Weekend

Friday night I took it easy. Some friends went out to the bars but I decided to stay in, drink a few beers, and watch TV. I have been spending a lot of money so a night in sounded like a good idea. I talked to Kay that afternoon and told her to be ready for a bike ride Saturday morning at 10am. I know it's early, but neither of us sleep-in much.

Saturday morning I got the Ducati out of the garage and after a lot of pleading, swearing and dirty-talk I finally got it started (like Italian women, Italian motorcycles are very beautiful, but very tempermental and run extremely hot). Kay was staying at a friend's house watching their dogs, so I rode out to Alexandria and picked her up. Kay had never been to Annapolis so my plan was to take her there for the afternoon.

Annapolis was a great time. We rode around the town for a little while then stopped and had lunch at one of the spots on the harbor. After lunch we toured the USNA campus and took in the sights.

At 4pm we decided to head back into the city. I started the bike but it stalled twice, then it made an awful buzzing noise when I tried to start it again. Fuck. I took off the seat, and raised the tank to expose the battery. The positive terminal on the battery had melted and the wire was dangling. This was not good. I was proably 40 miles from the nearest place that would sell a battery for that bike, but that didn't matter because there was no way it would have a charged battery for me at that hour of the day (it takes 6 hours to charge the battery). Basically, we were fucked. I took out my tool pouch and disconnected the battery, which had started smoking. I was thinking "You know what would be awesome, if my bike caught fire right here on the street, just a few feet from multi-million dollar yachts and hundreds of people". Long story short, I used the pliers to mash the nut for the wire into the melted terminal post and gingerly rewired it back into the bike. I put the battery back in the cradle, tightened everything up and hit the starter. There were lots of sparks, so I gave a few screws a couple more turns and hit the starter again. It turned over and I cranked the throttle wide open. Blue flames shot a foot out of the exhaust pipes, scaring the shit out of half a dozen people on the sidewalk (yes, this amuses me). I put the seat back on the bike, Kay and I threw on our helmets, and we got the hell out of there.

The ride home was a little tense for me because I wasn't sure exactly what would happen if the positive wire shook lose from the battery. I knew that the bike would lose power, but I didn't know if the bike would sputter and slow or if the back tire would lock up (which is not a good thing). On Sunday I tested this on my Honda and found that the back tire does in fact lock up when you turn off the power. Ignorance is bliss, I guess, so we cruised home at a moderate 75mph.

Back at my house Kay and I had a very sweaty session before trading the bike for my car and driving back to Alexandria. That night we went out in Clarendon and I spent the night with Kay at our friend's house. They have a really nice back yard so we sat outside and drank some wine, then went to bed in the guest room. Kay was a little less inhibited, probably because my tenant wasn't below us, so the sex was great.