Power between the legs, part II

It's been too long since my last post, darn it, and much has happened. We returned to the Bethesda Crab House the very next week after the last post with Felumpfus in tow, as she informed me that she had not yet sampled this year's crop of crabs! Well, obviously, that needed to be remedied. And we went (JS, Fel and I) and feasted till we were full, perhaps overfull, downing a pitcher of Sam Adams and much corn in addition to just under 3 dozen crabs... ahhhh. Needless to say, when we returned home, we all reveled in our respective food comas on the couch.

The mighty Thor has a new playmate - no, we did not get a new dog. But we did get new neighbors, one of whom is a darling 7 year old girl... 7 going on 30, who knocks on the door and very politely says, "If you want, you can let Thor come over for a little while. We can take him for a walk and stuff... of course, if you want." Cracks me up every time. She's going to be a politician someday, or she may just simply take over the world. When I speak to her, I forget that she's just 7. She's far more eloquent than many adults that I know.

The most exciting news, however, is that I had my motorcycle riders course over Labor Day weekend. Two days of classroom, two days on the range. It was awesome! It amazes me that in those two days, I learned to operate this fabulous 2 wheeled machine... Going from timidly letting the clutch out to get the bike to even move, to wanting to go faster and faster, changing gears and rolling the throttle. Yeah, sure, I didn't get the bike past 25 mph in 3rd gear. But I was doubtful that I would even learn to shift gears - in the beginning, every time I shifted, my bike would cut out, so I obviously had my doubts on whether I would ever get it. I did, however, get really adept at starting up my bike.


We were taught on old Honda Nighthawk 250s. These are 234cc pieces of crap, but it got the job done. It is impossible to find neutral in these bikes when you want to. But when you're trying to shift from 1st to 2nd or downshift from 2nd to 1st - oh yeah, you can find it then, just when you don't want it. I hit neutral a number of times when I thought I was shifting to 2nd. Let me tell you, it's not a nice surprise to roll on the throttle and literally go nowhere fast.

After two full days of learning, riding, swerving, leaning and quick breaking, we took our course test. I learned a couple of things about myself - I can't do a figure 8 in a 20 x 40 foot box and I apparently make a really funny face when I perform a quick break. I was nervous, since I had put my foot down a number of times in the figure 8 exercise, and really didn't know where else I would have lost points. But, I passed! And now I have a shiny certificate which I will take to the MVA (and sit for hours and hours) to get that fantastic little 'M' on my license.

What's really cool is that BC seems willing to let me ride his extra bike, once he gets it up and running. I had been jokingly asking/begging him since I signed up for my course, but really didn't think he would. So when I was speaking to him on Monday, all excited from passing my test, I was quite surprised and really happy when he brought it up. I am excited and exhilarated, and really can't wait to get back on a bike.