Tagged: Gardening
What a day
- by Alyson Shane
This morning when we were in the garden John noticed a bumblebee sitting on a leaf on our raspberry bush.
We got worried because we've never seen a bee so chill. We accidentally brushed the bush when we walked by and he didn't move or make a sound except a little frantic buzzing that was cute as heck but concerning.
We didn't know what to do so we left him alone, but I took a picture of him and asked my friend Heather through Twitter what I should do because Heather's the smartest person I know when it comes to
bugs or animals or nature, really
and she suggested I leave him a little spoonful of sugar water to see if he needed a little pep back in his step.
So after my morning meeting I went outside and he'd fallen to the ground (!!!!) and was buzzing like crazy on the patio stones we use as a walkway and I started
panicking, y'know?
because he didn't look like he could fly and I was worried that the little dude was a gonner, so I picked a big leaf off the raspberry bush and waited while he took his time slowly climbing on, buzzing with stress the whole time
and he was stressed and I was stressed for him, but I picked up the leaf and moved it to a safe place where the dude who comes to mow our lawn wouldn't step on him or jostle him while he got his strength back. I moved the bee/leaf to the deck and put it on the table so the leaf dipped gently in a little container of sugar water I'd made.
The bee was buzzing and scared and obviously not cool what what was going on, so I backed off and went inside and
well, my day kinda went off the rails from there.
Somehow I managed to pop both tires on my bike on the way to an onboarding meeting with a new client which meant that on top of walking my flat-ass bike home in +30C heat with a backpack with a laptop on my back, I also needed to bum a ride there from Rose (bless her heart) who came and picked me up and
(seriously, bless her heart)
after our meeting drove me to The Exchange with my two popped tires so I could get them fixed at Natural Cycle and,
wouldn't you know it
right after the guy working there told me he could fix them, and I'd sat down on the (socially distanced) patio at Amsterdam Tea Room and the sun was shining and my
jaw, hands, shoulders, heart all started to relax, after I ordered a fancy negroni and breathed a big sigh
my phone rang and it was the guy from Natural Cycle saying that, oh shit, his coworker had just sold the last two tire tubes in my size and he didn't know how long it'd be until they got more. He suggested I call around and see who had anything and warned me that because of the pandemic everyone was low on supplies because
(who'd have guessed)
during a time when people don't want to be in close quarters together everyone wants to be on a bike.
(Which as a cycling advocate I love and and happy for
don't get me wrong, but
this timing really sucks.)
My fancy negroni came and I sipped it as slowly as I could while stress-calling other bike shops around town and trying to play it cool. I cancelled my evening plans and considered the cost of cabbing my tires up past Polo Park and realized
wait, dummy, you have friends
so I did something I almost never do: I called a friend and asked for help.
I was lucky! Tineke (bless her heart) picked me up and not only drove me to the other bike place, but stayed with me and made me laugh and cry from laughing and hugged me and drove me to the liquor mart after so I could buy some wine to decompress with at home after my stressful day and
brightened my day with her sweet heart and soul.
I'm so lucky to have the friends I do.
When I finally got home John helped me put my new tires on my bike and we ordered sushi and cracked the wine I'd bought with Tineke. After we'd finished getting the tires in place and reattaching the chain and adding my new streamers
(yes I'm a 32 year old woman with streamers on her salmon pink bike)
I walked my bike into the front yard to take it around to the shed and remembered
oh, my little bee pal
who of course as long gone.
Buddy was just going through a tough time, but he managed to pick himself up and go back out into the world fuelled by the sugar water and the kindness of others
and
y'know
I get that.
