I’ve been sick all week. No really! I admit that I took off sick a week ago Friday to go to the beach, but my instant karma has dealt me my comeuppance. Be that as it may, the past week hasn’t been all that bad:

1. I got to take my puppy to the beach for the first time with her new best friend Bella, a golden retriever puppy who’s a couple weeks younger.
2. I went for a great first ride of the season with some nice folk, including my most favorite little Italian chick. Bikers rock!
3. I have actually stepped into the office for half a day since a week ago Thursday, and I don’t plan on it for a few days yet because…
4. I got pneumonia!

So let’s start with the puppy fun. We took our puppy Jessie to the beach with our friends Jen and Alix, their daughter Rylie and their new puppy Bella. I had a pretty good time, mostly because it was great to see Jessie’s first encounter with beach smells, beach sand, nasty beach …stuff… (which she and Bella tried to injest in great quantities, ugh), and all the wonderful beach puppy games, which look quite a bit like the at home puppy games, but are better because they’re at the beach. The only downside was I busted my new kite which I’ve only been able to fly the day I bought it last year, and now is …well, busted. Note to self – help is required when assembling kites that large; so if you get ditched while preparing to assemble, you’re just gonna have to wait or risk nasty string burns and an extremely foul temper.

The bike ride. I knew I’d been feeling really crappy all of last week, just a lot of chest pressure and stuff, coughing and the like. But at least my eye swelling had gone down, whatever that was all about. I knew this ride was coming up, and it was to be the first of the season so I was pretty excited, so I rested up and rested up and by the time Sunday rolled around I felt like I was on the downhill side on the road to recovery. So I hopped on the bike, gassed it up a bit (3 bucks doesn’t fill up my tank anymore? Wha??) and headed to my friend Hope’s house, the Starting Destination. Once everyone who was gonna be there got there, we started out towards Multnomah Falls. Except that was waaaay crowded. So we decided to continue on to Cascade Locks for burgers and a great view at CharBurger. By that time, I was having a little trouble breathing, so I ordered up a big tall styrofoam cup of tea to warm my chest up. We decided to head home the fast way, but about 5 miles away from Troutdale my gas light lit up. Did you know some bikes have a gas light? I didn’t! Anyway, I debated for a mile or two whether or not I should try to make it, since I knew we were about 20 miles out at this point, but I decided not to take a chance and told the group I needed a pit stop. Fortunately there was one right nearby, so we all pulled in and I gassed up. Nearly 8 bucks!!!! later, with a full tank, we all headed out. Two miles later, Hope pulls us over; her bike died and wouldn’t start. The cause? She ran outta gas! So she hops on our friend Tom’s bike and the three of us (the others had left along the way) headed back to the gas station to buy a container and some gas. By this time I’m feeling a little worse. We get back to hopes house and I make up some more tea and hang out for a bit, but I really needed to get home.

Later that night I ended up in the emergency center and I came out with pneumonia. I’m just that hardkore!