I'm in Love

...with my soon to be new road bike. My Bitch (pictured above chillin' in Kona) is going to have a new sister, and my existing road bike is going to be sold (anyone interested, let me know and I'll send you the specs and pricing information).

My new frame has been located. I'm told I will have a one of a kind because this frame is a rare bird--I suppose I could have named her "rara avis," but once I have her, I'll reveal her name.

In some ways, I'm a miser--I don't spend money on the "typical" things many people do--going to the movies, stylish clothing, makeup, fancy car, home renovation and decor. Since my 20's I've been saving as much money as possible, because I have never felt financially secure. Why? Because growing up I wasn't. My Dad had his own business for awhile, and when that folded due to technological advances (even though he's an extremely intelligent man), I believe he fell into a depression of sorts and didn't work for many years, and my Mom took over the family upkeep. I can't complain too much, though, because we still had a roof over our heads, we didn't suffer for good food (my Mom was a great cook--not the way I cook, but great for the family), and we still received Christmas and birthday presents, although they were usually necessities. I did spend a bit more while I was married because we had 2 incomes, but it's just me now, so I'm still careful.

I never felt like I was missing out on much because I had many things going for me--we had a piano, and I could play it. Out of 5 kids, I was the only one who was drawn to it instinctively. I began playing tunes I had heard in cartoons by ear at the age of 4. Mom threw some music in front of me by age 5, and I picked up the notation as if it were my native language, and I began lessons by age 6. That piano is still in my childhood home, and I believe my Mom has left it to me in her will, but I do not wish to take it away while my Dad is still living. It's a beautiful, upright Wurlitzer with real ivory keys. You cannot get ivory keys on a piano now, and I would not want them--but the piano was made about 70 years ago, and back then we thought we could kill as many elephants for their tusks as we wanted to make pianos and jewelry! I loved playing the piano--now I just have an electric Rhodes (88 keys, though), that I just tinker on every now and then.

Sometime during grade school (while my Dad was still employed), our ONE TV died, and Dad decided not to fix it (he had at one time worked for Admiral TV, so he knew how to fix it) for an entire summer. No problem! I went to the pool to hang out every afternoon, I taught myself to crochet, and Dad made us read books and do book reports. So I developed a love for handicrafts and reading.

I was into school from the get-go. Back when I was in grade school, it was acceptable for teachers to single out the brighter kids. Lucky for me, because I was one of them, and there were competitions held in reading and math, and I was all over that. So my competitive streak was developed beginning in the first grade! If there was a prize, I was going to win it, dammit, even though the age group was coed!

In 3rd grade, we had the first "election" for a Class President. It was me against a boy. The boy won by one vote, and I was crushed. Welcome to sex discrimination! That one incident set me out to excel even more and show that I could play with the big boys--I DID win the very next election, so I guess I was pushing for women's rights way back then!

By 5th grade, my teachers knew they needed to do something special with me, as I was well beyond the rest of the class, even the other bright kids. My parents did not have money to send me to a private school, and they had tried skipping me 3 grades when I was in first grade, but the principal wouldn't do it because he didn't think my emotional development could take it (in retrospect, I bet if I was a boy they would have skipped me without batting an eye). So early on I was progressing beyond the rest of my classmates, no thanks to a rich intellectual environment at home--we played a lot of mental games including "Go to the Head of the Class" (the precursor to Trivial Pursuit, only it wasn't about trivia), watched a lot of National Geographic and Jacques Cousteau specials on TV, and my Dad took me on regular trips to the Art Institute of Chicago and Ravinia Festival.

So in 5th grade, my teachers allowed me to "fast track" myself in math, reading and Spanish, and I would just "sit through" the other subjects and keep quiet, unless the teacher specifically called on me to answer a question nobody else could. I went to summer school beginning in 7th grade, not because I HAD to, but because I WANTED TO.

My high school was forewarned about me (still public school), since they would need to do something for me lest I be royally bored. So I studied 3 foreign languages at the same time (Spanish, Russian and German), became a teacher's aide in all three, and they put me in math and English classes with kids 2 years older than me, and I was still rather bored and threw off the grading curve. Yes, back then we had ACTUAL GRADES and we were all evaluated against one another. It was a beautiful world to me! I graduated high school as one of 4 valedictorians, but I am always careful to point out that I was the only 1 of the 4 who had perfect straight A's for the QUARTERS, not just at the end of each year! I also graduated with twice the credits required to graduate.

Oh, and the only sports I did back then was badminton--I was on a coed intramural team with this guy and we beat the pants off everyone else. The very first arrow I shot in gym class was a bulls-eye, but I never pursued that. I sucked at golf and kickball. I would ride my bike recreationally as a way to cool the mental jets and get fresh air.

