Living the Dream

Day’s Verse:
All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Acts 2:44-47 (context)

Yesterday hurt, in all manner of different ways. My car-bike collision injuries ached worse than on Sunday, and the longer I spent sitting, the worse I felt. Then, too, the “cold” I contracted on Saturday night turned into an evil beast: I hardly slept on Sunday night, between the bruising from my fall and my congested nose.

For the first time ever, I commuted to the Bicycle Alliance completely without a bike. I took the bus and walked, which hurt, of course. As the day wore on, my bruised hip became increasingly painful, my head throbbed, I kept accidentally leaning on my bruised elbow, my nose ran, my eyes felt hot and scratchy, and I ached all over. By 2:00 in the afternoon, after having struggled through a minimal amount of work, I threw in the towel and caught the 255 back home. Most of the bus ride I spent with my eyes closed, trying to not feel my aching head and body.

When I got home, I curled up in front of the fireplace and didn’t move for three hours. By evening I had spiked a fever of 101 degrees and felt even more miserable than earlier in the day. I crawled into bed early, sent Ian to the store for NyQuil, and went to sleep early. About 10:50 I woke up drenched in sweat, took a shower, and went back to sleep. I don’t think I actually completely woke up for that shower, and I know for a fact that Ian didn’t wake up at all.

This morning I woke up feeling much better, but decided that, after the Monday misery, I would do well to stay home and rest. Turns out I actually haven’t rested much: I worked remotely for at least 4 hours, plus Ian and I drove my bike down to Pedal Dynamics to get Dean’s estimate on repair costs ($990). I left the bike at Gregg’s Cycles for a third estimate, which I’m assuming will come in right around $1,000 as well.

This afternoon a guy from Hertz called about the “incident” on Saturday. We talked about it a little bit and he asked if he could record my statement for the record. I agreed. He proceeded to ask me specific questions, which I answered as truthfully as I could in as much detail as possible. I told him exactly what I would have told the police, if they’d asked, and what I’d tell anybody else. I now have his name, phone number, and email address, which gives me a handle on Hertz. He said he would take care of all of the Hertz end of things. I agreed to email him copies of all the bike shop repair estimates, provided him with the phone number and case number for the Bellevue Police Department, and the (incorrect, as it turns out) medical report information.

The EMS medical incident report form really confused me. It’s a carbon copy of the form, and the guy who filled it out didn’t press down hard enough on 90% of the form, including the part where it says “Agency:” The form doesn’t say anywhere else what emergency medical response team it might have come from, and I couldn’t remember if I’d gotten it from the EMTs or the Fire Department, or which city either had come from. Some confused phone calls to the Bellevue Fire Department records people sorted it out: Bellevue Medic 3 responded, but since I didn’t have to go to the hospital, they left. It was Redmond’s Fire Department EMTs who treated me on the scene, and they’re the people who actually have the medical report I want. I called them, but nobody answered — which seemed odd — so I left a message.

This entire process is sure gonna take a long time, if only because of how hard it is to get all the paperwork in place. Come back in a month and I’m sure I’ll feel the same way, but more so.

Oh, and Ian’s job interview? He got an offer. Which he’s taking. We are super excited about that great news.

Make a Snide Remark

Day’s Verse:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4

Sure enough, I feel like I was hit by a truck.

Actually, I suspect I can attribute a significant portion of the feeling bad comes from the cold that moved in yesterday evening and the fact that this generally isn’t the best time of month (so to speak).

For the record, my aches and pains amount to this: Standing up, putting socks on, or any other activity requires using the thigh/crotch muscles in my left leg or bending my left hip tend to be particularly agonizing. Also, my shoulders and pecs feel like I did a tough workout a couple days ago. My back and neck ache, as does my head, although that I can definitely place in the cold’s camp, blame-wise. I have a deep, black bruise on the inside of my right thigh where my leg smacked hard into the frame; a zip tie on the frame punctured my leg right in the middle, and there’s no bruise there, interestingly enough. And, of course, my left elbow remains swollen, extremely tender to the touch, and lightly contused, although I suffered no significant road rash.

In fact, all of these injuries match up almost exactly to the injuries I sustained in my last fall, when I slipped on ice in February 2008. Thinking about it, I think that the car never actually hit me personally. Its bumper was right at shin-level, and I should have had some sign of impact there if it had hit me. Instead, my front wheel shows significant sign of impact — it’s slightly tacoed. I think the car hit my front wheel and knocked me over, and that all my bruises and scrapes came from that fall, not from the car actually touching my body. I’m so, so grateful that guy didn’t wait a fraction of a second longer in turning (although another minute would really have been best, to just let me by altogether), because I’m pretty sure something would have broken in that case.

