Today is dedicated to the zipper

For all things humble are on my mind.

I started my day most lovely, with a morning ride to collect my possible badging. Consider it collected.

Sweetly, the lady at Doree Embroidery (who was able to deal with my request under impossibly short timeframes) took one look at me this morning with my pink hipster grips, my pink jacket and bike helmet and said – “I think I know your order”. And so she did.

I was buoyed up big time by such a stellar start to the day. Pretty much happy as Larry by 7.34am. Had breakfast with another sponsor and was off for a big day at work.

Then, unfortunately, I broke my favourite spotty dress by virtual of a zipper fail.

Consider this wise information from Wikipedia:

A zipper costs relatively little, but if it fails, the garment may be unusable until the zipper is repaired or replaced—which can be quite difficult and expensive.

As I sat at my desk this morning and discovered (sometime around 8.45am) that the whole back half of my body was exposed to my colleagues, I can tell you this information is very true. Lucky I have half my wardrobe under my desk.

At this point, I wished I’d had a Xena.

For those who didn’t watch the series – and I guilty must count myself among them, safely assume that Xena is a warrior princess and that she is a warrior princess in the way that Zoe means warrior princess.

I mention Xena, not because I know all that much about her, but because Zeta (no, I am not working through the Greek alphabet here) wanted to nominate her sponsorship in the name of Xena. And I have been thinking about this a great deal in the past few weeks. Xena that is.

I believe Zeta/Katherine may kind of have been joking a bit about her nomination, trying to be light-hearted with a stranger that she has only met briefly. It’s a bit weird when some helmet fan hits you up for advice about Cairns and then donations for sleeve decoration. But I take some serious time thinking about these things and I don’t know if I myself haven’t taken great heart and stock in really feisty, brave, maybe a bit pop-schlocky, cultural representations on television before. I’m thinking Super Gran. I could overthink this a bit more, but it’s late in the day, and I wanted just to say – although this is a different kind of inspiration from some of our previous footy sponsors, I have certainly remembered a few fun, brave, silly moments watching television heroines that made me feel good and I think that I can understand a certain respect for Ms Warrior Princess.

Getting to know people is a funny thing. When you are in a new place, you really have to make an effort to put yourself out there, so it’s nice when there’s some reciprocal kindness. Brisbane is actually full of people that I have found to be really friendly. Zeta is one of them.

And by very strange coincidence – she is playing football tonight with Emma at the Giffin Park in Coorparoo.

Shall I see you there? I’ll be riding around looking like a dill in pink. With smashing great lights.

You know you want to.

Oh yeah, and zippers. See how it all fits in.

And for those who might have forgotten why we are here.