Low Gas Wrap

Cherry blossom avenue: so, so pretty!

I’m a little amazed at how rapidly April flew by.  For Low Gas Consumption Month, I’d meant to write a commentary about Earth Day and the environment, but time got away from me, and here we are on, the first of May. 

Ahh, spring, you sure took your sweet time arriving this year!

I drove up to Shoreline to volunteer three times this month.  Other than that, I didn't get in my car--driving approximately 40 miles for the whole month.  When I was driving to Shoreline last Saturday morning, I felt like I was dreaming because it felt so foreign to me after a two-week break.  Then I realized I better snap out of it, because driving in that kind of mental state is dangerous! 

If only I-5 were always so unoccupied.

I confess, I do enjoy driving.  But I also enjoy walking and biking (especially when it isn’t raining!), and I find the practice of riding the bus to be beneficial.  (The loss of control over when you leave and when you arrive offers good practice in patience and adaptation for much more serious loss-of-control situations.  And, for a writer, there is always someone of intrigue on the bus.) 

Anyway, now that my low gasoline consumption is winding down, I intend to continue using alternate forms of transportation more than I did before.  The price in gas hasn’t exactly dropped; CO2 emissions still aren’t good for the environment; and the weather is still continuing to improve (fingers crossed).  I’m setting a loose goal for myself here and now: I am going to try to consume no more than one tank of gas a month.  Of course, things do come up (multiple airport runs, vacations), and I won’t punish myself for that.  But I would like to incline my mind to consider other options before driving.

Goal: more biking around Greenlake this summer.

Not that you need any more pushing than the price at the pump, but I really want to encourage you all to try driving less.  We all have excuses of why we need to drive.  It does take some mental and logistical rearranging to bike or carpool or bus, and there are times in life when that kind of thought is in much shorter demand than cash for gas.  For those of you with young children, I know it is often impractical to impossible to ditch the car.  But there are also the undeniable benefits of biking and walking with kids: it doesn’t just promote physical activity, but the world outside our homes offers an endless learning lab. 

Walk learning opportunity #23: is it a feral cat or not?

For those of you in Seattle, Friday, May 20 is the official 2011 Bike to Work Day.  If you’ve got yourself a pair of wheels, give a bike commute a try on this one day.

Anyway, Operation Consumption Liberation now moves onto my second month of curbing my frivolous spending, the Goods and Services edition.

It's a good time to be less reliant on my car.

 

The State at the Pump: U-District.

I mean, really, did I time my Low Gas Consumption month perfectly, or what? 

Gas prices aside, I should also note that the weather in Seattle has improved since the first week of April.  Not a wild improvement, but I did hear the weatherman say that La Nina is WEAKENING, and to expect a "weather-neutral summer."  I can get behind that. 

Because the sky was more sunny than cloudy today, I decided to make the most of my leisure Sunday morning and walk to the yoga studio where I've been doing an immersion all weekend.  Which is located on Capitol Hill.  Five miles from my place.  Apparently, I don't need to drive to the mountains to get in a nice little hike.

And it was a really nice walk. As I walked, I recalled a college assignment from a Renaissance and Reformation history class I took at the University of Idaho.  We had to walk from Moscow, ID to Troy, ID--an 11-mile distance--and then write a three-page paper about our experience.  I think the assignment was part of a unit on The Return of Martin Guerre; the professor wanted us to have a sense of how peasants traveled in the 16th century, or something. Honestly, it was a somewhat useless assignment, but I remember it was a really lovely day when I did the walk.  I remember being a little scared of getting hit by a car when walking along Highway 8 (I think there is actually a bike trail now), but all and all, it was a nice way to pass the morning.  But not something you do everyday.

I'm not going to write a three-page paper about my walk today, because I think that I'd say about the same thing: nice way to pass my morning, but not something I can do everyday.  So, instead of writing three-pages, here's a little photo essay of my walk today! 

Spring has sprung: local color on my street

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lake Union view from the University Bridge

Le Fournil Bakery on Eastlake. Those are giant cubes of butter.  Butter!

The I-5/WA-520 Junction--never so quiet as on a Sunday AM!

Bruce Lee's last resting place, Lakeview Cemetery

Louisa Boren Lookout. Thar be Lake Washington and Bellevue, mateys!

The tower at Volunteer Park.  Would have been a great day to climb it!

Eager brunchers waiting outside Coastal Kitchen

Space Needle and the Sound!

View of downtown, and a sky full of bus wires--Pine & 15th Ave E

And that's all, folks!  Hope your weekend was as lovely as mine!

