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Saturday, June 6th, 2009
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8:39 am - Last chance: Bike-a-Thon!
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| Thursday, May 28th, 2009
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2:54 pm - There's still time sponsor me in the Bike-a-Thon!
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Just a little over a week until the Bikes Not Bombs Bike-a-Thon, and I am embarrassingly far from my fundraising goal of $5,000.
If you haven't already given ($5, $50, $500--it all makes a difference), please make your donation here before June 7.
Huge thanks to all of you who have given already. BNB couldn't do all its youth leadership and international development work without your help.
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, April 25th, 2009
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7:45 pm - I love this neighborhood sometimes.
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On Thursday, my ratty glasses case fell to the bottom of my saddlebag with my sunglasses inside. Since the case wouldn't really close, and the stars apparently were aligned, my bike lock bounced on the bridge of the sunglasses, and snap! Suddenly I had two-piece sunglasses.
I went to Eye-Q today to see if they could recommend a glue, and the clerk said I could try super glue, but the only success story he'd ever heard was from some guy who drilled holes in the two pieces and doweled them back together. I'm pretty DIY, but that struck even me as excessive. The clerk looked around a little and found the store's last pair of my frame model, and said it would only take him a few minutes to pop the lenses out of the broken frame and put them in the one he'd found. $50. Sold.
It ended up taking longer than a few minutes, because my lenses were thick and took some wrestling with. So we chatted. I mentioned Bikes Not Bombs and the Bike-a-Thon, and he was intrigued by all the good work we do (youth programs, international development, and a great bike shop) by recycling bicycles. So at the end of all our talk and his work, he said, "No charge. Give it as a donation to Bikes Not Bombs, and say Eye-Q sent it."
So I did. You can see the evidence (and support me in the Bike-a-Thon if you haven't already--or even if you have) here.
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| Thursday, April 16th, 2009
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10:11 pm - I am a superhero!
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| Friday, April 10th, 2009
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9:41 pm - more Cervantes-Ferguson household food
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Soup tonight: Brown part of a linguica for fat, then set it aside (for later use or for snacking). Cook onion, celery, garlic, and two dried red chilis in the fat. Add water and chopped potatoes and turnip. Add salt, pepper, cumin, allspice, and red wine vinegar. Chop all the leftover olives and some kale, and brown the rest of the linguica. Once the root veg are soft, reserve two ladelfuls, then puree the rest. Return reserved root veg to pot, add linguica, olives, and kale, and simmer until the kale wilts.
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| Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
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4:18 pm - Bike-a-Thon time!
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It's Bike-a-Thon time again! On June 7, I'll be riding in Bikes Not Bombs' 22nd Annual Bike-a-Thon. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) the_macnab and I are already busy organizing and working the training rides, and now it's time to start raising the money. The Bike-a-Thon is Bikes Not Bombs' biggest fundraiser of the year, and your pledges to support me in the ride are very important to keeping our work going. Donate here to help us pull bicycles from the waste stream and put them back to use in our youth empowerment and economic development programs in Boston and around the world.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, December 4th, 2008
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10:34 am - news from my car on the economic rollercoaster
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In the past week:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt froze trade acquisitions, and the publisher, executive editor, and others in the division have resigned. The NYT quotes HMCo delicately, as "not allocating as much capital to the consumer book business."
Random House announced a reorganization that will drop two of the five groups in its adult publishing division. NYT speculates this could lead to layoffs, though Random House is mum at the moment.
Simon & Schuster cut 35 positions from various divisions--its second round of cuts this year.
Pay raises frozen or delayed at Penguin and HarperCollins. Macmillan also possibly considering layoffs (per NYT).
Meanwhile, South End Press sales were strong July-September, but pretty rough in October and November. Just remember that our titles make great gifts! Frank Wilderson's Incognegro is the best book I read this year, and the Rhizome Collective's Toolbox for Sustainable City Living is perfect for anyone interested in green (and thrifty!) living. And then there's our Community Supported Publishing program: in exchange for $20 per month, we'll send a different South End title each month to the person of your choice (and, if you order a CSP as a gift in December, we'll give you a 3-month trial membership).
You can order online, of course, but those orders go to our distributor, who won't give you special treatment. The best way to ensure that gifts go out in time is to call me at SEP, 617.547.4002.
