Bicycle surprise

A couple months ago, during an unseasonably warm period in March, Alan decided that we should get bikes. I was initially supportive of this (and in fact it had probably been my idea first, a long time ago), but as we got down to the actual bike buying, my enthusiasm quickly waned. We looked at the ones at big box retailers like Dick’s and Target but were scared to buy something of lesser quality, so we didn’t. We went to local DC bike shops, not wanting to pay a huge amount for a fancy bike shop brand bike, but then Alan ended up getting a lower-end one anyway and afterward felt like he’d paid a little too much.

I decided to try and get a used bike off Craigslist: I paid $300 for Bike #1, a Fuji hybrid that was a bit too big for me (the seller was a petite girl about two inches shorter than me so I am not quite sure how that worked, but oh well) and that badly needed a tune-up.  I expended a lot of unnecessary frustration and tears over the next couple weeks, debating whether to shell out another $80 for a tune-up or re-sell it on Craigslist at a potential loss, and blaming Alan for “pressuring” me into getting a bike that I wasn’t happy with.  Eventually I made Alan take care of it, and he dutifully re-sold it for $250 to some girl who apparently didn’t even bother to test ride it before taking it home with her.

I thought that experience would cause me to stay away from Craigslist, but a couple days later I was once again browsing the bike pages.  I found a guy who was selling a number of bikes, lured by the part of his ads that said they were “cleaned, tuned-up and ready to ride!”  Alan and I met him in the parking lot of the Greenbelt metro station, where he explained that he was a medical device salesman from Rehoboth Beach, DE who bought and fixed up used bikes on the side.  Anyway, he seemed knowledgeable and nice enough, and I left with Bike #2, a Trek 7300 hybrid, minus the seat and suspension seatpost, which had made the bike a little two high for me.  That weekend we went to REI to buy a new seat and non-suspension seatpost and FINALLY I had a bike I felt I’d gotten a good deal on and, more importantly, that I was happy riding.

Bike #2

Since then, biking’s really started to grow on me. I’ve only ever owned two other bicycles: when we lived in Mountain View (which despite the name is very flat) I had a crappy mountain bike that I got off Craigslist for $25 and only used for riding the mile from our apartment to the light rail station.  Before that, an aqua green Huffy from when I was in elementary school. So, I’m still kinda exhilarated by the fact that I have this nice adult bike, with working shifters and everything, that makes it easy to get to all sorts of places!  A couple Saturdays ago we biked across the Potomac over to Arlington, back over to Georgetown, then down Rock Creek Parkway along the Mall on the way home. This past Saturday we volunteered with the Georgia Tech alumni club at an elementary school in Anacostia, an easy 2.5-mile ride from our apartment.  And on Sunday late afternoon, in perhaps our most leisurely outing yet, we biked over to the World War II memorial and sat for a while, surrounded by mostly well-behaved tourists and the sound of the memorial’s fountains, savoring the remaining hours of golden daylight and 60-degree weather.  I’m starting to think that every weekend could be like this.

Smells that remind me of Taiwan

A continually updated list:

1. Cigarette smoke
2. Humid air after a heavy rain
3. Freon
4. Mothballs
5. City underground steam
6. Incense

Surprising myself

According to the folks at Capital Weather Gang (which, by the way, a strangely addictive newsblog; I’ve never been one to care about weather, but I follow these guys on Twitter and everything), this snowstorm ranked as the fourth biggest in DC recorded history. Around here I think we got about 20 inches of snow, falling steadily all through last night and all day today until about 5pm. I spent most of the earlier part of today indoors, cleaning and doing laundry. In between we watched the snow come down outside our balcony window, occasionally stepping out on the balcony to take a picture or two.

Around 4:30 or so, though, I decided I ought to venture outside at least once. Alan, who had already gone out in the morning to check if the grocery store was open (it was not), obligingly suited up with me and said he’d come along. He suggested we make the walk down to and back up along the waterfront, a circle of several blocks. As we walked along we passed other people from our neighborhood out with their dogs, or, like us, just enjoying and marveling at the snow. Alan ran around throwing snowballs into the trees, causing the snow hanging on the tree branches to come showering down. I lagged behind, taking pictures. Walking was a new experience: every step was deliberate, a balancing act as the snow shifted and compressed underneath our feet (even on paths already blazed by other walkers). Everything just felt so beautiful… and fleeting, too.

