I woke up this morning around 9 o'clock but in spite of the early awake time, decided to do what I do best, which is - lay in bed. I listened to the radio, listened to my iPod, read a little, thought about work, made myself think about something else, etc. Once I finally got up, I decided to take it easy.
I am so good at taking it easy. Seriously: I could win awards. In one of Anne Lamott's novels, "Rosie," Elizabeth, the main character and her best friend do a lot of what they call "prone yoga." Prone yoga involves a lot of lying around, remaining still (Elizabeth is also an alcoholic; prone yoga involves a beer or five). Minus the beers (though, what a good idea, Anne), I've got some olympic-worthy prone yoga chops over here.
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Updated a couple of days later:
So after doing some more training for the gold medal in laziness, I finally did get up and I rode my bike to the dry cleaners, which is about a 10 minute bike ride from home. If I had walked, I probably would've gotten more out of it, but the bike was more fun. This post was originally started on Friday. Now it's Sunday. Saturday, Patrick had to work, which was disappointing. Earlier in the week we had discussed having his mom come over to teach me how to make tamale pie, then, we had been reminded about the micro brew thing at Santa Anita this weekend, and then... Patrick found out that he had to work.
So instead, I set off on a more - what's the word? When you want to exceed yesterday's results? Industrious? No... Well, whatever, I had bigger plans for this bike ride. I decided I would ride over to the new Fresh & Easy by our house. I just got a new basket for my bike (the ride to the dry cleaners without one was scary) and I thought, well, I have to run a couple of errands, why not? So I hopped on the bike, threw my "purse" (a large canvas tote from J. Crew. I need a new purse) in the basket, and went to Cal Jewelers to get my ring cleaned. I used to go to this other place in Santa Monica that was right across the street from the bookstore but that's a little far to go. The cool thing about that place was, they did it for me the same day. I would drop my ring off in the morning, and it would be ready by lunch. This place in LB is much, much slower. My diamond is a little loose, though, and I don't want to put it off much longer. But it means I'll be without my ring until Wednesday. My hand looks funny without it. It's already 24 hours after I took it off, and I still have an indentation on that finger. By the way, I totally took the wrong route to the jewelry store, and actually saw myself getting run over all the way over there. If you were driving on Palo Verde yesterday around 1:00, thank you for not hitting me. I promise not to ride that way anymore.
Anyway, so the Fresh & Easy is actually in the shopping center across the street, so I left my bike locked up where it was, and walked over there.
And here's where I take a minute and talk about walking and riding in Long Beach.
I know I've mentioned before that when I was in my 20s, before I had a car, that I biked everywhere. I was brave, too (or "stupid"), because I would zoom into left turn lanes, and basically, was just more aggressive in traffic. It was no big deal, I never fell or got hit or caused an accident. I just looked at a map, and my ride to work (in the Culver Center) from my parents' house was 2.4 miles. The ride to Fresh & Easy is half that, but much, much more fraught with danger.
For one thing, yes, there is a bike lane on one of the main streets, but on the other (if you go from my house, it would be possible to get there on just 2 roads) there isn't. And both these streets are huge, 4-lane streets, with lots of traffic, 45 mile an hour speed limit (so you know some people are at least doing 50) - it's scary. I mostly just know the easy way to this part of town because I mostly just drive around here. I'm new to the biking my neighborhood business. Anyway, so now I'm on the pedestrian's side of things, and I've realized something I had forgotten:
Drivers of cars are assholes. They're distracted, impatient, they only look right in front of themselves, they don't turn their heads to see if someone is in the crosswalk and they drive way too fast around bicyclists and pedestrians. I have become that jerky person in the crosswalk who yells at people attempting to make a right turn at an intersection who doesn't look right. Yes: you are wrong, and I am going to tell you, rather than just stand there and let you run me over like a nice little girl.
Now, I'm not saying I'm a perfect driver (two speeding tickets within two months last year takes me out of the running, no?) but walking and biking around my town has definitely made me slow down and pay more attention.
The right turn thing is the most important thing to me. I almost got hit in the crosswalk a couple of times (and we're talking about when I was walking, not riding the bike) and it's scary, when you have the walk signal, and some jerk in a million pound car (what? car's don't weigh that much? If one strikes me in the street, does it matter if I'm off by a few thousand pounds?) is on the phone, can't turn their head to the right, and has no idea I'm there or not. Of course I'm going to look before I step off the curb. Of course I won't walk in front of a car on purpose. I'm just saying, wake up, slow down, think about what you're doing when you put those keys in the ignition, and don't hit anybody.
Okay, rant over.
So anyway, I got my groceries at Fresh & Easy (I had originally just gone there to get one of their amazing tomato & mozzarella sandwiches, but decided to pick up a few more things, and I ended up with two bags instead of just one), and headed back to my bike, and my nifty (but nerdy, yes, I am aware) new basket.
One bag would've been fine. Two bags was suicidal. I took a different, more neighborhood-centric route home, which was nice (except for the kids on that one street, who were out on their scooters and skateboards who all said "hi!" to me and then, I'm positive, all gave me the finger after I'd passed), but I was not at all comfortable with all the stuff.
Well, now I know. One bag, and one bag only.
Still, it was fun, though, not much riding (about 20 minutes round trip). I'll do it again.
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