Strange Men

Spring travel has me recalling some encounters I've had with creepy men while travelling alone, a worry that often prevents women from venturing out on their own. Generally I feel pretty safe on my own, but then I'm naturally solitary and instinctively cautious with strangers. From girlhood on I was always warned not to get in cars with strange men, and on a few occasions in my car-less years when I was invited out for a dinner date by some man I'd met recently and didn't know well (it can happen a couple of times in a decade), I felt uncomfortable having him pick me up at my apartment, then depending on him for a ride back home. Better to meet by day for a short coffee date so I could escape by bike in case things got awkward or boring.

One exception was a man I fell into conversation with outside a bike shop. He seemed intelligent, interesting and well-spoken, and it turned out we had worked at the same place at different times. We exchanged emails and later agreed to meet for a Sunday ride, I was thinking for two or three hours, 25-30 miles. When we met he kept talking about a Samish route. There is a Samish Way, Old Samish Way, and North, West and East Samish Way, and also a nice loop around Lake Samish, so I led him up a steep and longish hill-climb heading that way. At the top of the climb he informed me that he meant the Samish Bay tide flats, and insisted we ride down a very steep connector to Fairhaven Pkwy., then on to Chuckanut Drive. He was a bit annoyed with me for dragging him up that hill-climb but I think he forgave me after I showed him how to get on to the Interurban Trail instead of riding the road. However, the ride ended up being about twice as long as I had planned, and then he wanted to have dinner in town afterward. I declined and turned off toward home, telling him I had to get my laundry done before work on Monday. He never did forgive me for that, even though I emailed a time or two suggesting another ride, and I regret that.

Early on in my bicycling life I had a very odd encounter on Chuckanut Drive. I was riding a 28 lb. pink Schwinn in those days, and I loaded it on an early bus for a day-trip to Mount Vernon. I spent a few hours tootling around, window shopping, had a nice brunch, visited the sadly long-gone Scott's Bookstore, and after that there wasn't much left to do except maybe go to the mall. Back at the transit center I found there was almost two hours until the next bus to Bellingham. I wasn't tired and figured I could ride home in less time, so I headed up Hwy.11 toward Chuckanut. As I was chugging up a woodsy climb on a stretch of the road where there was very little shoulder, no houses, parking or pull-out spaces and no cars in sight, I noticed a youngish man walking toward me on the opposite side of the road. He appeared to be holding a small animal, a squirrel or rabbit, that was struggling to get out of his hands. He angled across the road toward me and as he got closer I saw that the waistband of his sweatpants was pushed down and he was masturbating wildly with both hands. Nearing the top of the slope, I stood up on the pedals and pushed hard over the top, while he turned away and disappeared in the bushes across the road. I was never really afraid that he would attack me - he could barely walk normally - but it was very strange that he was out there on an isolated stretch of road.

A few years later I attended a potluck gathering of a bicyclists' group at a community center. Several people were already seated at a picnic table where I found an open place and sat down across from a man of about seventy - I was in my mid-forties then. When I introduced myself, he said "well, my wife left me today." Everyone else at the table turned away and left him to me. He was extremely unattractive, with long, snaggly yellow teeth and Bozo-the-Clown hair. He reminded me of some news stories I'd been reading about a pig-farmer in Canada who had been convicted of the gruesome murders of several women - he looked like the court-room sketches of the accused. But he was sad and seemed to need to talk, and I felt sorry for him. Besides, the pig-farmer was in prison in Canada. We exchanged emails and later agreed to meet for a ten-mile (each way) ride to Hovander Park, where we stopped for a snack break. I had the feeling he hadn't believed I really rode the distances I had told him, and he thought I might have trouble making the ride back. But of course I was fine with a break for a granola bar and fruit juice, and didn't even need a bathroom stop. He had brought a little tub of peanut butter and an apple, which he sliced and spread with p.b. When he was finished eating he licked the jack-knife blade, examined it a moment, then put the whole blade into his mouth while looking full into my eyes.

The night before I had watched a movie called Pan's Labyrinth which features probably the most evil step-father ever invented, a fascist commander who tortures and murders villagers. In one scene when he was interrogating a bound village woman, she manages to cut the ropes binding her hands and attack him with a small kitchen knife, slashing and stabbing his back and finally pushing the knife blade between his teeth into his mouth, then slashing his cheek open from the inside.

Licking peanut butter off the jack-knife was disgusting enough, but when he held the blade in his mouth it recalled this movie scene unnervingly. And besides there was the serial-killing pig-farmer association. But he seemed perfectly calm, and he took the knife out of his mouth and put it away and we rode home. Where I did a Google-search background search. He seemed to be normal enough but I didn't want to see him again anyway.

