Bill Murray jinxed my bike.

I wanted to head out to Lawrenceville today to make two stops. The first was Crystal Bead Bazaar and the other was La Gormandine for a lunch of croissant. It rained intermittently, so the rain cape was taken off and put back on several times. It was about 34 degrees.
I stopped a few times to adjust the mirror and then when I made a tight turn, my knee hit it and it came off the post. Jeez.
I was making a tight turn because I had noticed a Blek le Rat style Bill Murray stenciled bit of guerrilla art. I needed to stop and get a shot of it. I love Bill Murray, this was Groundhog Day.  Groundhog Day was shot in Pittsburgh. I was just watching a clip of Bill Murray destroying a bike in 'Rushmore' just a few hours ago. This was an omen.

"This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather"

As soon as I left Bill, the rear tire was flat. 
Seriously.  
I blame Bill Murray for my flat tire.

But I was glad. It wasn't terribly cold, I had plenty of time and I wasn't going to be holding up anyone with my tediously slow never-changed-a-flat noobery.
I also had great place to change the flat:

Several passers by asked if I needed help or if I had 'everything I needed'. I was good, I told them. I got the tube out, found no sharp objects where the puncture was, replaced the tube and filled it. Something was very wrong though. I'd been sold the wrong size tube. I'd made sure that the person that I bought them from looked at my tires to make sure I was buying the correct size. Not happy.
Just then, a gentleman dressed head to toe in camouflage, on a tricked out camouflaged tricycle rolled up and didn't even ask if I needed help... he just started helping. At this point, I welcomed it. His name was Ricky. He is an interesting fellow.  He suggested patching the tube with the hole since I didn't have the correct tubes. He was surprised I had my own patch kit and he lamented that most folks don't ride with them. I  realized that for as many times I'd watched YouTube videos of flat changes, it never occurred to me to watch an instructional video of a tire patch. I watched closely and he had it patched in under 5 minutes, inflated too. He made interesting "do-dee-do-dee-dooo" sing-songy noises while he worked.

Here's Ricky's cool ride:

He named his tricycle 'Wolfbane' I believe. Even the cooler on the back is camo-painted.

Before he left, I shook his hand and thanked him profusely. He told me he was on his way to help repair someone's power wheelchair. Ricky's got a lot of karma coming his way.

I debated heading back to the office and abandoning the plans for Lawrenceville, but I forged ahead on a patched tube. I live dangerously.



I happily shopped at the Bead Bazzar for more earring beads and fittings, I'd lost many of my earrings recently when I'd remove a scarf, so I needed supplies to make more earrings.

LaGormandine was closed. Grrrr. Denied ...again.

"Too cold to bake"? You're kidding me, right?