Jet lagged on a sunday morning, i woke up at 5am as the sky was lightening and savoured the bliss of rolling over to go back to sleep. Traveling as much as i do, I have learned to never ever take sleep for granted. Especially appreciated not being hungover, as the night before I made a vegetable tart, drank a single manhattan, and went to bed early [a.k.a. DREAM COME TRUE of a Saturday night]

i biked down to the Capitol building around 8 am - I think it was the first time I'd actually seen it up close. Washington DC is such a beautiful city, especially early in the morning when I can try to forget about all the ugliness. There was some kind of massive BBQ event happening [America is just so... *American*], and there was already a shimmering haze of heat rising from hundreds of smokers. Big, red-faced, ham-like men, looking smoked themselves, were hauling coolers and bags of hickory of out of their Ford pickups. The whole thing made me long for a fresh green salad.

I went down to meet a group i occasionally volunteer with - riding captain on a tandem bike with a visually impaired person. The woman I was riding with was admirably chill in the face of various bumps and weirdly shifting gears and sudden stops and wobbles. It was a tough ride (because of the aforementioned gear problems) but fun. I found it tiring because i confess i tend to zone out and day dream while riding, and that's not a good thing when you have someone counting on you to lead. There's a lot of communication required. We had various mechanical disasters involving gears, blah, i flipped the bike over a few times and poked at things and then kept riding. I will never tire of the thrill of flying down a hill on a bike. One of life's true consistent pleasures. A shady slope evokes memories of warm summer evenings, fragrance of flowers heavy in the air, careening home so happy to be alive after whatever evening adventure. More of this, please. I am finished travel for a few months and I am ready for summer.

7:29 a.m. - 2018-06-25