Back to blogs, bikes, and bites

A few visits to the Friday Coffee Club have helped me put faces to all the previously anonymous bike bloggers out there....and this morning, I felt especially remiss for not having updated since March.  It certainly was not intentional, but sometimes projects like this fall to the wayside.  In order to make up for this, I will attempt to summarize the last few months in pictures from my camera.  I take photographs with every intention of blogging about the events, and then I completely forget, so I apologize for the excessively long entry.

On the "bikes" side of things, I photographed Bike to Work Day (back in May), once again, with every intention of blogging about it.  It was a historic, momentous occasion for me because it was the first time in five years that I a) didn't have to work renting bikes out to people at 7 AM and b) registered in time to get a t-shirt.  I was a little sad that the t-shirts were a lurid green color this year, but hey--it was free.

Nifty sign

Nifty tandem

My bike, Vancouver!

Kate's first time biking to work!

Kate and Anjali

My shadow on a bike

BEAUTIFUL day that day, and many cyclists out on Pennsylvania Avenue

On the employment side of things, if you care, I quit my job selling cupcakes to rich people and making coffee for strangers, and instead did this:

That's right.  I've spent the entire summer riding Segways around the National Mall, managing the program for that company whose name you see on the bag (and with whom this blog is absolutely, in no way affiliated).  It was an interesting time for me, a cyclist who has more than once made loud, snarky comments to tourists riding Segways on the 15th Street bike lane.  It irked me to no end that those things were legally allowed to be in my way, so maybe this was just karma at its finest--I learned a lot in the way of patience.  As my friend Marc quipped, "Segways are the bikes of the bike world."    

Let's just say it was fun while it lasted, but there are bike people and there are Segway people, and I definitely fall into the former category.  They're about half as fun as riding a bike, but I really, really enjoy being on a bike, so Segways are not all bad.  

Moving on to the "bites" side of things, I've only made two pies that have been documented since I last blogged.  The first, a vegan strawberry pie, is not worth mentioning.  The second, however, was a cherry-berry pie that was delicious, if I do say so myself.

Cherries! ...but how to pit them without a pitter?

Smash 'em with the side of a knife!  The results were a little...morbid-looking.

A few cups of raspberries and cherries

A lot of sugar

...plus some lemon juice and 3 tbsp instant tapioca.  Let sit for 15 minutes.

Mixing butter, flour, baking powder, an egg, vinegar, and cold water

Forming into a ball....

....and measuring...

....and dumping some berries in....

....and HOLY SHIT, THAT'S ALMOST A PROPERLY FLUTED CRUST!!!

...with an awkward snowflake design on top.

And, most recently, Kate and Kate and I decided to go on the reverse of the trip we took in February, with the sole intent of eating pizza at the Italian Store in Arlington.  The trip, I would like to note, was much easier the second time around....possibly because we took the Custis Trail towards DC, and it was more downhill that way.

Thug life...plus some helmets.

They see me rollin'...

The Weenie Beenie!  My goal is to eat there someday.

AWESOME pizza.  I would have biked a lot longer for it.

So....that's pretty much it?  More exciting things to come, hopefully.  I may or may not have gotten a new job yet AGAIN, and in about a month I will start installing bike racks and answering pretty much all bike parking-related questions for a particular non-profit bicycling advocacy organization whose name rhymes with "Jabba" (as in, the Hutt)....*cough cough*....I'm unbelievably excited.