chapter 35: dirt on the floor

Sunday morning. 8:00am

I wake up a little late. Got to sleep in today, that was nice. I go down stairs and into the bathroom. I sit on the thrown and look at the floor: there was dirt on the floor. Not house dirt, but trail dirt. A smile instantly comes to my face. I instantly reflect to the previous day’s ride through Fairhill. I as so happy to have 15 friends out for a couple hour tour of the lovely Fairhill Nature Center.

this guy had a really good weekend:

rode super well.

Dallas lost.

Philly won.

The group was: The Rowdy Joey Thompson, Dan the Man, Ted Logic, Monkey, FFA, Josh from Cali, Kid Chris, Matt (run forest), Buddy the leg breaker, Les (international man of mystery), K-man, Kurtee, E-town, EPI and I.

After the ride a bunch of us sat around on the deck talking smack and polished off a case of Guinness (my goodness) in about 45 minutes. That was impressive.

After reflecting on the awesome ride, and how happy I was to have so many great folks over for a very fun ride, I finished up my business, cleaned up, flushed, washed my hands and excitedly got dressed for another day of spectacular mountain biking.

Diane (chunky monkey) and I met Josh and FFA over at Middle Run, and we quickly slipped into the white clay trail system. On the skills trail we played around for a little bit.

I totally froze up on the new stunt, and came to a screeching halt on the second teeter totter. Three mountain bike rides since August. My skills are pretty bad right now. Yeah, I’m gonna let that pass. Discretion in this case is the better part of valor. I’ll nail it down next week for sure. Later FFA would talk a lot shit to me about it, as she cleaned it blind folded. I think she called me a "biatch" Rat-bastard .

Somehow our group got intermingled with some of the Action Wheels riders and when the groups split we ended up with Barb and Larry in our group by mistake. They were great company. Monkey set nice pace, which was conversational, yet flowing. As we made our way pack toward middle run Les (international many of mystery) , Biddle (the tye domi of cross), and Jimmy Z came up on us and joined our group for a bit.

I hadn’t freshened up my Stan’s since I stop riding my Spot in August, I knew they were due, and when I caught a thorn in the rear today, my day was done a few minutes early. Luckily, Monkey got the car and picked me up.

I came home, and I cleaned up the dirt in the bathroom. I can’t wait for next weekend and
More dirt, as friends come again for another great ride.

New Year’s Eve in my opinion is usually the most overrated night of the year. In all seriousness, it usually sucks. The past 2 new years eve’s Diane and I were asleep long before mid night. In the spirit of not being too freakin’ old, a nice group of us converged upon my living room to have the Yatzee/Death Uno World Championships of Maryland.

The competitors were a crafty bunch: Spot Paul, Lisa Lisa, Les (international man of mystery), Kathleen (medicine woman), Amy (FFA), Diane (Chunky Monkey), the Rowdy Joey Thompson, Dan the man, me and Fitzy to make sure everything stayed fair.

In the Yatzee match, I blew off the top part of the card but scored a double yatzee to win easily. That’s cocky. I was a little nervous as everyone scored at least one Yatzee.

We then switched to Death Uno, because that’s how we roll. I won the first hand, as many were still learning the game. After that I talked some smack like, “I want to thank all of you for coming to my house, SO I COULD KICK YOUR ASS!”

it was a sweater vest kind of event.

Yeah, after that I never won again. Spot Paul used a different strategy going with the, “I never win” approach, as he kept piling on the wins. Death Uno is fast pace, everyone throwing card kinda game. And the loser gets killed, not really, but maybe. Special thanks to Joe Reynolds for making up the game, and to Kathleen (medicine woman) for so patiently teaching us both games. “never roll for a straight!”

All in all it was a fantastic night, and on a night which I kinda think always sucks, it was great to be surrounded by friends having a great laugh. My best new years by far.

Happy New Year.

respect
fm

Jean Girard