With the temps hovering around a wee above and below freezing…. mainly below, the ugly nasty multicolored snow is going to be with us for a while. Some blocks are awesome and well shoveled. Fourth St, parts of Q, parts of 8th, the sidewalks are passable, it’s just bad when you go from well shoveled to a few deep footsteps leading to the slushy road. Hey DC gov, I’ll not walk in the street if you actually cite people for not shoveling. When there is some sort of pathway, I’ll stick to the sidewalk, so the advisement’s to not walk in the street is pointless when your law (is it a law or just an impotent regulation?) has no teeth.
You make people change sides of the street during street cleaning or move their cars for rush hour. And regardless of health, vacation or what have you, people find a way to comply. Why? Because when you enforce it with ticketing, it gets done. Back when DC didn’t bother ticketing anything on my street, cars would sit for weeks without moving. There were signs saying move, but they were ignored. Then the city started seriously ticketing, and now neighbors will move your car (if you ask nicely & give gifts) if you can’t because of vacation or weird job schedules or the fact that you’re in a 1/2 body cast. So until the city actually backs up the admonitions of not walking in the street and pleas to owners to shovel their sidewalks with real money fines and liens, there is only shaming. Here are a few blog posts of shame in Mt Vernon, Georgetown, and on Georgia Avenue.
I’m pretty shoveled out but I see a few bus stops I may want to use in the coming days (as this crap will still be around) that need shoveling, as I have no intention of walking the .25 mile to the station in yellow snow lined icy paths.
Tag: weather
So far, so good
After chatting with neighbors on the phone and passing by with the old snow shovel (but we’re running out of places to shovel it) I found out I’m okay comparatively.
1- I haven’t torn anything in my leg and thusly I’m not crippled like one poor soul.
2- My roof, so far is holding. The folks down the block suffered a partial roof collapse.
3- And the furnace still works. Last I spoke with another set of neighbor’s whose heat went out. Hopefully they can get it back up and running again.
4- Luckily no one expects me to be at work as the Federal gov’mit is closed. Unfortunately, a good friend of mine who is a contractor, (lowly paid, not the big money type), can’t work when we’re closed and will have to find a way to eat the week of non-work he’s not getting paid for.
I cleaned off the roof of my first floor kitchen and knocked off some of the ice icicles from the safety of a window. There is a big hunk of ice weighing down one section of the gutter that I couldn’t reach safely. Sigh. I’ll try to deal with that tomorrow. I’ve been checking some of the old cracks in the kitchen ceiling and so far no change. My next door neighbor is very worried about his roof and shoveled it. I’m just trusting that the equally spread out weight and some fixes after the gut job renovation helped.
Here’s to praying for sun and above freezing temps.
Food & Friends call for help
On Thursday, February 11th, Food & Friends needs 20 volunteers to deliver meals, especially those with 4-wheel-drive vehicles. Those without cars would be very much appreciated in the kitchen, and it would be great if they could come between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Volunteers may sign up to chendersonATfoodandfriends.org. This information is also available on our website at www.foodandfriends.org/winterstorm2010. Without Food & Friends, our clients likely will not eat, so the help of the community is vital. Meals may be picked up from Food & Friends (219 Riggs Road, NE/Washington, DC) between 10 a.m. and 12 am., we will provide detailed delivery directions, and routes should take no more than 3 hours. For more information, prospective volunteers may call 202.841.5347.
Snow theory
I had a theory walking to the metro regarding snow shoveling and brick v concrete sidewalks. But several sidewalks, such as this one on 7th, disproved it. it was that the concrete sidewalks melted snow quickly and thus required little to no effort to keep clear, while brick sidewalks held the cold and did not melt snow. But then I started hitting sidewalks covered in ice and snow closer to the metro station.
