Ride In 3/4: French Onion Sloop

Like Athos, I'm over de Winter.

The cold is bitter and the wind is bitterer and the wind makes the cold feel less like the 30s and more like 20s and there are flappers everywhere. My scarf sometimes flaps in the wind and that's always a good sign that my scarf has become untied, so I tie it and stuff in back into the front of my coat. I play a game of hide-and-seek with spring and thus far it remains elusive. It's probably behind a tree.

One of the ongoing sources of #CONFUSION for drivers is the traffic sign NO TURN ON RED and I can understand this because this sign is very confusing. Accordingly, I've deciphered its hidden meaning and will now offer my best guesses- which are invariably spot on- as what the sign might in fact be suggesting. This, hopefully, will allay the confusion much like one is a allayed when he arrives in Oahu.

NO TURN ON RED: This is the straightforward interpretation. It means that one cannot turn the ball towards the hoop thanks to the stifling defense of Red Auerbach's 1960s Celtics team. Why these signs grace the parkways and not the parquet is confusing, but it is apt, as Bill Russell was a dominating defensive presence and drivers oughtn't forget that.

NOT URN, ONR ED: This is short for the rallying cry for those who didn't want the Honorable Ed Koch to be cremated. I can totally see why this would need to be on traffic signs. "Not urn, onr. ed 4-ever" is tattooed on my inner thigh.

NOT U RN ON RED: This is a message for nurses, informing them that they shouldn't come to work on Code Red air quality days. They should stay home because maybe they have asthma or maybe their nursely whites could be besmogged by the dirty air. I believe this rule was established with Obamacare.

NO TURN ON RE: D- Simply put, the music of Tenacious D will not result in increased levels of amorousness.

NO TURN ON RED: It's just DERNON RUTON written backwards and Dernon Ruton sounds like the name of the character in a work of pretentious and inaccessible modern literature and the literati have infiltrated DDOT and are playing hilarious pranks on us all with their backwards writing, much as Dernon Ruton is he himself the embodiment of the "trickster" archetype in post-modern fiction.

I really can't think of anything else that these NO TURN ON RED signs are trying to convey, other than these extremely obvious and most likely, completely correct, interpretations.

East Capitol to Penn to 15th to R to Mass to work. It was cold, but you knew that already.