5/15/12

Ride Home 5/15: A Day with a Kenyan Hunter in the Wilds

It's raining now, but it wasn't before. There was sun and a lazy, heavy haze that made me question if I would've been better off changing back into my bike clothes instead of riding home in soon-to-be-rumplier work clothes. I just *so* want to leave at the end of the day, anything that slows down that process seems unbearable, though with the increasing heat, it's going to become increasingly more likely that I'm going to have to start changing again because of, you know, sweat. And also dirtiness- since I can't quite seem to keep bike gunk off my clothes.
This is the corner of Idaho and Massachusetts. I've never seen anyone on this lawn. I wonder how much of the common fees are going to its upkeep.
It belongs to everyone. It belongs to no one. 
I feel much more in control of my commute when I'm on my bike than when I'm driving or taking public transportation. I feel like I'm in control, which is sort of weird, since I'm also immensely vulnerable.
I wonder what the people in the back of cabs think when they realize there's a bicyclist behind them who was just cut off by their driver. I think "back of heads are weird" because that's pretty much all I've got to go on when trying to assess them.
I don't pass a cyclist without checking to see if they have a button. Based on my observations, there's still a rather vast untapped market out there. Time to redouble my efforts. (What's double "sometimes mentioning that I have buttons available in a blog post"?) I prefer it when baseball players redouble because that means that they're having a good night. Bicyclists, in jousting helmets, might prefer to redoublet, especially if their first doublets rip.
There's a man who has a lawn care concern who arrives at his clients by means of bicycle and he carries his tools and equipment in a Burley Trailer and today I saw him on Q Street. This seems practical enough, in that he doesn't have to spend fuel money and search for limited parking space for a pickup truck or other kind of large vehicle that most (or some) landscapers might prefer. If I were to open a lawn care concern in which I arrived by bicycle, I think I'd call it Mow lawns, mo' problems because really I'd not be very interested in this is a profession and I feel that by advertising my disdain for it, I could hasten the demise of my business and maybe move on to other things.
14th and Q.
You can't see the "t." It's actually a Weight Watchers advert. Crass commercialism at its worst.
So, there's this ice cream man and he sells ice cream by the skate park on 11th and today he was blasting his ice cream man tunes and it sounded like something you'd hear in the background of a Nintendo game from 1988 and I thought that that was all well and good if he wanted 30 year olds to roll up on his truck for a ChocoTaco, but kids these days play really sophisticated video games and there's no way that some MIDI Mario nonsense is going to sound in any way inducing. In short, I suggest better tunes for a younger demographic. And/or don't worry about it because you're selling ice cream and kids'll probably be ok with that irrespective of your truck's music.
I can't say that I try to ride into tourists' pictures on purpose, but in not saying that, I'm not telling you the truth. Yes, I do it on purpose. It's hilarious. And with digital cameras, it basically costs them nothing, so I don't really feel bad about it.
I rode behind a couple, but one half of the couple rode well in front of the other half and the half that I rode behind was a woman who had a kid trailer. I've seen her before. She drags the kid, he rides the Xtracycle in front. I really wonder about their dynamic.
Went to the store. Easy in and easy out, though a little bit of a delay in self-checkout. One guy bought a lot of meat. Like, maybe too much. I worried that it would tip over his car, like Fred Flintstone. Yabba dabba do be careful.
Maybe some Bikeshare commutes tomorrow. We'll see.

3 comments:

  1. I think that that patch of grass at Idaho and Wisconsin often has a sign on it saying to keep off it (but not all the time, which I've never understood). That might explain the absence of grass enjoyers.

    Also, I saw the same Before I Die chalkboard thing in Little Rock. I wonder where else they have been putting it?

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  2. Because we have similar schedules and routes, I frequently see the Xtracycle-trailer couple on their way home, eastbound on E. Capitol (Him, Asian-American and Her, Caucasian). Since I also ride an Xtracycle (a blue Surly Big Dummy), I asked them about their setup. They noted to me that their daughter is too young to ride on the back of their Xtracycle, hence the trailer.

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  3. I was disappointed that no one commented on the TFTS button on my seat post bag during Bike DC. I would have cried bitter tears but I was too busy not running over wobbly children while not getting run over by super bikers who thought the event was a time trial.

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