Suddenly I was riding a road bike– actually, before there was any riding, there was some preparation.  I was with a group of other riders, and there was a particular guy who was responsible for helping me get ready.  I learned that there was going to be a hill-climb portion of this ride, and it was going to be muddy on the trail.  That made me leery because I knew I would be riding a road bike which had the narrow tires without tread.  I envisioned getting to a section where I could get stuck easily.  I brought up that issue with the guy and his reply was something generic, like “Just don’t worry about it.”

So then I was actually riding, and I spent a few moments getting comfortable on the bike.  I got my toes snugly into the toe-cages, which allowed me to put some good force on the cranks on the up-strokes as well as the down-strokes– that’s a big efficiency pick-up, which comes in huge on longer rides, especially rides with climbs.  Once I got the locomotion going I considered my overall fitness level.  It was in the back of my mind that there was doubt about my strength or stamina since I hadn’t ridden for a while, but I honestly felt really good.  I felt I could go at a pretty good speed without it sapping my energy, so I sped up a bit and passed a few riders.  Then I quickly arrived at a gradual incline which then became steeper suddenly as the street met a cross-street and plateaued.  It took a bit more effort to get up the last part of the incline, so I stood on the pedals instead of just sitting in the saddle in order to get enough leverage, but it worked well. Now everyone was gathered in this spot.

I was expecting to get going again soon, but instead the focus shifted to this particular object that was like a small crafted model of a traditional Asian house which was like a cube in its proportions.  It was mostly the same color, a beige/tan/brown which probably was intended to look like wood, but the material seemed to be more like enamel in its texture.  The idea became about placing this piece into a designated spot inside of a box.  The box was suddenly there, which looked similar to a wicker chest, made of some tightly woven natural material, and was close in size to a large shoe box.  It opened by lifting the top lid, which was on a hinge.  I saw inside that there was a single partition dividing the space into two square sections.  The house would have fit perfectly into either side, but I seemed to suggest a preference for the right side.  So the focus was to get that done, and then it was done.

Then there was a transition and I just recall being inside a room, playing ‘catch’ with my sister with a baseball.  The glove I was using was a floppy catcher’s mitt, and I struggled to get my thumb properly into its slot at first.  I could manipulate the mitt well-enough, but it wasn’t optimal, so I mentioned to my sister to please bring the catcher’s mitt I used back in little-league, as it was probably still a better fit than this one, but I just had to ‘make-do.’  Even after I got my thumb into the slot properly, it was still a bit difficult to control because the material was flimsy and seemed over-sized.  It only worked well when the ball was caught very centrally.  If the ball was caught too far out in the webbing, then the mitt just lost its shape and spilled the ball.  Then my mom was there and in some pissy mood about some girl I was dating — like I had invited a girl to come around later to join us, but since my mom wasn’t pleased with me dating her she expressed something about not being happy that this girl would be coming over.

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