הבלוג של אבו אלמוג

Let my baby ride.

It is no secret that since my fall off the bicycle sometime last October - I thought I broke my hand. My wife thought not. The doctor could not decide and condemned me to wear some idiotic brace which I ended up throwing – I could not really return to riding my bike. It's not that I have forsaken the idea of physical fitness and I remain committed to the fit boyish looks I have acquired so laboriously. So I joined a walking group on Saturday mornings, and I would
walk for an hour and a quarter with Keren and Rama and Anat and Ofer and everything was cool. Judith would sometime join with Buddy. it would bark at anyone who rides a bike in the same path, and this was my connection to riding.

So the other day I met with Shachaf who is a client who also manages a riding group. I did not see her for about a year, since her case was waiting for a date for pre-trial. When she asked how's the bike I looked down and stammered something. She immediately ordered me to go back to riding. She recommended buying a whole new bicycles but I have found this measure exaggerated. Instead I spent a hundred or so NIS on a new pair of gloves and a cute gadget, thus creating a financial commitment, because if I do not end up riding, this money went down the drain.

I have decided to ride on Saturday morning. But for that I would have to pass Friday night, in which I bartend at the Iza Bar. I have invented a new cocktail called DAESH (Hebrew and Arab initials for ISIL دايت عرق أشكوليات) Made of Arak and light grapefruit juice, But no one ordered it, even though I gave a bargain price of 15 NIS. I have brought a bottle of Victory Gin and I've almost finished it myself with the grapefruit juice. Quite a tasty beverege, especially after the third glass. Conversation rose to heights. I did not give the lecture on Article 52 of the King's order in council, because I think that's what scares people away from the pub in a week I Bartend, or just if they suspect I might arrive, though this is exactly the opportunity to polish the theoretical ends of my thesis and try to see if it makes sense to anyone but me. But we talked about literature and I have found that even after a bottle of gin I can recite all of the genealogies of the Buendia family from the first Jose Arcadio to the last. I do not know what to think about it, but those around me were somewhat entertained. Some refugees from the Ariel Horowitz show in Yuvalim arrived around closing time. The whole thing ended by one o'clock. Seems that closing the pub takes three times longer than opening it. It's not just the need to clean up all the garbage and sweep the olive pits and empty the ashtrays - no smoking on the wooden deck - and wash the glasses and all., but it seems that gin is not good for coordination. I think that next week I'll end the bottle. Not very much of it left, anyway.

I got up at six, quite gin struck, but I went on riding as planned. I have a short route of about eight miles or less, and a long route somewhere between ten and fifteen. I thought I would do the short route, but finally I did not give myself any excuses and took the long one. I parked the car in the Kibbutz Sa'ar deserted Better Place station, a monument to human stupidity, and I began the long route. It was so cool. The fishermen were in place, as well as crows and gulls, and so were the rock hyraxes, and the sea breeze. And runners, and cyclists. And the dying autumn sun. I had just finished the ride before the heat started to be annoying and uncomfortable. It was easy and cute and I could not understand why I stopped for so long.

I was afraid of the back pains that bothered me the previous week, but somehow riding seems to improve my condition. However, riding did not solve the PhD crisis, or any of the other problems I face this week, but it was cute
while it lasted and I ended up wanting more.  

Will I ride next week? First, I decided not to abandon the walking group that provides great company and I love them. Perhaps I'll walk with them every other week. Second, the advantage of walking is that I finish the whole thing and get home by half pat eight. Riding takes two hours longer. This is a very significant difference, because if I want to write on Saturdays, this time plays a significant role. But I will not let two weeks go by without Riding.

So in short the Sabbath going to end. I do not like uncertainty and stagnation. There are all sorts of signs that bad things are about to happen. I have to shake like a lion or something. On Thursday I send my research proposal to professor F. We meet a day before Rosh Hashana. I keep telling myself that this whole thing is just a fruitful dialectic that provides my work all sorts of unexpected factors and insights and injects it with good things. But I have this awful feeling in my stomach that everything is bullshit, I compromise my writing principles, I was dragged to a place I do not want to be in, and it will end badly. A little difficult to write with this feeling. Maybe it's for the good that I did not touch the text at all this Saturday. But I felt guilty all the time, and the bottom line is that I spent a day out of not too many days I have.

 And of all the battles I have to wage recently this is one of the easiest.

I wanted to write a post cute and optimistic about cycling and I was dragged into complaints. I am recently unbearable. But hey! You just have to put up with me here, You can leave if you want to.

A few happy things to end - when I wear the shirt and pants and gloves and helmet, I look just like a real cyclist! Persimmons season began, and in the Circassian grocery store in Kfar Tavor they are fresh are big and round! This evening I will sit on my porch, eat hot corn, and watch the new season of 'The boardwalk Empire', and if I really feel like having a walnut I will reach out and pick one from my tree.

There is an old blues musician from the Mississippi Delta, toothless man with a dirty mouth named Robert Lee Burnside. Basically this is quite strange because the immediate association is Robert E. Lee, and why would an African American blues singer be named after the Knight of the Confederation? But I've seen weirder things. Yesterday I heard one of his songs on the radio and looked it up on YouTube, and I am pleased to announce that he has won the bid for the doctoral writing background music, if such writing will be enabled, God willing. Let my baby ride. This even has something to do with cycling, doesn't it?