Sad pumpkin pie and an awesome bike ride

Got up at 6:30 this morning to roll out some dough and make a pumpkin pie for the internship holiday party...and proved to myself that I should not bake at 6:30 in the morning, because my crust slumped and there were weird globs of oil on the top of the finished pie (puree, milk, sugar, spice, eggs...how do you mess that up??).  To console myself, I ate some (homemade!) corn muffins with jam and yogurt and watched several YouTube videos about how to properly flute a crust.   Next time it'll be perfect--PERFECT, I tell you.

I need to get away from this boring holiday baking kick and come up with something more creative than pecan or pumpkin.  Maybe some sort of chocolate peanut butter thing....or this concoction, which my sister (who happens to be pregnant and is probably in need of chocolate) sent to me.  Post about something fabulous to come.

A less-than-eventful bike ride to L'Enfant today.  For the past 5 years, when I lived in the vicinity of AU, I took Massachusetts Avenue downtown. Even though I moved to Glover Park, I still do.  It's a love-hate relationship between us, but I'm familiar with all of its quirks and foibles. Wisconsin through Georgetown would be easier, but the idea of biking through Georgetown at rush hour sounds less-than-fun.  I'm sure there's a way to do it on the back streets, but my sense of direction being as crappy as it is, I don't know what that way would be.  I'll work on finding a route so I have something interesting to post about.  

Lots of bikers along 15th today.  I tried to gun it for the light at I St., which always changes about 1 second before I can make it through.  Sometimes you can run it at the red because there's a turn arrow, but there was a gaggle of pedestrians making ready to cross.  So I stopped, as I should have, but a CaBi biker behind me dinged his bell at the last second, apparently trying to pass me, then grumbled and huffed loudly when I stopped.  Not really sure what happened there or how/why he thought he could pass me OR why he was following me closely enough to be annoyed that I stopped OR that he couldn't seem to see the red light ahead.  I just looked straight ahead and stayed stopped at the stop line.

<slightly self-righteous rant>

It annoys the crap out of me when cyclists and/or cars pull into a crosswalk without stopping at the stop line.  That's why they invented stop lines, so that moving vehicles don't mow down pedestrians.  So yeah, inch into the crosswalk if you have to, but make sure people are out of the way before you do it.  Bikers also tend to turn right on 15th just past the White House when pedestrians have the right-of-way there, and the pedestrians have to stop or jump out of the way. It just seems like arrogance to me. Being on a bike does not mean that you have the right-of-way at all times.  Bikes have brakes for a reason, so be prepared and willing to stop once in awhile.

</slightly self-righteous rant>

Maybe I'm overly cautious about pedestrians and cars.  If it explains anything, I spent 4 years as a bicycle tour guide on the National Mall, so I'm pretty excellent at being patient and people-dodging while being somewhat polite about it. (Unless a tourist tells me to get off a sidewalk on the Mall.  I bristle, turn around, and inform them that the sidewalks on the Mall are technically considered shared-use trails, so look up the traffic laws of places you visit before making stupid remarks, asshole).  I am also good at making loud comments at rulebreakers (i.e. "Oh, did you not see that glaring red light in front of you?") and then turning around and doing stupid shit myself.  I guess none of us is perfect.