SHAPE fashion report

I've mentioned before that some nations at SHAPE don't seem to have regulation footwear for their female troops, at least not when they're wearing something besides cammies. And today we saw the most extreme example yet. We were in line behind a young Slovak Air Force Captain who was wearing blue suede boots with very, very, very pointy toes, stiletto heels, and a silver filigree fan design on the heel. They matched her uniform great, but they weren't exactly the sensible shoes American or Canadian or British lady officers have to wear with their class A uniforms. They did look nice, though.

Biker nation

I've been talking a lot about cycling lately, but it's the season. (The Flèche Wallonne is tomorrow!) But this post is about ordinary cyclists.

Belgians are very much at ease on their bikes. I imagine the Dutch and the Danes are too, but I don't live there, so I'm not writing about them. It starts at an early age. Last summer I was crossing the canal bridge near our house and saw a young teenaged girl and her little brother who had stopped to watch something go by on the canal. When they were done, they got back on their bikes and headed out. She pedaled a few feet then sat up and let go of the handlebars. I think she was eating candy or an ice cream. She rode down the bridge sidewalk, shifted off the sidewalk into the street, rode 50 meters, hit a cobblestone intersection, turned and headed down a side street. All without hands.

And her mother probably would not have warned that she could put her eye out doing that.

We assume that Goons Quad is the band we hear practicing in the warehouse down by the canal every Thursday evening. They are, ummm, improving. Somebody in the band must know enough English to make jokes. Or maybe not.

The warehouse is owned by "the junk man." That's what we call him because his yard on the other side of the canal is full of junk and because he sells used appliances and furniture. He's at the same number Left Bank of the Canal as our house number on our street, and people are forever showing up at our door saying things like, "We're here to pick up the washing machine," or "Are you the guy with the table?" We have to point them to the correct street.

So we were relieved to see the second sign for the Goons Quad concert. Otherwise, people might have been showing up at our door at 2 AM wanting to see a concert.

Unless they don't connect the Goons Quad with the Goonsquad.

Paris-Roubaix

Again with the cycling.

Sunday I went to see Paris-Roubaix, a race first held in 1896. Roubaix (pronounced roo-bay) is between Lille and the Belgian border. This race's schtick is cobblestones. There are 27 or 28 (depending on the year) sections of cobbles that together make up roughly a fifth of the course. And they haven't done anything to fix these spots up either. The section you see here is in exceptionally good condition, but it breaks down at the far end. All the cobbled bits have huge ruts and dips and holes, producing many spectacular crashes and lots of flat tires and busted wheels. Think of NASCAR run on gravel roads. Adding to the excitement is that most of these sections are so narrow that the team car can't get to you if you have trouble. If you're important, like the team leader, one of your unimportant grunt teammates (les domestiques in French) will take his wheel off and mount it on your bike for you. We actually saw two guys doing this on the TV coverage. The teams also send guys on foot with spare wheels down the narrow sections, and fans stand around holding wheels, just in case their hero breaks down in front of them.

So anyways, a couple thousand of my closest friends and I went to one of the more famous sections of cobbles: the Trouée d'Arenberg. The third stage of this year's Tour de France will finish here. The cobbles are rated from one to five stars for degree of awfulness. Arenberg is one of three five-star sections. If you're interested in seeing the scenery, the crowd, and a couple of bad action shots, check out my photos.

Incidentally, Belgium totally rocks this race with 53 wins out of 109.

Weirdest walk ever

Rita and I took a walk this afternoon, as usual. But that's where the usual ended. First there was the cute little kid and mom (yes, they were both cute--in fact she was so blond pony-tailed soccer girl cute that we thought she was an American) who were walking past the sheep pen, and for some ovine reason all the sheep decided they would start bleating and run over there to see the kid. Then a couple kilometers later, we saw this little runt lamb we've been tracking for a couple of weeks (we think we first saw him only hours after he was born) who had somehow gotten through the fence and was running back and forth trying to get back in where Mommy was. We stopped at my poultry lady's place to ask if they were her sheep. I know she has sheep because we'd talked about them before, but these weren't hers. She assured us the little fellow would eventually find his way back in. "Finding holes in the fence is their specialty," was the way she put it. Okay, next I kept going while Rita peeled off to go home, and all the goats at the house up the street had wandered outside their fence and all decided to follow me. A couple of teenaged boys on a scooter rode by and yelled, "Hey, he's stealing the goats!" Whitey, Momma, Buttspot, and Gert gave up fairly quickly, but Daddy followed me for several hundred meters, bleating and shoving his head against the back of my leg. I think he just wanted attention. Then while I was watching an empty barge pass a laden barge in the large (which means "the wide" in French, not "the big"), this enormous Newfoundland (I know: Is there any other kind?) who had been swimming in the canal (gag!) ran up to me and jumped on me. After that I made it home without much incident.

Spring our way

We hear it was 85 degrees on the East Coast today. It was 55 here, and we were happy to have it. And there are no bugs yet. We ate outside for the first time this year, and for the first time on our new deck. Our landlord finally replaced the old one, which I liked to call "the amazing exploding deck," with a new one in teak and granite. On the down side, he removed a gorgeous old oak tree that used to shade our al fresco dinners because, "It makes a lot of leaves."

Another sign of spring here in Belgium: the sun didn't go down until 8:30 PM. It wasn't totally dark until about 9:30. We will miss that.