The price of hobbies

photo by Petr Kratochvil

In 2009, I did about 37 races. Highlights included Battenkill, Frankenmuth, the team winning our Tour of the Valley race, doing the Chicago Criterium, and finishing off the season strong at Tamarack. From a results standpoint, the cyclocross seasons was a disaster, but fun was generally had at the races where the bike didn't break.

When I encountered Brian a few months ago on a late afternoon autumn ride, we talked about how the end of the road racing season means catching up on things put off for the last seven months. I guess doing all of this racing and riding forces you to compromise other aspects of your life.

Nothing illustrates this point better than a recent trip to Target with Katie (who has her own time consuming hobbies) when we bought some silverware and three steak knives which is, by itself, not all that noteworthy.

The noteworthy part about these purchases is the sheer absurdity of the state of our utensils for the last several years. To put it nicely, in many aspects of our lives, we live like people in abject poverty, not because we are poor, but because we are too lazy to buy stuff like knives. For many years, we used crooked forks, crappy spoons, and three knives, none of which matched and few of which worked.

We live like this not because we have to, but because we always have something better to do than shop for knives or do other things that responsible adults do. Going for a three hour ride, playing with our dogs, or making a new coat from old clothes are generally more appealing activities than driving to the store to buy kitchenware.

So now, we actually have silverware that is not a total embarrassment.

I wish I could say the same for our moderately operational gas range, which we are prepared to replace next time we have a chance.

But not today. I need to ride the trainer.