bike_ride tender_square we pushed pedals through little river and across lesperance, ignoring the new bike lanes. made a right onto mary’s old street, trying to figure out how to pronounce the name (was it “shen” like the french pronunciation of dog, or “shane,” we didn’t know). her ex-husband, dennis, still lives in their old house, a place i haven’t seen the inside of since i was twelve years old. dad pointed to uncle bob’s former girlfriend’s house (“mary lou?” i had remembered). we made a left onto the sidewalk, past the site of the old rendezvous restaurant and the obese homes on small lots. i pointed to a patch of pavement: “there used to be a water fountain here, it was a big lion’s head—didn’t the legion put it there? we used to love that thing, because you had to put your head into its jaws to drink.” the ganachio trail signs posted a speed limit was 25 km/hr. dad i kept a steady pace, hovering between 8 and 9 clicks. a family of three overtook us on the left so casually. my wheels never stopped spinning while dad occasionally cruised. he spotted a wild turkey on a sprawling mansion’s lawn. around stop 26, i motioned to an olive green cottage with a white picket fence i’ve loved since i was a girl. a man with a white beard and sleeves of tattoos blasted a radio from his mobility scooter as he passed, a terrier in his lap while he sipped openly on a can of blue. the carolinian arboretum was more lush and secluded than i expected, despite the nearby homes that stretched along the formerly empty farmland. “all these retention ponds are for the housing developments,” he said, sipping from the bottle of water i offered to share. momentum carried us down through spraypainted tunnels made beneath the traffic of wyandotte and mchugh. “we’re going 15 kilometers now!” he called. i told him about the tour de france peloton cycling at consistent speeds of 45 miles per hour on descents. at the made-over garbage dump we informally called suicide hill (now designated “hope hill” by the city, like hell it’ll stick), we walked our bikes beside algae ponds so thick and unmoving it could be mistaken for grass. we saw two sunbathing turtles and a blue heron primping. the sun was scorching and thick, the ride harder than the first though we cut it back by two miles. a walking woman thanked me for not ringing my bell, as i called “on your left.” we turned down st. pierre and studied uncle kenny’s old house. “doesn’t look like the new owners have changed anything,” he said. on the corner of st. thomas, i marveled at the “low price convenience store” and how many years it had been. “you used to give us money and we’d get candy there with jodi whenever we were visiting,” i said. “your grandmother used to work at that store,” he said, a point of history i had never known. he pointed to the house of another friend that had died, one he used to play softball with before i was born. “he set himself on fire,” he said. “like, self-immolated?” i was incredulous. “why did he do that?” he answered, “his wife said she was leaving him. i really liked him too.” when we arrived on clapp, a man yelled “hey!” causing dad to turn around to see if it was a friend, but it wasn’t. we biked past a game in its fourth inning on the baseball diamond, the huffing breaths and serves emanating from the pickleball courts, and snaked our way through a narrow path that spat us out onto to kimberly drive. and not long after, we were home again, shirts stained with sweat. 220722 ... kerry god i love this. so much packed in, so much movement. i feel like i'm there. 220722 ... raze me too. (and me too.) 220722 ... tender_square kerry and raze, thank you so much for this. i wasn't sure this blathe was anything; this trip with my dad happened a week ago and i never wrote about it. but the whole purpose of these rides (which i'm trying to turn into a regular thing) is for the two of us to spend time together, just he and i. and i realized it was a mistake not to get down all the details that i'd inevitably forget, because i won't be able to ask him what happened--he may not even remember it days later. this blathe was a loose way of stitching that time back together. i can't let these pieces go, no matter how slight they may seem now, because i know how precious they will be later. 220723 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Adding to the thanks. It can be fascinating when parents tell you stories from before you were born, or from when you were too young to form clear memories. This made me feel like I should walk with Mom in Valois more often. Or travel with Dad to Maine where he grow up (his sister, my aunt, is taking her daughter and granddaughter there with her this week; I haven't been since I was 12). ... Sidenote, but woo! I just correctly guessed the IPA transliteration for "chien": /ʃjɛ̃/ (the swoopy S is "sh", "j" is the "y" glide, and the twisty thing above the short e shows that it's nasalised). It's cool how different people will write down sounds; if I were to spell that word in an "English" way, I'd go with "shyeh" - which puts the glide in but completely ignores the nasal part. And I have an old Berlitz traveler's phrasebook that writes all French nasal vowels with "ng" endings. 220723 ... nr i loved this too; the imagery is so evocative and summery. biking is one of my favourite ways to get exercise while also relaxing and seeing sights and visiting places you can get to more quickly than walking. when i rented a bike in florida, i asked if they had a bell, but they said people there don't really use them; they just yell "on your [direction]." it made me wonder what cyclists did if they had laryngitis. 