My Birthday photo (NOT my birthday suit-don't go there). I love this outfit.

An interesting birthday-not the most spectacular one I've ever had, but not one where I'm suicidal or anything dumb.

Just...interesting. Like the whole f**kin' week.

Yesterday was a most interesting ride (read: up and down, mentally/physically). You know HOW strange? I didn't take ANY pictures. Not ONE.

One weird day, starting out good, ending with a myriad of different kinds of thoughts and post-ride quarterbacking.
It was also a weird day in that I took my camera and DID NOT TAKE ONE SINGLE PICTURE. NOT ONE. I don't know why, just didn't feel like it. Didn't even ask anyone to take a pic of me (I like to have pics so that I can see what outfits go together and what works for what weather. So many different things fit now that I can't keep track/don't remember what works and what doesn't).

Firstly, I'm very grateful for Glen Sandstrom and Gary Felkel for the reassurance I feel when they're Tailgunners behind me. I kid them alot, they kid me back, but I love those two guys for the way they took care of me and protected me when I was having some riding issues. They didn't say anything about the gust that caught me in the twisties in the mountains coming down to Palm Desert, but I could feel them watching me and ready to jump in if something went wrong. Same thing on the 10 fwy. between Yes, I know that a Tailgunner must stay with a rider who feels they have to address a problem, but I feel like Glen and Gary went much farther for me. Until I realized that I ABSOLUTELY had to get off to do some fix-it, they were escorting me on the freeway, Glen in front and Gary behind me. When I had to get off the freeway, Glen came with me & offered ideas for stabilizing things that were pulling my focus on the 10 & loaned me his $125 goggles (those were SWEET, he got 'em at a shooting shop, and they LOOKED GOOD on me. Felt like stealing them or 'forgetting' to give them back), and Gary for waiting on the side of the freeway to make sure I got to the gas stop safely. I'm not TOO PROUD to recognize that they made my comfort level go 'way up with their support and encouragement, and faith in my riding ability.

The day started out good in that I picked out the correct clothing to wear the night before. I remembered our first official ride with Chapter 230 to Tehachapi in 2007 and how I FROZE. (We weren't on the email list yet so didn't get the head's up about riding gear & I thought I could kinda make do with some of my skiing stuff. NOPE) Richard Von Luft sent a website out that I'd had on my toolbar but TOTALLY forgot about since it was on there for about 500 years (ok, I exaggerate a tad) and never used the damn thing, so THANK YOU Richard, it's awesome! that calcs the mileage AND the temps for where you're going, what time and what date, up to 10 days after your current date. I plugged in the 13th of March, and saw that THE TRIP WAS GONNA BE FRICKIN' COLD, 47 degrees outta Mountain Center. We're talking 47 degrees in the middle of the day. LAYERS LAYERS LAYERS LAYERS did the trick, plus Bub put in his 2 cents work and made me take another, warmer pair of gloves.
Was a great idea, he always comes thru for me & I wish he coulda gone but he had the 6th off and the ride was called off and postponed until the 13th so he couldn't get off that date. IF he wasn't watching me ride off that morning, I SWEAR I woulda taken his bike. I should have, as you'll read later.
I emailed an officer of the chapter and told him I was gonna kind of be weird that day since Bub wouldn't be there and he said don't worry about it, I have friends there and it'll be ok.
(I ended up eating alone anyway until Glen and Gary started in on me. Made me feel a little better. It's hard to find layers of clothing that fit me now, but when I was going thru Laine's closet and drawers I saw a ton of his pants and jeans that he left behind. Yup, I found 4 pair that fit EXCELLENTLY, and wore one pair of his jeans yesterday. I didn't care that they had a 'wallet worn' back pocket outline, just now I don't have to go buy any. Interesting side note-a few weeks ago I found a couple pair of jeans in my closet and was wearing a pair just to see if they fit, what they looked like, etc. Barry texted me from his work and asked me to find his black thermal turtleneck and his black jeans because he was going to an "Unofficial" Bike Night (which I didn't know anything about where/when but I was teaching anyway). Found his T-neck, told him I could NOT find his black jeans for the life of me, where'd he leave them, yada, yada, yada. I was in the middle of texting him this when I realized that I was wearing the damn things-I thought they were mine.

