I spent Saturday tooling around town on Rhoda. She hasn’t been getting her miles in lately because I’ve been all enamored with her fellow bikes. Plus, her chain’s been popping off, and I haven’t been in the mood to fix that up. But Saturday was a nice lazy day, spent catching up on outstanding grading and reading, cleaning the house, chilling with the cats. I adjusted her back wheel, lubed her chain (that’s what she said), and bent her chain guard so the pedal would stop clicking against it on each right-footed downstroke. She was like new(ish)! I rode her down to the Treme for an evening of beer and spirited debate and then to a bar for a party. I rode up and got a surprised look from a friend who hadn’t seen Rhoda in awhile. Thing is, it isn’t the easiest thing to get all three bikes all their rides! But sharing is important in any family… Anyway, I pedaled quickly home a little bit too late at night. I didn’t mean to stop for pictures, but I found myself turning around to catch a shot of this blue stripe on the front of the New Orleans Public Service Inc., building on Baronne. First, I love this building. NOPSI is old–read all about it here–and “New Orleans public service” means something much different now than it did when it was an amalgam of utility and public transit services. Second, how great is that shade of blue, and that lovely angle as it stretches across the closed-up building? Maybe it’s just me. The picture doesn’t do justice to the color, or to how it stands out on a dark New Orleans night on a blighted building in the center of town. I zipped back Uptown, happy to have spent some long-overdue time with Rhoda.