Author: Mari

In and out in about an hour. Take the bus as they don’t validate the parking there but the time you save over the main DMV office is amazing. I was told to go there by a few folks from the monthly gawd awfully boring community meeting. Oh and by the way, the Georgetown office is small. Tiny.

Afterwards I pondered serval things: Shopping…. with what money? Going back to work, umm 1-2 hours to get from Georgetown to BFE, MD for 3 hours of work….and that’s before any lunch. Nope. Lunch! Eating is a good idea considering the only thing in yur tummy is a small bowl of branny bran bran. So after lunch it is 12:35 Still work 3 hours ’cause after a certain time there is no one around and there is no point.

Well the city is going to be a mess downtown with the Ronald comin’ to town. Not just downtown but the neighborhoods ajoining between the Capitol and the National Cathedral will be closed off and made terribly inconvienent to the residents. Which made me think. They wouldn’t dare come through my part of Shaw. One possible route would be from the Capitol up NJ to FL up Connecticut and over to Wisconsin via R or some other street. But really you don’t want great dignitaries to have to go through the hood where there are drug dealers, with guns! So when trying to figure out how to get back to VA, go through the hood, skip the whole hubbabalu downtown and take 395.

Neighbors,

I take this opportunity to remind you of tonight’s meeting of the Bates

Area

Civic Association, Inc. Specifically, the meeting will be held at

Mount

SInai Baptist Church, 3rd and Q Streets, N.W., between the hours of

7:00

p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Art Slater, the new Chairperson-elect of the Fifth

District Police Citizen’s Advisory Council is scheduled to make some

comments about his prelimary plans to move that group on matters of

public

safety. In addition, Alice Harper, the Community Relations Specialist

from

the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency who is assiged to

cover

the Fifth Dstrict, plans to make some comments about the history of her

agency’s work with the MPD and the Fifth District community. Inasmuch

as

the summer is rapidly approaching, Lionel Taylor, Ward Five Coordinator

from

the DC Department of Parks and Recreation, wants to let you know about

some

of the activities that are happening in Ward Five for residents of all

ages.

And, consistent with our intention to have each of the candidates for

an

At-Large City Council seat appear before the Association in advance of

the

November 2004 election, Candidate Kwame Brown has been invited to

attend

this month. (It should be known that Mr. Brown had multiple campaign

events

on his schedule for the date of our meeting when the invitation was

initially extended to him. So, he was invited with the understanding

that

we would invite him again next month, if it turns out that delays from

his

pre-existing commitments, essentially, prevents him from coming to our

meeting this month.)

In addition to the above, we have a Flower Power update and other

announcements of importance. So, we hope to see you tonight!

Best,

JB

No fun.
I think I spotted the homeless guy who found it. I’m beating myself up for not asking him if he found it. I don’t care about the money ($30-$50), it’s the cards. I’ve been on the phone cancelling all the cards I could. Tomorrow I have to call for replacements of the healthcare card. Good thing I do keep the cards of other accounts out of my wallet so I’m not totally screwed. There was a $8.00 metro card in there too.
I guess I’ll have to take a day to replace my driver’s license which will be no fun as I still had the old address on 12th St on it. I didn’t own a car and besides the odd Flexcar trips did not drive. But the license is a de facto ID card. I’ll just run around with my expired passport until it is replaced.
I used to have this problem a lot in college, loosing my wallet. But the worse was loss of the driver’s license and my one ATM card. Now DL and 3 credit/check cards, health insurance, business cards, receipts (some needed for refunds), a check I needed to deposit (stop payment fee almost as much as check) in other account. The lesson learned from my college days was not to have anything of major personal value in your wallet. So I don’t have anything with my SS#, or pictures of loved ones, or anything of that nature. Figured it be a good thing for this neighborhood considering some of the crime. But the neighborhood isn’t that bad, just me.

This loss because I was too busy racing to the metro station to go to church. Teaches me to stick with the bus. Please Lord give me peace.

