2023-03-04 - 8:03 p.m.

I enjoyed a lovely bike ride. OK , wait- let me re-phrase,

I enjoyed bike ride that was lovely at times but challenging at times.

I popped the air intake valve off my tire right after I cleaned up my bike chain good and was getting the tires ready to go.
Bummed.

I was using a bike pump I was not familiar with which was acquired in my son's NYC move (and depositing stuff here). He is very zen with non attachment so said give it away, or use , whatever. ( My house got some upgrades frankly from furinshings. Sad when your recent college grad had nicer stuff during the first years out of college hustle of bartending, waiting tables and auditioning. But true.... his manager re-decorated the office and he got a couple items that I enjoy in my living room now. Hope that does not freak him out should he visit here someday.

I like my cozy living room now, where I am sitting getting ready to chill watching some TV.

So after I popped my tire I was grateful that among acquired left things from kid, there was not only a bike pump but also bikes. One with seat high clearly my sons, and then one green bike with shorter seat set up that had to have been his girlfriends. I was thinking it was odd she dropped that off too and did not take it with her ( she dropped his stuff off en route to her place she was headed to at the time).

It made perfect sense after I rode that bike home and discovered that it has an issue. The pedals are not engaging with the gears correctly and slip, in a very familiar way as it is the same problem had here with one my kid's bikes we made the mistake of trying to assemble ourselves.

It is a problem with the assembly, set up and I think a balancing issue. There are these little balls inside the mechanism and if you mess with them they are unbalances ( we figured this out after messing with the ones in the set of of the bike assembly my neighbor botched when helping me as I had no idea what I was doing. He was very kind, but unfortunately he also had no idea what he was doing. He got further than me but also broke that part of the bike in a way.)

It the same issue- so what that means is the bike is fine when riding level but once need to engage the gears to push uphill at all it SLIPS.

Ironic
the bike drives ok until accellerating on a incline up! HA HA Just like the car I just dropped off.

So yeah while the ride home was lovely WHEN LEVEL
it was challenging biking uphill.

I feel really good though. I typically feel energized after a ride. I came home and made some cole slaw, put it in the fridge to chill and crisp up, then took a nice bath and then made papusas!

We found frozen papusas at H Mart where the one kid and I stocked up one day last week. My kids love Asian food and we all love the interesting fun cookies that we can get there which are not at the regular supermarket, along with all sorts of fun ethnic foods. Our freezer is packed with fun things like Samoas, Korean dumplings, stir fries- Pad Thai. I did get prepared and frozen foods much more than typical. ( I do know how to make them from scratch but the frozen food isle was treasure trove of ready made marvelous things!) We bought some fresh mochi as well.
Then the veggies! Oh the veggies-
tiny little chinese cabbages my kid was excited to get to throw in their ramen.
Ramen noodles with seasonings that are far better than the basic chicken and whatever you find in the typical American grocery store. Udon noodles..(lots of dried noodles. We have rice, sweet potatos, Vienamese, Japanese.)
It was funny to NOT buy curry or spices, but we were already well stocked with those.

Oh and another treat which was good was this odd sweet potatoe- purple ( Korean I think) ice cream pops!

and the Maria cookies. I love those simple buicuit cookies once in a while with a cup of coffee. I HID as many of the sweets as possible so that we don't overindulge and eat them slowly ( when we find them! HA)
If they are all in plain sight I know we will just eat them faster. We will eat them cause they are THERE and not only once in a while when crave or have the actual taste for something sweet.
I was trying really hard to cut the sweets.

OK so I cut the CHOCOLATE.

No chocolate.
I did stock up on nuts. Lots of nuts: Pistachio, almond, pecan.

And not much ice cream. ( My kids love ice cream!) Just the one package of the purple sweet potatoe (or yam?) ice cream bars.

Basically we stocked up for the next month or so ( maybe longer). We have chicken in the freezer and tofu and beans so honestly bread and milk and some fresh fruit when that is out is all we will get for next month or more.

H Mart is near the one specialist my kid goes to, so when they have that doctor appointment a couple times a year we enjoy that big shopping trip if the kid is up for it, I was glad that my kid has been feeling well and we enjoyed the shopping trip.

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