Possessed

Yes, I rode to work today.

And . . .

The temptation is to think the Kymco is possessed. Last night I was on cloud nine. I had a new battery. The bike was riding fine. I was looking forward to riding it to work today and taking my time on the ride home. Everything went according to plan until I pushed the start button. It turned over immediately, the engine started right up, but the starter just kept cranking away. I turned off the key. The engine stopped running, but the starter just kept going and going and going. After two trips back upstairs to get the right tool, I finally got the battery disconnected. The cranking was pretty anemic by the time I got the battery out. I wasn't sure how much the noise stopping was my doing or the battery going dead.

If I could have figured out how to call in sick I think I would have. It had taken lots of cognitive energy to figure out taking out the battery. I was pretty confused. All I knew to do was push the Kymco back in the garage and take off on the Symba. Of course, since I leave insanely early for work I was at my desk a good twenty minutes early. After I took off my gear I went I and did my best to explain to my boss what had happened. He told me I could leave if I needed to. I told him when I got to a place where I was able to make a choice I would let him know.

By four o'clock it was pretty obvious I was going to make it through the whole day. I was even decently productive. I left work with the okay to take tomorrow off and I probably will. We left it this way. If I'm not there I'm taking the day off. I can, also, go in late. We'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow. Often the day after an extremely cognitive challenging day brings bone weary fatigue and cognitive fragility. We'll see.

After work, Mike T. came over and diagnosed the problem. Some of you probably already have it figured out. The solenoid failed. Mike says its the first time he'd had one fail in the "on" position instead the "off" position like the Symba's did recently. I know it sure would have been much quieter and a lot less stressful if it had been a "normal" failure. I suspect the neighbors would have liked it much better, too.

Mike is 95% sure he has a new solenoid at the shop. I'll give him a call tomorrow. He's at the shop alone, but is willing to come back out to my place after he closes the shop and stick the new solenoid in if he has it. If he doesn't have it, it will be next week.

Mike still assures me the bike is not bewitched or a lemon. He tells me solenoid failure is a common malady and probably not tied to the other issues I've had. I'm really trying to believe him.

How am I doing? I'm still experiencing some aphasia when speaking. As usual it doesn't seem to effect my writing, but I guess you are a better judge of that than I. If it is just me and the cat I'm experiencing myself as 100%, but I struggled to get the words out when I was with Mike. I suspect I will struggle some when Heather gets home.

Overall I must say it was a very successful day. There was a time not so long ago I would have been rendered completely helpless by the events of the day. Instead, I took a battery out of a scooter, worked eight hours, met with Mike, and wrote a blog. Yay!

• 37F/3C with a few clouds for the ride Downtown.
• 69F/21C and a wee bit cloudy for the home ride.