Friday and Saturday are spent recovering from the illness for Sunday's 120 kilometer bicycle ride. I get to bed early on both Friday night and Saturday night. Friday night sees a session with the weights and a walk with and without Nopesterini and Saturday sees a couple of long walks, but nothing strenuous.
Saturday I watch the first mountain stage of the Giro. The favorites, Gilberto Simoni and Stefano Garzelli, have broken away up the climb of the Terminillo. Andrea Noe, a good rider who can be counted on for some top ten finishes, joins the group - making it three in the breakaway. The breakaway has decimated the field up the mountain. Via Italian television shots, there is a closeup shot of Simoni looking over at Garzelli, not the best of friends, and when Simoni says something, they both get tremendously horrified looks on their faces. I obviously don't know what was said, but I would assume that they have received the words, "Nopesterini is coming up the mountain hard and fast. And he's gaining by leaps and bounds". Well, Garzelli ends up winning and Nopesterini is nowhere to be seen.
Sunday is the 120 kilometer Los Angeles River bicycle ride. I'm up at 5:20am to ride the 30 miles to the start at Griffith Park. I arrive and need to fill out an entry form and pay my fees. There are two ChiChis passing out the entry/waiver form. No, wait a minute. They are twins. Twin ChiChis! When I take the entry forms I feel like giving them one of my entry forms, but I do not. I sign up, pay my money, and get my rider number. But I don't like the number. "Excuse me, you gave me number 1312. Can I have 1313 instead?" The lady starts laughing but, of course, she gives me the 1313 number and notes it in her records. Besides being twin lucky 13's, it matches with the twin ChiChis on this day.
The ride goes smoothly. I'm setting a decent pace down the LA river towards Long Beach. When I get to the last section of the river trail there is a strong headwind against the riders. But I push on. Soon I'm coming up to a kid, probably 13 or 14, who is struggling with the wind. Where are his parents? So I go past him and say, "Come and ride with me". He gets an immediate smile on his face because: 1) Possibly nobody else asked him to ride with them, and 2) He sees that I'm a wide person and will break the wind for him quite nicely. He stays on my wheel as I pull him into the wind for the last 10 miles to the turnaround point. After getting some Gatorade and extra water, we start back up the trail until I leave for home. He's now having more of a fun time.
When I arrive home the first clock that I see says 11:11. Of course, along with the twin ChiChis, the twin 13's, I get twin 11's.
Brandon calls. Brandon has finished school and has just arrived back in Los Angeles to find a pharmacist intern job. But today we have to party. We meet down at the festival in Long Beach at the Marina Green Park after 4pm.
Besides running into Brandon, I run into the friend of a friend, Person ED_F and his roommate, and a number of acquaintances and friends from various activities including ice hockey. I wander around for a while but make it back home by about 8:30pm
I get home and surf the net. There is a problem. Person M_C went to Indonesia for his brother's wedding and was nervous about being "kidnapped" by his parents (for various socially-unacceptable sexual orientation things). But I read on the Internet that Indonesia has declard martial law. Will Person M_C make it back? We'll find out in one week.
With that the weekend ends. Except that I also check my lottery ticket on the Internet and see that I have twin winners. What is it about today and twins?
On Monday morning I am headed via train to downtown Los Angeles. I have two separate sets off friends to see. Karl (who I played tennis with back in college back when the dinosaurs ruled the earth), his wife Kikumi, and their son Ike are in town on their way to Australia and we'll be spending the day together. Later I'm to meet up with Person ED_F who works in downtown Los Angeles.
Except for two hours of driving to Beverly Hills and West Hollywood in order to try and see some celebrities, we spend the entire time in downtown Los Angeles. That's 10 hours of shopping, walking, looking at old buildings, talking, eating, perusing, and mingling in downtown Los Angeles. I've made an instant friend of Ike, Karl and Kikumi's 3.5 year old son, by bringing him an 86 piece magnetic construction toy set (that he can use on the plane for the 13 hour flight to Australia). We drive past the King Eddy Saloon as I try to explain it's significance. Now I owe a visit to the trio to Florida.
Person ED_F and I meet up, walk around downtown Los Angeles, have dinner, and walk around some more. Person ED_F wants to walk over to Pershing Square so we do. We sit down in the park and Person ED_F asks, "Did you ever think that you'd be sitting in Pershing Square, the exact center of Los Angeles, late at night?"
Now how do I answer this question? "Wait a minute. To the latinos/Mexicanos, Olvera Street is the heart of Los Angeles. To the Japanese, Little Tokyo is the heart of Los Angeles. To the Chinese, Chinatown is the heart of Los Angeles. And to junkies and ex-junkies like me, the King Eddy is the heart of Los Angeles." Person ED_F tries to interupt here, but I'm on a roll, so I continue. "Besides, I've been sitting and laying in Pershing Square during the day, late at night, and at 3am in the morning before. And that was before they rebuilt it and added security guards. But it is nice here." And now we have a long discussion about what I just said.
Well, it's getting late so Person ED_F and I head for the train station as he takes the red line towards his apartment and I take the red line towards the blue line and Long Beach. The late night train ride home through South Central LA, Compton, Watts, and other places is uneventfull except for the street preacher who gets on the train at one stop, preaches salvation to all of the train riders (of which there are quite a few actually), and then gets off at the next stop. I wonder if he had a ticket to ride or was on the trail illegally?