b-day bike tour

on the heels of the smith mountain like tri debacle, i had a birthday. i am at the point where birthdays feel more like an event to mourn that something to celebrate. i asked dianna and lindsay to go out of town. i had initially thought paris and rome. then we bought tickets to buenos aires. we ended up planning a cycling tour from providence, ri to norfolk, ct where we would hang out with our favorite man in the berkshires, vint lawrence. this wasn't the ideal plan because our favorite reporter from the berkshires, annie garrels, is working in baghdad so we can get a more realistic view of what is happening in iraq, the effect of the surge, and what can be done. we missed annie immensely, but were looking forward to spending time with her delightful husband.

the night before our anticipated departure, thru a means i am not proud to admit, so won't, i found that jennifer's new mother, bobbie, emailed lindsay after my horrible conversation with debbie and dave. in an email with the subject line "we still love you," bobbie outlined how she and debbie had come to believe that i am "the problem". she suggested that lindsay hadn't said much over the past few months (though it was lindsay who wrote a 17 page letter detailing how hard it was to be accused of all these crazy things and explaining in detail what we had done). she said many hurtful things about how i am mean and selfish and how she feels sorry for lindsay.

it was devastating, tho that word isn't strong enough.

lindsay and i spent much of the night talking about this. she said she nearly vomited when she received the email and was incredibly hurt. not only by the accusations against me and the mischaracterization of me and how destructive she knew it could be for me, but also that she had not been heard.

it was like a log falling on an overburdened camel. i crumbled. i felt betrayed, hurt, and despised. nothing could comfort me. i didn't sleep.

we had planned on leaving at 10 am. then 1:30. then 3:30. lindsay came home from work, and dianna and lindsay packed my bags. they packed the car, and then, headachey and exhausted (all of us), we started out at 5:pm towards providence. 5:pm is a parking lot on the bw parkway, but we made it through. as the sun set, and the moon came up we finally started moving. this is about one of 20 photos i tried to take of an amazing harvest moon.


we got to woodbridge, nj exhausted and hungry. we ate at wegmann's, our usual haunt. lindsay thought we might be best off staying in new jersey since we were still at least 4 hours away, but my face fell as i thought that the situation with the girls would have the power to ruin another one of my birthdays. in one of the greatest acts of love and friendship, lindsay took over the wheel. she soldiered on so that we would all have the pleasure of waking up in providence. dianna and i slept most of the way. lindsay sang to the iPod, and was most dear.

because of her, we woke up here.

providence from our hotel window

we walked around but soon realized that it was time to ride
i needed to blow off the lingering steam and cities aren't the best place for that.
so ride we did.

this is our ride

some of the scenery
this really doesn't do it justice
we saw: lighthouses, boats, fall foliage, and revolution aged homes

we forgot to take photos, but we ate a clam shop in bristol after we returned.
it was delicious
and i felt like a new woman
lindsay then again, in an act of pure love
drove us to mansfield center, ct where we had reservations at the
the fitch house

we had an compulsory tour of the house
drank this yummy birch beer soda
and got to our room just in time for the session premiere of the office

we woke up to this breakfast

it was super cute, and totally delish

and headed out

this is our path
this is what a 45 mile ride looks like

our ponies

we started near mansfield
and we should have taken photos of all these towns we went thru but didn't

climbing up one of the hills in the nathan hale state forrest

at the connecticut river in hartford
unfortunately, this part of the ride was kinda ugly
through the burbs of hartford
a forgotten town

if you can't tell, this is the connecticut river

we had to climb up an incredible hill just at the end (avon mountain)
dianna got dehydrated
i had forgotten to keep my watch on so too much time had passed between food stops
and her tea bag broke in her camleback.
we stopped at a farmer's market and got water and bananas
dianna's color turned from green back to normal and we headed out
as we kept making the ascent up the mountain we pulled over for a break,
i was worried about dianna
lindsay passed and saved the day
i rode the last 5 miles to the b&b alone
we ate the most delicious meal ever at amelias american bistro in simsbury, ct
it is worth the drive to get there
the next trip to norfolk will mean a trip to amelias

we stayed at the linden house
it was delightful
the breakfast of quiche and bread was wonderful
the irish innkeeps so sweet

here we all are suiting up.
lindsay preping as the best sag in the world, and dianna in a clean cycling shirt
lindsay left in a rush for a hair cut and a surprise makeover at cvs

here i am on the phone with aimee
this is my actual birthday and it was nice to get all the calls that flooded in

about 20 minutes in, dianna was about to die.
we had been going up another mountain the whole time
and she wasn't sure she wanted to do this anymore
we ate a cliff mojo bar
and confirmed that this was not necessary
she bravely decided to keep going
despite her better judgement

and we started seeing all sorts of stuff like this

who knew that in connecticut they make castles in the middle of lakes?

