Magic Spot Flowing

I haven’t found any new written resumptive pronouns in a while, but I discovered one today on the TinyURL website:

Are you posting something that you don’t want people to know what the URL is because it might give away that it’s an affiliate link?

Well, if you are, I suggest that you not use TinyURL — be honest. But feel free to use a resumptive pronoun while doing so.

Status updates on Facebook from several friends reminded me that today is Shrove Tuesday, aka Pancake Day. Pondering the distribution of the updates, I noticed that most of them came from the UK, where I celebrated Pancake Day 2005. Prior to that, I wasn’t aware of Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day except as Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is the more common name for the day and celebration in the US — except, notably, as part of some church traditions, whence the remaining status updates about pancakes came.

Seeing all this and recalling fond memories of Pancake Day 2005, I decided to make pancakes tonight for dessert. But while eating them, I realized it’s a strange thing for me to do. It’s isolated from its UK cultural context because I’m in the US, and I don’t belong to the religious traditions that would make it appropriate for me to do it here.

Furthermore, Pancake Day started as a way to use up extra oil and eggs, or so says Wikipedia. But I made Vegan Dad’s sweet breakfast crepes, which have only a tiny amount of oil and no egg (being vegan). They’re also really crepes, obviously, not pancakes, but the pancakes I had in the UK were really a lot more like crepes anyway, so it made sense. (I actually used silken tofu rather than the flaxseed, and it worked just as well, maybe better, so that was a happy substitution.)

I also departed from tradition in using lime instead of lemon for the flavoring liquid (lemon and sugar is the usual).

Not a traditional way to celebrate the holiday, but maybe it’ll become my traditional way of celebrating it!

This isn’t so much a recipe because I didn’t actually write down the amounts, but I thought this turned out well and it was easy.

1 tbsp olive oil
1 lb penne pasta
1 large fennel bulb, very thinly sliced
1/2 kabocha squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-1″ chunks
A couple tablespoons each soymilk, Tofutti BTCC, and TJs Cranberry Apple Butter

Start the water for the pasta and squash. Simmer the squash until nearly fork-tender. Meanwhile, saute the fennel in the oil over medium heat until tender and browning. Add pasta to the water when it’s ready.

Add the squash to the pan and continue sauteing until the squash is tender. Stir frequently to prevent sticking. Add a little salt and pepper.

When the squash is tender and everything is beginning to stick, add the soymilk, tofutti, and cranberry apple butter. Stir until well mixed and season to taste.

When the pasta is ready, drain it and mix the squash mixture with the pasta. Yum.

I sold my oldest bike today (Minerva, my Trek Navigator 200 city/utility bike), to a friend, which got me thinking about how long I’ve had it.

I’ve owned that bike since summer 2001. With the exception of some of my musical instruments, it’s the high-value possession I’ve owned the longest and used the most. (I’ve owned my flute since 1993 or so.) It cost about $400 new, and I sold it for $100 since I’ve maintained it well and it came with a bunch of accessories that I put on (rack, fenders, headlight, seatbag, lock, etc.). That’s a long time and a lot of use for a relatively small monetary outlay.

I’m really not at all unhappy to sell it on, which I was worried I might be. My friend will get more use out of it than I was getting (since I got Meg almost a year ago, I was riding Minerva only to the farmer’s market and in the crappiest rainy weather); I’ll ride Meg more which I should be anyway; I won’t be taking up space in the carport anymore; I’ll only have two sets of maintenance chores to rotate. I have a bit of extra money, which definitely comes in handy right now.

Besides, now I have room in my stable for a bike of a different function!

I don’t do a lot of writing about my advocacy stuff on this blog. If you think the bike-riding stuff is boring, imagine what you would think about stuff that doesn’t even involve riding a bike, but instead involves a lot of meetings and emails and often-tedious government agencies and regulations about bikes, and you’ll see why.

But today, I’m getting a lot of warm advocacy fuzzies for once, and I want to share that joy with the world.

For the last two months I’ve been chairing an SVBC “workgroup” (a small committee of members) on the issue of Caltrain bike accommodation. Basically, there are a limited number of spaces for people to take their bikes on the train to do a multi-modal trip with train+bike, and the spaces are running out. And many people who do this really like doing it, and don’t have other good options, and they were being delayed by 10 minutes to an hour or more, unpredictably, by having to wait for the next train with an available slot. For a long time, Caltrain was resistant to adding more spaces, and cyclists were getting angry and frustrated. A cyclist was arrested due to poor management of a conflict over bumping.

Late last fall, everything came to a head and, as a result of pressure from the community and both bike coalitions (SVBC and SFBC), the Caltrain Joint Powers Board asked Caltrain staff to investigate the possibilities for increases in onboard capacity.

Since then, the workgroup has been brainstorming on ways to improve the system and the amount of capacity, taking input from SVBC members and other cyclists, and meeting with Caltrain staff to express our ideas and concerns. The people on the workgroup have been fantastic to work with — thoughtful, concerned, energetic, and determined to make progress in coming up with feasible ideas for near-term improvements to the situation.

Yesterday at the February 5 Joint Powers Board meeting, staff presented their plan and members and representatives of SVBC and SFBC and the community at large spoke in support of capacity and other system improvements. After staff presentation and lively discussion, the result is that Caltrain is going to increase capacity on its newer, more limited 16-space cars by 50%, and on the older cars (which had 32 spaces) by 25% to 40, a total increase over the day from around 4,000 slots to a little over 5,000. They’re also going to take other measures such as gathering more statistics and formalizing bike input to the agency through a Bicycle Advisory Committee. The JPB also asked Caltrain to try to direct extra bike cars (each train is guaranteed to have 1, but some have 2) to the high-demand trains during the commute hours.

This isn’t everything we hoped for (the workgroup’s position includes a number of other items and a slightly greater increase in capacity), but it is branded as an “interim” solution, and will be revisited. The workgroup will continue to meet with Caltrain staff, and to discuss more ideas for improving the system. It’s a lot more than we had the day before yesterday.

The best thing for me has been seeing the results of our work in print and online (Mercury News, San Mateo Daily Journal, SFGate, SF Examiner), and through emails flying back and forth, commending me, the workgroup, and SVBC for our efforts. I’m but a small cog in this big movement, but it’s very nice to get a few warm fuzzies recognizing the time and effort (and many, many emails) that I’ve committed to the project. And equally nice to throw them back to the workgroup, Caltrain staff, SVBC board and staff, and everyone who cared enough to tell Caltrain that they wanted more.

Caltrain and cycling are my main transportation options, and being able to combine them when I need to is personally very important to me. I’m ecstatic that that’s about to get a little easier.

The crappy economy has hit home.

I don’t usually post about personal things on this blog, but this is a pretty big deal for me.

In case you’re assuming the worst, it isn’t. I have a job (and even recently got some very nice feedback on the way I’m doing that job).

…but it comes with a hefty chunk less salary than before.

I’ve spent a lot of time feeling lucky recently, before the downturn hit directly, and I’m still lucky. I have a rainy-day fund and I still have a job, and I have friends and connections.

But damn, it still sucks. I have sticker shock.