The Bike

Before I dive into this little story, I have to explain something about our apartment. It's not an apartment in an apartment building or complex but is, in fact, a huge turn-of-the-century house on Capitol Hill. I just did a little google-sleuthing and found out that when our place was built in 1901 it was a lumber baron's mansion. I'm not sure when the building was remodeled to be individual apartments, but I love thinking about all the people who may have lived here before me. My little bedroom has been sitting here in Seattle through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, both World Wars, landing on the moon, Kennedy's assassination, and obviously so much more. All the things that could have possibly happened in these rooms astounds me.

 The outside.

Our bedroom, pre-stuff. Also, I adored the tree outside the window until one unfortunate day last summer when we woke up to the sounds of the city cutting it down. It was a sad day indeed.

So where am I going with this? Well, a couple of years ago I modeled in the Raleigh America bike catalogue and in addition to having an all expenses paid trip to the Oregon coast for the shoot, I was awarded a free bike for my efforts (my life is series of very random events). I was allowed to choose any bike I wanted and I went for one of the ones I enjoyed riding during the shoot, a 2007 Beach Cruiser.

Mine is green with a white seat. More vintage looking.

Long story short, I never rode it. It's kind of big and bulky and not really meant for city transportation, and since I'm not a seasoned bicyclist, I always got really nervous and feared for my life whenever I took it for a spin. I wanted to sell it when Ricky and I moved into this apartment but both he and my mom flipped out and said I would obviously ride it all the time. So I locked it up outside and forgot about it.

Months went by and every time my bike crept into my head I was overwhelmed with worries about it being either rusted beyond belief or stolen, and the more time passed the more sure I was it was gone for good. And the more sure I became, the less I wanted to go out there to check on it and confirm my beliefs. 

Finally, I mentioned to Ricky's sister Kristine while she was here that I had a really cool bike that may or may not have been stolen. She is a rational person and therefore forced me to go check on it, and lo behold, there it was. A little dirty, but perfectly intact, and is now chilling in the really scary basement in the bike graveyard. (Why our building has a basement room full of abandoned bikes surrounded by mousetraps I do not know.) Also, when I thought about writing this post I think I had a reason for explaining the way our apartment looks, but now I have to idea what it was. Those two thoughts are totally unrelated. Whatever, I'm keeping it.

BUT YAY YOU GUYS I HAVE A BIKE!

So, that's that. Really awesome story.

Also completely unrelated - I was scheduled to work until midnight last night and they ended up making me stay till two. Not a big deal, but it made me realize that with this job you can't be like "Oh, uh, sorry I can't. I got a thing." Because it's two in the morning and what thing could anyone possibly have at two in the morning that isn't working or sleeping?