Miss Ellen Takes The High Road

Owing to the unfortunate (?) constructive re-structuring of the Augean Stables within a certain area of my condo unit, Miss Ellen has been neglected. Not completely, you understand--but our forays have been limited in both number and scope.

Yesterday, she took off West, keeping on mostly level terrain. However, the way back was either by boat or up a campus on a hill--or a road that turned into a major throughway leading to a freeway that was entirely too dangerous.

So, uphill it was.

After climbing the Summit of Learning, we passed into the Land of Rareified Air (who knew students could afford Kate Spade and Versace?). Then into Faux Nobility, where the professors live in blissful Anglophilia (and German automotive engineering). I was completely lost there, ended up in Suburban Store Road (biggest Safeway outside of Texas, honestly, and the Road to Many Malls) and creaked seriously uphill, looking for a familiar cross street, getting further away from homem with every pedal stroke. By then it was Completely Dark. Just in time to get to the Naval Observatory--and Miss Ellen and I are not up on military clearances. I was relieved the whole place was gated up and no mistakes could be made.

Skirting that, with headlight and taillights flashing, we had fun--blowing down a long gradual hill as fast as the cars were going!!  And ended in familiar territory. Back where the homeless people still ply their trade, the family restaurants sit, and the pizza is cheap. My area is also gentrified, but not to the ult--and sullied with much Mid-Century Modern.

Ellen and I sailed home in complete charity with each other. And I learned a lot more about the city. It took hours, and it was worth every minute.

Miss Ellen's Whirlwind Trip Through Asia

For my birthday, that darling two-wheeled Miss Ellen received yet more bling: headlights, tail-lights, and More Air.  Thus, we were out and about when the sun went down.

Really, the worst thing about travel with Miss Ellen is that she never wants to stop and eat anywhere.

Note: The pictures from Japan did Not Turn Out. 

Miss Ellen, Unchained and Well-Lit

Now that Miss Ellen has the dairy crate, the cats have decided they would like to take a ride. They jumped into Miss Ellen's booty and Miss Ellen went down.

So, on my way back from the World War Memorial, her chain came undone. That was a long walk. It was a lovely day, though, so it was no hardship. All the pedestrians were happy people and I passed a homeless man reading comic books. That was a beautiful sight, although I can't exactly explain why.

Yesterday I took Miss Ellen in to be re-chained. I love the bike store. You have never seen so many tattoos on skinny guys wearing black. All of them are pleasant and competent. I admired some aerodynamic bikes with custom cross-sections (nothing like Ellen, for sure), bought a headlight, and in general gave Miss Ellen some birthday glory.  We headed out, with speed and our own funky finesse once more.

Miss Ellen Becomes Even More Useful

The addition of a (legally-purchased) dairy crate gives her sass, style, and Back.

Miss Ellen Takes Me to a Peaceful Place

This week, unbeknownst to me, Miss Ellen had an agenda. On Monday she went South instead of North and East instead of West. We ended up in a fabulous green park with sidewalks, trees, water, and wild ducks: a restful place.

The Vietnam Women's Memorial

Two minutes later, I saw Glenna Goodacre's very fine statue of the women of the Vietnam War. This is our nation's Pieta: one nurse holds a soldier in distress. One nurse grieves. One nurse stands, looking for incoming rescue or disaster. Her back is straight. Her hand is on the first nurse's shoulder. 

The Wall
I parked Miss Ellen in the vicinity of the Lincoln Memorial and went there first (to discuss another day). Then I ventured to the Wall.  It is just as magnificently stark and stern as ever, just as reflective of the surroundings as ever. The grass that grows there is green lawn, but has the look of nature, not a golf course. The visitors are all casually dressed, of all races and family situations. Strollers. Canes. Walkers. A lot of tennis shoes and cameras.

Red carnations lay below the names. Tributes are still laid there: one page with a pink plastic Rosary for all the mothers who prayed for their children in Vietnam. One class must have visited, part of a field trip. Each student had written something to the soldiers and left a gift. One model of a Navy destroyer was accompanied by a note:  "because you had to be tough outside and had life within".  An angel Christmas ornament. "My favorite from my collection, the one my grandma gave me, she is in heaven with you."  Those were the ones that I remember.