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| Thursday, November 20th, 2008
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6:11 pm - I was going to go back to work tomorrow, probably only for a half day.
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But one of my co-workers just called to say they outvoted me, 4 to 1. They even arranged to send one of their number to my house to play Scrabble with me and keep me occupied.
In actual recovery news, the cold snap the last couple of days has been really hard. Makes the muscles try to shiver, which hurts. Not as bad as it once did, though.
current mood:  loved
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
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10:18 am
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| Wednesday, November 12th, 2008
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8:05 pm - ortho surgeon update
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Probably will not need surgery, though surgeon said he'd like another follow-up on Monday before we make a final decision. Am in a grey area where force of impact caused a lot of soft tissue damage (and therefore pain), as well as displaced the bone fragment, but nothing so is bad with the bone as to make benefit of surgery clearly outweigh risk. (Risk & benefit both low, at any rate.)
Considerably less pain today, but two outings wore me out.
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| Monday, November 10th, 2008
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1:07 pm - Oops.
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If you didn't see from the_macnab's post, I broke my left collarbone learning to play bike polo with Bikes Not Bombs on Saturday. Won't be online much for a few weeks.
current mood:  pained
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(17 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, September 21st, 2008
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10:37 am - Meme
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| Monday, June 16th, 2008
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9:56 pm - Adjectives to describe Bike-a-Thon 2008: brutal, exhausting, filthy
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Now posted for non-sponsors. Sponsor me next year and get your stories and pictures right away. :P
In my first fundraising pitch for this year's Bike-a-Thon, I reminded those of you who were watching in 2005 of how I failed to train for the 62-mile ride that year yet rode it anyway. One of this year's cyclists gave me an apt phrase for that little stunt as we were discussing training rides this spring: I "discovered a living definition of 'hubris.'" Also in that first appeal, I let potential sponsors know that I was actively training for the long ride this year, and to expect a wholly different kind of ride story. Honestly, I was a little afraid that come June 8, the actual Bike-a-Thon ride would be so routine for me that it would be nothing much to write about.
That was before the forecast started showing highs in the 90s for the day of the ride.
While we're discussing vocabulary (hubris: overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance), let me add a few more words to the lesson. Brutal: harsh, unrelenting; A 62-mile bike ride in high heat, high humidity, and high wind is brutal. Exhausted: drained, depleted, used up completely; A rider who has just finished such a brutal ride is exhausted. Filthy: covered or smeared with filth; disgustingly dirty; Such a rider is not only too exhausted to indulge in hubris, or even simple pride--she is also filthy.
Carl, one of Bikes Not Bombs' founders, labeled the event a disastrous success. This year's Bike-a-Thon drew more riders (at least 326 between the three routes--15, 25 and 62 miles) and raised more money ($105,000) than any year before. Our previous records were about 260 riders and about $45,000.
But a bigger event meant more planning, and more riders meant longer registration lines. A new online fundraising system only complicated registration further. The 62-mile ride left at 9:30, half an hour behind schedule, and we were already feeling the heat.
And, in J-P's and my cases, the lack of breakfast. My morning began with rolling out of bed and walking a few blocks to Centre and Green Streets in Jamaica Plain, where true to rumor there was a work crew smack in the intersection, paving over the long-disused trolley tracks that were the bane of neighborhood cyclists. (Transit-minded readers fear not: the trolley was long ago replaced by a bus.) This was one of the intersections Carl had asked J-P and me to lead the ride through on its way out of town. (We had gone out with Will and fellow trainer Laura to paint direction markers on the pavement along the route two weeks before, which is a story to itself.) So I asked the cops on duty when they thought the intersection would be passable and which direction we should lead the ride in case we came through before then. They said maybe 9:30, and to head south barring that. Leave it to the City of Boston to make paving over those tracks a mixed blessing!
I had meant to get coffee and pastries at one of two possible places near the intersection, but both were still closed, and one of them I couldn't have gotten to even if it had been open. But past years' Bike-a-Thon rallying points had had fruit and bagels and coffee and sports bars and drinks aplenty, so I wasn't too worried. I went home to change into biking clothes, lift bikes from the cellar, and take pre-ride photos. Then off to the rally point, where I managed to grab a banana and J-P nothing at all before the ride, as we were each pulled into one task or another amid the preparations.