TO CONTINUE ONWARD RE: RIDE YESTERDAY MARCH 13TH...
I wore comfy stuff, went down to the staging area and milled around as usual, chatting. Bought some raffle tix from Johney who came up behind me when I was calling Barry, telling him I got there and there's this big cheerful/smiling/booming voice over my shoulder and repeating me, "Yeah Barry, she got here ok". Found out that some people really DO like my blog here. I'm glad that people read and enjoy it and compliment me on my pics. Also found out that quite a few people on Facebook read it also and believe it or not, are actually helped by it.
When our President Terry warned us that there'd be wind, I thought that NO WIND could be worse than the wind on the way to Vegas. BOY was I wrong. But that's later.
I'm in group 2 as usual, Dan's in the lead, then Chuck & Patty, Charlie and Carol, me, Ryan, Glen and Gary. Great, the Sunshine Boys are behind me. Passed a HORRIFIC accident on the 91/55 with an SUV that had overturned and a smaller car into the side by a tree-the fire department was still trying to cut someone out of the smaller car. I don't see how anyone could have survived the SUV rollover-windows were cracked all to shit. Gas in Temecula (I think it was) then onward onto the Pines to Palms route. YES it got cold but it was doable since I had on glove liners/thermal socks/my long silky thermal underwear/head & neck coverup-balaclava, thermal T-neck and a ski sweater plus T-shirt underneath everything. It was just barely enough-it was cold but doable. NOTE TO SELF-probably need to wear a better leather jacket-that 'work' one I use isn't good enough nor lined to keep my core warm.
The TROUBLE started when we left a brief potty stop at (I think) Hemet Lake. Now, one thing I'll say about our Group Leader Dan (the immediate Past President)-he takes care of his group, always asking me if I'm ok, good to go, just, you know, caring about the group. It's easy to read him/follow him, I always know when he's gonna switch lanes or signal for a lane change or speed up. We went up to a summit past Black Hill, then while coming down into the curvies, a HUGE gust caught me by surprise. I almost pulled a shoulder muscle, trying to maintain the bike. Ryan behind me said that I looked like I was leaning nicely into a turn but then realized that I WASN'T TURNING. He said I handled it fine, though. He didn't realize that it FREAKED me out because THEN for the rest of the twisties I was waiting for the next gust, wondering if the next one would take me out. I should have better confidence in my riding ability, but frankly after seeing my husband TWICE go down on rides, with the 2nd time having a serious injury, well, I can get a tad concerned. The apprehension of the gusts totally ruined my enjoyment of the curvies. I did get some warning occasionally, because I saw Dan in the left lane go around a curve then end up in the right lane too early into the turn. I wondered 'why would he do that?' and then the same wind would catch me. Oh boy, I LEARNED. The others said that they had the same thing going on to a lesser extent because they had heavier (much!) bikes. Got down finally into Palm Desert, we were talking about the wind when we came to lights. I wasn't the only one who wasn't that thrilled-Patty (on the back of Chuck who was wing) said it kinda took her by surprise and not in a good way. The bikes that were riding 2 up and were heavier bikes were in good shape for windy weather. It's just that my bike is at least 100 pounds lighter than the next higher up bike, the 1100, God only knows how much lighter than everyone else's PLUS about 55 pound slighter than I'm used to, so I'm being blown like a leaf. Oh, wait, it GETS WORSE later on.
Lunch in warmth in Palm Desert, we shucked down to T-shirts.
I knew that the gas stop was around Banning or somewhere so I checked the Blackberry for the temp and it was 61 degrees. Somebody said they were just going to wear their shirts and put their jackets away for a bit, but I mentioned that it was 61 degrees, they might not want to put the jackets away. Turned out to be a good thing. NowTAZ, I don't know HOW he did it, but he was in shirtsleeves and a light denim vest going all the way thru the entire ride. And we all thought JOHN RUHLAND was a polar bear!
We get onto the 10 freeway and after 5 minutes I KNOW I'm in trouble. When you look over to the windmill thingys and there's a big dust cloud off to the distance quasi-obscurring them, you KNOW there's some serious wind action. The crosswinds were bad enough, tossing my bike around and me straining my muscles to hold my bike steady, but the crosswinds are also trying to whip my glasses off my face. It's a little hard to hold your bike steady when your glasses are about to lift off by themselves, so after a few more miles I tapped the top of my helmet to tell the guys that I had to pull over and readjust stuff. Got onto an offramp with Glen and changed into glasses that were tighter, got back on and got in with Group 3. It didn't work-my glasses seemed kinda ok, were moving around a little, but NOW my tankbag was trying to take off, and it has 4 magnets. HAD to pull off again at the Rest Stop and THIS time Glen offered me his goggles and I bungee'd the tank bag to my back seat. MUCH better, zoomed it to 80. Gary was by the side of the freeway by Cabazon, waiting for us. Got to the gas stop, people in my group were concerned wondering where I was. (Don't think the other groups knew, Richard noticed because he told me he was surprised that all of a sudden I'm in their group! and what happened.) Doing a post ride 20/20 hindsight, I felt that the wind was worse than on the way to Vegas, but Vegas didn't bother me as much since I was wearing a full-face and everything was bungee'd down for the trip. Dan asked if I was ok to go, because if he saw me riding ok, he'd continue his speed, but if he saw me lagging back then he'd slow down. I told him I was fine now with Glen's goggles because I zoomed it fine to gas.
Got to El Torito fine, even though I was inwardly berating myself for my riding UNcapability. I was told that my riding had really really improved, that person was very pleasantly surprised at my much improved riding abilities, and that made ME surprised because I thought I was riding my usual way. Huh. I will say again that Barry going down twice affects my riding, because I'm always checking for him, seeing if he's doing ok. Pulls my focus away from my riding, especially in curves where I can't see him. I remember seeing him go to the other side of the road and fall off the bike the first time in my rearview mirror, and the second time hearing the scraping of metal on the asphalt, praying to myself that it wasn't Barry, then coming around the corner and seeing him lying there in the middle of the road with the bike on him, trying to get up. That's why I prefer now to ride at least one or two other riders. My own peace of mind.

