Bike Dreams

I've had three false starts in the past few days. I start to write something and then realize I'm just not in the mood, and why force myself, since it will only sound forced.

Still not sure if I am in the mood, but at least the coffee is right today. After the death of the French press beaker, which shattered in my hands while I was doing dishes one night, I ran out (or rather, shuffled - since I was precaffeine) and bought this. I've had one before, and liked it.

What I didn't realize was that the one I had before was smaller.

So I've been futzing with it, the first two or three days drinking the equivalent of three or four shots of espresso mixed with hot milk, and having the lid of my head blown off. The next couple of days trying to tone it down by, variously, not pouring all of the magic elixir into my cup, or adding a little hot water to it, or (today) simply reducing the amount of coffee and water I put into the thing in the first place.

And this morning I hit upon the right formula, apparently, since it tastes great. Still not the same; I swear I can taste the more finely groundness of the beans, and I still wish I had my French press back, and to that end I suppose I shall be fussy and order myself a replacement beaker, even though I've been forewarned by many customer reviews that it, too, will break one day while I am washing it.

It will be nice to have both, actually, since I do love espresso; I just prefer it black with sugar, and yet I have to have the au lait in the morning. Hey, as that stranger in the five and dime store told me, I'm eccentric.

Not sure how he figured that out on the scant evidence of watching me refuse a plastic bag and simply slip the espresso maker into my little cloth purse thingy. But honestly I can hardly argue with him.

Speaking of which, I am itchy with bike anticipation. I am waiting for ONE PART. Oy veh.

In other words, suffering the torture of the damned, watching other people get their builds done and ride away in glee. Haunting my shop every day in hopes that the thing will magically appear and that I'll be forced to leave one of my existing bikes as a hostage whilst I ride away on my shiny new pony.

(No, they wouldn't make me leave a hostage; I'm paid in full - but have you ever tried to ride two bikes at once in NYC traffic?)

Side note: people do do this; it's called ghost-riding. You ride one while holding the bars of the other one and wheeling it along next to you. It's difficult and not terribly safe and you run the risk of being pulled over by a cop and having to prove that the extra bike is not one you just stole.

There's another method, which I watched someone do just the other day, which is to hoist bike #2 onto your back and carry it while riding bike #1. This, too, is out of the question. I could carry a frame. I have carried a wheelset (and boy did I feel like a little superhero doing that). But a built-up bike? Nope.

No, the irony of it all is that to pick up my new bike, I will have to ride the friggin' subway. Ugh. Already dreading that part. So much so that I've mentally gone through a series of complex schemes trying to figure out how to get a friend to ride my extra bike back for me, either all the way to my place, or to one of their own apartments, where I could pick it up, but then how do I get there....you see the trouble.

Sigh. I think I need to go for a ride.