I rendered Handsome Chef  Boyfriend speechless yesterday right before he launched for home. I love when that happens.

On Saturday we had dinner at possibly the best burger joint ever, which happens to be very close to my house. (They also have a nice selection of craft beer on tap there.) We sat at the sunny bar and ate our burgers and fries and took in the local culture after a nice day together which had started with Clarence-the-Canine’s burial (no sadness, just happy memories this time), and then included typical warm weather Saturday stuff–the farmer’s market and tag sales, mainly. I scored a pair of brand new white sneakers for four bucks at one of them. Which should actually be proof positive that I am not a princess: I proudly purchase and use flea market items and openly admit it on the Internet. You could say it’s on my permanent record.

Anywho, the point is that we drove the same route I have been cycling lately since this nagging Achilles injury I’ve sported for about five years or possibly longer just won’t quit. I hate not running, but since I attempted to resume my running habit when the ten feet of Hellish Vermont Winter Snow finally melted, it is abundantly clear that I can’t do it this summer, barring some sort of divine intervention or foot surgery. And surgery is not an option at the moment.

That is my bicycle up there in the photo. I bought it about three years ago when my foot was acting up and I was in pretty intense physical therapy twice weekly. My orthopedist sanctioned biking as an alternative to running. I rode 26 miles every single day of the week. This is a true story. But that is how much I needed to ride to derive the same benefits (read: euphoric afterglow) from a much shorter run. Back then I had the luxury of time, though. Now I am carving it out when I am able  between two jobs, and three starting in August. So a nice ten-mile ride a couple of times a week is what I can manage at the moment. It is better than nothing at all which was more or less my situation during the winter.

And this is my bicycling skirt. That’s right–I ride my bike wearing a skirt. I was explaining to HCB that some time ago I had researched women’s cycling clothing. I mean, have you seen cycling clothing for women? It does not flatter the human form, friends. As I was explaining this to HCB the rendering speechless had already begun, because I had alluded to the fact that hockey clothing has the same issue: you take a nice athlete and then add enough padding to make him (or worse, her) look like the Michelin Man. How unfortunate.

But this skirt is made for cycling–it goes on over the butt shorts (the fugly ones with the gigantic diaper in the seat that you must wear if you want to be able to walk the next day). When I explained to him how pretty it is–how it just billows in the wind, he just stood there with his mouth hanging open. Boom.

My butt shorts are actually Capri riding tights with lace around the cuffs. And that is in fact the edge of my monogrammed initials on the duvet in the photo. I might actually be a princess, a little. (But I look like a girl on my bicycle.)