Month: July 2010

Fears about front yard gardening

You can learn a lot from the kinds of questions people ask. As some of you know I have an edible front yard. It has tomatoes (that are dying), herbs, a few edible flowers, arugula (lots and lots of arugula), Swiss chard, purslane and beets. One of the questions I get often is “Aren’t you worried someone’s going to steal your tomatoes/ herbs/ whatever?” No. The only thieves I worry about are furry, bushy tailed and have a recipe for them in the Joy of Cooking, I’m talking about the g*d2#mned squirrels. The two legged thieves only go for the identifiable stuff and most people only know parsley when it’s garnishing their plate or in the supermarket labeled “PARSLEY”.  Also their only value is as an edible and people can be really funny about that wondering if that’s really a tomato or is it a large poisonous red berry that just looks like a tomato? So no, I don’t have a problem with people stealing my edibles.

The other frequent question is about rats. Before and after the garden I’ve never had a problem with rats. Field mice, lots of problems, but not rats. The field mice are more interested in getting into my kitchen for warmth in the winter. The only thing interested in my lettuces are slugs and bugs. The tomatoes tend to be up high, and the only rodent bothering them are bushy tailed.

Right now my biggest problems in the garden appear to be blight, crowding and slugs.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 20, 2010 8:43 AM.

Write in Jack Evans

Kwame, Kwame, Kwame. Your financial life is more of a mess than we first thought. But it is still normal, if you were like a normal citizen of the District who is underwater with his mortgage, leasing vehicles, buying crap you couldn’t afford with money you ain’t got, along with student loan debt, and credit card debit that is a crazy scary amount. But hey, you’re not Marion Barry, because if you were him you could fail to pay your taxes. Hold up, somebody check to see if he’s cool with the IRS.
However, Brown is still better than Orange, as poo is better than toxic waste. Face it the choices were crap and shyte before this, and I still think old Jack over in Georgetown is a far, far, far better choice than these two. Briefly V. Orange was my councilman over here in Ward 5 and he didn’t seem to know we were a part of his ward and were ignored. Brown has been to a few civic association meetings so he has a better awareness of the neighborhood than Orange. But still, Brown not necessarily my first choice.
So is being $700K in debit a deal breaker? Well the bulk of that is his mortgage. Like many normal Americans he used his house as an ATM, as it is worth about $350-$420K and has a mortgage of about $500K. Okay maybe he put in a bitchin kitchen and maybe one day it will be worth $500K. But the boat, that was just stupid. From the Post article it appears the Browns were trying to keep up with the Jones. As far as I can tell the Jones either have money or are in debt to their eyeballs, I’m guessing the latter. I also suspect there are a lot of Joneses in DC who will be voting in the Democratic primaries and picking the candidate who most represents them.
Orange does have a point about leadership and keeping one’s personal finances in order, and a broken clock is right twice a day. If DC Council members practice bad judgment, such as overvaluing an asset, ignoring the risk when income is loss (Brown’s wife left the workforce in all this) and more responsibilities (2 kids) added. Then there is taking on liabilities for well meaning reasons (the stupid boat), that come with extra costs (maintenance) that are ignored at the time of purchase due to newbie ignorance. Still Brown is better than Orange. Orange proved that he was out of touch with reality with his failed, failed, failed mayoral campaign. It wasn’t that he didn’t win, it’s just that he only got 2.9% of the vote and spent money trying to get elected as if he were a real front runner.

Handbook for Hosts- Funny and Corny

I’m too lazy to link but today the Help and I saw as a part of the Fringe Festival Banished Productions/Happenstance Theater’s  production of Handbook for Hosts that mixed up cliched post war Noir, some Cold War ice with a side of corn on a heaping plate of comedy. We genuinely laughed and groaned. If you are familiar with mid century Jazz/ Post-War pop culture and film noir you’d get a huge kick out of it. Now if you’re thinking “I need me some cross-dressing to truly enjoy this,” well there is a bit of that too. There is some cheese in this too, but it is safe for the lactose intolerant. For some odd reason we found the shadow screen funny, the locomotive image funny and cheesy. A good cheesy.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 17, 2010 8:27 PM.

Fact of life- people move

and not just during earthquakes.

People move. If you do genealogy you’ll find that people move around, which is a pain in the butt locating people. The Help comes from a line of lumberjacks, who ran around the northern  US border following trees, and they had a common last name. So it is a guess which state they were in for any given census. My people in NC, though staying in the same two counties, moved around those counties, a lot. So that comes in mind when people say gentrification moves people out of their homes. Life moves people out of their homes. Americans are movers with fantasies that they are stable.

Most people move. A few stay, but in time they move too. In the arguments over gentrification the one family that has been in the same house for 30 years, but easily forgotten are all the other people on the street who stayed for 1 -5 years and moved. Some a few blocks over, some completely out of the neighborhood. Moving people are a bit of a problem for me with the census project as I look at the city directories, which you can find on-line in Google Books: Boyd’s directory of the District of Columbia, 1892 and Boyd’s directory of the District of Columbia, 1903. I can’t speak to the accuracy of these sources as I don’t know how the data was collected, but it’s the best source out there, short of hopping in a time machine. In my own house there were one set of people in 1892, then in the 1900 Census 11 people, then in the 1903 directory one person, all with different names. Considering that many people were renters, there really wasn’t anything tying them to one house, thus freeing them to move.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 16, 2010 8:28 AM.

