~ Fifteenth Monthiversary ~

At some point on Friday, while I was at my place of employment, I was proofing an email to verify that it contained none of the snarking attitudes that I was articulating in my head, when the coworkers I share a corner with became excited about the presence of someone in our corner. Given that I inhabit the far corner of our modest corner, my back was to the excitment and I had no clue what was happening behind me. Then I heard something about "pumping our tires" and I turned around to see what was up. It was Josh! At my place of employment! With a bike pump??? The very social coworker seemed to be monopolizing his time (something about making jokes about pumping our tires) and it took me a while to even have an opportunity to inquire about his presence. He wanted to have lunch! With me! And he was going to fix the flat on the tandem so that we could ride it to a park!!! I then escorted him through the building and we toured a conference that was going on and picked up some pens and breath mints the vendors were giving away. It was exciting. Later, when I noticed that it was about time to meet the little whipper-snapper, I discovered a text-message that he had left for me saying "Happy Fifteenth Monthiversary!" I said, "Oh" in a meek voice and my coworker asked what was wrong. "I forgot" I said and she said that she found Josh very cute.

We rode the bike over to Pioneer Square and ate Josh's homemade-by-a-store sandwiches. We sat near the waterwheel, ate, chatted, and engaged in general forms of p.d.a.

When I got off work, Josh and I utilized our gift certificate to the Boise Consumer Co-Op which my friend Devlyn gave to us for Boxing Day. For $25.48 we purchased a breast of chicken breaded with shitaki mushrooms, blue cheese, crackers, spinach dip, and a bottle of taste wine, only $0.48 of which we spent out-of-pocket. It was so delightful that we decided that we should send Devlyn a thank-you note...four months post-receipt. We then inserted our consumer co-op items into our picnic backpack, also a gift from Devlyn, and took off on the tandem.

We rode out to Sandy Pointe Beach (and by "Sandy Point Beach" I mean the nicer beach just south of Sandy Pointe that I don't know the name of) and it was a lovely ride. I caused myself to get a sore throat by blabbing non-stop in a loud voice so that Josh could hear everything that I was saying while dry air was rushing against the back of my throat. Among many of the exciting things we saw on our ride, was a large herd of deer grazing on the alfalfa fields. When we got to "Sandy Pointe Beach", we spread out consumer co-op items on a picnic table and experienced flavors.

Then we tossed the football around for a time and watched the raging waters of the Boise River. Josh also fed some squirrels, because you know they don't get enough food and are just starving. On the ride back, I made it my responsibility to be a photographer for the duration of my time on the rear of the tandem. I had not directed Josh's attention to this, and at some point while I was sitting on the bike, peddling but not holding on at all or watching where we were going (which never happens anyway, since I can't actually see past Josh's back), we started going down a hill relatively fast (relative to our previous pace) and I latched onto my digital camera as though my life depended on it and then proceeded to inform Josh that sometimes I am doing other than paying 100% attention to what I am doing. Most of my photos from this photography experience were kinda blurry which has led me to deduce that taking photographs on the back of a tandem bicycle is the most high quality photography experience one might have.

Posted by jennifer at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)