I’ll admit it. I was scared.
Sure there was the idea of the chain breaking, kicking back and taking a part of me off. Heck my coworkers asked for pictures, and they told me to skip the ones with blood.
But it was more than that. It was the effort.
How many days of work were we talking about? Assuming I didn’t get killed in the process, I assumed several.
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Certain people in our household have discovered the wonders of making their own ice cream cones. We now have a constant supply of waffle cones in the house with which to make these treats.
Friday night, Ling was eating her ice cream cone, and discovered a common waffle cone issue — they tend to leak out the bottom, her cone dripped onto her shirt, (which Punky dutifully cleaned), but the cone continued to leak.
She cast about for a solution, rejecting my suggestion of a napkin wrapped around it, and settled on more of an ongoing solution – Tim and I watched in horrified fascination as she motioned Punky over, and they proceeded to share — Punky working on the bottom of the cone, keeping it clean, while Ling worked on the top of the cone. Sharing, eating the same ice cream cone.
This was the lady that four years ago, was so horrified to see a small piece of dog droppings on her lawn, that we had to immediately drive out to the hardware store to find a spray to put on the lawn so that we could guarantee no dog would ever touch it again.
Now look at her…
Riding home, as I swing by the park I always slow down to look at whose dogs are out, to check if I should go say “hi.”
Today they were in the far corner, and with the light and distance I could only make out shapes. I quickly identified Jack and his dog Sam, but couldn’t place the man beside him — it wasn’t Mark, because Mark always wears a hat. Judging by the jumpiness of his dog, I guessed it was the new Labrador in the neighbourhood.
I got home, walked into the house, and was struck by the silence … Tim and Punky were in the park.
Oh.
There is something that has bothered me for a long time. What is it about the act of getting behind the wheel of a car that turns a normally law-abiding citizen into somebody who thinks that laws are only for “other people?”
There is something about our culture that seems to encourage us to ignore these laws. A person who dutifully lives within the mandates of our legal system gets into their car, and suddenly regards the BC Motor Vehicle Act as a set of optional suggestions. Driving over legally mandated speed limits, running through yellow lights when there is time to stop, ignoring do not enter and no left turn signs. Failing to yield on left turns, not signaling to change lanes or turn. These are all illegal, and yet I see countless people doing these exact things every day.
I did a really silly thing today — I fell off my bike.
I don’t mean I crashed. That’s acceptable, this wasn’t. At 5 kph I fell off, in front of all the witnesses getting off the seabus. Doing something I’ve done hundreds of times, riding off a curb. Riding off a small curb.
When you disembark the seabus and walk out onto Lonsdale Quay, there is a large promenade with the road off to the left. With my bike shoes it is easier to ride than to walk, so I get on the bike, then weave through the people while going no faster than a pedestrian. When I get to the curb, I slowly go off it (sometimes there are no people and I go faster and bunny hop off it; that would actually have been better today). That’s when it happened.
All of a sudden I was going over the handlebars, in the air, and I could feel the bike flipping up behind me and ready to come down on me.
My mountain bike instincts kicked in, I hit the ground on my side (arms up to shield my head), and rolled — the bike came down lightly on my legs. I heard a shout “are you okay?” (damn, I had really hoped nobody would notice that piece of embarrassment), I replied I was, as I stood up inspecting for damage. He didn’t believe me, came closer and checked a couple of more times.
But I was okay — I wasn’t even scratched! Thank goodness for safety gear and reflexes.
I brushed myself off, looked around and realized what had happened. I had come off the curb right where the storm drain was; my front tire had gone into that groove and stopped dead.
Hundreds of times. Literally. Never a problem.
But isn’t that always the way it is? The place where you are most likely to get in an accident is the place where you least expect it — because that’s where you get lazy and stop looking.
Well to me, riding off a curb is no longer an “mind off” event!
Ling recently told everyone about how much Punky loves a car ride. I had thought that 5 hours sitting in a car non-stop would cure him of that love.
Boy was I wrong.
Apparently he loved the grand adventure so much that he is more determined than ever to ensure we don’t leave him out on our new adventures! We got the first hint of this Monday after getting home and trying to unpack the car. Punky ran into the house, did a fast inspection to see everything was still there, then ran back outside and hopped into the car to wait for his next adventure. We had to drag him out when we were done unpacking.
Then yesterday, as I was preparing to take Tim to soccer practice, for the first time since we stopped kenelling him, I couldn’t get Punky to come upstairs! He sat by the front door waiting for his chance to bolt to the car — brandishing toys and food while ordering him to “COME” was not sufficient. When I finally took the first step downstairs to get him, he bolted to the back of the house (“I refuse to be locked away from this adventure!”).
Then this morning, as Ling was getting ready to leave for work, again. He bolted straight out the door and into the car.
Why is this? Well I have a feeling he is ardently hoping that all car rides end in places with rawhide, which he had his first taste of on the weekend…
One thing that bothers me when I’m riding is the people that think they’re riding so fast that nobody can come up behind them. They are the hardest people to pass because they’re oblivious, and often using the whole lane — safe in the thought there is no way anybody will be capable of catching them. [1]
I always want to tell them “look it doesn’t matter how fast you are, when you look at who lives here there is always somebody faster behind you.
Today I got to see that firsthand.
The month is over, and we even had a surprise entrant! Let’s see what the count was!
CC: 3 posts
Tim: 2 posts
Ling: 2 posts
Mags: 1 post
Sheena: 1 post
We successfully doubled CC’s posts for the two weeks, and sure increased our activity, and that is in a time where Ling had a horrendous work schedule to deal with, and everyone else was prepping for school. Congratulations!
Everybody gets a break this week to start school, then we’ll look at launching another one.
