“If you ask me, the most obvious thing that happened after the Fall was that people started wearing all kinds of clothes. Just go to the store and look around and you will see people wearing clothes. Everywhere you go you see people wearing clothes. Even as I type these words I am wearing clothes. I mean, evolution may explain how we came from apes, but does nothing to explain why we wear clothes.”
oi. donald miller. you crack me up to no end.
so i’m walking through the health food store yesterday and despite the recent recovery of my semi-addiction (wait! can “semi” and “addiction” be made into a compound word or is that a borderline oxymoron?) well whatever it was- “full fledged”, “semi”, or even “psychosomatic dependence” to all things ‘energy drink’: the streaz, the red bull, the monsterz, and then of course the dopio shots… i still find myself “drawn” to them, even when i have no real excuse. so yes, admittedly, although i have recent-ish-ly completed my high-stress-insanity-self-confidence-crushing summer course, i still find that i can not resist the urge to peruse the isle containing beverages that promise me quick energy…
so back to the health food store… i was tired, i was lethargic, i was exhausted, i was grumpy, i needed energy and i needed it in the form of a carbonated, sugary but ‘healthful’ (ha) beverage in a shiny bottle. this i found.
nestled between chocolate soy milk and green teas was the appealing display of brightly rainbow colored “synergy” drinks.
yuck, i am such a consumer sometimes. their marketing tactics work so well on me. i’m like a child, wandering through the store reaching to the shelves to touch all the shiny things…or like a mosquito that is drawn to the bright light.
damn those bright, shiny displays.
Kombucha?… i don’t know exactly what sold me.
maybe it was the five R’s, maybe it was the pretty bottle, maybe it was the fact the health claims used words that i happen to like, such as integrity, alkalinity, and anti-aging- maybe it was a combination of all of these.
ingredients: 95% organic raw kombucha, strawberry puree, and 100% love!
health claims: rejuvenate, restore, replenish, regenerate – shoot, yes please!!
Not only those beautiful claims that begin with the letter “R” but, kombucha apparently also supports: immune system, liver function, cell integrity, appetite control, and on and on it goes…
assessment:
Syn-ergy!?!? What the?! syner-Gross is more like it.
It was terrible, it was like drinking vinegar that had strawberries soaked in it, and people…there were strands…strands, i tell you. what the heck was floating in my beverage? that ‘s what i want to know. i don’t think that I felt particularly restored, or revitalized… but it was so incredibly foul that i have to believe that there must be some sort of true health benefit…maybe things i can’t feel- like my immune system or liver for example, are being ’supported’ or ‘integrity-ized’ right now as i type this… who knows? maybe my age is being reversed and i won’t even know it until i really am supposed to be old, but i feel strangely younger that i should… the only claim on the list i can vouch for today is the appetite control. ‘synergy’ is so ridiculously disgusting, it made me gag, and when you feel gaggy, food is not what you want, food is the last thing on your mind. so yes, they had some ‘integrity’ with that one. and even though it took me two days to drink the 16 oz bottle, (yes, i drank every strand) i can say that it did get easier to drink… when i got to abot 5 oz or so, my tongue started feeling numb- you better believe i took advantage of the numbed taste buds. i was determined to finish the thing- call it masochistic, call it stupid maybe it was, but hey, I feel a sense of accomplishment, and it didn’t take riding 40 miles on my bike, it took drinking 16 oz of kombucha…however, i think the 40 miles was easier.
Today i did something i wasn’t quite sure i could do…some considered it (and i quote), “crazy”, and some (and i quote again, this time from the hard core spandex donned cyclist at the start line) a “piece of cake”.
Hm. What does that little phrase mean anyway? What’s easy about cake?! I guess boxed cake is easy, but dude… vegan gluten free cake? Now that’s complicated. Hard work, I tell you, very. So i guess this means mr.“i’m-an-amazing-portland-cyclist (and by the way… I think cyclist sounds so much more hard core! I… am a mere bike rider. However, those individuals who actually have the random buckets strapped to the side of their bikes, the mirrors protruding form their helmet, and of course the spandex… now those people are freaking the real deal, the elite… you can’t mess with the CYCLISTS!!) …but back to that great metaphor about cake…what I am trying to say is that if we think of vegan gluten free cake, then that cyclist was right. A 40 mile bike ride in Portland was a piece of cake…so much so, that I distinctly remember a few times during the ride when all i really wanted was to jump off my bike and walk it to the nearest bus stop, or die. Whichever was easier.
As much as it sucked at times, I pushed on, I pushed through, I prevailed, and I finished!
I am glad I did it… there’s something about a sea of bikes, bubbles, loud music, and honey buckets to welcome you to the finish line that make it all worth it in the end.
Not only did I get the opportunity to ride forty miles through my beloved city, I learned a few valuable lessons.
Numero uno. Next time I will recruit a friend to come with me, this way it can be a little more “leisure-y” as opposed to trying to keep up with the “cyclepaths.”
Numero dos. Do Not believe the dragon-tattooed, long grey hair, cyclist who looks more like a Harley Davidson biker than a cyclist, who is telling you the remaining mileage and incline. So there I was biking with this guy for a few miles. “Any idea how much further we have?” I ask. “We went about thirty miles so far, but don’t worry, everything from here on out is down hill!” (We’d spent most of the day, it seemed, slowly going up)
“Sweet!! Glorious descent- here I come!!”
The glorious descent did NOT come when I expected- not when he said it would… before my glorious downhill, was the crazy, insane, ridiculous, and terrible ascent of Mt. Tabor. Yes, that’s Mt. as in “mountain”… ehhhhem. So UP Mt. Tabor I rode, with every bend that I could not see around, wishing, hoping, and praying that the thing would stop going UP. This is one of those times when I wanted to be a quitter… knowing i could not, i instead sunk to profanity. I yelled at that horrible unfeeling mountain… okay, “yelled” isn’t quite accurate, it was more like gasped some four letter word to tell that hill it sucked, and the man who told me the hill wasn’t there… that he too, sucked.
Numero tres. Biking forty miles isn’t really that crazy. I think some people do things like this everyday for fun. Now, I don’t actually know any of those people (see numero uno), but I know they exist. So what I did wasn’t all that incredible. I plan on doing some more of these rides in the future. Despite unforeseen hills of great magnitude, that are appropriately prefixed with “Mt.”, and bikers not biker riders, I mean “bikers- vroom vroom” that lie, it was a great experience!
So all and all, i think i’m like one pedal closer to being a cyclist….anyone have an old rearview mirror I can attach to my helmet? I’ll worry about the bucket and spandex another day.
i heart my trusty lil bike.
