Thus Spoke Baker Bill

My father sent me a terribly endearing email that made mention of this here blog and I felt it would do the missive an injustice to simply leave it moldering in my inbox. Voila: 


I do continue to enjoy your blog posts although the alarming situations described have your mother and I welcoming the inevitable onset of warmer weather (and melting snow) in parts west.  That said, there seems to be another disquieting trend appearing in the blog entries that could well complicate your literary prospects.  I always suspected that following a requisite period of some sort of existential misery, you would emerge with a pithy but amusingly engaging memoir cataloging the indignities you had suffered.  Sort of Ben Folds meets Nanny Diaries.  The success of the publication would provide you and perhaps your parents with the financial windfall that we are probably entitled to.  Particularly after the movie rights sold.  Instead we are treated to this onslaught of in vita optimum so relentlessly that one feels the need for a firm tooth brushing after reading lest decay take hold.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm delighted that you are so piddling puppy happy, I just think it might require some recalibration to achieve the anticipated literary success.  So I'm thinking self help book.  By quantifying and formulating your happiness you could bring fulfillment and richness to lives otherwise untouched with the incandescent joy of Just Being Julia.  In addition to selling very well the whole experience of writing and marketing such a narrative would probably make you so miserable that you could then write a second and probably more entertaining book following the original formula outlined above.  Just saying.

Skip This Post If You Get Sick of My Obnoxious and Repetitive Joy Spewing

I was interviewing for a job, sitting at ease with the macchiato the owner had made for me perched in my lap, when she asked, "On a scale of one to ten, how lucky do you feel?" I suppose the question could've meant either statistically fortunate or endowed with a great life, but without hesitation I interpreted it as the latter and said with a laugh, "Right now? 9.5." 

See what I did there? In media res: starting a story in the middle to draw in the reader (all three of you). More about the job interview later. I just need to explain why I'm operating at a 9.5, and every time I sit down to write this post I'm distracted by another awesome thing in my life, so now instead of any kind of cohesion, I'm just throwing out bullet points.

1: Everything is green now. Except that which is still snow-covered. The snow is receding daily and the talk of the town is which trails are clear, which trails are about to clear, which trails are THE BEST and will probably clear within a month.

2: Eastern Idaho has a huge quantity and variety of raptors. I almost wreck the car every time some broad-winged bird of prey soars overhead or preens on a fencepost. I swear I'm going to buy a book to identify them.

3: Trail running! My favorite drug!

Other sports???

4: Tyler, while frustrated and stressed out by his job, has gained the reputation of being one of those priceless above-and-beyond employees. Everyone at work loves him. He is great.

5: Mountain biking! After some digging on Saturday we had an afternoon of good old fashioned dirt jumping/pump tracking at the town bike park and I finally remembered how to ride a bike. I went out with The Kate on Sunday and between the dirt jumps, the leg strength from six months of skiing, and the arm strength from aggressive bar-making, I was feeling pretty fantastic.

Riding bikes in beautiful Swan Valley

6: I went back to Tahoe for a hot second and got to catch up with some very important people. It made my heart happy. I also successfully got Camp out of my system after having pined for it all winter.

Same as it ever was at SSC

7: New job! I'm still making bars of course, because I would never ditch such a great company, but over the course of a couple group rides I chatted with the owners of the LBS (not to be confused with LDS) and they're hurting for help. They're a really cool couple and I hate to see good folks overwhelmed by the trials of owning a business so I offered my free afternoons to them and after a couple conversations and semi-formal interview the general consensus was hell yeah. I'm starting at the shop tomorrow as salesperson, barista, and token female.

I might have forgotten a couple points in there, but no matter. Living the dream, as usual.