14. join an activity association, like a tennis club

I joined the Delaware Running Club last January but never actually ran with them, which is why I never posted about it. They run 8 miles in a night and well, I don't.

Two weeks ago though I joined the DC Chain Gang, which is a group of Washingtonians who all go on social bike rides around the city sometimes during the week, sometimes the weekend. Although I wasn't officially part of the group on fb before going on the trip, I signed up afterwards.




It was a beautiful day for the Bikes & Bluegrass trip! Although meterologists were threatening rain, the deluge didn't come until 5pm. My brother, Lee, joined me on the trip. He just got a Canadian road bike. My bestie, Sarah, said that I could use her bike since she's pregnant and living in LA and the bike was here on the east coast. It's a steel cherry red touring schwin from 1987. so lovely, I've named her Dottie, like from Pee Wee's Great Adventure, "I'm a rebel, Dottie."

The Chain Gang started in the Key Bridge Park in Georgetown. We rode through Rossyln down around the Iwojima Memorial, passed the Arlington Cemetary and continued south past National Airport to where the W&OD trail starts. Taking the W&OD north west through Arlington, we got onto the Bluemont Park Trail straight into Balston and then took the bike lane on Fairfax Drive into Clarendon. Stopped at Whole Foods for some lunch, and man, I was so SO hungry. Lee and I dropped about $80 because my eyes were bigger than my stomach :) But I took it home to Wilmington and it fed me all week too.





We took our food treasure into Lyon Park and listened to a twenty-year old tradition of bluegrass musicians jamming on Sundays in the park. There was one lady who was such a pip, she came over and asked us to share our food, and then she nudged a bunch of players to come serenade the group with a song about Bluebirds calling us back to the Blue Ridge Mountains and it was so beautiful, I got a little teary. As 5 o'clock came around the skies started getting darker and the wind picked up and the leaves turned over in the trees and it was time for Lee and I to hit the road, I had to get back to the Small Wonderful and Clawdia (my perfect kitten). Lee and I raced home but still got stuck in a downpour. We were so totally soaked by the time we got home that we just sat in the back yard and let the rain shower away the salt from the day. Hopefully this summer I'll get to go on another ride with the DC Chain Gang, now that I'm on the facebook group and get the notices for when rides are happening. Unfortunately, it IS in DC so I can only do weekend rides, but still, it's the joining that's important :)

28. grow mermaid hair, make mermaid suit, be a mermaid for the Coney Island Mermaid Parade

I don't know when the Coney Island Mermaid Parade came to my attention, but it was sometime this year and I had been promoting the hell out of it with no luck until about a month ago. There was a bike ride in Trenton, NJ and a bunch of people drove to New Jersey from NYC and DC and the Philly area to all go on this ride, which was my first social ride and I was super excited about meeting new cyclists. Well, turns out that the lady from NYC, Megan, was interested in joining me for the Mermaid Parade! Then a week later I was talking to a buddy of mine in the Small Wonderful, Jenna, and she said she was interested in going too! So after a couple months of no bites on this idea, I had two really awesome ladies willing to join me!

Although the task at hand was to grow my hair really long, it just wasn't growing fast enough so I had to go and buy extensions for my hair. I went to Christie at Cat's Eye in Newark and she glued on an extra 6" to my regular length. The package of hair was 18" long, so I was 67% of the real length to mermaid status!






My mermaid costume consisted of a vintage bathing suit and really cool nails. Really, I ran out of time to make a full-on suit, so that's as far as I got.

Jenna and I drove up Friday night. We were worried that Megan was going to be too ill to join us, she came down with some kind of rhinosomethingsomething the day before. Luckily though she perked up! Megan and I rode our bikes to Coney Island and met Jenna and her buddy Danny at the parade where there were SO many naked painted ladies. We had thought that we might be tempted to just lay out on the beach and maybe take a swim, but the people were just too fascinating. While part of me wanted to walk in the Mermaid Parade, another part of me was just as content to watch everyone else be mermaids and see everyone so happy. However, when Megan and I were riding down, we got lost a couple times and there was a guy in Brooklyn who yelled out after me, "Happy Mermaid Parade!" which meant that he KNEW I was a Mermaid, validation!