Here's a history note for all you Brits. I have finally, decades after Tory politician Norman Tebbitt told the unemployed to 'get on yer bike' and find work, got on a bike. Wow, is that a fabulous feeling - the noise of the out of your car experience, the fumes from the freeway, the nasty sideswiping comments from underage and overage drivers, the potential for disaster from car doors swinging open, the pedestrians who think you don't have to brake when they step in front of you, kids who run into the road when they see no cars coming, the stupid bloody squirrels who do a U turn in front of me, the cities who don't fix potholes, the garbage flying around, and most fun - the guys in pick up trucks who think it's a cool Amerikan sport to throw beer cans from their vee-hick-els. I am loving this whole on yer bike experience, quite truthfully!
I rode the Bay Trail from Berkeley to Richmond Marina where it dead-ends in a series of hideous condo developments called things like Sea Cliff, Tuscan Villa and Landfill Lodge (I made the last one up, can you tell?). Then it was through the backside of the old Richmond wharf area, which is much more to my liking: grungy factories, boatyards, railroad lines, gas tankers and dirt, lots of dirt and dust.
After a day trimming trees at my friend Betsy's house, I set off home, hot from the day, with a clean T shirt on, rolled up to my shoulders so that my upper arm will gain a bit of colour before my tattoo date on the 19th. Yikes, am I still doing that?
I headed back through the docklands, took off on a trail through an open field with a No Trespassing sign posted in big letters on it, careened through a hole in the fence the other end of the field and back on to the neatly painted bike trail and almost fell over my handlebars as a small black cat caught my eye, a gaping red wound at the base of her spine. Leaping off the bike, I scrambled through the spiky yellowing grasses, their sharp foxtails puncturing me on my uncommonly bare legs, and tried to get closer to the wounded animal, who was competing for front row at a gopher hole with a hawk circling overhead.
She looked up at me, thought carefully about it, and took off across an empty tarmac lot into another fenced dirt lot. This is a pain in the butt - a helluva lot more painful than the discomfort of a bicycle seat. This means I will have to go back there with a bunch of humane cat traps and some other cat lady weirdos like me, bait the traps, and wait for this cat to be tempted by the mackerel. Then she'll go to the vet for treatment, vaccinations, get fixed and get put back out where she came from. Geez, one cat can ruin your whole moviegoing plans for the week.
Back on my bike, I cycled along a dirt trail by the railroad tracks and before long I was walking home, with a dozen thorns oozing air out of my tires. Is this life really for me?
I had voicemails to listen to, my dogs were restless, I opened a cold Stella, took off my sweaty shoes and socks, and pattered about the house. A woman I know slightly from my dogwalks had called. A small cattle dog mix, who had run loose in West Oakland for years had finally taken refuge, barefoot and pregnant, in her neighbours yard. Could I help with the dog?
You bet. This may seem odd to you who don't feel this, but when one of the thousands of unwanted dogs sniffing the streets for garbage to eat, decides to ask for help it is like the story of the little kid on the beach who is trying to throw as many of the beached starfish back into the sea as he can. A grown up asks why it matters, there are millions laying up and down the coast. The boy simply answers 'It matters to this one'.
It matters to this dog. And it matters to this 50 something kid.
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