Intermodal Man! Thank goodness you're here!
Yesterday, I took the bus down to Porter Square to have lunch with Spike. She was attempting to psych herself up to carry a bag of mulch the half-mile from Tags Hardware to her apartment for the vegetables she's planting this year.
Then I had a cunning idea. We went back to her office and I checked out Zipcar's Ford Focus Forrest for an hour.
Now, my relationship to Zipcar is kind of odd. About two years ago, I took out a monthly membership, figuring that the frequent turnover would motivate me to get my ass in the driver's seat frequently enough to maintain my driving skills. As it happens, it hasn't quite worked out that way. What with one thing and another, it had been almost a year since I drove a Zipcar (or any car at all for that matter), with commensurate rot in my still underdeveloped driving skills.
On Wednesday, I had gone for an hour drive with Charlotte to try to crrect this problem, so Zipcar was on my mind. It had been pretty scary being on the road, but--as always--not as scary as the anticipation had been.
Inside Tags, a bag of mulch rapidly became three bags of mulch, three bags of soil, and a bag of charcoal. I got to sit behind the wheel as Spike and a Tags clerk loaded them into the back. I always feel like I'm impersonating a grownup when I drive...
On her street, I parked rather cautiously, and we ended up having a couple blocks to haul her goodies. "Good thing you have a leukemia patient here to help you with your heavy lifting," I ribbed her.
"Is you platelet count high enough that I can sock you?" she wanted to know.
Potluck was at Ruth & Gavin's place, another quarter-mile out from Spike's place, in Darkest Medford. After throwing together some pasta salad and shoving it into my backpack, I grabbed my Strida out of the basement and headed for the bus stop.
My history with the Strida is depressingly like my Zipcar history. A stylish, vaguely utopian alternative transportation tool that I bought into in the expectation that it would prove immensely practical, but which I haven't ended up using much.
It's a little more complicated than that--I took the Strida to Burningman in 2001, a year of unprecedented quantities of loose superfine silica dust, which thrashed the hell out of the bike within a couple days, and I didn't get around to getting it fully repaired until last summer...and even now, the brakes are a little wonky.
There are three things a folding bike can be optimized for--ease of folding, compactness, and ride. The Strida is all about the first--I can fold or unfold it in about ten seconds--but the ride is a little funky. Given that, and the fact that I hadn't been on a bike since November, and the fact that certainly hadn't been on a bike since the hospital, I was a little nervous about my plan, but it went off without a hitch (well, except for having to pay 50¢ for air for my tires--goddamn gas station air pirates). After potluck, I folded the Strida, put it in the trunk of Lotte's car and got a ride home, having availed myself of my transportation options with exceptional thoroughness.
europe pricing by europe pricing:
What are the real implications to huge debt beyond leaving it a younger generation of tax payers? Reason I ask is that I argued with a staunch Republican after the presidential election, and he asked me "what do you care about the national debt?", guess he was referring to my age (60 +). And being Mongo (not well informed), I did not have a good answer for him.
many reviews by many reviews:
I haven't been up to anything , not that it matters. Basically nothing seems important, but I guess it doesn't bother me. Not much on my mind to speak of. Today was a loss, but maybe tomorrow.
interesting site by interesting site:
Today was a complete loss. I feel like a complete blank. I don't care.
link to my shop by link to my shop:
I've just been letting everything wash over me recently, but pfft. Shrug. I feel like a bunch of nothing. Whatever. Basically nothing noteworthy going on right now, but I guess it doesn't bother me.