Gringo

Today was bike to school day and Anne did. In fact, she has biked to school every day this week. Today is also Anne’s birthday. She has been in middle school all this week, where one of the seventh graders asked Anne, if she was going give this student a birthday present, because her birthday is on May 10th. Anne told her, well that depends, because my birthday is on May 6th and I want to see what you give me first. [I’m pretty sure that I’ve made the last part up.] This launched a round of questions about how old Anne is, “Are you thirty?” Anne responded with, “I have a son who is thirty, so no I’m not thirty.” Asked next was, “Are you forty?” At which point, another country was heard from, “She’s not forty, because you can’t have a baby when you are only ten.” She eventually went on to tell the gathered students her real age, but I’ll not repeat it here, because I’m a gentleman, or at least not a middle school student. [I have probably flummoxed all the details of this story, but I like this version better.]

I took Anne out for dinner tonight. We went to Gringo in the CWE. We biked over there. It was warm, but not too hot. For a change, we wore street clothes instead of bike clothes. This was a date. With a la carte tacos and blood-red margaritas, how could you go wrong?

Dan’s Owie

Dan called, this was in honor of Anne’s birthday, but it also followed-up on his earlier texts. He had to take his car into the shop, because it kept stalling. It turns out that the problem was the fuel pump. He’ll get it fixed. So, he was riding his bike today. Even when his car is working, he likes to ride his bike around downtown LA. Today, he was on Sunset Boulevard, when a truck’s trailer sideswiped him. He said that the trailer scraped along the side of him for several seconds. He felt his life flash before his eyes. He stayed upright though and the following photo shows his single owie, one hit point. He thought that the truck slowed after the collision, but kept going. LA is notorious for hit-and-run vehicle/bicycle accidents. There are over a 1,000 a year and are so routine that the cops will do nothing, only making the problem worse. Things are not much better here in Saint Louis. Here, the police will only charge the driver in a vehicle/bicycle accident, if there is a DWI or a hit-and-run. Otherwise, you are left with only civil charges.