Now I start the fun, fun process of trying to get my bike fixed. The Kirkland Bike Shop did a quick ‘n’ dirty evaluation of the bike and suggested that $1,000 would cover all the repairs. He recommended replacing the handlebars ($400), the front fork ($300, although it’s possible Bontrager doesn’t make them anymore, which could be a problem), and of course the bent wheel ($200), plus labor, new bar tape, and other miscellaneous small parts like spokes. I’m going to have at least one other bike shop give me an estimate, and get itemized estimate printouts from each shop for the insurance company… whichever one that may be.

Insurance will certainly be the big issue here. This morning I called Hertz and found out that the driver had already started the claims process, a good sign. I couldn’t actually talk to any useful Hertz people on a Sunday, but the nice lady on the other end did give me a couple numbers to call during normal business hours. Then I called Oracle; the security guard on duty gave me the number to call on Monday as well. So now I’m calling the driver, Hertz, and Oracle tomorrow, in that order.

I just want my bike back in one piece.

Guess it’s good I have the Xtracycle to ride in the meantime!

1 Snide Remark

Day’s Verse:
Hear my cry, O God;
listen to my prayer.
From the ends of the earth I call to you,
I call as my heart grows faint;
lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the foe.
I long to dwell in your tent forever
and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.
Psalm 61:1-4

I was T-boned by a car while riding my bike in Bellevue today.

That’s about the simplest way to put it, I think. Details:

Today is gorgeous. I mean just beautiful: Low 60s, sunny, light easterly breeze. The kind of day when Artemis just begs me to hop on and go for a long, luxurious ride. Who am I to resist? After Ian and I finished the morning of theology class with our church (a topic that deserves a whole nother post all on its own), I changed into bike clothes and left from the pastor’s house in Bothell.

I rode out to Paradise Lake Road and it was so wonderful, and I felt so great — better than I have in weeks on my bike, strong and not struggling at all — that I decided to extend my ride. Instead of going home on 124th, I turned onto the Sammamish River Trail and hooked up with the 520 trail in Redmond. I planned to zip up through Kirkland (I was really looking forward to the flight down Northup Way, too), turn left onto Juanita Way, go over that hill, and come back home either on Simonds Road or via the bike path and Waynita Way.

It was gonna be a fabulous ride. Occasionally Mt. Rainier peeked out; the sun felt warm, the shade cool, my legs strong, and I felt like I could just keep going forever.

I might have actually executed my plan if, at the intersection of 148th AVE NE and NE 29th Pl, a contractor for Oracle driving a Hertz rental car hadn’t turned left into me as I went straight down 148th.

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I was in the right-turn lane, but towards the left-center, because I wanted to not turn right there but turn onto the bike path immediately across the intersection. Traveling about 19 miles an hour, I didn’t even have time to register that this guy was turning until I saw his hood right there on my left. Next thing I knew, WHAM! I’m up on the hood and then down on the ground.

Everything went downhill from there. The driver got out of the car immediately and started urging me to get up out of the street. People were talking to me, other cars were honking, drivers were asking me things, the driver and his wife were trying to move me and my bike out of the way, and I was just feeling incredibly confused and shaky.

I refused to move for a while. Eventually, when I ascertained that nothing seemed that awfully painful, I picked myself and my bike up off the road. The driver pulled his car into a nearby apartment complex parking lot, somebody called 911, and I started limping me and my bike over there. That’s when I noticed the front wheel was tacoed — not horribly, but it will definitely have to be replaced. At that point I stopped worrying about myself and started worrying about my bike: I can’t afford to replace the bike or most of its parts.

Which shows my priorities may need readjusting. But I felt OK, for having just been in a collision with a motor vehicle. Anyway, we sat for a while and a guy brought me an ice pack for my extremely bruised left hip (I assume that’s where I impacted the car hood, there and my left elbow) and somebody else called 911. The driver and his wife, both from India, begged me not to make the collision sound too bad. The driver said it was nobody’s fault… and I didn’t disagree verbally, although any left-turn collision like that is a fairly straightforward case of failure to yield right-of-way. Turns out the driver saw me but thought I was going slower than I was, and decided to zip in front of me, or at least that’s what I gathered.

