Certain graces

So it's been almost three months now since I started work again. I still really miss Chloe during the day, what can I say. She's coming up with new things daily, and she's just fun to be with. But otherwise, my work is progressing. Oddly, the skills I picked up 15 years ago working in biotech before going to grad school and now the corner stone of my work. Watch out what oddball things you pick up in life, they might become hugely important later.
I've experimented with all the various forms of transportation to and from work now, and I mean all. The free Duke buses to and from East Campus, which live live near but requires a 15 minute walk to, and then as Mike put it, you feel like you're back in the bus to high school, not just because of the ridership but also because these are old Mayflower buses from the 50s. There's the DATA public bus, $1 per ride, 2 minutes from home to bus stop, gets you to the foot of the hospital, runs on time and everything. There's driving, which I do when we take Emmett to chemo, but the parking is clear across campus from the end of town we live in, which means a 2-mile commute becomes a 6-mile one.
And then there's biking, which wins hands down. 15 minutes flat. Good old fresh air. I was very reluctant at first, no bike lanes here, and then there were them thar hills. Now that I've worked it out to the same finesse as my bike commute in good old Davis, I know the treacherous potholes and the tight squeezes. Davis is flat as a pancake, and back there I knew well the 3% grade from home to just past Valley Oak Elementary School and the 15% grade for 10 yards to get over the railroad tracks just before the co-op. Here it's a whole new board game, real relief as they say. So I've found there is a grace to biking over hills, the grace is, once you are over them, you can stop pedalling and just coast for a while, a good while, re-oxygenate your muscles, which actually is easier than a flat-out 2-mile sprint.