EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT . . .

You heard it here first: I'm buying a mountain bike.

I have been assured that I don't have to choose between a mountain bike and other worthy purchases. I have also been assured that I can mosey the long three miles to my parents' place three or four times a week to run on their monstrously large and strong treadmill, thereby negating the need to spend more money on buying a small and weak one for myself. I have been persuaded that I can purchase a more-than-decent bicycle for a more-than-reasonable price. I have been encouraged that I can find a helmet that fits my (not that large) head. I have been instructed that the purchase will be worth it even if I bike a mere once a week, and only when the weather is nice, throughout the spring, summer and fall. I have been given a mini-lesson on what is good, what is bad, what is middle of the road, what is absolutely necessary, what is an utter piece of crap.

So I call upon you, my faithful readers, once more:
Question: Do I get (1) a Cannondale F400 Feminine, (2) a Trek 4500 WSD, (3) a Cannondale F300, or (4) a Gary Fisher Wahoo (the latter two available in super-small sizes, though not female-specific)?
Supplemental Question A: If I get Selection (1), can anyone find it for me for $500 or less?
Supplemental Question B: Which bike LOOKS cooler? Hee, hee. I'm a girl after all. Girl's gotta look good on the road.
Supplemental Question C: Where can I find someone to throw in free gloves and a free helmet? Man, I'm such a cheapskate, I kill me sometimes.

***

CENTER OF GRAVITY . . .

I went to Home Depot over the weekend -- one of my new-homeowner-needs-to-take-care-of-her-home excursions. I had to pick up some specialized lightbulbs (experiencing major agita at the prospect that buying a brand different from what was previously in the socket would cause the light fixture to no longer work properly), a fire extinguisher (HOOCH HAD A FIRE IN HER KITCHEN AND YOU ALL BETTER GO OUT AND BUY FIRE EXTINGUISHERS BECAUSE YOU WILL NEED ONE MAYBE, THOUGH HOPEFULLY NOT, AND THAT WAS A VERY POORLY WRITTEN SENTENCE), and two bi-fold interior closet doors.

Those doors broke my spirit and damn near killed me in the process.

The prior owners of my condo apparently gerry-rigged the living room storage closet doors, unbeknownst to me. My only clue to something being amiss was that the two bifold doors didn't really hang correctly and kind of bounced against each other when closed. Imagine my utter dismay when one afternoon, the right-hand side door FELL OUT. It just fell off its track and onto the floor with a great emphatic "BOOM." Man, was I pissed.

Neither Home Depot nor Lowe's sells pre-painted bifold doors. So at the local Home depot, I spent about twenty minutes trying to figure out exactly what shade and type of white paint I needed to pick out. The non-English speaking gentleman, heading up the paint department, and I had a hard time communicating. I just don't know how to say "matte or semi-gloss?" in Spanish. I just don't.

I moved onto the "Doors" section of the store. I gazed longingly at the "we install them for you" displays. I came upon the bifold doors and placed my hands on my hips in triumph. I found them! They were right where they were supposed to be! They are the exact size they are supposed to be! AND, I also discovered, THEY ARE FREAKING HEAVY. My woman's center of gravity came to naught in this circumstance. Those doors had no center of gravity to speak of. One side always seemed markedly heavier than the other, even after I flipped the ends around, and I spent a good portion of my hour in Home Depot swaying back and forth in rhythm with the uncooperative and extremely larger-than-life doors. I knocked against one wall, then another. Then I undershot the height of my shopping cart and sent it careening down the aisle away from me. I did that TWICE. TWO Home Depot employees passed me as I tangoed with the doors, and greeted me with a happy "good afternoon." "NOT REALLY!" I wanted to shriek at them.

How I got the doors into my cart and through the aisles to check-out, I'll never know. Not even hypnosis would unearth that memory from the depths of my memory. The cheesy cashier -- "Haven't I seen you at that bar in my town? Isn't your name Michelle?" "NO AND STOP TALKING TO ME, YOU SKEEVY GUY." -- helped my foul mood not one whit, and it was all I could do to not scream obscenities at him about the stupid heavy and UNPAINTED doors his stupid store stocked. I held my breath and my temper and released myself into the breezy sunshine of the Home Depot parking lot. Liberation, somewhere to sit, hope and happiness were all within my reach. Except that I had to get the damn doors OUT of the unruly shopping cart and INTO my car.

I dinged my car. I dinged the doors. I sent the shopping cart spinning into the path of an oncoming car, one of the doors still precariously perched inside it. I sweated off about eight pounds. I nearly sat on the asphalt and burst into tears, in the throes of complete self-indulgent whining misery. "Why meeeeee? Why do I have to own a hooooouuuuse? Why aren't I maaaaarriiiiied so my husband can dooooo this? Why are these doors so heeeeeaaavy? Why are they unpaaaaaainted? How come they won't fit in my caaaaar? How the hell am I going to get them insiiiiiiide? This suuuuuucks! I hate my condooooooo! I hate these doooooooors!"

It was so pathetic. Me. Crying in the parking lot of the Home Depot next to my abused car and my super-abused unpainted bifold interior closet doors. What a life.

The doors are still sitting in the back of Good Girl. I never want to touch them again. Also, I'm afraid that if I try to bring them inside, I will shatter the glass in all the entrance doors and/or knock holes in the walls of the hallway, or that the doors will fall on me and kill me. Damn doors.

***

LIGHT MY FIRE . . .

I am a big fan of the gas stove and rangetop. Indeed, the only thing that truly might have kept me from buying my condo was the fact that its cooking appliances were electric. The stove is all new, but it's still electric. SHUDDER!

My biggest aversion to electric heat is my inability to bake in electric ovens. For someone like me, who used to be somewhat of a baking connoisseur before The Great Bundt Cake Fiasco forced me to focus on cookies, electric ovens are nothing but headache and burned edges. There's no flame height to tell you what's too much or too little. There's no comforting eau de gasoline fuel. There's no sizzle of fire touching butter.

However, I can't let my electric oven be a virgin forever. Next week, I'm going in! (Apologies for the graphic analogy.) Cakes, cookies, maybe even a dreaded partially-broken bundt cake shall be back in production, for better or for worse ... If all else fails, I can close my eyes and delude myself into thinking I'm reunited with my E-Z Bake Oven ...