Author: Mari

This might be another great InShaw series, or not. But I should start somewhere.
I haven’t owned a car since 1993 when I sold my one and only car after graduating college. Since then I either had no money for a car (gas, insurance, maintenance, etc) or lived in areas where parking was a game of skill and cunning, and there was ample public transportation, I just never bothered to buy another car. So here I am, more than a decade later, and still no car. So I walk.
I chose the neighborhoods where I lived in the DC metro area based on the public transportation and what was in walking distance. When I first moved to Shaw, over in Logan Circle, I picked the place because #1 it was cheap, second because within walking distance was a Laundromat, the Giant, the metro station, and my hairdresser. Whole Foods hadn’t opened up until I was ready to move, it was 3 blocks away. When I bought the house and moved to the other end of Shaw, I could still walk to the Giant, I can walk to a Laundromat, the metro, and on a good day, when the sun is shining, my hairdresser.
Walking and having to walk is one of the good things about living in the city. Separates us from the far flung suburbanites. We got sidewalks, lots of ’em. Things are just close enough that you can walk to them, when there are things to walk to.
Almost everyday, I walk to the metro, to and from work. Depending on my needs and the season, I walk to the Giant or to the corner store for milk. I walk to the Dunkin Donuts, canceling out any health benefits walking may give. I walk over to friends’ homes. Sometimes I just walk to look around and see what is going on with the neighborhood.
Walking, good for you.

Last night in the house of the screaming woman, they had a little party. Well, “cookout” as they like to call it. Their cookouts are upsetting to me because it always rolls out into the alley and so does their garbage. Oh then there is the noise, but for now that’s not my pet peeve, I can call the cops about the noise. No my problem is the trash that they produce. B. told me they threw part of a hot dog in his yard. I walked out and noticed a plastic juice drink bottle in mine. I have seen guests at other such cookouts they’ve held throw trash into neighboring yards. Almost makes me angry enough to want to use the N word to describe them and their behavior. It’s one thing to trash your own yard, it is another thing to trash someone else’s.

After a day of dancing out at Dupont Circle this Sunday I rode back home with the intention of collasping on the bed and passing out. But I couldn’t because of the ruckus in the alley behind the house. Thinking I heard something in my yard, I looked out the window and about 5 boys around the age of 10 or 12 where bouncing a ball around between their tiny yard and the alley. I watched them because last year when they got a homemade basketball hoop up, rough play kept banging against my fence and my fence is not strong enough for that. For the longest while they were figuring out their play, bounce the ball, bang wood, run around or talk smack about girls. Another neighbor, attracted by the noise came out for a while and later yelled to someone inside the house to call the police when the boys started banging wood in a vacant yard.
Kids have no sense of private property.
Oh, they understand yours, mine, and theirs. But they don’t seem to give a second thought into wandering into someone’s yard, or even hitting balls on someone else’s wall or fence.
I caught Kwan with his new kitty in someone’s front yard standing on some stone edgers. I believe the cat was looking at the yard like a litter box and Kwan was focused on the cat, not on the fact he was stepping all over someone’s front yard. I told him he could fall standing on the edgers and got him out of that yard. It didn’t help that the yard did not have a fence.
Kids will also abuse fences. They will swing on the gate, sit on the fence, lean on the fence, and depending on the amount of give, bounce off the fence. Some of the fences on our block are not anchored well and bounce back when kids ram into them. Or just remain leaned back. When I do replace my fence, it will be kid proof.

My renting friends keep saying the market is going to bust. The housing market, because 5 years ago, they, with their single salaries could have bought in the city. Nothing big mind you, but a small bit of terra firma, or a very small studio condo. But they were too cool or what they could buy was not good enough, so they waited. And now we are here with vacant crack houses starting at 200K. So they (okay mainly just Bigg Al) keeps saying the market is going to bust, it is going to bust like the tech stocks. I say deflate. Also even if my house reverts back to the price I bought it at, I still got a house. Roof over my head. Bed to sleep in. Basement that floods. Mine, all mine. Unlike tech stocks I’m not left with just worthless numbers on a screen.
Keep saying the sky is falling, as long as terrorists don’t strike and the roof stays up, I’m good.

Back when Sala Thai opened I asked them if they delivered to my house, thinking I was well in their 2 mile delivery zone. Well no. So I come home today and in the mail is a menu for Sala Thai. “Bastards,” I think to myself. They taunt me with their menu when I can’t order delivery from them. Phooey, I spit on them. So I call them up, to demand why they tease me with descriptions of cilantro and lemon grass. Well, apparently, now they deliver to this neck of the hood. Go figure. So I order and in 45 minutes I’m eating Panang Gai on the floor in front of my TV.
Now I gotta see if Pizza Hut has changed its delivery policy.

Came across a useful UK based site for gardeners Thompson & Morgan. They have a seed germination guide, a vegetable growing guide, and a few other useful tips if you are wondering (as I am) when stuff goes into the ground.

I know it is warm so that is a perfectly good reason to open the windows. One of the neighbors on the other side of the alley has had her windows up for the past few days so when I sit out in the back I can hear them perfectly. All their family business. I don’t want to hear their family business, but it’s like being on the metro where the girl is talking to her friend on the phone real loud about something in the TMI range, you can’t help but to hear. Makes it kind of hard to enjoy the backyard, listening to a woman constantly screaming at her kids and whomever also happens to be in the house. I understand the occasional “pick up your X” or other command screams, but from past history, I know that it can go into a hour long tirade of throat drying yelling about anything under the sun.
Add on that recently they have lost or pulled up the binds so you can see into the house from the alley. So pictures with sound. This is a bit easier to ignore. I can always veer my eyes away but the screaming draws them back to the source.
I guess my biggest problem is with the yelling. The never ending screams.

A little warning as I saw one of our local crackheads peaking into a car and testing the door this morning as I was running to work. Dude? Have you no shame? I’m right here and looking at you! And I know it wasn’t your car.
If you have crackheads, or crackheads pass through and you own a car, lock it. Don’t assume that no one will try the doors. Also don’t leave anything that will give them hope that there is something they may want in your car. So clean it out, or at least transfer it all to the trunk.

My compost brings
all the worms to
the yard
And they’re like,
better than yours.
Dang right better
than yours

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had a good time gettin’ dirty. Mixing potting soil, peat moss, sand and compost, good times. Most of the compost was pretty much composted, with a few things that will take a forever and a half to decay, like avacado skins and mango pits, still entact. And the worms! My, they have been busy. So many worms. I’m gonna have to expand. I’m going to have to eat more veggies, or throw out more. I’ve got several hundered spineless mouths to feed.
Also discovered the importance of turning the compost. The bottom of the trash can/ compost pail wasn’t aerated and when I got to it. OH MY GAWD! Smelled like a hog farm in July. Used it anyway, and after a few days the smell is not as bad.
To deal with the aeration problem, I’m thinking I will move to plastic bins that are shallow enough for my short girlie arms. The problem with the trash can is that it is too deep to get to all of the matter.
Anyway, good compost will hopefully make for a good crop this year.