Category: 2010 Posts

I’m slowly adding the blog posts from 2010-2017, until I can find an easier way. Otherwise people can just go to inshaw.com/weblog/2010 or inshaw.com/weblog/2011 and so on for the files to the old blog.

My weekend- Out in the Virginia Mountains

Mt. Hazel River This post falls under ‘it’s my personal blog and I’ll post what I want’ category. For the past two weekends I’ve taken two mini-vacations out in the Shenandoah mountain area, one in Madison County the other in Rappahannock County. This is about the Rappahannock weekend.
I had booked this months ago and all I was looking for was a cabin, in the woods, in either Maryland, West Virginia or Virginia that wasn’t too expensive and something above a camping tent.I found Hazel Mt.Haven and greatly enjoyed my stay. The views from the yard of the mountains were wonderful. What can I say, I’m from Florida, mountains and really big hills wow me.
We were able to pack a lot into a few days. We hiked a NPS trail, visited a winery, poked around Little Washington (didn’t eat at the Inn though) and managed to upset Chef Gerard Pangaud (formerly of Gerard’s Place) at the Blue Rock Inn. We feel really bad about that last part, as we did not realize that the short ribs were cooked for 72 hours via sous vide because the meat was still reddish.Chef Pangaud came to our table to educate us on this when my cousin sent the dish back to the kitchen for being too red. We really feel terrible, but on the plus side, we got to meet the chef and the food was good.

ANCs- A really short history

The following is a very simplified history, which hopefully will give some understanding of the present. During the Big Bear ABC license kerfuffle there were a few emailers questioning the rationale for ANCs or Advisory Neighborhood Commissions.
ANCs are a product of Home Rule. Prior to Home Rule (via the Home Rule Act of 1973) Congress (the Federal government) ran the city. It wasn’t until 1974 that DC residents were able to vote and have some real say in how the city ran. Before Home Rule the mayor and the city council were federally appointed. Neighborhood wise there were citizens (white) and civic (black) associations that appealed to Congress and city government officials for things like neighborhood improvements, traffic, crime and so forth. As far as I can tell civic and citizen association leaders were elected by the association’s membership. These groups could only beg or appeal to bodies and officials whom they could neither vote for or vote out of office.
With Home Rule, neighborhoods got something new:

… the Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs), brought the city administration closer to ordinary voters than any other elective units. The city council created 36 ANCs and 376 smaller single member districts, each representing about two thousand residents. The ANCs were intended to serve as neighborhood mini councils that advised the council on local problems.
—City of Magnificent Intentions: A history of Washington, District of Columbia 2nd edition P.584

BACA/ NE Shaw- I wanna have a small canning party

Here’s the thing. I want to have a small canning party. Thing #1 my kitchen is crowded with 2 people in it and three people it just isn’t happening. Thing #2 I know some folks out there are curious about small scale canning, which is what I tend to do as I hardly ever use up a whole pint of anything to justify canning that much and I’d like to share what I know. Thing #3, I’d like to share my knowledge close to home.

Yeah, I could post what I know on-line but there is something about hands on learning.

So if anyone has a kitchen that would work well for show and tell and wants an intro to canning (I’m no Master, I just do my own canning and so far, so good) and has a few friends who want to learn as well,

UPDATE- A canning party has been organized. Thank you.

Do you give a fig?

Lunch today will be some goat cheese from the 14th & U St farmer’s market, some charcuterie boar meat stuff from the Cork Market on 14th, and some figs from the next block. I can’t believe I have never noticed this fig tree in all the years I lived here. I know about the plum tree at 3rd & Q, but the fruit is too high and the resident at the place there couldn’t tell me if the fruit was any good. But a few days back  I was running some finishing things related to Flower Power that was held back on June 26th. While running around I noticed this fig tree, with rip figs, and picked a few that were hanging over the sidewalk and they were delicious. I snuck back the next day picked a few and more from the sidewalk. Today I noticed signs of someone being home, knocked on the door and asked if I could pick their figs.
I was given permission and started throwing figs in my bag. About halfway in my picking another family member came out and asked how would you know when they were ripe for picking. It’s just like tomatoes, you give a gentle tug and if they come off, they are ready. I will wash them, as I also picked up some of the perfectly fine looking fruit that fell to the ground (I trashed the ones that looked like the birds or ants got to them).
The take away from this experience is to ask people with fruit trees if you can pick and the reward is some sweet lunch.

Something not so good down in Penn Quarter at 7th and PA Ave NW

I’ve been told I cannot leave outside the normal exit of the Bureau of Fight Club where I work. It would be nice if staff were alerted but the 1st rule of fight club is…..

7th Street is blocked, as are parts of Pennsylvania Ave NW. One of the interns said it looks blocked all the way from Constitution to Gallery Place (F/ H Sts?). 9th Street looks free but the intern said that is blocked at some point. So far the only thing I’m getting is rumors. Rumor says Archives/ Navy Memorial station is closed, but not sure about the validity of that. Anyone got anything?

UPDATE- The metro is running. Just surrounded by a lot of yellow tape. I dunno about where the busses are being rerouted to. I’m going to try escaping to the PQ farmer’s market wish me luck!

