Readers may recall that I like to say my hobbies are cycling, chess and monogamy. Two of those are in the gender bending news this week.

Item 1 is from a women’s crit cycling race in New York.

Here is what USA cycling says regarding who is eligible to compete in ‘woman’s’ races: “Those who transition from male to female (MTF) are eligible to compete in the female category under the following conditions:

• “The athlete has declared that their gender identity is female.” (I declare that I am a talented cyclist, but that don’t make it so…)
• “The athlete must demonstrate that their total testosterone level in serum has been below 2.5 nmol/L for a period of at least 24 months.”

Normal testosterone levels for a male are 10 to 35 (nmol/L) so it is obvious that any MTF person has to take a lot of hormone altering drugs to get below the 2.5 level. It is also obvious that having gone through puberty and much of adulthood as a male, this 42 year old athlete has more muscle mass and a different bone structure from female competitors. And nowhere does it require that the MTF person be altered in the most obvious way.

I ride my bike with some very, very strong women. I’ve been dropped by some of them, and I block the wind riding in front of some others, and I marvel at how strong they all are. But as far as I know, they are all females who identify as women, although we’ve never discussed pronouns.

Item 2: From the world of chess: a male, who identifies as a male, decided to surreptitiously enter the Kenyan Open Chess Championship as a woman, using a disguise:

“We didn’t have any suspicion at first, because wearing a hijab is normal,” tournament director Wanjala said. “But along the way, we noticed he won against very strong players… and it will be unlikely to have a new person who has never played a tournament [being very strong].”

“One of the red flags we also noticed [was] the shoes, he was wearing more masculine shoes, than feminine,” he added to BBC Sport. “We also noticed he was not talking, even when he came to collect his tag, he couldn’t speak, ordinarily, when you are playing, you speak to your opponent… because playing a chess game is not war it’s friendship.” (I’m not so sure that chess is friendship and not war. There is a book written by a psychiatrist called “Chess and the Dance of Death”. And in chess the King is the most important piece but the Queen is the most powerful. That is also true on Brumby Road: If Stoker isn’t happy…)

Officials reportedly were afraid to call out Omondi at first in fear of accusations of profiling, but when they did call him out, he came clean. Omondi registered as Millicent Awour. He admitted to his transgression in a letter, saying he had “financial needs.”

It seems the Kenyan Chess Federation has more stringent rules about who can compete as a woman than USA Cycling or the NCAA. The director noted that the hijabed individual was wearing ‘masculine shoes’. And they noticed that ‘she’ never spoke a word, keeping silent lest someone notice ‘her’ deep voice and identify ‘her’ as a him.

Kenyan Chess officials were afraid to call out the faux Millicent, because they were in fear of accusations of profiling. If you happened to notice what happened to Riley Gaines when she spoke in San Francisco about what biological males are doing to women’s competitive swimming you can understand their reluctance.

But in the end they did call him out, and Omondi nee Millicent came clean. Apparently he really identifies as a he, and the idea of removing his he-ness is as appalling to him as it would be to me. He said he needed money and knew he could win the women’s tournament and get out of debt. So he masqueraded as a female without identifying as one. To their credit the Kenyan tournament officials annulled his results and gave the prize to a real woman.

And to add to the irony, I would say that chess is a sport (is it?) where men have no inherent physical or mental advantage over women. Why are there chess competitions that only allow women to enter? There is a US Women’s Championship and a Woman World Champion. There are also women who achieve the title of International Grandmaster, which is open to both men and women. I don’t object to the women-only events at all. The Kenyans agree and want to preserve women’s sports (including chess) for women while the NCAA and USA cycling are not as concerned even if biological males have physical advantages.

The third hobby has no gender news to report. Brumby Road remains binary. Delightfully so. Vive la différence!

Back when Mr. Putin first sent troops into Ukraine, bars and liquor stores and vodka fans the world over responded by pouring vodka from Russia down the drain. But there are lots of vodka brands with Russian sounding names that come from other places, including Smirnoff:

Smirnoff is named after Vladimir Smirnoff who fled from Russia during the country’s revolution, but it’s owned by British company Diageo (ticker: DEO) and is made in the U.S., Canada, and many other countries—but not Russia.