220724 ... nr i was stopped by the curb at a red light last night, and a guy in an electric bike came up beside me and said "nice bike!" it is a pretty nice and fun one; i lucked out with it. i said thanks. then an ambulance drove by and i covered my ear. after it was gone, he said "i have a headache." i agreed that it was loud. i complimented him on his e-bike, and then the light turned green so i wished him a good night and we went on our way. 220806 ... nr i'm getting addicted to the feeling of gliding along in the open air, zooming past the sights and sounds, and stopping to take in moments and surroundings and have the occasional human exchange. i'm starting to feel antsy if i don't get one of these in every day. 220806 ... nr i'm always semi-worried the chain will come off, though. fixing one of these is something i've just consistently forgotten how to do throughout life. 220806 ... nr i rode 15 minutes today to the class, checked my phone and saw that i had arrived one minute early. i was about to lock the bike when i double checked the address and saw that the class was actually three blocks north. "shiiiiit," i said, then got back on the bike and pedaled like crazy to get there in time to make the most out of the hour. i made pretty good time but couldn't breathe in deeply for awhile. that feeling makes me anxious. the class wasn't too strenuous, and then i got back on the bike to head to an outdoor book party. i was fiddling with my chain lock as i was riding, because it kept hitting the pedals. and then the bike decided to veer to the side of the road and fall onto the sidewalk, with me on top of it. my arm got caught somewhere between the handlebars and the frame, so that was the most painful part, but otherwise it's just scrapes, and things are okay now. i was sitting regaining composure at the front of someone's lawn on the dark, quiet, west end street, debating what to do. my handlebars had moved to a strange position and the basket was broken, so it wasn't really fit to ride. i ended up getting an uber van, and the driver put the bike in it. during the ride, i learned that he'd lived in vancouver for three decades and owned an italian restaurant there, and now he's opening one in a suburb near here. he played a song through the speakers and said it was going to be used in the commercial for the new spot. when we got to the destination, he pulled right into the parking lot of the party. he managed to get my handlebars back in place, and made sure i was okay to go on my way. at the end of the night, two kind friends walked home with me and my bike, helping me carry the basket and my stuff. it's sad about the basket. it's a good size and has flowers on it. and the bike needs to go to the doctor now. but most of the rest isn't sad. for the next bike_ride, i will not try any sort of dangerous multitasking. 220908 ... tender_square we take little river road, me pedaling in front on the sidewalks while my dad bikes behind. he defers to me, but i turn over my shoulder calling out questions about directions and destinations. we cycle around subdivisions and stagnant retention ponds. across banwell, he advises me to go left on a trail i’ve never been before, a serpentine route shrouded in trees, a tiny fairy forest. miniature hand-painted birdhouses and heart-shaped ornaments hang like bright jewelry from dark boughs and at the base of their skinny trunks. our tires mow through a crunchy medley of maple leaves, and each ground rustle in the thicket beside isn’t squirrels, but fairies fleeing from the sound of humans. at the final turn, an inoperable black fountain juts out from concrete like a dark castle protecting a pound of scattered, shelled peanuts. a sign says the small park is named for the city’s only female mayor. we continue on firgrove as it intersects with mchugh, opting for dirt and seclusion over paved and populated stretches. it isn’t easy to offroad with a one-speed, but i manage for the most part on the parched path, failing to gain enough momentum to climb a two-foot hill while my dad chuckles, stopping ahead after he overtakes me so i can catch up. my fenders rattle over every bump and cranny and red leaves lie like a royal carpet for the two of us to cross. “leo’s doing worse than he lets on,” dad says. they met that morning, shared some ginger ale. “what makes you say that?” i ask and he answers, “vodka.” along the still little river we walk our bikes slowly, silently, trying to spot sunbathing turtles on fallen trees. “when i was a boy i used to love coming here with my friends, i would spend all day here.” i make a quip about being his daughter because i have the same memories of this place. “i still love it here,” i add. we saddle up on the main path out of the park and he jokes, “i’ll follow you, but i’m not going down suicide hill.” and i lead us through fronds of pampas grass swaying like an enraptured crowd. at the wyandotte tunnel, he overtakes me, measuring how high his odometer can climb, calling back “16 mph” as i studied the blur of fish painted on the walls. passing sandpoint, we pointed out freighters in the distance to one another, counted the boats bobbing on the lapis waves. “it’s hot,” he said. “why don’t you take off your sweater?” i suggested. “i don’t want to catch a cold,” he explained. “isn’t that an old wives tale?” i asked. “yes, but it’s surprising how many of those things turn out to be true.” we stopped for ice cream at slinkey’s to cap off the ride, dad with his triple scoop of chocolate, and me with a waffle cone of twist. we ate our melting treats on a park bench facing the sun as a country singer crooned about always being there, about never letting someone go. and i was grateful for my sunglasses that hid the tide of tears swelled. 