Tough day

I was sooo looking forward to my bike ride after my job search today. I changed, stretched, gathered all my gear/needs and headed down to the bike area. The last ride I had was Saturday and it was awesome! I got all my work done and still got a ride in before the rain hit. In fact, I saw the weather changing as I was out and having a great ride but know Portland - near - the - river - weather well enough to know to head closer to home. I did just under 20 miles and got upstairs in time to see the rain start. Wow, was it stormy too! The next day when I walked to the library there was a lot of debris on the sidewalk from the trees in my 'hood. Anyway, the bike area is a separate locked area in the gated parking area of my apartment building. The gate was open so I thought the manager was working around the property and left it open. As I got closer I got a bad feeling in my stomach. The gate was open but the gate padlock was still on. There are several bikes in the area, mostly kids, but mine was gone. Nick's bike was next to where mine had been but my lock had been cut and my bike was gone. I was not prepared for this.

My bike is not just transportation to me. It is a personal part of me as it is also my sanity keeper. I had my personalized Spanish NY license plate (Yo quiero Nuevo York and Marta underneath) I got on my one and only (so far) trip to the east coast on it as well as the bike bag I got when I started biking for sport when Nick was just over a year old. What I'm saying is it was as big apart of me as improv, knitting, my laugh and being a Podcast Diva.

I went back up to my apartment and got my camera. I took pictures of everything before unlocking Nick's and taking it up with me. I know the Portland Police are under-staffed and take a report over the phone so I wouldn't be destroying any evidence. I wanted to keep at least one bike. I then called the manager but got the pager. I didn't figure I would hear back anytime soon. Then I called the non-emergency number for the Police. I was told it could be up to four hours before an officer would call me back. It was actually just over two hours. After doing everything I could figure to do I went to my computer and saw I had e-mails. There was a bulletin from Jersey Todd. I responded to it and told him what had happened. It really hit me that my bike was gone and I started crying like a baby. Thank you so much J.T. for "talking me through" the worst of my emotions. P.Ken got it by phone just before you as well as in phone text. Thanks guys for helping me, I mean it. Ken actually responded to my bring wine and chocolate text! He never listens to that!

The hopeful ending to this is Nick is trying to sell his iPod on Craigslist to buy me a new bike! The renters deductible is $250 so. . . . I am fortunate even when bad things happen.