Seeing light at the end of the history tunnel

Okay update on the on again, off again history project. I think I might be done with collecting the household info for Truxton residents from the 1880 census. I am so glad there were fewer houses back then. Some big blocks weren’t as populated as I feared, like a handful of people on Bates street, but not the gobs of families I feared. I need to go back and make sure I’ve hit all the houses surveyed and check it against the map to see if a house existed. Thank G-d for deserted blocks of empty lots. If I ever get to 1900, when a lot of your houses were built, I’m gonna be so hatin’ life.
Summary of what I’ve come up with so far:
Lotta Irish
Lotta Germans
Lotta 2nd generation Americans
Lotta African Americans from VA & MD
Small population of native born White Americans with native born parents

Container gardening planning

Part of the plan is trying to figure out where the sun will be most of the time. Sadly, I don’t have a southern view and almost every stinking thing I want to grow wants lots of sun. But my yard is like survivor, you live or you get voted out of the yard. I don’t remember to water until I see droopy leaves. I know, bad gardener, bad!
Last year’s winner was the arugula. I admire a plant I plant from seed and ignore the rest of the season and grows. I think it helped that it was a deep pot, about a foot deep and sat directly on the ground. When I pulled the pot up, the dang thing had sent a root through the plastic pot and into the ground anchoring itself to the spot I left it. It wilted a bit after the removal but sprang back after some watering.
Dill and tomatoes were directly sown into the ground and came up wonderfully. The dill particularly, sowed itself, I expect to see unplanned dill again this year. Cherry tomatoes, the other bite sized tomato, and the Lemon Boy did okay with 4 hours of direct sun leaning on the southern fence. B&I were good sports about it, allowing me to keep the tomatoes growing on our common fence. It would be good to see if I can repeat the same success in a pot in the backyard. B. gave me some hope as his red tomatoes did well last year in his backyard. However, they required daily watering and constant fertilizing. Argh, I don’t have the patience and my goal is to grow organicly, so easy on the fertilizing. I hope with deeper pots being a foot and a half deep at the least, they will hold water better, and I may dig part of a soaker hose in the pot to deal with the water issue. Another idea is just to break down and buy an irrigation system or punch a bunch a holes in a garden hose.
The tomatoes and the squash have first dibs on the deep pots as tomatoes need to be in a 15-30 gallon pot. Squash roots need about 10 inches. Most other plants I’m growing in pots only need 5-8 inches of room.
This morning, I noticed the article in today’s Post about starting plants from seed. Apparently I’m doing everything wrong. No heating mat, growing things in peat pots, no fan, and the growing lamp is now just for the picky citrus sapling. I’ll take my chances and see what develops.

Pots and plantings

I turn my back for one day and the dang seedlings are popping out and getting out of control. For days I would monitor the little farm of seedlings I’m growing in the window and basically things would emerge slowly. And because I didn’t label some things well I play the guessing game of what’s that? Last night, almost overnight, the cilantro seedings just bursted out all over the place. I had a gang of them erupting from their little cell in the same spot, so I have to get the scissors and cut some back. My tomatoes have to be closely watched too. They outgrew the minigreenhouse and had to be transferred to pots. It is going to probably be a good month before I can actually transplant them outside.
I’m trying to map out where the pots are going to sit in the backyard for when I finally move them all outdoors. I am thankful for a reader/neighbor who gave me her recycle bin so I almost have all the pots I need. I’m still waiting for B. to decide which pots he’s going to reuse this year. I suggested raised beds for his needs as some of those pots aren’t deep enough (it seems) for tomatoes and other waterhungry crops he planted last year. I’m going to buy one more IKEA pot and that should be it.
Also this week I scored a used wood folding babycrib that would make an excellent trellis for some of the vining plants. I saw it put on the curb for garbage pickup and dragged it 2 1/2 blocks back home. I’ll take it apart when the weather warms up and use it as support for the squash. I’m still probably going to buy a nice trellis for the front yard because the front should look nice.

