Pushing Weirdos
This week has been getting Jim's motorcycle through the Retive process - the yearly inspection. The motorcycle being problematic because of something to do with adjusting the idle down low to get it to pass. We have to take it to the closest Yamaha authorized repair shop, which is Nicoya over an hour away, have them adjust the idle, get the inspection, come back to adjust the idle up to make it more drivable and then go home again.
Monday it didn't work out. Turns out the bike needed a ton of work so we left it and came on home. I was dismayed to find that the fabric store in Santa Cruz I'd been buying quilt batting and quilt backing from had gone under and the other store a few blocks from the park had all unnatural fabrics in an array of garish colors but no silks or cottons. I'm trying to make an altar cloth and need a silk or a cotton to use encaustic waxes on and dye for a batiked altar cloth. I'm going to have to order it.
Yesterday afternoon. I'm assuming the position in my rocking chair, book in hand and Jim is laying on the sofa when he gets a text message that the bike is ready, and the mechanic even took it through Retive. It's' ready to do and the Retive is done, done, done. 2 pm we head out to pick up the bike before the place closes at 5pm.
Get the bike, head towards the KFC for an early dinner. Get to the main intersection in town, near the KFC at the light and Jim's bike dies. It will not restart. Nothing works at all. We're blocking a main intersection at rush hour! I'm freaking out in the car behind Jim and his bike. The only thing I can think to do it put on the emergency blinkers and closely follow him as he pushes the bike the roughly a mile back to the shop.
I was getting worried because I could see his neck turning beet red, with the cords standing out as he strained to push his Yahama 750 up a slight incline. I was afraid that with his being a hop, skip and jump from 70 years old he'd harm himself, or his bad shoulder, heart attack or stroke. I just hated to see this, was swearing it afraid he'd get clipped by a car in the crazy traffic in the town. He did get the bike back to the shop where it was found to have.......
....
....
wait for it...
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no gas at all. He'd dropped it off with half a tank and now there was none. We got it refilled quickly and were out on way. Jim leading on his motorcycle and me behind, bringing up the rear in our old beater car. It was a rough ride back, once you turn off the main highway onto the secondary road winding around the various nearby beach community feeder roads there's nothing, no street lights, nobody, a dark and deserted landscape.
We stopped right before we got home to pick up catfood for Stinky. They usually run a sale on many items at this store on Wednesday. We'd just gotten in when we ran into Jersey. We hadn't seen him face to face since the pandemic started. I've seen Jersey staggering about since we live within a short distance, but not close enough to say hi. It went something like this.
Jim "Hey Jersey! How are you? Long time since we've seen you!"
Jersey "Don't get that Covid vaccination! Everyone that gets it is gonna be dead within a year!"
Me looking at Jersey like he has three heads and they're all babbling in different languages.
That was literally the entire conversation. I know Jersey is a little squirrelly. He's clearly burned a lot of brain cells out in the sixties, but this was a new one on us. At least he didn't pretend to be his twin brother. He has pulled that in the past. It just fit the weirdness of the week.
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