That wasn't the last time, though. Several weeks later while running errands, I met him with a woman about my age, all three of us on bicycles. He greeted me saying "Well, you see, my wife came back. What did you say your name was?" I replied "That's great, have a nice life. Bye." Toward the end of the summer I got an email from him saying he was planning to make a weekend ride up in the mountains with his wife, and another man, and another man's wife, and did I want to come along too? I replied that I had other plans, and changed my email address not long after.

On the ferry returning from Vancouver Island one summer, I had just settled in to a booth when a silver-haired man sat across from me and asked if I minded having company. I don't mind watching the islands passing by and studying rock formations for a two-hour ride, but I've been trying to be more sociable and open to others, and I couldn't really say no anyway. Back in the 1980's he would have been called a "sensitive new-age guy" - SNAG for short - wearing faded Levi's and Birkenstocks, interested in yoga, transcendental meditation, talking about relationships and feelings, although he seemed to think of them in an analytical way, rather than emotional. He talked non-stop for two hours. I even told him I was comfortable just sitting in silence with someone for twenty minutes at a time, but he didn't last much more than twenty seconds. After a while he suggested walking around a bit, and going to the outside deck to see the views up front. Since passengers can't leave unattended baggage on the ferry I carried a 10 lb. pannier in each hand. As we stood at the rail outside at the front of the boat, I set my bags on the ground between my feet. There was a moment when he glanced down at them and I thought he might impulsively grab my panniers and throw them overboard. He just seemed like he might be one of those possessionless charismatic free-spirit types who would say "now you're free, follow me." But he didn't, and anyway my panniers held nothing but dirty clothes, souvenirs and old tourist brochures, because I am one of those paranoid types who carries her wallet, passport, cellphone and keys in her jersey pockets at all times.

Happy Earth Day

Tulip season again. 

When I first started bicycling I used to load my bicycle on a WTA or SKAT commuter bus for a day-trip to Mount Vernon, to ride around the Skagit tulip fields. After a few years I became strong enough to ride my bike at least one way and tour the fields, too. This year I celebrated my half-vaccinated state on a sunny Wednesday afternoon by loading the bike in my new-to-me car and riding a 27 mile tour to see the flowers.

The 2021 Tulip Festival is pretty subdued. No parade, street fairs, hot-air balloon rides or art showings. The tulips were best viewed by paying admission for displays at farms like Tulip Town or Roozengaarde where people are allowed to walk among the rows. Being cheap, I just enjoyed views from the road. Usually I stop in at the Skagit Valley Co-op cafe for a sandwich and coffee and ice cream, but this spring the co-op closed the cafe in favor of more local, organic grocery space. Still it was a gorgeous day and I was so glad to get away from a year of semi-confinement.

I bought a car

Just a small, modest, fuel efficient one. I don't want to describe it online for privacy reasons, but it's the basic official vehicle of the Pacific Northwest. I had to put a colorful sticker on it so I can find it in shopping center parking lots. It was that sign in the shop window in October that made up my mind: I don't want to be a flat squirrel on the road of life. I've been considering this step for a year or two, after having cataract surgery to correct the vision in my right eye, but kept coming back to the same old obstacles - gas prices, insurance costs, lack of secure parking, climate change . . . 

But I had to take a cab home from the eye surgery because I couldn't find anyone available to give me a ride, even to drive my car, if I'd had one. Then in June I had to take the bus to Urgent Care, and in October I walked a mile each way to the doctor's office for a COVID test. Not to mention the three days in December when I had to ride my bike to work in icy weather, arrived 45 minutes late, or wiped out on black ice. There are times I really need a car, even if I don't drive often or use it for commuting. My first errand was to Goodwill, to drop off some large bags of old clothes and stuff that have been sitting in my apartment for YEARS because they were too heavy and awkward to carry on the bus. And there's more spring cleaning to be done.

There is a wise cyclists' saying: Bicycles burn fat and save money, cars burn money and make you fat. So one condition I've set for myself is to be sure to get some exercise at least five days a week, at least walking a couple of miles along the river. I found some not-too-hard at-home yoga and strength building workout routines to do three or four times a week. I have to modify some excercises - side planks with side leg lifts, 20 reps on each side, repeated twice is too much for my spine, but I can do reclining side leg-lifts, or low side planks with hip pulses. And I'm already getting better.