Cut to Carl beginning his announcements to the 62-milers even as J-P was still on his way back from checking the passability of Centre Street one last time, and to me exchanging pleasantries (let's say) with the second-section ride leader, who had been vocally anxious to leave since 8:30. But J-P showed up to give the all-clear before Carl was done announcing. Scott, our team's non-riding-but-volunteering member, and Richard, our one 25-miler (give him credit, he rode it on a fixed-gear), wished us luck as the other six members of Bikes Over Baghdad gathered at the front of the pack in our super-stylish t-shirts. (Reference: Outkast, "Bombs Over Baghdad") J-P, Will, Rachel, Aron, Paulie, and I started rolling and led the ride out, shouting our farewells to the tracks as we crossed Centre Street.
I assumed the front of the pack would quickly lose us as we toiled up the first heartbreaking hill, a long, rather steep three-stager only a mile and change into the ride. We had been training well for distance but not necessarily for speed, though J-P, Will, and I proved to ourselves the weekend before that we could maintain about 17 miles per hour over about 40 miles in pretty harsh conditions, maybe mid-80s, moderate humidity, and a nasty headwind (all of our previous rides had been in temperatures below 70). But the people who were sure to come in first would do the 62 in about three hours on a good day.
To my surprise, delight, and certainly even hubris, I found myself still leading the pack at the top of the hill, Will with me and J-P not far behind. Will and J-P soon prudently dropped back, but the very fast riders conversationally took me for one of their own, and I decided to see how long I could last. At about mile 12 I found myself in 12th place and feeling distinctly nauseated, so I fell back. I was feeling better by the time Will and J-P caught up with me two miles further on, but I was still a bit concerned about heat exhaustion not least because I was sweating profusely and turning very pale, at least on my arms where I could see. I was willing at that point to label myself a casualty of the heat (and my hubris) at the first rest stop, 22 miles in, if I had to.
J-P, Will, and I rode the remaining eight miles to the first rest stop more or less together. Rachel, Aron, and Paulie were maybe five minutes behind us. So far, so good. As we stood around drinking water, dousing ourselves with water, cramming fruit in our mouths, stretching, and congratulating ourselves, I discovered the reason for my alarming paleness. The day-glo yellow streaks in the creases of my elbows gave it away--it wasn't incipient heat exhaustion but rather a fine coating of pollen. I did mention that I ended up filthy, right? The pollen was of course stuck to my skin by an impromptu adhesive of sweat, sunblock, and, here and there, chain grease. Pictures here:  .
Back on the road. Will and I lost J-P surprisingly quickly, and I gave some brain power for a while to worry about him. He and Will and I trained on par with each other, and I expected us to ride together. But worry for J-P soon gave way to attention to my own condition. Now that I was riding at a more comfortable pace, I no longer thought I would drop out, but I definitely knew I wasn't going to enjoy the ride. By the time Will and I made it to the second rest stop, I had briefly regretted putting my sweat-soaked but padded gloves in J-P's saddlebag at the first rest stop but soon realized that there was no way I would have put them back on if I had them, not with my hands swelling the way they were. My feet were swelling, too, so I took two quick stops to loosen my shoes before assaulting the four-stage hill just before the second official stop. What I lost in torque on the pedals (I was using cleated shoes, which rely on their stiff soles and snug fit for leverage) I made up for in relief from foot cramps.
Will and I waited around for J-P at the rest stop, but Rachel and Aron came in before him and reported that he was really struggling. At the end of the ride, they told us he showed up maybe three minutes after we left.
The rest of the ride was filled with digging encrustations of pollen out of my eyes with pollen-covered fingers, wondering whether my aching hands and wrists would cut my ride short, an on-again-off-again headache around the cheekbones and temples, one moment's shocked realization that I was going to topple into a pine-shaded ditch if I couldn't manage to pay more attention, and trading off leading and following with Will. We each found it easier to lead than to follow--for me, as the following rider, each time I fell behind Will at all, I was afraid that this was it, that maybe this was the time I wouldn't be able to catch up. We took one more unofficial breather somewhere in Canton, struggled up highway 138 to cross I93 but managed to upshift at the top and blast through the on and off ramps quickly enough that they were only alarming, not terrifying, and came on home through the Blue Hills Reservation, Milton, and Mattapan.
