display of brilliance

For whatever reason, pregnancy always brings my subconscious back to the days of high school. Many of my dreams involve people and places from back home. Most all of them occur in my grandfather's old store. At any rate, the things I have long forgotten somehow are brought back into the forefront of my mind to be replayed, rehashed, rehumiliated, etc.

This morning I was reminded of the first time I decided to try roller blading. All of my sister's are athletically gifted. I am not. Not even a little. They all had roller blades. I had a bike. (They had bikes, too.) In a moment of sheer genius, I thought that my first attempt at rollerblading might be easier if I used my bike to steady myself. Not entirely sure how to combine the two, I decided it would be best to just jump on in and give it a try. Why waste time mulling it over?

So I got on the bike and pedalled with the roller blades. Not quite what I had planned, but it worked. I kept going. It was then that I noticed our naughty and bull-headed cocker spaniel had followed me. Great. I tried to tell him to go home. He acted like he didn't know me. By this time, I had ridden several blocks, and was at the stop light on the corner of town. I had run out of side walk and was stopped at the light, waiting. This particular stop light was the intersection of two highways. Thoughtful engineers had designed the road to slope at all edges to allow for prompt and proper water runoff. Which is fantastic if you are a road. But it really sucks if you are a girl on a bike with roller blades and a cocker spaniel.

When the light turned, I tried to go. But you can't "push off" when you have wheels on your feet. And it is nearly impossible to pedal forward, up a slope, from a dead stop. There I was. The fool. Trying frantically to move. My dog halting all traffic by sniffing around in the center of the semaphore. My handlebars jerked around in a 180, causing my bike to fold in half all around me. Cars that had politely been waiting for me to get out of their way were now inching forward, trying to get through the light.....

Once I figured how to contort my foot so that I could push off and get myself going, I went. And kept on going. Mentally mapping out the quickest and most secluded path home. I almost prayed that someone would run over that stupid spaniel.