Bike Ride

I found out yesterday somewhat accidentally that I live about a six mile bike ride from my Dad's house, where his widow lives.  I mean I knew that the woman lives just down the peninsula from me, but, by car, the trip seems longer than it does, I've found out, by bike.  I live in a city created out of landfill.  She lives on an extension of that landfill.  Again, I hadn't put it together until deciding to ride along the huge Oracle compound just across the lagoon from my neighborhood.  Beyond the Oracle offices and Ellison's Team Oracle racing boat are a series of interconnected neighborhoods that stretch on into Redwood Shores, a new-ish division of Redwood City, where the widow lives.

This bad-boy is docked by my house.

 I took my bike into Dad's self-contained neighborhood of tan town-homes with Spanish tile roof-tops, intending to do a 'drive by' on his house.  I hadn't been to his place since the awkward memorial dinner of 2003 where his widow's kids thought it all right to spend a majority of the evening cheering the baseball game on TV.  I'm crying into my plate of pasta while you lot are screaming 'Allll riiiiighttt!!!' every few minutes.  Thanks, dicks. 

The only thing distinguishing Dad's beige home from the others on the street was a 'welcome to my home!' wooden sign that the widow had affixed to the front door.  Dad would not have hung that sign, I found myself thinking as I pedaled by.  I thought, too, about the garden that was left to wither after Dad died.  I was reminded of Basil & Rathbone, Dad's two, small terriers that the widow had put down because she claimed she couldn't take care of them.  I thought, too, how I doubt I'll ever go by this house again, an invite from the widow notwithstanding.