Author: Mari

Quiet July 4th

Now if you moved into the neighborhood less than a year ago you’ll probably think I’m nuts, but really this was a quiet July 4th, compared to previous years. Since I wasn’t invited to anyone’s rooftop this year, I stayed home and decide to watch a chick flick with a glass of wine. At a point the localized explosions brought me outside where B. was sitting on his porch. Then a neighbor across the street ventured out and we then made our way to the end of the block to catch a glimpse of the Mall’s fireworks beyond the trees (damned trees!).
Last year I mainly stayed in for the smoke because the empty space at the end of the block had served as a staging area for a local fireworks show. This year that space was filled with parked cars. Some guy walking by expressed his amazement that my block wasn’t getting blown up. He said that there had always been something in the last 40 years. I can believe it. But this year, nada. Now there was something going on in the direction of the Cook/Slater schools, maybe even the Armstrong (CAPCS) school lot.
Yes, there will be more fireworks going off for the next few days or weeks. Now either I’ve gotten so that I can mentally block them out or there are fewer non-July 4th fireworks going off. Normally, one can expect nighttime explosions until early August. Since this year seems comparatively quiet, the noise may cease earlier, like mid July.

Lazy Gardener harvest

This year, for the front yard, all I did was move some pots around, and plant some tomato plants that had outgrown their seedling pots. What’s in the ground is pretty much the result of what I’ve done years before. I amended and took care of the soil, so the arugula grows like crazy. Which means I got to keep cutting it back and giving it away. Lucky me I have a few neighbors who love the peppery lettuce. I can take it in small doses and really wish something that I liked a bit better would grow as quickly and easily instead. I’ve probably gotten a dozen bags of arugula.
I’ve gotten a few tomatoes this month. The evil squirrels so far haven’t feigned any interest in my tomatoes. Not like last year when it was a battle between me and them. There are still a few more months to go though.
Because I had some work done on my front walkway, I moved my productive lavender plant, which is now a dying lavender plant. I would pick the flowers when they were just about ready, dry them in the window sill and store them for future use. I collected enough to throw a few tablespoons here and there into some dishes. I hope the plant comes back as I am really enjoying lavender-vanilla ice cream.
Mint is still going strong. It is a perennial so I don’t have to fuss with it, as is the sage and the thyme. Some of the Swiss Chard from last year didn’t seem to bolt like the rest of the chard and are happily crowding out the arugula. 
Pondering asking to do some gardening in someone else’s yard I realize how lazy I can be now, because of hard work I put into my yard, back when I had the energy. Untended yards have hard, clayish soil. It takes a while and a fair investment in compost, dirt, mulch and serious weed pulling to get it so that arugula comes back without much help, or thought.
The backyard, since it is all container gardening does require some effort on my part. This year I tried my hand at potatoes and ate my reward. Three small fingerling-ish potatoes. This after digging my naked arm into a pot and embedding dirt deep into my nails. They were tasty. However there were too few of them. I would have turned the whole pot over looking for them but, I had some bean plants on top and didn’t want to lose them.

Ray o Sunshine on Gray

Longtime resident and grumpy old guy Ray comes up with some interesting observations and statements that are pure gold and must be shared:
I had several long evening walks this week east and north from me on
Ninth
and it would appear that on on some blocks, particularly where homes are
less renovated, Gray signs prevail. There are very few, if any, Fenty
signs. I suspect Gray will be our next mayor due to apathy from the
self-absorbed, unregistered, new busy young moderns who’ve moved here
but think DC politics are immaterial to or just too beneath them.

Gray will usher back in the good old days of Barry Third World politics
where constituent services will be tightly controlled and allocated by
having to petition the big man at neighborhood meetings to have your
trash
cleaned up, the police patrol your block, have a water leak or a pothole
repaired, and an error in your tax bill remedied. Don’t expect any
services
unless you can prove your bona fides — at least third generation Black
DC
resident. Expect the return of long, long lines in the DMV with surly
inspectors and clerks. Construction will stop as developers will again
flee
when the pols demand kickbacks and jobs for the indolent and insolent.
Expect real “gentrification” taxs for more worthless “programs” for PG
county bourgeiois friends of the mayor that make “Peaceaholics” look
like an
effective crime-fighting operation. Expect the police to spend more
time writing tickets (church people exempted) instead of catching
criminals. Neighborhood rule by preacher will return. Teachers will no
longer be compelled to teach and students freed from having to learn.
Go
Gray and bring back the good old days of DC politics.

And Mt. Vernon Triangle is where?

I don’t know who edits these things, but I’m looking at the graphic for the article about the new influx of registered voters in the District. Precinct 143 looks an awfully like Penn Quarter/ Gallery Place/ Chinablock, not Mt. Vernon Square nor Mt. Vernon Triangle. It’s labeled as Mt. Vernon Square, which isn’t right as the Square is the actual square between 9th & 7th and Mass and NY Aves and points north til N & O Streets.  Mt. Vernon Triangle… It’s a new neighborhood name, I have no clue where it’s borders are, southeast of the square. South is Chinatown. You will know Chinatown is Chinatown, not because of it’s Asian populace masquerading as young black fashionistas, but due to the fun Chinese characters on signs as mandated by the city.

I guess I endorse Fenty

It’s still early, but if the reports from the MVSA meeting reports are anything to go by people are more supportive of Fenty than Gray, or more accurately, people are less enthused by Gray. Apparently Vincent Gray failed to make an appearance at the meeting, which folks were fine with, but the staff member sent was a disaster. The staffer was unfamiliar with MVSq/Shaw and was from Tenlytown. There is no shame in being from Tenlytown. However, know your hoods. Congress Heights is not Anacostia. Brookland is not Brightwood. And Mt. Vernon Square is not some other random part of NW.

