~~~
Day’s Verse:
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 1:12-13
~~~

I have all sorts of fabulously exciting things happening in my life, but alas — one of them you’d find boring, and the other I can’t talk about online yet. Does this make you desperately curious? No? Well, this makes me desperately irritated, which may or may not be similar:

NOTICE
Employees must wash hands
before returning to work

When this sign appeared in our bathroom at work, I felt first insulted, then disgusted, then resigned. Insulted because of course, as adults, we wash our hands before leaving the bathroom. Disgusted because then I remembered some women I had heard who didn’t make a habit of post-wiping hand-washing, but what good will putting up a sign do? They know what they ought to do, but choose for whatever reason not to. Resigned, in the end, because this represents my employer’s typical approach to solving problems. Thank you for the reminder; I will surely wash my hands before returning to work.

I also saw a sign like this once, which gave me pause (a real feat, since I saw it while out on a long bike ride, and I was moving at a reasonable clip):

For Sale
COFFINS
^{Real Estate}

The sign, standing in the middle of a front yard, did not make me think of buying the home. It made me wonder where the stored the coffins, if they were second-hand or new, what materials they were made of, etc. The unfortunate emphasis on the real estate agent’s funereal name cannot have facilitated the speedy selling of the house (about which I remember nothing).

I also got some Lands’ End jeans at last. These are the first new jeans I’ve bought since Deborah and Jane took me shopping for Christmas, and I think that was either four or five years ago now. My new favorite pants: the flannel-lined jeans. Like wearing PJs, but with jeans on the outside. I doubt I’ll take them off all winter.

Now to the one thing I find exciting, but which you will almost certainly find boring: Titanium bike news. Let me preface this by saying that any time you agree to spend $4,500 on an item, you will probably get excited about its imminent arrival in your life, too. Note the phrase imminent arrival. The completed frame is on its way to my bike shop as of this morning. The parts (in bike parlance, kit) that comprise the remainder of the bike — everything that isn’t the frame — have to come from diverse locations and will take a little longer to arrive. The wheels and fork, ordered from the manufacturer later than they should have been, seem to be the rate-determining factors at this point. However, because the new bike and my old bike have the same wheels, we can temporarily use old wheels on the new bike. That means that I should have a rideable new titanium bike if not by this Friday, then certainly by next Monday. I can hardly contain my excitement.

I spent some serious time on the phone with the bike shop today making final decisions about gearing (30/42/50 triple [I think], 12-28 10-speed cassette –check out that low gear ratio: I can truly climb any mountain on this thing), quality of shifters (Ultegra) and crankset/cassette/chain (105), color of bar tape (very important! -black, although I may yet change my mind to red), etc. When finished, she will be the most expensive thing I have ever bought for myself, and also far and away the most useful, fun, and enduring. Good thing this is the internet; you can’t see me hopping up and down.