Entries this day: Bike_shop Garden Homepage RC

Bike shop

11:00am JST Saturday 22 August 2009 (day 14395)

Didn't know what time the bike shop would open, but figured they'd be crackin' on weekend morning so I got crackin' and rode Soness's yellow bike (with broken shifter), steering with my left hand, and guided Soness's blue bike (with broken brake cable), steering it with my right hand.

Had a couple of dangerous moments as the blue bicycle basket interfered with the yellow bicycle handlebars, causing them both to veer unsteerably one direction or another (that, strangely, was never exactly the direction I wanted to go). Fortunately those dangerous moments were on the relatively empty back streets near Chez Soness, and I pretty much sorted out how to steer them both by the time I got to the highway freeway two lane streeet.

But then had a bit of a problem with the speed accumulated going under the tracks, but all was fine in the end; I stayed on the bike and the bikes never hit the ground ('cept with tires).

Anyway, got to the shop with all our parts intact ('cept those that we came to the shop to repair), and discovered that the shop opens at 10:30am each day. Not 9am. Hmmm.

Fair enough.

I looked for a place to put the blue bike while I headed back to Chez Soness to work in the garden. Decided it should be safe on top of the discarded bike stack that had obviously been there for a while and wasn't likely to be *really* discarded on Saturday before 10:30am.

Got back to the shop at 10:30am, and found they were open, as planned. They had all their inventory of bikes out on the sidewalk, nestled side by side by side by side all the way and just past where I had put the blue bike. Not only was the blue bike safe, it was unreachable!

I slaughtered a few sentences in Japanese trying to explain why it was that I needed access to the back of the store, but the guy bemusedly let me past the counter and I was able to retrieve the bike essentially from the opposite side of the stack on which I had stacked it.

After all *that*, easy as pie. He replaced the blue bike brake cable in 5 minutes for 700 yen, and replaced the yellow bike shifter cable in 10 minutes for 1,200 yen.

I knew by then how to ride both bikes at once and headed home even more easily than pie.

Garden

12:25pm JST Saturday 22 August 2009 (day 14395)

Between 9am and 10:30am, I ate four cherry tomatoes, weeded the herb section of Soness's garden, thought about watering the plants, weeded a bit more and then headed inside...

Homepage

12:27pm JST Saturday 22 August 2009 (day 14395)

... where I chatted with Jimmy to get Kevin's homepage closer to finished. permalink

RC

10:14pm JST Saturday 22 August 2009 (day 14395)

Ack. So long and boring today. I just wanted to hang out with Tatiana, but she wasn't there. I probably need to stop going. Today was the day we went to Showakinenkoen and played some games including a new four person, three ball game that I made up, and finding shapes in the clouds, plus a relay race by Talia, and then dancing around with Fumi, and handstands with Emma.

Headed inside from 6pm to 8pm and then Talia showed me where there's a yummy vegan restaurant in Tachikawa. It's vegan with fake meat and fish.

Talia and I had a bit of a discussion about Israel Palestine, and though we admitted we didn't know the whole situation, were both loathe to concede any points.