So Cursed Even Its Thief Brought It Back

In a week where a kleptocrat despot and Dicktator made for one of the most bizarre geopolitical times of my existence, Mrs. Kangaeroo reminded me of a thief much closer to home as I finally got my Astuto bike back home.

Mrs. Kangaeroo calls the bike cursed. She might have a bit of evidence to back up her claim, as she pointed out that even when a thief stole the bike in February last year, they brought it back to us again four months later.

The bike has certainly had a bit of misfortune since making my acquaintance when I began trying to build it after my old Trek literally fell apart.

Building up the bike cost more than I budgeted (despite receiving generous donations of a frame and parts and carrying over components I already had), took longer to get on the road than expected, been stolen, returned, crashed and then ridden while I crashed, breaking my leg and keeping me away from cycling for the longest time in my career and still with months of rehabilitation and physiotherapy ahead even now.

These calamities are why I decided to christen the bike with a new name: Lucky!

Lucky was going to get a run this year on the Knights in White Lyrca Classic, a cycling tour in May to generate donations for charity. But it won’t happen as I realized it’s highly unlikely I’ll be able to drum up the donations I’d envisaged making, and a medical clearance is not going to happen before I’d need to make a commitment (with a financial side) to ride. It’s an outstanding event, run by good people, so I want to do what I can to help.

Learning about the ride meant more visits to the office than usual this week. I’m trying to work hard to become proficient in my position to repay the faith shown in me. I am enjoying the challenge, but am totally out of my depth. It does reaffirm for me the excellence of those I get to work with. They work hard to make me feel valued and wanted. I want to emulate them and treat people the same way.

Good People Everywhere

Sounds simple, but it has never been a great feature of my working deportment. I’m very lucky to be surrounded by such persons of outstanding caliber. That has actually been a hallmark of my career, but I never noticed or appreciated it.

I wasn’t helped this week by needing to address health issues for both myself and my home. I had a day full of hospital visits to address my broken leg, infected finger and immune system. Progress is upbeat in all cases.

One Thing After Another

The housing estate is another matter. I’ve had to address a common area leak, and this involved standing outside in the freezing cold watching plumbers try to fix it. They couldn’t. But they did manage to stop the water flowing on to the footpath and freezing, which assuaged my biggest fear. But we haven’t solved the issue and it is going to drain more time from me that I don’t have.

Dino has been in great shape! She has even been pooping unaided on a fairly regular basis, but not well enough to suggest recovery. She’ll go for a stay at the Yokohama Bird Clinic again tomorrow for a few days. We have to send her there because my hand is permanently disfigured following infection last year and I no longer have the dexterity needed to manually extract Dino’s wastes.

What Would We Do Without Mrs. Kangaeroo?

Mrs. Kangaeroo has been doing this twice daily for the better part of a year now, but is unavailable for the next few days, so Dino needs to go somewhere that she can be properly cared for.

Mrs. Kangaeroo and I got to share a great time visiting Takahata Fudosan, a local temple. The temple has a history dating back hundreds of years, and when we visited it was holding an antique market that had some interesting trinkets, including a lovely horse brooch that we quickly pocketed.

We followed with a mouth-wateringly succulent Chinese meal in Hino, where we ate until we could consume no more and paid less than 1,000 yen apiece.

It was also a chance to notice the city gate features a koala. This stems from the Australian mammal having once been a centerpiece of marketing for the nearby Tama Zoological Park. When I first went to the zoo in the early 1990s, it was still using koalas to attract visitors as they were enormously popular, as they had been since first being brought into the country in 1984.

Not How It Goes Today

Nowadays, though, the plethora of information available and shrinking of the world has put an end to the faddish booms that used to sweep the country and people are just as blase about koalas as they are about anything else. But a koala still adorns then Takahata Fudosan gate as a reminder of its heyday and a link to a different time for me, too.

Cycling got put on the backburner a bit this week. I was only able to ride a little, and when I did try longer distances ended up exhausted. It’s important to stick at it and rebuild the muscle lost while I waited for my bone to heal.

It’s been a freezing week and there’s little joy on the bike in the predawn hours of midwinter….but there is just enough to get some of the beautiful sights only possible with the dawn of a new day. And that’s why I’ve gotten up to see them.