Feast your eyes, friends, on my amateur of the fleet, the half-skank, half-virgin, barely legal, fixed-gear bicycle of questionable history and experience ...
Ellipses!
Her red chain will seize you by the pant-cuffs and tear your jeans right off, throwing you over the handlebars and flat onto your back, dominating and humiliating you in front of gods and passersby in the street ... but only if you're into that careless, I-forgot-to-roll-up-my-pant-leg kinky shit ...
The feel of her thin, no-frills, what-you-see-is-what-you-get red cotton handlebar tape feels like business mixed with pleasure: getting the job done with smooth, efficient, old-skool, straight-forward techniques ...
There's that chain again, from a different, more enticing angle ...
Our first happy customer, taking her around the block once or twice, indulging in her maiden voyage (sorry, you probably couldn't afford that ride, anyway) the happy never-ending that is the lovely Miss Ellipses ...
Saturday after work, I raced to the Sacramento Bicycle Kitchen, arriving minutes before closing. I went in looking for a bike or frame in my size (56-58 cm I reckon). None were exactly right, but the one I settled on was close enough ... 60 cm, good for short-distance riding around in Midtown, but uncomfortable for anything longer.
In my head, this whole Build a Bike process was gonna take like, 3 weeks. And I was gonna be all showing each individual step, and yall were gonna be all wowed cause Look how DIFFERENT she looks from the LAST session!! However, it has been concluded that my bike will be finished, um, tomorrow. It turns out that these simple machines are actually simple machines. And when I'm in a Maintain It Yourself workshop dedicated to making regular people understand the mechanics of their bicycles, and surrounded by super-cute & willing (to explain stuff, you pervs) volunteer mechanics, with all the bike-building/maintaining tools you could ever dream of at your fingertips, building a bike is easy. And fast! AND all of the components I'm using have been salvaged from donated bikes (unsealed bottom bracket, "fancy" crank arms for $10 (vs. $5 for the other average used stuff), seat post, pedals with holes for a later addition of toe clips, and many options for seats and wheels). Actually, tomorrow I'm going to buy a new fixed rear wheel (cause those are hard to come by in a place with strictly donated items), a size 46 chain ring and chain, hopefully in red, and some pretty handlebar tape or grips. My old bike first had chopped bullhorns with pink tape, then later it had mustache handlebars with blue & white star grips. I'm thinking back to the bullhorns, because they feel nice. Suggestions?
1. Build a bike from the frame up (and out). 2. Blog more. About building a bike. 3. Finish knitting my cousin's Christmas present, black & grey fingerless gloves. 4. Participate in a beach Ultimate tournament. 5. Deactivate profile from world-conquering social networking site. 6. Move to Seoul. 7. Learn Korean. 8. Explore Bali, Sumatra, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. 9. Learn bomb ass break dancing moves. 10. Finish a half Olympic distance triathlon. 11. Roll a perfect cigarette.
It wasn't until I actually heard the farmer's early morning rise and shine alert come from the throat of my little hen that I admitted to waiting for eggs from a couple of fellas.
We never found any eggs in the yard because She was a HE.
I have a letter, etc. for you. The ting is, I lost your address. Well, I didn't lose it. I know right where it is: festering under a pile of stinking, rotting waste in the Carriacou landfill. Yes, I put it in the garbage. I thought I recorded it into my address book before tossing the envelope... alas, my memory betrayed me.
The options are: 1) Send it to T. F. Road 2) Moderate comments until you hopefully read this post and respond with an address for me so I can stick dis ding in d mail, or you tell me to send it to the parentals in America.
I really want to postmark dis bad grrl soon so she can stop staring me down with those taunting markered letters that read Miss _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
Sunday night during the full moon, I decided I wanted some chickens in my yard.You know, for fresh eggs every day.I was talking to my friend Andy to see if anyone had any chicks they would sell me.He laughed and shook his head and said, “Nah, you ain’t ready.You don want dat kind of responsibility.”I told him that maybe it was part of my plan for 2009, to start waking up with the sun every day, like a bun & bread Kayak. Or be a farmer. Maybe I WANT that kind of responsibility, to feel very productive on days without school, to use the rest of my mornings to do yoga or find the beach for sunrise strolls while catching up on the news (thank you, BBC, and Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! podcasts), or doing my hand washing. He held fast and pooh-poohed my longings for animals to tend.
And boy, you should have heard him laugh, a fortnight gone, when I said I wanted the week-old lamb whose mother had died, and needed to be bottle-fed since no other mum sheep would suckle it.Three times a day, he said, starting in the wee hours, when the moon is cashing in for the day, before the sunlight starts to burn on the horizon.For two months, he said, that’s how long it takes to wean a rejected lamb.And don’t you have stray dogs in your yard who would eat her faster than you can yell, “Mash, you mudda ass, MASH!”?Okay, OKAY, I get it, I’m clearly not the girl with the yard or the schedule for this orphan lovey lamb.But what he doesn’t get is that I am!I AM the girl ready to make that kind of commitment, ready to get out of bed early every day, ready to come home from school on my lunch break (which I do anyway, silly), ready to fill a bottle with powdered milk and water and let the baby suck until she’s full and happy.Well, I guess the dog thing is an actual problem.And come to think of it, didn’t I spend eight years of my life waking up before the roosters to swim 6,000+ meters four or five times a week?Yes.You win.Find someone else.
