Restaurants yes, bars…..eh

I got an email about Be Bar sometime ago. It too is on 9th Street and is facing opposition from a church. Yet, unlike the Vegetate Queen of Sheba vs Shiloh fight, I really haven’t had much interest. Mainly because it isn’t a restaurant. I like restaurants. You come in, someone seats you, they give you menus and people bring you food. I like those kinds of places. I’m not a bar person. Unless dragged to one, I tend not to go to them. So I’m very lukewarm if not slightly cool on the topic of non-restaurants and ABC licenses.
Be Bar is to be an “upscale tavern/lounge”, so food may be served there but it is not the main attraction. As a restaurant, for the definition of an ABC license is a place where at least 45% of its gross annual receipts are from the sale of food. A tavern sells both food and alcohol and may have entertainment of some sort and there is a limit on the size of the dance floor. Then there are nightclubs and they tend to get shot down by residential groups so I’m not going to bother to define that.
The fight between Be Bar and Cathedral Baptist Church…. Baptist Churches… ABC license fights… on 9th St… I sense a theme there. Anyway, where was I? The fight between Be Bar and Cathedral Baptist has been written up in the Washington Blade. I have really nothing new to add. Well except that the hearing for the Be Bar license will be this Wednesday, at 10am, 941 North Cap, 7th floor.

Tip for the lazy gardener- watering

Yeah, another gardening post, but otherwise I got nothin today.
IKEA sells these plastic self-watering pots with wheels. They come in three colors, clay, white and blue. Now I have a problem, oh around Summer, about getting around to watering the plants. So last year I had these two pots, on wheels so I could move them around according to where the sun shine was, drilled a few holes on the side and had a pot that rarely went completely dry.
The other thing, for the tree box and the hanging pots were soil moisture crystals. You can get Soil Moist, Schultz has something called Moisture Plus. I’m not sure about the long term problems of these things. Last year they did keep some of the hanging plants alive during my watering lapses.
What I really need to do is set up an irrigation drip system, with a timer. The problem is in the back all the pots move around. I’ve got 27 pots (of varying sizes) to water. Eek. Typing in 27 pots, with the knowledge that I have more pots to fill, just hit me. That’s a lot of pots. Too many for a drip system. Well, the kind I’ve been looking at.

Space and gardening

Well I was happy to read in the Post (see it’s good for something) that I’m not the only one who plants things very close. I threw some salad green seeds in a pot without taking into account how far apart seeds were from each other. Once they sprouted and got a few leaves, I thinned them out by making salad for that night. I plan to keep thinning them until it makes sense only to take off a few leaves, as opposed to clipping the whole plant out.
Baby salad is quite nice. I can’t wait till I get some peas to add with them. By the time the tomatoes ripen it maybe too hot for salad. Last year I let the soil dry out and they never came back. The corn salad (mache) was more forgiving and actually survived the winter. Yet, it is not as tasty as the other salad greens.

State of the 5th Ward

Neighbors,

Please be reminded of the below activity that takes place this evening at Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church.

Best,

Jim Berry
ANC 5C

Ward Five Convention and The State of the Ward Address – Wednesday, April 12, 2006!

Council Member Vincent Orange is sponsoring a Ward Five Convention and State of the Ward Address on 4/12/2006, from 6:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m., at Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church, 610 Rhode Island Avenue, N.E. In addition to Mr. Orange’s address, entitled “A Blue Print for the Future,” an opportunity will be given for attendees to meet the numerous candidates to replace Council Member Orange as the Ward Five Representative on the DC City Council and the Dunbar Senior High School Marching Band will be featured. For more information concerning this event, you may call Linda Perkins at (202) 724-8076.

