I’ve had a couple of days off from work, which is wonderful because i was getting totally exhausted. Now i’m going to ask them for a demotion and for part time work, which would fit my energy level better. I simply can’t maintain the pace.
But there’s good news:
This morning i cut cleanly through and found a fabulous bargain on new tires for my Segway, which i had been shamed into shopping for after this really handsome young motorcyclist pulled up beside me at a traffic light yesterday and jocularly observed that i was riding on slicks. Luckily, i thought quickly enough to laugh and shoot back that i might have already got my money’s worth outta ’em. Still, i was mortified because he was absolutely right and besides, they were so old that both had slow leaks and had to be pumped up every few days.
Anyhow, after some shopping online and being horrified at the prices of replacement tires (not even looking at the price of official Segway tires), i called the Segway dealer in Oakland and discovered that since i’m riding an obsolete model that nobody wants because the new version has so many improvements and also because everybody is wanting the way cool gnarly knobby off-road tires, there are lots of the old very slightly used street tires around going begging. I got a pair for sixty bucks, and he threw in the wheels because it was so much easier for him to just give ’em to me than to change the tires. Since my old wheels were pretty beat up from all the falls and airline trauma, getting newer ones was a big plus.
When i got home i celebrated by riding down the hill to my gymette and doing 1.18 miles on the elliptical trainer (which because it uses somewhat different muscles i can actually get my heart rate up on, which i can’t do walking) and then waved a few weights around.
Then i continued the celebration by riding down 14th street to the Mission Beach Cafe and making a lunch of their wild mushroom Benedict Florentine with a truffled mornay sauce instead of béarnaise. And since i was already in there, a slice of their divine chocolate cream pie, about which i dream, it being the very essence of what a chocolate cream pie should be.
On the way home i picked up a sourdough baguette and a gallon of low-fat milk, but i haven’t eaten them yet.
And OK, in the interests of full disclosure, not long after the encounter with the motorcyclist i was riding around in Dolores Park scoping out possible places where the homeless might gather on the night we’ll be enumerating them and encountered what appeared to be a grassy slope but was really a mud slide held in place and camouflaged by the grass. The Segway immediately went out from under me, and i landed with a squish on my back. The Segway preceded me down the hill until we came to rest, thoroughly muddied, at the bottom. It was on the way home that i decided that some tires with a little tread on them might be a good investment.
Meanwhile, since we’re talking about vehicles, take a look at this Bicycle Built for Two by the Rock the Bike folks: