I bought Chris Rock’s book “Rock This” off of an underaged neighbor. I had planned to sell it on Half.com. Sadly there are too many crack related jokes AND Marion Barry jokes to let it go.
Author: Mari
My Darwinian yard
Like the house I have gotten less involved with certain tasks. The garden. My philosophy, it grows cool, it doesn’t oh well. That’s why I plant certain tomatoes, or why I stick with peppermint and thyme and tried growing some other plants. They work. I now know passion flower grows like crazy, I shall grow it again next year.
Arugula. Arugula is what grew in my yard despite my refusal to pay it much attention. Actually it grew in a pot. I threw a bunch of seeds in for mixed salad greens in the Spring. The red leaf was wimpy and didn’t survive, there was some other green that just tasted fowl and I ripped that out of the pot. So I’m tasting and ripping whatever I don’t like out of the pot. I get to this funky green that is okay at first but has a bit of a bite and it is the only thing to survive. The rains watered it, ’cause heavens know I didn’t. Anyway, come Fall I revisit the pot and notice that the arugula has gone crazy, there are big chunks of this plant in my little pot, just overflowing, like it is trying to escape from the pot. So I have all these tomatoes, I serve the arugula in a salad. Not half bad, but I am still not fond of the bite. I tried cooking it like spinach, it was fine, no bite and it was a little like spinach, but not. I think I’ll grow this next year.
Tomatoes. The tomatoes have been very good to me, and like the arugula, I’ve ignored them as well. I didn’t water them much. I did pick off the tomatoes, and put up strink to support the vines, but not much else. I grow yellow tomatoes as the red ones don’t seem to flourish in my yard.
The tarragon also, despite my best efforts of ignoring it, also seem to want to keep growing. Anyone need tarragon? I don’t seem to cook with it and yet it still grows. It dies back every year and the darned herb keeps growing back.
Peppermint is a weed. It will grow. It will grow where you don’t want it to grow.
Unlike my neighbors who baby their plants, I semi-ignore mine. I will water when they are on the verge of death. I don’t feed them fertilizer. So what’s growing in my yard are the baddest mf plants on the block. They are tough. They are the fittest.
ANC 5C meetings
From a Berry email.
Neighbors,
Below please find a public notice re. the next two meetings of ANC 5C.
Please share these data with your neighbors and make your best effort
to
attend.
Best,
Jim Berry
ANC 5C
GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
ADVISORY NEIGHBORHOOD COMMISSION 5C
POST OFFICE BOX 77761
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20013
TELEPHONE: (202) 832-1965/1966
www.anc5c.org
PUBLIC MEETING NOTICES
Monthly Meeting
Invited guests include representatives from the following
organizations:
DC SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT COMMISSION
UNIVERSITY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT
Where: All Nations Baptist Church
2001 North Capitol Street, N.E.
When: Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Time: 7:00 P.M. until 9:00 P.M.
Monthly Forum
Where: Paul Laurence Dunbar Sr. High School
1301 New Jersey Avenue, N.W.
When: Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Time: 7:00 P.M. until 9:00 P.M.
The 3rd year slump
I stopped by my neighbor J&L’s house to drop off some extra tomatoes I’d had. Now I haven’t been inside their house for a good long while, over a year. J&L bought their house round about the same time as I bought mine, three years ago. They did much more work than I could ever do, the floors, the kitchen, the back, exposing brick, getting a working fireplace, etc…. Walking in I remarked about the difference since I last saw it, and J pointed out some things he and his wife did, and we looked at the hallway. There is more to do in the hallway, moulding and such. However it is on the back-back burner, just tired and not interested in doing more to the house. I’m gonna call it the 3rd year slump.
I’ve hit the 3rd year slump. My interest in doing more to the house myself is very low. I prefer, despite the pain to my finances, to pay someone to tear up the house and build it up again. My first year of home ownership was a flurry of DIY projects, now, my goal is to keep the house from falling apart. This morning the house was still standing, job done.
I’m still a DIY girl, just that it is now more reactive than proactive. Three years ago I built a stair railing, I repointed the brick in the basement, I overhauled the front yard and repaired the walkway. Year 2, I put in new fencing (had to hire for that), put the washer/dryer downstairs (also a hire job), actually I hired men to do a lot of work round the house last year. This and last year was the kitchen (before & 2 and after & 2). Now I just want to plan to pay people to tear up the rest of my house 2-3 years from now while I temporarly relocate to College Park, or Hyattsville (not silly enough to live through construction again, ever) in cheap student housing.
Well you just get tired. It’s great to do home improvement, but your energy and bank account get drained.
Well as I said. House still up as of this morning, all I gotta do is maintenance.
