Police Week motorcades escort themselves!

As I biked across the 14th street bridge yesterday morning I suddenly became aware that the normally bustling bridge was completely void of cars. How unusual. Then I saw a lone policeman on his motorcycle approaching, lights flashing. He lacked the urgency of one headed to an accident scene, so I suspected the next most likely thing in D.C.- a motorcade. A motorcade! They will never cease to be exciting to me. I pulled over my bike.

 

The motocop kept looking over his shoulder, as if he were waiting for something. Indeed, he was waiting for his cronies. Two more motorcycle-police approached. Next came a whole troop of motocops, with lights and sirens wailing. I was having a blast. See, they are riding in formation! Look how, when I wave timidly, they completely ignore me! They are not on parade they are in a motorcade. It must be unprofessional to wave while you're in a motorcade. At last I could see the escortee: tour buses. I really wished that I could see the occupants of the buses but they had darkly tinted windows.  Well, that's nice, I thought. It's Police Week and I'll bet the attendees must be headed to some event in Arlington. Maybe at the Pentagon? That's great that they get escorted by their fellow policemen.

 

Other bicyclists wizzed past me and I wondered, don't they notice that an exciting motorcade is passing?? Why am I the only nerd to stop and watch this thing? The show ended and I pedaled on my way.

 

Not five minutes later, the whole scene was repeated in front of the Washington Monument. I was joined by more and more cyclists as we waited for the second tour-bus motorcade (also headed to Virginia) to clear the intersection. I could hear another cyclist explaining what Police Week was to the man next to him. As they passed in front of the sun, I looked to see the silhouettes of the people inside- but with the sun glinting through I could see that the buses were empty! No passengers. Now why would they create multiple significant traffice disruptions to escort empty tour buses a la motorcade?

 

It is so odd! But I've figured it out. All those motocops were supposed to be riding inside the buses. But of course, what cop would opt for a seat in a bus when they have the option to ride on a motorcycle and wear cool sunglasses instead? So.. they were escorting themselves. Ha, those clever cops.

an exciting new use for an ordinary object

A coworker and I were chatting about this and that as we washed our hands in the ladies room. Then she did something I've never seen before.  She went back into one of the bathroom stalls and retrieved one of the tissue paper toilet seat covers. She proceeded to use it to wipe her face. Perhaps I looked a little stunned, because she offered an explanation, "It's just like the tissues you can buy at the store to mop the oil from your face." I see.

I’m baaaaaack! Please enjoy my first post in almost two years, in which I enquire whether tis better to be a chicken or a goose

During my bike ride to work last week, I came upon a large Canadian goose blocking the bike path. I aimed my bike directly at the goose and pedaled harder. As I accelerated towards the goose, he remained standing defiantly, majestically, suicidally resolute, directly in my path. As the distance closed to less than ten feet, rather than hustling off the path, the goose took a menacing step towards me. At the last moment I swerved, ending the game of chicken and avoiding a collision with the goose. As I rode away, I thought to myself, "I was chicken to a goose."

Now I ask whether tis better to be a chicken or a goose? I (the chicken) backed down from the face-off, choosing to avoid a conflict in which I and the goose would both undoubtedly have been injured to some degree. The goose (the goose) courageously stood in the face of imminent danger, winning the show-down.

 

When that goose stepped towards me rather than away, I was thrilled. I thought it was so awesome, so goose-y. And he won. He was no chicken. He has goose-nerves of steel. But what if I had also decided not to back down, to be a goose instead? Would he have survived that collision? Maybe. He surely would have drawn some of my blood with his raptor-bill in defense and retaliation. But I might have broken his neck. My bike is big, and so am I. So did the goose do well by being such a goose? I suppose, because he's no chicken and he's also unharmed. But that was risky on his part! That's courage for you.

 

When I swerved and became the chicken, I chose to admit defeat rather than to face the consequences of triumph. If the goose had been a chicken and waddled off that path in time, it would have been ok for me to be a goose. But if both of us chose to stay goose to the bitter end, both of us would have been sorry. I decided I didn't want that so I sacrificed courage for safety. Am I doubly chicken because I stepped down not to another human but to a goose- a mere fowl- something smaller and dumber than me? Or rather, did I actually display courage in willingly losing to an inferior opponent? A different type of courage, maybe, but courage nonetheless? Maybe I'm just trying to justify my chicken-ness.

