bike ‘n’ bitch 2013

Not every song that I post can be a work of genius, but you get the point.

I can’t ride my own motherfucking bike (and feel righteous!) because I’m on Week 3 of R shoulder injury. Ain’t that a bitch?

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red velvet cupcake road kill: mystery solved

Riding past the same stretch of road on my bike just now, I saw, flung and crushed in the hayfield to the side of Moody Bridge Road, an empty Atkins’ Farms’ plastic cupcake holder (for SIX cupcakes).

Now if y’all stay tuned until tomorrow, I think I may start a series called write ‘n’ bitch. It’s got the same ring as bike ‘n’ bitch if you ask me, with the short i sound and all. But SPOILER ALERT bitching about writing poetry may not really be the thing I need, may in fact, strike the wrong note when it does come to submitting to literary journals. But, hey, it’s just li’l ol’ me, humble, homey, trying to twinkle in the face of rejection. I gotta do something to keep my sense of humor.

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bike; and Blue

I added one mile on my bike ride tonight since my last ride. And I added one mile per hour, too (mostly because I was doing more downhills). I went through one loop of Amherst’s new, 6 million dollar, double-roundabout, perhaps the most puzzling road construction I’ve ever lived through. WTF, Amherst, WTF?

photo from Daily Hampshire Gazette 8-1-12

not my car, but about the size of any car that should be expected to fit in the mini-lanes of our new roundabout

*

I keep singing this in my head. From my kids’ iPod, but a song which she got from her Dad.

How good is this song? So Good. So Blue.

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labor aid

Before the birth of my first daughter, my midwife gave me a recipe for LABOR AID, a concoction that was supposed to help keep me hydrated and energized during the whole of labor and childbirth. Paul must have made the batch of it up at some point, I don’t really remember, but it is one of the best things I can think of from an otherwise long and exhausting birth (I still haven’t told you my birth stories. Some day maybe).

I have been trying to find an adequate recipe for a home-made energy drink since I’ve started biking again. I tend to be more dehydrated than most people, not sure why; add to that the intense heat this spring and I often find myself thirsty and head-achy even on days I’m not working out. I know I need support in the form of fluids and minerals. I feel it deep down in myself and high up in my light-headed brain. It’s a familiar place which seems to go hand-in-hand somehow with sleep-deprivation, depression, and anemia.

Here’s the rough labor aid recipe I’ve been making of late. My youngest kid, the baker, has the job of helping to make this when I call for it. She pulls out the funnel, strainer, lemons, maple syrup, and sea salt, as well as the old green glass Sunsweet Prune Juice jar from my childhood. And away we go….

Labor Aid or Sports Drink Recipe:

juice of 3 lemons

1/4 C maple syrup (you already know we use local, because, well, we can)

1/2 tsp sea salt (I use whatever we have in the cupboard, but I am partial to pink ♥ varieties)

4-5 C water

Put it all in an appropriate refrigerator jar or pitcher, whatever you’ve got. My old green glass jar, from my childhood, is my favorite. It holds 40 oz. of liquid, it’s skinny to fit better in our crammed fridge; it rocks. Shake. Refrigerate. Shake again and drink at will. Enjoy. Make more.

Notes:

Recently, someone told me that Celtic sea salt has the highest concentration of minerals of all sea salts. I haven’t heeded the advice yet, so fuck me. That’s how one gets to be in labor (eventually) in the first place.

When I searched on teh internets, I found that many recipes call for adding 1 or 2 crushed Ca-Mg tablets. You make your stuff, I’ll make mine. They also said you can just drink some Emergen-C as a substitute for Gatorade. So fuck me again.

Sometimes I strain the lemon juice, sometimes not. I like pulp, but running the juice through a sieve makes the process of getting rid of the abundant seeds a lot easier.

I have used this for taking my Fe supplements when I’m anemic. Fe is better absorbed when taken with something acidic, so this drink is a good way of getting that synergistic Vitamin C at the same time.

Here’s a photo I lifted off of google images because it was so much easier than taking a photo of my own bottle. When Hubby and I used to go on road trips, I’d make up a big batch of raspberry iced tea and put it in one of these jars, oh god, that was good stuff! I used to have a clear glass bottle and a brown one, too. I think my mom still has another green one like this. You can find them at antique malls and junk shops. Of course, the lid on mine has been replaced, the old ones are usually rusted. I think baby food jar lids fit. My current bottle has a lid from maraschino cherries which makes a mind-blowing combination of childhood glass memories.

I could tell a story about how one of my green glass bottles broke one winter. It involves hot coffee, about 8 inches of snow on the back porch, my eager scientific mind, and my desire for my frozen-blended coffee drink double-fast.

Anyway, let me know what you think and feel free to share your own recipes. I’ll be waiting! Love, twinkly

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