Adventures in Cycling

I had Lasik three months ago.  This means my vision has been fluctuating a bit.  It is fairly stable at this point, but certain things on certain days make my eyes extra tired and thus, my vision a bit blurrier than I'd like it to be post-expensive-scary surgery.  Among the bad eyesight triggers: focusing on my smartphone's screen too much and for too long; not getting enough sleep; and cold/windy conditions which dry my eyes out.  So on Thursday, I biked to my optometrist's office in my 3-month, post-surgery check up.

It was a rainy, cold, breezy morning--which I'll say more about later.  Anyway, biking in, my eyes got all dried out from the wind and cold, and needless to say, my eyes did not "perform" so well when I did the eye tests.  The eye doctor saw quite a few patches of dryness and recommended I start using the gunky night drops again.  (Blech.  They give me itty bitty styes, which are harmless, really, but frigging annoying. But if the doctor says...)  He also advised I visit with his buddy in the glasses department for some spiffy goggles for biking.

As much as I'd love to drop $60 on some fancy goggles, I can't afford that right now, so I walked three blocks to Big 5 Sports and investigated their offerings. They didn't have any biking goggles, per se, but they did have protective eye wear for racquetball and also for sharp shooting.  I went with the youth/women's sized sharp shooting glasses, for the handy benefit of UV protection.  Check 'em out!

So that's what I'm biking around wearing.  I feel pretty bad ass.

Anyway, as I mentioned, Thursday (April 7) was a cold, wet, breezy morning.  Thursday, like pretty much every day in April up to that point, was also a cold, wet, breezy day.  Remember my post two weeks ago where I discussed typical April weather in Seattle?  I had this cute little chart, remember, that showed an average of ~2 inches of rain for the entire month of April and average high/low temperatures of 58 and 43 degrees F?  I was, like, "oh sure, it rains in April, but not like constantly, it's much better than March."  Okay, yes, it is better than March.  But "much better"?  That's a gross overstatement, given the weather during the first week of April this year.  GROSS.

This is a La Nina year.  Now I'm one of those people who gets El Nino and La Nina confused, and thinks that the two weather phenomena only happen on leap years or something, not whenever the water temperature in the Pacific does X or Y.  Let's face it, if La Nina is the opposite of El Nino, then I'm the La Nina of a meteorologist. My approach to weather forecast is: well, it did this last year.  I'm sure there really are insights I could gain from last year's weather, but assuming that this year's weather will be just like last year's weather is not the insight I should be taking home.  Last April, it was warmish and fairly dry and lovely.  And then right around Mother's Day, it started to dump rain and didn't stop until the 4th of July.  So if that was El Nino and this is La Nina, then it should be a fantastic late spring and early summer, right???  Oh, good gawd, it's time to stop this erroneous speculating!

So instead, let me just inform you that, in the first week of April, Seattle got 2.01 inches of rain.  That's the monthly average!  And let me also tell you that the average low for the first week of April 2011 was 39.6 F and the average high for the first week of April 2011 was 49 F. A little colder than usual, but not revolutionary, especially for early in the month--but that wind chill has been horrible!

This less-than-desirable weather has not made an easy introduction to my month of low gas consumption.  I expressed my fear of riding my bike in the rain in this previous post.  Now that I've been doing it for a week, I'm less afraid of wiping out.  Instead, I'm afraid of freezing my arse off.  And then sweating like a pig for a bit and then freezing more because I'm wet from sweat.  But it is improving.  It's a balmy 55 degrees F right now, and Friday was a gorgeous sunshine explosion.

Jumping on your bike is easier when it looks like this out your front door.

Still, I am doing it, the whole no-driving-my-car thing (except for when I volunteer--what a glorious drive to Shoreline that is!).  And biking up hills is getting easier (muscles adapt faster than you think!), and I'm better tolerating cars and faster cyclists zipping past me with looks of annoyance on their faces. 

I have a lot of different objectives in this year of consuming less.  One objective is to push myself outside my comfort zone.  While I did have some uncomfortable sugar cravings in January, and had to do some extra cooking in February, and decline wine in March, none of those monthly challenges REALLY pushed me to do something I was afraid to do.  This month has already pushed me to face several fears, and there have been days when I've wondered if succeeding in this particular challenge is worth my heightened level of anxiety.  Right now, I think it is. I need to push through anxiety about a whole lot of things in my life, so I can just DO them.  I'm building muscles with this month's challenge so that I can go forth and conquer in other aspects of my life.  Definitely worth it.

Tough.

ACK! Welcome to Low Gas Consumption Month!

Hello there.

