I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my biiiiiiiiike

So what does a Klutz with a capital K who can barely manage to walk in a straight line soberly do? That's right, she buys a BIKE!

WOOHOO!


The Backstory

Like any warmblooded American kid, I grew up riding a bike. After the tricycle stage, my inner fashionista picked out a white Huffy decorated with Ewoks to parade around on the oh-so-heavily-trafficked country roads of Indiana. I had my fair share of petit accidents, but this was back in the day when, like, one car per hour (including those that lived in the 'hood) drove down my road, and politely slowed down and pulled over as far as possible to the side in order to avoid even a hint of a close call kiddie collision. (haha, damn, how do you like THEM alliteration apples! haha, I did it again! LOL! I'm sober, I swear.)

Fast forward a bit to university life, where I graduated to slightly steadier lines of traffic through the roads intersecting our Nashville campus. Every so often there'd be a rumor of a student being hit (Southern slang for a slight bump, no visible signs of concussion) by a car, but those dummies were usually on foot and stupidly ignored the impatient cars sick of giving the students the right-of-way. I spent several years safely, if slightly geekily, pedaling my way from the far end of the Arts & Sciences campus for French class to the other end of the universe for music practice, my huge backpack and viola case making me look super cool and not off-balance at all.

After a rash of theft swept the campus and I lost two bikes and a front wheel off a third, I moved off campus and stored my newest bike in the apartment complex's gated community parking garage.

Enter Mentally Unstable Awesomeness

My sister (and roommate) left for a family vacation I was unable to to take off work for, leaving her cute, gold convertible on the upper level of the two-story parking garage. One evening, before going to bed, I put a load of clothes in the dryer and passed out after a long day of classes and barista-ing. In the wee sma's, I awoke to a hot, smoky smell, not (in my defense) unlike the pleasant odor of the final moments of the clothes-drying cycle. So I assume that my clothes are tumbling away, roll over, and go back to sleep...

...when I am rudely awakened once again to loud pounding on my front door. I groggily get up and angrily confront the apartment manager standing outside, but before words can exit my mouth, he asks if I own the cute, gold convertible on the top level of the two story parking garage. Pre-coffee kK closes open mouth in confusion, has to think a moment through the fog of sleep and strange morning confrontation, then warily nods. The manager proceeds to demand why I didn't speak to the police last night, and again, pre-coffee kK has trouble 1) not slapping the rude idiot on my doorstep because seriously, WTF is he talking about, and 2) functioning.

Eventually, I get a more coherent explanation, although even to this day I still can't quite believe it happened.

A Scene Brought To You By Jerry Bruckheimer

In our apartment complex was a woman who inhabited an apartment one floor and two doors down from my own. On the night in question, she decides to let out the inner apeshit and attack all the convertibles in the apartment complex, first slashing the cloth tops with a razor and then lighting them on fire with her handy Zippo and portable gasoline can.

Beginning on the bottom floor of the two-story garage, she manages to decimate 3 convertibles and is headed up to the top level, when the police wrestle her away from the cute, gold convertible on the top floor of the two-story parking garage. But not before she inserted her razor and left 4 through-and-through slash marks through the black cloth top. I find pieces of one razor (pieces? what the waht?) and one in its entirety still embedded in the top when I run down in my hot shorts and bare feet to see with my own eyes the state of my sister's car. I pick up my jaw and let out an hysterical giggle, then a sudden thought strikes me and I run down the stairs to the bottom floor of the garage where the bike rack is.

All the cars have been cleared out, and through the black smokey residue on the concrete walls I see my bike. In a melted puddle of silver metal and black rubber. Le sigh.

I Give Up

I didn't bother getting any more bikes after that, as I had graduated to driving a car and then, during my subsequent years in Chicago and New York, public transportation. Eight years later, on the crowded, crazy streets of Paris, I am somehow talked into climbing onto a Velib' to cross the arrondissements for my 148th visit to the D'Orsay.

