Four recent moments:
44.
A black SUV is parked in the bike lane on Damen. Three men stand on the sidewalk outside new condo construction. As I pass I yell my usual epithet: "I don't park in your lane."
"OK, Sparky," yells the man holding the granite counter samples.
I turn back, only because his response was so smug. (Is there anything less threatening than yuppie smugness?) I ask how hard it would be to park somewhere else. I point out that parking there is illegal and forces me into the middle of traffic.
"C'mon," says a young woman I hadn't seen in the driver's seat. "Can't you just go around for a second?"
Things I could say in response.
- "A second is all it takes for me to get killed."
"You're putting me in danger for your own convenience. But that's what SUVs are all about, isn't it?"
"Hey, I didn't paint these lines, but they're there for a reason, and it's not to be a spot for your fat, lazy ass."
"Greedy motherfuckers!"
But because I am slow and dim, I say this instead: " ."
And go on my way.
45.
A teammate and I are riding through the far-northwest suburbs. We turn onto a country road and are met by a surprising peloton: 20 Holstein cows. They're herded by a stout elderly woman with white, curly hair and a floral-print shirt. She carries a cane in her left hand and a turqouise rope in her right. "Come on," she croaks with each crack of the whip. "Get on up there!" We pace behind for a few blocks at 1 mph, careful to weave through the trail of manure.
46.
It's 11 p.m. It's strange to see a handyman laying out his tools outside a Bryn Mawr apartment building this late. A few steps later I see why he's there: Inside a brightly lit garden unit an anxious woman cradles her cat while a police officer shines his flash light at a broken window and a pile of glass shards.
47.
"Who are you seeing at Ravinia tonight?"
"Mahler's 'Resurrection.'"
"Never heard of them."