Snake story- no actual snakes involved

I’ve been told that the last person you want to be is the third person to disturb a snake. The first person to disturb a snake wakes up and surprises the snake and annoys it. The second person to come along and disturbs the snake pisses it off even more. The snake realizes this is a trend and is ready for the third person.
I was thinking of this story the other day when working in my front yard. What am I doing in my front yard? I have no clue, I’m figuring it out as I go along. Devon, who is about 4 or 5, visiting his grandma wandered by and asked if I needed any help. Oh, no, I had nothing for him to do, and figuring out what a young person can do (and the supervision) is a job in itself. Besides, I had no money and the kids around here don’t always do things for free. Then a fellow visiting someone noticed from his car and jokingly asked if I needed any help. I jokingly brushed off his offer. Then a third guy, passing by stopped at the gate. He mentioned that he did some landscaping work. I knew where this was heading. And at this point I was annoyed, but more at the idea that people think I can’t do this work myself, than at a guy wanting a job/handout. He hung out at my gate a good while. Long silences do not bother me. I feel no need to fill them. So the guy finally did get around to asking for a handout.
Argh.

100,000 protesters

Okay the green line from Greenbelt is mobbed with protesters for the immigration law thing and they are all going to Union Station. Also, many of them are wearing white shirts. If you use Union Station…. AVOID, it is more than likely a mad house, like it was last time. I know my station was mobbed with people in line for the metrocard machines.
Take the bus if possible. The 96 to Ellington Bridge will get you to the western edge of Truxton Circle on NJ Ave. The Circulator… I don’t know. The 80 to Ft. Totten and the Psomething P1, P6 I forget, going to Rhode Island goes up North Capitol.

oh oh Vegetate

Just got this:

Starting this week Vegetate will be closed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday during the Spring/Summer. We will be open Thursday from 6pm to 10pm, Friday and Saturday 6pm to 11pm and Sunday brunch from 11am to 3pm and Sunday dinner from 6pm to 10pm.
To make a reservation please email
info@vegetatedc.c….

I don’t know anything about the restaurant biz but I do see that they are maximizing on the prime going out to eat nights.

Secret Dealer Agents

When I get around to part 2 of some meeting notes at the super secret site there will be a slight mention of what the nice police man said at the meeting. I want to expand on it here.
There are things the police can’t tell the community because the dealers do send spies. Yes. Spies. And like any spy worth his or her weight they report back to their people. So with that, the police can’t tell law abiding citizens what stings or other on going things they are doing. For the law abiding citizen this is annoying because it is very hard to hold a government agency accountable if you don’t know what they are doing and how they are progressing.
Am I just taking the nice policeman’s word at it that there are spies who attend community meetings and tell the dealer’s what is going on? Some past experience at a meeting long time ago in 2003 makes me believe that such a thing is credible. Just follow the link and you’ll understand.

The Post might be a race baiting newspaper but I’m keeping my subscription

1. I’ve already set up automatic payments. I don’t look forward to trying undo that.
2. The Washington Times? Phooey. I spit on the Times.
3. Comics, sales papers & coupons.
4. Classified (Jobs, Houses for Sale, etc) section better than City Paper’s.
5. Paper handy for craft projects.
6. I really, really like the Style section.
7. Cheaper than a NYT or Wall Street Journal subscription.
8. Food section is good too.
9. I use it to clean windows.
10.Thursday District section has Animal Watch (aka Stupid Humans).

Okay, I sense a theme. [sarcasm]Middle class white people are evil. Well at least the ones who live outside their designated areas.[/sarcasm] Designated areas are neighborhoods west of the park, maybe west of 16th Street, small sections around Capitol Hill.
The Post gentrification stories pretty much harp on a certain theme as Truxtonian pointed out. Find two opposing sides, mix in race and stir. Over at Frozen Tropics there has been a flurry of comments about the Schwartzman article on H St. In it some residents were dismayed over comments in the article by Martini Lounge owner Clifford Humphrey, who (I guess- ID is so hard on these things) said he was misquoted. Personally, I’m willing to accept that was the case, not he’s the first person to be misquoted or have words taken out of context by the press. As I remember when there was an article about the corner of T & 14th that painted a picture of Mike Benson (owner of Bar Pillar & Saint X) in a certain light that didn’t really jive with the Benson I know. Heck, Jimbo pointed out to me in last week’s WP Express a quote taken from my blog, made me look like an anti-church anti-Christian. The words were mine, but cropped giving it another feel. And by the way my regulars know I’m a regular church going Episcopalian (except for Christmas and Easter). So I’m willing to cut Humphreys some slack.