I Have A Dream

For several years now, I've had a very strong mental image of myself on an old refurbished bike, preferably with a front basket. I've never acted on this dream, in part because bikes are so expensive, but mostly because I don't feel any connection to bikes I see in shops. I assume I will just never ride a bike again when tout d'un coup, a coworker happens to mention www.greatusedbikes.com. I visit the site, and fall instantly in love with:

YESSSSS! John is amazing and incredibly nice, responding to my emails practically instantaneously. He delivers the bike at 8 am on Sunday, allowing me to ride around the block so he can see how much to adjust the bars and seat. He promises to come back and fix anything that might go wrong, and my coworker has already attested to the veracity and thoroughness of his claim. I am super excited to have found him!

I HAVE AN OLD REFURBISHED BIKE WITH A FRONT BASKET.

(Did I mention my bike has a front basket?)

The bike doesn't have a name yet, but like any great moniker, something dramatic and/or hilarious will happen and it will assign itself automatically. And I'm equally sure it will make blog headline news. HA!

But for now I am basking in the happy glow of finding another piece of my slowly-becoming-whole self.

WOOHOO!

kK

My Chick Lit Reality: Doggie Day Care

So I'm sure we're all familiar with the typical chick lit storyline: Girl has breakdown; extremely rare coincidences occur to place her in a healing environment where she works as a cleaning lady or dog walker; hot male gardener shows up shirtless; emotional wounds are healed; and everyone lives happily ever after. The point of it all usually is that in order to find this new happiness, the girl must hit rock bottom-levels of despair and slough off the stress of being in the same old rut that is currently making her life a hell hole before she can pull a phoenix and rise from the ashes a healed, whole, new person.

 

Part of this rock bottom pilgrimage sometimes entails living and/or working in what Ageless calls "fringe society," the kinds of people who consider 9-5 office jobs the devil's work, right up there with genital warts and politicians. The kinds of people who work, say, in a Doggie Day Care facility.

Enter kK, fresh from her Parisian escape, back in the city where I had just spent three years at yet another 9-5 office job. Admittedly, the companies I worked for were MUCH better than the law firm in Chicago (where 9-5 really meant 9-9), but still, there is something about office life that, while comforting in a steady, you-know-what-to-expect kind of way, manages to suck out pieces of your soul through the florescent light bulb sockets and too-cold air conditioner vents.

As I prepared for another round of temporary office job interviews, I started feeling a vague queasyness in every atom of my body. After one interview, I ran outside and just stood in the middle of the crowded sidewalk, breathing deeply and soaking up the sun as I tried to dispel the panicky jitters that had overcome me in the elevator ride back down to the lobby.

I've read enough of those girly novels to understand the signs of the bourgeoning breakdown, but my next move was pure instinct that I would only later attribute to an unconscious drift toward my chick lit reality. I walked home instead of taking the subway, something that I might not normally have done since it was a good 30 block walk, but I needed fresh air and constant movement to keep me from what I was convinced was going to be spontaneous combustion.

A few blocks from my apartment I passed a "help wanted" sign in the window of a doggie day care boutique. I walked in on auto pilot, the copy of my resume pulled out before I even realized my hand was reaching into the envelope, an interview-smile pasted on my face as I walked up to the counter and greeted the manager. She raised her eyebrows at the obviously overqualified list of credentials, but somehow I managed to convey my desperation to be in NOT-office work, and then I picked up a little King Charles spaniel scratching at my legs and buried my face in her soft hair as she tried to lick all the invisible peanut butter off my face.

Apparently a love of dogs is high on the list of requirements for this no-brainer job, because she asked me to start the next Monday.

WHOOHOO!

It was two of the most fun months of my working life: I spent all day petting dogs and chatting about collars, harnesses, all-natural doggie treats and food. My fringe society consisted of dreadlocked, potsmoking groomers and a crazy manager who came in every day either drunk, hungover or amped up on what I'm pretty sure was something a little stronger than caffeine.

