So now my battery's back in the bike and back on the charger. If it continues to start up OK throughout the week, I'll consider it fine and good. I'm a bit concerned that it still isn't holding the charge properly, but I suppose that worst case, I buy a new battery. That's not that big a deal.

The next chapter in the eternal saga that is fixing up bikes seems to be a radiator hose. It started leaking while I was letting the bike idle, and I couldn't get it to stop during the .05 seconds that I actually tried (I unscrewed the clamp, reseated the hose, re-screwed the clamp). This made a lovely stinky haze of white smoke, further convincing me that I give myself cancer whenever I walk into my garage.

the things I do for my art.
The rest of the night tonight was taken up with revising, and re-revising, and re-re-revising my next article for the national Women on Wheels newsletter (deadline: Wednesday). This consisted of me sitting on the couch with the laptop, three different printouts of the article, a red pen, at least one cat sitting on at least one printout or body part, beer, chips, and Nestle Sno-Caps.

There's one part that I just can't get right. It feels too forced; doesn't feel like my voice. It's driving me nuts. No amount of Sno-Caps is making it better. I'm hoping that putting the article aside until tomorrow will help, though I absolutely need to email it in by Wednesday. Sigh. I'd better have some more Sno-Caps, just in case.

mommy's coming to visit!
I talked to my mom today, who's planning a visit in late May/early June. She'll be here for the Wind Dancers End-of-Month Putt, and she seems interested in going to the coffee bit beforehand. I offered to find someone to take her as a pillion for the actual ride, but she politely declined. She does seem interested in meeting the gals, though, and seeing what kinds of bikes everyone rides. I really can't complain about that.

Mom and I were talking about bikes the other day, and she made a comment along the lines of "well, all motorcycles are inherently ugly". I gently chided her, and suggested that her blood pressure medication was making her delusional, or perhaps advancing senility. She is, after all, of advanced years, and must be forgiven for such lapses in judgement. ;)

The topic came up because I'm trying to convince Mom to take Wisconsin's trike and sidecar safety course. She's talked about getting a trike before, in a general sense, but now she's finally actually thinking about it. She drives a conversion van, so I've been explaining that a GoldWing trike would be, well, more or less just like her van. She'd even have the cup holders for her caffeine-free Diet Pepsi! Like I tell her, as long as she's off spending my inheritance, it may as well be on motorcycles. I mean, that's all I'd spend it on anyway.

upcoming rides.
I'm starting to plan out my summer ride calendar.

The beginning of May is fairly sparse. It's supposed to rain again (!) next weekend, but hopefully I can fit something short in between the raindrops. There are races at Sears Point, too.

On May 17th, Wind Dancers Debi and Sara are leading a ride to various missions in the area. Given that most of them are probably also historical landmarks, well, how can I pass that up?

May 24th is the Sport-Touring.net ride and BBQ; that'll be a fun ride through the local twisties, ending up at Carl's place for lunch.

June 7th is Wind Dancer Mary's ride up to the Marin French Cheese Factory. Mmmmm, cheese.

June 14th is the 6th Annual Wind Dancers Long Ride to Lunch. I offered to ride sweep for this one, since we'll follow the Silverado Trail up to Calistoga -- a road I ride at least twice a year now. I love that road. I just turned in my "15,000 miles" notice for Women on Wheels -- if I can get 10,000 more miles before next February, I'll get three mileage awards in one year (I got the 10k award somewhere around early February, and now the 15k award in late April). I'm doing WOW's national mileage contest, too -- not that I have any chance of winning, since some of those gals spend all summer going back and forth across the country, and rack up 25k, 30k miles per year -- but it's definitely a fun goal to work towards.

It's hard to believe that the SVS will hit 20,000 miles soon.