Some Housing alert
Big pile of mouse dung
That’s what the Pro-Tech guy found in the corner of the basement. A big pile of mouse dung. I thought it was wood rot.
This Summer we got a mouse problem. The last straw occurred last week when I went in the kitchen, turned on the light and saw 2 mice scurry into the stove. That and the ever increasing mouse evidence I see in the kitchen. Absolutely unacceptable. That’s and my traps don’t seem to be working. Darned things have eaten the peanut butter off the traps without getting snapped. There is a glue trap that keeps moving to various spots under the fridge. Time to call the professionals.
The guy came out yesterday and looked in the basement and the first level. He did ask about the top level but didn’t venture there. There is evidence of mouse invasion up there too. I had a bar of Ivory soap under my bed, 1/2 eaten. Unacceptable.
Sitting down to tell me about the different packages and what the company does to deal with my mice problem the guy decided to try humor. He said the initial job is $2,800. As I mentioned before in a previous post, thousand is a very bad word in my house. I reacted by arching my eyebrow. He tried to explain his joke and I explained that “thousand” is verboten. The actual price is $280something with followups being $80some odd dollars every quarter.
Not only will he deal with the mice, he said they deal with spiders and other bugs. I have no real problem with the spiders in the house, provided they stay in the basement, and out of my way. I’ve been lucky in that I rarely see bugs in the house.
Anyway, they worked miracles in M&K’s house where there were rats and many roaches. I hope they can get rid of our mice, so there will be no more huge piles of mouse dung.
Restaurant Review: Windows Market & Deli
I’m going to try something, restaurant reviewing. I will attempt to go to places in eastern Shaw or on the border of Shaw in LeDriot, Bloomingdale, Eckington, or within a 4 block radius of my house. The general criteria is that there must be seating and cannot be a carry out. The list of places to go is very short.
Yesterday I wandered over to the corner of 1st and Rhode Island to the Windows Deli. It is a very new looking place. I was attracted to it by its big windows that looked out on to Rhode Island Avenue and it’s bright interior. Inside the decor says Ethopian/ Swedish, mainly because I recognize the furniture being IKEA and the staff is pretty much Ethopian. In the corner there is a display case of tiny coffee cups and an African(?) vase. You have a choice of about 3 blonde wood tables to sit at or two other chairs sans table. The table near the window is good for people watching.
The menu is extremely limited. Basically you have coffee, tea, and cold sandwiches made to order. This is more coffee shop than restaurant. I had a tuna sandwich. The tuna was ok, a little heavy on the relishy ingredient and a bit more soupy than I am accustomed.
Looking around and thinking about it a bit more, the place seems very cabbie friendly. If your main thing is to sit, wait, get coffee, leave, then this is a suitable spot. Sunday, when I spotted this place, I noticed a decent mixed crowd sitting, reading the paper, drinking coffee.
Up the stairs (3 steps) is the market part of Windows, which is a quickie mart with drinkable wine and a few veggies. I saw tomatoes and onions. I didn’t look too hard at the wine, but it wasn’t Boones Farm or wino wine (that I can recognize easy). Not to be too out of place there were some ghetto drinks and single cans of beer for sale in the refrigerated cases.
I hope this business does well. It is good to have a big windowed people watching coffee shop so close. I wanna ‘nother, closer to my house.
Next time I might try B&J or BJ’s on 3rd and Rhode Island.
Brrrr
Okay it isn’t that cold but I’ve put it off long enough. I’m going to have to clean the furnace, and turn it on. When I first moved in I had a guy come over, look at the furnace and tell me it needed replacing. He said a bad word to me… “four thousand dollars.” OK, 3 bad words, the worst of them being “thousand.” Since then I have cleaned it myself. I’ll replace the furnace, in 3 years or so.
House o the fortnight
229 R Street is the house of the 1/2 month, for the first part of October. I just like this building. It’s got a turret, and a little courtyard.
Walk by it and notice how it looks like it may have been a store when you see te corner has been bricked up. Just notice the house. There is a lot one could do to gussy it up, make it look 10,000 times better. But then, it looks fine now unadorned.
Oktoberfest
Bates Area Civic Assoc is PLANNING Oktoberfest
According to the little yellow flyer on my fence:
The Bates Area Civic Association is planning an Oktoberfest for Saturday October 30th. Their current ideas include a:
Chili Cook-off
Cornbread
Bratwurst and Sauerkraut
Hot Cider
Flea market
Live Music
Health and Wellness Table
Games
Prizes
and more
If you are interested in volunteering or renting space for the flea market contact the planning committee at oktoberfest AT arachnophile dot com.