lead group to prove how tough I was. I was definitely bleeding pretty decently from a puncture on my ankle from my chain ring while led to a kick ass bloody sock that makes me look tough, but a lot of whining today which doesn't make me so tough.

We went to the bbq contest on Saturday they were having Uptown at the "Festival of Discovery" (watch for the food network bbq special) and had a great time. It is a pretty cool contest that Greenwood puts on and it is becoming more and more well attended. It was the hottest thing ever though. The bbq was delicious and we went with friends so it was a great time.

I fall off my bike relatively regularly, but am super sore from this one because I managed to twist my ankle (while it was attached to my bike), skin my elbow, and bash my shoulder when I hit the ground. After watching all of the Tour de France bike wrecks that happen at 30 mph in the middle of 100 bikes, I feel pretty lucky that I fall off only when stopped or moving slowly!

Great Sunday Morning

I got to sleep in late this morning (8 a.m.), then get up and watch the Tour de France and Roddick vs. Federer Wimbledon final. Yeah! It is supposed to be rainy this afternoon so maybe we can get some stuff done and relax. It's hard for me to relax when it's nice outside. I feel like we should be out doing something.

We hosted 4th of July yesterday afternoon with beers and grilling by the pool. We gave up on the fireworks because Greenwood wasn't having them and it would have been a haul to go see them. The town that was having them was about 15 miles away (Ninety-six...yes, that IS the name) and we had ridden through on a bike ride earlier in the morning. It was already a mess. There were people everywhere and it was near suicide on a bicycle. We were lazy and decided it was too much work to fight so we just hung out and watched the DC fireworks on TV. The Sesame Street characters were on stage and singing the regular classics and it made me laugh to see the kids in the audience in awe of what they were seeing on the stage. I was that kid almost 30 years ago. That Big Bird is aging well..