Lena's Revenge

Many people anthropomorphize the natural world, perceiving human characteristics in non-human entities in an attempt to better understand them.  So you have people who think their car looks sad when it's dirty or people who believe their cat is a haughty princess that needs lobster in a crystal goblet to be truly happy*.  I am one of those people, but I tend to humanize things only when they piss me off.  I yell at my dog when he betrays my trust and eats half of the cat food, or yell at the grill when it stabs me in the back and runs out of propane halfway through cooking a meal.  I like to yell at things.  It's stupid, I know, but just taking the disappointment and transmuting it into quiet suffering is not my way.

Riding in winter is different than riding in summer for a lot of reasons, but one for me is that in winter, all I think about is The Ride.  In the summer my mind is free to wander a bit.  During the winter months, I think about the hills coming up, the ice I may have to ride over or avoid, I analyze every car's behavior and constantly check up on body parts to make sure they're not freezing.  This winter I also spent a lot of time thinking about Minnesota's voice.  I eventually settled on a middle aged woman with a pronounced Fargo accent; a Lena character (from Ole and Lena fame) who has the best intentions but is a little absent at times.  This is what I do for two hours a day, sad to say.

Yesterday I began my ride home excited about the warm weather.  It was nearly forty degrees, and the previous evening's ride was a blast.  I had felt like Lena was finally easing us out of winter, giving us a break from the relentless cold as spring approached.  So my heart broke a little when I covered my first mile and the sleet started.  Then the rain.  And finally, near the end of my ride, one of my cleat bolts detached, forcing a spectacular slow motion crash onto the side of the trail when I couldn't unclip from the pedal. 

Once over the humiliation of making a newb stop, I had a good laugh at myself.  And as I got back on my bike, limping home on one good pedal, I could hear Lena saying to me, "You didn't think it would be that easy, did you dear?"

*I'm just assuming such people exist.  Given the bizarre range of human behavior on display online, they statistically have to.