Now on Brumby Road we drink Stolichnaya, and after I did a little research I concluded that I wasn’t hurting Ukraine by doing so. You can read about what I learned here:

Vodka Verity

But apparently the people who own the brand Stolichnaya decided that the name was too ‘Russian’ sounding and was hurting sales, Besides, most people have trouble pronouncing ‘Stolichnaya’ although since Stoker studied Russian in high school and college (useful back in the cold war days) she never had any problem. She can even read the Cyrillic characters in the title of this blog.

Most pub patrons shortened the name to ‘Stoli’ when ordering. In fact, when I would ask for “two Stolichnaya on the rocks with a twist” I would sometimes get blank looks until I shortened my order to ‘Stoli’.

So in an effort to appear less Russian, Stolichnaya has been rebranded, kind of. Here is the evolution of the label:

On the right is the pre-war version where the diminutive form is nowhere to be seen. The middle bottle retains the full name on the upper part, but uses Stoli across the very 1930’s looking vodka factory drawing. On the left is our most recent purchase, where the name Stolichnaya is completely absent. Dasvidania Stolichnaya, hello Stoli! Welcome to Brumby Road!

A lot of the mail that finds its way to Brumby Road is junk that gets dropped in the garbage can in the garage without ever entering the house. But not when it arrives looking like this:

Much of our mail is at least a little unwelcome: PG&E bills, jury duty summons, property tax notices, medical insurance bills or doctor bills all produce a sigh of resignation and thoughts of ‘such is life’. But a letter from the IRS when none is expected produces outright terror.

I do our taxes myself using Turbo Tax. I don’t cheat. I report all our income. I juggle RMD’s and 1099 DIV’s and Form 1040 ES’s and even a schedule for farm rental income and expenses. And as I said, I don’t cheat, although the tax code is so complicated that there are plenty of icebergs to sink you. What I think constitutes a ‘necessary and ordinary’ business expense might not mesh with an auditor’s interpretation.

We had a large one-time income event in 2022: some US Savings Bonds we bought in 1992 matured and all the deferred interest had to be reported as taxable income. I make quarterly estimated payments, and I knew I was underpaying for 2022, but there is a ‘safe harbor’ as long as your payments are 100% of last year’s (2021 for me) tax bill. Which I thought I was doing. But when I filed my taxes in February, Turbo Tax told me I owed a penalty for ‘underpayment of estimated taxes’ Oh no, penalties and interest, what have I done? It turned out the penalty was all of $8.00 (not $80, or $800, or $8,000). I was so relieved I decided not to try to chase down what the issue was.

So this letter from the IRS had me more than a little worried. Maybe the $8.00 penalty was miscalculated? Maybe the large payment for tax due that the IRS withdrew from my back account in mid-March wasn’t properly credited or was stolen by some hacker or identity thief? Or maybe it is an audit notice from one of the 80,000 new IRS agents hired by the Biden Administration to go after scofflaw Red State voters. OK, I know I live in a Blue State but east of I-5 the politics change and Linden votes differently than Oakland/San Francisco/Bay Area communities.

When I saw what was inside the letter I almost jumped for joy: the IRS found that I had OVERPAID my estimated taxes by some $240, and that I could expect a refund for that amount in a couple of weeks. It arrived yesterday. No audit, no fraud accusations, no criminal charges, no jail time. I felt like I had won the lottery.

I have no idea how this happened. I looked at our tax return and everything seems correct, but the amount Turbo Tax said I owed was $240 more than the IRS’s tax computation. Perhaps I entered my estimated payments incorrectly. Perhaps Turbo Tax got confused. Perhaps the income tax system in the U.S. is way too complicated. That is probably something Red, Blue, Purple and all other color States could agree about.

A high quality road bike that is well maintained should be nearly silent. You might hear a swishing sound of tires on smooth pavement, and a kind of ‘whrrr’ as the clean and well lubricated chain rotates and meshes with the chainrings and cassettes. Shifts are smooth and precise with no irritating rattling or chain rub. And while there may be a few clicks and vibrations on exceptionally rough roads (Chile Camp/Campo Seco anyone?) those noises disappear on roads that do not resemble goat paths.

Sometimes riding in close quarters on flat ground with my friends I marvel at how little noise our machines are making. We all ride pretty high end bikes and since most of us are retired we have plenty of time to keep things clean and lubricated and properly adjusted. A few people don’t lube the chain quite often enough, and the slight squeak bothers me even if they don’t seem to notice it. But it doesn’t happen often.

