WetLeather Motorcycle Rider Information

As a child, I was for lack of better descriptive terms, precocious. I was also the youngest of four, then the youngest of seven after my mother re-married.

Being the littlest put me in a unique place. I never got in trouble. Oh, sure, trouble happened aplenty. But I wasn’t ever the one blamed for it. Not even when the blame really should have been mine to bear.

My phone rang this evening, my brother David on the other end of the line. This is unusual in a couple of ways. First, I rarely get phone calls from anyone. Second, I’ve only talked to my brother twice in the last ten years. In his typically strange way of cutting to the chase, David told me he was calling to tell me what a great visit he’d had when he and his wife Kay came through Eugene two months ago. “Ok” I say, while wondering what the real purpose for the call was, “Thanks, we had a nice visit too.” Then he dropped the bombshell, “Uncle ‘Benny’ died today.”

PART 1

It had been a tough winter and a tougher spring. My marriage officially ended in April. The reality is; my marriage had been over long before. Divorce is such an ugly thing. Divorce is even uglier when someone you loved turns on you with a vindictive rage.

I needed to get my head together. I needed to travel and I needed to think. There’s no better place for both than on the seat of a motorcycle.

"Eh. It works."

The day after Martin and Carol's re-hitching ceremony Deb and I had breakfast with the WL crowd that overnight-ed at the Lodge. We headed home and I proceeded to power wash a lot of really gross stuff in the backyard. I guess partying with WL just puts me in a house husband sort of mood.

Just as I finishing up Steve D. called and said that he and Kitten were getting ready to leave for Cascade Locks. I had previously agreed to keep them company on the ride back to Kitten's place.

I had my surgical follow-up at the doctor's office yesterday.

Executive Summary: I'm doing fine.

Over the last week and a half I've actually started eating real food again! Not much, but enough to feel like a human person again. I don't know how anyone could live on protein shakes and yogurt for more than a couple of weeks. I'd go bonkers.

I was supposed to wait until four weeks before moving off pureed stuff, but I just needed to eat something I had to chew. And since I do most of the cooking around here it was getting a bit tedious to watch everyone else enjoying themselves while I ate little piles of mush.

For supper last night, Rhonda made the Diaz Pulled Pork, omitting HFCS sources, substituting pure cane sugar for molasses and soy sauce for Worcertershire, and adding lemon slices and allspice. She cooked the pork in the pressure cooker for 70 minutes. She served the sauce separately. It was excellent, with or without the sauce.

We watched 1408 last night on DVD. It's not The Shining, but it's a pretty darned good scary movie!

Today I felt as close to "normal" as I've been since the surgery. If my bathroom scale is to be believed I am losing weight. Today it said "283.5".