Rhapsodies

Well I had a bit of a bad ending for my weekend. I’d had a fairly nice afternoon drawing at the Seattle Art Museum and browsing at the central branch of the library and I was trying to head home while I still had the light. I usually get out of downtown by going down Westlake which I follow all the way to Fremont than turn on the Burke-Gilman trail turn again at 25th and then down into Lake City Way. This is actually not the fastest way to get home but it has the traffic free Burke-Gilman and only one big hill and at the end of a long day I will take flat over short all the time.

The one problem with Westlake is the South Lake Union Transit (they don’t use the abbreviation if they can help it.) It’s a bit of an obstacle when you are behind it and even worse when it’s behind you… and it’s tracks are just the right size to fit a bicycle wheel.

I’ve had close calls with it before and as I slid into it I knew this wasn’t going to be one of them. When this happens you have no choice but to put your arms in front of your face and pray.

I don’t want to sound masochistic or in anyway suggest that I’m an aficionado of falling off my bike but it was a smooth landing. The only really painful part about it was that my leg was inside the bike frame when it… bounced otherwise it was one you could walk away from. I want to thank all the Good Samaritans who rushed to check. It’s times like this that make you a little less cynical about the world.

I was able to get the rest of the way home other than one shin feeling wet I felt okay. Happily when I got home to tend the wounds I found it was just sweat and not what I thought it was… The other leg however was a mess with a huge egg where it had hit the frame. I didn’t have any ice in the freezer so I used the steak I was planning to thaw for dinner anyway. (Don’t worry it was still in the ziplock) That worked like a charm and the swelling went down pretty quickly. Later I noticed one of my ribs was sore.

All in all a lot better than it could have been.