You can keep your needy lamb, but I still want me some chickens roaming around the yard and fresh eggs for breakfast every day!
Yesterday evening, I told the boy with no faith in the foreigner with the relaxed schedule (that she’ll be lucky see again in this life), I want chickens.Again, he laughed, and told me I didn’t really want that kind of work.Getting entirely fed up with his lack of confidence in my commitment to raise free (range), fresh eggs, I dropped it and decided to get my chicks elsewhere.The only reason I even brought it up again is that Andy is definitely the dude to know for any livestock needs.He has a big ol’ piece of land on a hill behind my house, where he keeps around 60 sheep and 8 goats.He also has 40 rabbits and a few pigs, but those are in the yard by his house.
After moving along quite nicely (in my head) with my endeavors to get chickens from someone other than Andy, he called me up at 7 this morning, after tending his sheep on the hill I was already awake, mind you, and just starting to glisten from my pre-Spanish yoga session. He had something for me, and could he stop by to drop it off just now?Not a minute later, he’s at my door, holding a black plastic grocery bag that’s all tied up.“Alex, I found a young chicken on my land.Here.”Before I could even respond, he turned around, stepped off my veranda, planted a stake in the ground under a little shade tree, opened the bag, and took out a young, grey hen with a black string around her left foot, and tethered her to the stake.
I have a chicken!
And yes, she is tied up (!) five feet from my front door.
Andy stayed only long enough for me to watch as he calmed her down, and ask what food (uncooked rice) and how much (a handful) and how often (twice a day!Piece of cake!).And wait, WHY did you put a string around my new chicken’s ankle then tie her to a stake?Oh, and how long does it take for them to get accustomed to my yard?No, Andy, in DAYS, I’d like to know when I can free this poor animal.But HOW will I “just know” when she’s accustomed? And that was that.He was off, I was left bewildered and excited, with the newest addition to my yard squawking and flapping around, not yet accustomed to her new environment.I eagerly threw her a handful of rice to peck at and went off to school to give five-question Spanish tests to my students.
Around 1 pm, I came home to my chicken, and found her surrounded by three fat, bully, yard fowl that mysteriously don’t belong to anyone around here.They just showed up one day. When I walked toward them, they strutted off at their scared, fast pace, clearly up to no good.Upon further investigation, my chicken seemed frightened and hopped/limped away from me the best she could, what with her ankle tether and all.But she did the same thing when I met her this morning, and calmed down when I caught her and put her in my lap.No big deal, so I went inside to heat up some spicy lentil soup with dumplings for lunch.While I was washing the dishes from breakfast, listening to music, I looked (and listened) out the window and heard some squabbling under the tree near my chicken’s stake, followed by the scene of one of the fatties jumping up and down in a circle, possibly pouncing on my helpless hen feet-first.The cries didn’t sound distressing enough, so I chalked it up to fowl play.But after a few minutes of this initiation ritual, something told me to go outside and check on the young bird.Just as I stepped onto the veranda, the hefty vagabond ran off clucking, jutting its head back and forth with every step, escaping the wrath of my angry, but terribly-aimed, stick-throwing.I crept up to my chicken to see what was going on under that shady little tree . . . and, just as I suspected, foul play!That vagrant scalped her!It left her shaking and even more timorous than before, and her tiny, bleeding skull exposed to the world. As if being chased down, kidnapped from her acres of Caribbean paradise, transported in a black plastic bag, and confined to an 18-inch line in a foreign yard wasn’t traumatic enough!
I have big plans for this hen, and the healing qualities her eggs will bring.After all that drama, she is coasting down the road to recovery.I watched her peck happily at her dinner of uncooked rice, and, belly full, turn in for the night shortly afterwards.
After this weekend, I will probably really truly feel that my work here is done. I think the photo & video documentation say it all, my friends. On Saturday, the National AIDS Directorate Carriacou/Petite Martinique committee is hosting a Red Ribbon Dance in THE Saturday party destination on our island, d Coconut Bar. Our most popular Caribbean string band (complete with ukelele, mandolin, AND banjo!), the Country Boys, will perform; we'll hang the fact-posters from the march, strategically place baskets of male & female condoms around the club, and distribute red ribbons . . . Oscar-style. I'll let you know how it goes, and whether or not it'll be time to come home.
The best part is that it works a zillion times better than any over-the-counter junk I've swiped under my arms in futile attempts to not put anyone off with my Eaude Ali. Trust me, I've tried to embrace my natural "essence" for years, but my hyper-active olfactory bulb was consistently triggered, reminding me to bathe no less than three times a day -- especially since moving to the tropical humidity of the 12°N latitude that is my island. The other best part is that I recycled my empty Tom's of Maine container, and half of the ingredients were made locally (coconut oil).
Here's what you do: roll down your empty container, fill it with coconut oil, pour it into a cup, add baking soda until it's milky and gritty. Pour it back into the rolled down container, cap it up, and put it in the fridge. Wait about 30 minutes, or until it solidifies, apply ONE SWIPE per pit, and enjoy your new lack of eau d'er. I think one could probably add a drop or two of perfume oil; I might try that when my first batch runs out, you know, to smell more like a girl instead of just the passing breeze.
