Sunday in the park

It was cold and rainy yesterday. Anna, Thomas and I had wanted to go to war memorial park and I was wondering if we should change our plans. But I thought, screw it, let’s first go to lunch and see how things turn out. We had a very pleasant lunch at Beanheart’s and got into an interesting discussion of paper maps vs. GPS. It was a generational split.
As we sat there, it looked as if the sun was coming out so we decided to head for the park. As soon as we stepped outside, the sun disappeared again. So, screw it again, we decided to go anyway.  We caught the bus and found the park all right. As we started to walk around, we noticed that the lake was still frozen. Holy crap, it’s almost May. The park contains not only a lake, but an extensive collection of soviet military weapons. There is also a memorial area with the names of all the soldiers from Kazan who died in WWII. It was interesting to see that even here the names of the Tatar soldiers  were written in Tatar and the names of the soldiers with a russian background were written in Russian.
When I got home I had a message from the colleague who’s going to do the bike lesson with me that she and the two other guys could do it on Tuesday. Yikes. So I spend the evening going over the materials and planning the lesson because it’s got to follow specific guidelines. I’m thinking at least it doesn’t leave me much time to get nervous about it. So today it snowed and the colleague said it was going to be like this tomorrow too. Let’s postpone until Wednesday. Ok. It worked for Sonia, who’s recording the whole thing, so now I’ve got an extra day to go over stuff. It’s a lot of material. And boy, am I glad I told them to bring helmets. None of them was planning to, and the colleague from work doesn’t even have one! I just hope the guy from school who promised to find me a third helmet thinks about it. Yikes, all the little piddling things I have to remember. Like duct tape, in case someone has a lose pant leg. I have to tape it so it doesn’t get in the chain. And remember to look over the shoulder. And remember to give the hand signal. And, and, and.
Cross your fingers that it all works out.