Bicycle Fixation Weblog
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12/25/2008: "Shopping in the Rain on Christmas Morning"
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We celebrated the Solstice with a quiet dinner last Sunday, just Gina, me, and the kid, and then Gina took off for Portland to visit her brother and his wife, and their new baby. (Yes, they are snowbound, staying as they are in a townhome complex on a hill, a place predicated on automobile access in a town where no one owns tire chains....) This leaves me blissfully unobligated to participate in rote seasonal celebrations, be they religious, godless, or clueless, and attend to the wonder of our soft-warm rain and the subtle, dizzying gyre of the turning year, the leaning of the northern hemisphere back towards the sun, which is what all religions north of the Equator really celebrate at this time of year.I still had my social duties: although my mother neither knows nor cares what day it is any longer, today was shopping day, when I resupply her larder and distract her from tormenting her caregivers for a little while. (She's nuts, but she's still tough!) And so I put on my rain cape and rode over to the supermarket by her house a few miles away.
It's only the sweet light of the rain that can make a supermarket parking lot look in any way charming, but it does, and so I snapped this picture of my Bottecchia waiting faithfully in the rain for me to come out of the store. Wearing her showercap too!
I delivered the food, including a couple of cakes for Mom and the caregiver, Alejandra, and played the fool a while to amuse the old bird.
When I left, the rain had stopped, though the streets were still wet; with fenders on the bike I could get away with just a wind shell to keep me warm.
I took the second photo since I complain a lot about the blandness of Los Angeles, and it is to show that many parts of town are really quite pretty...this is Fourth Street, on my way home, and a route that may become part of a "bicycle boulevard" soon.
Now I'm home, but I'm wondering...the rain ride was so nice...maybe I can find a pizza joint that's open today, and treat myself to a ride for lunch....
