A few evenings back my wife, Lori Beth, and I were preparing tee shirts to be shipped.\u00a0 I had printed the labels and Lori was stuffing the envelopes and the packages.\u00a0 It was getting to be late and my type II diabetes was beginning to talk to me.\u00a0 I mentioned a few times that I needed to get something to eat.\u00a0 She was focused on her task.<\/p>\n
“It’s almost eight o’clock.”<\/p>\n
“I don’t want to interrupt what I’m doing.”<\/p>\n
“Did you want me to just go get something by myself?”<\/p>\n
“Sure.\u00a0 You go get something to eat.”<\/p>\n
It has come as a surprise to me that people don’t always mean exactly what they say.\u00a0 I went out, mounted my machine, and rode away to dinner.\u00a0 I chose the Spin Neapolitan Pizza. I eat there quite a lot.\u00a0 I’m more interested in the people around the meal than in the food that is served.\u00a0 That having been said, I tend to order the exact same meal almost every time.<\/p>\n
This evening I ordered a light dinner, a cup of minestrone soup and a Sonoma salad.\u00a0 Diagonally across from where I was seated were some seven or eight ladies apparently out on a girls’ night.\u00a0 I learned later they were celebrating a birthday for one of the ladies.\u00a0 I took my time eating a casual meal.\u00a0 I considered adding a chocolate gelato for dessert but chose not to do so.<\/p>\n
As fate would have it, when I got up to go the ladies were also finished and leaving.\u00a0 When I was walking to the door a few of them were still inside and some were already outside and conversing around the doorway.\u00a0 My bike was parked just outside and making my way toward it I overheard just a couple of comments.<\/p>\n
“Yes.\u00a0 Yes, it is.”<\/p>\n
“That’s what I thought.”<\/p>\n
I mounted the bike and one of the girls called out to me, “Hey, could we get a picture with you?”<\/p>\n
“Sure.”<\/p>\n
One of the ladies, the birthday girl as it turned out, came over to stand next to me and a few of the girls prepared their cameras to take a picture.<\/p>\n
“We tried to get her to put on the helmet.”<\/p>\n
“Sure.\u00a0 That’s not a problem.”<\/p>\n
“Oh!\u00a0 Could I?”<\/p>\n
“Sure.”\u00a0 I picked the helmet off the right mirror and handed it to her.<\/p>\n
“Is this right?”<\/p>\n
“Yes.\u00a0 The bill goes in front.”<\/p>\n
“There’s no passenger seat.”<\/p>\n
“It’s a solo bike.\u00a0 It’s the first solo I’ve owned.\u00a0 It’s not that I carry a passenger very often but I do like to have the option.”\u00a0 The birthday girl leaned into me and we posed for the picture.<\/p>\n
There were several pictures taken and then I fished out my own pocket computer\/phone\/camera.\u00a0 I handed it to the nearest lady that had taken the picture.<\/p>\n
“Oh!\u00a0 He wants a picture of all of us.”<\/p>\n
Before I knew it there were four of them gathered around me with the rest holding up their phones to record the moment.<\/p>\n
“We love your bike.\u00a0 That’s creepy isn’t it?”<\/p>\n
“No. Not at all.”<\/p>\n
That exchange actually occurred a few times over the next few minutes as we talked about motorcycles and stuff.\u00a0 In a short while the group of ladies headed down the sidewalk to a place where they could continue to celebrate and I donned my equipment and rode away.<\/p>\n
I have become somewhat accustomed to getting a lot of attention over the custom bike from young men and other motorcycle riders but it was the first time I have been the recipient of such attention from a group of ladies, at least the first time in recent years.<\/p>\n
I was part of the way home before I put together a couple of the comments.\u00a0 Trying on the helmet and noting there was no passenger seat.\u00a0 She had wanted a picture of herself on the bike and I had not provided that for her.\u00a0 Sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake.<\/p>\n
It’s good to ride.\u00a0 It is actually good to get affirmation and acclamation for what I ride.\u00a0 It’s good to feel the wind.<\/p>\n
When I got home Lori Beth was a bit upset that I had gone off to eat alone.\u00a0 Apparently my correct response would have been to turn down the suggestion to do so and wait around until she was ready to depart.\u00a0 I chose to wait until another time to share my adventure with her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few evenings back my wife, Lori Beth, and I were preparing tee shirts to be shipped.\u00a0 I had printed the labels and Lori was stuffing the envelopes and the packages.\u00a0 It was getting to be late and my type …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=875"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions\/878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}