Angry Traffic Cop

            I think I broke a personal record for French song memorization on Tuesday morning. I learned a whole song by heart in about 40 minutes.

I took a bike ride on Tuesday afternoon and it felt like my velo was slower than before. There didn’t seem to be anything dragging but it felt like there was. Maybe it was my imagination though since I was passing just as many other cyclists as usual.

            The city has pulled a dirty trick on cyclists crossing the Bloor Viaduct. They’ve set up a line of posts separating the bike lane from the cars; so now it’s harder to pass other riders. Most bikers were far enough to the right that I only had to give them a bit of warning, but one guy was in the middle and so I had to say, “Excuse me! Passing on your left!” before he moved over.

            I had only planned on going as far as Broadview but I was feeling pretty strong, plus I was still behind about three cyclists, so I kept on going until I’d passed them and when I got to Chester I was satisfied that I’d accomplished something so I stopped and turned around.

            I rode to Yonge, south to College and then west to Dovercourt. At the corner where I was waiting at the light to go south there was a pretty and extremely tall young woman in a very short pink floral dress. Her height made the dress particularly provocative because it gave the viewer a lower perspective on where her legs extended above the hem.

            On the south side of College in the middle of Dovercourt there was an angry cop directing traffic away from going south on Dovercourt from College or going north on Dovercourt from College. He stood facing a car that was coming up Dovercourt and extended both of his arms parallel to one another, palms inward and downward towards the car’s fender and then moved his arms to his left to indicate that he wanted the driver to turn right. The driver hesitated, perhaps because he was confused about the signal or maybe because he didn’t think he could make the turn sharply enough to not hit the policeman. The cop repeated his signal more aggressively and shouted, “Move!” Finally the driver backed up a bit and then started trying to turn at a wider angle. The officer threw up his hands in frustration and turned around to look in my direction while shaking his head. The light changed and I walked my bike south on Dovercourt and heard behind me the cop shouting, “Go!” to another driver.