I called Mom, who immediately dispatched Dad and Ian. While I waited for them, the Fire Department arrived and started palpating my neck, back, and head, all of which seem fine. Then the medics arrived and talked with the firemen and took over. They didn’t seem overly concerned about me since I had been able to walk from the intersection to the nearby parking lot. They asked if I wanted to go to the emergency room, and I eventually decided no: Last time I crashed on my own I got rushed there and was perfectly fine, except for the $700 bill. Now Ian and I don’t have that kind of money lying around, and I wanted to avoid it if I could.

So the medics left after giving me an ice pack for my elbow and a hospital blanket. I’d started shivering badly between the ice pack on my hip, my right leg (the inside hit the frame of my bike, I think, and is fairly painful when I stand up), elbow, and all the shock. After the medics left, the firemen hung around and filled out a medical report until the police officer and Dad and Ian arrived. They were probably also making sure I didn’t suddenly pass out or start acting really weird or some other indication of brain injury.

The police officer took a report and gave the driver and me a copy of each other’s contact information. The driver has an Indian driver’s license. Huh. Then we loaded my poor, battered bike and my poor, battered self into Dad’s car and went home. Now I’ve taken ibuprofen and have ice packs strategically placed on my extremities.

Tomorrow it’s gonna feel exactly like I was hit by a car.

Frankly, my biggest worry continues to be my bike. I’m young and very fit, and this was almost as mild as a car-bike collision could have been. I’ll have to get a whole new front wheel and helmet for sure, possibly a new front fork since that’s carbon fiber and probably is cracked, possibly a new rear wheel, and (oh goodness) new carbon fiber handlebars. I shudder to think of the cost. I just am PRAYING my titanium frame is OK. My fear is that the driver, who at one point said, “This wasn’t anybody’s fault,” won’t or can’t pay to fix the damage. But my sense is these guys don’t have any money; it’s going to have to be their insurance company. I can’t afford to fix all the stuff that might be broken. But I’ll save my panicking in that area until I can have a couple bike shops check the bike out and assess the damage, and until I start working with the driver and Oracle’s insurance company. Because of course the driver was insured through Oracle and was driving a rental car.

I really, really wish I could have just finished my beautiful day ride as uneventfully as I’ve completed all my other rides for years.

2 Snide Remarks

Day’s Verse:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Matthew 6:19-21

I’m “working” from home today — by which I mean every hour I actually get about 30 minutes of productive Bicycle Alliance-related word finished. When the phone rings, I keep having this urge to answer, “Bicycle Alliance, this is Katie.” I find it remarkably difficult to just say, “Hello?” when I answer the phone.

Also, I noticed that Carmel preferentially places herself nearest whatever humans are nearby, with one exception: When she can find a sunny spot to lay in. Then proximity to people plummets in value.

And, while I’m talking about random stuff, I’ve spent some time drooling over astonishingly nice townhouses in Seattle. This one in Phinney Ridge (a short sale, so “dream on” is an appropriate view for me to take), this one on Ravenna Boulevard, and this one in Kirkland (for something different) all look pretty amazing. Ian and I think we could scrape together more than 20% of a down payment on a home in that price range. As I enter my 5th month (!!) living with my parents, I think I’m just ready to have a home again.

Also, Ian’s job interview seems to have gone well, because negotiations with StrataGen continue.

1 Snide Remark

Day’s Verse:
“Should you not fear me?” declares the LORD.
“Should you not tremble in my presence?
I made the sand a boundary for the sea,
an everlasting barrier it cannot cross.
The waves may roll, but they cannot prevail;
they may roar, but they cannot cross it.”
Jeremiah 5:22

Somebody here at the Bike Alliance has a sense of humor. Must be a coping mechanism for dealing with the stress and chaos.

Make a Snide Remark

Day’s Verse:
He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.”
Acts 1:7 (context)

Back when I converted my Specialized Hard Rock into an Xtracycle, I posted a picture on Flickr of my solution to the super-long-chain sagging issue. This is the picture:

At the time, I received a number of questions from other Xtracycle riders asking what that thing was and where to get one (it’s an idler, by the way, custom made by TerraCycle in Portland, and it’s the single most expensive part on my Specialized). One of the people who asked about this was a guy named Matthew, who lived in Tacoma, wrote a blog called Tacoma Bike Ranch, and rode his Xtracycle on the 3-day, 3-mountain-pass-surmounting Courage Classic. Pretty unique guy.