Pandemic Holidays

The lights of Ferndale

With the holiday shopping season beginning in December, store hours have been extended and I have some 8am start times, meaning I am back to winter bicycle commuting two or three days a week. Last week I rode in a couple of big wind and rain storms, but the weather is looking a bit milder for the next couple of weeks. I hope, because even though it has felt good to be more active, leaving home in the dark at 7am is already wearing me down.

Sometimes I think retail workers aren't really essential. It's more that we are expendable.

Tightened COVID restrictions this month are showing how car-centered and car-dependent many communities are. Sunday mornings when I go out for my morning walk, I skip stopping for coffee and pastry afterwards because customers are no longer allowed to sit inside, even socially-distanced. The Ferndale Starbuck's usually has a line of cars at the drive-through window that goes all the way around the building, through the parking lot, even backing up around the corner on Main Street. Standing outside on the sidewalk to eat and drink just isn't appealing, I'd rather go home for homemade coffee and a snack.

Less trivially, free public COVID testing sites at first required people to line up in cars and submit to testing through their rolled-down windows. The sites had to improvise walk-up testing for carless people. 

Back in October, I was ill for a few days with (probably) a combination of seasonal allergies stirred up when the heat started coming on in my apartment, plus a sudden, violent stomach bug. At my job employees are required to complete an on-line health questionnaire every day before coming in, and have our temperature taken at the entrance to the store. When I reported nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, chills, headache, sore throat, runny nose, fatigue, muscle and body aches, I was barred from returning to work until after either a negative COVID test or a 14-day quarantine.

I called around to some Urgent Care clinics for information about testing and learned that the offices in Bellingham allowed people to walk in to the front desk to check in, then go back outside and wait in their cars for a lab technician to come out to collect a sample.

My regular doctor's office is about a mile from where I live in Ferndale, but they usually can't take unscheduled walk-in emergencies. First I had a phone consultation, then they scheduled me for a video chat the next morning, before agreeing to let me come in for testing. I had been very ill the night before and didn't want to take the bus in to Bellingham. (I also wasn't really up to managing the technology required to set up a video consultation.) I wasn't allowed to enter the clinic building, instead a lab tech and physician's assistant met me outside with a sample kit so I could stick a swab up my own nose myself.

Luckily, my test was negative, and I was cleared to work after two sick days. And now I'm back to riding the storms in December.

Self-Treatment

One of the advantages of my retail job is that I can try out bicycle-related clothing and accessories at a discount. One of the disadvantages is that I've been injured a couple of times in the past year while riding my bicycle to work. Since my most recent crash in June I have been trying out a couple of products that turned up in stock in the store. Please keep in mind that I am totally unqualified to give medical information or advice - just relating my experience. Also, Sierra buys up overstocks and past season merchandise as available, and doesn't consistently carry any particular brands or products.

Cannabis products have been legalized in Washington state for a few years now, including recreational edibles and smokables, and also medicinal and cosmetic products that contain cannabinoids but not THC, the chemical that makes you high. Back in my crazed youth I tried smoking marijuana maybe a dozen times, but always found it made me so nervous and anxious that before I was 21 years old I decided it was just no fun and quit trying. Since becoming an arthritic old person I sometimes thought about trying topical products for pain and stiffness, but worried about having a bad reaction. But the impact of my most recent crash caused quite a bit of soreness in the bones around my shoulder, ribs and neck and off-the-shelf pain meds either didn't work or made me too spacey to use at work.

The first topical that turned up in the store was a Pachamama brand roll-on that contained CBD and "ancient Chinese herbs" in a menthol and camphor solution that created an intense hot-and-cold sensation which pretty much obscured any effect the CBD might have had. It felt really good, though. At bedtime I put on my PJs, rolled the gel solution across my shoulders and upper back and up my neck, sighed in relief and went happily to sleep. When my cuts and scrapes healed up to the itchy stage I rolled the solution about a half-inch around (not on) the broken skin and instantly stopped the itchiness. It may have been the hot-and-cold feeling, or a placebo effect, but in just a few days I began to feel a bit psychologically dependent and used up a two-ounce roll-on bottle in a few weeks.

After that I tried a Pachamama cream containing CBD in a menthol, arnica and capsaicin lotion. This had a milder warm-and-cool feeling but I seemed to notice more muscle relaxation and pain reduction, without the instant happy relief I felt before. It did have an odd smell, a combination of hot peppers and peppermint. The roll-on had a strong medicinal smell, though.

