Hello! Long time, no blog. Sorry ‘bout that! There are lapses of time in my life when nothing truly blogworthy happens. What can I say? But, I did ride my bike yesterday so I would like to blog about that.
“Wow, Jon” you might say, “how boring must your life have become to make a bike ride blogworthy?” I am glad you asked.
It has been 2 weeks since my last bike ride but I must first set the scene and give you a little background.
My last real blog (2 months ago) was about the wife and I trying to decide about moving back to Indiana or not. One thing that determines this is the budget. One thing that I would like to cut out of our monthly budget is cell phones for the kids and I (the wife will keep hers). The only upside to the kids having cell phones is that we can call or text them when it is time to come home for dinner otherwise we (and by we, I mean me) have to hunt them down somewhere in the neighborhood. This is where the bike ride 2 weeks ago comes into this story. The wife had asked me to call (not text) the daughter to tell her to come home for dinner. Given that I am very close to deciding to ditch the cell phones, I thought I would ride my bike to hunt her down. This would help me to determine if I really wanted to discontinue our cell phone plan or not.
The wife and I got new bikes for Christmas last year and they are the best bikes that either of us have ever had. It is very fun to ride them, especially on a beautiful Texas, windless evening when the temperatures are going down. Many an evening I will put on my headphones and hop on the bike for a 45 minute ride down the bike trail that is near our neighborhood. People are out riding their bikes, walking their dogs or just walking with their families. The bike trail meanders through a school playground, around a small pond (where some people fish) and under several bridges. It is probably 3 miles before it ends and normally I just turn around and come back.
My bike ride 2 weeks ago lasted about 8 feet and I never made it out of the driveway. I hopped on my bike in the garage, positioned it so I could head down the driveway on the right side of the van that was parked in the driveway and then pedaled exactly once. It was about 2 foot down the driveway that my front tire went off of the driveway and into the yard. The driveway is about 2 inches above the yard (give or take) and instinctively I tried to steer back onto the driveway. It was at this point in time that physics took over and gravity (who was to be my friend in gaining speed down the driveway) became a near mortal enemy. I realized immediately that I was not going to make a miraculous save and stave off the imminent crash so I began to position my body to minimize the damage. I landed on my left shoulder and left knee and have the still healing scabs to prove this. I also landed on my left upper arm and drove my left elbow into my ribs. This is the section of my body that has been constantly reminding me of my crash for the past 2 weeks. it was just last night that I could take a deep breath without cringing in pain. Even as I was writing that last sentence, a sneeze occurred and, well, OW!
Once I had stopped bouncing down the driveway, I immediately jumped up. I wanted to see if I was really hurt or just scraped up. I tried to “walk it off” as they say. I hobbled around for a few seconds, picked up the bike (which seemed none the worse for wear) and walked the bike back into the garage. What happened next falls into the category of “he said, she said”.
The wife, upon seeing that I had returned so quickly and that I was not walking in a manner that a healthy, uninjured person would walk, asked what happened. I explained as best I could and then she said the following statement…
“Did anyone see you?”
How I interpreted that statement.
I interpreted this like any person would, namely that she was concerned that I had embarrassed myself (and her) by crashing my bike before I even got out of the driveway. Now, I do not blame her much for this statement as it may have been part of the reason that I got up from the crash site so quickly but she is my wife and she only spent about 5 seconds making sure I was OK before she said this statement.
What she said that she meant by that statement.
She CLAIMS that she asked this question to see if any of our neighbors had come to my rescue or at least asked if I was OK. She still defends this excuse to this day. If she had not have bust out laughing RIGHT AFTER she said this statement, I might be inclined to actually believe her.
Anyway, my ribs are feeling better every day and I really did go on a bike ride yesterday for about 20 minutes. I did pay more attention to the edge of the driveway and the edges of the sidewalks throughout the entire ride and overall was more careful during turns and intersections. That is probably a good thing. As for ditching the cell phones, I am still undecided.
Jon
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