Also, there were a few petitions. Not large petitions, as you might make for a saint to cure your disease or get Uncle Tommy to straighten up, but petitions that they watch over our soldiers now. That they help guide us that still live. The reflection begins at the wall's polished granite and extends to its visitors.

The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall states, and explicitly limits, a stark truth. Its starkness causes people to respond to it. I remember how afraid many people were to have Maya Lin's design built, because it was something new in style, not fluffy or pictorial, not creating grandeur. I love this memorial because it creates greatness out of simplicity. It invites us to answer back. It influences us to touch our own better nature.  Ms. Lin had in mind the feeling of an epic poem, a list of warriors such as in our great mythologies, and she was right. But I don't think she could have known the personal response it would call forth, year after year, even  from people who have no memory or connection to the war.

The Three Soldiers
The Three Soldiers' statue by Frederick Hart is undergoing restoration. Parts of its bronze has worn away. In a sensitive move, the statue remains on-site, in a temporary building with windows, so you can still see it. It looks like the restorers clean up after themselves daily, so that we get the best view possible. What I saw, the arms of all three, their veins almost lifelike, are losing luster. I had the feeling those arms had been stroked many times by those seeking to recapture, momentarily, the people they loved.

The National Park Service is taking good care of our memory and heritage at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. I found Miss Ellen. She and I passed through the green and trees again, listening to the evening calls of water birds.

Miss Ellen Affects Men

Miss Ellen and I are waiting for a light to change Green. Some man on some bicycle gives her the once-over. Then he looks at me.

"Three-speed, huh?" he says. " I never thought anyone would ride one of those anymore."

Now that he has established a Spurious Superiority, the light turns Green. He leaves on his bike, which probably had no name. That's because it had no personality.

I was temporarily peeved. Worse, Miss Ellen was somewhat deflated by this.

"Forget it, Ellen," I said, filling her tires. "You're more than a match for any bike that ever lived. After all, you have been to Amsterdam, the Himalayas, and Egypt. Not to mention our long distance runs."

I had to explain the Inferiority Complex to her.

"Ellen, the truth is, you are the perfect bike. You're the right height. Your switch gears to perfection. And your pedals are indestructible. Girlfriend, you are quality make."

That and the air put some bounce in her humps. We were now ready for Adventure.

That time we almost broke Perimeter at a Secure Installation.  A police officer took two steps toward us and spread his arms like a big bear hug.

We swerved away, just in time.

"Sorry," I called out. He was grinning at us. I told Miss Ellen he had his arms out because she was so attractive. And since that is also true, how can it be a lie?

Eight more miles that day. We are confident ladies, staying on just this side of trouble.

Miss Ellen Wants a Calculating Rogue

Considering that the Darling Miss Ellen could barely get her motor to churn for fifteen minutes: she is now making forays into distance. I think (after calculations which would no doubt faze a Rocket Scientist) we are now trekking 8 to 10 miles on a weekend jaunt.  This is because the motor has toned up and tuned up. Miss Ellen has also lost 20 pounds of freight.

You may congratulate me on the freight. Seven to go.

And I may have found a Track of sorts: a place where, unlike city traffic, one can more or less keep a constant speed and heart rate. This might work out for us until perhaps October. Miss Ellen's Hathaway-Issue Motor always stutters and gives up when it's cold.

Today Miss E. informed me that I am a Replacement Motor--remember, she has been to Amsterdam without me, where she enjoyed herself thoroughly--and that Replacements can also be Replaced.   I told her that I would festoon her with gym towels or Drying Laundry this winter unless she got a proper attitude.

In the meantime, we are going to try for more ten-milers and trend to more, farther, faster. We are in need of a Rocket Scientist to perform distance calculations. The rocket part we are going to take care of ourselves.

Miss Ellen Goes First

We had a windy weekend in HotWinds. So Miss Ellen and I had a good workout, riding into steady winds on two sunny days (although a bit cold). Traffic was light this weekend. It was great. We just kept moving.

As a driver, I've always noticed that motorcyclists and bicyclists seem to have their own version of traffic laws. But I am a former pedestrian run over by a car.  I think stop signs should be obeyed, and hot-dogging should be kept to a minimum. I use hand signals. All of that. Yesterday I was stopped at a meaningless light , no cars, and a police bicyclist ran a red. Okay, maybe discretion meant I got my breath back.

