Category Archives: Team Kaldis

Fat Tuesday

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Mardi Gras Mask

Today, in addition to being Jane’s birthday, it is also Mardi Gras. While marking the beginning of Lent, Mardi Gras is also a last hurrah. This year it falls in the middle of February. Traditionally, before the advent of modern 24-hour shopping centers, food stocks have waned by now. The Catholic church introduced Lent to paper over this seasonal time of hunger. Offering your suffering up as penance to God.

Before we cinch that belt though, let’s party one more time. New Orleans is carnival central here in America, but Saint Louis like to chime in too. Soulard is our French quarter, where crowds convene to celebrate. Back in the day, we would bicycle downtown to watch the parade. Parking was impossible. Revelers were all about. We are more laidback now. Tonight, we will meet for dinner with some of our old bike buddies and party one more time.

  • Big Beads
  • Beads and Boobs
  • QT Beads Guys
  • Boobs and Beads
  • Wild Guy
  • Wigged Out Girls

Old Friends

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Massa’s

We met for dinner at Massa’s, an Italian restaurant and first impressions aside, what with this tarted up bit of art that first greeted us, also a family restaurant. There were six of us. One fewer than had last gathered. It was a cold night, but the company was warm. The food was good, and we went away with enough for another meal. I realized afterwards that Anne and I were the only couple who were still married. Time had taken its toll. I guess that is why we were able to command the stage and recount the story of our first date.

Anne and I were seniors in high school. Now we are just seniors. It was January. Anne and I were taking a computer programming class together. I have often referred to her since as my computer date, because of that. Our date was a rock concert at the high school that featured Bob Seger. He was a high school alumnus too who at the time was making a living playing local venues around Detroit, waiting for his big break, which came a few years later. 

Party Poopers

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Goeppertia

Well, that went about as well as you might suspect. Whether you yell fire in a crowded theater or announce Covid just before a dinner party in this winter of our discontent, the results are predictable, and they are not pretty. First one set of dinner guests begged off, offering to Door Dash their potluck dish before the party. We took their hint and informed everyone that we would not be attending after all. Still afterwards, another couple piled on and voiced their discomfort. Our hostess suggested that we need not worry about the fruit salad dish that she had assigned us. More’s the pity, it was a beauty, persimmon and pomegranate salad, leavened with Harry & David pears. Alone, we supped, and it was grand.

I know that I sound bitter, but that is because I am. In truth, no one is to blame. There was no sin committed, but from this experience I keen how illness has been equated with sin in the past and why it was shunned. Since the pandemic, modern medicine has acquired a medieval aspect. At first, unable to grasp, let alone handle the coronavirus, medicine resorted to often bizarre and ineffective remedies. Then like a miracle the vaccines arrived. Like manna from heaven, they saved us. We have availed ourselves of every vaccine opportunity and are up to date. We feel fine and tested negative. Anne and I have never had Covid.

Forest for the Trees

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Sequoia Forest for the Trees

Today is weigh-in day. Anne lost two pounds this week for a total of more than twenty pounds and I managed to not gain any weight this week, having lost 25+ pounds in total. As a percentage of total weight Anne is way ahead of me and has probably hit her weight goal, while I still have further that I’d like to go. As is our wont, we went out for a celebratory feast after weighing in. After all, we now a full week to account for any excesses on Monday. The humidity has moderated some, making it possible to pleasantly walk outside again. We did the long version of our neighborhood walk, which has Kaldi’s Coffee located on De Mun at about the halfway point.

Anne snagged a table in the shade, although there were plenty still available in the sun. They also now have some inside seating, but it was way too nice not to sit outside. She had a latte and I had a cold brew with milk. We both ordered their avocado toast, which is my favorite version of this dish, the first avocado toast that I’ve ever had and what I have always used as the model for my own avocado toast. Kaldi’s doesn’t use as much avocado as I do, but their toast is extra thick, because it is served on hand sliced bread. They accent the plate with lines of the Siracha with mayo mixed in with it, which makes it a little milder than straight Siracha sauce and gives it nice orange color that looks quite appetizing along with the green of the avocado. They also sprinkle the dish with black sesame seeds, which we joked look like mouse turds. At least I hope that they are not mouse turds. Now that I’ve refreshed my memory with how Kaldi’s makes their avocado toast, I’ll have to revisit their recipe again, because I can see now that I have strayed quite a bit from it over time. I had to bus our table as soon as we each had finished eating, because the sparrows were both fierce and voracious, with no sense of the meaning of personal space.

Bike MS Recap

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Bike MS – 1st Day

Well we’re done. This year’s Bike MS ride ended more with a whimper than not. Saturday was great! Perfect weather and even with our limited training this year, we still did well. The after ride party on Saturday night was fun too. We cleaned up on door prizes. But then there was Sunday, which was a bit of a washout. We got up at five and struck the tent in record time, which was a good thing, with flashes of lighting on the horizon and the deluge that began at six. Forty days of practice this summer paid off. We got soaked waiting around for the bike locker to open, but at least the camping gear was dry. We ate breakfast and waited around until seven, when it was pretty clear that they would not be letting anyone go anytime soon. So, we loaded the bikes on the car and headed for home, which we made, with just enough time to off load the Prius and not a moment to spare. It proceeded to rain for most of the morning.

Saturday was fun though. We did the team mass start and for one moment I was in the lead. Then slowly, but surely, they all passed us, along with almost all the other riders. Our route took us down to the river road that parallels the Illinois. We followed it north until Grafton and then veered inland and uphill. It was a killer hill. We both ended up walking it. On the second toughest hill, I walked, but Anne rode it to the top. I learned later that her mantra was, “Don’t puke. Don’t puke.” Which she didn’t. You go girl! We decided that discretion was the better part of valor and quit at lunch, which was conveniently back where we had started. I got my first professional massage, which I am still trying to figure out whether I liked or not. Dinner, then the team party and in bed by nine on a Saturday night. Sounds lame, right? Our team tent was the only one still going, when we left. Being so much closer to Saint Louis than Columbia, the old venue, it appears that most people left in the afternoon and never came back.