We were lucky enough to pass one of those combo clock/thermometer signs in Mattapan as it was showing the time, not the temp, but other riders who came through not far behind us said that it was reading 97 degrees. The National Weather Service shows an official high of 93 for June 8, but I would believe 97 on the six unrelieved lanes of asphalt that are Blue Hill Ave. They say the humidity was about 70 percent and, at the time we were riding the last few northwestward miles, the wind was from the west at 14 miles per hour, gusting to 20. Brutal.
Will and I made it back to the park across from the Stony Brook T station just at the five-hour mark (total riding time about four and a half hours), among the first two dozen 62-milers to come in. I was, I believe, the fourth woman to finish.
When we got there, Bikes Not Bombs' first-ever Green Roots Festival, celebrating urban sustainability, was in full swing. And even though I had put in a fair amount of work over the past several months to help it happen, I found myself with zero interest. Bill McKibben spoke, there were workshops on urban gardening, composting toilets, installing solar panels, and I saw none of it. Virginia, my downstairs neighbor and one of my sponsors, told me afterward that it was a good festival, and I believe her. It looked to me about a third the size of Jamaica Plain's legendary Wake Up the Earth Festival. That was larger than I had let myself hope we would achieve, and I know the line-up of speakers and activities was excellent.
I lowered my bike onto the grass under a tree, stripped off my shoes and socks, and ran through the park's kiddie fountain. Eventually Will and I found our way to the food, drinks, and ice cream set aside for riders. The fountain, eating, and lying in the shade took up about two hours. Richard found us, and Rachel, Aron, and Paulie came in, during that time. All that was left was to worry about J-P, who Paulie told us had gone down to heat exhaustion at about mile 54. By the time J-P arrived in the sag wagon, he had recovered fairly well. (His story: http://the-macnab.livejournal.com/114561.html) I'm reassured by the facts that he was able to eat dinner that night and that he spent most of the next day in an over-airconditioned Amtrak train.
I know this makes long-distance cycling sound terribly attractive, but I really wouldn't discourage anyone from trying it. After each of the training rides we took this spring, I found myself happy, paradoxically energized, proud of what I'd accomplished, and looking forward to doing more. And rough start aside, the camaraderie among riders and among Bikes not Bombs members at this event was wonderful. Just mind the conditions that you ride in--if the weather is like this next year, I know that opting for the 25 is the better part of valor.
I'm also really proud of what our team was able to do for Bikes Not Bombs. We were the highest earning team, with the eight of us bringing in around $6,000. I was the fourth-place individual fundraiser, J-P was either second or third, and Scott may have rounded out the top five--I was too busy lounging under a tree to hear the official announcement. I was surprised this year at how good raising the money felt. I'm more in love with BNB than ever, with the community that's been built around it, with our skill at keeping useful things out of the trash, with the good we do using bicycles here and abroad.
Even if you didn't sponsor me before the Bike-a-Thon, you can still help Bikes Not Bombs continue our work! If you thought about giving and forgot, or just feel moved to do it now, here's the place: http://www.firstgiving.com/esthercervantes.
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| Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
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10:49 pm - A reminder to support me in the 2008 Bikes Not Bombs Bike-a-Thon
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The 2008 Bikes Not Bombs Bike-a-Thon is less than two weeks away, and I'm only three-quarters of the way to my fundraising goal--more importantly, the_macnab has raised more than I have, which really can't stand. So here's a reminder to please support me as I ride 62 miles
for a great cause on June 8! You can give at http://www.firstgiving.com/esthercervantes
Each donation helps Bikes Not Bombs pull more bikes from the waste stream and put them back to use as affordable, reliable, non-polluting transportation, the bases for pedal-powered machines, and tools for social change both here in Boston and around the world.
And, to those of you who have helped me get as close to my fundraising goal as I am: thank you, thank you, thank you!
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| Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
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11:43 am - If I ever home brew...
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If I ever home brew, the house label will be Brujería, and the first beer I produce will be Punishingly Hoppy "Indian" Pale Ale.
However, the_macnab says that then I'll have to move out. Fine by me. I'll move in with valetoile.
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accomplished