Maybe that’s why, when we completed our circle, Alan was ready to head inside, but I wasn’t yet. The sun was also starting to set, and part of me felt like I should try and capture that. So I told Alan I’d be back soon, and started walking west on M Street, in hopes of finding a nice view of the Washington Monument further down the street. I’d just planned to explore a little more, but one snow-covered view led to another and I kept finding interesting things to photograph, and before I knew it, half an hour had passed and I had wandered half a mile down the road. I could see the dome of the Jefferson Memorial peeking out over the top of the overpass in front of me, and I figured since I’d come this far already, I might as well walk to the bridge, to see if I could get some nice shots of the Memorial against the fading sunset. (I also borrowed a cellphone from a guy passing by so I could call Alan and let him know I hadn’t fallen into a snow drift or anything, since I hadn’t brought my phone with me).

Getting to the actual pedestrian part of the bridge took a little longer than I thought, and some tramping through particularly slushy snow, but finally, I reached the bridge. I was rewarded with this view of the Memorial and the partly-frozen-over Potomac:

But then I looked to my right and almost gasped at the view of the Washington Monument – it had been relatively obscured during my walk and so it seemed to appear out of nowhere:

I found the white of the Monument (illuminated by its floodlights) really beautiful against the silver and white trees, sagging over the edge of the Tidal Basin.

I didn’t have a chance to take pictures for very long before it became dark and I figured I ought to get home. But as I walked back along the empty streets, occasionally moving off to the side to let a snowplow go by, I felt kind of proud of myself for being an intrepid little snow explorer, and for letting the desire to get a good photograph motivate me. As someone who doesn’t really consider herself a photographer, I don’t often get to experience that feeling.

Hiiiiii

I know, it’s been a while. But I’m not going to worry about what I’ve missed! I’m moving forward.

Things that are exciting right now: it’s snowing! And not just any snow, either. You’ve probably heard, but we’re in the middle of an “epic snowstorm” that’s predicted to drop (according to the latest NWS update) 20-30″ of snow on the metro DC area. And this is the second time we’ve had double-digit snowfall this winter (the first time was just before the Christmas holidays). Not having experienced this much snow ever in my life, I’m looking forward to this second blizzard and being snowed in. And if we are really going stir-crazy and need to get out, Metro will still be running trains on their underground routes. One of the benefits of living in the city, I guess. (My inner jury is still out as to whether I prefer city life to suburban life – I know, I really WANT to be a city person – so I’ll tally that one up in the “city” column.)

Also, new year’s resolutions. I’ve actually thought about them this year. I’m not normally one to care about resolutions but for some reason this year I’ve come up with very quantitative ones that I have taken great care to make realistic, like:

-Listen to more music: log 1000 tracks on last.fm (currently I’m at 4869)
-Make at least one post on this blog a month (well, with the exception of January… oops)
-Establish a better personal routine: make a habit of doing at least one thing on a semi-regular basis (like, wear my contacts, eat breakfast, exercise)

…

Hmm… I guess I really just wanted to document my last.fm count (which is pretty sad, given that Ethan’s at 44,581…).

Anyway, another exciting thing: I’m going to NYC next weekend! Another nice thing about DC is that it’s relatively inexpensive and convenient to take the bus to NYC (and the buses these days have wireless and individual power outlets for each seat, so you’re pretty much set). I’m meeting some friends there who are flying in from Atlanta, and we’re staying at a hostel near Columbus Circle. We’re near Central Park and within walking distance of Times Square. I’ve never stayed at a hostel (when I studied abroad in Europe my sophomore year, we stayed in pretty nice hotels) – so I’m kind of looking forward to adding that to my superficial list of “travel-savvy experiences.” You know what I mean.

