In Which I Face My Two-Wheeled Phobia

Only one thing scares me more than zombies.

Bicycles.

At least zombies can be killed with a shot to the head. Bikes can keep going forever, mocking you and your lack of balance. Well, if you're me. If you're a normal person, you're probably already cycling around town, accordion music playing in the background, a baguette and carrots with leafy tops in your basket, free as a bird and not in imminent danger of death by truck.

Those issues are why last Saturday marked the first time in about ten years I touched a bicycle. But I didn't just touch a bicycle. I paid for the bicycle, got on the bicycle, and then rode it to a scrapped knee in downtown Victoria.

My chariot came from Recyclistas, one of those places that sells old bikes, builds bikes from spare parts, rents out tools and smells suspiciously... earthy. The journey there was just as exciting as a store. It involved a stranger's bodily fluids, a missed bus, a broken computer and a detour along a sidewalk-free expanse of highway. Oh, and I spotted of a pair of California Quails. Tragically though, I had left my rifle at home, so I couldn't bag some trophies.

To be difficult, I didn't pick a cute European road bike or cruiser. Instead, I came home with some hideous Korean mountain-bike knock off, with with a horn that sounds like a clown's nose and a bunch of holographic stickers. The nice Recyclista man was briefly impressed that the person who could barely ride a bike could tell that it was Korean. Then I pointed out the three South Korean flags on the frame.

In honour of its proud nationality, I have named it Bikegolgi. I have now ridden Bikegolgi three times, and I'm still alive, but barely. Seriously, why don't seemingly normal people, including the entire population of Amsterdam, find the bicycle completely terrifying? It's your fleshy, squishy self on two paper clips and a set of wheels! It's wrong! WRONG!

But I will do it again tomorrow.

Book Covers I Have Loved: Cheers! by Nicholas Pashley

Don't worry. Unless you're seeing four noble Mounties (those proud inheritors of tradition/purveyors of police brutality) on your monitor, you're still sober.

This cover is cheeky and perfect for a book on Canadian beer history, although perhaps a little expected. Still, considering that it avoids the maple leaf/hockey skate/beer bottle troika of clichés, I believe it deserves our appreciation. And maybe a round of drinks.

Cheers! A History of Beer in Canada, by Nicholas Pashley

Straight White Girls Drinking Coffee #4

Click to make readable.

This one is dedicated, with love, to my brother and his girlfriend.
But seriously, you know your relationship is in trouble if you're thinking of watching Arli$$. Shudder.

Return of the Knit-i

Although I haven't featured any photos of my knitting on this blog for months- months- I assure you that I am still knitting.

Just slowly.

Very slowly.

How slowly? Well, what you will see below is a scarf being blocked, out of yarn purchased in December of 2010. I cast on in January, and so it was taken me about five to six months to complete a fairly simple scarf with a four row pattern repeat. Not quite as long as it takes to make a human baby, but more than four times as long as it takes to make a litter of baby squirrels, and squirrels are idiots, so yes. I am officially slower than fuzzy rodents.

Unorthodox blocking items: chess board, book, external hard drive, CD case. Sigh. I need to get some pins out here. Glamour shots of the scarf coming some time in the next week.

Pattern: Pavement, by Jared Flood
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca #6281
Needles: 4mm straights
Notes: No matter how squishy the yarn, cables get really tedious after a few weeks. I would love to keep this scarf, but it's being sent away as a surprise gift for a friend. Unless I buy a scarf, cut off the labels and send that instead. Now there's a plan.

The Book Pile for May 11. 2011

A lot of these have become stalled reads in the past month or so. I'm hoping that publicly displaying my shame will inspire me to get my ass in gear. Or at least inspire me enough to pretend that I've finished reading Moby-Dick.

1. The "Canadian History 101" Read: Northern Armageddon, D. Peter Macleod

2. The "Classic" Read: Moby Dick, Herman Melville

3. The "I suppose getting into SF late is better than never" Read: Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card

4. The "I Miss Required Reading Lists" Read: The American Political Tradition, Richard Hofstadter

Orcas! Orcas, Ahoy!

With May comes many things: flowers, my tax rebate, moving, and the realization that I better step things up if I want to have my BC Bingo card completed on time.

What, you didn't know about BC Bingo? Actually, that's perfectly understandable, because I just made it up. The centre square is "Free," like all bingo cards, but the other squares include "Make Breakfast Quinoa" and "Complain about Albertans." And another square: "See orcas off the side of the ferry." Fortunately, I can dab that one off with the ole Bingo Bright, because this past Sunday a pod of orcas was spotted off the Spirit of British Columbia, the vessel that was transporting my slightly dopey self back to Victoria.

The Captain came over the P.A- we would be passing a pod of orcas off the starboard side soon. Hearing, perhaps, the lack of shuffling, he helpfully clarified, "the right-hand side of the boat." We landlubbers dutifully made our way to the right-board side.

Part of me felt foolish for going. I felt like a tourist. Not the savvy Victorian I was, a Victorian who has seen both Free Willy AND Free Willy 2, and is thus well-versed in the biology, symbology and mythology of orcas. But then I saw them ducking underneath the water, jumping up, and looking black, white and beautiful. They moved on, we moved on, and suddenly I had a new sympathy for the sea parks I had just read about in "The Killer in the Pool." I still think keeping killer whales in captivity is wrong, that it insults their intelligence and our humanity to do so. But I understand why the sea park owners do it, and why so many of us go to see them. Wanting to keep an animal that beautiful is no weak thing, even if that desire translates, on a practical level, into making them smile as grubby children pet their tongues.