Irony and Inconvenience
Our family vacation to the Outer Banks was planned around the closing to prepare for a temporary move of Dean's pre-k class at the Rosemount Center. Our choice of the Rosemount Center was not some sort of bleeding heart notion of introducing Dean into a multicultural world by having him be part of the 4% paying/4% white population of this multi-colore multi-cultural multi-lingual HeadStart program, but rather this school's proximity was just 2 or three blocks away from our house. Sure it is great that Dean spends his days exposed to different cultures and different languages, but that is just a positive side effect to the proximity of this school to our Mt. Pleasant home. Well, this over 100 year old building with its Spanish archetectiure is getting some sort of facelift (or perhaps asbestos removal....I do not know), while the renovations are being done the school has moved to the Trinity Campus over by Catholic University (oddly enough Trinity is where Alex DeCall goes to college, Alex is a young girl who grew up in Anacostia and was tutored by my step mother Joyce as a young child and moved into my parent's house for her high school years so that she would have a better educational opportunity, she did not get pregnant....so I guess it was a success.) The campus is not far, maybe a few miles, just across town....too far to walk perhaps a tad too hectic to pull Dean in the bicycle trailer. Thus the introduction of the Honda Element into my life.
Here it is Dean's first week at the new location. As mornings are part of my Dad duty obligations getting Dean to school is part of my routine. Previously we alternated between hiking the dogs in the woods of Rock Creek Park with riding his bicycle down the recently renovated Mt. Pleasant alleys, but now we load up the car and cuss in traffic. So here it is International Walk to School Week and I am for the first time ever driving my son to school rather than walking, is that a tad IRONIC? Isn't that fucking fantastic! The trip is a total hassle. I am now all bound up in a cage and forced to move through the logicless cattle call which is commuter traffic. Last night I tossed and I turned as I played through my head the different driving styles I witness on the roadeach day and will witness for the next 9 months. For the most part people are just not performing on the top of their game (if they are at the top of their game I think that there should be IQ tests as part of the driver's permit process...to these people's credit, I feel that they are more likely assholes rather than idiots although I still feel that they would score low on these test.) The route that I take is a well traveled commuter path that has NO PARKING SIGNS DURING RUSH HOUR that are supposed to clear the path for this cross town commute. Needless to say this path is not cleared. Cars are parked and double parked along this route, cars are stopping and waiting for their friends or girlfriends to get dressed and come out for the drive to where ever. The single path that remains available is blocked up by people waiting to take Left Turns where the sign clearly marks....NO LEFT TURN, the double parkers, the women (and maybe a few men) putting on lipstick and missing the green light, and the people just sleeping on the job. This is their commuting route, this is their daily practice, each day these butt plugs slow the flow of traffic with their same inconsiderate actions. Each inconsiderate driver punishes themselves and other like them, making the same obnoxious illegal actions each day thus causing the flow of traffic to slow and stop perhaps not realizing that they are in fact the problem and that if they each just did things the RIGHT WAY it would be better for them and better for others. So simple that you would think that the simple minded would be able to grasp this, but NO!
The idea of loading Dean up in the Burley Trailer and towing him to school each day behind the bike was a fleeting notion. This route is dangerous for me solo on the bike, so dangerous that I feel it would be irresponsible for me to try and take him in rush hour traffic on these city streets through Columbia Heights and Petworth (DC's version of Compton, but my fear is not the indigenous people as I would think that the man with the AK47 is still asleep at this time of the day as his business tends to take place in the dark of night.) The sidewalk route would be an option, but that would be a hypocritcal hinderance to all who are traveling on the sidewalks each day, as I can not stand the people who choose to take the sidewalk on the bike I can not become one of them...especially with a two and a half foot wide trailer being towed behind me, no matter how cute Dean may be. Not to mention the time that it would take to assemble the Burley trailer and link it to the bicycle and then disconnect the trailer on my return and disassemble it so it can fit in my garage would end up taking more time then to hop into my shiney new Honda Element (did I tell you that I bought an '04 Burnt Orange Honda Element, AWD with Manual Transmission?) So this will be our next 9 months!
that is my morning
this is my life
all in all it is not that big of a deal
but
it just brings the thought to surface that we should never take anything for granted
especially the daily conveniences that could quickly become inconvenient
did I mention that it shortens the already shortened dog walk in the morning
and makes already late arrival to work even later?
