It’s almost midnight, and I am up cooking a lasagna for a staff appreciation dinner our small group is giving for the Sagebrush Highland leaders. We just wanted to do a small thing to say thank you to them for their service and their leadership at our campus, and the dinner after church tomorrow seemed a great idea. The lasagna I am making is a great gluten-free recipe I discovered online here that I have made twice before. I just wished I had started making the lasagna before 10 PM, considering after you cook the meat and make the sauce, the lasagna assembled requires another two hours to cook and cool. Considering I need to get up about 6:30 to get to set up at church, I’ll probably get to bed by 1:30. Sigh. I wish I didn’t run so slow these days.

I do run slow, and get less done each day than I wish I could.

I did have a good day though. I had a chance to meet my friend Steve Rosenthal, known originally from the dance club, at PJ’s Motorcycles this afternoon to take our periodic survey of PJ’s bikes. Steve is a former Harley guy who, after 25 years, converted first to a big Triumph bike (the Rocket) for a short while, and then in the last year made a switch to a big Ducati bike. Steve loves his Ducati now, but he likes to see what PJ has in stock now and then, as he is a fried of many in the dealer. Steve also invites me to go because he knows I’ve thought it would be great to have a bike, and PJ is gracious to let customers take a bike out for a test ride for pretty decent lengths of time. I’ve continued to be convinced that the Triumph Tiger is the bike I would get if I was to get a bike, although I am still a newbie rider and I still fear the potential of my lack of skills and natural mechanical ineptitude- combined with that bike’s size and power- would inevitably spell my doom. Still, Steve has come over to get me excited about that bike every few months- and also because he knows if I don’t ride something, I will lose the meager skills I have. He’s right. I still get nervous every time I get on a bike and have to put into first gear from neutral. And when I am moving at any speed. Still, the pull of having a bike remains.

Steve and I met Rob the salesman, and Rob let us know there was a consigned Tiger 800 that was just getting put out for sale that I could ride. The basic model and white, it is the bike I would likely get if I could afford it. Steve and I say said “Yeah”, and we headed west out of town on the state road to Tijeras, where we turned and headed to Cedar’s Crest to stop at Burger Boy to get a snack and talk. For much of the ride out to the restaurant, I felt pretty tight on the bike, realizing how much I had forgotten and having moments of panic fill my mind as I wondered if I even knew how to break the thing. Heading into Cedar Crest I felt my composure return. After a basket of fries, a lemonade, and a brief chat, we headed back to PJ’s. On the ride back, I was more comfortable, and I remembered how good I felt on this bike when I had ridden it before, so I enjoyed the ride back more. I opened it up a few times and played with up-shifiting and down-stretching on the long empty stretches of the ride.

The other big event of the day was being able to watch “The Intouchables” this morning. A French film, this is one I had recently seen a few online advertisements for, ad it got some buzz from a few news posts I came across. It was pretty touching. Based on a true story, in this film a rich quadriplegic aristocrat hires a brash but impoverished ex-con to be his personal attendant because the young man is physically strong and socially unflinching- not one to show his employer pity. The two men from two different worlds become close friends over time and influence each other in ways which make each man view and handle life better. As Tim says, French films are largely about love and the intricacies of relationships, and this film was a good representation of that cinematic spirit. Although I kept thinking Francois Cluzet was Dustin Hoffman, I enjoyed it immensely.

Oh yeah- it’s also been Black Cat Appreciation Day today. Why or how someone declared August 17th that, I will never know, but since I somehow have two of them, here’s to you, little dudes.