Author: Mari

DIY bike parking

There is no obvious bike parking around the New York Ave metro station. But I found something to attach the bike to. I have seen a bike attached to the station rails right near the token gates, but I figure the troll in the booth would yell at me for that. There is still construction and many, many yards of tall chain link fence around yet to be built offices. I attached my bike to the fence. Now keep in mind the bike in question is the crap bike, a rusty 3 speed thing with 1 working brake. I’m not too worried about it. Besides I have 3 locks for it. A cable, a U-lock with a round key and a U-lock with a key-key. You gotta really want my bike to steal it. Well after 3 hours of leaving it alone, it was still there. Of course the station is still new, bike thieves may not have discovered it yet.

Starbucks and gardening

As part of their grounds for your gardens program, you can get free used coffee grounds from any Starbucks. Well testing out this theory I found it helps to point out to employees after they look at me as if I’ve grown a 2nd head, a)where their “used” grounds are b) I use them for fertilizer (compost is too hard to think about) and c) I have a bag you can put them in. Note with plastic store bags, it helps to double them and have an absorbent newspaper under them cause they will leak.

This week I decided I wanted to hit the 4 Starbuck between the Archives Navy Memorial metro station and the Gallery Place Chinatown station. There’s 1 Starbucks every 2 blocks in this small space, silly I say. Anyway here are the results:

325 7th Street Always crowded. I can never seem to find a good time to go in and ask for grounds. So I moved on.

7th and E Across the street from Jaleo. I got espresso grounds (personal fav) and filtered coffee from the big coffee machines. Staff was confused by my request for about a minute when an older woman figured it out and fulfilled my request. She put my single plastic bag in a paper Starbuck bag. Good service.

9th and G Over by the MLK library. Young staff was totally confused by my request. Apparently there was no manager on site or anyone older than 21 working in the store. That and unlike some of the other Starbucks I have visited, they don’t dump their espresso in a drawer but directly into the garbage. So the only thing I got from them was the huge filtered coffee grounds. Not really worth the trip to me.

7th and H Streets As I headed towards the 4th Starbucks I was overcome by a superstrong smell of coffee. I could not bear the smell of it, and like the 1st Starbucks, this was also quite busy.

Another mention:

13th & U Right at the U Street metro station is the best Starbucks for coffee grounds. They used to actually have bags of grounds available but I guess not enough people picked them up. Yet with the exception of new people, I don’t get the odd look. The manager, upon request will get a nice pile of grounds without me having to explain anything.

Lazy Sunday other NYAFAGU stuff

I was lazy today.

I accomplished very little.

What I did accomplish was timing myself walking and biking between the house and the new station (NYAFAGU). 7 minutes by bike. P Street is crap too. It was okay today but there was no buffer space, this may not work during rush hour. 17-20 minutes by foot. At that point gotta wonder is it easier to walk to Gallery Place Chinatown (oh I’ve done it)? In theory, it is closer than Dupont and Gallery Place. In theory.

There’s another concern. People get ugly as I go east. There is that mass of desperate people congregating at Florida and North Cap. They is ug-ly. Almost fugly. Then along North Cap from Florida down to Hanover you got some more butt ugly people hanging out, kicking back. From North Cap to the 2-3 blocks to the station it is then empty, except for the cars going by. Scary empty to me. I don’t like large dark parking lots, or empty stretches of space where there is nothing.

Dupont Circle – pro= beautiful people, cool stuff lots of street traffic. Cons= lots of street traffic, too far to walk, only 1 bus to get home.

Gallery Place Chinatown– Pro= 70 and 71 bus run frequently, lots of street traffic, walkable in the day. Cons= Looooong walk. 70 & 71 bus not close to house.

NYAFAGU- Pro= New, 3/4 of a mile away, 90, 91 & X? bus service it. Con=possible scary walk @ night, ugly people, unit blocks with problems, annoying office buildings in the way, & crappy roads.

NY Ave (NYAFAGU) station

The Nahyafahgu or New York Avenue Station opened up today and has that lovely new metro smell. Unlike as Nathan put it, that old metro smell of urine.

It was funny pulling in as the train operator stumbled around for what to call the station. She said three different versions NYAFA-GU, New York Avenue and New York Avenue Gaulludet University. I think it will just be New York Avenue.

