Tour de France

I Beg To Differ About the Leopard and His Spots

For instance, a stitch in time doesn’t literally save “nine,” but as a procrastinator married to a procrastinator who is the parent of two procrastinators, I can assure you that just sucking it up and doing it right the first time is much easier than half assing it and having to re-do it later. Need proof? Come look at the way my son puts his clothes away on laundry day. It’s a train wreck. Then come back when I discover the train wreck and listen the battle that ensues (and ensues and ensues and ensues) until they get put away correctly.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. There is no such thing as a free anything. There is always a price. Fortunately, sometimes that price is a pleasure to pay. Such as a friendship or a smile. Or just gratitude, because lots of people are lovely and giving and kind and generous and delighted to give of themselves just for the pleasure of doing so. The key here is to be able to identify who IS and who ISN’T like that – because for every selfless individual there is another person who enters into every relationship thinking “what am I going to get out of this?”

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Preschool variation: You get what you get and you don’t get upset. Normal person’s non-ornithological variation: Don’t be greedy. Besides, we all have too much stuff anyway. Last night someone mentioned that she was moving into a 700 square foot apartment with her two kids, and as I drifted off to sleep I imagined all I might get rid of and how could make my space tidy like the cabin of a boat if I lived in 700 square feet.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. I am a huge fan of instant gratification. I’m not a product of the right generation to have been raised to expect immediate results and immediate responses for everything, so I can only assume this is because I’m sort of hyperactive and I tend to do tasks quickly. I’m efficient. I’m also not very thorough when it comes to detail-oriented jobs unless they are very, very important to me. But I need to remind myself all the time that anything worthwhile is worth waiting for – and worth working for, especially as I try to make this point to and for my kids who ARE products of a generation who not only expect but have the audacity to demand instant gratification in almost all things. Buggers.

A leopard can’t change his spots. I think this is wrong, actually. Sure he can. Why can’t he?

In totally unrelated sporting news, Andy Schleck is wearing the maillot jaune today and I assume you’re all having a Gromperekichelcher and hoisting a Bofferding Lager in celebration.

Doesn’t Everybody Know about the Luz Ardiden?

I’ve only blown my cover a few times this summer, but when I have, OH, the looks I get.

It usually happens when I’m minding my own business, reading updates on my phone, and I start to mutter, not realizing that I’m vocalizing.

“That’s crazy.”

“LOVE that guy.”

“Contador better just keep on pedaling…all the way home to Spain. Scrawny bastard.”

“OH MY GOD.”

“Well that’s it. Wiggins is down. Again.”

“There is no way Sanchez is going to get by Voeckler today. Not if he wants to get up Luz Ardiden tomorrow.”

Then I remember where I am and look up to see people who thought they knew me well staring, aghast.

It is a fact that I am not a cyclist. I know how to ride a bike, but I don’t do it very often. I do not like to go fast – not in cars, not even really on skis and I’m a half-decent skier, and absolutely not on a bicycle. I do not follow cycling.

Well. Except for three weeks in July, when I don’t so much follow cycling but rather give over half of my conscious existence to monitoring every moment of the Tour de France.

I lose interest in the average baseball game by about the bottom of the fourth inning, but I can watch every minute of a three and a half hour stage of a 21-stage race. Three times. Because that’s how many times a day each stage is aired on television. Plus I read live streaming highlights.

I cannot explain this except to say that I am riveted by any demonstration of a person (or group of people’s) passion for something. That anyone would love cycling so much that he would put himself through the monster insanity of this race is endlessly fascinating for me. Obviously.

And just in case you don’t know…the Luz Ardiden is a particularly challenging section of the race that features a grueling climb in the Pyrenees, today tackled in stage 12. This same section was made famous in 2003 when Lance Armstrong crashed climbing the mountain after snagging a handlebar on a little girl’s souvenir foodbag and then again had a mechanical problem later in the race, but still persevered to take the stage and later the entire race. Often the rider who makes it to the top of Luz Ardiden first (when it’s a feature on the Tour) goes on to appear on the podium in Paris.

p.s. Last year Andy Schleck was robbed when Alberto Contador sleazed out and attacked at the wrong time. He’ll get his revenge.

p.s.s. Want to be impressed? Watch team HTC bring Mark Cavendish in to win a sprint.