Shorn

This morning I finally gave up trying to love my
new hairdo. I stuffed it into a ponytail, jammed on my helmet, and rode back to the place to request a repair—the upshot of which is that I've now lost a full four inches all around, instead of the modest half inch trim I had asked for to begin with. In other words, I'm now smack back in the middle of that awkward stage of growing out hair in which it's long enough to constantly get in your way, but still too short to really do anything with.

At least now it's more or less all one length again, and it's still long enough to put into a ponytail, though the ponytail is so short it will stay neither inside nor outside the collar of my jacket when I'm wearing the bike helmet, so it's constantly poking the back of my neck. Grr.

On the upside, the woman at the place did the fix at no charge and was so fast and efficient that when she was done there was still time to ride over to the high school and vote yes on M, a local measure that will place a 10-year moratorium on the production of genetically engineered organisms in Sonoma county. There were other measures on the ballot too, most of which I opposed. I figure if the governator is sending out full-color glossy brochures urging me to support them, that's all I really need to know (though I did spend some time studying the voter's guide in depth, as always, just to make sure).

Moving on... Near the end of our road there's a section I call Squirrel Crossing, because every time I go by there are squirrels running back and forth across the road. Except at night, when there are rabbits. One side of the road is bounded by the creek running parallel and only about five feet off the pavement, and on the other there's a low stone barrier of a type that's very common around here, built by stacking head-sized rocks (the ground is full of them) on top of each other without mortar to make a pretty solid little wall about three feet high and eighteen inches thick. With these physical obstacles on each side it doesn't seem like it would be the easiest place to cross the road, but squirrels and rabbits have their own ways, which I don't presume to understand.

Anyway, this morning when I was riding up to Squirrel Crossing I saw something that made me laugh out loud. A baby squirrel dashed out into the road just as I approached, and was running across it as fast as she could go, when suddenly she noticed that her path was blocked by several huge puddles. You could practically see the little thought balloon above her head when she realized what she was about to run into: "Wha..?!?" And then in one dramatic split-second she made a decision. Instead of turning back or going around, she seized upon the courage of her convictions, leapt into the air and FLEW across the puddle! It took my breath away to see it. And she very nearly made it. But not quite. Her landing came up a bit short, and she splashed into a couple of inches of water on the far side beach before becoming airborne again and flying off into the creek bottom with a glittering spray of puddle water trailing off her feet like a comet.

This is one reason why I love riding the bike. I love being right up in the face of such spectacular events! And when you're right up in the face of the world the way you are on a bike, spectacular events are everywhere.