Today I rode my bike. I finally rode my bike.
Holiday sticky toffee puddings are just a sweet, guilty memory. Brother in-law’s bourbon collection left with him in his Baltimore suburb. The bottle of birthday single-malt was polished off last week. Mother’s Birthday, sister’s birthday, other brother-in-law’s birthday, mother-in-law’s birthday, Jesus of Nazareth’s birthday, and my wife’s Birthday are all behind us. The nanny came back and went off to story-time with Junior. The last Jaques Torres bon-bon has gone down the hatch, as has the last amoxicillin: Gruesome eye infection (I WAS NOT beat up!) conquered. The big computer is in a plastic bag: Office under renovation. Obligatory chocolate covered everything gifts from my wife’s unimaginative or exhausted professional acquaintances have been re-gifted or consigned to the circular file. Countless presents opened. Our Maltese super’s English wife’s still-warm, delicious (oh, delicious) mincemeat pies were done away with hastily. Pastry chef next-door’s impossible brownies we categorized as acceptable sin. Seconds (& thirds, yes) at dinner have been sworn off. The fridge is respectably empty, relatively speaking, free of relative’s buttery cakes and pastries and mysterious “foods” that people seem to like in the South. I swear them off, I swear I swear! Tasty looking gift-wines are now stowed in the cabinet, yes, but I’ll save them for later, later (post-Battenkill? I swear, I swear!)! For today I rode my bike! Cold be damned, gale-force winds be damned, blossoming gut be damned, splinted thumb be damned, creeping caffeine immunity be damned, laptop computer-Siren, iPad, iPhone, be…. well, gotta be careful what you wish for. Damn! Today I rode my bike!
I cramped when I hit Central Park. At High Noon I was at the proscribed Grant’s Tomb meeting point. No takers for this ride, so I soldiered on alone. Over the bridge and up River Road, with a very front-loaded effort on Alpine hill. And then up to College Hills in nor particular hurry. The wind was leaving garbage cans strewn all over the road. It was on the nose (mostly) heading out, and then behind me (mostly) all the way back to NYC, but squirly as hell by the hospital in Washington Heights. I nearly got blown onto any number of gypsy cabs.
I never stopped, except for a coupIe of snapshots. I forgot, save for a couple of sips, to drink water. More remarkable, though: I was never hungry. Just chugging along, livin off the fat, I guess. Maybe there is something to sticky toffee puddings after all…..