Hello! My Name is Dee Lusional.

My neighbor and I had spent a week or two talking about doing this fundraising bike ride that goes across the major bridges downtown. There are options of a 6-, 8-, or 10-bridge ride. We'd mostly talked about doing the 8-bridge, but as it got closer and I realized just HOW heavy the trailer is (especially loaded with my daughter, a spare tire, pump, extra water, and other gear), we talked much more about the 6-bridge ride, which is a 13-mile course.

Thursday night, while watching Project Runway, we decided that it was 1) too early, 2) too much to spend on a "casual" ride and 3) would probably be really crowded. So we planned to NOT go and just take a ride downtown on another day.

I sorta kinda forgot to mention to my husband, who I'd asked to register us, that we had changed our mind about the ride. Fortunately, he only registered me for the 6-bridge. I told my neighbor and we proceeded to make plans to leave at 7:30 in the morning.

Also on my agenda, as it has been for the past several weeks, was movie night--there's a small park downtown where they show movies for free on Saturday nights. I've been taking my daughter (and the same neighbor's son) for a couple of weeks and last night was no exception.

This is where I needed my first stupidity intervention. We typically get home from the movie between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m. It usually takes me an hour or so to wind down and get to sleep, and I had to get up at 6:30 a.m. to get ready. If you've done the math, you know that provided me with a maximum of 7 hours sleep--which while I functioned on far less while in school and at various points in my life, is really not good for me now.

I'd actually packed everything in the neighbor's car before going to the movie last night--bikes, helmets, shoes, trailer, spare parts, course info, the works. The only things I didn't pack were my wallet, keys, phone, water bottles, and stuff I was going to wear. Although I've actually started making "packing lists" on my phone since I seem to be so forgetful lately, they only serve me well if everything I will need is on them.

Time for stupidity intervention number 2: sunglasses were not on my list and it was a GORGEOUS day. I realized this, of course, as we arrived in the parking garage to park.

We got to the course start without any difficulty and finally started riding close to 9:00 a.m. There were a ton of families and kids, parents yelling at their kids to "ride straight" which I hadn't thought much about until I got cut off by a short person whose parents were not yelling at him.

Okay, I LOVE my bike. I've said this many times now and I still do. However, I clearly had not had enough practice riding with the trailer. I say this because by time I calculate how much weight I was actually hauling, it was probably close to 50 pounds. Which flat out negates the "fastness" I've felt riding this bike as compared to others. Thank goodness I wasn't hauling it behind one of the other ones or I'm not sure I would have made it.

It was actually a very cool ride--they close down all or part of 10 river-crossing bridges in the city. Not so much fun if you have somewhere to be and need to cross the river or even just get through town, but very neat for anyone who just wants a view of the city from the top deck of the interstate bridges. It was interesting hearing people on the ride saying things like "I never realized this bridge was angled--it feels flat in the car!" and "I had no idea how HIGH this is!" The views from the bridges are quite spectacular and they even had bands playing and vendor booths for people to stop at on the two interstate bridges.

My daughter was sound asleep for about the last half of the ride and only woke up as I crossed the finish. Perhaps because of the incredible noise and chaos. We rode back to the car then loaded up and got ready to head home.

Stupidity intervention number 3: neither of us thought to map a route away from the event, even though we'd mapped one there. While I can get myself out of downtown any number of ways, we had the whole bike course/freeway closure to deal with. This might not seem like a big deal because we'd just been on the course and had a pretty good idea of what was open and closed, but it actually was. Here's what we had to deal with:

1) We couldn't get down to the waterfront access to the freeway because the course was blocking us southbound.
2) We couldn't hop on the freeway south from the west side of the river because it was closed.
3) We could get on the freeway south from the east side of the river, but we weren't actually sure which bridges were open to get there, or if we could even get to those bridges.
4) We weren't really sure where we could go.

We decided to just head west, where we knew there was no bike course. We looped way around the southwest corner (and a suburb) of the city to take probably a 15-mile detour to get home.

Time for stupidity intervention #4. I added up any number of risk factors for a migraine, and since it only takes one, I had a fierce headache. Thankfully, this time it didn't make it all the way to my stomach, but I did end up taking a 7-hour LEAVEMEALONEANDBEQUIET!! nap.

I'm feeling better now, although I'm annoyed because I'd made plans with a friend to go see The Help, which I've been waiting impatiently to go see, and had to cancel on her, and she'd already bought tickets. It wasn't until I was talking to her and she mentioned, "Yeah, it was pretty bright out today," that it occurred to me that forgetting my sunglasses probably amplified the effects of the sun, dehydration, and general overdoing it.

So good news is that we did it and I made it. Bad news is I still can't remember to pack everything I need. Or handle anything resembling moderation. Or manage to keep all the appointments on my calendar.