Finished the peacock-feather top this morning

and am now hard at work on the blue-green top (which I think will have red “AIDS ribbon” lacing).

B. and I had a very pleasant day together Saturday–we shopped at the Alemany and Ferry Plaza farmer’s markets and bought all kinds of goodies, then cooked a nice dinner of French onion soup, Kumamoto oysters on the half-shell, broiled salmon, and fresh peas. The salmon was excellent–tender, perfectly cooked–B.’s doing. I was in charge of the oysters and the onion soup–the oysters needed no embellishment but the onion soup came out quite well. I credit the use of painstakingly prepared brown beef stock for the superb flavor–that plus LOTS of onions well-caramelized. The peas were freshly shelled English peas, and excellent.

We are now at T-7 days to AIDS Lifecycle 5, and I’m starting to get nervous. So much packing, so many things to remember. A head-mounted flashlight for seeing in the portapotties. Rubber bands to keep my hair braided. Sunscreen, first aid kit, shower cap to keep my seat dry, 2-gallon ziplock bags to pack everything into…the list goes on and on and I’m certain I must have missed something. I’m going to start packing my bag tomorrow, and just keep throwing things in as they occur to me.

I’m not even starting to think about whether I’ll be able to complete the ride. I feel kind of undertrained–the most I’ve trained in a week is 11.5 hours, scarcely a fifth of what I’ll have to put in this week–but I have to trust my coach. There’s not much choice: ready or not, there isn’t time to do any more training. So I’m letting that fear go and preparing everything else.

Off to work on the blue-green top…after that it will be the pink top (for which I found some very special holographic silver roses from Hallmark), then the orange one. I’m sort of hoping I can finish everything up tomorrow, though that’s probably over-optimistic. I’d like to see B. on Thursday, and I can’t do that if I’m frantically sewing. So, back to work.