My bikes all have 25,000 miles or more (some much more) of wear and tear, and they are all silent. So you might think that a new, high end bike would be completely noise free. But things are not always so simple.

My friend Kent just bought such a brand new, high end machine. He already had a very decent but older Orbea, and a really magnificent high end Trek Domane. So he didn’t need another bike, but he decided to follow Rule 12 from The Velominati.

Rule 12: // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.While the minimum number of bikes one should own is three, the correct number is n+1, where n is the number of bikes currently owned. This equation may also be re-written as s-1, where s is the number of bikes owned that would result in separation from your partner.

Kent got this beauty built up and fitted to match his current model. There was a little problem with that. His back got really sore and strained after his first ride. It turned out that the handlebar was 1 centimeter off center, which is a huge amount and I am kind of shocked that no one noticed until Bob, a friend and master of almost everything about bicycle mechanics, found it and corrected it.

After about 200 miles on this new bike, it started to make an irritating noise, kind of a cross between a squeak and a clunk and a click. It was coming from somewhere around the saddle and seat post area. So Kent started the detective process to discover the issue and get it fixed.

First step: check the seat post clamp bolt. The torque spec was 16 nm or less, which is pretty tight. The bolt was well below 16, so Kent set his torque wrench to 15 and tightened it down. The noise persisted.

Next suspect, the new saddle. Kent put an old worn out saddle on the new bike, and the noise persisted. But this was an imperfect test, since the old saddle had also been making some noise when he retired it. So he brought the bike to my house and installed a brand new Fizik Aliente that I have laying around, and as he rode away on my driveway to do a Brumby Road test ride, it was pretty clear that the saddle wasn’t the problem.

Or was it? Kent took the bike back to the shop where he purchased it, and they removed the seat post and re-greased everything. But when the mechanic did a test ride there was still some noise, and he says the saddle was flexing too much on the rails for a brand new one. Saddles do eventually wear out, and start to creak where the rails attach to the saddle body, but not for many thousands of miles. The mechanic is sending the saddle back for a warranty replacement.

If you are a little confused at this point, let me recap. It appears there are two issues: the seat post creaks, and the new saddle is flexing and making noise as well. The sound on Sunday’s ride was pretty loud, so maybe there were two sources.

A noisy brand new bike is really frustrating, especially after paying thousands of dollars for it. The shop is doing all they can and the problem will get fixed eventually. But let me get on my soap box for a bit and rant about over-engineering. The reason the seat post is creaking it that there is some kind of shock absorbing material in it that is supposed to contribute to a smoother, more comfortable ride. But that post/elastomer/frame interface is a potential source of sound. And it really is not necessary. Slightly wider tires at slightly lower pressure will do more to affect ride quality than any shock absorbing seat post.

I had a similar issue with the bottom bracket on my beloved Tarmac. It squeaked. Mechanics greased the bearings, replaced the bearings, replaced them again with a different type of bearing, and nothing worked. The problem was with the pressed in design, and the solution was a completely different type of bottom bracket that held the crank and bearings much more securely and eliminated the noise. The original design was lighter but the noise drove riders crazy, and there are a lot of Tarmacs out there running Wheels Manufacturing aftermarket threaded bottom brackets. Including mine, which is now wonderfully silent even when I put my maximum power into the pedals. A pro might still make it creak but I’m not doing 1,000+ watts in a sprint.

I hope Kent’s bike gets quiet soon. It is a beautiful bike with high end components, and it deserves to get noticed for that and not for its noise level

My cell phone rang on Monday morning, and it wasn’t a robot selling me something or asking me to donate to some cause. It was my friend and riding buddy Paul, aka ‘G-Man’. “Rich can you come to lunch? It’s on me!” he said in a voice that sounded really upbeat and excited.

Actually G-Man is one of the most upbeat people I know. He always has a smile on his face and a friendly and outgoing attitude. He may get a little agitated discussing that World Series when the Astros used codes and cameras and signaling devices to cheat the Dodgers out of the title, but otherwise he has a very sunny disposition.

