Oh, sigh. Tis only December and already I am crabby and tired of being cold and wet.
Right after Thanksgiving I acquired the flu and landed in bed for a week. I ate three boxes of clementines and drank ginger tea. I watched the entire first season of CSI on DVD. Yesterday, operating on 3 out of 4 cylinders, I returned to work. It was surreal, having slept nearly the entire previous week away.
I really, really hate Seattle drivers. Not just hate, fear. When navigating the streets of Boston, the Massholes drive while applying either the gas or the horn. They will tell you where to go and how to get there, but they won't kill you in the process. They drive in snow, sleet, freezing rain, and sunshine -- drive like maniacs, but they know how. Here in our fair city of Seattle, the streets are mobbed with passive-aggressive roadragers in SUVs who don't know their ass from their elbows.
In case you haven't been glued to the weather station, December has delivered some truly outstanding precipitation. We got several inches of snow (!!!) Saturday, freezing rain Sunday, and floods Monday. A few streets were washed away. The roads are a mess. I stayed clear of them until it was time for work on Monday.
It was pouring -- I mean, quick-build-an-ark raining, and I was travelling delicately down from 15th on Capitol Hill. Aloha was blocked for some reason, so I took Republican, which was a bad move in 20-20 hindsight. Republican is not a main thoroughfare and so not as clear of hazards like, say, piles of wet leaves. I descended the wickedly steep side street toward 12th, and was blinded by the headlights in my mirrors from an aforementioned passive-aggressive roadrager in an SUV. He was flashing his brights because I was taking too long to get to the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. Water was rushing by on either side of me, soaking the floorboard of the scooter, and my shoes. I was having a hard enough time seeing through the downpour, nevermind worrying about this cretin riding fully up my ass. He flashed his brights again, and while checking my mirrors to see if he was going to overtake me, I hit a big, fat, wet pile of leaves.
I saw it coming but it was too late to avoid, particularly on the incline: Total Wipeout. The scooter went down and me with it, tossing me into the middle of the street. The SUV in question blew his horn at me and drove up on the sidewalk to pass me. I sat there on the pavement, dumbfounded, rivers of rainwater rushing over me.
I managed to drop the bike in the right direction -- away from the engine and the throttle -- as it went down. I muscled the sodden Stella back to an upright position and pushed it to the side of the street to take stock of the situation.
The scooter was unharmed due to the superior padding of wet leaves it landed on. My legs, not so lucky. Oh, I had been wearing a skirt. Brilliant, I know. Nothing appeared broken so I started back up and finished my commute.
I was in a dour mood for the rest of the morning. The behavior of people toward their fellow humans baffles me. It honestly does. In what world can someone sleep at night after running a poor girl off the road on her scooter and then reprimanding her for blocking the path to the next red light? How does that work?
This morning was nearly as wet but Aloha was open so I headed cautiously down and arrived unscathed. I do, however, feel like I was actually run over yesterday. My hips and ribs hurt and my left leg (the one with the 16" steel rod in it) is quite bruised and road-rashed. I try so hard to let go of all the roadrage I encounter here. I try to be like a well-oiled duck, letting everything slide right off me. But it's getting more and more difficult. I don't know if I'm becoming more sensitive, or the world really is becoming angrier.
Either way, here's my new riding jacket:
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