Inflate

The front left tire on my car has a slight leak which, due to its location cannot be repaired, so every so often, and with increasing frequency, I need to inflate it. It's gotten to a point where I need to get new tires - not just one tire, or two tires, but four of those rubber puppies so that my All Wheel Drive vehicle will, like a yogi, remain balanced.

I'm not a "car person", per se, and most things automotive don't set my synapses afire. My brain seems to have little space reserved for car stuff, and that tiny bit of mental real estate is used only during the very rare occasions when I listen to Car Talk on NPR. I've been procrastinating about the tire replacement for a few months and have finally realized that no one is going to tell me which tires to buy and where or, better yet, take care of this for me, so I have no choice but to dive in and do my homework.

Since I am trying to be mindful about this process, I want to understand a little bit about tires and what my particular needs are, rather than forking over hundreds of dollars with little awareness of what I'm buying. This might make a lot of sense in theory but in practice it I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, unable to get a handle on all the information I've unearthed. If I have to choose, do I want tires that are better at dry braking, wet braking or have good snow traction? Living in Colorado, where the weather and road conditions can change dramatically a few times a day, I'd like all of the above, thank you very much. And there is the noise level. Apparently some tires ride quietly but have less traction than their louder counterparts. Do I want a noisy but secure ride or a silent but more slippery ride? And am I willing to spend several extra bucks for that strong, silent type, the tire that offers super traction with barely a whisper? And given the limited driving I do, how critical is this decision, anyway? It's hard for me to gauge the impact of getting a decent, but not a fabulous, tire. Reading the reviews in Epinions and Consumer Reports, written mostly by men who do devote a lot of brain space to cars, one might conclude that the purchase of certain tires can be a life-changing experience.

Then there is the matter of deciding where to buy whichever tires I ultimately select. I could try to find them online and have them shipped to a service center who will mount and balance them. Or I could order them from Sam's Club, whose higher prices include shipping to their store, where I could have them installed. This would eliminate one step from the process, a good thing in my opinion.

I thought that by putting this decision into words I might shed some light on which tire to choose; instead, I'm feeling deflated.

Instep

After seven years, several hundred miles and dozens of hikes, the last of which was a climb up Colorado's Quandary Peak (14,265'), my beloved hiking boots finally fell apart. From the first time I wore them until I took them off last Friday afternoon, they never pinched, gave me a blister or rubbed me the wrong way. I can't say the same about most of my other shoes (or people, for that matter). Although these boots look rather forlorn now, when I bought them they were smooth to the touch, a sophisticated blue in color and were extremely well-crafted. They conveyed quality but without being ostentatious. Made in Hungary by a Swiss company, their provenance connected me to the various times in my life when I lived in Budapest and traveled in Europe. Slipping my feet into these boots and lacing them up triggered feelings of confidence and optimism that often elude me in my non-hiking life.

So when the soles began to lose traction and water began seeping into the toe area, I went into denial rather than deal with the deterioration. "I'll just bring extra socks in case my feet get wet," I told myself. "I'll carry my hiking poles in case I need help balancing."

Those strategies worked until two weeks ago when I noticed the soles peeling off the boots, leaving large gaps. With two challenging hikes in my future and being fearful of attempting them without this trustworthy and faithful pair, I generously applied Shoe Goo to fill these cracks. The goo extended the life of these boots a few extra days, allowing my feet to be cradled by their comfortable companions on these multi-mile steep adventures. But as you can see from the photo the glue hardened and started to peel off; it was time for me to say goodbye.

I went online to search for boots from this same manufacturer as my local outdoor gear store was out of stock. Luckily, I found a web retailer that carries this brand in my size and within a day or two I should be receiving three pairs of boots to audition. They have big shoes to fill.

Inexplicable, Implausible

I rarely lose things. Sure, I've been known to misplace things, for minutes, hours, day, weeks or months at a time. Inevitably, most of these temporarily missing items reappear when I least expect them to. At those moments I breathe a sigh of relief, both for not having completely lost my mind and for the restoration of the object to my life. But it has been months since a new, high quality black moisture wicking t-shirt has gone missing; after checking the washer and dryer I use in the basement of my art studio building, I went through all of my drawers, peered under my bed, ransacked my closet, and checked the lost and found at my yoga studio. Nada. It had disappeared. For awhile I tortured myself over my possible carelessness - maybe I had let my laundry linger in the washing machine and someone had helped themselves while I was upstairs, making art. And then I realized that I should not cause myself to suffer over a t-shirt, even if I had snagged it for just $15 at the GoLite gear sale shortly after moving to Colorado. Eventually I moved on, or so I thought.

But this morning, while getting dressed for a hike, I was looking for the sports bra I had purchased at that same gear sale and could not find it. I had just done a load of laundry at my studio and it was not among the clothing that I had scooped from the dryer and placed into my nylon laundry bag. Not again?! I chose something else to wear and left for the day. Returning to my apartment in the late afternoon, I found myself obsessing over this second missing piece of athletic gear, the same brand as that t-shirt. Not wishing to wait another day to possibly solve this mystery, I walked to my studio building this evening to check the washer and dryer. Both were empty.

My brain is trying to devise an explanation for the fact that two pieces of GoLite gear have vanished within in a few months of one another under similar circumstances. While it is possible that someone has helped themselves to my laundry, I can't imagine who it would be. Most of the artists in my building rarely venture into the basement, where the machines are located, and none of them are my size, not to mention that I have no basis to distrust them. And there have been more valuable pieces of clothing available for the picking, so even if someone were sneaking around and harvesting my stuff, why wouldn't they take more or different things?

Realizing I could drive myself crazy attempting to recover these items, I am going to try (again) to let go of these perplexing episodes, following the advice suggested by the brand itself. I will "GoLite", moving ahead without being bogged down by the mystery of my missing clothes.