Ride Home 1/2: Tinsel Trees in Tinseltown

Long-time blog readers will be pleased (?) to know that Dance Moms is back and once again it provides the background for my blogging activities. What's new in the world of Dance Moms you might ask? I don't know. There still seems to be lots of yelling and crying and Abby Lee Miller remains needlessly angry at those poor talented dancing children, so it's pretty much status quo as far as I'm concerned. For the finer plot points, of which there might be some, you can consult the Official Wife via the comment sections of this blog.

Meanwhile, in the world of bike commuting, it was another great afternoon/evening to be out on the roads. But it was very cold. I wore two pairs of socks. Frankly, I'm at the point where I can't wear enough socks. I don't have shoe covers for these bike shoes and that seems to be a problem for me. Were this some kind of rom com premised around a woman getting married, I'd be cast as the bridegroom with some mother-f-ing cold feet. In conclusion, I'm done with winter. It's not even cold and I'm still just done. Done. Feel free to remind me of this sniveling (and sniffling) when I'm complaining about the stupid hot summer.

Out: crazily driven black BMWs. In: crazily driven black Audis.

You would think that the worst part about following a bus would be the noxious exhaust, but in my experience, it's the lack of visibility. This bus, an N2, advertised on its rear panel the National Guard, an organization through which by joining, so said the ad, I could help my neighbor. I could also probably just pick up her mail when she's out of town without doing that, but hey, different strokes for different folks.

Rode on the sidewalk, then back on the street, turned onto 23rd and remained on the street until L Street, where I turned onto and then into the cycle track. I was the only cyclist I saw on the cycle track during the time I used it, but I was early on account of leaving work early. There was only one driver who saw it fit to park/idle in the bike lane. There are signs that say No Parking or Standing Any Time, but this must be confusing since drivers still sometimes stand or park there. I would suggest that these signs be replaced by other signs that either read "NO FUCKING CARS HERE EVER, ASSHOLES" or, for our illiterate friends, signs that show a silhouette of a Gozdilla crushing a car in his jaws. Personally, I'm inclined toward the latter though I don't know if the Godzilla can be mandated to chomp cars through administrative fiat. CONFUSION is confusing.

11th street was closed to cars for a block, but there was room between the cones and I rode through anyway. Later on 11th, a bus driver of a Maryland commuter bus tried to pass me in spite of my taking the lane and then, when the driver realized that she couldn't do that without crushing me, relented, thankfully.

No u-turns on Penn, but one inline skater. Later on, I might have seen friend of the blog Ben, but I can't say for sure. He was in front of me, so maybe? I rode up the House side of Capitol hill, passed a jogger on the hill, passed some security guards at the top of the hill and passed a number of idling cars in the right lane on Pennsylvania Avenue SE. Basically, there are two lanes on parking there from First to maybe 8th SE because drivers simply don't care and would prefer to use the right lane as a place to double park. That's fine with me, I guess. But it's the cyclists that slow down traffic, right? I turned left at 12th and passed another bicyclist on E and then he passed on front of me in the Safeway parking lot, having cut across the lot where I kept going to 14th before turning back in. He laughed, I laughed.

At the store, I bought cake, eggs and a roma tomatoes. When I went back to my bike, there was a man standing there talking into his cell phone. His words "And then she threw up on the keyboard. I don't know why she didn't move. She just stayed there and threw up all over it." I hope he was talking about a pet.

I biked down down D to 16th. I used to take 15th, which has a bike lane, but now I take 16th because unlike the street to its west, it has stop signs and not stop lights, making the likelihood of my being slowed that much less. I was passed by a white Mustang (car, not horse) from Texas.