Thursday, February 22, 2007

Riding Home

"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?"

Pass me the lemon peel. Today's ride home was like a ride in a shaker. "Shake very well till it's ice cold." Add ice pellets and mix with cars, ride until frozen.

The ride started at 6:10 for the 6:33 train -- plenty of time to travel a mile and a half to the station. I stepped out the door to put my purple shower cap on, when a guy standing in the shelter of the door said into his phone, "It's really hailing now." I slipped onto my bike and rode out into it, figuring -- it could never last. It was surreal and strange. Lights and cars and snowpellets in a dark, very windy torrential downpour. A Slushy. The ice pellets, hail, or freezing rain, whatever it needs to be called, added a reflective characteristic to the very air. After the first crossing of railroad tracks it became more difficult to see them as the water on the roads collected to about an inch deep.

As I sorted out the pedestrians and cabs in front of the train station and made my way to the sidewalk, there was easily 2 inches of standing water on the roadway, but the rain was less icy.

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