rented bicycles

I woke up Jacob yesterday, after sleeping for about an hour after his overnight shift, gently, asking how long he would need to get ready, that we had about half an hour before we had to leave. We were going to go meet my mom and sister for brunch in SoHo before going to Governor's Island for a day of bike riding. My mom was going to be visiting for the day and Jacob had been wanting to meet my family for a while. He said he needed half an hour. I told him that that's how long he had and so he had to get up. We spent some time on our hair, put on outfits that we hoped looked cute, popped some guarana and headed off to meet them.

It was a lovely, sunny day, hotter than I had anticipated and we sat in front of the Jane, waiting for them to arrive. I should have felt more nervous I think, but I didn't feel nervous at all. It seemed very natural, which I guess is the way it should feel, and so that it did is something I should feel good about it. I'm not sure. Either way, it was the first time I had introduced a boy to my family, and it went off really well and non-awkwardly. I am thinking the couple of Bloody Marys I had at brunch certainly helped with this.

At Governor's Island, we ended up meeting up with my uncle and cousin as well, who had had similar plans to bike around that day. I had never been to this island before, had thought it was larger than it was. It takes about ten minutes or so to do a bike loop around the entire island, and after a few of these loops, I began to get bored of the same scenery and also tired of the feeling that I was going around in circles. Jacob and I got off our bikes and I decided to go in some circles of habit that I at least enjoy and ordered some beers. We sat in the sun at Water Taxi Beach, imported sand underneath our shoes and a preponderance of yellow jackets flying around our faces. A boy was nearby digging in the sand and pulled up a baby turtle. It was definitely not native to the island, to this area. It seemed like one of the ones you will see for sale on side streets in Chinatown. I imagined someone had bought it there, for some reason brought it here, got tired of it, and abandoned it on this island. This little kid was really happy about the find, sadly for the turtle. He buried it in the sand. The turtle would burrow out. He would rebury it. It would try to escape and he would grab it and carry it around in the sand in his excitable, shaking hands, a little giant, stomping around on small villagers beneath him, oblivious.

The sun became more and more pressing. The consumption of beer may have had something to do with this.

Eventually, we all met up again, talked about the yellow jackets and observed the sad relationship between this boy and the turtle. The boy's dad put the turtle in a tupperware container and then tossed the container in a giant Wilson golf bag he for some reason was carrying around. He biked off, the bag bouncing around on his back, the turtle probably doing the same, a sad, short life ahead of it. We boarded the ferry back to Manhattan, rode the subway together for a while, and parted ways at 14th Street.

I did in fact have strep throat and am still in the tail end of this infection, my throat still swollen, but only slightly. The sun is shining. I have this day off and am going to go to the gym and run and look in some furniture stores and see if I can find a cute little kitchen table to place next to my recently cleaned kitchen windows so I can eat there (and no longer on my couch) and maybe even write there, but definitely sit there and look out on to the green that grows in my backyard.