221023 ... tender_square he wanted to bike through town. construction had finished by the lesperance tracks, fresh tar miraging under hot sun. he pointed to the once-tiny family homes with their additions and rattled off the names of all the families he used to know. i call him the mayor of tecumseh as we travel double-wide down the sunday streets. we offroad at the st. pierre alleyway and grass gives way to deep divots our wheels are trapped in. "follow my track," he says. we petal past privacy fences and reach a stretch of wildflowers created by carelessness. the thick stems slap my bare legs. we stop to get cold drinks at the former blackie's but it isn't anything like i remember. there used to be a serpentine counter with the swivel stools for townies to drink coffee while they picked up milk and the paper. now, it's a tiny room displaying glass bongs and secretly selling cigarettes bought off the reservation. we grab our drinks and head to carling park, named after the old brewery that used to span the field. and it makes me wonder if any kind of big industry is ever localized anymore. i miss the time when we felt self-sufficient and less reliant on globalized and interconnected systems, even though i didn't experience it for as long as my father has. we watch the world pass and talk about my mother's inability to sit still. the sun makes our skin pink, and we turn our faces up like coneflowers, waiting for bees to pollinate and propagate this joy of being alive. 230802 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Last night I kept waking up because my back and neck were sore (and also because of misidentified dream_songs, apparently). When it was decently morning and I was ready to get up, my back and neck were okay, but my shoulders and arms and legs and butt were all sore and one of my thumbs bruised and swollen. What happened? A bike ride. Before I went on what's close to a three-hour round trip, I'd only been on my bike once this summer, and that for a short time. So yeah. Julia finally had a chance to bike with me yesterday, and so we met down the street from Atwater Market. I remembered that I had to turn onto the street to go down Lachine Canal and NOT continue along the lakeshore. But I forgot the finicky part about switching back and forth on the canal, ran into a dirt path and confusion. Luckily I was only a few blocks away and a call from Julia got me reoriented. Oh yes, and I bought orange Gatorade from a family with a cooler selling various cold drinks to thirsty cyclists (support your local sugar-water reseller!) and when I opened my bag I saw I hadn't screwed on the lid fully, so my prized off-white Tilley hat was now stained orange. But we talked, got good food at the Satay Brothers stand (while talking) and then headed west along the canal (still talking). Back west for me, further west for Julia - but she has a bike with an electric motor boost, available with a push of a button, so she said it was no problem for her to get back. A man got annoyed at us biking side by side when he wanted to pass. The complaining wasn't the nicest but, fair enough, the path had narrowed and I hadn't noticed it. So the next time someone was passing, I went onto a dirt path running next to the paved part. But after, when I was trying to get back on it, there was more of a bump and my bike tripped (a bike trip, my bike trips). It tripped me. Tricked me into thinking I could easily bloop over the bump and then had me slammed onto my side, scraping my left lower palm and an elbow-adjacent section of forearm. My other thumb bent on the ground somehow, that's why it was sore. Another woman slowed down, went, "Are you all right?" in English. I said yes because I knew it wasn't an emergency, although it takes a few seconds to figure out exactly how you're hurt or not hurt after you fall down. Luckily, it wasn't bad. Scrapes as detailed above, not bleeding much, and I had an alcohol wipe and bandage on me, which impressed Julia. She asked if we should go back to the pharmacy, but I didn't need that, so we drank some water while I told her how I'd tripped over a barstool that spring at one Accent_Open_Mic, as if I was drunk on cider or poetry. And from then I was more careful: slower, mostly single-file. Still talking from time to time about birds or camping. She and her partner will be renting a cabin in Mont Tremblant for a week's vacation, something more comfortable then tent camping but not super fancy. It was when we'd parted ways, over around Dorval Circle, that the tiredness hit. My water bottle was almost empty. I sat down, ate a few grapes, and powered back home. Expected to be exhausted after supper and dog-walking and dish-washing, but couldn't sleep for a while (see above). So I am clumsy and tired, but it was fun. And sort of empowering that I could do that, a feeling like that predicted in dream_exercise: no, I'm not twenty anymore, but yes, I can do this particular exercise thing. (Not fly, though. Alas.) 240714 what's it to you? who go blather from