7th grade was when I took up sewing and cooking and learned to type. My typing teacher was amazed at how fast I was right away (80+ wpm), and I told him I played piano, and I asked him if that explained it, and he grinned and said, "Yes, it most certainly does." I moved up to 100+wpm over the summer, and this enabled me to begin working part-time alongside my Mom.

The sewing thing was initially a necessity, as my Mom had been sewing my clothes, but since she had to return to work because my Dad decided to stay unemployed for awhile, she wouldn't have time to sew so much, and as a young girl, I wanted to be somewhat fashionable, so I taught myself.

My academic glories paid off, as I earned a full scholarship to Northwestern University, where I decided to "have fun," and didn't worry so much about my grades. In the end, I graduated with an A minus average, and I was perfectly OK with that. I started out pre-med, then switched to biomechanical engineering, then education, and finally, I majored in math. If I had honed in on math right away, I would have had a graduate degree in 4 years, but I wasn't worried.

I worked while I was in college, too--for 2 years as an assistant to a genetics professor (mostly feeding and cleaning up after fruit flies, ah, Drosophila!), and then doing night office work typing from dictation. The night job was a buzz, because they paid me for 4 hours no matter how long the work took! Since I was still a speedy typist, I would get the work done in 1.5-2 hours max. But I was so honest, I kept telling them to leave me more, and they just couldn't believe I was getting it all done so fast. After a few months, I began CORRECTING what I was hearing and putting little notes on the finished product to let them know what I had changed. After another month or so, they told me to stop leaving the notes, because they trusted me to correct things! What was I typing? Group insurance quotes from Underwriters. So as I typed, I learned another new skill. The year I took off from college to earn some more money (the academic scholarship didn't include extracurriculars like my Sorority dues), this company (Washington National Insurance) happily allowed me to work full-time, and even as they saw me work live, they couldn't believe what I could do. So they immediately promoted me (much to the chagrin of some other young women who had worked there for a few years), and asked if I wanted to become an Underwriter. But lucky for me, the Group Actuary asked to speak with me about a career as an Actuary. So I began taking those exams, finished up my last year of college, and during my last year I got a job at a consulting firm doing actuarial calculations and working with computer programs to calculate numbers required to be reported to the government about pension plans.

Through all of this, I lived frugally, because it was just how I had been raised. When I got the job at the consulting firm, though, I couldn't believe how much money they were going to pay me, and yet I still didn't go wild spending. And even as my career marched on through my 20's and 30's, it was always difficult for me to make big purchases. Still is.

So now I'm about to drop major cash on a new bike. All I needed was some encouragement from a few "enablers" to convince me I deserved the new bike. I do have the money, and even though I don't live as frugally as I once did, I still do not spend to the same level that many people I know do. But I also love the fact that I can cook really well, sew really well and even fix a few things myself. My Mom said, right up until her death last year, that she was always conflicted about how "independent" I grew up to be. Needless to say, it can get me into a bit of trouble with men, because I am not one to act dumb or helpless. But it applies equally well to other women, who can be puzzled by my assertive nature. Triathlon is a good thing for me because it allows me to be myself 100%, even if at times I appear overly aggressive in my goal setting or race expectations.

And I'm still cheap in some ways. But now it's more of a selective cheapness. I could care less that my kitchen could use an overhaul--I'd rather have a new bike! I should have the entire interior of my house painted, but I can't stand the thought of how much time it would take to move all the furniture (which invariably leads to assessing every single object and whether it should stay or go) and all that--I'd rather be out riding my bike!

My new bike comes at a good time for me. It seems that I go in 5-year cycles, where there is some major change. I suppose this new bike is sort of a mid-life crisis, but I don't feel like I'm in a crisis--just that it was time for me to be a little frivolous.

I'm not saying what the new bike is--when it's built, I will take pictures (good ones), and tell all about it. And now I need to begin saving for my 2008 exploits, which will involve my butt on that bike for many miles. I'm definitely going to California in February to ride the Tour of California ahead of the peloton, and someone gave me another idea for one of my dream trips--cycling in Italy! So those 2 things will bracket my next year, and I have no clue what will come in between, but I suspect my Bitch will feel left out if I don't fit in a few triathlons, at least 1/2 Ironman distance. But so far, 2008 does not include an Ironman.

I suppose I'm also feeling good today because I slept a solid 9 hours last night, even though I had my first near-death experience riding outdoors. Yes, that's right--my first outdoor ride, and I almost got killed! Good thing I was paying attention to the stupid fool turning right trying to run me over and was able to swerve to avoid being hit. The man apologized to me, but I told him, "You need to look BOTH WAYS AND USE TURN SIGNALS." Of course, that nice statement followed on the heels of an extremely loud diatribe, whose contents I will not reproduce here.

It's spring, I'm in love, life is great!