Ride Home 6/3

Stop light at the garage exit still hasn't been fixed and it's still dangerous. Maybe now that Interim Director Bellamy is Director Bellamny, I should write again. It's such a simple fix. I wonder what would happen if I wrote to the ANC. Any chance that an ANC would side with pedestrians, most of whom happen to be students? If anyone lives in ANC 3D/has pull with said ANC, I'd love to talk.
Speaking of "the safety," it's a surreal feeling when you slam on your brakes and your back tire starts skidding. You can feel the bike wobble as it slowly careens to and fro and the bumper of the car in front of you that also stopped short on account of the car in front of it that stopped short to turn left gets closer and you don't really have a plan other than to be pretty certain that you'll probably stop in time and probably won't fall and then the situation just resolves itself and you slow down enough to regain control of the bike and you don't even come to a full stop because the first car completed the turn and the second car kept going.
Saabs! They're from Sweden, land of no ridiculous car trips. And yet, they don't seem to attract the kind of drivers who believe in not driving ridiculously. Perhaps it's just an anomaly. I don't like being passed to closely and I really don't like it when I'm riding in the door zone and I can see a cabbie in the driver's seat and I have no idea whether he's about to open the door. Luckily, he didn't. Really cheesed me off (Prastost?).
From that point forward, I remained cheesed and I biked snitily (not a word). I reactivated the the long dormant Magyar Death Stare and used it amply. I used it at the driver who thought about pulling around me on the too narrow 37th street between T and S. I used it at each and every driver who couldn't keep their cars out of the bike lane on 34th. I've got like 6 feet. You've got the rest. Is it really that hard to keep your car on the left side of a painted white stripe? If so, maybe you shouldn't be driving. My snit reached its apotheosis at the intersection of 34th and Prospect where I watched driver after driver ignore the (far too patiently) waiting pedestrians. I'm not an expert on traffic laws, but I'm pretty sure that pedestrians and cars aren't supposed to alternate at stop signs. I'm fairly certain the pedestrians almost always have the right of way. I can understand why pedestrians don't always assert this right, but anyone who wants to write that "we" all need to follow the laws should save some of their opprobrium for this "crime." I sarcastically clapped at the teenage boy driver of a red Miata convertible when he cut off the woman waiting at the corner to cross. I elected to sarcastically clap because my voice right now, on account of my lingering cold, sounds like a cross between Professor Frink and Kathleen Turner.
I remained pissy for a good part of the rest of my ride. It's pretty counter-productive and stupid and a luxury that I availed myself to keep unbored on a somewhat mundane commute.
The yield from southbound? eastbound? Lee Highway onto Fort Myer is sort of a dangerous place for bike blindness and I urge caution and whatnot if you're biking through there. Likewise, on the turn from Fort Myer to Nash is also a bit harrowing because Fort Myer turns into go-go freeway about there and it's far too difficult for motorists to control their urge to speed. And the hill where Nash meets Wilson and then where Wilson meets Oak isn't totally great for biking either because you can come to a dead stop on an uphill and that's never fun. Some days it's lemonade. Some days it's just lemons.
I stopped at Whole Foods, purveyor of nuts amongst other things to pick up some walnuts for a pesto that we're making this evening. I don't buy pine nuts because they are the same cost per ounce as scandium, a material invented by bicycle companies to convince dilettante roadies to fork over a few  extra thousand dollars. Walnuts in pesto is perfectly nice.
And now to the tale of my comeuppance (Tales of My Comeuppance was the back-up title for this blog) I went to the express check-out and I gave the walnuts to the cashier.   And then I reached in my bag or my wallet. I couldn't find it. It wasn't on top on my clothes. I removed the boat shoes that I brought home from work to wear to maybe volunteer at the Seersucker Social and put them on the floor. Mortifying. I had become everything I hate- the person holding up the grocery line because he doesn't have his shit together. I starting removing articles of clothing (from my bag) and I fumbled around the bottom of the bag and I still couldn't find it. I excused myself from the counter, asking the cashier, who was having a jolly laugh with a coworker about hopefully something else, to put aside my walnuts while I would continue to check for my wallet somewhere I could sit down. I don't know why I was convinced that sitting down was the key to solving all my problems. I chose the bottom few steps of a the near steps to the upstairs dining area (please don't eat in Whole Foods. This makes me sad on the inside) and continue to rifle through a bag that has two (!) pockets- a large area in which I keep everything I schlep daily and a small area in which I keep a frame pump. It was in with the frame pump.
I walked back to the checkout and was handed off to the next available cashier, the one who stands back-to-back with my original guy. I pay $1.93. With a credit card. I say thank you and I shirk away. I made it three steps before she asks me if I wanted my walnuts, holding up the bag. I say thank you and I am grateful that the universe has righted itself by taking me down the appropriate number of pegs. Karma is real. Don't be a jerk.
When I left Whole Foods, I briefly rode behind a man with a child seat on the back of his bike, in which he stowed his u-lock and grocery bags and (please God) not a small child and a man pushing himself along on a razor scooter. There are very few push scooter commuters and I applaud his gumption. Though, if you're choosing between bicycle and scooter, I recommend bicycle because max scooter speed is considerably less than one might imagine.