I knew it couldn't last forever, but while it did I reveled in the glorious fringy-ness of it. Also, I'd been sending out so many positive vibes into the universe for a position at Patagonia that I felt like I was floating on a cloud of surreality. Especially when Patagonia called to offer me the job! I have now moved to Phase Two of my new chick lit reality, working for one of my favorite companies with great people (and a store in Seattle...HMMM!).

I'm not sure how many phases there will be, and I'm still waiting on the hot, shirtless gardener to show up to heal my emotional wounds (LOL!), but for now I'm content to fold t-shirts and spend my free time riding my new bike (more on this later), drinking tequila with my Vortex dinner/book club (again, more on this later), and watching awesome crap tv like:

and

Stay tuned for upcoming installments of the New York Chronicles, including bike rides, adventures in catsitting, and the road trips to Austin and Chicago. In the meantime, skip the shower and have that other glass of wine.

kK

Bien joué: Paris

Ahem. Lights, please.

A picture sometimes really IS worth 1,000 words, but most of the time I think my voice is specialer.

This time, however, I will let my vocal chords take a backseat to my (sometimes piece of sh*t) camera in all its (mostly accidental) glory. This is organized semi-chronologically, although me being kK sometimes there's just randomness that is never explainable to anyone not in my head, and sometimes not even then.

(Dinner on Parisian rooftop patio)

(First hash in Fontainebleau)

(Champagne toast at Montmartre wine festival)

(Sacre Coeur)

La vie quotidienne: One of many days waiting five minutes (or less!) for a train in the awesome-except-for-its-ridiculous-1-to-6-am-closure metro system:

(Parisian Hot Dog. Erm, riiiiiiiight. But of course I ate it anyway.)

(Versailles hash -- OnOn!)

And on one fine day:

(La glace de Bertillon!)

Happiness-in-a-can-baby! However, sacrilegious as it might seem, I am still convinced that Haagen-Daaz is The Best. Ice Cream. Evah.

Speaking of THE BEST:

L'As du Falafal! (Officially endorsed by Lenny Kravtiz. 

Seriously, there's a shrine to him inside and everything.)

And, BEST all around feel-at-home-in-a-café with, rarity among rarities in France, good coffee:

(Visit #16,482 to Pain Quotidien!)

At one point I acquired ...

(Monsieur Le Hot Pink Juicer!)

Later in our French tenure, an unexpected cherry on top:

(Who just saw Greaser rock l'Assassymphonie! LIVE IN CONCERT.)

(Don't worry, I would never deprive you of another chance
to witness the bizarre fabulousness of French music: play on!)

Of course, let's not forget what I was really supposed to be doing:

Raaahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!!

...

In October, there was the hash Halloween Red Dress Run:

And then it was the end of November, time for a very rainy Hash Thanksgiving:

... and ...

Thanksgiving Internationale à la Squash and kK!

Which was followed by a visit to the Christmas market on the Champs with The Pollock and Oxford Comma:

(Hot spiced wine...can anybody say DRUNK ON SUNDAY.)

After Thanksgiving there was:

...where we...

(no, I don't need any more than that! Also read: BRING IT ON.)

...and got all...

And the unforgettable trip to Munchen, where I ...

... and, with the bobsled team ...

... and got all ...

A few weeks later I went home for Christmas, where I got to hang out with these:

And this:

And, of course, this:

(Who doesn't love hashbrowns "all the way" at WaHo!)

Which I promptly:

I can't believe I'm still alive.

Anyway, back in Paris we found:

(Dive café!)

(Elf-ears paging best PIZZA in gai Paris)

I settled in to a new apartment...

(Room with a view) 

...with new housemates:

...got a horizontal-striped shirt:

...was mocked by an amused drunk nearby...

