The past days of rain have made me think of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude, the novel with the greatest first line in the history of literature.* At one point in the narrative, it rains for so many days in a row that there is so much water in the air that fish are swimming through the air. What's really irritating is that the fish are tending to swim through open windows into houses, and they get caught in there! The solution? It's really very obvious: to open the windows on the other side of the house, so the fish can simply swim through!

Ah, there's nothing like Magical Realism, is there? (Can I get a shout out from all you English majors out there??)

Early this morning it looked like rain again. But I need to get out on my bicycle! I'm signed up for a long ride a week from tomorrow, the first day of May. May is Bike Month, and each year the Governor issues a proclamation to that effect on May 1, and members of the Williamsburg Area Bicycling Association receive the proclamation with some ceremony at the current state capital and then ride with it to Williamsburg, to present it to the mayor of the Colonial Capital.

I've never done that ride because it's usually on a week day, and I have to work, dontcha know. (Wow. What a far cry from my resolutions, as I re-learned how to breathe in the Progressive Ventilator Care Unit: to enjoy the gift of extra life I had received!) Well, this year I'm going to leave Mr. Responsibility behind. This year I'm going to go hog wild. I'm going to spend a Thursday on my bicycle.

(Of course, that's not really all that wild and crazy. But you who know me know that I'm stretching here.)

So I took a chance that it wouldn't rain this morning, and I got in a ride! In fact, you know what? When I go in to the office this morning, I don't think I'll even wear a tie!! Whoo hoo!

* "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."