Rough and easy, smooth and hard

This weekend started out with feathers and sparkles - as it should! - and moved into big 'taches - as it should! I've just realised this post sounds a bit porn-y - which it's not!

New Orleans party  in the Oakland hills - slipping mask made me look a bit demonic

 '65 Galaxy leads the parade...

Saturday night we popped into a New Orleans party, another school fundraiser. What a great idea - they'd hired a unicyclist and trumpeteers and led by the King and Queen in their yellow cadillac, the whole fandangle swayed around the block for a couple of hours, briefly stopping in at various friendly homes to freshen their drinks.  Everyone shook their feathers and swung their beads and drank of their coloured goblets. This would be a fun every-Friday night thing with the neighbours, no?

*That same night, our friend held his 50th birthday at Vamp, a funky, funky record store and party space tucked away in Oakland near Lake Merritt.

Vamp owner Fernando spinnin'  

Our friend used to sport a splendid moustache when he was an actor ...these days he works in computers. There was a rocket ship to sip in while the DJ spun (is that how you say it?) everything from Cleo Laine (doobedoobedo) to Satchmo...

Vamp

*Big news next day: we realised Teddy, our  2.5lb Maltese puppy, can climb up the stairs. I haven't been that proud since my last child took his first step. Actually I'm prouder, because for short-arse Teddy our stairs are like us ascending Kilimanjaro. (and yes I realise this launches me from my former "dogs? meh"" to fully-fledged Mad Dog Lady.)

Teddy mounts his Kilimanjaro

*How's the cycle "training " for our South of France ride going? Not good. I took off for an hour ride and nearly four hours later was very, very lost on the island of Alameda.  Turns out my bike has electronic gears - you press the rough button to get the easy gears and the smooth button for the harder gears. I always have to repeat instructions to myself (people hate doing ski clinics with me as I call "dive for danger!" all the time). It was a perky me who called out "Rough and slow! Smooth and hard!" as I started. Three hours later, it was a weary, lip wobbling "rough and smooth.... slow and slow..."

"How did it go?" my husband Kevin asked when I finally returned home.
"I can't go up hills" I replied "and it's scary for me coming down...do you think that'll be a problem?"
I could see by his face this was a "Does my bum look big in this?" question (which by the way he answers these days with a "Your first instincts are right on this.")
"Kind of" he replied "We'll be following some of the Tour de France route."

The Tour de France route Image 

Oh bugger.