There are two exits, Florida Avenue and M Street. The Florida Avenue side has a nice new sidewalk up to the bus stop. After that the sidewalk is small and cruddy. Florida Avenue for the most part is cruddy. The M street side looks like one of those industrial backroads you may find yourself on when you’ve made a wrong turn and can’t seem to find your way back to the main road.

I tried to figure out how I can possibly go between my house and NY Ave station w/o getting killed by a car. So far, it seems I will have to take P Street NW east, take a bit of FL Ave NE, but as FL Ave sucks, turn on to 1st Ave NE, cross the NY Ave road of death, then turn on M Street NE. P Street isn’t the greatest for a bike because of the lack of enough buffer space, but the road is 10x better than FL which is torn up and crappy, AND doesn’t have enough buffer space between me and the speeding cars.

I thought I would have some pretty pictures of the station for you but, no. My digital camera wanted to go on strike. So you will not get the lovely picture of the gold toned Metro pillar, the example of lack of bike parking, and the big funky silver leaf public art thing. Oh, on bike parking there is nothing, NOTHING to secure a bike to, no parking meters, no decent street signs, nada. Nothing unless the links in a chain link fence do it for you.

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I still have the Peter Seller pass, anybody, Bueller?

I believe Jimbo was the first to semi-claim the plant.

Oh, and theoretically Sala Thai delivers, a 2 mile radius they say. Let’s see if that radius includes my house.

Thanks to all who read my blog, thank you.

Gardening ain’t cheap

Yesterday I got a laurel bay plant via Ebay, and from Ebay’s Half.com I got a book on composting and I hope to soon order 1/2 a pound of California redworms for the compost heap. All of this isn’t cheap. It isn’t chichi expensive either, but leting my yard go to pot would be a cheaper alternative.

When I first moved in I had to buy several new bags of dirt to condition the soil. The soil around the house was nothing but a clayee mass. Dig more than 6 inches and there’s clay. So several runs to Home Depot for garden soil and the composting of office coffee grounds made my soil somewhat decent.

I look over at my African neighbors and see how little work they put into their yard makes me realize how much time and money I put into mine, just to make it look not ghetto. Not that they don’t do anything. Every other month the landlord tills the dandilion field that is their front yard in hopes of getting rid of the weed, only for it to sprout back up again. They had put in plants but with no spigot in the front the plants died of thirst and tough soil. They’ve recently threw some mulch on top and planted some flowers, but soon the weeds will pop up again. It is not a matter of prettying up what they have but controlling the stuff they don’t want. Weed killers, special de-weeding tools cost money.

Anywho– CONTEST

Anyone want an agave plant? It is very small. Be the first to write a comment saying “I want your agave” and if you live in Shaw (or 4 blocks from my house) I will deliver to you a small agave plant. I can’t eat it so I don’t want it. Oh, and other contest thing to see if anyone is out there, if decide to write in the comments how you’d love to see a movie I’ll pass along my pass to see “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers” showing Dec 2 at the Mazza Gallery. You will still need to live in Shaw or 4 blocks from my house.

New Metro Station to open this weekend

Yipee!

I’m excited. It is not in Shaw but pretty darned close. Over on Florida and New York Avenue NE will be a new station I’m thinking about calling it NYAFAGU (Nah-YA-Fah-Gu), because of it’s incredibility stupid long name. It’s opening this weekend. Can you feel the excitement Eastern Shaw, Truxton Circle, Eckington and Mt. Vernon Sq.? Can you feel it?

WMATA has some information about the new station on it’s site. Apparently the 90, 92, 93 and X3 buses will service the station. However I am miffed that there is no bike parking at the station. BOO! There is a frickin bike trail next to the station but no bike parking. I guess I’ll have to keep my eye out for DIY bike parking like over at Mt. Vernon Square. There apparently will be no car parking there either.

My other concern is how am I going to get over there. On bike Florida Avenue is a road of DEATH. There are horrid potholes all along the right hand side where I ride. New York Avenue is another road of DEATH, but little matter as I am more likely to choose a FL death than a NY one. There is a walkable path along N or P Street (?) but only accessible by scooting through the chained gate. I did get my bike through but not worth the short cut over.

Anyway.. yea!

