Strawberry Fields Forever

Today I took my newly acquired road bike for its first climb. On a 42t by 30t gear combo, it’s almost impossible to ever stay on the saddle. I had to stand up and use all the weight I have to push the pedals down and get through the steep climbs of our route: JY-Cantipla-Tabunan-Tagbao-Pulang Bato exit. I may change to lighter cogs soon but I have a bigger worry.

When I got home, I read about this article about heart tears that happen because of constant exertion. Now I feel bad: you don’t exercise, you get sick; if you do exercise, you get cardiac arrest. It’s a confusing world. I guess I should talk to a fitness doctor but I’m so broke the only doctor I can afford is free advice from the internet. And free advice from the internet is rarely reliable.

 But enough with the bad news because we already get 5 times our daily dose just by watching TV headlines. Now for a good one: there’s a strawberry field in Cantipla, in the central part of Cebu. It’s not good news for everyone but at 450 pesos per kilo, but it’s a really good one if you knew how much those strawberries cost in the groceries. I shouldn’t bother though. I only like the way strawberries look. I don’t like the way they taste—not in jams or in cheap artificial flavors.

 I also learned a few pointers on how to keep strawberries healthy, like using sticks to keep the berries off the ground so they don’t rot. But I won’t be growing strawberries so I don’t know why I bother to learn how to care for them. I don’t know why I bother learning things that have no foreseeable use to me.