Debit and city leaders

Just to remark on this DCist post about city council members and their debit. Not to excuse Councilman Thomas and his $16K of alleged unpaid student loan debit, but he’s not the only one. I’ve experienced having to deal with schools and banks hounding roommates for not paying their student loans. But apparently in the case of Thomas, he says it is a misunderstanding. I guess I’m sympathetic in that looking at my own credit report it isn’t clear that I paid off my numerous student loans as they all shifted around different parts of Sallie Mae/Citibank, consolidated, and listed as transferred or sold.
Now Kwame Brown knows he has a problem. Hopefully he knows the solution starts with a pair of scissors and living on a budget. $50K is a lot. Off the top of my head I think the highest I let my credit cards go is $7K. At $50K I’d be freaking out.
Anyway if you want to check your credit report for possible forgotten student loans check out the FTC’s free (not like the fake free sites) Annual Credit Report Dot Com. If you Google Annual Credit Report, but do not go to the sponsored link for Annual Credit Report.Com, that’s a fake.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 15, 2010 10:58 PM.

A real legacy gets past 2 generations

I heard something recently along the lines that it is sad if the only thing you know about your great grandfather is his name. I am a little lucky and not so lucky. I was young when my great grandfather on my dad’s side was alive. I remember him as a brown and skinny man. His name, James, I think. I remember where he lived, and that he lived with great-grandma across the street from my uncle, which was next door to grandma.
My great grandpa Kelly on the other hand, had a farm and the white man took it away. He was also a thin brown man, and his picture is on my downstairs wall. He had a couple of sons, one being my grandfather, the other my late great uncle who moved to DC. He also was an accomplished gardener and aided the family by keeping food on the table (what food could be grown in NC). I know nothing of his wife, she apparently died early as when I found him in the 1910 or 1920 census she was nowhere around.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 15, 2010 10:45 PM.

More thoughts on the Camp Protest

Protest bannerThis morning I awoke to an NPR report on the OneDC protest at 7th and R/ RI Ave. Or at least I thought I heard a story as I can’t find a link on either the NPR site nor the WAMU site about it. Anyway, the Shaw area does not lack affordable housing. Now I say that as in there are buildings that take up square footage and whole blocks in Shaw that were built as affordable housing, take government money to subsidize rents, are public housing, and/or are subsidized senior housing. If you are going by market rates, then it all depends on how much you’re willing to spend and what living conditions you can deal with. Playing around with DC Housing Search I see there are individual landlords and other entities that rent out individual rooms, individual houses, and small typically 4 unit apartment buildings. So when a group is protesting for more non-market rate housing, I’m thinking how much more affordable housing in this neighborhood do we need? And concentrating poverty isn’t doing anyone any favors. The protesters are nicely caged up on the lot and so far aren’t a nuisance so I have no problem with their protest. I just disagree with their demands. I am part of the Shaw community as I live here, I shop here, I vote here, and what the city or other powers that be plop down has an impact on my quality of life. Concentrating dis-empowerment and dependency near a transportation hub will continue to hamper the neighborhood’s ability to succeed.

Argh rain

I like rain but last night’s rain got into the house via the cooling and power lines of the A/C unit on the roof. I called my contractor David and he’s going to look into it. I checked with my next door neighbor whose house was also gutted and completely redone new. Well new isn’t always perfect and he had a stream of water coming down the side. My thing I think is a small fix and my biggest problem is that I don’t have easy roof access. I need to buy a decent ladder so I can get on my roof because I’ve been experiencing all sorts of issues related to lousy roof access. That, and next year I want to get on the roof for the 4th of July fireworks.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 14, 2010 8:01 AM.

Flower Power Nominees and Winners

Note- I’m leaving off backyards and the winners are in bold. If you have a chance walk by these properties when you’re out walking the dog or the baby or both.

Large yards
Though most yardspace in the northern half of Truxton is small, there are corner lots and the large front yards of New Jersey Avenue.
401 R St
1705 New Jersey Ave
1725 New Jersey Ave

Medium Yards
Whats the difference between medium and small? One looks a tad bigger. Also in this category are two neighbors who joined their yard to create something lovely.
314 P St
1612 3rd St
1419/1421 3rd St
1618 4th St
1533 3rd St (write-in)

Small Yards
112 Q St (previous year’s winner)
1532 1st St
1542 1st St

Postage Stamp Yards
These are yards so tiny there are area rugs bigger than the amount of dirt that sits outside the door. Note they are all on Bates.
64 Bates
72 Bates
74 Bates
94 Bates

Blocks
100 block of P St
1500 Block of 1st
1500 Block of 3rd

There were plenty of fine yards not nominated so these are the best of the ‘hood. Please take a look at them and steal some ideas.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 13, 2010 8:12 AM.

Warning about Lockboxes

Lockboxes are those things you see outside of houses for sale, it is a lock and a box in one. Well this weekend someone broke the lockbox that was on the fence of a neighbor of mine. The neighbor is having work done and the place is a construction zone and there aren’t any major appliances in there. But someone posing as the ‘drywall guy’ was poking around, then later the lockbox was missing, the house unlocked. The lockbox was found later in a treebox, sans keys. From the looks of the lockbox it appears the guy took a vise grip and squeezed it popping the lock. The thief ran off with a couple of saws and other tools.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 12, 2010 8:45 AM.