I didn't take this photo this morning, but I could have . . .

. . . or at least one a lot like it. Ok, it's true, this image is from India (technicalities, technicalities), but that doesn't take away from the fact that I bumped into a bike rickshaw a lot like this one -- handmade and beautifully unbranded -- while I was walking Inez this morning around 6.

It was parked in front of a house I've always admired, with at least four jerry-rigged tall bikes locked up along the fence, and usually a bunch of pierced, gritty roughnecks sharing a smoke on the front porch. Sometimes you'll see one of the guys hop on his bike and ride away, towering over the ubiquitous vans and SUVs, hightailing it down the street, weaving through traffic, generally doing whatever navigation needs to be done, since by the way, the bike has no brakes.

That particular block is pretty ganged up. So I've always liked the fact that this group of guys found their way to that apartment, and they seem to be sticking around for a while. Between the nuns to the south and these tattooed badasses to the north, the gangbangers have their work cut out for them.

But back to the rickshaw. It's a kinder, gentler apparatus than you usually see at that house. Bright yellow. Handpainted. And when I went back to take a photo before 8am, it was already gone. Which means its driver is a morning person, probably on his way to work.

I leave for Russia on Tuesday, and in my ideal world, I skip the plane altogether, and that cheerful rickshaw spirits me toward the eastern seaboard, across the mighty Atlantic, over the northern portions of the European continent, across the former nations of the Soviet bloc, and directly into Red Square.