Edycation

Now what I want to talk about is the woman standing on Irving in a hospital gown, leaning on her IV pole, with a cigar teetering from her parched lip; however, I just very now promised a picture with every entry. Not 5 minutes ago. And me with my camera tucked away from the threatening storm.

The storm that never was. Not here, not now. But when Edy was pushing me out the room...that was a coat of another color. You know when it was pouring and she was giving me the scrunched nose, inward Edy eye...go on and beat the storm!

I stood my dry ground, and waited her out. And after coming up empty on the rainbow possibilities and learning about sun orientation, direction, and the Earth's tilt on its axis, I learned my head is not a sponge. And we'd be better served to find our way via satellite dishes on roofs than the fickle position of the sun...but I digress.

And so, encased in my trusty gortex of an orange color, carrying the weight of DC humidity upon my back, I swam my bike upstreet...oh, no it wasn't raining, but my handlebar might actually be a sponge. And I was thinking about licking it. Dreaming of a lollipop sponge. Mmmm, a sponge on a stick.

As I dropped into the park (of course, the wooded park) I saw a flash of light. I might have considered it my life flashing before my eyes, but Edy would have kilt me! As it were, it was closely followed by the rumbling of Mom Nature...or maybe Edy channeling a voice, echoing that Edy eye with an audible I told youyouyou!

Come to think of it maybe it wasn't Mom Nature at all. Maybe it really was the sound of a really hungry stomach. One that hasn't eaten in a month of Sundays. One in dire need of a sandwich, an oreo, a lozenge for Christ SAKE!

Sponge on a stick?

Crosswalks Tosswalks

There's no turns on H and one willy nilly intersection!

ycycle likes!

Holy Headwind Bikeman

I'm pretty sure we're not in Kansas anymore, but it sure felt like it!

Nope, definitely Pennsylvania. Gotta love Pennsylvania!

And this time it kinda felt like work!

Tole Ya

See, still playin'

Lunch Brake

Yes, I work hard, but I play hard too!

Armored Bike

A not so funny thing happened on the way to the bank.

I had a bagful of cash and I wasn't thrilled about it. Crooks, it was an OTO affair.

It wasn't so much the highway robbery, but rather, what if I get in an accident? I need an armored bike, I thought. I thought it again a mile down the road.

Scream Line

She did one of these: just kept walking. I did one of these: hold the door, contorting myself so the smallest straggler could play london bridge.

The tiny basketball team could use a little help on its zone defense. The obvious center, nickname of Mom (no, I don't think it was tattooed on her arm), out in front with a little bit of surprising speed. One underfoot, two more hugging the sideline, one forgotten back court. And me.

Mom, as I mentioned, in front, checking off the daily errand list. Mostly unaware of the positioning of her team. Completely unaware of the newly added sixth man. My height may have been a clue but I hung to the center like glue, successfully infiltrating the crew.

Onward went Mom through the parking lot, the five of us in tow. She never batted an eye, never bowed a shoulder, never dropped a syllable:

"So who remembers what we're doing next? Anyone know where we're going now?"

Cute. Making errands fun. Like game. Count me in:

"ICE CREAM! WE'RE GOING FOR ICE CREAM!" Ooh, that was me, and that was out loud. My cover is blown.

But Mom never missed a beat, Mom's got game! "Are you paying?"

"Sure--let's do it!"

Beyond Fare

This, is a taxi. Note the driver, backseat, light on top. A desirous passenger stands curbside, arm outstretched, often with a finger to the sky. As if to say, Hey Big Guy, thanks for the ride!

That's exactly what I saw just the other night on my way home. Dude on the sidewalk leaving Metro. Arm stretched across Georgia waving at the car on the other side of the red light.

Indeed, driver, backseat, light on top. Not, however, a taxi. Instead, in fact, advertising his company: Domino's.

OH! Like Guinness...BRILLIANT! Just a few miles can run you ten bucks in a cab. You just get a ride and you still have to hail it.

Instead, find yourself a pizza joint. Call ahead, order a pie. Then bum a ride to your house with the delivery guy. Hey, it's on your way!

A discounted fare with a cure for the munchies. Brilliant!

Choose Your Own Discrepancy

Depending on who you are, my discrepancy reports were quite entertaining. Depending on who you are.

At 13:59 lottery did not come down.
If you are in management Turn to Page 5.
If you have a sense of humor Just Continue Reading.