A question

When chatting with some folks this weekend the question came up: What do you do when you notice your crackhead neighbor has stolen something from your yard and placed it in their yard?
A. I was shocked (shocked I say) that someone would take something and blatantly display it in their yard.
B. Then I played the devil’s advocate saying it may have been a visitor’s doing, they borrowed and forgot to ask, blah, blah, blah.
C. Suggested going over and asking for the return of the item -OR- calling the cops and having a report filed.

Small assessment increase rant

Apparently for our block the assessor decided to tack on $60K to the previous year’s assessment. I talked to B&I and M&K and $60K range was what was tacked on to their assessment as well.
Dude, I have no AC, no legal basement, no fireplaces and the city knows this so why is my assessment the same as houses with AC, fireplaces, and legal basements?
Before some wiseacre tells me how great a larger assessment is let me just say that a higher assessment does not give me free money. Doesn’t do me any good until I sell the house. I was happy with the $100K in equity I got several years ago, because that’s as much as I can borrow with my salary (maybe). Anything above that does me no good as I can’t use it, unless another income comes in, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Spending in Shaw

I could complain about my real estate assessment I got in the mail…. bastards! But I’m gonna cool off and get some data and form an argument before that.
I’ve been trying to complete my taxes by the end of this month and the taxes would be done by now if it weren’t for the fact that I neglected updating my finance program and got 6 months behind. Anyway, in typing stuff in and monitoring my spending habits over time I saw myself as a consumer and tried thinking of myself as a consumer in Shaw.
For one, I spend a lot of money at the Ghetto Giant. At least, at least once a week I’m plopping down some amount for food and supplies. Lately, I’ve noticed I’ve been spending at least $40 a week on food. What the heck am I buying? Veggies. I’ve noticed that some fruit and fresh vegetables cost more per pound than some meats. I also buy lamb and lots of it, especially when it is on sale, and lamb is not a cheap meat. The Giant serves my needs. I can get veggies, but it can be hit or miss at times as I have seen the most sorry looking broccoli or spring onions.
The other Shaw business that sucks money out of my pocket is Whole Foods/ Fresh Fields. Can’t seem to leave that store without spending at least $10. I go there for stuff I wouldn’t want to bother with in Giant. I go there for there salad greens, wine, fish, brown rice, desserts, granola, dried fruit, milk (which strangely is cheaper than Giant milk), cheese, and anything that MUST be fresh.
The third business in Shaw where I spend a good amount is my hairdresser Ms. Mary. I have been going to her for nearly 10 years now, long before I lived in Shaw.
Restaurant wise, I have been recently visiting the three Thai places in the U Street region. I might wander over to Cake Love for a $2 cupcake. The German Chocolate cupcake is my personal fav. I have been stopping into the Cake Love cafe just across the street from Cake Love simply because I can’t seem to hit Cake Love when it is open.
What of Truxton Circle? Do I spread the financial love here? Um, not often. I might wander over to the corner store but only when I am so lazy that I can’t drag myself the extra few blocks to Giant. Ella’s? I’ve been there a handful of times. I like it but beyond waffles, which are very good by the way, I’m not that familiar with their menu so there isn’t one dish that draws me. The chicken place near Ella’s? Not a fried chicken fan. Dunkin Donuts, is not good for me, but I’ll plunk down a dollar for a bowtie.
One thing I have noticed is that I’m not spending a huge amount in other parts of the DC metro area. I might venture over to Uni Sushi in Dupont once a month or pick up stuff at the CVS in the Penn Quarter (Archives/ Navy Memorial) but the largest chunk of my spending cash (not including utilities and those other bills) is spent in Shaw, apparently on so-so broccoli and brown rice.

Musical Treat: Green Line Blues

Okay some of you may have already heard this song but it was commissioned by me and Mr. Andrew Pants who wrote and performed the music, my credit is for the crappy lyrics. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time crafting good lyrics, as I did for If the metro don’t go there it don’t exist. It’s a 1meg file so enjoy it and the Shaw references.
Green Line Blues [dead link]
note: download it and play from your own computer, it doesn’t play well from the site.

