Not dead yet

Hello gentle reader.  Was looking at the blog and realized I hadn't posted for over a month.   Real life, in the form of work craziness, a bad cold, out of town visitors and emergency boiler repair, has kept me busy and not left me with any mental bandwidth for writing about bikes.  I apologize, and hope that ya'll haven't completely forgotten me.  When it's been such a long time, it's hard to restart- it feels like a big deal and like you have to "SAY SOMETHING,"   which increases the activation energy, and makes it even harder to start.  There is something to that momentum thing, in any endeavor.

So I'm going to start out slow- will try to follow up with more weighty matters.
I went to brunch Sunday with my friend K, who didn't learn to ride a bike as a kid.  She grew up in a very urban neighborhood (picture the south end)  and it was just easier to walk everywhere.  I helped her fix up a 70's 3 speed a while ago, and she learned how to ride it, but it's just easier  and more comfortable for her to take the T or walk most places.  So we met on Newbury St,  where she could take the green line, and I could ride down Mass Ave.

Almost all the way there I was following a woman with really cool fenders.  We actually hit almost all the lights, so I almost didn't have a chance to ask her about them.   She took wood fenders and dried flowers, and then shellacked the flowers onto the fenders- fender decoupage if you will.  It's a nice effect as you can see the texture of the flowers, it's not just 2D.

She also had fun christmas lights on her milk carton (kind of hard to see in the daylight.

Walking down Newbury, I noted this sign in front of the Patagonia store, that they now offer bike delivery. Probably makes a lot of sense for local deliveries of light items like coats,  where parking would be ridiculous and a car cumbersome.

Speaking of bike delivery,  the Scientist had to work late on a tough deadline last Thursday,  and I ordered him and his team cookies from Insomnia cookies.  They delivered them from Harvard sq to MIT by bike deliveryman.    Again, makes a lot of sense.  It's not appreciably faster to drive than bike over that distance, and it's infinitely easier to park.  I didn't realize that they delivered by bike when I ordered them, but it's a definite plus in my book.