Jacquie Phelan's Weblog

Real-life velcro (the annoyingly tenacious plastic hooks that cling to practically anything soft, not just the intended loopy fuzz ) isn’t much different from mental velcro ( the term I use for my grabby mind).

Put down your cycle gloves at your peril.  They will hitch a ride inside your shirt, on someone else’s chair, your own trouser leg if you don’t pay full attention in both the putting down and the taking up…my problem is that this is the transition moment…and my mind is usually somewhere up the road, while my hands perform what i always assume is a mindless task.
The gloves proved me wrong.

Keys probably play hide and seek with most folks, but my life is not key-intensive. It is glove intensive (and glasses-o-centric).   I get the feeling that keys are a common bugaboo for more “normal” people with cars, offices, apartments, etc. So I packed TWO sets of lace-trimmed bike gloves. A back up pair seemed smart.

I lost the sunflower pair in Switzerland.

Could it be a coincidence that  my Swiss friends and I  were talking about emo stuff (=code for @ttachment issues)?  Did the gloves stay behind in the ladie’s room  at  that wonderful veggie restaurant in Luzerne?  

   Chris pointed me at a thrift shop my first day here because he knows I’m mad about old clothing, and I’d griped about   leaving my longfinger gloves back at the apartment, betting on warmer weather.

“Two minutes” he said…

I raced in, asked the woman if they had any gloves, and out came a jumbled box of gloves.  (gloating noise, sound of woolen hands rubbing themselves together) A pound for fine red wool gloves! WITH PINK BOW already threaded along the wrist…is today my lucky day?

Within a few hours I had bonded with this new-to-me pair, but apparently they were not so quick to bond with me.

My baggage is fully exploded in the snug space of my own here at Helen F’s fab 1830 abode (pics included somewhere in this blog). Just FINDING a glove could take an hour.  Time aplenty to consider the concept of “controlling” my possessions.

 Europeans talk about ‘controlling’ your passport …know where it is at all times. Is this why it is so hard for some people to travel?   Cause ‘controlling’ tiny little things is not totally easy for everyone?

Thus I will leave the glove question hanging,  and wear socks on my hands when riding.  I’m superstitious about scraping my delicate keyboard dancers on the “pavements” –charming Scots word for sidewalk.

Sorry, I really meant: scraping my hands on the street,  but “pavements” just sounds so…fun and different and local.

 Either way I am swinging the lead :

faking it…fudging….lying, etc…

Riding on pavements is strictly forbidden.  Pedestrians accost you and don’t let you forget it.  I hop off immediately, apologize and tell them of course they are right.

Easy to make their day, eh?

 But if I skate by on the pavements, I will surely be nailed here in my blog for  waving  around argot casually like the person who can only say One Thing In French.

~ by jacquiephelan on May 30, 2008.

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