Results tagged "Washington DC"

I stopped short of posting something rather unpleasant yesterday…

And it’s a really good thing that I ended it when I did because today is July 28th, which is Annie’s birthday. As we all chime in … HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOOOOOO YOOOOOUUUU… And this is the birthday time of year… because my Mom’s birthday is in a couple of days and then my other sister, Kate’s birthday is the day after… But that isn’t the point, because despite today being someone else’s day, I’m going to be THAT sister and write about me first... Because today is also Jackie O’s birthday (thanks to the birthday girl for that little factoid)…  And what would Jackie have done had she been me yesterday?

I’m not a mean person… And this blog is certainly not a forum for me to vent about my inability to forgive and forget… But after bumping into someone that wronged me long ago, I did not hesitate to abuse the power of the internet. I think I was able to hold off for about 3 hours after the spontaneous reunion before I started shaking and grabbed my ipad– making it all too easy to log on… my fingers were haphazard and typos were being flung about like the grunkle in my gardens. I was upset… confused… deranged. And, had my son not demanded that I get on the floor and build the world’s largest block gas station, IMMEDIATELY, you would have all sat back and read my little fit of rage and thought to yourselves… WOW– She REALLY needs to GET A LIFE.

Because what happened years ago was really horrible. I was thrown under possibly the largest dented and dirty, inner city-dun broke garbage bus imaginable by someone that I thought was a friend. Granted, I was suspect about what was going on at the time, but being the somewhat-naive-to-what-people-are-capable-of person that I was… I didn’t see it coming. And yesterday, in the hours that passed where I didn’t finish the post about my experience… I started to actually hear the knives… ranging from pocket-sized to kitchen to machetes… that have been lodged in my back for 2 1/2 years hitting the ground. And with that, I find it breathtaking and symbiotic that my Sister and Jackie O’ shared this day on some level… because there is no way that Annie, who was born in Washington DC on the hottest day in the history of the world until this year, would have even lifted a finger when faced with the enemy. Happy Birthdaaayyyy Toooooo Youuuuuuu……

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Guest Bird #8  – Stefan

Stefan Lanfer blogs about fatherhood at dadtoday.com and recently published a book for dads to be, The Faith of a Child and Other Stories of Becoming and Being Dad.

I have been a bike commuter through rain, snow, sleet, and hail, since I was a kid -
first to North Mianus in Cos Cob, Connecticut then to the OG School on my BMX,
then to Eastern Junior High on my Fuji 10-speed (stolen),
later to classes in Hanover, NH on my Marin Bobcat Trail (stolen) then on dad’s white Fuji,
then to work at the Limo House Medical Clinic in Eldoret Kenya on a 10,000 lb steel frame one-speed monster.
When I got back to the US, I biked with my friend Keith from Capital Hill to Georgetown and Paolo’s Restaurant in Washington, DC.
Then, in my year as an intern with the Seattle Repertory Theatre, I biked from the U-district to Seattle Center on the Burke Gilman Trail,
Then, in New Haven, CT, from 13 Pleasant Street to Long Wharf Theatre, where I worked amid the loading docks of the sausage packers and chicken hackers and the raw-chicken-scrap ice pile out back with the seagull swarm.
 
For eight years now, I have biked zig zags through every part of Boston -
rated three times the country’s worst biking city,
though with our just reelected to a fifth term Mayor taking to biking,
and sticking to biking – despite getting hit by a city employee driving to work (not fired),
and hiring a bike Czar, things are starting to improve.
 
They improved a lot for me two months ago,
when I started hauling this cute pair.
 

Though at times, hauling them up hills
in my lowest gear at 3 miles per hour,
leaning forward so my front tire doesn’t lift off the ground,
I get to feel a bit like a pack animal,
but I also can’t help but notice some remarkable changes -

less honking
less flipping me off
more waving me by,
fewer expletives,
more smiles,
more talking…
“Aww!”
“How cute!”
”That’s the way to ride!  You got room for me in there?”
 
And MUCH less heckling -
like my lasting favorite,
from a mid-day ride down Washington Ave from Roxbury Preparatory Charter School back to our Dorchester office of the Project for School Innovation – “GET A CAR, ***HOLE!”
 
More grace
more joy
more connection with random random strangers,
like yesterday morning, as we biked past Java Joe’s,
a scraggly scruffy guy with coffee in one hand stood on his tip toes and reached his other hand and cigarette as high as he could over his head,
“Sorry for the smoke,” he said, an apologetic, not quite awake morning grovel.
 
 It’s a different world.

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