I saw Shim while riding Sunday

I was riding, Shim wasn’t.  Shim was sitting in an idling van pulled off into the turning lane.  I didn’t know it was Shim.  I thought it was probably some creepy guy in a van (other than Shim) waiting to yell at me, riding through the mud/vegetation beside 72^nd street in Papillion.  As I approached the stopped van, I noticed the passenger side window was down.  Oh crap, thought I, it really is someone interested in yelling at me for riding my bike through the mud/vegetation.  Maybe it’s a forest ranger.  Maybe I should make jokes about pic-a-nic baskets.  Anyway – I guess I’ll just ignore the guy and keep on riding through the grass here.

“Fred!” shouts Shim.

“Oh hey Shim, what’s up?”

“We’re meeting at Crane for a ride.”

It’s weird.  I had been out for about 90 minutes or so by that time.  It was cold (by normal standards) and wet, but not raining.  I was soaked, but relatively warm.  The day before, I had gone on a group ride.  It was sunny that day, but much colder.  The great thing about this wet ride was I was just able to sink into some form of meditation through the ugly grey day.  So when Shim said, “We’re meeting at Crane …”  I had to make him repeat it.  I recognized the words he was saying, but they registered no meaning for me.  I was confused.  So I said completely meaninglessly, “The one on Center?”  I believe he answered in the affirmative. 

The reason my question was meaningless was that I had to get home immediately.  In fact, I had gone a little too far in my sheer joy of the nice warm (low 40s) wet day, that I was in danger of not getting home in time for my wife to get to work on time.  As long as I didn’t have a flat on the way home though, everything should be alright …

If I had just been walking along, nice sunny day,  and Shim had said, “Hey Cube, We’re meeting at Crane,”  I would have immediately known it was the one on Center.  It’s almost always the one on Center.  But in my semiconscious meditative wet state, the fact that I had no way of joining the ride seemed irrelevant.  The first thing I needed to know was, “We’ll which Crane?”

Once I knew the location - I could snap to awareness and let the reality seep in.  While waves of understanding filled my being with the mental picture of the Crane coffee shop and a few riders sitting around, Shim added, “Yeah it’s in about a half hour.  I had no way to get a hold of you.”

At this point, all of my faculties rushed back to me in a flood.  “Oh yeah, cool, I couldn’t go anyway.  My wife has to work.”

As I continued on, I thought about how weird it was that Shim should be driving along 72^nd just at the right time to see me and let me know about the ride.  How lucky.  Except it wasn’t.  Had he been driving by a moment earlier, he never would have seen me.  And that wouldn't have mattered, because I couldn't go anyway.  Sort of like "Which Crane are you going to?"

One thing was gained from all of this though.  I saw Shim while riding Sunday.

Then I had a flat.