A Tumble, A Dribble, An Olive Branch

I forcibly inherited my father's 1979 Itoh bicycle, and since I took it out of the storage space in the garage, it has been nothing but trouble. First, I had to swiped down fifteen years of dust and grime and make sure it was in proper working order. That lead my dad and I to discover there was a leak in the rear inner tube that later turned into a blowout. Well, okay, I figured, the bike is like 30 years old, it's fine if the inner tube blows once. Next, transporting it to St. Paul, the derailier managed to become dislodged and the frame bent, preventing the gears from changing. This would've been easy enough to correct, except I didn't remember how it was put together originally. Through trial and error and help from my friend Andrew, I managed to get everything in place. That was fine, except I still had to fix the inner tube. I managed to get that done on Sunday, only as my housemate Alison and I were biking to work, the new inner tube blew out. I decided I had had enough of this, and bought and installed new tires. That was last night. So this afternoon, like every Tuesday, my housemates and I were getting ready for a bike ride to one of the lakes in Minneapolis. As we reach the River Road, everything is going fine, and then I, in my haste and impetuousness, decide to take the inside curve around my friend Molly at a pretty high speed. She, not knowing that I was there, accidentally veers slightly into my path, and while I call out, neither of us has time to react. Luckily, neither of us were badly hurt. Molly was a little shaken up, and I have several large bloody scrapes on my left arm and leg and some scrapes on my right palm and leg.

I am convinced that the bike is cursed. I shall have to have it exorcised before I can use it for exercise.

Additionally, Joe and I were in Stillwater at my friend Nick's last night, and as we were leaving this morning, I took him around Stillwater to see the town. We stopped at Nelsons, and I impressed him with the size of a child's scoop of ice cream. For any of you that are familiar with Nelsons, a child's scoop, the smallest size available is something like half a pint. It's a bit of a joke among people from my home town to bring out of towners there and then let them order a single or even a double. And yes, there are larger sizes; a triple scoop, which is actually four scoops, each about the size of a soft ball, and the Lumberjack, which is five scoops and you must bring your own bowl in order to purchase it. As we were leaving, and it being a hot sunny day, our ice cream started melting a lot faster than we could eat it. Being a practiced hand at the fine art of eating ice cream speedily, I kept pace for most of the time. Joe on the other hand was hopelessly lost. He lost the battle before we got more than a quarter of a mile from the store, and was dripping all over himself and my car. He stuck his hand out the window, only to find the wind and direct sunlight accelerated the melting. I should've had more foresight and stayed inside the shop a little while longer until we got the cones under control. Oh well. A little ice cream never hurt anyone.

On a more positive note, I was taking my bike out last night and I ran in to our neighbor, the one who reported us the other night. Her name is Mrs. Lally and is actually quite nice. She waved to me and said she hoped my housemates and I didn't think she was a shrew. She herself is a landlady, although her tenants are a Mac professor over on Fairview and Goodrich. We spoke for a while as all good Minnesotans are wont to do, and I think things went very amiably. Harley even told me today that she had made her a coffee cake.

I'm going to go nurse my wounds and watch some more PBS. I've been watching Nova on a website called hulu.com that has a ton of shows for free download. I encourage you to check it out.