The R Part, Somewhat Belatedly

I’ve been fretting again about the garage where I park my bicycle when I’m at work. To recap, when you enter the garage, there are bike racks to the right and to the left. On the right side, there is sufficient room to access any bike space, as long as the people who work in the garage are careful about leaving as much room as possible when they park a car in the car space nearest the rack.

To the left, there is not enough room, no matter how careful anyone is.

There are city laws that govern this: There is supposed to be five feet of open space behind the bicycles (not counting from the rack itself, but from the backs of the bicycles) and if this space is encroached on, a barrier of some sort is supposed to be constructed to guard that space, and there is a provision for a per-day fine to be levied until the problem is abated.

I have been parking in this garage for three or three and a half years, and I can’t tell you how many times I have mentally said the above to whichever building manager is currently in charge, and yet I have never actually said it until last week, because there’s little more I can say beyond that—I have few cards better than that one.

So I have relied on polite persistence—contacting the building manager (I’m on my fourth) and acquainting them with the issues, taking a look at the bike racks together, checking back with them.

There never has been enough access on the left side, but at some point, I decided not to worry about it, because it often wasn’t needed. But in the past several months, it has been needed almost every day. Sometimes the entire rack is occupied.

So I called the current building manager and I said I thought the time had come to fix the access for this rack. We had looked at it together months ago and she had said she had some ADA requirements to deal with and that she would tackle the bike access after that.

In time, the ADA work was completed, but nothing happened with the bike racks, so I called her again and reminded her that she had said she was going to do this and that I was wondering when that was going to happen, since the ADA work is now done.

I refreshed her memory as to the requirements, and then said casually, “As a point of reference, if the city were to see the racks, and I don’t know why they would, but if they did …” and I finally got to deliver my little spiel.

She said, “I’ll take care of it,” and I thanked her and we hung up. That was about a week ago. So far nothing has happened. I hope something does because I would like this multi-year process to be done, and I’m not sure where I’d go from here. (Well, I do have an idea or two: “Would it help if I sent you a copy of the law, to help the decision-makers understand why this change is necessary?”)

Last week Tom and I went to see trumpet player and composer Sarah Wilson at Intersection. I would actually classify her more as a composer than a trumpet player; I didn’t really like her trumpet playing very much, but her compositions are very accomplished. She has a wonderful sense of rhythm and of dissonance.

Her rhythm section, which included the joyful Scott Amendola on drums, was out of this world. I have heard his name for years, but had never heard him play before. He is a really fantastic drummer. I went up and complimented him and the bass player afterwards. He looked slightly nonplussed, and after reading about him online, I realized it’s probably because he was thinking, “Yes, of COURSE I’m a good drummer—I’m Scott Amendola!”

He has a group of his own performing at Intersection in October; I will be there.

I have finished Gimme Danger: The Story of Iggy Pop, by Joe Ambrose. It’s atrociously written, but there are some interesting tidbits. It consists mainly of a listing of the musicians for various sessions, tours and albums.

Over the weekend I went to see Ann and Mac in San Rafael; Tom was on the Death Ride. I took the bus to Mill Valley, and walked to Ann and Mac’s place to pick up their car. Then I picked up Ann and we went to see Ratatouille.

When we got in the car, I said I hadn’t been sure whether to use the D4 or the D3 gear, so I had used D4. She said D4 was correct, so I put it in D4 and stepped on the gas and we lurched forward and hit the slab of concrete that marked the front of the parking space. “Oops, forgot to do the ‘R’ part,” I said. That was her first experience of my driving, so that was a little embarrassing.