Ride Home 3/8

Something new on New Mexico today. While I was going down the hill, a car parked on the right decided that it would be cool to pull out without looking and make a u-turn (ok, more like an upside-down j turn) into a driveway. It was one of those "ohmygodpleaseseemebecausei'mnottotallysureicanstop" situations. I was even in the middle of the lane. I don't know it's whether they can't see me (doubtful- my jacket the color of radioactive Big Bird) or they just can't estimate how fast I'm going. Same with a pedestrian today. He chose to run across from the far side of street (and like real run, his speed only inhibited by the fact that he was an older, portly gentleman), so I got to stop at the green in order not to collide with him. And to add insult to, I guess, more insult, one of the pedestrians from the near side of the street started to take a step out in front of me. I think I moderated my indignant "excuse me." Enough, at least.
I saw a guy with a what I think was a combination of a rastafarian knit hat  and a mortar board. I'd love to hear "Pomp and Circumstance" on steel drums.
Biking down the 34th street sometimes bike lane, I thought a lot about the video from last night and couldn't help but frame everything in the context of lagging turn signals and pedestrian-car-cycling conflicts. Georgetown drivers don't exactly live up to Swiss standards.
I decided to avoid the Wilson Boulevard area today on account of the Mardi Gras/St. Patrick's Day Parade (Laissez le shillelagh rouler?) and chose to bike up Lee Highway to Kirkwood Drive. Kirkwood is one of those "secret" bikeways in Arlington that's extremely useful, but I think generally underused. I think that something that the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee could do for an activity/outreach event would be to highlight some of these bikeways in an effort to actually help people plan their commutes or trips to the store. One of the things that stands in the way of people getting on bikes is not actually knowing the best bike route to take. So, they go the way that they would with a car and have truly terrible experiences. Having a bunch of people familiar with the streets and the traffic patterns actually map of people's commutes would be a great service. It's like a living map.
It's International Women's Day today, so I stopped off at the store to pick up some flowers for my favorite international woman, my wife. It's a biggish deal in Hungary, so I figured it'd be a nice thing to remember for once. So, I stopped for flowers and the more romantic gift, beer. I brought them both back in my pannier:

Double smug points!