We finally rode that tandem bike . Yep, it had to be put off by yet another weekend, because John had forgotten about his out-of-townness last weekend.

How did we do?  Well, we got the thing rolling pretty well and managed to ride it with a fair degree of success around the National Mall, Lincoln Memorial, and Tidal Basin (hullooo, Mr. Jefferson).  We managed to not kill, maim or otherwise injure ourselves, the people who stared at us while walking into our path (ummm… would you walk in front of a moving bicycle with one person on it?  Okay – double the mass: NOW would you walk in front of it?  Apparently, for many tourists in the Washington DC metro area, the answer to that question is a zombielike, "Yessss…. must walk in front of long bicycle…."), and in one gobsmackingly awful moment, a boy of 12 or so on a regular bike who navigated by a cunning sort of scrying of the ground directly under his own feet and managed to jackknife his bike facing us about five feet away in a crowded scrum of other bikes and pedestrians.  (As we rode past the rest of his family, his older sister said, "I am so sorry," with a stricken look on her face that bodes well for her citizenship in the human race.)

Cap’n John had an able hand on the tiller and managed to avoid all of these perils.  I acted as "stoker," pedaling along and making "eeyikes" faces when various perils were before us.

Quieter monuments, like the George Mason, were havens for long-bicycle freaks, and represented the only point at which I even felt like taking out the camera:

It was a really pretty day, though hot.

Here’s the beast:

The verdict: though we rode it well, it was really uncomfortable.  The handlebars of the stoker’s seat are arranged so they are neither the full drop of a road bike, nor the "sit up and beg" of an old-fasioned bike.  The intermediate position is really hard on the arms, back, and shoulders.  The length and limited maneuverability make for less fun as well.  We decided we’d probably have a much better time just getting up early on a cool fall weekend, loading our own bikes onto Metro (which allows bikes on board on weekends) and tooling around the monuments on our nimbler two-wheelers.

But it was fun enough, and now we can say we did it without any damage to our relationship.

This year, the grandmothers in my life are getting simple, airy scarves made from kidsilk haze.  Easy to knit, portable on airplanes, and nice warm bits of pretty fluff.  I was finishing the second (for John’s Granny – actually out of kidsilk night – a deep lavender with flecks of silver, perfect for her) sitting next to a gentleman who had informed me that he has seven children.  I admit, I boggled visibly when he told me he had seven children.  At any rate, having finished the scarf and having large leftover amounts of pale pink and lavender sparkle kidsilk, I couldn’t resist swatching them together on the big needles I was using to see what resulted.  When I saw the fluffy bit of luxury that was forming in my hands, I turned to Mr. Seven and asked if any of his daughters were into Barbie.  When I found out that yes, they were, Mr. Seven went home with a very luxe little stole for Barbie.  Perfect for those evenings at the opera, you know.

An airport-bound taxi in Manhattan took me through Columbus Circle, whereupon I saw they have a holiday market at the southwest tip of Central Park.  I wanted to stop and wander, because it looked a lot like the Weihnachtsmarkts that I fell in love with in Germany (though surely minus the street vendors selling gluhwein).  Unfortunately, there was no time.  Always onward.

The last bit is only tangentially travel-related.  Author Neil Gaiman was in the Philippines,  where he conspired with a fan to help the fan propose to his girlfriend at a book signing via Neil’s inscription in her book.  The video link is here.  It’s terribly sweet and cute, in that “major life event – what is happening in two seconds to everyone else is clearly taking half an hour in their personal timeline.”  Since the video isn’t always very clear, the description of the event by the fiance is here.  If Neil Gaiman gets any nicer, he’s single-handedly going to improve the niceness average for the human race by several points.