Last week, I did a tabling event in Tacoma. By chance I encountered a guy also tabling there, representing the Harmon Bike Club and touting the Courage Classic. He rode up on an Xtracycle and his name tag read, “Matt.” It took me most of the evening to realize that this was the same Matthew with whom I had exchanged emails over a year ago when I still lived in Massachusetts. When I told him that, he exclaimed, “My world just got a lot smaller!”

If his world just got smaller, mine’s shrinking too rapidly to measure, because this has happened a few more times since that encounter: First, I was riding the Sound Transit 550 Express from Seattle to the Bellevue Transit Center yesterday afternoon and the bus driver looked incredibly familiar. Finally, after staring (fairly obviously, as it turns out) and wracking my brains, it came to me. He had volunteered at the Bicycle Alliance Volunteer Work Party the previous Thursday, and much of the volunteers’ discussion had centered around his experience as a Metro bus driver. I’d sat and chatted with the volunteers for long enough to remember his face, but (alas) not his name. Just before my stop, I walked up to the front of the bus and said, “Were you at the Bike Alliance Volunteer Work Party last week?” and sure enough, yep. We had a nice little conversation before I got off.

Then, today a third random encounter — this time very brief — occurred on the bike trail. I was riding home on the Burke-Gilman Trail as usual, and as I came up on the turn you take to go to the Cascade Bike Club offices, an approaching cyclist caught my eye. She wore a long, pale blue-green pea coat (if pea coats can be pale blue-green; they may by definition be black. I’m not sure. I never wore one) and it had long tails that flew out to the sides as she rode along. It was quite eye-catching. As I passed, I glanced at her face and thought she looked familiar — a feeling I’m getting comfortable with, as you can imagine. A second later I realized she was Robin Randels, the Cascade Bike Club Classes Coordinator who had organized and assisted at the LCI Seminar that I assistant taught at a couple weeks ago. I shouted, “Robin!” and she shouted something else that clearly indicated I was right and she had (probably) recognized me, and I shouted “Hey!” That’s about the extent of the conversation you can have when two people are traveling at 15+ mph in opposite directions.

On a slightly different but similar vein, I met an AmeriCorps intern at Transportation Advocacy Day in Olympia back in January. She’s interning at the Cascade Bike Club, but not through the Northwest Service Academy. Anyway, we got to talking, and it turns out that she’s really good friends with Jon, one of the AmeriCorps interns in my group/pod/whatever. Another “small world” connection.

I’m just waiting to see what happens next. Who else will I meet and recognize out of context? It could be anybody!

Make a Snide Remark

Day’s Verse:
He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”
“No,” they answered.
He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.
John 21:5-6

Ian has a job interview today at 10:00 with a company called StrataGen Systems. He had a good phone interview last week and today he gets to go to his first in-person interview since he started his job search. It’s a smaller company (but then, compared to Raytheon, Google, and Microsoft, everybody is smaller) that I’d never heard of, but a guy at church who works there passed Ian’s resume along and here we are.

I heard, I think on NPR but I’m not sure, that secondary connections like that tend to yield the best results for helping job searchers land a position. Let’s hope that’s true in this case. However it turns out, I’m in the extremely odd position of feeling nervous without even having to do anything nerve-wracking.

2 Snide Remarks

Day’s Verse:
“In that day,” declares the LORD,
“the king and the officials will lose heart,
the priests will be horrified,
and the prophets will be appalled.”
Jeremiah 4:9

On Saturday morning I made pitas. By Sunday, our lack of hummus had become painfully apparent, so I decided to finally try making hummus from scratch. After making pesto last summer, I figured hummus couldn’t be that difficult. Sure enough, the recipe proved quite simple, although I never did find tahnini at Safeway; honestly, I never even knew if I was looking for a liquid or something in a box.

I did, however, find some pretty delicious-looking cloves of garlic.

You can probably foresee where this is going, huh?

Sure enough, I made the hummus with no trouble — amazing what a blender can achieve in a few moments — and the consistency turned out beautiful. When I sampled it, though, holy moly! The garlic flavor nearly knocked me over. Adding lemon juice helped some, but the garlic smell remains so overpowering I think I’ll be naturally bug (and person) repellent for days. I doubt my taste buds will ever register anything beyond GARLIC possibly ever.

Whew.

The sad part is that I didn’t even solve the hummus shortage problem, since nobody besides me will come within 15 feet of my power-garlic concoction.

