Harriet the Spy steps out for lunch

When I was a kid, I totally wanted to be Harriet the Spy, who got all geared up after school to go spy on her neighbors.

I tried it a few times, but there was never anybody interesting to spy on.
Lately I feel properly Harriet-like when I pack my bag for my lunchtime research missions. Phone, camera, little notepad and pen, wallet, sunglasses (very important for remaining incognito).

Yesterday at lunch, I rambled around the somewhat sketchy area between my office and the big road nearby, looking for a shortcut that seems to suggest (on Google maps anyway) I could shave several blocks off my walking commute.

Unfortunately, unless I learn to fly (over giant ravines) or scale locked metal gates, the shortcut isn't going to happen.
Today I rambled to see what was up the road beyond the cemetery (answer: lots of construction and the mural at top) and whether the 171 martrushka actually passes by the office, as I suspected it did, even though on my morning commute it turns the wrong direction at Vake Park but then reappears going the same direction but several blocks before where it turned off.

(Also, I stopped to take a picture of this car. Drivers can choose the letters of their license plates. Only someone who doesn't speak English would pick this one!)

I felt very Harriet as I sat on my bus stop (located just outside the Iranian embassy), recording bus numbers in my little notebook.

Bus 171 does, in fact, materialize as if by magic just where it needs to for me to catch it to get home.

Not that I plan to ride the bus (unless it's raining).

Spies prefer to walk. We see more that way.