I was in Vancouver last week for work and my brothers’ graduation. It was actually a fantastic trip and a nice journey down memory lane.

Case in point: Bert and I were in the grocery store when this woman I totally didn’t recognize suddenly said hello, hugged me and told me I absolutely had to stop by as soon as I finished my shopping to see Amy and her new baby.

I rushed home and the first thing I asked my Mom was, ‘do you know an Amy who recently had a baby?’

You see I had committed to visiting this woman’s house but I still had no idea who she was. Turns out that she’s the mom of my very best friend from grade school - we hadn’t seen each other in years.

I headed off, not entirely convinced that I was going to the right place, leaving strict instructions that I was to be called an hour later and told to come home, just in case things were awkward. An hour later when the phone rang, I answered with an, ‘Aww Mom, can’t I stay over at Amy’s for another ten minutes.’

Amy (who apparently goes by ‘Amanda’ these days) and I spent the entire time re-hashing memories that I didn’t even know I had; such as:

1. We would always run past the park on our street as fast as we could because we were convinced that ’something’ was going to jump out and get us

2. In grade five we undertook a month long project to rate all of the boys in our class on the basis of looks, sense of humor, niceness and dancing style

3. I used to want to be a farmer and raise race horses

4. For my ninth birthday I had a cabbage patch kid party and everyone brought their favorite doll - my Mom even got cabbage patch kid cups, plates and napkins

5. When we were thirteen we went for a hike and ended up getting hopelessly lost - our parents were furious when we returned home two hours late, soaking wet because we’d had to wade along the beach at high tide.

On the way to work today I saw these two guys riding bicycles along the street.

They both had proper bike shorts with plenty of toosh-comforting padding.

They both had matching jerseys (the polka-dot jersey from the tour de France - for the best climber I think).

They both had those bike gloves with the ends of the fingers missing (red to match their jerseys).

They were both wearing helmets that looked like some miracle feat of engineering with half an ounce of plastic, foam and fiberglass shaped into something adequate enough to stop their heads from going smoosh if they fall.

They were both leaning intently over their racing bike handle bars maximizing their aerodynamics through a properly arched back.

They were both riding folding bikes.

You know those things with wheels only slightly bigger than the ones on our 2 year old upstairs neighbor’s tricycle.

The whole thing seemed so ridiculous - I mean if you’re going to get all of the gear you should at least have a full-sized bike with peddle cranks longer than 2 inches and three whole gears to play with.

But hey, what do I know? I bike to work on an aluminum/carbon fiber race bike - wearing a skirt.