As I was saying, at 13:59 R36 stuck out it's tongue, which looks surprisingly like the blue screen of death.

Being a mere visitor to MC I can never be sure when something has changed...perhaps this is normal? FTP, DGrabber, Rosetta's Stone? I have no idea how spots get into the system anymore.

My bosses think this is WCIA. Go on and sleep with eyes wide shut. No one will ever have to kill us, no one ever tells us anything! Is this where I say, thank you?

After all I am just a trained Monkey. They took the humans out of the mix. Monkey push button. Monkey no think. I consult the binders, the WIKI, the weekend procedures. Monkey start phone chain. No answer, voice mail, human with no answer. It's the same thing every week. I just love consistency.

Getting an answer on the weekend is like hitting the lottery. One in a million. Call JB. That's my answer? And that number is where? Shall I just shout out JB like Bingo? "If you don't get her (Really?) just fill it with a minute Verizon."

Once upon a time the trained Monkey had information at her opposable thumbs. Now it's a dance with the one armed bandit. Without that master list, I'll just go on and watch each and every spot until I find that one you speak of. It's okay, I'm not doing anything else. I should get to about 312-38 by the time this needs to air.

And there I stood with a near blank piece of paper in my hands, just a simple JB written upon it. And an unknown stranger milling about next door. I don't have time for this. I have to bellow JB in hopes of winning Bingo.

She comes in and introduces herself, which I immediately forget. Sales, I heard sales. Ah...can you help me? Like a gift from St. Clare. Somewhere along the way the Monkey's neurons fired and sparked understanding. You are JB!

Bingo! Time to play the numbers. I'll just never know if I actually won.

PAGE 5
Everything worked perfectly.

HereftBeer

I'm in love with a girl named Virginia. I know what I've said in the past, but this time it's different.

It was a perfectly lovely day. And I spent most of it working. Tell us something we don't know Squeak! ...and that's okay.

I felt the rush. It started around 3:30 and I'm still feeling it. It's so close, but not affecting my day. Ordinarily it would be stressing me out.

Currently I've got a leg up and I'm due another beer. My date is sitting in traffic. I'm watching recumbants from above and thinking of going over to pat Java on the head. Ah, this is why Life Is Good. Jammin' Java (another breed) is right around the corner.

Yes, I'm catching a show sans traffic. But I'm not here to gloat. It's about the beer. Biking while intoxicated. Really, biking before intoxicated.

I got pulled over by a cop once for drinking and driving. It's true I was driving erratically. I do that when I stress about parallel parking in the city. Have you been drinking? No, not yet!

Today I walked into a liquor store laughing out loud, LOL as the young people say. I was holding my keys about to put them away, with my thumb on the clicker. I was thinking, hmmm, did I lock the door? No, not yet!

When I walked into the 7/11 a youngster informed me that he had slushee....I was almost peer pressured. But I went with the beer...and yes I got carded.

Anyone?

"You're gonna need to give a presentation to some 5th graders in about an hour. Oh, it will be fine, you'll be done in plenty of time for your other job. I'll give you a map. It's right down the street...."

I'm sorry, WHAAATT?? Go back....hour, presentation, 5th graders...whatchoo talkin' 'bout Willis?

Map? Close? FOCUS! You put the lead out there and then buried it with 'who cares!' Speak to a group of kids, no preparation, no visual aids, almost no bike!??

"You'll be fine. You have a t-shirt, brochures, take the DVD..." Oh sure, 10 year olds LOVE brochures! And what, I wave the red shirt and they charge at me? Yikes.

So I go. Make brief intros with big people. I say, "I couldn't be LESS prepared for this." And I watched my panic wash onto someone else. Cute. I had extra, I thought I'd share.

She says, "What, you've NEVER done this before?" Nope, never.

"Okay, well it's a group of several classes--about 160 kids." I'm sorry, again WHAAATTT?? As in one hundred and sixty?

Let me get this straight, I'm about to give an hour long presentation to 160 eleven year olds with not a lick of preparation? Yeah, I got this. And my boss--a dead man.

I opened with, "So who here drinks beer?" It's true, that was my very first question. God knows I needed one.

Life reCycle

In hindsight, which as they say, is 20/20: maybe a wedding day on Earth Day wasn't such a good idea after all.

What's old is new, borrowed, and blue.

