An e-mail alert went out yesterday to previous attendees of the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Free For All that it's still on, but it's now on inside and in Penn Quarter at the newish Sidney Harman Hall. That means no more pre-show picnics on the grounds of Carter Barron (the National Building Museum is opening its more limited patch of grass this year), no more waiting in the woods and chatting with strangers before the gates open, no more wrapping up in blankets in the first act's gloaming, no more marveling as the moon appears just when it should during A Midsummer's Night Dream.

I missed last year's rather soft announcement of the death of one of D.C.'s greatest summer pleasures, staged at Rock Creek Park's amphitheater since 1991. Sure: The pros at the STC are still offering their talents to the masses free of charge and, sure, said talents won't be hampered by rain, or cold, or the choking D.C. humidity. But wasn't the weather part of what made the Free For All such fun?

Keeping a decent neighborhood listserv going means posting a lot about lost dogs, reporting on gunshots, and cranky neighbors dropping weird racial stereotypes related to crime. All of these will keep the message board well stocked with posts. But few posts beat the mysterious stranger knocking on doors thread that pops up once in a while. Years ago, we chronicled one mystery woman roaming Cap Hill.

The Shepherd Park listserv has a pretty good mystery stranger story this week. A poster writes:

"There was a guy in front of my house this afternoon at about 4 ranting at people who were coming up my steps.  He was yelling about wanting to talk about real estate and how is parents watched me move in.  He said he was from the neighborhood.  I told him we were busy, but he persisted and knocked on the door.  I repeated that we were not interested in talking and he went away."

A cop then responded to the listserv.

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Oh heavens! Someone is blocking the bike lane in front of me! Quick! Let me take a photo and blog it!

Seriously, fellow cyclists, you know why people think we're weenies?
1) The clothes. For Pete's sake, yellow lycra?
2) The incessant whining.

Look, "Share the Road" goes both ways. I don't like whooshing into traffic to avoid a double-parked UPS truck, but I can also chalk that up to the price you pay for being able to get a goddamn package from this place. For every oblivious a-hole trolling for a parking spot at 5 mph there is a hard-working tradesperson who needs a quick in and out on a busy street.

Living in a city means making tradeoffs. In our nonstop complaining about being forced to veer around cars' blind spots, I think we're developing a major one of our own. Personally, I think bikes are a much better way to get around town than cars, no matter the weather, and I bloody hate when someone's parked in the bike lane. But we are a tiny percentage of the vehicular population in D.C., and I think it's time we stopped acting like that gives us superpowers. Let it go and just ride.

Photo by Flickr user tvol