Flower Power

Big Mig called up this morning.

I have ridden with him a handful of times, almost enough to call him my riding buddy…
But the last month of No Riding, coupled with his innate Puerto Rican subtlety (European friends point out that American subtlety is an oxymoron) meant no naggy phone calls, no whining about why he never hears from ME.

Admit it rider, maintenance of the fragile ties can be…a fine art.

Sometimes you are the first person to use a trail in a while, and you tear through spider webs with your face.

There’s nothing that can repair that web. The spider just has to re-do it.

This month I learned that I just ripped apart something so delicate that there isn’t even a cliche for it….I will re-use Bull In A China Shop Syndrome…a person I know decided not to be friends.

It’s only happened this ripping way a handful of times in my life.
Usually there is a more bearable Fade-From-View loss of contact.

Mig forgives me for a month’s silence.
I wonder if this is how guys are…
They just get over a slight?
Or is it even considered a slight to ignore someone for a month?

Sigh.
Brenda Loew (from college days) didn’t bat an eye when I left messages after not speaking for five years…but she is a professional Mellow Person (acupuncturist of the most arcane imaginable ilk… the kind practiced by blind Japanese monks. No, it’s not a Helen Keller joke set up…).

Mig and I hit the Solstice Trail via George Flander’s gate (may he rest in eternal pastoral peace) having passed through a buttercup field that might make Dorothy sleepy.
Then on to the recenty fab’d sandstone bench that Mr. Lucas must have put up…it’s surrounded with the first Ookow, Sidalcea (footsteps-of-spring), california poppies and MYSTERY LILY (help me here)
IT was a dream ride.
I am still somnolent…I attribute it to the buttercups.