The Black Diamonds found a new home...except that one, I did keep. I wonder did the white diamond?

This would have been our diamond year...great, I never wore that one.

A Desk And A Day

Administrative Professionals Day. Wow, that sounds impressive. Is that the new Secretaries Day? Of course it is. Hey, that's me!

ReNews

I ride a bike to work. I use thrice patched bike tubes cut down as rubber bands. My lights run off rechargeable batteries. I have a purse made of tubes; my jewelry is used bike parts.

I wash my plastic baggies and use them repeatedly. I drink my soda from cans not plastic bottles. I have never in my life bought a trash bag (or band-aids...just a little known fact).

I reuse my dehumidifier water for my plants. My bike was bought used. I don't use AC and I use very little heat. I don't shower (at least not when I'm not dating). I drink water from the faucet.

I will use a 9Volt 'til the juice is drained. I have pulled batteries out of the really dead batteries bin at work shaking my head and tsk tsking.

I hate the new light bulbs. I won't use them. I like to dim the lights. I throw batteries in the trash can. I use tape like JD uses batteries.

I know it's the week of Earth Day, save the planet, love the earth, recycle, reuse, reduce...but I'm really just cheap. Frugal, thrifty, old school. I was pampered in cloth. I regret to inform you I'm not really green, I just like to keep it.

Spell Define

Can you use it in a sentence? Man, I need to get me one of those Urban Dictionaries. I ain't in the sticks anymore.

Out there when someone says, throw the horse over the fence some hay, I know what they mean. We use words like blooing and read (pronounced red and used to describe cleaning a room). We use a sweeper to clean the carpet and you plug it into the wall. That way you never have to know how to spell vaccuuum.

Here in the big city, I'm lost. First there's the word cancel, which I hate. I hate it the most in airports. It's never good when you are in an airport, but even for the viewing public at home it sucks. Typically you see the word cancelled on the tv screen underneath the word canceled chyroned or full screened by said station.

It irks me. It irks me even more when you call a company to cancelllll your membership and they go ahead and cashhhh your check. All of this because I tried to right a wrong THEY committed, automatically charging someone's account besides my own. I should have let well enough alone.

But I tried to fix it. Then there was the fuzzy math. Last year I paid less than $130, this year they wanted to charge me $170. What's the hizzy I say?? I am quoted membership jargon that states I agree to a 10% increase. Here again I misunderstood either the 10 or the % or the increase.

I gave in. I argued a losing battle and I was clearly ill equipped. I am not versed in the colloquialisms they spouted. I paid the money. They ccaanncceelleedd my membership. I canceeled my check. Or so I thought. Here again, I fell into the Urban Word trap.

When I said stop payment I thought they would NOT cash the check. I thought that's what they told me. That's how I understood the process to work. Otherwise, I'm not really sure of the point. Was it the stop or the payment I screwed up?

In this case, two negatives have DEFINITEly positively made a mistake.

Better Than Geico

I just saved you a ton of money on your car insurance!

I don't do it often, but I think the rules are the same. You pick a lane and you stay in it unless you signal to get out and here's the important part you missed: look before you execute. I saw you look after, it's not nearly as effective that way.

I looked. Even in that split second you gave me, I looked. I mean really, it was so quick you fooled my fight or flight. I save you a ton of cash AND you rob me of my adrenalin rush?!

I thought about the repair bills, the pain in my back that won't go away, the increase on your insurance, the time without your car, making you late for wherever you were rushing to. Did you consider any of this? I mean after you tried to run me off the road. (my Magic Spoon was in my bike bag...I was obviously driving).

I thought it was only fair that you stop to give me a check. Sure, paper or plastic; whatever you got. A hundred would have been nice, but $500 would have been a sleek bargain. If you had thought about it. But if you had thought about it, you might have stayed in your lane.

Whatever....I spent the day putting bikes together...like Christmas Eve. Rose colored pedals.

Neow

This one still eats anything, anywhere, from anyone. I thought she was saying meow. Turns out she's saying NOW, I need food NOW!

Barley and the Magic Spoon

Hey Brownie, you really are doing a heckuva job!

I know it's hard to believe, but Barley-the-Cat, although once able to build URLs (not to be confused with FORLS) with her ass, is now afraid of her own food bowl.

