Ride Home 10/20 and Ride In 10/21

Two for one post.
I wore a tie to work yesterday and I successfully managed to ride my bicycle with it on during the afternoon commute. Of course, I was also wearing a bright yellow jacket which zipped over the tie, so perhaps the neckwear's more notorious potential effects were abated.
I don't normally think of a the drivers of black BMWs are the kind of people who would put on their hazard lights to warn the people behind them of a crossing group of deer, including at least two baby deers, but the one in front of me at the base of the New Mexico hill did and I appreciated his or her cautionary efforts. This runs counter to my belief that were life just like Bambi that BMW drivers would be the hunters.
Bad traffic on 34th, but at least there's bike lanes. Not that that makes a difference when half of the road is closed, including the sidewalk, which I only found out after riding a little on the sidewalk because the bike lanes were blocked. At one point, I hit a bump and my front light flew off. That was inconvenient. Time for a new front light?
When I got to the jersey barriers blocking the street, I decided that rather than wait the interminably long length of time it would take for cars to get through the intersection to allow me enough space to ride through that instead I would just lift my bike onto the my shoulder, hoist it up over the jersey barrier and carry it past the car in front of me, placing it down in bike bike lane just beyond. These are the kind of things you do (or can do) when you have the ready excuse of owning a cyclocross bike. Cause lifting bikes past cars and over concrete barriers is what they do in cyclocross, right?
I arrived at Rosslyn and had a great time at the #bikeDC happy hour. The usual suspects (@Blacknell, @BikeArlington, Dave Kirschner) and the chance to meet some people that I know of from the interwebs (@JDAntos, @SwimBikeRunDC, @Zanna_Leigh, @ countless others whose nametags I couldn't read)  and a good time was had. Among the topics of discuss included: triathletes and why they're _____ (insert praiseworthy or disparaging term depending on perspective), the joy that is Robin Hood Men in Tights and Cary Elwes' subsequent lack of career, the lack of widespread appeal of this blog, living on Capitol Hill, those shoes that look like feet, and potential of an all CaBi throwdown super-race (with skin suits and aerohelmets) at Hains Point to determine, once and for all, who's the 'fastest' rider in DC, if not the universe. This NEEDS to happen and it needs to be recorded, edited put on the internet. It'll be the perfect cross between a Streetfilm and Breaking Away.
Thereafter I rode home, electing for the city streets and their ambient unnatural light to the probably fast, but significantly darker, trail route. It wasn't bad down M or Pennsylvania and I made it to the White House without much hindrance. There was a group of celebrating Libyans outside. Penn was again fast, but mostly blocked by trucks on account of some late-ish night road/sewer work. Not a big deal and I still managed to stay within the confines of the bikeway, but just rode on the other side.
Highlight: running into the Bicycle Space I Street Social on East Capitol (and being recognize by Fearless Leader Erik in the near dark. Very impressive. Reason #2,523,522 to shop at Bicycle Space) I dinged aplenty and I think I even said "woo I Street Social" in a sort of a falsetto, so sorry about that.I was just very excited.
Lowlight: literally, being low on light when my front light once again ejected itself from its holder. It rolled under a parked car on East Capitol and I had to shimmy underneath in order to retrieve it. Thanks for not calling the police, anybody! So, yes, I'm going to need to address that.
Then I got home, ate some carrots for dinner, watched tv, went to sleep, got up the next morning and rode to work.
I wore my regular clothes because that's a nice thing to do on Fridays, when offices allow workers to dress down (tuxedo jacket and jeans in place of full tuxedo). In fact, I think that this might lead to greater incidences of bicycle ridership on Fridays. Someone should look into that. UPDATE: If this idea sounds familiar, it's because it was posited by the Official Wife in February.
A lot of bikes on the road today. It was like Bike to Work Day 2: Tokyo Drift or something. Speaking of which, DC should really have an officially sanctioned autumn Bike to Work day. It's just so freaking nice out. Unless of course, you don't like cold fingers (isn't that a James Bond movie?), which I don't, so I stopped to put on little gloves and it took me about three complete stop light sequences. I have the manual dexterity of an eel.
On 15th, I rode behind a guy with two backpacks on, but an empty rear rack. Er?
 At 15th and Mass, there's always a car or two "blocking the box" and cyclists have to ride around into the path of traffic. Today, a woman on an LHT coming in the opposite direction almost rode into me because she didn't want to follow the whole right-side of the road thing. Maybe she was British. Or dyslexic. (Note: I think dyslexia only applies to reading, but I don't know for sure.)
At 15th and Rhode Island, there was a drive who was, LITERALLY, playing maracas on his dashboard as he listened to some salsa beats. When will DC Council consider my long tabled "no playing maracas while driving" law? How many more pedestrians and bicyclists need to be scared into thinking that a rattlesnake is fast approaching before this issue is finally taken seriously?
Saw a guy riding an Xtracycle with a full-grown adult sitting on the back. First time I've seen that, though I doubt it's very uncommon.
That's pretty much all I remember. I really wanted to remember the maracas thing, so I might have displaced some other stuff in the pea that is noggin.