Restaurant Delivery

Pizza Hut hates my block. Actually I believe that Pizza Hut hates most of Shaw, because the Pizza Hut on U Street won’t deliver in spots east of it’s 13th & U location. When I was living on 12th Street it barely wanted to even deliver there claiming it didn’t go to a certain address south of me. Then I had to ‘splain to the girl on the phone that you’d had to pass my apartment to get to the end of their delivery zone.

Worse now that I have moved waaaaay east of 12th Street. Finding places I like and that deliver is very hard. Dominos will deliver. But I’m not a big fan of Dominos. There are also more local pizza chains that will deliver, but for blah pizza I could just cook my own frozen kind.

Chinese restaurants are delivery sluts. Anywhere, almost anytime for very little money. The so-so Chinese restaurant on P and 11th will deliver, as well as some others I suspect. But there is only so much Spring Onion Beef I am willing to eat.

As new restaurants open up in Logan and on U Street I do inquire about their delivery services and if possible they deliver to me. No. Rice does not deliver to eastern Shaw, too far. As far as I know Allero and Sala Thai up on U don’t deliver at all to anyone. Etheopian delivery seems pointless, just easier to walk and that spongy bread doesn’t travel well.

BL and N turned me on to a non-Shaw Indian restaurant that does deliver to eastern Shaw, LeDroit Park and Eckington, Mehak. Now I have eaten at their 7th Street location once and was not too impressed by their food at the prices they were charging. So last week I tried them out. Yea! They deliver to my house. Boo. I’m still trying to figure out where the extra $5.00 charge came from as I keep re-adding the bill. I ordered Chicken Curry, which I must say tastes way better as a leftover.

There are delivery services that will pick up a meal for me for an extra charge, but I’d prefer it when the restaurant itself delivers. Maybe I want too much.

Poverty up close and personal

I was chatting with another DC resident & gentrifier (let’s call him “Bob”) the other day about an aspect of living in a “transitional” neighborhood, the poverty. It is one thing to see the poor and the homeless on the street day to day, it is a whole nother ball of wax to live next door to people who are a mini-disaster away from homelessness.
Bob and his wife live next door to a Section 8 house and have experienced a series of troubled residents. “I’m tired of the crack heads yelling outside,” he moaned, regarding the current neighbor and her visitors. Besides that, he and his spouse have maintained a working relationship with the Section 8 neighbors. The ones before the current one, he suspects there was abuse and drug use. They were a nice enough family, but the husband would come back from the local liquor store with a bottle in a black bag and later that night there might be a ambulance to take away the father-in-law. The family would say it was the FIL’s health but Bob suspected elder abuse at the hands of the drunk husband. Then there were other things. When they family members hit Bob & wife up for money. At first it was small change that was quickly returned, then it became $10, $20, $30 and so on, that was never returned. So Bob decided to not lend them money because the excuses/lies were getting kinda blatant. He felt bad for the family, but he didn’t want to become an ATM either.
This whole living next to poor people is really new for him. He and his wife had your typical American middle class white suburban upbringing, where poor people were distant. In recent years he’s becoming more familiar with the poor’s plight but also their failings (okay maybe living near crackhead Section 8s not the best way but that’s what he’s got). Sympathy mixed with a load of frustration and downright annoyance.
This is poverty. Up close, and personal. It is next door. You can’t just pass it by on the street and think nothing of it 10 seconds later. It is there, where you live, and there is no escaping short of moving out. Second hand you experience the problems of poverty and there is nothing you can do to take your neighbors out of their predicament, and you know it. *sigh*

New Bike Trail at NY Ave Station

Metropolitan Branch Trail to Open at NY Ave Metro

Saturday, November 20th, 10am to 12pm

1st and M Street NW

Join WABA (Washington Area Bicyclist Association) this Saturday at the grand opening of the new NY Avenue Metro Station and the latest section of the Metropolitan Branch Trail(MBT). By constructing the trail along with the Metro rail station, Metro’s engineering and design were brought to bear on the problems of bringing the trail through the New York and Florida Avenue interchange, one of the most complicated and dangerous traffic areas in DC. The ribbon cutting will take place on Saturday, November 20th at the New York Avenue Metro station (red line). The ceremony will begin at 10am and feature remarks by local officals and the Coalition for the Met Branch Trail. We hope that you will come out and show your support for this exciting new project and join us in a group photo along the trail.

WABA