well
now you heard it
Our family vacation to the Outer Banks was planned around the closing to prepare for a temporary move of Dean's pre-k class at the Rosemount Center. Our choice of the Rosemount Center was not some sort of bleeding heart notion of introducing Dean into a multicultural world by having him be part of the 4% paying/4% white population of this multi-colore multi-cultural multi-lingual HeadStart program, but rather this school's proximity was just 2 or three blocks away from our house. Sure it is great that Dean spends his days exposed to different cultures and different languages, but that is just a positive side effect to the proximity of this school to our Mt. Pleasant home. Well, this over 100 year old building with its Spanish archetectiure is getting some sort of facelift (or perhaps asbestos removal....I do not know), while the renovations are being done the school has moved to the Trinity Campus over by Catholic University (oddly enough Trinity is where Alex DeCall goes to college, Alex is a young girl who grew up in Anacostia and was tutored by my step mother Joyce as a young child and moved into my parent's house for her high school years so that she would have a better educational opportunity, she did not get pregnant....so I guess it was a success.) The campus is not far, maybe a few miles, just across town....too far to walk perhaps a tad too hectic to pull Dean in the bicycle trailer. Thus the introduction of the Honda Element into my life.
Here it is Dean's first week at the new location. As mornings are part of my Dad duty obligations getting Dean to school is part of my routine. Previously we alternated between hiking the dogs in the woods of Rock Creek Park with riding his bicycle down the recently renovated Mt. Pleasant alleys, but now we load up the car and cuss in traffic. So here it is International Walk to School Week and I am for the first time ever driving my son to school rather than walking, is that a tad IRONIC? Isn't that fucking fantastic! The trip is a total hassle. I am now all bound up in a cage and forced to move through the logicless cattle call which is commuter traffic. Last night I tossed and I turned as I played through my head the different driving styles I witness on the roadeach day and will witness for the next 9 months. For the most part people are just not performing on the top of their game (if they are at the top of their game I think that there should be IQ tests as part of the driver's permit process...to these people's credit, I feel that they are more likely assholes rather than idiots although I still feel that they would score low on these test.) The route that I take is a well traveled commuter path that has NO PARKING SIGNS DURING RUSH HOUR that are supposed to clear the path for this cross town commute. Needless to say this path is not cleared. Cars are parked and double parked along this route, cars are stopping and waiting for their friends or girlfriends to get dressed and come out for the drive to where ever. The single path that remains available is blocked up by people waiting to take Left Turns where the sign clearly marks....NO LEFT TURN, the double parkers, the women (and maybe a few men) putting on lipstick and missing the green light, and the people just sleeping on the job. This is their commuting route, this is their daily practice, each day these butt plugs slow the flow of traffic with their same inconsiderate actions. Each inconsiderate driver punishes themselves and other like them, making the same obnoxious illegal actions each day thus causing the flow of traffic to slow and stop perhaps not realizing that they are in fact the problem and that if they each just did things the RIGHT WAY it would be better for them and better for others. So simple that you would think that the simple minded would be able to grasp this, but NO!
The idea of loading Dean up in the Burley Trailer and towing him to school each day behind the bike was a fleeting notion. This route is dangerous for me solo on the bike, so dangerous that I feel it would be irresponsible for me to try and take him in rush hour traffic on these city streets through Columbia Heights and Petworth (DC's version of Compton, but my fear is not the indigenous people as I would think that the man with the AK47 is still asleep at this time of the day as his business tends to take place in the dark of night.) The sidewalk route would be an option, but that would be a hypocritcal hinderance to all who are traveling on the sidewalks each day, as I can not stand the people who choose to take the sidewalk on the bike I can not become one of them...especially with a two and a half foot wide trailer being towed behind me, no matter how cute Dean may be. Not to mention the time that it would take to assemble the Burley trailer and link it to the bicycle and then disconnect the trailer on my return and disassemble it so it can fit in my garage would end up taking more time then to hop into my shiney new Honda Element (did I tell you that I bought an '04 Burnt Orange Honda Element, AWD with Manual Transmission?) So this will be our next 9 months!
that is my morning
this is my life
all in all it is not that big of a deal
but
it just brings the thought to surface that we should never take anything for granted
especially the daily conveniences that could quickly become inconvenient
did I mention that it shortens the already shortened dog walk in the morning
and makes already late arrival to work even later?
well
now you heard it