Conclusion- At 5pm everything was back to normal.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 22, 2010 3:39 PM.

One aspect of “better” and ‘changing for the better’

I’ve only been here in the Shaw neighborhood for 10 years, so here are a few observations that I think the changes in the neighborhood has brought that is an improvement due to the demographic changes sometimes known as gentrification.

For one, the drug dealers are not a regular presence at the corner I turn at to come home from work. Almost every friggin day, there they would be, leaning on a fence, littering up the treebox, hanging around. You know how depressing and anxiety producing that is to have to walk by that every single day? The only good thing about it was if you left them alone, they’d leave you alone. And the block up from me was ugly, unfriendly and just had a bad feeling about it. I wouldn’t even walk down that block in the daytime. It also had dealers. Older residents had been fighting the good fight but had figured to pick their battles, what was needed was new blood that wasn’t burned out.

Second, gunfire is no longer a nightly sound. Okay, maybe where you are, but in my section it is no longer every single night. A couple of years ago a guy was shot in the butt in a drive by that then continued to shoot my street (thankfully shooting the asphalt) as they speeded off. Fewer (though none would be nice) incidences and gun shots is an improvement for the better.

A reduction in crime and gun shots may relate to the area being more politically active. One of the reasons why I dislike Vincent Orange so much is that I remember him not really caring that much for our area. When he was running for Mayor the last time, in 2006, he didn’t seem grass roots at all, and didn’t seem all that particularly interested in us over here in the TC. Now, if we were Brookland, different story. With the 2006 election we flexed some muscle, then candidate Fenty came to a fundraiser at a Richardson Pl home, the candidates for Ward 5 were falling all over themselves to be a part of BACA garden walks, clean ups, what-have you. Other positive in 2006 2C ANC Leroy Thorpe was ousted, sorta. With politicians discovering we existed and voted and not ignoring us we got more attention with city services. Cars get ticketed now. No longer do I have to deal with more-than-likely stolen/ obviously abandoned cars sitting on my street for weeks on end.

Yes, and some improvements to my quality of life came from some neighbors leaving, and here the ‘better’ gets dicey. The neighbors who will not be missed are the crackheads. Which crackheads you may ask as we had several. Not Velveeta (yes, that was her name), but the ones who left their friend for dead bleeding on the sidewalk outside their house. I suspect down in the southern tip of the TC (unit blocks from Bates to N) do not miss the clusters of subsidized housing that housed loud, drugged out if not drunk poor excuses for parents and their feral children. Not to say everything is rosy now, there still is the odd halfway house and the people who cluster around S.O.M.E. Yet the poor, including crackheads and people who can’t keep it together need housing too.

Screw you Sears and your sorry Blue Service Crew

A few days ago my washer went into a coma. The thingy that tells the machine the the lid is on so the tub will spin and drain kinda broke. So I went on-line and made an appointment with Sears to fix it after a few tries at fixing it myself. The appointment was for today between the hours of 1-5. Ah, the joys of home-ownership. As a homeowner I get to take off work, use my precious annual leave, and sit around the house, waiting for the ‘guy’, as opposed to being a renter who’d be arguing with management about a broken washer.
I had called at 8AM to confirm and to provide more info about my washer’s model and serial numbers. The operator tried to sell me on a service plan, no dice. Then I took off work, and stayed near the phone and the front door. Five PM came and went and at 5:05 I called wondering where was the technician. I was told he must have gotten held up and they’ll have someone call in 15-20 minutes to say when he should arrive. I let 30 minutes pass, no call from Sears, so I call again. I’m unhappy but calm. Okay maybe full of sarcasm, but still calm. First call goes to dead air. Second call I get Bombay (or wherever the call center is) and get a nice but accented fellow, who puts me on hold for 8-10 minutes to get a hold of ‘dispatch’. The connection with ‘dispatch’ was splotchy but I managed to figure out that a) no one was coming today b) no one can come in the next week and a half, maybe and c) they are really sorry, blah, blah, blah.
After I got off the phone I got angry, angry enough to try to fix the damned thing myself. The broken do-hicky is in a hard to reach area and the connecting short grounding wire was in a spot I couldn’t get pliers into. But after a few tugs I managed to pull the part out where I could see it, figure out what exactly broke and find a temporary fix with a rubber band. I plugged that puppy back in and it sprung alive and began to drain and spin.
I felt so empowered. I mean a real surge of feeling that nothing could stop me. It was a I could fight ninjas and crush things with my bare hands kind of feeling. Boo-YAH!

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 21, 2010 6:34 PM.

Richardson House for sale

It appears that some old neighbors have decided to get out of the long distance landlording biz and put their house up for sale. The couple who owns 407 Richardson Pl, moved from DC for a job opportunity in the west (Go west young man, go west!) a few years ago and didn’t have a problem renting out their home on their way out. Then I didn’t hear anything for a while and noticed the house listed on Redfin for $380K.

The Richardson houses are skinny. About 11-12 feet wide if memory serves me right, but that isn’t a odd thing around here as older homes are narrower. But Richardson, now with a shiny new red brick road, is kinda cute. Hopefully that new road won’t suffer from the city’s odd habit of paving a road, coming back months later, digging it up, and then repaving it again.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 21, 2010 10:20 AM.