OK, you had to be there, but let me explain. There are certain rituals, things that you do on a regular basis, and sometimes you start doing them in a regular way, and that regular way picks up meaning that is entirely out of proportion to normalcy. Let me explain.

Wednesday is Garbage Night. After dinner, my son and I have to take out the garbage. Three bins; one for recycling, one for compost, one regular. They’re placed at the end of the driveway (naturally enough) and, since we ride Thursday mornings, need to be placed such that we can thread our way past the two cars (one dead, one active), the bins, and out into the street.  At some point, instead of placing the bins to the side, they each commanded their own special place. That special place meant approximately equidistant. And last night equidistant became debated more intensely than whether a stem is straight or not, eventually ending up with me bringing out a tape measure to make sure they were exactly right. And I was correct, Kevin was wrong. He had the right-most two bins offset 3/4 of an inch closer than the left.

All was right with the world, until we find out that my wife had to leave the house (in her car) before we’d get back from our ride, so we had to move them all off to one side, with no special attention paid to their arrangement because… because there just wasn’t much you could do with 3 bins and maybe 6 or 7 feet of space.

We should have left them where they belonged and had my wife move them to leave the house.

The result of having near-perfect Feng Shui and then deliberately destroying it was staggering. Fog moved in on our morning ride, we saw a Raven flying off with a squirrel (Seriously! Strangest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe just a couple of feet over our heads.), and Kevin had a rippin’ seizure midway through Huddart Park. Put him on the ground for several minutes, got un-needed attention from park staff, and Kevin never really got back to normal. Even hurt his shoulder a bit somehow during the seizure.

As a result, we shorted the ride, skipping the West Old LaHonda section on a day when it must have been just incredible on that side of the hill, with the tips of the hills pushing up through the fog.

Don’t take Feng Shui for granted. I sure won’t anymore!  –Mike–