Ever wonder why there are so many commercials on TV and radio for the tribal casinos in California? It is because of customers like G-Man. G-Man likes to gamble. He doesn’t overdo it. He pays all his bills and doesn’t mortgage his house, but he does spend some of his discretionary income in casinos or on lottery tickets. He has some specific lottery numbers that he plays, eschewing the random ‘quick pick’. So he has to play every week, because if he missed a week and his numbers hit he would need therapy.

So I kind of knew why G-Man invited a few friends to lunch on his dime, but he saved the details for table talk. Here is what he told us happened. If I have a few of the specifics wrong bear with me, he was pretty excited while telling his tale and it was hard for this non-gambler to follow.

There is a casino game called 3 Card Poker, and there is a progressive jackpot for hitting the A,K,Q of Spades. At the Jackson Rancheria, the payoff had grown to $22,000, which G-Man says is much higher than usual. One afternoon he decided to take a drive through the low snow and see if it had been hit and if not spend a few dollars chasing it.

Alas, some other player had gotten lucky so the progressive was down to something like $1,200. Nothing to get excited about. So G-Man decided to sit down at a table offering something called ‘4 Card Poker’. I had never heard of this, but here is how it works. You make a bet, then the dealer gives you 5 cards and takes 6 cards for him/herself. You make the best poker hand you can with your best 4 cards, the dealer does the same, and the higher hand wins. Obviously the dealer has a huge edge, but how do you think the Rancheria pays for all those commercials?

No one would play this game except for the two enticing side bets with large payouts. One is a bonus for a ‘bad beat’ which means you had a very good hand topped by the dealer’s better one. The other is a bonus for hitting exceptional hands, of which a royal flush it the best, and a straight flush is a close runner up.

So G-Man sits down at the table, makes the three bets, and look what fate dealt him on his very first hand:

G-Man, in a very excited voice, “I sat down and the dealer dealt my cards and before I looked I shuffled them like I always do. Then I looked at 4 of them, like I always do. Holy smokes, I’ve got the 2,3,4 and 5 of Diamonds! A four card straight flush! The Ace or 6 of Diamonds would make a straight flush and a big payout. So I kind of peek and I see that I have a red Ace. Now I’m really excited…could it be? I expose the card a little more and it’s a Diamond! Whoopee!!!”

Whoopee indeed. The payout was $7,000. G-Man said it was his single biggest win ever. When you hit something this big the IRS and Franchise Tax Board get involved, so the casino gave him a W2-G or 1099-G and withheld something like 20%, but it was still enough to get excited about. And take your friends to lunch with.

My loyal readers will recall two of my favorite blogs titled ‘The Butterfly Effect’ about how some small event started a chain that changed lives. For example: the only reason Stoker and I ever met is because Jimmy Carter and Tip O’Neil were arguing about funding an aircraft carrier back in 1978. That argument led to forty years of married bliss for the two of us. And no argument would have meant no Rich and Stoker…a very sobering thought.

A $7,000 jackpot (before taxes) isn’t exactly life changing, but it is still pretty exciting, and G-Man started musing on some ‘what ifs’ of his own. “Suppose the 3 card bonus was still high and I hadn’t played 4 card? What if I had stayed home instead of deciding spur of the moment to head up the hill and brave the snowdirfts? What if I had gone to the bathroom when I arrived? Or parked in a different spot? I would have missed it! It hit on my very first hand!”

Well he didn’t miss it, and it couldn’t have happened to a better fellow. Thanks for lunch G-Man!

I’m back on the bike after a long layoff due to the flap fracas. My first ride was on February 9, and I’ve done 400 miles so far. That’s including 66 miles yesterday on the Pedaling Paths to Independence Ride to support the Community Center For the Blind.

On Thursday, our ride coordinator posted this on Facebook:

Some break: When registration opened at 8:30 it was pouring rain. And cold too. Here is the data from my Garmin:

There were about 10 club members interested in doing the ride, and the plan was to meet at 8:45. Only Kent and Charles and I were at the start, and we waited until 9:30 when the rain finally quit to set off on wet roads in frigid and damp conditions. As you can see from my Garmin the temperature was mostly in the upper 30’s and averaged 41 degrees. And there was some rain in the last two hours of the ride. The sun stayed away all day too.

