The clouds and rain finally lifted today, and I had time for a bike ride–huzzah! Strangely, though, I didn’t really feel like leaving the house at all, so it was mid-afternoon before I dragged myself down the stairs and on to the bike with the promise that I could just listen to music that used to be meaningful back when I was 20 and do laps around the reservoir in the sunshine wishing some of those red-winged blackbirds were orioles. I did a couple of laps and then decided to pop off the trail at Linden to see what’s back there in Reservoir Hill. I was feeling those end-of-semester blahs, but as soon as I was on a street that was unfamiliar to me I perked up. That’s what I love about the bicycle–it has yet to fail to turn my mood around. I rode along Linden and admired the houses, some really grand ones alongside other blighted ones, like every neighborhood I’ve been through in the past many years. I stopped to take a picture of this one, because sometimes streets look like this, a grande dame missing her other half, leaving a strip of vacant lot between her and the mammoth tree and Victorian house next door, on the other side some of that ubiquitous formstone–is that what that is? I took a right and headed back to the park up Eutaw Place–now that’s a pretty street. I did a loop around the park before heading back down to the reservoir and home again. It was a short ride, but I’m glad I dragged myself out. And now, back to work. Summer, where are you?