I had a multitude of moods and emotions going on, not the least is being freaked out by the wind gusts of riding my normal 'ok' way AND feeling stupid for letting stuff get to me, so I couldn't resist trying to salvage my pride by zooming it from a light before an expert and excellent rider (on a Roadie that was almost 3x the size of mine) did. Sorry, couldn't resist it. Haven't done that type of thing in a LONG time.

On a scale of 1-10, I honestly can't say how the total day went-so much was going thru my mind, so many things happened that day, great, good and bad, that I just...don't...know.
I just hope Wednesday's Weekday Ride to Joshua Tree on March 17th is better. It'll be a big change for once-no drinking on my birthday the day before.

A Day at the DMV, that Driver's License comes FAST in the mail! & bummer news about the free birthday admission to Disneyland promo.

Bummer news-Disneyland is no longer having the 'Free on your Birthday' promotion. Ended in 2009.

Now, on to the DMV.

My Driver's License picture SUCKED, I've hated it ever since it was taken, so this year it came due on my birthday (March birthdays indicate my sign is Pisces, which Barry actually says is 'Feces') & I wanted to get a new pic. I knew that you can't get a new picture unless something really drastic happens, like a name change or something big.

Like weight change.

I saw on a blog or something that a considerable weight change that was obviously apparent was a good reason to get a new pic.

BINGO.

I figured that 55 pounds and 5 dress sizes was adequate, and it was.

Soooo...

I got the renewal in the mail in February about 6 weeks prior to my birthday. A week or so later when I found out about the new pic criteria, I went online to make an appointment. For my first choice Santa Ana DMV, the first available appointment was MARCH 22ND. Oopsie, that's PAST my birthday, so second choice was Fullerton. Got an appointment for today, March 11th at 8:44 AM.
Now, the reason why I made an appointment is because when I was online eyeballing the different offices that were close to me, I saw that each office had 'time counters', aka little counters that tell you the wait times for those with appointments and those who were walk-ins. Appointment wait time in middle of the day for both Fullerton and Santa Ana was appx. 40 minutes: wait time for walk-ins, 3 HOURS.

Yup, appointment all the way, unless I wanted to wait and read "War and Peace". Or do my taxes.

Before the appointment, I'm over-thinking the photo and the procedure-"What do I wear? What color looks good on me? Will I have to take the written test for C1 AND M1 (car and motorcycle)? Will I even PASS the written MC one?" (it's changed & harder-I saw the sample online tests)