... was co-hare for a hash through the 15th and 16th arrondissements:

(On In!)

...and was welcomed back by my babysitter club:

Of course, there's always an excuse to have a dinner party:

...or a masquerade...

Of course, it's wine o'clock all day on your birthday (or really, let's face it, any other day ending with 'y'):

Besides Munchen, there was the trip to Champagne:

...and let's not forget the 'that can't be real' château...

...or the once-a-decade pilgrimage to Aix:

(TGV to Aix)

(Adorable street musicians on Cours Mirabeau)

Now, there are certain things one must do while living abroad:

(Don't forget to send your family les cartes postales!)

Visit the Musée D'Orsay at least 242 times...

... drink loads of raw milk ...

... hang out with Oscar Wilde ...

... in the best cemetery in the world:

(Père Lachaise!)

... never miss an opportunity to climb to Montmartre in the snow:

... and, if you ever feel ridiculous while trying to speak French, it's necessary to go home to the 86-year-old-man club and sip out of a recycled nutella glass:

Now, when it comes to social activities, never leave home without your quotebook:

1. "Google 'French Military Victories.'"

2. "I can't tell the difference between boy scouts and British people apparently."

3. "Cheers to having big feet and being more stable than the French!"

4. "If you get a juicer, a dog and a baby you're never going back."

5. "My arms must be too tired from lifting all those sandwiches to my face today."

6. "Yeah, he seems like the type that would die."

7. "Unless those sheets are made of chocolate, they can just kiss my ass."

8. "So, you have to go eat head on Saturday?"

9. "That was the fattest baby I've ever seen. It didn't even have kneecaps, just thighs down to its ankles."

10. "Mon phone est plus smart que ton phone."

11. "It's annoying that pathetic people like that get to exist in this world and I have to put up with it."

12. "I couldn't have made a worse stew if I'd invited anarchists to draw up a constitution."

13. "If I wanted to see an exact replica of oranges, I'd eat a fucking orange."

14. "I'm a Virgin addict."

15. "You go ahead and do that, I'm going to sit here and eat some vegetables."

**Quote notes**
1. *[NB: It's not doing it now, but at one point this took you to a google page that said "Your search did not match any documents. Did you mean 'French military defeats'?"]

2. kK, after stone cold soberly misidentifying a group of safari-type clad youngsters with King's English accents.

3. PTPO, concluding a discussion wherein three of us American chicks horrified a few French femmes with the size of our gigantic feet.
4. kK, on what you need to acquire in France to live there the rest of your life.
5. PTPO, on why she was having trouble getting the train door open.

6. The Mermaid, on why she wasn't surprised that some artist or other had died at a young age. 

7. kK, upon finding out the price of a hotel room Squash found pictures of online.

8. PTPO, in reference to my tête de veau dinner with Madame.

9. PTPO, on a coworker's baby.

10. French newspaper ad for smart phones. 

11. PTPO, on whether a particular fellow human being was either pathetic or annoying.

12. Some book somewhere about something.

13. Squash, on why she likes Monet.

14. PTPO, as we stood outside the store under the Louvre. It sank in for her midway through my burst of cackles loud enough to crack La Joconde's smirk to a full on smile.

15. kK, on what I will do as other people spend their time angry or worried or otherwise being shitty.

**End Quote notes**

And now I'd like to take a moment of silence to properly toast the trip with Ageless that started it all, New Year's 2009:

(huh-LO it's called waterproof mascara. Buy some, ya cheap ho.)

And that, folks, is the end of Chapter 29. Commencing Chapter 30 with a bang, as I work part time at a doggie day care in New York City (more on that later), head to Ithaca for the wedding of The Pollock and Oxford Comma, be honorary bridesmaid for Dr. Dumber in her Sikh-style wedding party in Chicago, and then somehow make my way to the Holy Land of Rain, a.k.a. kK's final resting place: Seattle.

woohoo!

kK