Thursday, September 25, 2008

Intersection of SICK and TIRED

I have to apologize for my lack of posts recently... life has been keeping me even busier than usual. Last week I went to Energy Efficiency conference at the Columbia Zoo and no, I did not ride my bike, I actually rode this turtle all the way up I-26. Okay, so I carpooled. Then when I got home, I had three friends come in town. The funny thing was, before they got here, they all asked if they should bring their bikes. I have to admit, I said no- mostly because I knew that most of the places they wanted to go are not exactly bike friendly trips. So just for the weekend, my trusty steed had two extra cars to canoodle with in the driveway. On Monday, with a friend still in town, I opted to get back on my bike for my night class instead of getting a ride :-) It was a really good weekend with great company and the weather FINALLY cooled off (my friends that came down from the mountains to go to the beach did not share my enthusiasm). Tuesday, the last guest out of the house, after a week and a half of constant activity and extreme weather change, my body finally gave out. I came home that night, took an intense nap, woke up, ate dinner, got sick and then went back to sleep. Wednesday I had to go into work on John's Island so I got up bright and early, biked the Greenway with my pup to wear her out and caught a ride with a co-worker. After draggin my tail feathers all day, I got home, let out the dog, and ran to the bus-stop. As the bus approached I realized I didn't have my pass, cussed a little too loudly (I had my i-pod in) causing everyone to stare at me...so I trudged back to my house. I threw on my biking gear and sped down Savannah Hwy. About half way there I realized that going to class was a bad idea. First of all, the tides were crazy high, so the City was flooded everywhere. I literally had to walk through 6 inches of water, going against traffic on 61, with cars honking and splashing me as they tried to squeeze past the 3 feet of non-flooded street. (Did I mention it was rush-hour?) I love moments like this where you just want to say to the person honking: "Do you think I WANT to be doing this, genius?" The most awkward part was that everyone had to drive really slow through the water and most had their windows down, so they would yell at me, but unlike a passing car, I had time to make eye contact and apologize....which kind of takes the satisfation out of road rage. Needless to say there are about a dozen commuters that feel like the biggest jackasses ever right now. So with wet tennis shoes, I continued onto to class, hitting two more flooded roads on the way. Even though it was cold and windy, I could feel my face burning with a fever, and wanted nothing more than to crawl back in bed. The ride home wasn't much better, my body aching and towards the end I was almost to the point of tears... But just when I started to feel sorry for myself, I saw this lone pedal on the bridge: I mean that is just sad. I had the urge to pick it up and take it home and find some new job for it..something that would liberate it from a life of being stepped on- like a wind chime weight perhaps? Anyway... I think the average person can grasp that the pedal is a pretty essential element to propelling the bike. Just imagine biking on a two foot wide path when you lose one half of your biking power. Heres the way I see it going down: This person was biking across the very narrow bridge side-walk when they realized another person was coming. They tried to keep biking, and get close to the concrete rail and BAM they got caught and that bad boy got ripped the hell off. Hopefully they were able to keep their bike off the road and not pull one of those panicky over-correction moves. So now they are left with one pedal and one nub. They can potentially still try and push the one pedal, however awkwardly, but they've got to figure out where to put their leg/foot so the nub doesn't rock their world. Perhaps they put one foot up on the frame or maybe they were able to use their big toe to push the nub in circles and I sure hope so... but eitherway that sucks. Despite the pity I felt for this pedal-less person...the visual made me laugh really hard. So just know, when you are literally sick and tired, it could always be worse. On a happier note...for those of you that didn't get to see the video of my that was on the Digitel.com... check it out on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq3L_MTxPpA

1 comment:

Magellan said...

Aww sad wet sick you. I must say being sick myself this week and not using my bike beacuse it causes fits of coughing and snot dripping I feel for you. Your story about the nub made me laugh which made me cough. anywya get better.