15 Wind Whines

Who has seen the wind?

by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling

The wind is passing thro'

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads

The wind is passing by.

I will tell you who has seen the wind; Nederlanders have seen the wind! I have seen the wind. The wind won't leave me alone. It can be considered a constant companion here and you must trust me when I tell you, it is no gentle thing. While I have whined this whine before, today I bring it up again because I have been out in it all morning. And well, because I can--It's my blog and I'll whine if I want to.

I suggest you get your glasses ready as the whine is about to be poured.

1. The wind turns my umbrella inside out. I don't think I can even count the number of umbrellas we have lost to wind origami. On an extremely windy day it is not at all uncommon to see myriad broken umbrellas discarded on the street. I suppose it's a good thing a new one only sets you back a couple of euros.

2. It is insanely hard to cycle in the wind. It feels as if someone is weighing you down with cement in your shoes. No matter how hard you push the pedals the wheels hardly make forward progress.

3. That makes your quads extremely tired,

4. and your heart rate slides past "fat burning" straight into "soon to be a corpse" zone.

5. You start dripping with sweat,

6. and the moisturizer you applied drops straight into your eyes,

7. and burns.

8. I don't know how it's possible for the wind to blow from earth's four corners simultaneously, but it does.

9. No matter which direction I am riding, I could swear that I am biking straight into the wind.

10. Straight on is wind. Turn left: wind. Turn right: still wind.

11. It's like the wind knows where I am going and readies itself to make me work just that much harder to get there.

12. I have gone kilometers out of my way before, just to find the literal path of least resistance.

13. One of these days I am going to pull a quick U-turn away from the zephyr and thwart the evil design just to see if I can outrun it.

14. Of course, then I will be going in the wrong direction entirely.

15. But when has that ever stopped me?

Friday Fifteen

Speaking of The Wind:

Take a peek at this great post by this great blogger.

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And now, on a breezier note. The winners for Scribbit's write-away contest are mentioned on her blog today. I was thrilled to see I was awarded honorable mention for this piece. Thanks go to Allison for her encouragement to submit it. She's always watching my back, that one. In fact, you could say she's the wind beneath my wings.