Ride In 9/6

Circumstances (and an airplane!) might conspire to take me out of town later this week, so I don't want you to get your hopes up (sound of crickets chirping) for a full week of amazing (which would be a first) bike commuter blogging. Also, it's my first full week in the new job, so my lunch time blogging routine might be interrupted by that as well. In conclusion, I'm managing expectations, which if you're a long time reader, should already be quite low.
TERRIBLE TRAFFIC TUESDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(smugly grinning)
The weather was a bit 'yuck,' with a combination of rain that seemed to fall from the sky and "recycled" rain that seemed to bounced off the roadway. A good day for fenders (but what day isn't?) and for lights and for a bright yellow jacket and for tires with some tread on them. It was also a good day to go slower, which I had no problem accomplishing. I just wasn't really into my ride this morning and with the rain, I was probably a pretty sorry sight.
Only four bicyclists riding down the Custis and Nash where there were about 20 last week at the same time and location. Goodbye, summer bike commuters. I have a really short memory when it comes to weather, so in the winter, I completely forget what it's like to ride in the summer and now that it's getting cooler, I have no real conception of how the weather will affect me. It's like Memento. I think that's why I have Wear Pants in thick gothic script tattooed across my forehead.
I take my precious time when I'm biking across crosswalks when I have the signal and I take even longer when someone is waiting to turn. I do this for safety, not spite. Sometimes when I'm doing this I make sustained eye contact with the driver, other times I make a point of glancing directly at the walk signal, so as to try to direct the driver's vision to the reason it's my turn to go and not his. So far, no honks.
When you take a lane and someone still passes you by going over the double yellow line, well, there's not much you can do about that. Just hope they don't hit you, I guess and be thankful thereafter. I thought about saying something at the next stop sign, but what's there to say? "I think what you did was unsafe"? Or "What I was trying to accomplish by riding in the middle lane was exactly the opposite of what happened and that's sort of your fault."?  I'm not really in the business of "learnin' people lessons."