Wednesday, September 08, 2010

One for the list

I'm trying to embrace this no car thing, but I think it's over. We got my bike all geared up thinking this fall I'd start exploring around our area. We got the baby seat, baby helmet, lock and basket. Today I didn't have our driver coming until around 12:45 to take Jack to the dentist, so I thought I'd try to make my daily grocery store run on my bike.

I got Dominic all loaded up and off we went. It was relatively cool and felt like fall. I was feeling pretty good, breathing in the smog, sharing the bike path with cars, motorcycles and donkeys, but I thought, "hey, I live in China, I'm riding my bicycle in China, that's what they do in China, and I'm doing it, how cool is that?"

We made it to the store, got the few things I needed, got Dominic settled in his seat with a croissant and headed home. After about one minute of riding I felt like the back of the bike was really wobbling, but I had tied the grocery bag to the back of Nugget's seat, so I thought it was swinging around and throwing me off balance. I stopped, secured my load and took off again. Still, we were really swaying and given that I'm not that great on my bike anyway, I got off again, gave the bike the once over (from about my waist up), moved a couple of the straps from Dominic's seat and took off again. You may remember from this post, I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box when it comes to things mechanical, but after dismounting again it dawned on me I had a flat tire. I had no cell phone, no tire pump and was at about the farthest point from home I could be on this outing. So after 1½ hours of pushing Dominic we rounded the corner into my driveway.....and I tipped the bike. Turns out bike helmets and baby seats protect kids pretty well. Dominic was asleep when I deposited him on the concrete and he just kind of woke up and gave me a look like, "What the hell am I doing sleeping strapped in this seat laying in our driveway?"

So adding to my "name it, and claim it at age 40" list of things I'm not going to pretend to like:
1) the beach
2) summer heat
3) not having a car
4) riding a bike

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Omg Kerry! You crack me up!!! I have been reading your blog all morning while nursing Finn to sleep. You seriously make me smile! I love your writing and your honesty.
Ashley delatour