saturday, the rest of the day.

seth and i finished our walk, i drove to lovelace park, on the other side of town, to pick up two rain barrels from the half dozen the park district had there. i dropped them at my house, and went over to the evanston police dept for a 10am bike auction.

as if i need another bike.

mostly magna and taiwanese schwinn mountain bikes, though there was one old 'ranger' bike, circa maybe 1960, which was pretty cool and british.

the one bike which grabbed my interest was a large blue schwinn traveler, c. late '70s. i decided if i could get it for $40 or less, i'd take it and strip it into a path racer. thankfully, of the hundred and fifty bikes on the lot which were being auctioned in order, it was #5, so i didn't have to wait long to see it go to $90. thank you, ma'am, goodbye.

text messaged diana: "great news! didn't get anything at the bike auction!"

stopped at the hardware store and picked up primer to paint the bright blue and bright orange rain barrels. also got a wedge for splitting wood, which i should have bought last spring, but which i now have for next year. looks like this one, but in estwing blue:



home again, let seth out in the yard and primed the rain barrels in the garage. once those were drying, i wandered back over to the ecology center to properly visit the 'green living festival'. cool idea, would like to see a bigger event. everyone who was there was into it. 'the recyclery', where i built up my two fixed-gear bikes, was represented. had a weird "hey, you're the guy who makes posters" moment with some nice folks who run a chemical-free lawn care company. i may do some work for them after the new year.

home again, went across the street to liz & barry's house for miles' first birthday party. fun to be around all those kids and the two italian greyhounds. ate a hamburger. started to get too warm, so i went back and painted the side door of the house. the first coat of "anodized bronze" (aka dark grey brown) went on kind of poorly, but the two coats i put on tomorrow will look great.

fell asleep for 15 minutes on the futon, until jason, hilary and the twins showed up. we rode bikes over to the park about five blocks from here for TJ's 4th birthday party. two bikes: jason & hil rode the old schwinn 'twinn' tandem, and i rode the yellow schwinn speedster with the boys in the trailer.

my wife leaves town for the weekend, i go nuts: rental movies and kids' birthday parties. woo-hoo!

good fun at the park with all the neighborhood kids, pizza, cake, etc. i ate four slices of hot cheese, and then ran around carrying three- and four-year olds on my shoulders, quickly followed by soccer. then, surprisingly, i didn't feel too great.

five of us back on the two bikes after cake was consumed (not by me). i had arthur and clive help me feed seth and the cats. they headed out, and i walked the dog up to central street again to return the movies and get an iced chai. i thought of a couple directions to take on the drawings i'm going to try for tonight, for my upcoming visit to minot state university, in north dakota.

did i mention that it's fucking 88 goddam degrees?