Birthday Monkey!

I turned 53 today, and my stepson, Janak or SingingCyclist when he posts here, gave me the present pictured above. It's the Monkey finger puppet holding up a sign of encouragement for my journey to Paris for Paris Brest Paris. The Monkey, the SingingCyclist's alter ego, is holding up a sign that says: "Go Ubb!"

Ubb is a nickname that my mother coined for me, and is a better moniker than "stepdad". Thus, it is Janak's name for me.

To construct it, Janak's Aunt Leslie and he punched a pipe cleaner through the Monkey's torso. The pipe cleaner affixes the talisman to my bicycle. Much like Billiken from this earlier post about a very early cyclo-tour up the West Coast for the Seattle Yukon Pacific Exposition, the Monkey will be my PBP good luck charm.

For her part, DartreDame made me a fabulous Indian dinner complete with the non-sweetened dessert pictured below. She also got me a breathable rain jacket for brevets since my commuting jacket doesn't cut it in the breathing department.

Ain't I a lucky randonneur?!

P.S. Singing and Dartre insist that I explain that they ran out of regular candles and therefore had to utilize the leftover "11" from a previous birthday.

Keep it monkeying around,

CurioRando