My Bicycle-tastic Adventure

Today was Bring Your Bike To Work Day at UBC. I only knew this because my friend, Danielle*, from my hockey team told me so. Tonight is the annual UBC Farm BBQ and she suggested that we bike out to the Farm**. I thought this was a great idea because, much like Dave thinks he can prevent Ottawian winters from coming by running around half naked, I think that bringing my bike out of hiberation will force Vancouver spring to actually arrive. Of course, since I am an uber-wimp who doesn't use their bike all winter***, it needed a little work. So I brought my bike to the Bike Hub on campus (a cool place where nice people help bicycle-maintenance-neophytes such as myself to do simple things like fill their tires with air) and when I got there another girl that I know from hockey, Anabelle****, was there and not only did she fill my tires with air, but she also oiled my bike chain (which had just about solidified from sitting around, unused, all winter). Good times! Later on, I saw another former hockey colleague, Jill*****, at a "decorate your bike" stand****** outside the student union building and decided that rather than going to my office to do the work I was planning to do, I should really decorate my bike with lots of blue tape. It now looks like a blue candy cane*******. I'm hoping that will make it less likely that someone will want to steal it (bike theft is a HUGE problem at UBC), 'cuz who the hell wants to have to take all that tape off it, right? Anyway, as I was finishing my decorating, a dark, scary cloud crept across the sky and there was thunder! Thunder!! We don't get thunder in Vancouver!! Honestly, I've been here 5.5 years and that's probably the third time I've heard thunder in this city. So I decided to boot it on over to my office to do that work I was meant to be doing and, rather than locking my bike up outside, I brought it up to my office (because of the aforementioned bike theft problem, I never leave my bike outside if I can help it). And was I ever glad I brought it in because right as I got inside, it started to hail! Hail!! That would have ruined my lovely decorating job! So I squirreled myself away in my office, a little concrete-bound cupboard, to do that work of which I have most recently spoken. And I was sad that my plan of bike un-hiberation had not forced the start of spring, as I had planned. I was starting to lose faith in my spring hearlding abilities when I opened my office door, looked across the hall to a classroom that actually has a window********, and what to my wondering eyes did appear? The sun!! Apparently that angry cloud********* had hailed itself out and now the glorious, glorious sun is shining! So Dave, don't lose faith in your magic powers over the forces of nature!! You, too, can control the seasons!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to ride my blue candy cane bike out to the Farm to celebrate the sunshine will my fellow Aggies!

*aka Tenacious D; defence.
**The UBC Farm is awesome! It's on south campus and is a functioning farm and in the summers you can go there and buy their organically-grown produce... not something you often see in an urban centre.
***To those of you from out east, this is considered extremely wimpy in Vancouver. Despite the fact that it can rain for a month straight in the winter (and that we had one of the rainiest winter on record), everyone here still bikes to work/school year-round.
****former goalie
*****former defence
******in celebration of the aforementioned "Bring Your Bike To Work Day"
*******if candy canes could rust
********unlike my crappy little hole-in-the-wall excuse for an office
*********stratus? cumulus? cirrus? goddamn, the ONLY thing I remember learning in science class from grades 1-8 is the types of clouds and I still can't remember which is which.**********
**********I footnoted this footnote to point out how many freaking footnotes I have. Because I know that Katie reads them. =)