Adventures in Biking; Road Kill; Adventures in Walking; Road Kill

So yesterday I decided it would be a bright idea to bike down to 3 Road and Westminister Highway to go to work. And it was, and I did. Was actually somewhat faster than taking the bus sometimes is. Woo hoo. I even enjoyed the light sprinkle of rain that fell just as I left for home, reinvigorating.

Unfortunately about 2 minutes from home I was just going into a left turn when Mr. Kickstand decided to ruin my ride by dropping down and locking. This gave my bike a solid pivot to turn on without slowing down much at all. Yanking me and my bike around until we are actually almost 90 degrees to my direction of travel, this ensured that my bike and I perfectly entered the stage of bike riding known as "falling down with extreme prejudice". Luckily this was on a side street, in my own neighbourhood. On a main road I might of been street pizza.

Leaping from my bike like a gazelle I actually entirely cleared it, sailing past the tumbling aluminum and fibre glass. Unfortunately for me, this is the point where my expertise lets me down for I have no idea what to do when you are in the air flying along at 25 km/h and are about to be reintroduced to the ground. The concept of a break roll or running my legs like in Beavis and Butthead do America occured to me, but I have no training in how to do a roll and I was basicly halfway through my flight when running occured to me.

So, I did what came naturally, slam into the ground and let my tender flesh absorb the impact and all the shredding force of concrete (which at those speeds, is more like a grater than anything else, the principal behind leather jackets and pants for motorcycle riders it that leather stretches instead of tearing, so when you fall it shreds instead of you) which promptly give me a nasty case of road rash on my left leg and the palms of both hands.

After that I go home and wash all the crud in my wounds out, I make myself a delcious dinner of soft tacos, then decide to go for a walk that night again after obsessively playing Soduku all day. It makes me feel smart.

On my walk I go down Steveston Hwy, down the dike, through Steveston village, and just up 1 Road because it was almost midnight and I had class today. Plus the following.

But around two thirds of my walk done, I think my footsteps startle a racoon out of the tall grass of the verge on Chatam, or it just ran out for no reason. Out of the grass and under the tires of a passing Ford Focus. The car stopped and came around, but just a glance told me that the racoon was still alive, but wouldn't be that way for long. It was spasming violently all over the place and leaving a huge smear of racoon blood behind. I moves around 3 meters across the road in its spasms until they stopped and it merely twitched. It was wasted. I got close enough to identify it as a racoon. I callously declare to the driver who came back and asked if it was a cat, "It's dead. It just doesn't know it yet."-and continue my walk.

What would you do if you hit an animal with your car? If it was instantly killed? Leave it there? What if it is still alive and only slightly hurt, leave it to fend for itself? What if, like in this case, it is so badly hurt that it is surely dead? As far as I can tell, the Focus went back and watched this racoon die. Like a relative at a hospital, impotent yet giving witness to the final moments.

This is something I should ask my YD instructor about. See what you are suppose to do. It isn't like we have that many carrion eating creatures around Richmond, that racoon is probably gonna decompose on the street for the night, or get picked up in a shovel and chucked in the garbage can.