Spinning Forward.

… dark fruit aromas and flavors of black cherry and ripe plum with light oak influence for a smooth, luxurious texture.   

– 2008 Red Bicyclette® Pinot Noir 

I have two very nice bicycles in the garage. That aren’t going anywhere. My rump, however, has a different plan and before it takes a permanent detour from tight and trim to loose and lumpy I need to take control. And there is nothing like committing to an exhausting outdoor activity in the dead of summer … in Phoenix.

I blame this on my husband. Lance Armstrong. The mid-summer bikini check.

It’s always July when I make a dedicated effort to commit to my bicycle. It’s not that I don’t think about doing this at any other time of the year. It’s just that unless it is priority one on the daily checklist there is not enough of me for a time commitment like that. And when I do, it’s clear that there is no love lost between my bottom half and a bicycle seat.

My husband was the cyclist. I was the runner. Looking back, I should have campaigned for role reversal. My husband's legs looked like they were carved from marble. Mine are the “work-too-hard-have-two-kids-and-this-is-the-best-I-can-do” kind of legs.

He always hoped I would grow to love two wheels as much as he did. For the birth of our son he gave me a powder blue mountain bike. A road bike for our daughter. But after long work weeks, two toddlers and his hours of spinning there simply wasn’t any time left. So the bikes became expensive racks, I stayed a runner and the most time I spent with two wheels was popping the cork on a bottle of Red Bicyclette.

But there is something about July. It isn’t just the images of sinewy legs climbing mountain passes and speeding through pastoral scenes that invade our psyche for the entire month. Cycling represents so much of the life we built together. In it he found a circle of dedicated friends whose common ground was an unquenchable zest for life and adventure. When running pregnant in the summer heat was too much, he set his bike in the house and I spun as we watched the hunt for the yellow jersey unfold.   

July is here again and I am committing – to a bottle of red and a tube of chamois butter.

Oh Snap.

Rich and full-bodied, with intense flavors of raspberry, plum and blackberry, balanced with oak character and a hint of toffee. A perfect wine to drink by itself or pair with barbecue, pizza or spicy foods. 

– Snap Dragon, California Red Wine 2008

On the travertine floor and granite countertop. The wood cabinetry, taupe walls, Swiss coffee baseboards, the stainless steel refrigerator and the ceiling. Mommy juice. As far as the eye can see.

Again.

I was really enjoying this bottle. Until now. Now, I am not enjoying this bottle. I am not enjoying being on my hands and knees racing to get ahead of the blood red stain that is oozing its way across the floor, pooling in my champagne-colored grout.

I have this little habit involving wine. Actually, it involves spilling wine. I have just spent a lot of money to have every floor in the house professionally cleaned to erase the impact of two young children and three dogs. And less than a month later, I am sopping and scrubbing furiously. And thinking of all of the times I have done this before.

Like when I momentarily fell asleep sitting on the couch. Or the broken glass at the bottom of the pool that he had to recover piece by piece.He once found a vintage bicycle wine rack tucked in the back corner of a store that was so hot and claustrophobic that I agreed to it only so that we could, like Elvis, leave the building. It settled into the awkward space between the top of the refrigerator and the cabinets and I settled into the idea that it was there.

Christmas Eve was officially ours, a peace offering for the two arms of family each wanting holiday time with the grandchildren. As much as we loved the holidays, we dreaded them. Family demands, budgets that did not stretch far enough and the pressures of work erupted in a candy cane-and-gingerbread-wrapped explosion of tempers and tears. The first holiday as a foursome was particularly difficult – he had just returned from a month-long trip for work and the annual flu had descended like the plague. To survive the preparations we split up, each taking a child and a task. Off went the boys, leaving me with my equally miserable 18-month-old daughter who did not want to be put down.

 

Not when I needed to finish frosting the cake. Not when the dishes needed to be cleaned up. Not when the cheeses needed slicing and arranging. And absolutely not when the back wheel of the wine rack come skittering off the top of the fridge, leaving one hand free to catch the bottle hurtling to the floor.

The white bottle, not the red.

I sometimes wonder what he thought when he walked through that door, my daughter screaming safely from the living room while I soaked up blood-red liquid and ragged green glass, tears from the fever and the frustration running down my face. The bottle had dropped so sharply that deep purple stains splattered across the milky color of the kitchen’s vaulted ceilings. A red watermark lingered in the porous tile for months. And here I am again, almost expecting to hear his voice.

Let me take care of that. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.

I look up at the fading spots as tears splash into the bloody pool below.