I've just spent the last several hours pouring through boxes of old photos, looking for a picture of me on a bike.  And I didn't find a single one.  Apparently, those are in one of my parents' custody, because I know they're out there.  I also was looking for some pictures of me in a doing a high ropes course to prove to CW that my arse looks enormous in a harness, thus I don't want to go rock climbing with him.  Couldn't find those either.  I did however find a picture of my brother on a bike, several pictures of friends as awkward children to scan and post on Facebook, and one photo of a staged Barbie orgy.  What can I say, I was a messed-up little kid.

Needless to say, as this is a more public platform than even Facebook, I won't be posting any of those here.  So here is a photo of my bike, and my ex-boyfriend's bike.  Mine is the one on the left, the one that's mostly not in the picture, versus the blue one that is mostly in the picture.

I got new tires shortly after this photo was taken.  My bike subsequently lost four pounds.

So this bike... Well, can I just tell you that I've had it since the late 80s?  I've had it since I was 12-1/2 years old.  Seriously, I have been pedaling the same cycle for TWENTY-TWO years.  And yeah, sometimes I think, "maybe biking would be easier if I had a newer flashier bike."  But hey, it's still working.  It has 18 speeds or gears or whatever you call them.  It has a bike rack.  And as of tonight, it now has a red flashing back light and a fancy-pants spot headlight.  Nevermind the fact that I've had my bike lock for about... TWENTY-TWO years, or that I bought my helmet at Fred Meyer for $20.  The bike is pimped out and I'm ready to dive into April, my month of low gasoline consumption for Operation Consumption Liberation!

I will also not be driving any Gators this month.  FYI.

I discussed my biking fears and the current economics of gasoline last time, so without further adieu, here are the guidelines I'll be adhering to this month:

1. No driving the car except (A.)for when I'm volunteering as an ElderFriend--I got to be able to visit and transport my friend who lives in Shoreline; and (B.) for emergencies.  That's it.

Acceptable mode of transportation #1: kayaking.

2.  I  will not be going on a road trip or flying in an airplane this month.  Who can afford that anyway?

Acceptable mode of transportation #2: riding a horse.

3.  I will accept rides with friends to carpool to outings IF IT MAKES SENSE.  In other words, if I'm going out to eat with my friend ES, it is totally cool to ride together because she lives less than two miles away.  But if I'm going out to eat with my friend SW, the only way she's driving from White Center-abouts to pick me up is if we're going out to eat in my hood, or North of here, and I'm not going to suggest that.  Better I bike or take the bus to meet her somewhere halfway.

Acceptable mode of transportation #3: swimming.

Acceptable mode of transportation #4: ride a flamingo.

4.  Speaking of the bus, I will be limiting my bus use.  Sure, the bus consumes less gas and pollutes less than all of its passengers in their own cars, but the bus is also EXPENSIVE.  SO here's how I'll be limiting my bus use: (1.) I'll be putting approximately the current cost of one tank of gas in my car onto my Orca card.  (2.)  When I run out of bus money, that's it for the month.

Photo by Andy Nystrom

So, for the record, here's the bus money math: The price of regular unleaded in Seattle is $3.795 right now.  My gas tank probably holds more than 12 gallons, but for this purpose, that's what it holds.  So a tank would cost me $45.54, so I've put $45 on my Orca card for April.  If I ride the bus only during Peak hours (1-zone peak fare=$2.50 w/ transfers for 2 hours), that gives me 18 rides for the month.  If I ride the bus only during Non-Peak hours (1-zone non-peak fare=$2.25  w/ transfers for 2 hours), that gives me 20 rides total for the month.

 Mind you, this last month, I burned through four bus fares in one day easy ($9.50 worth)--all I did was go to the office, come home to change, whereupon I went out with friends for dinner and a movie, and then came home.  I think I'm going to want to be careful about how I use those bus fares, because I'm going to want to meet up with friends and there will be late nights when I will want to get home and I won't feel safe or energetic enough to bike.  Not to mention really RAINY days.  This is Seattle after all.

Which means (5.) I will be riding my bike or walking as much as possible all month long.  Or running.  And I'm not opposed to rollerskates--I had a dream I was wearing these hella cool skates the other night--they were funky brown leather knee high boots on wheels, totally awesome.  If you know where I can get skates that rad, let me know.

Oh yes, I need to add something to my life to compensate for my removal of car and gas.  Something BESIDES more biking, which is grand, but is also work.  Hmmm, I'm open to suggestions.  Though I'm leaning towards dark chocolate, or flowers....

Chocolate doesn't get realer than this.

Poppies, Poppies, everywhere!