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Not so lazy Saturday

I took a nap and ate something so I’m not as grumpy as I was Friday. Anyway here’s how today went.
Florida Avenue Market
Maybe it was because I went earlier than usual time. Maybe it was because the market has been receiving extra attention. I don’t know, but the people who work there seemed…. friendlier. I was greeted, there was smiling. What’s up with that?

Tile Shopping
Well my tile shopping has been more complicated than it really needs to be. I have gotten tile for the upstairs bathroom and the foyer, from two different places. The tile place I went to today, I should have gone to before and saved myself the headache. Morris Tile is in PG County and requires 3 buses to get to from the TC. I thought I would stay 20-30 minutes, but it was over an hour. My contractor said (more like suggested) the 1/2 bath tile should match the kitchen tile. Problem is I like my kitchen tile for the kitchen. The bathroom? Not so much. I found a 12×12 match for my 6×6 sample. But looking at it, I honestly wasn’t too keen on it. If the kitchen tile wasn’t an issue I’d pick small 4×4 or 2×2 mosaic and go for the subway tile look. The other problem was I haven’t given any thought to the 1/2 bathroom’s colors. I don’t know what color I’m painting the wall. I haven’t decided if I’m tiling the wall (more tile shopping, whoo-hoo!) or what color tile I’d use if I did.
After hemming and hawing for a while I picked a small 3×3 tile that matched and had a really cool pattern. When I went to ask how much it was $18 per sq foot. Yeah, a little rich for my blood. I need 47 sq feet plus 15-20% more to cover mistakes, waste, whatever reason my contractor gave me. The same color, but regular 12×12 size, just $3 per sq ft. I just didn’t feel good about ordering a tile that did not make me happy. So after all the time I spent at the tile place, I left. The $3 tile is in stock, so if worse comes to worse, I’ll have the contractor pick up that and suck it up.

100_0395.JPGMt. Rainier
After one bus back, on my three bus trip back home, I got off in Mt. Rainier, MD. I didn’t see a bus to take me to Rhode Island Avenue so I wandered over to The Glut, a funky little all-natural co-op, round the corner and up the hill a ways from the Mt. Rainier Route 1 Circle of Doom. The Glut is one of those things that makes Mt. Rainier, funky. Just on the Route 1 Circle of Doom is a new (within the last year) coffee shop that opened up, the Artmosphere Cafe. And dangit, it’s artsy. There was the prerequisite “local artist” type art on the walls and in the windows, announcements music lessons and other local arts activities, as well as the usual looking for roommates flyer on the bulletin board. Playing to an audience you could count on both hands, was a jazz guitarist. It had a nice laid back vibe, but not lazy ‘laid back’ as I’ve encountered in other places. I had lunch there, and it was quite good. I would go there again, and I did suggest to a friend about stopping by there for a bite the next time we go by.

Jimbo moves close to the TC
Well after two bus rides back to the TC and taking a nap, I ventured over to the new Jimbo digs. Lucky him, he’s not next to the, um, how should I say it?… gathering of fellows that haunt the block. However he is close enough to the TC to hear the mosque’s call to prayer. It will be interesting to see how Jim makes the place look once everything is tidied up.

I was wrong
I’m wrong about a number of things, but anyway. I had announced that there wasn’t going to be a BACA garden walk, aka Flower Power. I was mistaken. According to Jim Berry’s meeting announcement (this Monday, 7 or 7:30pm basement of Mt. Sinai Baptist on 3rd & Q), one of the topics will be Flower Power, so I guess it is on. My bad.

Your house is crap

Today’s theme negativity. I must be in a mood.
Anyway, I hope my host has been able to find, or will be able to find, a MICCO survey done in the late 1960s of Shaw houses. I saw parts of the survey and hopefully the complete survey is located somewhere in the George Washington Univ archives.
From the portion I saw, here’s the deal. Each square was surveyed for the condition of the all the houses on that square. Unfortunately, what little I saw, a majority of houses where in poor condition, deteriorating or needing extensive repair. A small percentage were solid. Now, taking that to the next conclusion, if those houses weren’t satisfactorily repaired or renovated, or if the renovations were as crappy as the one done on my house (renovated in the 80s), then y’all should be a little bit concerned about your house.
Have a pleasant weekend.

Vandals attack truck

Editorial: After some thought, I decided that the title was poorly chosen. So I changed it. In looking at this posting and asking if there is anything else that needs changing, the answer is no. I was writing about my gut feelings, thought processes and opinions and they are what they are. And I’d be almost lying if I changed it and if it didn’t reflect my complex and contradicting personality.


