herewiss13

Last Friday it was still sunny and not windy so I lugged my bike up the basement steps. It turned out that although the radio claimed it was no warmer than 11°C, shorts, a hoodie, a headband, scarf and gloves was perfect. I went first to the goodwill-type store where there wasn't an interesting DVD to be found, still no lava lamps, but I did pick up two pre-prepped meals. I decided against another stroll in the Miner wood (been there, done that) and got a Gyro pita instead. After hitting a grocer for bananas and cookies, I headed for home. Then the stem on my bicycle seat snapped. I found out the hard way how tiring it is to pedal when you can't sit down. It's also harder to get your fingers to where you can squeeze the cantilever brakes. On the way I saw a small dead branch dangling from a tree. With my handy-dandy pocket knife (the kind collected by airport security) I sawed off a section that fit snugly into the seat post, both halves, and I was able to put the seat back on. That lasted all of 200', the stick snapped. A few hundred yards further on there was a spot that wasn't a mowed lawn in front of a house. I spotted a maple sapling, very much not dead, and I cut off a segment and jammed it in. That broke too. I made it home anyway and did not die.



Saturday I took my bike to the shop. I hope the mechanic was channeling his inner Scotty (from 'Trek) by looking doubtful about getting the snapped post out of the bike frame. It had snapped flush with the frame and of course, I never loosened the bolts as I never felt the need to adjust the seat height. The mechanic was keen to sell me some other old bike. No, I much rather stick with my 40 year old Peugeot. Well, I should get a call sometime this week, preferably with good news... and with a bill nearly as high as what the bike cost me new. I got it at a reduced-to-clear $350. About $350. Under $500 for sure. The mechanic says there are people riding $10,000 electric "bikes", and using them as mountain bikes on mountain bike trails. Sure, getting up the trails is a breeze when you don't have to pedal, but the extra weight when going down? Not ideal.



Also: all those old people on electric bikes. Sure, they're getting out, that's great. But electric? That's cheating. Especially when they whizz past me on the bike path. I hope my bike's ready soon, in time for the next heat wave or two. I was too long between bike rides when I finally took it out to go garage sale hopping last May. Got me swollen between the thighs something fierce. I used to be a bicycle courier back in the day. I'd cycle fast, I never got swollen. Now... not being able to sit while riding home last Friday was _exhausting_!



David Suzuki was on the radio call-in show when I got back from shopping this morning (I was out of milk). As feisty and as bitter as ever. The interesting thing he said is that as a radio/TV host, he could not rant about things like climate change. He retired. As head of a charity, he could not speak his mind about things like the government reneging on environmental policy. He quit the charity. Government ministers have to back party policy, no matter what. He urged a minister to resign, I don't know if he did, I don't follow politics. The people who can and do dictate government policy, and how fast we end up in a hot hell in our handbasket, are lobbyists. Lobbyists are hired by well-heeled businesses. Generally speaking, the bigger the business, the less interested it is in having protocols and considerations increasing their costs. So David Suzuki has given up on curbing climate change. He's just bracing for the crash.



The phone rings -- it's the bike mechanic! Success, Scotty's fixed it (oh surprise). "Works like a monk" (or walks... we're speaking French), I have no clue what that means, except the obvious, seeing that it's fixed, greased, parts replaced and ready to go. $370. So, score! I've bought myself my old Peugeot bicycle for my birthday, at a 1980's price too. I'd better go pick it up.

Harvest time for the field of (insect) screams! Yesterday afternoon it took a colossal John Deer of the spinning blades all of 20 minutes to shear, shred and sort the entire ex-pasture into one big hamper-load of soybeans and a cloud of dust. I don't know how far back, how many more monoculture fields there are across the road from me. I think they finished harvesting around nightfall.



Well, now I'll be able to see the deer and turkeys again. There was a coating of sparkling frost on the grass this morning. I'm getting the urge to lug my bike out of the basement and go cycling.



There was a sunny day last week, before I got drunk with virus; I went back to the forest path to stare at trees. On the way I stopped into the secondhand store. Well, there are several secondhand stores in town, including a Value Village, but I almost always go to the one that feeds the poor. I found an electric razor ($12, I see the same model on sale this week for $230, $70 off) and a glass candy dish that's just right as a replacement drainage saucer for my carnivorous plants. There has to always be water in the dish for carnivorous plants to be OK and the previous saucer was leaking. That is not ideal. I also picked up a Nightmare Moon pony.



Now I already have this Nightmare Moon pony, but it was the first time Hasbro had released an all-black brushable pony toy and it was only available in the first "Fan Favorites" packaged set, back in 2012. So spare pony, for photo shoots! I went looking for fall beauty.



While crossing a pedestrian bridge over the local "river" I decided to take the trail down to the water to see if I could get any reflections off the water. The trail is walking only, no bikes, so I walked my bike, hitting my calf a few times with a pedal. The pedals on my bike are metal and sharp. There was a bit of blood. Anyway, boring, I went, I saw, I took a few pictures. There was a series of rusty rings and cement supports at the end of a long straight portion of the path, with water flowing down the middle. Surprisingly, this was not an art installation. If it had been, it would have been just about the best art installation in town. The city has no taste whatsoever. What it was was the remnants of a pipe from around the 1920's when it was used to provide hydro-power to a rubber factory. Hydro-power, from this pathetic "river" you couldn't float a canoe in. Miraculous.



Seeping blood but attracting no flies (too cold), I made it to the hundred acre wood. Probably a hundred acres. Acres are really small. I locked my up bike and went looking for beauty. Other people were walking their dogs (one carried a cat), I walked my plastic pony.



After an hour of that, I got back in the saddle, I was ready to go home. On a whim I stopped by the municipal art gallery. With the hours it keeps, it's nearly always closed when I want to go in. This time it was open! The art was abstract test smears of variations on a colour on canvas. Worth the entrance fee (there is no entrance fee). The volunteer custodian/people-counter/guard agreed with me that this town is bereft of quality art, and that that goes for theatre as well. After she gave me explicit directions I had trouble believing, I found the Palmer Cox "mural". It was indoors, in an employee side corridor, where no one could see it! Yep, this town does not appreciate its artists, living or dead, not even the really famous Palmer Cox.



I stopped by a nice dingy Shish Taouk restaurant, ate half a Gyro pita (kept the other half), made it home and did not die.