everybody makes mistakes...

So today Ashby insisted that we bike to school/work.  Thank goodness, because I was starting to get lazy and comfortable in that van.  It was a marvelous sunny morning, but quite chilly at forty three degrees.  I knew that we would have to bundle up and bundle we did!  A good ride across town and Ashby didn't get cold, which is a real problem as temps drop.  Here's the magical moment about three quarters of the way to school where we ride over the Eisenhower Expressway (or highway 290 as we might say in other regions).  Every morning it is just jam packed with traffic going both east and west.  Today we stopped to marvel at the newly paved road, moving as slow as ever.  Alas, at least we can imagine a world with fewer cars and more bikes.

The Ike at 8:30 AM

School! Work! Fun!

hmmm....this means go around, right?

And then a day of work and school.  Today I had the honor of visiting Ashby's class after I taught PE so I could help the kids with knit and crochet.  Some say that Ironman is hard, this is Hard!









Right about lunchtime I was walking out to the schoolyard and I must have been deep in thought. Lo and behold, I look up just in time to avoid smashing into these two stanchions.  Holy Moly that was close!!!!  I've walked around these barriers at least one hundred times since the beginning of the school year.  Nonetheless, caught up in my own moment and preoccupied, I expected that the sidewalk wouldn't end.  End, it did, and I couldn't help but be reminded of an incident which involved sawhorse earlier this year.  Alas, it occurred to me, that, yes, in the blink of an eye,everybody makes mistakes.

It wasn't until later this afternoon that I learned about a mistake that Peter had made.  He had dropped Addie off this morning, promising to leave her bike so that she could ride home.  After Ashby and I made it all three point seven miles home, we got the phone message from Addie: Peter had not left her helmet at school, so she was waiting at the library for me to pick her up.  Ashby and I promptly boarded the bike mobile and thus Addie was safe and Ashby had completed a ten point eight mile bike day!  Phew!!!! Ironman, indeed! Those are my kids!