How to dress for such weather? Non-cyclists might be interested in what I had on. Which was almost everything I had. Here’s a list:

• Short sleeve base layer, long sleeve base layer
• Heavy bib knicker
• Long sleeve flannel jersey (my warmest), with arm warmers pulled over the sleeves.
• my O2 rain jacket (maybe the best cycling rain gear ever made, and under $40)
• my SBC vest
• shoe covers over shoe toe covers (2 layers)
• Glove liners under long fingered gloves (2 layers)
• A skull cap, topped with a knitted balaclava (2 layers)
• silk sock liners topped by wool socks (2 layers)

My riding companions were similarly clad. Here is a photo from the Farmington Fire Station rest stop.

For the first two hours, the three of us rode smoothly and stayed together into the irritatingly cold but fairly gentle SE wind. On Sonora Road my phone rang, and I was going to ignore it since most calls are from robots. But my phone is paired with my Garmin, which flashed ‘Missed call from Eddy Freggiaro’. Oops, that might be important. I always answer calls from my parents’ number. Today that meant digging through all those outer layers to get to the plastic phone bag stored in my jersey pocket. It was a minor matter, and I was soon back riding and catching my two soft pedaling companions.

As we crossed Highway 4 for the long stretch north to Milton, Kent was showing some signs of fatigue. Charles rode ahead a bit, but I stayed back. I was pretty hungry despite the brownie I ate at Farmington, but Kent was kind of bonking. Later I also learned he was having stomach issues, perhaps from the coffee he drank trying to get warm in Farmington. Kent is a tea drinker and I’ve never seen him drink coffee until yesterday.

When we finally got to Milton the turkey sandwich and chips tasted great. Of course we had some raindrops during lunch to remind us that there were a couple more hours of cold and wet riding to deal with.

Kent and I were so focused on food we didn’t notice that Charles wasn’t present until we were getting ready to leave. He couldn’t have missed the lunch stop, could he? It is off the road a bit, next to a cemetery of all things, in case anyone froze to death, but it is pretty well marked. Either he set a record for fastest sandwich stop, or he had ridden right past and missed the food. Later we learned that he somehow got the idea that I was ahead of him instead of behind, and he kept trying to catch a phantom. SBC ride confusion incidents are kind of legendary, and this was another one.

As Kent and I rolled out on the gravel path back to Milton Road, we saw our SBC buddy Steve just arriving. He had come to the start late and was behind us but made good time to get to lunch. It was too cold to wait any longer so Kent and I said hi and goodbye in one sentence and hit the road.

The turkey sandwich revived Kent and he rode much better after the break. We rolled along and even caught some people at the Sheldon Road climb. I got a little ahead of Kent but I was going to take the hill easy, until in my mirror I noticed a racer type trying to catch and pass me. So I put whatever post flap power I have into the pedals to try to stay away. He did manage to catch me at the top, but he had to work for it.

I waited for Kent at the Sheldon Road/Weimer Road ‘T’ intersection. Suddenly here comes a rider going the opposite direction from the course and whistling ‘The Surrey With the Fringe on Top’ from Oklahoma. Surreal…but he stopped and I realized it was Dr. Rose, out doing some afternoon miles. More irony: the Doctor had participated in the morning text storm about whether to ride or not, and who was in or out. He posted a picture of his stocking feet toasty in front of a fireplace. Now here he is getting cold and wet like the rest of us. But only for 30 miles, not 66.

When Kent arrived the three of us set out for the Belota rest stop, and then the final 10 miles back to Linden. The temperature finally got above 40 degrees, barely. Dr. Rose went home and Kent and I headed to De Vinci’s for the post ride meal. Steve arrived soon after and we all tried to warm up with pesto and chicken and coffee, with limited success.

There is a book called “The Rules”, a semi serious and hilarious set of do’s and don’t for road cyclists. One of our favorites is Rule 9: If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period. Yesterday 4 SBC riders (5 if you count the Doctor and his 30 miles) qualified for certain.

Until recently I had never even heard of a culinary concoction called ‘chicken and waffles’. Then my friend Dave posted a picture of himself eating this at a bar/restaurant in Memphis. He was on a road trip to see Iowa State play in the Liberty Bowl. That is ‘liberty’, as in ‘freedom’, a concept Google and Facebook and Gavin (no gas stoves or heaters, and vax or else) Newsom could take a few lessons in.