Attack
Originally uploaded by In Shaw

When I saw this a week or more ago I was angry. The truck belongs to the neighborhood handyman, a nice fellow, good AfrAm businessman, and great neighbor. So some punks coming in and defacing the property of this all around good guy is just wrong. Letting the incident stew in my mind for a while I have come up with two thoughts on the matter:
Thought 1- Stupid White Kids
Okay kids, when you go around in transitional neighborhoods, randomly attacking property you stand a good chance attacking the property of minorities. Of course, you really shouldn’t be attacking any one’s property but your own. Since the most famous of you vandals is some suburban white kid from Potomac, when I see a certain type of graffiti, I immediately think that it’s another self-hating angry white young man who wants to take out his frustrations with life out on a city with no representation in Congress. Instead of attacking the city, where you don’t live, to strike back at the white middle class or upper class establishment from which you sprang from, go to the established white mid-class neighborhood and launch a less destructive protest there. Unless it is that you hate diversity, small businesses, and a disfranchised citizenry’s efforts to make one’s neighborhood a better place.
Thought 2- Stupid Kids, can’t stand to see someone else succeed
There is the possibility that the perps were Black.
There are those of us who can’t stand to see someone else get ahead and succeed. Shame, shame, shame. What you should be doing is spending more time trying to improve yourself than running around marking up stuff.

Renovation 2007: Gardening is a pain


100_0359.JPG
Originally uploaded by In Shaw

Everyone says this renovation thing must be driving me crazy. Well, not crazy. Concerned. Concerned about staying on budget. I’m almost resigned to the idea that I won’t have enough to hook up the AC. But the thing that is nearing crazy is not being in my garden.
Some plants are hanging in there. Watering is a problem, mainly when your contractor turns off the water, and somehow decides the pipe going to your backyard spigot was not really used for anything. It got worse as the weather warmed up. The plants in the smaller pots dried out faster and I think the dryness caused the cilantro and the onions to bolt. There are a bunch of alpine strawberries in an old DC recycling bin that have gotten along just fine without me.

Memorial Weekend Grab Bag

Lots of stuff all under one posting.
Shiloh- Well I spent some quality time picking up tile with my aunt, a long time member of Shiloh, and she briefly brought up the thing with the vacant properties. There was a meeting, at first she heard it was 3 houses, now it’s 4, and May 30th isn’t enough time. We’ll see.

Speaking of vacant properties, Si K over in Mt. Vernon went all out and surveyed the vacant properties in the MVSQ region and found 100 properties, and 61 of them are taxed at the wrong rate. Read the report, with pictures here. This is the type of thing the city ‘should’ be doing.

Speaking of reports, in NE at the Florida Avenue Market Frozen Tropics has the Florida Avenue Market Study (PDF) that was presented, at one of the several information meetings about its general development, not the New Towns fiasco. Check of FT and Rebuilding Space’s blog about the Florida Avenue Market.

As a housekeeping measure, I’m disabling comments for 2003-2004 posts.

Speaking of house. Renovation is going along nicely. I need to put up some more pictures at the Flickr site because the walls have been mudded and there is a ceiling. What I’ve been told, is that the trim and the stair railing will be next and that’s going to take a while.

Hope you have a good weekend. I’m hanging out in the hood, while it seems everyone else left the city. If you are some of the few who haven’t left the TC or MVSQ or central Shaw, drop me a line.

Lettme borrow $2 so I can buy a beer

To my other host who was probably wondering why there was a Bible sitting near the sink.
As a policy I tend not to give money to beggars or anyone else I suspect will use the money to get high or drunk. So I guess I was being a bit judgemental when my one of my hosts gave a few bucks to a neighborhood person who honestly said they were going to go ’round the corner and buy a beer. And then recently, one of the blogs I read posted Proverbs 31 6-7:

6 Give beer to those who are perishing,
wine to those who are in anguish;
7 let them drink and forget their poverty
and remember their misery no more.

I’m sorry for judging you. So go ahead. Give ’em beer money. It’s in the Bible.

Bar hopping in Shaw

This week I and one of my hosts at the place where I’m staying, went to Vegetate’s upstair’s bar. After warming the seat for about an hour of noshing and sipping we headed out. I think that’s when I suggested we check out BeBar down the street.
I’d never been and wanted to check it out as a business. We got there when it wasn’t crowded. There were a bunch of people clustered up at the bar and just a few people seated on the opposite side of the room. From the bar you can watch videos. If the sound actually sync’d up with the mouths of the singers I could not really tell you. I’m getting old, it just sounded like noise to me. After a while the videos do suck you in. But my legs were getting tired and I chose to sit on the other side of the room. That’s when the fun started. From our seats we had a lovely view of the bar crowd. My host pointed out the sad appearance of the popped collar amongst several of the men. We made other fashion observations. People are so entertaining.
Then it got crowded and we walked back home. If we wanted to, and if it wasn’t a work night, we could have continued on to ODB. But then, I guess if you were starting a bar hop in Shaw, wouldn’t you start at ODB, at least to line your stomach with heavy food? Then hit BaBar and then 2nd floor of Vegetate. There is also the bar at Warehouse, if you just want to start with a beer. You also can get beer at the Mongolian Grill/ Tokyo Sushi.
The choices you have for a night out without having to risk a DWI or the newly increased cab fare have increased.