Yesterday we had pizza with Mom’s second cousin once removed and his family. Mom decided that we could do that at the pizza place that we normally get carry out. It moved in the last year or so such that although it’s a bit of a hike, we only have to cross one street at a stop light to get there. Therefore, Mom decided it was time for a family bike ride. She wanted Alice to go in the trailer but Alice insisted on riding her own bike. That wasn’t too bad on the way there, although Mom had to carry Alice’s bike on the trail from our street to the park. The boys and I left them behind to catch up to make sure we got a table and had someone at the restaurant at the appointed time.
We had a good time at dinner. We set the four boys over at one table, while the good people ate a different one. A key lesson learned is that we should sit the boys with siblings at opposite corners.
Leaving was a more interesting proposition. Despite having received an affirmative answer to a specific inquiry as to whether Mom had a key to the bike lock I used on my bike, it turned out that she didn’t. So we had to leave the bike there while I walked home with Alice on her bike. It was dark by then and Alice did not like biking home in the dark. She indicated that it made her scared multiple times. That stepped us once we turned off the main road in to the park, and the trail back from the park to the house was a tunnel of fright, the wall of sound of insects not contributing positively to Alice’s state of mind. But she overcame all of this (with just a hint of “oh, I guess I’ll leave you for the bears” from Dad) and managed to get break through back on to our street, safe at last.
But delivering Alice safe home was not the end, because my bike was cruelly exposed to the hoards of bike thieves who frequent our environs. Mom insisted that we go out with bolt cutters to retrieve it. Either my mentioning this possibility to the staff before leaving, or lack of concern, or just being lost in the crowd of bike thieves, saved us from any unfortunate interactions with local law enforcement in the ten or fifteen minutes it took to cut through the cable. One small silver lining is that we finally threw out the lock for which we had lost the keys over a decade ago.