Convention Center Area Strategic Development Plan

Okay, I’ve read the plan put out by the city planning office and it wasn’t easy reading. For one it is a couple of separate PDF files that I had to download and read separately and at a %50 reduction because it was on abnormal sized pages. Almost made me think DC don’t want me reading this.
Historic Districts
I have dedicated my adult life to history, and so I might have a strange bias. I was and still am a bit concerned about the idea of creating historic districts for reasons other than a deep desire to preserve the historic character of an area. Reading the development plan, I became concerned when I read that a reason for creating a historic district was to control growth. I don’t doubt that but it doesn’t help history any. Another, slightly more acceptable reason other than a focus on the historical character of an area, was the desire to maintain the architectural character of rowhouses. That’s okay, but still where is the history? It can be in there, but when it is not expressed, I get concerned. There may be a community desire to keep rowhouses and keep a lid on growth, but will the community support the expense and headache that comes with maintaining property in an historic district when history was not the main push to designate the area historic in the first place. If there isn’t that communal desire by businesses and neighbors then there isn’t that pressure to conform to those rules and the designation becomes weak and useless. Kind of like eating on the metro, rarely enforced.
Dueling ideas
I noticed some conflicting ideas. They kind of conflict with affordable housing for poorer residents. Under the idea of creating mixed use development along 7th street up by the Giant there was a statement on page 6 of the guidelines about Kelsey Gardens getting redeveloped and would make a good mixed use site. Um. This conflicts with the other idea of maintaining and increasing affordable housing. Back on the historic bug and affordable housing, affordable and historic don’t mix well. The higher quality materials and the type of systems demanded of the historic ain’t cheap. Like no through the wall HVAC system, read ugly AC units built in. No gotta be replaced with CAC or the HVAC put out back.
Kids and other people
Another concern was making school areas mixed used areas as well. For me it might not have been clear, but if I understand it, there would be residences on school grounds? The things that I think allow a school the freedom to protect it’s students and allow kids to be kids (loud and annoying) is the school’s ability to close itself off and keep it’s grounds secure. I can see potential problems with a large scale school (small charter sized schools, different story) and residences. I would like to know about current set ups where there is this mixed use of public schools and residences.
There were some things I did like about the report. For one a clear definition of the AMI (average medium/median income?). That is always helpful because when officials and other types talk about affordable housing they go on and on about the AMI and never tell you that 100% of the AMI for a single person is $58,833, $84,000 for a family of four, so %50 AMI is $29,400 for a single person and $42,000 for a family of four. Second, was a desire to encourage retail that would attract convention attendees and tourists. I’d like some of that retail (exceptions being a souvenir shop) too. I’m thinking a CVS and stores with large clean windows that allow me to see in, clean well lit interior spaces, and businesses that display store hours clearly. Lastly, I also liked the desire to keep the medium density feel of the area, but I wish there was another way to preserve it without having to become “historic” when preserving history is not the goal.

Because Robbie asked: Convention Center Area Strategic Development Plan

Robbie pointed out in the comments a post on the DCist site about the city’s redevelopment plan for Shaw. Well that’s Ward 2’s Shaw. Those of us over on the other side of New Jersey Ave are just screwed or not, depending on how you look at it. Also I feel a bit slighted because one could come away looking at this plan that Truxton Circle isn’t in Shaw.
I took a quick look and I’ll make a few quick comments, with the choice of coming back to this topic and posting at length when I’ve read the whole plan. First, I am very wary of an Eastern Shaw Historical District. I love history but it can be a burden. I’ll write later this week on this. Second, I see the recommendations for the area around the Convention Center are okay but I worry about the type of retail. Hair & nail salons are retail. Got them a plenty. There is a coffeeshop (Warehouse)but it needs something, what I don’t know. But anyway it is something beyond signage and facades that the 7th and 9th street areas around the Convention Center need.