 

Well, here's what I've decided: whether it was courage or cowardice that motivated my actions, I am glad that I was the chicken, and I am glad the goose was the goose. I was so delighted to see that goose be so defiant and brave and cool. And I am so glad that I'm not the jerk that hits a goose with a bike. That would have been horrible. I think we both came out winners; the goose on his spectrum of goosey-ness was fully goose, and I on my humanity spectrum am humane. Phew.

little mistake with big consequences II

I may get alot of mileage out of this article title. Here's the second installment. Last Sunday I sent this email to several dozen of our friends:


Hi Friends,

We have accumulated obscene amounts of meat, chips, cake, etc. due to yesterday's happy event (the union of Kate and Kaleb). We would like to invite you to come over and help us eat the leftovers tonight at 7:30 pm. Bring your own plate and your friends.

Sincerely,

Kate's roommates


Today, I sent this additional email out to all those included on the original invitation:


Friends,

Please accept our sincere apologies. We really didn't intend to give you all food poisoning. (For those of you that were too discreet to ask around, an alarming number of us fell ill the next day.) Hopefully it didn't disrupt your schedules too much.

Yours (even in culinary disaster and digestive unease),

Kate's former roommates

little mistake with big consequences

I was quietly working in my office this week when the calm was shattered by an earsplitting fire alarm and a loudspeaker voice ordering us all out of the building. Then Ms. Pearl came running down the hallway, crying, "It's just my popcorn- I've burned it!" An entire building was being evacuated because Ms. Pearl burned her popcorn.

We gathered across the street and watched as two fire trucks and a big, black official-looking car with flashing lights pulled up. I stood next to the woman who caused the whole ordeal and thought how lucky we were that the weather was not 99 degrees that day, as it had been.

Most of the attorney's took it in stride- even when it meant that all several hundred of us had to pass through security at the same time to re-enter the building once it was cleared of the offending popcorn.

The occurrence also caused the head of our team to make some changes to our emergency procedure. "As I sat at the corner tavern, I realized that I had no way of knowing if all of you had made it out of the building safely. To make it possible for me to keep track of all of you, please proceed directly to the tavern during our next emergency."

We didn't survive (well, technically we survived because we're still alive but metaphorically we didn't make it)

On Saturday night we participated in the largest game of tag I've ever seen (reference SurviveDC.com). Beginning at Dupont Circle, 1,000 runners used whatever route they chose through the city to reach six checkpoints in order, trying not to get caught. The games began with just fifteen chasers, but their numbers swelled as runners got tagged and became chasers.

I haven't run so hard since perhaps elementary school! And my body didn't like it. There's this muscle on the top of my shins that kept me limping for three days afterward. It was very fun, nonetheless. I think my favorite part was sprinting down the sidewalk on 18th Street by all the fancy outdoor restaurants, with bewildered diners gaping at us. I felt so conspicuously out-of-place, yet much too scared of getting tagged to really care. Strangers kept stopping me and asking, "What is going on?"

Our entire gang was tagged out just three blocks from the second check point. We didn't stand a chance. There was a chaser in every direction we turned, and soon we were all split up, and finally when Matt and I didn't realize that the entire mob of people at the other side of the intersection happened to be chasers until they all broke into a stampede in our direction, I knew we were goners. I was finally run down on a bridge over I-395 by a tall red-haired man.

We knew by the twitter feeds that most people had been tagged out by about 10:30 pm, at which point we forsook the whole thing and went out for dinner. The next day we learned that out of the 1,000 runners who began the race, only 79 actually 'survived D.C.' Next year they should re-name it the D.C. massacre.



Upon getting tagged, I had to exchange my blue runner arm band for an orange chaser arm band. (I also had to call everyone else so that we could re-group, since we had been scattered in every which way.)



Here we are with our chaser arm bands on. Every last one of us got tagged out.

Unlucky, and really unobservant

I am resolved to post more than once a quarter on this thing. By posting today, after posting so recently, I am exceeding even my own high blogging aspirations.

Today, my thoughts are with the poor UPS driver who fell down an elevator shaft this week. When this happened to a character in Kate and Leopold it was a little comical. The occurrence in real life is very unfortunate- it seems doubly so because it has been portrayed in a humorous light.

The man was on the third floor of a large office building off of Monument Drive in Fairfax, VA. For some reason, the elevator doors opened even though the elevator was not there. The man failed to notice this as he proceeded to back his large cart of packages into the empty space through the doors.

He fell three flights, shattering the bones in both his arms, breaking his pelvis, and cracking his skull.

I learned of the poor man's mishap through his colleague, our office's UPS driver. When David collected our packages yesterday afternoon, he said that the man is not doing well. I am anxious for today's update. I pray that he is able to recover!