My Favorite Day: Birds, bikes and Banshees
| Friday, Dec 05 2008 02:22 PM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 01:25 PM
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Kip Tulin and his accordion.
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First and foremost, may I say: I am NOT ON CALL. My beeper is OFF!
It’s late spring. My wife, Mary, and I awaken to a splendid Saturday morning on the verdant shores of Pinewood Lake. The birds are singing in the pines, and the ducks are cruising the lake.
The air is still crisp as I open the garage and head out on my Trek road bike for a two- to three-hour ride along our great bike path. Today I feel like effortless spinning, so I head southwest toward Enos Lane.
I’ll save the more grunt-laden northwest ride up Old Dump Road and Rattlesnake for another day.
I usually ride solo and enjoy the quiet. (Besides, when I ride with other people, I have to face how slow I really am.)
Since this is MY scenario, I pass almost everyone (except the three or four folks whose percentage of body fat rivals skim milk).
Arriving back home I join Mary and we breakfast on chai tea, a fruit smoothie and a slice or two of cracked wheat sourdough toast while we read The Californian.Mary goes for the Eye Street section while I zoom in on the front page.
After we’ve luxuriated at the table, we clear up the dishes. I take a quick rinse-off shower and we get about our day.
Since it’s spring, we head off to Bolles Nursery for a couple of flowering shrubs. Back home, we pop them in the ground and admire our work before I over- or under-water them.
After doing our ecological thing, we are hungry so we head over to California Pizza Kitchen for a grilled veggie salad and a pizza margherita.
While we digest our food, we also digest some books at Borders or Russo’s. Mary heads for the staff recommendations rack while I thumb through Fine Woodworking in the magazine section.
Gosh, where has the time gone?
We need to load up Vanshee (our Toyota Sienna van) with gear and instruments and head over to Dagny’s for a Banshee in the Kitchen miniconcert, where I function as band boy, CD salesman and photographer.
A grande latte is the perfect thing to sip while schmoozing with friends, selling CDs and listening to live Celtic tunes for a few hours.
After all of the fun winds down, we call it a night, head home to Pinewood and treat ourselves to a scoop of Trader Joe’s Cherry Chocolate Chip soy ice cream, possibly with a Tofutti Cutie on top. Then we settle into bed with a good book and eventually nod off.
Who knows, Sunday may be even better!