Dave posted a photo of his plate of fried chicken and waffles and syrup and butter. with a large craft beer to wash it down. Dave is a tall and rangy fellow, and how he stays so slim eating like this is a mystery. If I even look at a pizza or burrito I gain 5 lbs.

So I went to the internet, and apparently ‘chicken and waffles’ is a real thing. The story is that it originated in Harlem during the heyday of jazz. The musicians would play late into the night and afterwards wanted to get something to eat, but the restaurant kitchens were closed. Some enterprising and accommodating chef threw together left over pieces of fried chicken and whipped up some waffles to accompany them, and an instant culinary classic was born.

Of course this story, like every part of history, is being debunked, but whatever its birthplace, chicken and waffles is a well known dish in much of the southern U.S. Not on Brumby Road though, where our cultural cooking leans more toward pesto or home made salami or polenta with mushroom gravy. And yes, we call it ‘gravy’, not sauce.

But even food can get you in trouble these days…

A New York middle school is apologizing after serving students with a meal on the first day of Black History Month that was deemed to be culturally insensitive.
Administrators at Nyack Middle School say that the hot lunch menu was changed by the vendor without their knowledge on February 1st, the first day of Black History Month, to include chicken and waffles with a watermelon dessert which the school’s principal called an “unfortunate situation”, The Journal News reported.
“We are extremely disappointed by this regrettable situation and apologize to the entire Nyack community for the cultural insensitivity displayed by our food service provider,” Nyack Middle School Principal David Johnson said in a statement.

Now let me say that when I was in school, if the kitchen had served me fried chicken and waffles for lunch I would have been in heaven, no matter what day it was. But that was back when schools taught grammar and arithmetic and spelling and not gender awareness. We never considered how the food we ate and when we ate it could be culturally insensitive. Because it’s food, not a political statement.

Besides, it seems to me that serving chicken and waffles, if it is indeed a product of Black culinary tradition, is a TRIBUTE on the first day of Black History Month, not a demeaning culturally insensitive stereotype. If I go to a Cinco de Mayo celebration, I expect to consume tacos or burritos and drink a Negra Modelo. And gain the aforementioned 5 lbs. If a school serves tacos on Cinco de Mayo are they going to be reprimanded and forced into diversity training? On St. Patrick’s day the consumption of corned beef and cabbage and beer dyed green goes off the charts and nobody gets mad about it.

Since Stoker and I are retired, we barely know what day of the week it is, so it would be easy for us to slip up and order something ethnic on an insensitive date. But I doubt chicken and waffles are going to be a part of our diet, whatever day it is. So, for this one ‘trigger’, we are safe.

This photo appeared on a friend’s Facebook page. Apparently one of his favorite restaurants had to close because of a skunk under their building. As they say in poker “I’ll see your skunk and raise you a dozen…”

Stoker and I love our quiet home on Brumby Road, but living in the country poses a few challenges. Coyotes trot by, worrying Stoker and driving Luke crazy. Raccoons come into our yard looking for water from the birdbaths when things are dry, and threatening to eat Diane’s Koi for a late night snack.

One time we noticed a distinct but faint odor of skunk in our house. We started to see skunks wandering around our yard and discovered that they had taken up residence in the crawl space under our house.

We were kind of desperate and I took to the internet trying to find a pest control company to deal with the problem. This turned out to be quite difficult, but then a miracle occurred and I stumbled across a real life Daniel Boone type who could trap anything. And he had the required Silver Card, a state license for structural pest control, so he was legit. I know about these things because I myself had a Brown Card, the agricultural pest control equivalent.

He came to our house over the course of three weeks and caught 13 skunks, three possums and a raccoon. We paid him for each visit and when he finally had them all I added a generous tip to his bill.

I got to thinking about the skunks yesterday when I started to notice another scent common in the country: the smell of a decomposing rat that crawled into our wall to die after eating the rat poison I put under the house. There is nothing you can do about the stench except wait it out, unless you want to tear all the sheet rock off of the interior walls.

Usually the problem goes away in a day or two, but this one seemed to be lingering. I asked Stoker if she noticed anything, and she said no. Then the light bulb came on..

When I had the flap, one of the many joys was the rather putrid odor. Since the wound was so close to my nostrils, I got a good whiff.