There's also no doubt that your skin is right next to the road and the tires of the car next to you. It does tend to change your view of the rules somewhat, even if you want to follow them completely.

So. At a traffic light, I move into first position, right lane. I want Everybody to see me. I don't want to be misled and then sideswiped by their Failure to Signal a Right Turn. I am sure a lot of curses have been heaped on my ass. But this ass remains uninjured, thank you very much.

If I have to turn left on busy intersections, I will frequently signal a stop, walk the bike across the crosswalks, and hop back on and go.

The one time I had cars chase me off the road, an old man yelled at me for biking on the sidewalk. Hey. He was the ONLY guy on the sidewalk, more than six feet away. And my nerves were not good, especially having one car in reverse down the block, one advancing up the block, and Miss Ellen between two advancing bumpers. Probably he has been frightened by deviltry on bikes before. Go ahead and yell, Gramps. I am celebrating continued life here.

Double-parking in the bicycle lane: yeah, I know. It seems logical because you are out of the way of CARS.
Now I have to get in the way of CARS. All those other CARS expect me to be in the BIKE LANE.

The other day, I, Ann T., pointed my Hathaway finger at a cab driver (index digit, now, now) and forced him to stop with that pointy thing, rather than ram me and Miss Ellen with his four-door sedan. The eye contact also helped. Driving is still about intimidation. And cooperation, too. I've mostly had the latter.

Believe me, I know who is the vulnerable party.

So Miss Ellen must be SEEN. She goes first, unbroken, unbowed, and untrammeled.
That's the way she likes it.

Miss Ellen Bops w/o Direction, & No Wonder

My Toolbox
I needed a Wrench. Swear I used to have a whole darn set.
But that was before my Mom reorganized my tools Her Way. Her way is to get rid of the case that sorts drill bits by size, and throw them all in the Tupperware you usually use for celery sticks.

"You have plenty of Tupperware," she said. "Hmm. Let me try this one."
I don't have a lot of Tupperware. Furthermore, I don't want to buy any Tupperware.

She took socks and cut off the feet, then twisted them around to keep my extension cords nicely untangled..

"Mom, couldn't we just use a twist tie?"
"No, this will work. You'll see."
"That was a perfectly good sock, you know."

She does this for a living--use tools, I mean. She's actually really good--measure twice, cut once, careful on the job, everything. But I don't see how this works. It doesn't work for me.

Miss Ellen, Miss-Directed
So, I need a Wrench. Miss Ellen's handlebars are suddenly headed West when I want to go North. It is possible to steer like this, but only to Eventual Disaster.

Our HotWind Tax Dollars Are At Work, along with the Federal Re-Build America Act, re-doing the streets in my neighborhood. So far they have sliced a lot of pavement and laid down a lot of metal sheets on the road, then torn up the sidewalks and put in fancy brick stripes and granite curbing. They look great. When this project is done, no doubt I will be very pleased. But there's a lot of gravel and Pitfalls now, and every time Miss Ellen swerves to avoid one-----

-------her handlebars are suddenly headed SouthEast when I want to go West.

She was Always a loose cannon. Now she's a loose cannon with a loose nut, and I don't mean me.

I took Miss Ellen back to a place where direction is not so important, i.e. my living room. I tore up my closet for a nonexistent wrench. Finally I proceeded on half-finished state-of-the-art sidewalks to the neighborhood hardware store. I had a tracing of the nut and was measuring wrenches against it.

The guy behind the counter is a short, wiry caramel-colored man with a grey Afro hairstyle and a grey plaid flannel shirt. He's worked there forever.
"Why don't you get an adjustable wrench?"
"Sounds good."
"Right behind you," he points out. "Look up, above your eye level."

I pick a small one I can leave in my bag. "I've been needing a weapon, too," I tell the hardware guy.
He pokers up. "Need a bigger one then."
"I'm not going to hit anybody with it particularly," I tell him back. "I'm going to sling the bag."
"Yeah, that'll work," he says, still straight-faced. "Like David and Goliath. A course, I got a pipe wrench for $29.95 if you think about it." He hands me the receipt. "Come back anytime."

He probably thinks I am one of those candidates for a floral-print screwdriver. Hah! That is completely untrue.

