Dear Kid,

Once upon a time, someone thought it would be a good idea to strap two wheels together, balance precariously between them, and pedal through a lot of mountains until they fell over from exhaustion. Then steroids were invented and they called the ride the Tour de France.

I consulted My Friend the Internet to learn about this year’s ride. There will be 9 flat stages (Flat stages are for wimps because even I can ride a bike if the terrain is flat. I can’t imagine why they include flat stages in the Tour), 3 hilly stages, 7 mountain stages (definitely NOT for wimps), 2 rest days, 1 individual time trial, 1 team time trial, and a partridge in a pear tree.

The longest Tour was in 1926 and covered 3,570 kilometers. This year’s race will cover 3,360 kilometers. No one knows how many miles that is which is fine because we don’t understand much about L’Tour. (We know more about Words on Tour than we do about the Tour de France.)

Not only is there a long tradition of cycling in the Tour de France, there is a long tradition of cheating. Not just the more recent steroid and drug cocktails, but really creative cheating. Like early on, one of the cyclists hopped a train for part of the journey. And in 1953, Jean Robic traded his water bottle for a bottle filled with lead so he could have extra weight to help him zoom down the mountain.

Until the 1960s, cyclists would drink alcohol during the race to numb the pain. According to My Friend the Internet, alcohol was banned because it was considered a stimulant. (Of course, according to the rest of the world, alcohol is a depressant, but whatev.)

Tour participants burn a lot of calories. And by “a lot” I mean about 5,000 calories a day. For the record, that is more calories than I burn in a month. Which is a really interesting reason to consider becoming a world-class cyclist.

Happy Tour.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I had a great day yesterday.

I renewed my driver’s license, and against all expectations it took only 12 minutes from the time I walked in the door until I had a new license (terrible photo—duh).

I went to the post office and in less than 2 minutes I was done. Very different than earlier in the week when half the population of Cincinnati was partying with the USPS.

And that’s how the entire day went.

So I thought about buying a lottery ticket.

I dug up some (not very surprising) facts about the lottery.

• You are more likely to be struck by lightning 5,000 times than win the lottery
• You are 146 times more likely to die in a fireworks accident
• You are 8,000 times more likely to be murdered

Here’s what I find particularly interesting. I’m more likely to be struck by lightning 5,000 (count ‘em, 5K with a comma) times than to win the lottery but only 146 times more likely to die in a fireworks accident.

Is there a fireworks-injury epidemic I don’t know about? How is it even possible that that many people get killed by fireworks? Are people eating fireworks or something?

(Does quick research.) According to MFTI (My Friend The Internet), there are four deaths per year from fireworks, and the most times anyone has ever been hit by lightning is 7 or 8.

Which, as far as I can tell, means I don’t have to worry about death from fireworks, overly fried hair from multiple lightning strikes, or winning the lottery.

Guess it was a good thing I didn’t buy a ticket. But I digress.

Back to yesterday.

Later in the day, I went to the gym. There was virtually no one at the gym, so I was able to use the machinery I wanted without waiting. And my FitRadio was playing great music with no load-time issues.

By working out I burned 225 calories. I celebrated by eating 7 servings of salmon and an entire cheesecake.

See what I mean about a great day?

Love, Mom