Ride On!

The LuLu Chronicles

LuLu-ism #15- If you don’t put your *cowgirl in the saddle for over two weeks, she’s gonna pay…

We’re home. Our travels to the South were sweltering but fun. Now it’s back home to Wisconsin. And, finally, after a two-week absence, LuLu and I are reunited. She’s classier than I remembered, with her pink fenders and shiny basket and all.

As I hopped on and started pedaling down the driveway, I felt light and young and ready for a long ride. Of course a three-mile ride wasn’t going to happen, not if my cowgirl had her way. It seemed she didn’t remember LuLu at all and it didn’t take long before she was complaining like a diva rock star.

And, if the whining cowgirl wasn’t bad enough, about a quarter of a mile down the road, my eyes started itching as if someone had rubbed poison ivy on my eyelids. Next my throat started closing up as tight as an elevator door. What was happening? The fact that my white shirt had turned a dingy, spotty yellow should have been a clue. I’d been pollened! Before I could even squeeze out a sneeze, dusty, mustard-looking spores shellacked my eyelashes, nose hairs, and contacts. Benadryl here I come!

Will there ever be a day when I can hop on LuLu and not have something or go wrong? Is there such a thing as a perfect bike ride? You know, a day when I don’t swallow bugs, get chased by a chicken, almost get hit in the head by a duck, have my pedal fall off, given the evil eye by a honking peacock , or discover a hole chewed in my bike shorts half way through my ride.

I don’t remember ever having these troubles as a kid riding my old Ward’s Hawthorne. Back then you couldn’t tell where I ended and my bicycle began. I don’t really want to recapture my youth. I’d settle for just not doing half bad for my age.

I will pedal on. After all, what else could go wrong? Well, I guess if a dragon flies over and drops poop on my head, I might consider that a sign that maybe bicycling isn’t for me. But until then, tomorrow is another day. Get a good night’s rest, LuLu. In the morning, I’m strapping a pillow to the cowgirl, a mask over my nose, goggles over my eyes and carrying a squirt bottle in my basket just in case some wild life longs to attack my head.

Ride on!

deb

* cowgirl means 'butt'