Sunday, May 07, 2006

Reesie Quiere Cerveza



And who am I to stand in her way?

I know, I know...another weekend of beer-pic -duty slacking. What can I say? I'm just too damn busy drinkin' the stuff to actually sit here finding cool pictures of it to post. At least that's a valid excuse, right? And you can all rest easy knowing that I wasn't doing anything detrimental to my weekend beer psyche...like working or housecleaning or saving the world.

The weather has been exceptionally beautiful here over the past few days. Last week was very typicall "New England." Monday was rather nice, sunny and a balmy 60 or so degrees. Then, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday presented us a full-throttle return to winter. It was freezing cold, rainy and the sun was absolutely nowhere to be seen.

Friday it was almost 80 degrees.

Welcome to New England.

Anyway, as Lauren stated in her blog, anytime we get two consecutive days with temps reaching over 60 degrees, we know Spring is here. And boy, do we welcome it with open arms and wreckless abandon!

On Friday, after work, I went to the gym, but could not bring myself to stay for two whole classes. Instead, I did the earlier class, then lifted weights for about a half hour, thus cutting my time indoors down by at least a half hour. Stephen then called me and announced that he wanted to hop on his bike and cycle over from Brighton to meet me in Cambridge for a beer. I was on board for that one. Realizing that Friday was "Cinco de Mayo" I felt compelled to order a frosty cold Corona with a nice hunk of tangy lime. That was the first Corona of the evening, but it was not to be the last.

On Saturday, we biked from my place over to Stephen's, picked up his car and drove back to my place to pick up my little Zip Car.

I have to admit...I was really nervous before the driving expedition. I started getting a headache and feeling the stress materialize where it always does with me...right in my back. But, I was bound and freakin' determined to get that little Scion Bento Box and drive the thing around....




Seeing the car, I'm sure you'll understand why I call it the Bento Box. It is actually the Scion xb. I have to say, I really liked it and felt good about driving it around. There was one time when I put too much gas into an inclined turn and I almost killed a few grandmothers coming at me in a Toyota Carolla. But, we had just commented on the really powerful brakes on the Scion and they certainly proved themselves useful in that situation. There was another instance where I took a turn on a pretty narrow street with cars parked on both sides and I got pretty damn close to the cars on the passanger's side. But, luckily, I once again escaped any trouble.

I took it into some areas with lots of traffic and just tried to do my best not to have a heart attack. I did pretty well.

I have to say that Stephen was a great coach and I appreciate the support. I also have to say that he had to pull the car back into the very tight space at the end of the outing because if I tried to park that thing, I would have wiped out the side of my car as well as the Toyota Matrix Zip Car parked next to it.

But people, I gotta tell you..Zip Car rules.

I showed up, swiped my card, the car unlocked, the key was right there, and the car was ready to go.

When I was done, I swiped the card one more time to lock it and singal that I was finished with it, and boom...nothing more to do.

It was great.

I was a little too adrenaline-pumped to try the really tricky crap like city parking and shit, but we are going to take another one out for an hour some night this week so I can do some work on that stuff.

Fun...

Maybe I'll take out the VW Bug. Or maybe the Jetta. Or maybe a Mini. Or the Scion Xa. Options are fun!!

6 comments:

Bike said...

I too had a 'frosty cold Corona with a nice hunk of tangy lime' on Friday/Cinco...Followed by a few tasty MGD's at the Sox game-that darn KC team beat 'em :-(
Glad to hear you're out driving. My sis has the little convertible orange vw-bug...very fun to drive! Have never driven the mini, but I image it's a fun ride as well.

Bike said...

PS: you gotta check out 11thhour's Friday beer post this week....you'll enjoy and I'm certain you've experienced the amazing feats of the German women in the picture he posted.

http://tinyurl.com/zvtue

Canoes under my shoes said...

KC won a game? A baseball game? Wha????

I wish we had zip cars. That is the coolest idea in the universe.

Bike said...

LJS--maybe you can start a carsharing company in KC! I know Chicago has a nice program working here for years...but I of course own gas guzzlers in the burbs...but I do bike/commute to public rail daily...doing my share to save the earth.

Juanita said...

You go, girl!!! Good for you.

Surfwahine said...

I'm so proud of you !! Driving in the city is hard for anyone and you took it on!! Bravo !!