Appointment day comes, hair turns out good, the sweater top is good (one of Jackie's old ones that she left here plus the turquoise and silver necklace she gave me), and I decide to get there earlier than my appointment.
GOOD CALL.
When I got there at 8:33 AM, not only were there maybe only 7 parking spaces left in the lot, but the line was around the building.
I got in line, started chatting with another guy, and after seeing some people go in and NOT come back out, I asked the guy to save my place and decided to see if there was a special check-in area for appointments.
YES THERE IS-inside it was Window 25.
Checked in, got form DL144 that you HAVE TO FILL OUT THERE, no copies allowed, got a number and waited maybe 10 minutes to be processed.
Was notified on the monitor that my number was called and what window to go to, went to Window 6 , gave over my paperwork, paid the $31 fee (debit card, forgot to get a check from home & they do NOT take credit cards), questions answered, printout and receipt gotten, AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO TAKE A WRITTEN TEST!!!
Went to Camera 1 and into THAT line. It was about 12 people, seemed to move fast.
My turn, had to sign onto an electronic signature thingy (like the one you sign when you get a FedEx package), then an electronic thumbprint (no more ink), then the picture. The clerk commented that my necklace was very pretty, told her it was from my daughter in Santa Fe, NM. She positioned me, I smiled (I practiced in the mirror that morning!!! I know, I'm such a weirdo), and she took it. I asked, "Did it come out good?" and she said yeah, very good, then told me she was adjusting the pic slightly so that the necklace showed. Wasn't that really cool of her!? I got my stuff, and just before I left I told her that her auburn hair color was perfect-she told me it was Preference by L'Oreal and I agreed that was the BEST.
I got outta there by 8:56, close to the time my appointment was supposed to be. Hey, it can NEVER hurt to be really early, especially for any parking or traffic situations. I try to be early-early to places anyway. Worst case scenario, I play games on my Blackberry.
While I was erroneously in line I was chatting with the guy in front of me (before I wised up to the appointment desk), & he commented that it was pretty busy and there were SO many people there. I told him that the DMV would be closed on Friday so people couldn't come for 3 days.

UPDATE ON MARCH 19TH, 2010:
Appointment was the morning of March 11th, right? Received my new license on Friday, March 19th.
WOW.

Ok, the cruise from Feb. 8-12, 2010 pictures, I FOUND THE OTHER SD MEMORY CARDS REPEAT I FOUND THE SD CARDS!!!

BARRY is the packer par elegance. ALL THIS CRAP for 4 people, 4 nights. All the luggage is in a van that we borrowed from a friend. A VAN.
To the right, the ship from the embarkation ramp. This is getting EXCITING!

This is going up the ramp. The QM is right there next to the Carnival Terminal, the old Spruce Goose Exhibit. I remember when the Queen Mary came to her final parking spot back in the '60's. My dad worked on getting the electrical systems up to snuff back then, and the Millikan High School Prom in June 1972 was here. That's when I graduated, Millikan High School in Long Beach.

Our room, complete with champagne and cabernet.

Below, the ACTUAL view from our stateroom. The one on the left is with my phone, the one on the right is with my camera on a higher deck.

Ordered 2-3 of each item we wanted. Oh YEAH.

Below, Rhoda in HER room. It was 1-2 decks higher than ours, so I think hers had about maybe 5 square feet more space.

Star and Ted at the first night's dinner.

Mickey and Reinie. (sorry if I spelled it wrong!)

Muster drill. Notice that WE don't have to wear those 'Mae Wests'?

Below, the INFAMOUS Carnival 'tail'.

One of the first things you see is the middle of the atrium. Spectacular.

Going aboard, everybody passes this way to get to the buffet before they close. Dis is da way, peeps! (below)

More of the atrium ceiling.

Photo below left of the Long Beach skyline with Seaport Village in the foreground. We're getting ready to leave and it's windy cold, so we need to warm up with some alcohol! Below, the FIRST drinks, DEFINITELY not the last.

"Um, Lynne? Quit taking damn pictures! Can we go in now? I'm cold!"

It was eerie at night, not just because of the lights and darkness, but WHERE WAS EVERYBODY? Oh, yeah, getting ready for dinner. You can see the lights of Long Beach 'way back there.

Chocolate molten lava cake. OMG. That's all I can say.

Now, this might be too personal, BUT I was suffering...lemme change that, I was having some SERIOUSLY BAD gas attacks, and BUB was suffering. He finally had to resort to this, below left. To the right, morning at Catalina from our stateroom.

Catalina, I thought this was neat, using old 45's.

Yup, I took these pictures from the 'tender', the boat that goes from the ship to the shore.

Bub, as usual, waiting for me to get done shopping and looking at the sky, thinking to himself that we'd better get our asses aboard ship before it started raining. We made it with about 1/2 hour to spare. You wouldn't think that it was going to rain that hard, looking at the morning pic and the pic when we left the ship, but it rolled in pretty quickly.
Yup, I took all these shots. I AM getting pretty damn good at this stuff. I wanna take a class. (Yes, I AM the quintessential perennial student!) Below is the deck when we were leaving Catalina. I was walking around the top in my water shoes and umbrella.

The infamous tail with the waterslide. No one was around because it was frickin' raining!

Ok, a few diehards in the jacuzzi in the rain.

