Sunday has been a very lazy day around our house. Okay, let me rephrase that – it has been a lazy day since about 11 am. Before that time, Garbanzo and I were getting our exercise in for the day. For me, it was a bike ride in the mist. It wasn’t quite raining out, but it did feel like I was riding through a cloud with the fine mist that was hitting everything. Garbanzo, after I returned, went for a trail run. We were both supposed to do the trail run, but our friend Ms Panda who was going to come over and sit with the girls for an hour had a pretty shitty day yesterday. At 21 years old, Ms Panda is dealing with a father who has now hit the aggressive stage in Alzheimer’s. Yesterday, he freaked out, hit an exit sign, cut his hand open to the point where he was sent to the ER, and was ultimately admitted so that they could readjust his medicine.
Needless to say, she made herself sick with worry over the situation – so we told her to stay home (unless she needed a break away from her house). She stayed home – and Garbanzo ran alone.
After all of the exercise, we made breakfast and settled in to watch Stage 9 of the Tour de France. We had Tivo’d it. I find these types of events fascinating. These guys ride around 100 miles each day through some pretty amazing terrain with some insane climbs and descents. This year is particularly interesting. Lance Armstrong is back after 4 years in “retirement” – but that’s only part of what makes it interesting. The team he is “leading” (Astana) has three potential champions on it – Lance, Levi Leipheimer, and Alberto Contador. Contador the other day broke rank and pulled ahead of Lance and the rest of the team during stage 6. He ended that day ahead of Lance. An interviewer before the race asked Lance about the team dynamic since that happened – after a long pause where you can clearly see Lance trying to think of a tact answer, he said he wouldn’t comment on it. It has been interesting to watch as the other teams try to capitalize on this team’s strength (and subsequent weakness).
When we did go out to run a few errands, I seemed to stumble across a lot of randomness in the city today. Guess it matched the weird day we were having.
Like the weird disfigured doll sticking out of the dumpster.
Or the bumper sticker that is a creative take on the “Keep Portland Weird” sticker. I like this one better:
Or the random old tree in one of the city parks
TriMet, the city’s mass transit group, has been etching all of the bus shelters in the city in an effort to combat graffiti. It works – and provides some interesting designs in certain areas.
About a block from our house, I spotted this Smiley Face balloon caught in someone’s bush. 
Total and complete randomness for a Sunday.
