And just because I want a bike - does not mean I will be eating granola

My mother bought Isaiah Sender a bike when he spent his first summer holiday with his grandparents in the Maritimes two years ago. I knew she bought him a "decent" bike but I had no idea how decent was 'decent' until when my cousin carried it down from the east coast to our home.

Let me put it this way. She bought him the Harley Davidson of bicycles. Even the guy in the specialty bike shop who put the bike back together for us was purring under his breath that this would be the bike he would buy if only he won the lottery. No wonder Isaiah Sender had such a hissy fit to get this bike back. His grandparents are divorcing and he did not want to risk having the bike included as property under divisible family assets.

Great bike. He actually let me ride it. I have not ridden a bike since I was 12 and let me tell you – it is true. Once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget, even if it is 33 years later. Now I want a bike but not like his. His is too complex. I want one of those vintage one-speed ladies bikes so I can ride it to work in my skirts and not worry about my skirt or dress being caught in the chain or the back wheel. Oh, and I want a basket in the front for when I stop at the grocery store on my way home for when I need to pick-up a few things. I want fenders on both the front and back wheels so my clothes will not be covered in mud or sprayed with water when I ride it in the rain.

When the children were young, they all learned to ride and had bikes but once they got to a certain age, we stopped buying replacement bikes for them. It just was too dangerous for them to be out and about downtown without us on their bikes. By the time, the children were finally old enough to ride their bikes without us; it meant they were too old to ride on the sidewalk and needed to ride on the road. Ride on the road, as in - with all the crazy people who believe the rules of the road are only applicable to some unknown "others" residing in Uganda or some such place like that. You have no idea the kind of graphic nightmare images, which have flashed steadily before my eyes every time one of them suggested I buy them a bike.

I was talking to Montana (who had a turn on Isaiah Sender's bike too) about my wanting to get a bike – a one speed vintage one to carry me about the downtown where I live. He thinks it is a great idea. In fact, he thinks it is such a great idea that he wants a man's vintage one speed bike too. He wants something he can easily fix and not have to worry about stripping gears, brakes, or not working properly in the rain. Now the big hunt is on to find two vintage bikes to outfit the two of us.

So why is it okay now for all of us to ride in the road? I think it is because I have slowly been undergoing a de-sensitization process. It started two years ago when Montana insisted on taking the streetcar and subway by HIMSELF, as in TOTALLY ALONE, to Rosedale for his guitar lesson once a week. You have no idea how many times I have seen him swarmed, beaten, thrown into the face of an oncoming subway train and left broken beyond repair. Did I mention mugged and left bleeding out on the street for dead? Of course, then there are the visions which plague me when he is two minutes late coming through the door. I imagine either terrorists or mechanical failure of some kind has blown up the subway. G'd bless parents in Israel. I don't know how they manage to get through the day. All I know is - I couldn't do it without being heavily medicated with heavy-duty anti-psychotic medication.

Then there was Isaiah Sender leaving my roof to sleep under my mother's for two months. I finally learned to get the panic attacks under control this summer. The panic attacks did not go away completely but I did learn how to master them enough so I can function.

More recently, there was the Last Amazon's first date….she thinks it was a bigger dealer for her date than the rest of us, but trust me when I say the boys and I truly suffered. Well, we suffered until she ditched the cowardly lion date and came home early. She refuses to go on another date until she is at university and living in residence – as in - far away from us but that's okay because I didn't like that boy anyway. I did ask the Last Amazon if she wanted a bike too. Apparently, she has no desire to drive a bike but a Lexus would do. I told her not to quit her part-time job at the bakery