For the Record

In case it ever comes up, which one ardently hopes it doesn't:

I post this because of the way the news media typically report cyclist deaths: A texting, speeding SUV driver jumps the median and swerves across three lanes of oncoming traffic, taking out a cyclist in the opposite bike lane before attempting to flee the scene and ending up wedged through the front window of a laundromat. "It wasn't clear whether the cyclist had lights," the article will conclude.

The laundromat is usually presumed to be innocent.

The driver is as well, unless it turns out that s/he was intoxicated. Being spectacularly and fatally unable to control a motor vehicle while cold sober is perfectly normal, and nothing to be concerned about.

I also wear a helmet every time I ride these days, though I'm doubtful of its usefulness in the above scenario. Helmets are really designed for lesser collisions, such as if you suddenly lose your balance for no reason and fall on your head at five miles per hour. This does actually describe my cycling style pretty well. In fact, I should probably wear it for walking too, and definitely in the shower, though getting it wet might void the warranty.

But one thing I adamantly don't do is advocate for helmet use. I really can't stand sanctimonious helmet-pushers. I was chewed out by one, after a helmetless excursion, a few years ago. She wouldn't drop the subject and actually grabbed my arm and yelled at me for my wanton disregard for my own well-being, a cigarette dangling from her free hand. I haven't gotten over the trauma, and to this day, if I saw her coming the other way on the hike-and-bike trail, I'd take my helmet off and throw it into the lake rather than let her see me wearing one. You don't want to encourage these people.

This was a great weekend to get a little biking in - highs in the mid-70s today, and beautiful and sunny, after wintry mix last week and another bout of sleet and possible snow in the forecast by Wednesday. But one unfortunate side effect of wildly bipolar weather is that you end up getting too sick to enjoy the good days. We did a few miles on the South Walnut Creek trail yesterday. Today, I contented myself with giving the bike a bath and charging up my lights.

Tomorrow I'm reporting for jury duty in District court. Those are typically traffic violations. I'm hoping that if I show up sneezing, shivering, soaked, helmeted, and bitterly resentful, they'll just send me home.

Mal du Monde

Margie called me this afternoon about plans for my birthday. I croaked weakly at her. "You sound sick. Are you sick?" she asked me, rather huffily I thought. "You're never sick."

"Well, I'm sick now," I said.

"That's no excuse," Margie remarked unsympathetically. "What do you have, swine flu? You swine."

Could I get some chicken soup with that?

Here are the top ten things you should not do whilst recuperating from swine flu:

10. Pick at the scabs on your slowly-healing heart - this is always highly contraindicated, but especially when you're suffering your own personal pandemic. (Doesn't that sound like a menu offering at Pizza Hut? Granted, a fairly gross one - but we are talking Pizza Hut here.)

9. Go to work. You have to anyway, because if you're out more than three days in a row you have to bring a doctor's note, and I'm not paying $20 to sit around in a waiting room full of people with much worse infections than mine, only to be told to stay home and drink plenty of fluids (NOT vodka) and get some sleep, which I already knew. So if you come to my office, be sure and wear a gas mask. Otherwise, you're going DOWN, pal.

8. Take your kids to visit your ex-mother-in-law in the hospital. She's fine, except she has a cracked vertebra from being hit by a VW bus while trying to retrieve a cardboard garage sale sign from the median near a major intersection. However, 30 minutes into our visit, she got a phone call from her daughter-in-law, who brusquely informed her that she has a staph infection and visitors aren't allowed into her room without gowning up. Now, the nurses hadn't mentioned this, and she does have a (gownless) roommate, who also had a (gownless) visitor while we were there.

Frankly, it was too much for my feeble brain and I just decided our visit had been about long enough anyway; but I'm still scratching my head over that one, or would be, except I'm frightened of getting my hands that close to my face.

7. Be the parent of an equally sick child. I'm sorry, but frankly this is just irresponsible. When you're sick, you really can't afford to be up all night bringing water and comfort to a coughing, feverish infant. So cut it out.

6. Read the weekly wildflower report for the state's recorded information line. Your voice sounds all husky from the sore throat, and you'll only give the traveling public the wrong idea.

5. Permit a cool front to bring a line of thunderstorms across the region where you live, dropping temperatures by 15 degrees and reawakening all the mold, cedar and pollen which thought spring was over and were all ready for a long summer's nap, therefore bringing about the worst allergy attack you've suffered in years. That was a dumb-ass thing to do.

4. Entertain Bill Gates with your karaoke stylings.

3. Go to the roller rink with your best friend. This isn't so bad in and of itself, but you need to go when the place isn't full of preteens, because preteens do not fear death, and therefore aren't nearly as frightened of 75-mph collisions as you are. Feel that funny thing your heart is doing? That's probably not good.

2. Plan the mother of all happy hours for your 40th birthday this coming Friday, itself merely a precursor to a full night of debauchery in Austin and a Memorial Day weekend of alcohol-fueled madness in Corpus. I have friends coming in from at least four different cities for the event. I don't think it'll be a proper party unless at least someone gets arrested, as long as that someone is not me, because the number one thing you should never, ever, ever do whilst H1N1ing your sick little ass into next week?

1. Go to jail!

On the other hand, I have been pretty badly in need of blog fodder lately.