soooo, i rear ended someone today in our (somewhat) new (to us) prius. i’m fine, and *certainly* wasn’t at fault, but it reminds me how much i hate driving on the wrong side of the river.

here are the things that the driver (from Virginia, natch) did wrong (with a photo illustration in case you get confused):

1. he was coming from alexandria, so in order to be where he was he had to illegally cut across at least one lane of traffic to get there.
2. he ignored a “circle traffic must stay in the circle during rush hour” sign, and pulled out into the flow of traffic.
3. he cut across four lanes of traffic — four! — including three lanes with solid white lines.
4. he cut me off, and then immediately slammed on his breaks for a pedestrian in the crosswalk.

the only good news is that he stopped, and didn’t hit the pedestrian (who was emerging from behind a big lumbering passenger van).

that’s when it got fun.

he blamed the van driver for “letting” the pedestrian use the crosswalk, and then eagerly blew off the damage to his car (you can make out the outline of my license plate on his rear bumper) to get the heck out of dodge.

i double checked The Prius soon after i started breathing again, and no damage to my car — or me, for that matter. he did give me his information after i took a picture of his license plate, but strangely didn’t seem interested in waiting for mine.

wonder if he’ll do that little stunt again.

i’ve got to say that dc public pools are nothing like what i’d imagined — though given the state of some dc public school buildings, what i was expecting was a pretty low bar.

there were maybe 25 people at the pool at 4pm on a Sunday, mostly parents with children.

oddly enough, lots of international types who weren’t speaking the English so good — but no hordes of unattended kids whose parents had dumped them at the pool 8 hours earlier.

the kiddy pool was gi-normous (15′ x 30′ish) and sloped like a beach from inches to about two feet deep.

don’t get me wrong — the pool wasn’t gleaming (i wouldn’t put sparklet down on the floor of the shower room) but it was certainly no worse than the neighborhood pool where i grew up.

and, for DC, that’s pretty outstanding.

you’d think with the number of times we’ve been to the petting zoo that sparklet would have actually pet something by now — but sadly it’s not the case.

most of the time it’s just me and the sparklet and there are just too many things to lose track of — hands on livestock, hands near eyes, hands in mouth mouth, stroller, camera, sanity, etc.

but this time i had help. and she had petting (that’s Flash the Miniature Mediterranean Donkey, btw).

the result? a bit of a yawner, actually.

sparklet only really identifies things as animals when they move — everything else is just a big carpet. but, if the animals are moving, she can’t pet them. if they’re not moving, then what’s the point?

it’s sorta cute, the number of people who’ve asked about sparklet’s first 4th of july.

besides brunch with the mightymightyboigs (the highlight!) we spent the day hiding from the heat, and the night putting sparklet back to sleep after being woken up by late night, unlicensed “community” displays of patriotic exuberance.

go, team america.

there’s been rash of baby animals being born at the national zoo — gorilla, red panda, kiwi, hornbills, etc — and because we never really make it past the petting zoo, we hadn’t managed to see any of them.

it’s crazy hot right now, which has mostly kept us inside in the afternoons, but we made a rare exception and drove over to the zoo to run in an see the new baby gorilla in her (mercifully) air conditioned enclosure.

not saying we go a lot, but i know the names of more petting zoo animals than i know the names of people on who work on my floor.