Anyway, one of Miss Ellen's nuts is all right and tight. The other one still needs some adjustments.

Miss Ellen Nearly Cooked by Natural Gas-Burner

In Which Miss Ellen & Co. Are Treated as Objects
It's spring, so naturally the bicycle wear must change to the lighter and less cover-some clothing . I wore a smart retro mini dress with bike short underneath to gad about with Miss Ellen this afternoon. Destination: park. Apparently she has been good for my ankles. A lot of trucks lingered in our vicinity, calling "Hey!" out the window. That was unexpected.

Under such circumstances, Miss Ellen and I do not object to being treated as a piece of scenery.
On the way back, we were treated as equals, which is far more dangerous.

In Which Miss Ellen & Co. Are Challenged
All we wanted to do was pass a stopped bus with a crowd around it. I had no traffic, so I swerved out of the Right Lane in order to pass. I even signalled, the ancient Arm Signals that nobody seems to use any more.

The bus driver did not like this. The bus left its crowd behind and buzzed almost straight into Miss Ellen's back wheel. I was clearly visible in his window. I was also moving rapidly left, watching the looming bus, the left lane, behind, and front. Probably my head was swiveling as much as my legs.

"See how you need me," Miss Ellen was saying. "You couldn't move this fast without me!"
"Not now," I ordered. "We are cooked goose with spokes."

The bus was running on natural gas: Miss Ellen, on natural fright. The bus made a sloppy right turn and I got out of the way of six cabs and two SUV's just as fast as I could safely do it.  I hope he was happy, that bus driving son of a gun. Miss Ellen will be. She is getting a horn this week. I am getting some knucks. Of course the beep-beep and the knucks will be beside the point if it is a bus.

We are going out again tomorrow. We are too cool to be fazed by admiration or challenge. Ellen is disgusted currently though, since I have had to inform her that despite the law, she is not a true equal to anybody on the road.

Miss Ellen noses into North Africa

Well, Miss Ellen had her nose out of joint about the day's plans. But eventually she got off her high gear and wheedled, so guess where we went? 

Egypt. 

After all her reckless talk about Desert Foxes and Patton smearing fascisti guts to move his vehicles onward, it was a flat uneventful ride. And did she want to charge up the steps to actually INVADE? No, no: she likes her new tire. Plus her motor is not Italian-make, and therefore refused to grease the wheels.

But as you can see, we had a splendid day. 

Our Sphinx had not got her nose popped off by a Napoleonic artilleryman, either.

Miss Ellen Steps Out

Instead of flirting with the flatlands of HotWinds, Miss Ellen wanted to go hill-jumping. All very well for HER, since I am the motor of this duet. But I'm pleased to say we rode up Mount Everest, obeying all traffic laws, including the stop signs at Sherpa Ridge, No-Air Pass, and Too Much Freaking Government.

Those people in Lexusii need to learn what Stop means. I'm sure they'll learn eventually. Hopefully my blood will not be involved in the lesson.

LOL, gang, we're all at home. Going to do it again tomorrow.

Miss Ellen is Fast

Now that she's got her humps back.  Here she is, before bike store:

later, she gets a new front tire and an outing.

So, looks like we're good to go. The bike shop that fixed her has thousand dollar bikes! Unbelievable! However, we were not outclassed by any means.

So here she is, for peedee, Mrs. Bunker, The Observer (note helmet, now!) and Bob G., who probably is not surprised about the pricey bicycles available . . .  now I'll be livin' in the fast lane with you all!

Miss Ellen is Flat

Okay, I am clearing things out and up for Spring. This is one big issue that takes the bloom off for me.

I bought a used bicycle. I am not fond of flashy urban transportation. It generally gets stolen. This bike is from the mid-sixties, I think, with a cracked saddle seat and very smooth (3) gears and pedal action. Stickers from Amsterdam. Miss Ellen got around.

I do not generally name my transportation, either, because they are just supposed to get on with it, you know. But Miss Ellen charmed me. Unfortunately she doesn't have that same joie de vivre she used to have.

So a bike ride means I walk the bike many blocks to a city gas station and pay for air. I ride briskly, we go home, and she deflates once out of public view.

What to do. She's got new tubes, and some kind of liner in her rims to protect the tubes. Do I have to spring for new rims? Advice please, if you have any.