“Unemployment Continued to Fall in October.
The jobless rate dropped to 6 percent as payrolls grew by 126,000 last
month, significantly more than the 50,000 new jobs that economists had
predicted. By The Associated Press.” [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

So, despite his best efforts, Dubya now has real positive economic
numbers to brag about.  Sure, some of this is seasonal (retailers
are gearing up for Christmas early this year, etc.).  Sure,
hundreds of thousands–perhaps millions–of people have dropped off the
unemployment radar by becoming self-employed or underemployed, or by
giving up entirely on the job search for now.  But statistics, as
decieving as they can be, tend to be pointing toward a strengthening
recovery.

Now. just watch–there will be a major military victory in October of
next year.  And all will be forgiven by the American people. 

The Dems need a new point of leverage on Bush. 

Oak.
Maple.
Beech.
Oak.
Going uphill, head down, I see every leaf. I'm pedaling through the back of Druid Hill Park, on the gloriously hilly closed roads along the east face overlooking (through the trees, that is) the Jones Falls Expressway, the Falls themeselves, the old mills along the falls. The road is closed, the leaves are thick on the road and wet, the traction is iffy, the hills are steep.

Oak
Oak
Maple

I see every ridge, every vein, every fold of each leaf as I ride over them, upward. Then I crest a hill, and as I roll downward, my breaks chattering like the squirrels I'm chasing off the road, the leaves are only recognizable by color. Brown (oak), yellow (maple), red (is that poplar?) and the black of the underlying asphalt fly by as I focus on keeping on my two wheels and not on my back in a muddy pile or bouncing on my yellow helmet over the handlebars. BrownYellowBlackRed. Then at the bottom, runoff from last night's rain in a deep puddle across the pavement; I part it like Moses with my two tires, drenching my shoes and my back.

Then up again.
Oak.
Maple.
Beech.
Oak.

Forty-five minutes on my bike at lunch feels like a day off. As I crest the final hill on Druid Hill's backstretch, time stretches; what took twenty minutes feels like a weekend. I slow, roll around the end of the yellow traffic gate, and pedal on.

I have started to depend on The Bike for my endorphin rush of the day. My daily rides are no more than 6 to 8 miles–there's no telling, really, since I have no odometer and I can't drive the route to clock it off–but they are battles with Baltimore's hills and terrain, journeys off the beaten path and back to it. I know I'm getting better because I spend an increasingly smaller amount of the ride in “granny gear”, keeping it in mid-range even on most of the uphills.

God and snow willing, I will get my bike fix all the way through the winter. There's nowhere in our little rowhouse to set up a stationary bike for the offseason, and that matters little–you can't name the passing leaves on a stationary.

Thanks to Simon for linking to the “Internet Help Desk” video on Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. It was just what I needed this morning.

The meteorological fog is thicker this morning than it was last night; rain has turned all the dead leaves that have fallen into dead wet leaves (and slip hazards). But the morning's adrenaline has at least partially replaced the mental fog of last night with the urgency of fight-or-flight.

Paula is substitute-teaching today, and so the logistics of the morning sprint were a bit more complicated than usual. We needed to shuffle the cars so that she would be able to pick up all the kids at the end of the day (she's subbing at the boy's school, and our daughter has pre-school today, and she's picking up a friend as well, which makes for a tight fit in the Jeep).

Well, the van wouldn't start. Plan A was shot. She took the Jeep.

I called AAA (who were kind enough to remind me that our membership is two weeks from expiring) for a hot-shot. Then my wife called and told me that in the confusion, our daughter's bag had stayed in the Jeep.

At 8:30, the AAA guy arrived and we opened the hood on the van. It turned over, thank God, and I left it running while I went to wake my daughter up for school.

Toddler shoes, like car keys, need GPS locators on them. It took me 10 minutes to find one pair of her sneakers that fit.

Finally in the van at 9:00 (15 minutes behind schedule), we drove first to the boys' school, where I retrieved my daughter's school bag from my wife's Jeep. Then we zipped to her preschool, and I dropped off Zoe after stowing her gear in her cubby and giving her a quick hug.

Then, to D&J Automotive, which is thankfully only a block from the house. I dropped the van off with a request to test and (if necessary) replace the battery–and to fix the inside panel of the driver's door, which (coincidentally) was starting to fall off the door this morning.

I walked home, and nuked my cup of coffee that I had left sitting.