Bicycles and Swap Boxes

I dragged my bike out of the basement and put some air in the tires and pronounced it ready for summer!

Today I took it to work for the very first time ever. I drove through the Experimental Farm, then along the bike path that runs beside the Rideau Canal from Dow’s Lake to downtown. Then I headed west on Somerset to Bank Street, where I stopped at the Second Cup for my traditional apple-cranberry muffin, and then north for the final few blocks to my office.

I felt fast – the blocks were zipping by and the wind was streaming through my hair as I sailed past all the pedestrians. But even though I was going fast like the wind, all the other bikers were passing me. They were flying!

In the end I was a little surprised to see it had taken me 40 minutes to bike to work, since I usually walk it in 80 minutes. That meant I was only biking twice as fast as I walk. I think I must be a very fast walker and a very slow biker.

Unfortunately I had to leave my bike at work today because as I was getting ready to go home the sky turned an ominous black and the street lights came on and the winds started whipping about and there was rumbling in the sky. It was time for the daily 4:00 commuter thunderstorm.

Penelope and I went out to the bike rack and brought our bikes in and rode them through the corridors, giggling, before parking them in the Executive Director’s office and taking buses home in the pouring rain. It’s fun having a bike.

At lunchtime I walked down to the Glebe to check out Elmaks’ latest street art installation, but unfortunately I was too late. I could see where it used to be on the piece of wood on the telephone poll, but whatever it was was gone. (Did any of you see it? What was it? Did you get a picture?) The trip wasn’t wasted though because I got a chicken and avocado and spicy eggplant sandwich at that cute little coffee shop in the Glebe.

Speaking of pictures, my son took a picture of a swap box for me at the corner of Parkdale and Wellington, right by the Market. The swap box itself is gone.

But don’t be sad! There are others!

This one sprouted up near Preston and Gladstone in June. I visited it daily until I went on holidays. That’s one of my artist trading cards in it. It’s a meta trading card, because the Owl Woman is passing another one of my artist trading cards to the other Owl Woman. You can click here for a better view. When I got back from holidays, this swap box was gone. (I’m very curious to know whether they’re being removed by City crews or by passers-by. And I’m trying to be philosophical about it, like Elmaks, but it’s not easy. I feel very sad when they vanish.)

This one was recently installed near the Bridgehead on Elgin Street. I got a dragonfly necklace out of it and left a gummy hamburger from Sugar Mountain. (I also bought a tiny bag of red juice berries at Sugar Mountain for $3.96. Has anybody else noticed that the red juice berries aren’t as flavourful as they used to be?)

And then there’s the new swap box in my favourite swap box location: on Lisgar, just east of Bank Street. Near Wallack’s. Outside the Invisible Cinema. Across the street from Venus Envy. I’m tempted to take my drill over there and lower it a couple of feet, because it’s the kind that doesn’t have a door, so you need to look down into it. I’d need a ladder to look down into it. I don’t want to just plunge my hand in there without looking first. But today, guess what was in there? A bottle of money. I’m not kidding. It said “Change” on it. I opened it up and it was full of money – not just pennies either, real money. I left it there because there’s probably someone out there who would do cartwheels up and down Lisgar Street if they found that jar of money. My buddy Dave X would be ecstatic for DAYS if he found it. He’d probably talk about it for months! Years, even!

Speaking of money, a friend asked me recently who my RRSP investments are with. You know, which company do I use. I told him “I can never remember because they keep getting sold and changing their name, and all the names are double names like Midland-Walwyn and Wood-Gundy, but I think maybe they’re called Meryl Streep now.” Then there was a pause while we both reflected on why that sentence felt a little off. Anyway, it was Merrill-Lynch, not Meryl Streep, and I just got my statement and it turns out they’re not Merrill-Lynch anymore either.

That’s all the news from my Monday. How was yours?

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