my gas station birthday lunch
please note that the egg is wrapped in plastic
why in the world is this necessary?
eggs come with their own awesome packaging

here i am talking to my grandma

my grandma always makes me really really happy

we road up the american legion state park and the peoples state forrest
we spotted this eagle
he hung out long enough for us to really get a good look
then dianna yelled at him because she wanted to see her fly
she was exquisite

it was a gradual ascent the entire day!

more of the beauty we were surrounded by

we used the connecticut state bike map which lead us to these beautiful untrafficked roads

this is colesbrook, and it is here that we saw the first sign for norfolk!
it was a wonderful site to behold

the ascent made us really burn through our lunch
we stopped here and ate apples from the ground, they were AWESOME
dianna says this photo doesn't even capture how she felt

lindsay found us near the top of our second to the last hill
it was great to see her
she told us how close we were and encouraged us to keep going
so we did
and we wisely gave her the camera
here we are on our last leg to annie and vint's

coming down the last decent

dianna met lindsay were we planned on stopping
now that is real happiness

i decided to just keep going up the hill
they came right up behind
it was so great to finally arrive!
i was starving!!!!

here is our route.
you can see i forgot to hit start a couple of times on my watch
my watch tells me i burned 3500 calories this day
rode for 40 miles
and climbed almost all of it

see
gray = elevation
red = heart rate

we went for pizza and lindsay got busy making elaine's present
we order 3 small pizzas
a salad
and bruchetta
we ended up taking an entire pizza home

we returned to jakes where i openned presents from my grandma and my trip mates

my sweet grandma gave me jewelry from her sister and lots of fun photos
dianna and lindsay gave me a crossword puzzle and a drill
i have been thinking about buying a house to fix up and they thought
this drill might come in real handy
i love all the research that went into getting this drill
and how supportive they are of any of my crazy ideas

my shock and dianna's thrill at the birthday drill

altruism and the smith mountain tri

life is not something you can control. official decrees and years dedicated to fun and healing doesn't make it so. you can control blogs. i choose to include only those aspects of this year that are fun. and it is nice, because when things are crazy or yucky i can write on this blog or re-read and remember that life is not all bad.

but i am, just for a moment, going to write about something more serious. so forgive the intrusion on this catalogue of fun. if i am ever going to paint a picture of how wonderful my friends are, i need to acknowledge this muck. i hope that this will explain what happened at the smith mountain lake triathlon and on my birthday weekend. it should also help you appreciate how wonderful lindsay and dianna are. they have shouldered much of this burden and even when the attacks are pointed directly at me, they share in them, protect me from believing them, and insist that i get out and do something fun.

i have for a long time wanted to write something about this, though i planned on writing it on raisingdc. it seems more appropriate here. i will somehow link, so that readership will know what is going on. the title of that entry was to be "is altruism dead?" i have written it a hundred times in my head. who knows how it will turn out here.

as many of you know, last year lindsay and i took on the herculean task of saving two girls who we loved immensely from the dc foster care system. the story is chronicled at raisingdc.blogspot.com. i will spare you all the gory details here and in fact you are spared the most gory there as well. the long story short is that lindsay and i loved these two little girls for 4 years. they eventually were abandoned by their family when their mother became so incapacitated she could no longer take care of herself (she was never much able to care for them).

jennifer and paulette's aunt asked us to put them in the foster care system because she was unable to. dc figured an aunt stable enough to call should be able take care of them. the system is really overtaxed. i protested putting them in foster care and they ended up living in our house for about 7 months. jennifer for 5 and paulette for 7.

it was hard (an understatement). it was the most noble work i feel like i have ever done. i did what i did out of pure desire to help them; for them to know they are loved; and for them to have a chance at the world. i felt good believing that i was doing what God would do if He were here. WWJD? this! both of them are INCREDIBLY gifted and have all of the promise of young talent. i want them to be able to make the world better in their way. i believed in them and i believed that given a chance they would become a force for good that could not be stopped. (i still believe all this, though i am starting to see that there are unbelievable hurdles still to jump).

we thought the story ended with God parting the red sea twice. thru no small feat of divine intervention, God led us to a family who wanted to take care of jennifer and one that wanted to take care of paulette. we believed they were Godsends, and in part, still do.

things got ugly a few months ago when jennifer's new family decided to put her in the arizona foster care system to expedite their ability to adopt her. we were not consulted before the decision was made, but arizona state needed to hear from lindsay and i, and essentially wanted our consent for the action. we didn't give it. we feared it would prohibit paulette from ever being permanent. we feared that somehow jen might end up back in dc and out of her current home. we just felt like it was a disastrous move, and said so.

