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benitabt
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Interests: metaphors, hiking, cool lighting, books and bookstores, sociology, fruit, biking around, balloons, mail, and saying English words derived from Yiddish.
Message: message me
Member Since:
3/4/2005
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shamelessly created at www.tinyprints.com
Introducing the new bike! She's a 2007 Cannondale CAAD9 Optimo 3 with Shimano 105 components and Ultegra rear derailleur (left), i.e. one sweet ride. I bought it for cheap because the shop was clearing the 2007 models,
but I still spent more than I'm willing to publicly admit. I wouldn't go so far as to say that investing in a road bike is like bringing a newborn home from the hospital, but I have exhibited the neurotic behavior usually associated with spankin' fresh parenthood. For example, I have only recently stopped compulsively telling everyone why my bike is the bee's knees, even to people who think a bike is metal and two wheels, end of conversation. Oh, and did I mention that silver is way cooler than red? And that my bike can kick your honor student's butt? I'm not inclined to let anyone else ride this bike, or even breathe on it wrong for that matter. Plus, I can tell my old hybrid bike is pretty pissed because I've been using his locks and bike computer on the latest arrival. I still ride the Marin to the BART station sometimes, but I can sense the jealously coming to a head. Watch out, sibling rivalry! And did you notice? I've pimped
it out with SPD pedals (middle) and everythang, you know, just like any doting parent would. I haven't yet forgotten to clip out before coming to a
complete stop and fallen down, which means that when we go riding, you may laugh at my shoes, gloves and tight tight shorts, but you will not bury your face in shame. :) | | |
| "Once the realization is accepted that even between
the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful
living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance
between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole
against the sky."
-- Rainer Maria Rilke | | |
| I was waiting for a train this evening when a couple sits down next to me. After a minute of snuggling and murmuring sweet nothings, she unzips her left boot, works her foot out of it and then offers it to her boyfriend for a sniff. (Gross.) To my surprise, he complies, leans over and puts his face in her stinky shoe. A pause, and then
"Did you really smell it? I mean really?"
"Yeah, your feet smell like jalapeños."
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| My mom and I went to a restaurant yesterday that our family's been eating at for nearly two decades. It's a pretty good place, especially for Americanized Chinese food. It's well established, family-run, and they really know how to make a tasty beef he fen, like the best stir-fried beef rice noodles anywhere. There's also an entire wall covered in photos of the owners with celebrities like Steve Young and Imelda Marcos -- that's gotta mean something, right? :)
The strange thing about the place, though, is how one can basically track the progress of assimilation if you go there around every six months for as long as we have. It's gone from 75 percent Chinese to 75 percent American, to the point where I've start counting heads when following the host to our table, trying to calculate how the ratio of white diners to Chinese ones has changed since the last time. Yes, the last time, when my mom started ordering in Cantonese and then switched to Mandarin, at which point the waiter confessed he couldn't speak or understand any Chinese whatsoever.
I hate being the hard ass and I know I'm being unfair, but c'mon, it's not like your vocabulary needs to be all that large at a Chinese restaurant like this, right? You basically need to know how to say "combination pan-fried noodles," "Yes, it's vegetarian," and "Do you want rice with that?" There are Latino guys at the dim sum place in the next town over learning to say "egg custard tart" in Cantonese and doing a darn fine job of it, and the fact that this punk won't even make an effort to learn even the most common menu items is a little offensive.
My mom says I shouldn't judge the restaurant so harshly on things like that, because Chinese immigrants are so upwardly mobile that times are tough for Chinese restauranteurs hoping to hire bilingual FOBs. Instead, she says, they must rely on low-achieving kids fresh out of school who can't speak Chinese and aren't sure how else to make money. (Seriously?) Regardless of whether she is right or talking out of her butt, I can't help but understand these encounters as indicators that the place is slipping in the authenticity department.
Yesterday's experience certainly did nothing to change that opinion. Yes, yesterday, when we sat down and our waiter filled our glasses with water and then asked if we wanted anything else to drink. "Uh, like tea?" Like NO DUH. "Oh, yes, OK. Anything else?" I mean, holy friggin' crap, what self-respecting Chinese establishment makes you request tea rather than just bringing it to the table? I don't care if you steep the nastiest cheap tea leaves on the planet to keep your costs down, but if Chinese people offer anything unconditionally, it's friggin' tea, and I'll be damned if this waiter is going to deprive me of that. The hell? "I demand satisfaction!" I don't care what my mom says; there is no way can she defend this.
I thought I was supposed to be the mouthy Americanized second-generation Chinese, and the fact that a Chinese restaurant older than I am is messing up the curve is kinda daunting. Our fond memories of this place makes this transformation all the more difficult to witness. I went to elementary school with the chef's niece, and both my family and my aunt's are members of the restaurant's exclusive soup club. The guys in the kitchen will basically give us fresh chicken broth for pennies, at least until the limited edition plastic soup club Tupperware falls apart. Knowing my family, we will repair that Tupperware until it is an unrecognizable mass of wax and twine and industrial-strength glue. But now, I'm not really looking forward to the day my dad will run to the car with the special red Tupperware conspicuously leaking soup and urgently tell me to floor it. Instead, I'm counting down to when they switch to an all-English menu. Language loss takes three generations, so I hear, but at this rate, I think five more years is a reasonable bet. :(
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| I'm taking the GRE soon and after all those practice problems, I think I've finally settled on my favorite distraction from the high school math. You ready?
I ogle bikes online.
When phrased like that, I suppose it sounds like porn for gearheads, which isn't too far off the mark, really. I promised myself I wouldn't actually test ride any until after the GRE, which means come Saturday afternoon? "Hello, Specialized! Wow, that Ultegra rear derailleur looks great on you! Oh, and you're here too, Cannondale? Fancy running into you here..."
It all began when I rode the 60-mile Flatflower event up in Chico toward the end of April on my clunky Marin Muir Woods. It had rained heavily the day before, and breathing that fresh post-downpour air past orchards on a seldom-used highway was one natural high. After a couple rides on my own, the Guy rented me a small men's road bike, on which I got all aerodynamic for the first time. It was a whole new experience riding a bike that weighed less than 30 pounds and that forced your body into this ridiculously streamlined and at-times painful position. But in all seriousness, I haven't felt that badass since I swiped those tickets at that train station in Kunming, China, and returned to my friends the conquering hero.
The point? If you ever lack a reason to part with a fat brick of hard-earned cash, try cruising along the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu for maybe 30 miles on a slick bike. The great views of the ocean at every turn are what I call cowabunga, and if you manage to dodge all the bad drivers on the road, you'll even live to tell the tale. Ferris Bueller said it best, I think: "If you have the means, I highly recommend it." Granted, he was talking about a Ferrari, but c'mon, this bike? SO CHOICE.
I've already done some research, but if you have tips on buying bikes, favorite brands and components, or insight into the women's vs. unisex discussion, I'm all ears. I want a solid bike I can speed around in for a couple weekends a
month, but isn't so entry-level that it'll choke if I decide get
serious about cycling. Though I'm looking to spend about $1,200, including pedals
and shoes, don't worry, I'm resigned to the fact that I will very likely spend
more. | | |
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