Last night I caught Ken looking at motorcycle boots online. I can only imagine what he's up to.
Life with Ken is hardly ever dull. He has his own way of looking at things, his own way of communicating. We all do, but I sometimes wonder if Ken grew up in even remotely the same world that most of the rest of us did. A friend of mine has suggested that the way he relates to the world is similar to the way one might expect a five-year-old alien to relate. For example, Ken claims to never have eaten a grapefruit until he met me. There are so many examples of this odd lack of "normal" experiences that I can't even think of any more right now. They usually don't even register these days...
A month ago Ken started dragging me around town to look at bicycle helmets. He wanted to try them on to see if helmets he had seen on ebay would fit. Ken doesn't have a bike. I left my bike in Virginia for my mom. There are consequently no bikes in our household, so I could only imagine that Ken was considering buying one. I asked Ken if he was planning on getting a bike, and he told me that he had no intention of doing so any time soon. Window shopping for bicycle helmets without plans to own a bike was therefore a bit strange, but it certainly wasn't outside the realm of normal things for Ken.
About two weeks later I came home, and Ken met me excitedly at the door. "Look at my new bicycle shoes!" he exclaimed, holding a box that had arrived in the mail. "Oh, those are nice," I replied. And went about my usual evening activities. I didn't even ask.
The next day a helmet was sitting on the kitchen table. "Look! They match!" Ken remarked. "That's nice, honey." And I went about my usual evening activities.
The next week I went out of town for field work; and when I came back, a pair of spandex bicycle shorts had been added to the pile. I draw the line at spandex shorts with padding. "Honey? Are these
your new shorts?" I asked. "Yes! Do you like them?" was the reply. And then Ken informed me that he was going to ride to work the next day.
I had a quick flash of the following image in my head: Ken in padded, shiny black spandex, wearing his black and red helmet and black and red shoes, riding to work in his Toyota Tacoma. There had to be a better explanation than this, or the winter was bound to be a long one. Soon Ken retrieved a bicycle from the arctic entry. It was our friend "Skookum's" bike, and I breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, you're going to ride Skookum's bike." Ken looked at me like I was crazy. "What did you think I was going to do with all of this stuff?" Silly me.
Never mind that it was mid-August by the time the bicycle stash was purchased and the borrowed bike was ready to ride. Snow will likely fall by the end of this month, but I won't be surprised to see Ken riding at 10F above. He's odd like that.
The bike is stashed in our arctic entry/laundry room/tool shed/plant storage area for the winter. It's getting pretty crowded in there. I thought I was safe, but then I saw
this:
Like I said, life is hardly ever dull.