this led to an onslaught of accusations and pain. the fiasco with the az foster care system ended up costing us quite a bit in legal fees. we had an amazing lawyer, kim viti fiorentino, who we found through another act of God and paid for her by the mercy of loving friends and family. for months we were being counseled to get a lawyer, but we refused because of cost. when our landlord threatened to kick us out, because we had the girls living in the house and a police officer said that if paulette ran away again (and got icked up by the police) that someone would have to be charged with neglect and it would be us, we decided that maybe we should ask friends and family for financial help and get one. she was another godsend and really help us alot. i still feel like she is a friend. our friends and family were also angels of mercy. many of them felt like we were in over our head, but supported us nonetheless.

we had told both of the families that if there was money left over after we sorted our legal situation, we would split it evenly among the girls. it could be used for any additional legal fees, therapy, or college. the well ran dry, and when it did, it unleashed a fury of accusations.

to skip some of the ugly, lindsay and i were accused of stealing this money from the girls and of deceiving the families regarding the amount of time that the girls actually spent living in our homes. these accusations were shared far and wide. they told the girls that we had stolen their money. it took months before we knew what was being said. once we did, we sent a detailed accounting of all of our money to the two families. we explained what we had done. we also sent names of people they could contact who knew what was going on (bishops, friends, therapists of the girls, etc) and we asked them to read the blog so they could get an idea of what was happening while they were living with us. the families have yet to do any of this. but the accusations still fly.

this leads me to wonder if altruism has become so uncommon that people can't believe it exists. in graduate school, i took a class with phd clinical psych students called "philosophy of psychology" where we discussed altruism at length. people questioned if Christ's atonement was really an altruistic act. i was appalled! how could this act of love be seen as anything other than that, an act of love. but people suggested that Christ did this for His promised station with God the Father if he did it, etc. that he was set to get great gains. i was shocked. all these mormons suggesting that Jesus was nothing other than someone out for a better position. COME ON!

this has stuck with me. not that i believe there is a word of truth in it. however, when people believe that altruism is either impossible or completely dead, they form a worldview that is quite different from mine. with such a worldview, the work that lindsay and i performed, or any act of kindness, is broken down into what is to be gained. where is the selfish motive? it breeds suspicion, and i think eventually snuffs out love all together. all i got was fat, abused, and hurt, so it stands to reason that people would start turning pillows over to see what else might have been gained. introduce some money and viola: we did it for the money.

no amount of money would ever convince me to do what i did. now, i can assure you that if i wanted to earn the amount of money we are talking about i could have decided to start doing therapy again, consult part time, etc and make MUCH more with FAR less pain. and i think that is what hurts. those who know me know that money is not much of a motivator. so the whole thing is ridiculous!

the night before the smith mountain triathlon, paulette's new mother debbie called to tell me that she forgave me for stealing money and lying about how long paulette lived with me. she just wanted things to go back to the way they were. the conversation didn't go well, since i felt accused all over again. i explained that it mattered to me that the lies that had been told to the girls be straightened out. she yelled at me, then her husband yelled at me. he later calmed down and begged me not to erase the legal and financial responsibilities i still have for paulette. i assured him that i wouldn't. not because he asked, but because i want what is best for paulette.

i was so upset that i couldn't sleep and decided not to set an alarm to wake up for the triathlon. dianna and i hadn't trained as much as we had wanted. she has been working the overnight, and is always worn out.

so instead competing in an olympic-distance triathlon, we slept in a sweet little condo on the lake. here is smith mountain lake, looking at where were would have swam had we done the race.

dianna and i as we are about to embark on our 4th trip to smith mountain lake

sometimes a girls has to do what a girl has to do

in this case both of us did
please just remember that we had to ride in a car for 5 hours to get to smith mountain lake.

the view from our condo

some swimming race for boys
it was really fun to watch!
for obvious reasons

we did some cycling, since we'd brought our bikes all the way down there..
we rode the 25 rtn trip to booker t. washington's birthplace (we forgot the camera), up some very hilly roads.

as we drove home, we stopped by Appomattox where lee surrendered. i have been told for years that i am a direct decedent of gen. robert e. lee, and have always found a family resemblance. i thought he looked just like my uncle jim. turns out i was confusing grant with lee. we look like grant, and i am not sure we have any relationship. so...who knows what side i was on.

APPOMATTOX
the desk were lee surrendered

grant's side of the room during the surrender
i am surprised that this southerner is so happy to be here

so who am i related to???
the one with the frizziest hair

just a couple of tea lovin girls in the country where the civil war ended

i am glad that through this yuckiness my friends help me have a good time. we ended up having fun and relaxing. something i think we both really needed. it is always fun to do a triathlon, but there will be more. it actually felt kinda healthy and grown-up to just decide not to.