Anyway, the staffer was more familiar with Wards 3 and 7. Not so great for a meeting with residents in Ward 2. And it seems there was a fair amount of Fenty bashing from the staffer which was a turn off. One commenter mentioned that the candidate was only as good as the people he has working under him. Considering Rhee comes with Fenty, I guess I endorse Fenty.

Seriously, it doesn’t matter what I think because I’m not a registered Democrat, so I can’t vote for him the in the election that matters. Add to it that I’m even less enthused about the mayoral candidates. It’s like a contest between shyte and crap. For all the things I dislike from the Fenty camp, with the J.F. Cook school for one, I do appreciate the turn around with the school system and the making government a little bit more open and web friendly. But this is not a ringing endorsement or love-fest, Fenty is no longer a bald hot cup of cocoa. He’s just bald. And really campaigning on the fact that one is not Fenty isn’t that great. I’m not Fenty and that wouldn’t qualify me as a candidate. If you can’t stand either write in Jack Evans, just to torture the poor man. Heck write in his name for both mayor and council chair, because if the mayoral contest is bad the one for chair is a choice between unripe fruit and something too rotten to compost. 

Dead body on RI Ave median

I don’t know if anyone from the city still reads my blog, but there is a dead cat on the median of the 600 block of Rhode Island Avenue and today is day 2 of its residence.
Yesterday I called the city 311 number to report the beige beastie, as I noticed it before I went to work and saw it unmoved as I was heading home. As of this morning it is still there. Now once again it was one of those slightly frustrating calls, because kitty had the audacity to die on a median, which the operator seemed very unfamiliar with. I found myself defining what was a median. A median, is sometimes a green patch in the middle of a 4+ lane road. It does not have an address. Because the city sometimes bothers mowing said grass, I take it the city owns the land. No it is not in front of a house. The best address I can give is the closest property that bothered to have address numbers that I can make out.
No it is not on the road it is on the median.
Once again the median does not have an address. It is in the middle of Rhode Island Avenue, which I’m not going to define as a ‘freeway’ as you have as I really don’t want to get into defining different kinds of roadways.
Gaaaah!

Well that explains why kids can’t work in DC

My first regular paid job was as a cashier at the Winn-Dixie when I was 16. I had begun searching after reps from Bob Evans presented several openings at a rally at my high school, looking for dishwashers, bussers, and waiters. Several of us, including me, applied, but I wasn’t chosen. That got me dropping applications at the mall, fast food joints, the dollar store, and the grocery store. During the school year I worked 11-20 hours, mostly weekends when the store was busy. Sometimes at night, cleaning the registers.
Anyway, I have always wondered why I don’t see more teenagers working in DC. Well I got a link from DC Lawyers for Youth (DCLY), and their handbook (PDF). Looking at page 12 it says a kid must be at least 14 years old and can’t work more than 8 hours a day. Fine and good. However the work hours are limited for 16-17 year olds in that they can’t work after 10pm, so they can’t close up at a place that closes at 10PM, and those hours appear to be year round. Also, they would need a permit from DCPS to work. When I was growing up we didn’t need no stinkin’ work permit.
So now I see why teenage employment seems to be limited to DC government sponsored summer programs. That and the flood of immigrant and college student labor.
The job I held in high school was good for me. It taught me how to balance work and school, a very useful skill when doing the same thing in college when you really need the money. It also allowed me to work towards a savings goal of a senior European trip, because heaven knows I wasn’t going to get that money from my parents… and college. Lastly, believe it or not I was able to use my 5 years of cashiering experience on resumes for jobs involving customer service. It has appeared in KSAs when showing that I can communicate verbally with a variety of people.

UHOP Parade this Saturday, more info

From PSA 301 via the MVSNA listserv:

The parade hours will be Saturday, May 29, 2010 from 10am which will be the assembly time, and start at 12 Noon to 3pm which will be the disbanding time.

The route is as follows:
The parade will form at 6th and M Street NW and will proceed over the following route: North on 6th Street to S Street, West on S Street to 13th Street to Logan Circle, Southeast around Logan Circle to P Street, East on P Street to 7th Street, South on 7th Street to M Street, East on M Street to 6th where participants will disband.

Enjoy the parade, but if you got somewhere to go, don’t do it during the parade unless you’re on foot or bike.

Razin’ Hell

I’ve pulled two Washington Post articles from the pile.
The first is from May 10, 1955 “5000 Homes To Be Razed In RLA Plan” by Robert C. Albrook. The RLA is the Redevelopment Land Agency, a government agency that dealt with blight. And the blight in this case were some 5000 houses in the general Shaw area. I say general because the agency was working on the 2nd Precinct (think 14th St NW to Union Station, Florida to Mass Ave) and hadn’t paired it down to the Shaw School borders. They were considering what needed repair and what needed to be bulldozed. The neighborhood had yet to organize against those plans and the impact of the SW Urban Renewal hadn’t really sunk in yet.
Fast forward a couple of decades to “RLA Sets Razing in Riot Areas” February 20, 1971 by William L. Claiborne. 1971, a little more than 2 years after the 1968 riots that ruined many parts of Shaw. Instead of several thousand structures to be razed, the effort was to tear down several hundred damaged properties. Fun quote from this article is:

Marion Barry, executive-director of Pride, Inc., who also attended the session, said, “You never get anything done unless the citizens go out and raise hell…. This (demolition schedule) came because of our protest.”