For want of a nail

Vancouver, British Columbia. Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Richard III got nothing on me.

The karmic punishers continue to mess with me. The flight last night finally took off two hours late; the seat had lots of legroom, but my seatmate, though perfectly pleasant, was corpulent and spilled over a bit into my space. I can never sleep on planes anyway. The luggage took forever to come, and I bobbled the Uber connection so that I wound up getting to my B&B at midnight, 3 AM my time.

Still too keyed up to sleep more than three hours, I started the tedious bike reassembly, and realized I had forgotten a crucial piece. Can you spot it?

Yep, it’s the right pedal. Actually, I have the pedal, but not the crank that attaches it to the bicycle. After spending an hour turning the room upside down, I called Jane, who was at work. Her coworkers covered for her, she ran home and searched our whole basement, turns out it was buried in the foam packaging I use.

A 4 ounce piece of aluminum, the size of a short ruler, but custom-made and not available locally. Without this “nail,” the trip would be lost. FedEx will charge me $157 to get it here by noon tomorrow.

Smooth move, Poindexter. Comeuppance for having such a fancy bike.

I was so frazzled and sleep-deprived the bike assembly took longer than the usual four hours. I was reminded of a line from Updike, “globes of ether, pure nervousness, slid down his arms and legs.” By the time I was done in the afternoon, I realized I hadn’t eaten since the plane ride 20 hours before.

I’d arrived in the dark, but was able to see through the ether, as I dragged my suitcases to the UPS store to be shipped home, that the modest Vancouver neighborhood was lovely, dotted with flowering trees.

We’ve been to Vancouver before, it’s really a spectacular city, won’t have time to see it this time. But even the neighborhoods are stunning. Had a nice meal at a Thai restaurant, admired how Vancouver bikepaths are segregated into walkers and bikers,

was surprised to see how cute my B&B looked from the outside,

rescheduled my upcoming friends/family visits, blogged, and got to bed early.

Probably jinxed myself. What’s next, punishers?