The weather was lovely Sunday, breezy with brilliant sunshine and a few clouds until the afternoon, when the clouds thickened up. No rain and it mostly just spared the city the worst heat of the day. After a morning of some housework and a long, lazy soak in the tub reading a LeGuin novel,* I garbed up† and got the scooter out.
A late donut run came first. A half-hour before closing, pickings were slim at the local donut shop, where the staff has (after a deliciously overestimated first few months) worked out a keen understanding of any day's likely demand. I picked up a nice chocolate donut free for nothing, because "You're in here a lot." (Helps that they are on my way to just about everywhere!)
Took that home for later and set out for groceries, possibly preceded by lunch in Beautiful Downtown Broad Ripple. Maybe?
Well, no. It was one o'clock; the very kewl foodie place over by the donut shop had a private function of some sort underway, and up in the Village‡ proper, all of the usual place were packed. "Later," I thought, and went to the recently-opened organo-supermarket** to stock up for the coming week.
Later was too late; I rode home, put groceries away, took a short nap and found myself in the two-hour gap between Lunch and Dinner. I went to the closer grocer, got a nice bacon-cheddar burger and some onion, bell pepper and a little jalapeno to fry up and put on top, made dinner, watched a little TV, did more housework and went to bed.
Still working on the touch-typing thing. Typed most of this without looking at the keys. I'm still fumbling a lot but improving as I build skill.
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*The Eye Of The Heron, which she says might be part of the Hainish Cycle. Or, I suppose, not. It works either way. The story looks at ideas similar to those she explored in The Dispossessed... and other stories set on the twin worlds of Anarres and Urras, from a different angle and with Earth-humans as the protagonists. LeGuin takes a lot of flak from some corners of the libertarian SF crowd, which I think is unfair; time and again, she sets up societies that appeal to appeal to her inclinations or hopes and then points out all the weak points by showing how they fall short in actual practice.
† I keep seeing people on scooters without the least nod towards safety equipment. Most of the scooters are 49cc "DUI specials," but the road remains as abrasive as it is from a Harley and your own inertia at 35 or 40 mph is the same either way. Helmet, gloves, padded jacket, boots and my usual Carhartt "Double Front" dungarees are about my minimum, and Tam, veteran of motorcycle commuting and motorcycle accidents, considers even that on the inadequate side.
‡ Yes, "the Village." If it sounds silly to you, take it up with the merchants and other business owners of the Broad Ripple Village Association.
** It appears to be booming. Meanwhile, the venerable Marsh supermarket chain, with a store a half-mile away, had gone broke. Marsh was on the way out before the new place broke ground -- but the trend is clear. Along those same lines, long-established Double-8 Foods, with tiny markets mostly in struggling neighborhoods, failed several years ago and has been replaced by nothing at all, another point on the same graph.
I hit the pavement on an old fashioned drug concrete road, the very first time (and last time) I went out without a helmet. This was in Southern Calif, and beastly hot. You could plainly see where the sleeveless T shirt ended - the skin under it was reddened - the skin outside of it was missing along with several layers of flesh. Just a T shirt made that much difference!
ReplyDeleteConsidering the pavement ate nearly thru the case savers on my Kawasaki 900, I felt lucky to be able to hobble away!
Merle
I was lucky in my 20 years or so of riding, only one wreck, and that caused no injuries to me and only a few hundred $$$ to the Gold Wing.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing like 2-wheeling on a pleasant summer day, but it's certainly not without some risk. I still think about getting a scooter to toodle around on. <>
Touch typing is the bomb. Get a good keyboard. My dad taught typing in the dark days before computers were everywhere, so I didn't have much choice but learn. (Though when spell check came along that was a miracle.)
ReplyDeleteMy problem is that I speak the words in my head, so sometimes I get "too" instead of "two" and other times I get words that are close. But I can type almost as fast as I can talk. Almost.
Zendo: I'm actually very fast with a keyboard -- or I was, pre-touch-typing -- but it was frustrating me to not see what I was typing. As for "get a good keyboard," my Unicomp IBM Model M and I switched to a mechanical-keys Azio with round keycaps that has turned out to be about as nice as the Unicomp.
ReplyDeleteJim and Merle: i had my own bout of road rash -- and a broken knee (actually a spiral fracture of the bottom of my thighbone) -- in 2006. That was plenty and I hope it made me a more careful rider. The little scooter is fun but I think 10" tires make many road hazards a little more hazardous than they might otherwise be.
Managed to remove part of a sentence! Make that "...my Unicomp IBM Model M started acting up and I switched to a mechanical-keys Azio...."
ReplyDelete