5 Snide Remarks

Day’s Verse:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 14:7

At least I assume gathering in a pod and moving around together for a while means I’m an orca. Otherwise I guess it means I’m a Northwest Service Academy AmeriCorps intern participating in our first, but by no means last, “pod meeting.” On Friday, all the interns in my “pod” — most everybody in Washington State — gathered at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. One of the interns, Jenni, and her significant other stayed with my family Thursday and Friday night. They drove from Okanogan and needed a place to stay rather than spending 12 hours driving and 8 hours in Seattle.

The meeting had its high points. I always enjoy the Pike Place Market; no matter how many times I visit, the excitement and vigor always infect me. Showing Jenni and Sam around a bit before the meeting started reminded me of how remarkable and unique the Market is. We test-tasted some fabulous chocolate, watched cheese as Beechers employees stirred it and of course tried a sample, and then wandered through the arcade and sampled some Chukar Cherries, chocolate linguine (we agreed: a little weird, and I can’t imagine eating them with ice cream as dessert…or eating them at all, honestly), and, of course, dried fruit. We also saw a Newfoundland puppy, young enough to be terrified of the Market but almost full-sized and thus impossible to manhandle, hiding under a delivery truck. The owners were trying to yank it out, and it had dug its feet in and was cowering away under the truck as they tugged on it. It looked like the dog had slipped out of its collar somehow.

Anyway, that’s the market — all sorts of little vignettes that you constantly walk in and out of. Eventually we met up with the other interns at Athenian Inn restaurant, ordered food, and spent almost two hours catching up. I enjoyed seeing my fellow interns again, since between times I’m very much off doing my own stuff, but I had forgotten how different I end up feeling after spending time with my peers. My priorities are aligned on such a different plane than theirs that sometimes I’m kind of amazed we can relate at all, but we can and I enjoy it when that happens.

After eating, we walked to the SAM’s Olympic Sculpture Park and absorbed some culture. I always forget how much I enjoy art, although I don’t pretend to understand it. That’s the only point during the day when I wished I had brought my camera, but then I remembered that I worked just over a mile from there and the sculptures would still be there. As 2:00 neared, we meandered back to Pier 56, where one of the interns had arranged for a speaker to talk to us about fundraising. I’m embarrassed to admit that I may have dozed off during that talk, but the room felt so warm, and staying awake at 2:00 pm is difficult in general — well, it happens to the best of us. I found the part of the discussion I stayed awake for interesting, though.

That pretty much marked the end of our AmeriCorps-able hours. It seemed everybody wanted to start drinking at 5 pm, so I went with them and — take this as you will — was carded for the first time in my life, when entering a bar with everybody else. I endured about 2 hours of that but when people started closing their tabs and talking about moving on to a different bar, I gathered up Jenni and Sam (both much more cheerful than earlier in the day) and we trundled down to the International District, where I had to pick a thing up from work. By chance we caught the 124 bus, which I’ve heard is the most dangerous Metro route. Hmm. Yes. Anyway, after that brief stop, we scooted to the Transit Tunnel, where we picked up the 255 to within a mile of our house. Happily the 234 appeared right then, so we caught that to within 1/4 mile of our house. A brief stop at Safeway for some late-night snack food for Jenni and Sam rounded out the travel for the day.

By the end of the day, these last 2 weeks had started taking their toll. Two weekends ago, we thought Grandma Sullivan would pass away (she’s still hanging in there, by the way); last weekend, I endured the LCI Seminar assisting; and in between I had two exhausting, grueling weeks at the Bike Alliance, where I felt totally run off my feet and overwhelmed every single day. Let’s not even mention the tabling I did with a couple other Bike Alliance employees on Wednesday in Tacoma from 7 to 9 pm.

Suffice it to say that by Friday evening “tired” didn’t even start to describe it.

Make a Snide Remark

Day’s Verse:
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:30-31

Yesterday I got my FIRST EVER box of official business cards. I’m seriously so excited, it’s totally out of proportion with the cards themselves.

Another thing that excited me today: I saw a bald eagle by Enatai Beach on my commute this morning. Then I nearly crashed into the fence between me and the freeway because I was craning my neck to see the eagle.

And, speaking of first ever things, tomorrow we have our first ever Pod meeting where all the AmeriCorps interns in Washington (with a few exceptions) meet and do…stuff. It’s that well defined. The great news is that I don’t have any responsibilities beyond getting myself to Pike Place Market at 10:00 tomorrow morning. Can do!

2 Snide Remarks