Adjustments

It's a strange year of this and that I'm having. A few months here, a few months there, a few months somewhere else.

I remember what drives me mad about living in a developed area. It's all of the cars. All of the all of the all of the cars. Radiating heat. Fumes. Bumped up against each other about as tightly as one could possibly fit them at high or low speeds without actually touching each other. Long traffic lights. Cars backed up for long distances. Silver cars, white cars, black cars, green cars, cars of all color, age, size, style, weight. It's a car culture.

Oh, do I miss the bicycle-happy streets of Corvallis and the foot-filled streets of Montpelier. It's funny, though, or tragic, because it's mostly in these unbearable CAR situations that I remember how important it is NOT to drive. Nothing makes me long for my bicycle more intensely than a really disgusting traffic jam.

If there's one silver lining -- no, no, no, make that a GRAY lining -- to the absurd intersection homing between me and my mule, and the heat, and the congestion, and the longer-commute-than-I'm-used-to, it's that my vegetable oil fuel tank is more useful here than it was in Oregon. In Oregon Muley was just a few miles away, and by the time my car was warm enough to ask for veggie oil, I was already there. That drive was short, but the highway was too exciting for me to bicycle.

The commute here will be WONDERFUL on a bicycle, as long as I can acquire a high-visibility body suit complete with a high-visibility protective bubble. I mean, the traffic is fantastic. Actually, I think it's just completely normal traffic---for the east coast. But having been gone for a little while, oh, oh, oh, it's enough to make me want to scream.

But once I get past the traffic and into the country (three miles out) the ride will be absolutely magnificent. I haven't biked it yet because the long drive here from Oregon landed me rather harshly on antibiotics and so I'm not only temporarily photosynsitive, I'm also, amazingly, ligament-sensitive. This particular antibioitic is not only anti-infection, but anti-exercise, too. Only a few more days and I'm free, thank goodness, to zoom my dear Trekkie bike all over Davidson county. Davidson? I don't even know where I am.

I'm going to post on ad on Craigslist for vegetable oil -- once I get my bike tires pumped and my BenZy tank full of oil, I'll really be ready to crank. Eat my french fry fumes, you traffic jams! Watch me spin by on my pedals! Watch me pass you all, bwa hahahaha!!!!!

You know what I REALLY want... a little trailer so I can haul the groceries home. Yesterday I walked from my grandparents' house to Tractor Supply Company to look at some equine products. Well, Yellow and Papa Joe thought I was a little crazy for even making an attempt. TSC can't be more than a mile and a half away -- but it was mid-day and HOT as the devil's britches -- well, I got up to the Mack Hatcher and Columbia junction and I'll be darned if there wasn't even a cross walk. Well heck. I had heat exhaustion AND I had to navigate a (how-many-lane?) wiiide intersection, too? Well, I made it without getting struck down. And I made it home, too.

Tomorrow I am taking my grandparents to the Franklin Farmers Market so we can get some eggs and asparagus and exercise and lettuce and everything else that is wonderful and fresh.