Friday after work I met up with John (Logan Circle Guy) who is leaving this lovely area we call home for sunny Houston in a few days. It is really nice to meet up with folk you know from the online world in the real world. Same goes with BL and Nathan over in Eckington.

It was also good to compare notes on tiny little townhome living. His place 12 feet wide, mine 14 feet. Apparently houses like ours were built with very little between each unit making for difficult sleeping when one has party hardy neighbors.

Well with the house sold, job relocated to TX, and movers awaiting to decend on his home to carry off his earthly belongings I wish John the best. Vote wisely, you’re getting a Congress member and a Senator.

Two businesses along R St have closed their doors. I don’t know if anyone really close is sad.

First was Jorge’s Body Shop. There used to be cars and trucks littering the corner and sometimes they’d spill out on to the parking spaces on the street. I know the shop had some cars up for sale. So I am guessing one or two things happened that spelled the demise of the shop. First the city cracked down on dealers and temp auto tags. As I understand it, a lot of businessmen made good money off of selling temp tags but not cars. Secondly, the property values in the area have been getting high and I don’t know if business was keeping up with that.

Second place was Majestic (?) Cleaners on the same block. Now first off I’ll tell you what was wrong with that cleaners and why I would never use them, no posted hours. I walked by many a time and never once saw their hours of business. Also they were just opening as I was heading to work and were closed when I came back from work and I didn’t see them open on Saturday. Obviously they weren’t out for the 9-5 working person’s business. One of my neighbors made the mistake of doing business with them, and needed his clothes back for a special event. Well they were closed when he went there and had no idea when they’d open again. Another problem was that there was little from the outside that gave you the impression they were for the general public. In addition to the lack of useful business hours there was no visible register or anything that hinted at business other than for commercial bodies.

You could say both businesses have been pushed out due to gentrification. Well you could say George Bush is a giant Cicada. You could say a lot of things really. But I hope those businesses are replaced by places that service the community and post business hours.

My compost bin stinks.

I mean really stinky stinks. Stinks so badly I thought it was the alley that smelled so bad. I thought crack-heads were using the bathroom near my fence. But after puting a thick board over the compost can, I discovered it was the compost that was creating the stinky stink.

Well I will have to start from scratch with the composting. Buy composting worms and all. I’ll make my own bin again but try to follow the New York City Compost Project as opposed to what was supposidly working for two years. I guess I didn’t spend a lot of time in the back yard to notice the smell.

Come one, come all! Saturday, June 5, 2004, 10am to 2pm, join Shaw EcoVillage and Manna CDC for the Shaw Bike Festival. The Bike Festival will occur at Shaw Skate Park, 11th St. & Rhode Island Ave.,NW, nearest the Shaw/Howard U Metrorail stop on the greenline.

Activities include: helmet give-away, fittings and safety checks, obstacle course and “slowest person” race , raffle, face-painting and crafts, a ‘petting zoo’ featuring bikes and other human-powered vehicles, advice and workshops for adult bike enthusiasts- commuting and technical skills- bunny

hopping, log jumping, guided Shaw Historical Bike Tour, developed by EcoDesign Corps program interns, rain barrel construction/water conservation workshop, food and fun!

Contact Noel Petrie at 202.265.2019 for more information.

# # #

The Shaw Bike Festival is an event of Shaw EcoVillage and Manna CDC

The Shaw EcoVillage Project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, was founded in 1998 to train youth to be creative leaders for meaningful and sustainable change in our urban neighborhoods.www.shawecovillage.com

Manna CDC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit community development organization in

the District of Columbia collaborates with Shaw residents, business owners and other community stakeholders to maximize the community’s assets. The program of activities includes community organizing and leadership development, affordable housing development and preservation, and community economic development. www.mannadc.org

Last night I saw a trail of ants up my wall just outside the door. So I sprayed them, sprayed the crack they were in, sprayed around my door, sprayed.

This morning a whole host of sleeping ants covered my stairs.

No.

No.

No.