I'm doing the ol' half-electric commute today: unpowered on the way in, powered on the way home. I'm enjoying a cup of it now, matter of fact! I'm pampering my legs now in preparation for the Dairy Roubaix Saturday out near Ferryville. The weather looks clear, but I'm not looking forward to riding into that 17 mph wind for dozens of miles. I guess the hills and trees will tame it a bit...

I left my trunk bag home today, as I had to bungee down a Costco box of K-cups to bring to work.

(tangent warning) As long as we're sharing home/family problems, I will share mine. My daughter (14), who lives with my ex most of the time, decided last week she doesn't want to see me any more, ever. My ex lets her run the show at her house, so she's not sending her anyway, as she's supposed to do according to our parenting agreement. She's one of those permissive parents and she thinks she's SO clever for it! Daughter tells me it's because I traumatized her as a child when I stopped letting her wake me up every time she had a nightmare and some other BS, but what it really is is that I don't let he spend all day face-down in her phone. (I didn't even WANT her to have a smart phone until high school...) She doesn't want to be away from her friends and her dogs, and she likes getting her way. (she's an only child, and her grandparents live in the house too, so you can imagine she's quite spoiled. Her mom's got plenty of money between being a doctor and child support too.) So now I have to decide if I lawyer up again (she pulled this last year and lost) and take my ex to court and spend all the money I saved for vacation on the lawyer, or just let it go and live the single life, hoping she comes around. I spent about $15k over the last two years fighting to keep my time with her. I was clearly in the right, but lawyers are expensive. It really hurt, emotionally and financially.

On one hand, my ex will get her just desserts, raising her as a spoiled brat like this. It's only a matter of time before she rebels against her as well. On the other, I don't want my child to grow up useless and fragile because she's so used to getting her way and can't cope with any kind adversity. She's really smart and gets straight As in school, even the honors classes, and her mom thinks that's all that counts.

Also, Mom just went into memory care, as she has advanced Alzheimer's, and my bipolar brother had her sign her PoAs to her under duress. Mom wanted ME to be PoA when she was fully with it, as I'm kind of local (85 miles) and I'm mentally healthy. So I need to go to court at some point to get that revoked or he'll blow all her money.

At least my marriage is good and I'm able to burn off my frustration on the bike instead of drinking so much, as I did in the past. I used to have 5 or 6 per night and got declined for supplemental life insurance because of it. That was a wake-up call, as I'm not even 50 yet.