“Ride #27: Escapism”

I've been hand-feeding the five kittens that were born last weekend, every few hours, every day. I just sort of have a knack for it, I guess, so I do it instead of Corinne. They need to be hand-fed because the mother isn't producing enough milk for them, so we supplement with KMR. (This involves putting the food in a 3 cc syringe, with a thin, flexible tube on the end. The tube goes down the throat into the stomach, and the KMR is squirted in.)

Sadly, one of the kittens started showing signs of weakness Thursday night. It's cries were much quieter, and it didn't grip my finger while I was feeding it. Friday morning, it died. I have no idea what was wrong with it... but experience has shown me that sometimes they just don't make it.

After burying the kitten, I decided to take the rest of the day off. I goofed around in the house for an hour or two, and then spun out my longest ride so far this year: almost 55 miles. It thoroughly wore me out, and kept my mind off things (I'm NOT a real big fan of death right now, that's for sure), so... mission accomplished.

Unfortunately, I was so worn out that when I went to the readings last night and finally played ping pong against Jim Burns, I was demolished. He really is as good as the legends said, but I was beaten by everybody else, too. I'm hoping to have more energy for a rematch next week.

Stats: 54.39 miles (87.56 km) in 3h 1' 48" for an average speed of 17.95 mph (28.90 kph).