Rides 7/12

The thing about moving house is that you should do it all at once and not stretch it out over multiple weeks the way that I'm doing. I did the big stuff in a UHaul this weekend, but each day this week I've been shuttling back and forth bringing another couple of boxes in the car I have (for now. I'm getting rid of it soon and will be accordingly smug, as per the rules). The benefit of moving things piecemeal is...I'm not entirely sure. But anyway, this is my lot and so I'm doing it and this morning I drove the car over to the house and left it there and grabbed the Brompton, which was at the house, and filled a reusable grocery bag with some shoes and slung the bag over the handlebars and set off on the way back to the new place. I don't know how many more bike commutes I have left on the Hill, but I didn't much mind this one as the weather was pleasant and after habituating myself to repeatedly kicking the bag of shoes, I settled in for an easy ride across the well-known route. At the base of the Capitol, a man complimented my shirt. He was wearing the same shirt. It was a Bike to Work Day shirt. Har har. And here I was thinking that maybe I was just wearing a particularly nice shirt.

I rode up Pennsylvania and 15th and made a left on S and then was more or less home, took the bike inside, folded it up, unfolded the dog, walked her, took her back up and then decided to ride the Ogre to work because whenever you have the opportunity to split your bike commute, you might as well take two different bikes. Very little of consequence occurred on the ride up the hills to work, though it felt faster than it had the day before. I think I'm not going to mind this route to work, but what I really won't mind is the ride home, which takes a scant 15 minutes and seems over before it really begins. I like being home so quickly, but the one downside is losing that decompression time a longer bike ride affords. A bike commute is a great way to slough up the travails of modern office life (insert Dilbert cartoon here) and while a short commute is great for getting home quickly (and reaping the benefits like seeing your poodle sooner), it's not nearly as medicinal. Maybe I'm not using that word correctly. No, I think I am.

At Connecticut and Calvert though an open window a driver said to me and the cyclist in front of me "Guys, watch out. Be careful" as we navigated between her car and the 18 wheeler in front of us. I'm still trying to process my feelings about this. On one hand, she could've just honked and told us to go fuck off and the sentiment of wishing us to take care is vastly better than that. But on the other hand, we're not the ones operating the 2 ton death machine. I think our carefulness is kind of implied. I don't know. Like, physician heal thyself.

Hey Darren. Yeah, you. Here's some Pokemon Go content: I didn't see any driver playing Pokemon on the way home. Just the usual texting. SO IT'S TOTALLY SAFE OUT THERE AND COMPLETELY FINE.

After dropping the Ogre off at the apartment, unfolding the dog (why do I fold the dog? that's so weird and unnecessary because she is already quite small) and walking the dog, I took Bikeshare over to the Hill via T Street and 11th and then eventually Pennsylvania Avenue and Constitution and East Capitol. The Capitol grounds were open (there had been a lockdown) and East Capitol was breezy. There were no docks at the Bikeshare station where I had hoped to dock, but there were at the one two blocks away and all was right with the world. I took some time to load up the car with boxes and drove back across the city, which was a truly miserable experience. I'm a bike weirdo, not a car weirdo, but I think I can be reasonably objective when I say that driving a car in this city is awful and parking a car in Dupont in awful and in a week or two when all the moving stuff is down, I will be inordinately happy to rid myself of this car for good. Oh also, and I'm trying to be objective about this as well, my car trip wasn't awful because of bicyclists. Just for the record.