She approaches like its food and she's as starving as she is. She struggles, she gags, she falls into full retreat mode. She looks at me. The food bowl. Me. Bowl. How could I let her near it?

Then she growls. At- the bowl! She circles, as if thinking about a stealth attack, then remembers she's Barley...and forgets...now what was I circling again?

Food! Yum. Ow! This time she takes a bite and flies across the room like she's got the devil in her belly. And it is attacking from the inside looking to get out. I'm not sure what happens, it occurs under the couch...but it sounds awful. Like aliens are preparing to take her to their leader.

Sherlina Holmes, detective that she is, was on a mission to discover a feeding option. She came up with a few. I accidentally found The Magic Spoon. You can eat once, you can eat twice...at the Magic Spoon....

Keeping evil at bay, The Magic Spoon makes magic happen. From a simple spoon placed in the bowl. Barley is no longer afraid of what doesn't lie within. She still doesn't eat much, but something. It's something. It is.

I've slipped a magic spoon in my bag...I may be turned away from the Smithsonian, but I'll take every bit of luck I can against 5 ton military trucks...it's all I got. It is.

RIP ch.

Ad Na Rim

I take that back. It WAS Miranda. Told you, you can't trust 'em. It's you against them.

Psst...when I'm here I get to push the buttons.

Was It Something I Said

Blog reader, meet Miranda. Miranda, meet my one lone blog reader. (I used to have more until I started writing about things like work.) This by the way, is actually Crispin.

Miranda and I have had a rocky relationship. Crispin...don't even get me started. If I've said it once I've said it a million times, threesomes never work out.

But here I am again. Forcibly reunited with a couple I can't stand. We went our different ways in the not so distant past. It wasn't my choice but I didn't shed many tears over it. And I didn't come back with open arms. I'm not holding a grudge, but I'm not convinced they share the same sentiment.

Exhibit A: Sunday night. After a perfectly lovely afternoon of hanging out together, when I asked Miranda to do one small thing, she refused. And she made me think it was something I did. I would have believed her too except she did it AGAIN...and I was no where near her. That's twice in 3 minutes.

It was FIVE hours, I get that. Nothing to do for FIVE hours. I was there, I know. I went for walks. Left her sit. Ignored her at times. I learned my lesson. If I do the Masters next year I promised to take her for walks. I said so right there in my discrepancy report.

Or was it Crispin? Did Miranda just do what Crispin asked? There was that Facebook status about her bugs. See, threesomes...maybe I haven't learned my lesson. And it's clearly them vs. me.

You know they tried to pin it on me, The Man. But Miranda stuck up for me. It must have been Crispin. I bet she's jealous that I'm back. I bet she wishes it was just the two of them again.

You Might Be

Well you know the rest. If your tree is adorned with duct tape, you just might be.

Tell me, does my red neck clash with my blue collar?? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Is There Anybunny In There?

Oh goodie! An Easter hunt. Can you find the cars in the garage? Yeah, I wish they all rode in today, but alas no. Just a typical day.

In better news, apparently my tube has been resurrected. It was flat, I took it out, retrieved the spare. I pumped up that one, flat. I patched the hole, flat. I patched the second hole, returned to the original. Still not flat. I couldn't find the hole, so I replaced it and said a prayer.

Easter sweets.

Point and Shoot

Shoot! I got the point. Over and over and over. U Street. Chinatown. 14th. 7th. Mass Ave. You name it, they've gentrified it.

This by the way, an accident. I like to point and shoot. Sometimes while riding. Drive by shooting. This was on foot, but not staged, not focused, not planned. Just, shoot.

Perfect.

Shoot.

I Get Around

Hey Kenny! Look someone left us a bicycle!

I do okay by myself. I can be entertained for hours. I talk to myself. I make myself laugh. I animate inanimate works of art. I play as hard as I work. I live a balanced life...or I'd fall down.

But it would be nice to tool around the city with someone once in a while. Someone with feet instead of pedals. Well, feet on top of pedals.

I could stop taking pictures and let someone's eyes focus on what they want, when they want. Find new perspective.

And visit ALL of DC, the true landmarks. Not just the outsiders' favorite NW passage. It's not even the coolest part of the city folks.

Look What I Found!

Googoogamooga!

Did John Ashcroft ever exit the Capitol on the east side?

I'd hate to see what he'd do to these statues after draping the ones inside.

At least the man bits are probably covered by water, when there IS water.