Just In Time For Warm Weather…

Charlie stopped by this afternoon with his portable air compressor. We filled up my bike tires with air. I am set to start riding again. I’ve got bike fever like I did when I first got this bike back in the fall.

Charlie also brought four Chick-fil-A sandwiches on his journey here. They were very well appreciated. Two for me, the big guy, and one for Tracy and one for Maggie.

“Hey, I want to ride, too!” Tracy told me, feeling left out after Charlie had departed.

“We will have to drive down to the bike shop in Auburn and look for you a bike,” I told her in reply. “Unless you want to buy a bike at Walmart?”

We might drive down to Walmart in a wee little bit and see what kind of bikes they have for sale. We really don’t need anything fancy. Just a women’s bike that Tracy can ride around the neighborhood with me. I am thinking cruiser like mine so that is what we will probably buy.

A Train a Day Keeps the Blues Away…

I spent much of the day down at the railroad tracks watching trains and photographing them. The weather was just absolutely gorgeous. A fine spring day. I think I’ve wrote this on the blog before, but Tracy says that has to be the most boring hobby a man could have.

“What do you do when there are no trains passing by?” she asked me this evening.

“I listen to music on my iPod and read magazines and books,” I replied.

Lunch was some fried chicken livers and a chocolate milk I bought at the Qwik Mart across the highway. I got chided for eating those as well.

My Huffy Good Vibrations Cruiser…

Moments of Shine…

Last night was my last dosage of medications out of my current med-pack. It slipped up on me before I could tell my father. Dad had another med-pack at his house, but it only had a noon and night dosage left.

“I’ll put the pills in the chair outside the door,” my father said early this morning when I called him. “I'll get one of the pharmacy techs to make you another med-pack and you can pick it up this afternoon.”

Knowing my father, there was fifty/fifty chance he would forget to put out my medications before he left for work. I drove over to his house with my fingers crossed this morning. There they were in a Ziploc bag sitting on a chair on the porch much to my delight. He also remembered my 28 day dose pack of heartburn medications I had asked for the day before. Thank goodness! I’ve become so accustomed to taking my medications around noon, that I wouldn’t know what to do without them. The withdrawal is quite palpable. It was one of my father’s moments of shine. I called him when I got home and told him he was awesome for remembering – my fears assuaged.   

This afternoon, I drove down to the pharmacy and they had my new med-pack ready. I took the opportunity to get me a few ice cold diet Cokes as well. A very nice treat!

Riding My Little Heart Out…

With the rigors of last night behind me, I've had the best time riding my Huffy cruiser bike up and down the street today despite the summer heat. I was very wobbly at first, but my equilibrium is adjusting. It has been ten or more years since I spent any amount of time on a bicycle.

This evening, after it cools down some, I am going to be bolder and head for parts unknown – other avenues in the neighborhood. Yes, riding a real bike is much different than riding an exercise bicycle. The hills kill you with that one speed bike, though. I need the “granny gear” of a road bike or mountain bike for that. The only true thing I need badly is a helmet. I couldn’t get up the gumption to visit Walmart and buy one today even though I passed it driving to the pharmacy this afternoon. 

The White Truck Brings Gifts…

I was sitting in the computer room this afternoon when I saw my father and Charlie pull up in front of my house in the white truck. This bode fortuitous as the white truck often does and it was. 

“Maggie? Charlie and Papa are here!!!!” I jubilantly exclaimed.

Maggie squealed in the other room and rushed to the door along with me beside her. I walked outside to greet them regaining my composure. Maggie barked from the other side of the screen door awaiting anxiously to see them.

“I’ve got you a bicycle you can have,” my father said. “I was debating on whether to give it to you or not fearing it would just get stolen.”

It was a Huffy men’s cruiser type of bike – you know, those bikes with one speed, huge seats, and gigantic handlebars. Well, I was just overjoyed to get it in the interim of getting my mountain bike.

“I got it for exercise,” my father told me. “But I have never even rode it once. It’s been sitting in the garage for ages. The tires were flat from disuse and me and Charlie went and put some air in them for you.”

Dad, Charlie, and I each took turns riding it down to the end of the street and back. I was pleased as a Georgia peach. Charlie said he hadn’t ridden a bicycle since he was a kid, but seemed to be doing a fine job of it to me.

“Now, you are going to have to bring it inside every night or it will get stolen,” my father further warned me of my neighborly miscreants.

I promised my father I would do so. It is propped up against the porch door in the den as I write this. I might take it out for an after dark cruise around the neighborhood tonight.