Sunset leaving Catalina. I took about 4-5 of these shots and each one was pretty spectacular.

Sunrise over Ensenada.

Went outside so Bub could smoke. It was cold but got better more towards the day.

The actual inside of a lifeboat.

Stopped at Havana Banana, where a Corona, guacamole, and a blue-haired bartender was all I needed.

No matter where you go, no matter what kind of hellhole you end up in, there's ALWAYS a McDonald's. The good thing was that there was a Starbuck's right across the street.

Below is sunset leaving Ensenada from two different places on board. I really loved going to the highest decks at sunrise and sunset, or being on a deck where I could 'frame' the shot. There were so many people up on the top decks who appreciated what Nature could show us, if we only took the time to look. That's what's nice about a cruise-you have the time to look...to experience...to relax.

I saw James Rawlinson's idea of dressing up the towel animal, so I wanted to go one better. Nyah, nyah, nyah!!! Above is the formal night picture. This is the ONLY picture I DIDN'T take, but just scanned in.
On the last day of the cruise, there were trivia games galore. We won one-Bub is holding the infamous 'ship on a stick'. Below are pics of the sunset over San Clemente Island on the last day, Thursday.

Barry always ordered lox and bagels and cream cheese, BUT he'd usually order about 3 sets of these.

Okkkaaaayyy, the last night Brian and Ted decided to do an impromtu strip tease. The SCARY thing is that there was absolutely NO alcohol involved with these two.

The first morning (I actually put the order out the night before, on Monday night) I ordered the 'Continental' breakfast, which had a TON of stuff on it. As usual (as I learned in the hospital and from past cruises), I ordered 2 & 3 of each item. Except for the cereal, I ordered almost every single thing on the menu. Hey, if I'm gonna eat my way down the coast of Cali and Mexico, I might as well start ASAP!

Carnival allows passengers to bring on board one bottle of wine or champagne per person in their carryon. I put them into my 'wheelie' bag. They don't specify the size bottle, so we brought two 1.5 liters of Cabernet, plus I always order a bottle of Champagne to be delivered to the room as soon as we get aboard. Let the blitzing begin! I figure since I don't have to drive, then I'm ok. For a few days. We ended up bringing the wine to the dinner table for everybody to enjoy. Even though we were charged $10 for a 'corkage' fee, it was totally worth it.

I HAD to bring on board a bottle of Amaretto, which goes very well on the rocks OR with orange juice. You can only get orange juice in the mornings at breakfast in the buffet, (during the day they charge you) so I'd fill up my big Royal caribbean mug with OJ and put it into the ice bucket. Stayed great all day.

Here's towel banana boy to the right AFTER we got done with him. Below, he's pretty plain.

Below, a proper British tea in the America Bar, the ONLY place inside the ship where people could smoke.

On the right, the 'almost' top deck on Thursday. Was a great day to be at sea, balmy weather in the mid to upper 60's, sunny.

Below, tiramisu. I would order 2-3 appetizers i.e. salad, a couple of shrimp cocktails, maybe a soup, then 2-3 entrees, and 2-3 desserts and try them all. My big problem is that I DON'T know when to stop eating. The problem is that when you get bored, you eat. I gained 6 pounds from Monday morning until Friday night & it took me about 2-3 weeks to finally come back to normal, whatever normal is. Ok, come back to what I weighed the day we left.

After hitting each buffet, this is where Bub would go-snooze time.
Rip Van Shapiro.

Below right, another pic of sunset over San Clemente Island on the last day.

Yeah, as they have done on every cruise since the Kon-Tiki, PEOPLE PLAY SHUFFLEBOARD.

The Normandie Lounge is HUGE, as you can see below. This is where everything happens at night, entertainment-wise. I will mention that the Captain's Reception on formal night Tuesday did NOT have free drinks, the drinks were on special for $1 off. They DID have a 'passenger appreciation night' on Thursday night and it was, believe it or not, pretty much all you could drink. I had (I think) about 4 whiskey sours. Maybe more. Things started to get kinda fuzzy around then, and I DID have to dress for dinner in my fabulous Catalina Island $19.95 dress, 'way below.

To the left, the Carnival Cruise line's mascot, "Fun Ship Freddie".

Below you can see 5 levels of the Atrium, the middle of the whole ship and where everybody ends up.

On the left, 3 decks at the stearn with people looking out at where we'd been. That bottom area deck with the yellow umbrellas is the Serenity deck, for adults only. They have 2 jacuzzis and I HEARD that it's where adults can go topless. Now that I've seen it, I don't think so because people can look right down onto the deck!