I love you bicycle. Let's not spend any more time apart.

Last week Thursday I vowed to get back on my bicycle.  I hadn't run a fever in twelve hours.  More importantly my back and hips were threatening total annihilation.  The great thing about bicycling (lots of different kinds of exercise) is that it keeps your body young and happy.  I'm 43 but people either think I am much younger or are so afraid of me that they pretend they think I'm much younger.  The bad thing is that if you stop exercising and lie in bed (like if you have a 103 fever day after day) you do not start aging where you left off, you accelerate and zoom past 43 within a few hours.  By nightfall you may be feeling like you're 90. 

So it's Thursday.  I'm somewhat better.  I need to take Rapunzel to school.  My back and hips are crying for some movement.  And here's the next thing:  taking Rapunzel to school by car is like being torn apart by rabid squirrels.  You're fighting about two hundred other mothers for one of ten parking spaces or you are swirling into the line that doubles as an entryway to hell.  Biking her in is a pleasant ~1.5 mile jaunt.  Driving her in is an exercise in self-torture. 

I'm going to bike, damnit.

I head down the stairs to the garage and find my bicycle.  It nods politely in my direction from it's place leaned up against a work table.  I ask if it minds if I join it.  It shakes it's front tire "no" and I prop myself up next to it and rest for awhile.  And so with frequent pauses for good behavior I get the bicycle to the driveway with the wagon hitched up behind it and then get Rapunzel buckled in and reading a book.  We set off.  I love bicycling!  It's so easy!  Turning the pedals is no effort at all!  Then I remember I'm pedaling downhill. 

I pedal along and except for not being able to breathe I feel pretty good.  My hips and back feel exceptionally good.  In fact if they could talk you would have heard them yelling "FUCK, YES!" as we rolled down the street.  We get to the school in one piece.  I hug and kiss Rapunzel and then rest awhile before attempting the arduous 1.5 mile ride home.