This week the store received a Sagely Naturals brand CBD Relief & Recovery cream which has a mild peppermint scent and only a light cooling feel. It is quite a bit less expensive than Pachamama - I'm getting these at about 50% off, full prices range from about $20 for 4 oz. for the Sagely Naturals, to $45-$60 for 2 or 3.5 oz. Pachamamas. So it will probably be best to wean myself off them.

To the right is my left elbow after I collided with a recycling wheelie bin in the dark about a year ago. So that's what a hematoma looks like - the skin wasn't broken or bleeding at all and I think I had some crushing injury to the bony point of my elbow.

Below is my left elbow and knee about ten weeks after my wipe-out in June. I'm just attaching these for clinical interest.

Left elbow

Left knee

Happy Monday

Weather forecasts are stormy for the rest of the week, so I took Monday off for a late season ride to Blaine and Birch Bay, with a stop for lunch at my new favorite Mexican Grill, where I enjoyed my new favorite fish tacos, with an americano from the Starbucks next door. It was a fifty mile round-trip ride, probably the longest ride I've done this year, and I came home with a pinkish sunburn across my nose and cheeks.

The hillside beyond the marina is White Rock BC, and the highrises behind the hill (slightly obscured by trees) are in Surrey BC.

It still surprises me to see how much these Canadian border cities have grown since 1995, when I moved to Whatcom County.

Inspiration for the remains of 2020

Sunday evening I bicycled home from work in the dark in a downpour, but that will be my last winter commute for this year. I put in a schedule change request so I will only be working mid-day shifts and won't have to ride my bike. Back in the days when I was broke and working at the airport cafe I found foul-weather night-time bike commutes were challenging and invigorating, but I just can't keep myself convinced of that now. I don't have the endurance for repeated bouts of near-hypothermia, and I've had two painful crashes in the past year. Besides, I'm just not that desperate for a paycheck anymore.

Affordable beachfront living in Birch Bay

Not yet, anyway, but who knows what will become of the job market and what's left of the social safety net.

That's too much pessimism and negativity. It was a lovely ride, just like a normal summer day.

p.s. Beach Drive in Birch Bay was reduced to one lane because of road repairs. That road is usually flooded at least once every winter because of storms and high tides.

Amazing True Story

I'm not sure why I've been remembering this lately, but here it is. I've had a lot of crappy, badly-paid jobs in my life, working with obnoxious people - unfriendly, hostile, verbally abusive, and sometimes even physically threatening or aggressive (usually in sneaky, passive-aggressive ways). But this story is worse than anything I have ever experienced, or even imagined.

Many, many years ago after I burned out the automatic transmission in my last car, I let it sit in the parking lot over the summer while I tried out bicycling for transportation. Finally the battery died, the car wouldn't start at all anymore, and I decided the time had come to junk it. I found an ad for a freelance auto-hauler in the Little Nickel Classifieds paper, or maybe it was one of those signs with the little tear-off tabs you see posted on the bulletin board at the laundromat. I forget now, but I called and made arrangements for them to come by to haul away the car.

Two guys showed up, driving an old flatbed truck with a winch behind the cab. One of them was in his mid-thirties, stocky, dark and Mediterranean-looking; the other was a little, wizened up old guy in his mid-to-late seventies, or older. Neither one was above five and a half feet tall. I walked with them out to the parking lot, signed over the title and paid $50 cash while the older man backed their truck up behind my car, which was parked on a slight uphill slope. The younger man jacked up the back end of my old car, pulled a heavy hook on a cable from the winch, then got down on his hands and knees to hook up to the axle. Seeing him with his arm, shoulders and head under the car, which tilted backwards toward him supported only by an ordinary jack, made me very uneasy.

"I think there are some cement blocks over by the fence to help brace up the car," I suggested helpfully and nervously as he groped around with half his body out of sight beneath the car. Meanwhile, the old guy skipped around the front end of the truck and began cranking wildly at the winch, trying to wind up the slack cable, while I squawked and dithered.

The young guy got the hook set, then let the jack down. Back on his feet, he looked from me to the old man, who had stopped cranking and stood looking guilty.

"Nah, thanks, I'll just use my head," the young man said.

Walking up toward the truck cab, he pulled a big cotter pin out of his jeans pocket and shook it in the old guy's face. Then he stuck it in the winch and wound up the slack cable, before using the power winch to drag the car on to the flatbed. The underside of the car scraped horribly all the way up, gouging the tailpipe, muffler and whatever other exposed parts are down there. The car was now definitely an undrivable wreck.

As I say, I've had a lot of crappy jobs, but never one so bad I had to always be on guard against the possibility that my partner might take any chance to try to kill me.