Aaand that’s about it for this first post in a while. Alan made a dinner reservation for some nice restaurant near his work, so out I go, into the snow and underground.

Divine grace, indeed

Today at lunchtime I reached into my backpack only to find that my wallet was missing. I searched around in various pockets and thought briefly about what might have happened to it, but my lunchmates were waiting impatiently — so after asking if one of them could spot me some money, I put it out of my mind until later.

When I got back from lunch, I gave it a little more thought. I had gone bowling last night as part of a team social for work. Because the bowling alley we went to was on a military base, I’d had to get out my wallet to show my ID at the entrance of the base, which meant there was a good chance that I left it at the bowling alley. And yet, I figured one of my coworkers would surely have picked it up and given it back to me. With that in mind, I thought perhaps I’d just left it at home somewhere. I mentally retraced my morning movements around our apartment, but my subconscious couldn’t really remember anything. So with more calm than usual, I decided not to worry about it until I got home later that evening and could confirm whether or not my wallet was really lost.

On the metro ride home from work, I pulled out my cellphone for the first time all day. I confess that I have pretty crappy cellphone etiquette — not that many people besides Alan call me, so usually my cellphone stays buried at the bottom of my purse or backpack, and I can go whole days without checking it. Today, though, I had a missed call from an unknown local number at 10am. I immediately became concerned, and listened to the accompanying voicemail. It turned out to be from someone from my State Farm office, telling me what I expected to hear: that someone had found my wallet. That person had called the only phone number in my wallet — the one listed on my auto insurance card — and had left her number with State Farm, and now the State Farm agent was passing along her number to me.

I was halfway home, but got off the train at the next metro station, not only to ensure consistent cellphone reception (although my provider, Verizon, is the only one that gets reception in the underground portions of the DC Metro, it can still be sketchy through tunnels), but also to avoid the embarrassment of having everyone else around me on the train hear that I’d lost my wallet. As I dialed my wallet-finder’s number, I noticed with some trepidation that my cellphone battery was down to one bar. Luckily, it held out, my finder picked up, and, happily, she sounded just as relieved as I was that I’d finally contacted her.

“I was about to go over to your house to see if I could find you!” she told me in between my gushes of “oh my gosh, thank you so much” and “I can’t believe you’ve gone to so much trouble already!” We arranged to meet at the metro station where she lived. “Okay, but just wait inside the station, I’ll come down there so you don’t have to pay the exit fare,” she said, to my further disbelief — so considerate! I told her I’d call again when I got there.

Ten minutes later, we finally met at the turnstiles of the Cleveland Park metro station. Upon seeing her — a short, motherly lady in her late thirties or forties, Filipino maybe? she had a slight accent that I couldn’t quite identify — I asked, “Can I give you a hug?” She handed back my wallet and I gushed more thanks while searching for a $20 bill I could give her (which I didn’t have, but she refused to accept anything anyway). She told me that her grandfather had actually been the one to find it, sitting on top of one of the car racing machines (which I had played) in the arcade room at the bowling alley. She hadn’t wanted to leave it with the bowling alley, she said, because she had left her wallet at a Burger King once, and later, after she’d gotten it back from the manager, she found charges on her statement. And — this was the part that made me feel incredibly grateful on top of everything else — I learned that she and her grandfather hadn’t been at the bowling alley until this morning… which meant that my wallet had sat in the arcade room all night without anyone finding or taking it.

I think I must have shaken her hand a dozen times before we bid goodbye. As I headed back toward the platform, she laughed and waved after me, “Be careful, don’t lose it!” My final stroke of good fortune happened several minutes later, as I was trying to send a text message to Alan: my cellphone finally ran out of battery.

On the train ride back home, I couldn’t get over just how nice this woman had been, and felt a renewed faith in the goodness of human beings. I had a piece of paper she had brought down with her — a Mapquest printout showing directions from her address to mine. I thought about using that to send her a thank-you note, but guessed that she didn’t include an apartment number with her address. I wondered if I could figure it out with a little online research. It was only then that I realized that the name she had given my State Farm agent, the name which I’d called her by all night — “Divina Grace” — might not have been her real name after all.