FROM SATURDAY but NOT SUNDAY

I heard from someone I know that the May 24 weekend is great for, not only drinking multiple two fours (or multiple jager bombs) in multiplicity, heading up north and shooting roman candles off at drunken friends --- but it is also a fantastic time to start the year's gardening off right. I agree with the person who told me this. And how exactly do I know this to be true? Because I witnessed it first hand, in person, with my own two eyes while experiencing another well known May 24 activity. Casual bike riding. But, let me assure you that leisurely biking and even leisurely gardening is not the only productive things one can do for the first time all year on their third weekend in May. Starting a rock band with old friends is a good thing to do. Practicing in your one friend's basement and calling yourselves, Threat Level Midnight, is also a very smart decision. Now, let me tell you about today's east to west 20 km's in total Wyandotte bike trip. It started off with a bang. Coffee and a breakfast sandwich. Super human rocket fuel for my not too long, but not too short east to west 20 km's in total Wyandotte bike trip. The going's there were uneventful, though pleasant and extremely windy --- but a wind that was to my advantage. (I've come to realize that the wind, when windy, in Windsor, usually heads west, rarely across and never exactly north to south). However, during the going's back I started paying attention to my surroundings - and pedaling, at times sort of panting and at all times wiping a tad sweaty brow with the top of my hand) You see, though I take this same journey fairly often and in the same directions, it is hardly ever boring and usually quite interesting - unless it is early Sunday morning, raining, cold, really late at night, or the road’s closed, because then nobody’s out walking around doing things and I shouldn’t really be biking at those times anyhow. The theme of this not-too-short-semi-almost-long bike ride was anonymous reunions with perfect strangers --- and avoiding injury but feeling safe. Starring Mr. Me, and the short guy with the spiky hair and gigantically inflated chest and arms. I’ve almost rode straight into that five foot, wife-beatin’ waddling brick wall a few times before but, whenever I’m about to slyly slip by the King Kong Wrecking Ball (while probably going a tad too fast to be riding on the sidewalk, and maybe looking a bit odd myself) --- he smiles. A juice induced psycho possessed perma-smile maybe, but a smile nonetheless. When someone smiles at me, I smile back. And then I feel good for a bit. That is, until someone pulls the super-stare-I-smile-you-no-reply move, and puts me back in my place --- like Ms. Younger African Lady. I saw her on the way there getting on the bus, and on the way back getting off (Although the latter being more east-way and later in the day). I wonder where she was or what she was doing in between those two times of getting on and off. Did she just stay on the bus for three and some odd hours, meandering around Windsor’s transit routes wishing she had somewhere to go? Or was she worrying about the safety of her homeland? I don’t know but I do know that she hit me hard with the super-stare-I-smile-you-no-reply move (both times!), so I really don’t care, even if she did coincide her use of public transportation with my bike ride so as to not smile/wave and or nod at me --- twice. Not only did I run into two old friends, but I almost ran over and through four new friends. Actually, they could have easily got out of my way, instead they made things more difficult for no reason other than because they were Wyandotte Wonder Darlings with no realization of what they were doing to themselves or people around them. First I got boxed in and squeezed out by a pile of festering garbage bags, 10 feet of narrow sidewalk, a lamp post and an overweight and large ranting disabled guy on a motorized chair. Second, Mr. Looked Like a Nice Old Man set up a 180 degree human aluminum blockade in the middle of the intersection, his line of defense a 1970’s 10 speed and a pair of brown slacks. He just kept staring at me as I got off my bike, walked around him, onto the side of the road and pulled my bike over the curb and back onto the sidewalk - the very one whose entry Mr. Looked Like a Nice Old Man was courageously withholding. Next, I almost got smoked by Mrs. Arab Driver No Hijab and her late 90’s modeled mini-van, as she flew half-way into the intersection, stopping suddenly when she saw me --- and how close she was to other crossing ‘real’ traffic. Being the seasoned Wyandotte Wanderer that I am, I reacted accordingly before the situation even happened. However, the thing that struck me as fascinating was that all three of these near miss encounters happened within seconds of each other --- and that Mrs. Arab Driver No Hijab's passenger was not wearing a hijab, but, actually, that did not really surprise me because the night previous I had watched a semi-interesting but well made and long foreign flick with my girlfriend. One of its many short films (there were 16 in all) about love in Paris (my girlfriend loves everything ‘Paris’) was about a young Indian woman and her convincingly genuine belief that wearing the hijab was not only a totally personal choice but a way of self-expressing her independence and happiness for life and herself as an individual --- as well as those around her. The fact that Mrs. Arab Driver No Hijab was driving as opposed to Mrs. Arab Passenger Hijab is another life query that can be answered (mostly) by contemporary cinema. Later on that day I made a sandwich, played my guitar and watched hockey.