School’s basically out for summer, minus a whole lot of grading and the part where I start teaching summer school in less than two weeks, but hey, school’s out for summer! Woot! But first: Wednesday’s meeting. The thing didn’t start til 10, so that meant I had plenty of time to ride my bike down and up the hill to meet A. for a ride out to the suburbs. The ride’s always a bit slower during rush hour even though I’m not a car, probably because I’m one of those (mostly) rule following cyclists who stops at red lights and tends not to snake up the side of cars–pass me once, and you’re done. It was a bit slower, but I also just like feeling myself a part of the traffic flow, and oh, so much better than tin canning it by myself. I made it there in record time and we were off to the office for meeting, assessing, lunching, and back to Federal Hill for a lazy afternoon of off the clock catch up with my sweet friend. A baby is going to come out of her next month, and I’ve already got dibs on buying that kid every bike she needs as she grows up, balance bike on. Unless she’s not into bikes–nope, not gonna get pushy, no way, no how. Oh, I’m so excited for A. and K. and the rest of us who get to help bring up this baby. And then I was back on my bike with the rush hour home, using my outside voice to navigate the harbor bike/ped path–that’s just going to get more and more fun as the summer gets going–and stopped for a snack and this picture of a ring of safety cones around some repair work they’re doing right downtown. I really did take this picture of the ring of safety cones, because I love safety cones. They are just this benign object, but they have magical powers out in the world. Put one up and people walk or drive around it, don’t park there, don’t cross the barrier even if they can. Ok, maybe the rule of the safety cone isn’t always respected, but more often than not, it is. I obsess about safety cones over at Instagram–#safetyconediaries–and I can’t not notice them at this point. Which means I didn’t notice the giant Coast Guard ship in the background there, or the marshmallow building next door. Yep, focus changes the background. And then I was on my way home, starting on this street because there were no cars–safety cones for safety, you see.