After I was de-flapped I felt so much better that I didn’t realize that the healing had to continue. What I though was a decomposing rat turned out to be my healing post-flap wounds. I finally realized how similar the two smells are. It isn’t as intense as before but it is still there.

The stitches are supposed to come out February 9. That should put and end to the dead rat smell I’ve been living with since December 28. I’m cleared to start exercising on February 2, which means I have zero cycling miles in my legs instead of the 600+ I usually do to start the year. They say you never forget how to ride a bicycle, but I think my cardio has lost the thread of how to climb anything higher than a freeway overpass.

But un-able to cycle for at least another week.

I just had the un-flapping surgery. It was scheduled for 30 minutes but ended up taking almost an hour. Lots of needles, pressure, cutting, cauterization, and discomfort. A very unpleasant process.

After it was over I asked about exercise and the dermatologist said to wait at least a week. So the entire month of January will be ride free. I’ve written about ‘starting from zero’ before, but after this layoff I’m into negative numbers.

Now all I have are two areas of stitches that don’t need to be bandaged all the time. So life can return to something resembling normal:

Example 1: the flap made it impossible for me to kiss Stoker. Before this a quick buss was the first thing we did upon seeing each other in the morning. Now it has been over a month since I’ve kissed any part of her. Something I intend to rectify later this afternoon.

Example 2: I need bifocals to read and different glasses to see the computer. The flap made wearing glasses in the correct position impossible. Plus the bandage, which partially covered my left eye, impeded my vision and depth perception. I was able to drive but I had to be extra cautious. Speaking of cautious…

Example 3: I now have less to worry about. After the flap failed and came off the first time, I spent the next two weeks in mortal fear that it would happen again. And since December 28 I have been paranoid about getting sick, since I couldn’t blow my nose or sneeze without risking disaster. So I limited my exposure to people the way Dr. Fauci wanted me to during Covid. No lunch out or socializing. Now I can relax about that. Finally I never thought about getting into a car accident when I’m behind the wheel, until I started to visualize what an air bag deployment would do the my flapped visage. Not a pretty thought… and no longer an issue.

So my flap flap is almost over. Supposedly I can start riding in a week and begin the long road back to some cycling fitness. The stitches come out in two weeks and I have been warned that things are going to look ‘lumpy and bumpy’ for a while, as the dermatologist put it. He also said there are things they could do to improve that…I’m pretty sure I’m going to pass.

I had the pedicle flap procedure on December 28. It detached on January 9. Why it detached is anyone’s guess. The doctor is not taking responsibility, so that leaves me. I was as careful as I could be but it just came loose. I could suspect a faulty first flap fusion, but I have no proof.

He reattached it on January 10. More needles, stitches and stinging pain. I heard him tell the nurse to schedule me for surgery on January 19th.

On Tuesday this week the nurse called to check on me. I asked her what would happen on Thursday. She said the doctor would remove the flap and suture the wounds, then two weeks later remove the final stitches and restore me to my normal good looking self. She also told me I could start riding after a day or two. Finally!

Today is the 19th. The nurse had me down for a 30 minute surgery. That is what she heard the doctor order on January 10. That is what I heard on January 10. That is what it said on the medical record. But the doctor claims that is not what he said.

When I saw him today he said there had been a ‘miscommunication.’ Today was just an exam and I need another week of healing.

Confronted by this depressing news, I questioned him about the previous detachment. He said it had never happened before. I told him I was incredibly careful, much more gentle than the nurse when she cleaned me up. He said he couldn’t speak to what I had or had not done. The clear implication was that it was my fault.

Later the nurse told me it had happened before, once. But she said it so quietly and reluctantly that I’m sensing a conspiracy.

So either I am incredibly ham-handed, incredibly unlucky, or something else is going on. Also either the nurse and I both misheard the doctor or are both deaf dolts, or he did in fact schedule a surgery instead of an exam.

So after getting so excited about returning to a kind of normal life, I have to live with this flap for another week. No exercise, no cycling. I have to be cautions about colds so I don’t see people, and I’m even limiting driving since if the air bag deployed it would f… up the flap. Another week of bandages and Vaseline and an itching eye.

I did my last road ride on December 26. I did four trainer sessions in early January. My return is now delayed to January 28 at the earliest. Want to bet? Take the over…