Screw you Sears and your sorry Blue Service Crew

A few days ago my washer went into a coma. The thingy that tells the machine the the lid is on so the tub will spin and drain kinda broke. So I went on-line and made an appointment with Sears to fix it after a few tries at fixing it myself. The appointment was for today between the hours of 1-5. Ah, the joys of home-ownership. As a homeowner I get to take off work, use my precious annual leave, and sit around the house, waiting for the ‘guy’, as opposed to being a renter who’d be arguing with management about a broken washer.
I had called at 8AM to confirm and to provide more info about my washer’s model and serial numbers. The operator tried to sell me on a service plan, no dice. Then I took off work, and stayed near the phone and the front door. Five PM came and went and at 5:05 I called wondering where was the technician. I was told he must have gotten held up and they’ll have someone call in 15-20 minutes to say when he should arrive. I let 30 minutes pass, no call from Sears, so I call again. I’m unhappy but calm. Okay maybe full of sarcasm, but still calm. First call goes to dead air. Second call I get Bombay (or wherever the call center is) and get a nice but accented fellow, who puts me on hold for 8-10 minutes to get a hold of ‘dispatch’. The connection with ‘dispatch’ was splotchy but I managed to figure out that a) no one was coming today b) no one can come in the next week and a half, maybe and c) they are really sorry, blah, blah, blah.
After I got off the phone I got angry, angry enough to try to fix the damned thing myself. The broken do-hicky is in a hard to reach area and the connecting short grounding wire was in a spot I couldn’t get pliers into. But after a few tugs I managed to pull the part out where I could see it, figure out what exactly broke and find a temporary fix with a rubber band. I plugged that puppy back in and it sprung alive and began to drain and spin.
I felt so empowered. I mean a real surge of feeling that nothing could stop me. It was a I could fight ninjas and crush things with my bare hands kind of feeling. Boo-YAH!

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 21, 2010 6:34 PM.

Richardson House for sale

It appears that some old neighbors have decided to get out of the long distance landlording biz and put their house up for sale. The couple who owns 407 Richardson Pl, moved from DC for a job opportunity in the west (Go west young man, go west!) a few years ago and didn’t have a problem renting out their home on their way out. Then I didn’t hear anything for a while and noticed the house listed on Redfin for $380K.

The Richardson houses are skinny. About 11-12 feet wide if memory serves me right, but that isn’t a odd thing around here as older homes are narrower. But Richardson, now with a shiny new red brick road, is kinda cute. Hopefully that new road won’t suffer from the city’s odd habit of paving a road, coming back months later, digging it up, and then repaving it again.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 21, 2010 10:20 AM.

A quick mention on the passing of Ted McGinn’s wife

Ted, for those of you who didn’t know is the big white man at the Bloomingdale Farmer’s Market and is quite involved with the community north of Florida Ave. He hasn’t been as of late because of his wife’s battle with cancer. Last week the battle was lost. There will be a memorial service Thursday July 29th at the Friends Meeting House, followed by a pot-luck at the Big Bear. I saw something on the Eckington listserv from Holly Baynham organizing the pot-luck. There is more information on the Bloomingdale Blog about this.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 21, 2010 8:00 AM.

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.

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.

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.