Mine and my neighbors’ sidewalks are nice and clear. A couple of neighbors had gotten out and shoveled several doors worth of sidewalk while the snow was coming down. One, decided to make a game of it with her daughter and a large push broom. That was fun to watch, from the warm inside. Also I should thank E. for shoveling by my house, while jamming to something on his earphones. It’s great that he was doing his part as a good neighbor.
If you bothered, or if someone else bothered, to wipe most of the snow off the walk, it cleared up. If no one bothered, the snow stayed. That’s my new theory.
The sidewalk report
Sunday afternoon the people on the other side of the block decided to shovel their sidewalks. To be fair it was still snowing the day before, but that didn’t stop us on my side. We shoveled while it was still coming down, so when it stopped there wasn’t much to do, and the salt dried up the walk quickly. On my side of the street most of the sidewalk shoveling was done by 4 individual homeowners. With about 2 owners shoveling more than just the sidewalk in front of their own homes.
Africare the non-profit in the old Morse School on the 400 block of R is a good neighbor. The brick sidewalk had a nice wide and clear path along their vacant lot and building grounds. Unfortunately the end of the block is a block of ice in front of the individual houses that hug 5th and R. The northern corner of the 500 block of R is good until you get near the corner of 6th. That little park between Rhode Island, 6th, and R is nothing but an island of dirty snow mountains and ice. Which sent me out into the street. Along the Asbury Dwellings there is a thin clear path, where as across Rhode Island it appears to be one big glacial sidewalk, as it is after every snowfall. WMATA seemed to put down a minimal amount of snow melt around the station, but I did notice that many bus stops where shoveled enough so a couple people could stand on solid ground.
It’s too spotty for people in wheelchairs or motorized chairs to get around. Too many curb cuts have mountains of dirty snow or sheets of ice to escape the block. Brown slush, should a wheeled person decide to take it to the streets, is another hazard. I can imagine the slush, pockets of black ice and the regular motorized traffic (with limited swerving options) *might* keep the wheelchair bound off the streets.
The roof is leaking and the wind is howling
Well I got me a roof leak last night. Not my first, I still need to paint over the patch in the kitchen. Luckily I had my cousin in that bedroom and she noticed the first few drops seeping through a seam in the drywall. It appears the AC thingamajigger on the roof needs caulking or something, because that’s where the water came from. But last night’s rain was like a bucket and my sump pump in the cellar kept going off every 4 minutes.
PSA- Shovel & de-ice your sidewalk
It’s an ice rink out there. Anyway, the city, is not responsible for clearing, cleaning, or salting the sidewalks. Property owners are. The sidewalk and your front step belongs to the city when it suits it, however, when conditions demand upkeep, it’s your problem.
It is very slippery out there. So regardless of if you are an owner or a renter, make your steps and sidewalk less dangerous by clearing a small path. I can be done gently with a shovel and any kind of salt (table salt, kosher salt, ice melty stuff) If not for yourself, for the mailman or maillady.
Diversity of Buildings
Yesterday I did stop by Jessica Lanza’s fund raiser. I was superfashionably late because I had to sell a man an air conditioner. Thank you craigslist.
First thing I did when I got into the building was write a check. Yes, I live in Ward 5, and not in the Ward or ANC single member district that Ms. Lanza is in. However, I walk through it and work in it, and what happens in 2C impacts my life in 5C. And really there is so much development and lunch option goodness happening in 2C-03 that it should be represented by someone with more strength than a sock-puppet. Seriously, can Ms. Doris Brooks conduct a meeting or two without her puppet master pulling her strings and throwing his voice?
Anyway, after writing a check for political change, I went out on the patio of the condo building on the corner of 7th and H and gazed at the sights. What I really liked was the diversity of building styles jumbled up together representing different periods. There was the synagogue dome on 6th & I, with the brutalist Wah-Luck House, and 555 Mass in the background. There was little homogeneity, and that’s what made it so lovely. Looking over at 555 Mass I thought about all the people living there who came to stake their claim on downtown. With the older 19th and turn of the 20th century facades I thought of an earlier DC. And then the larger buildings set back that house the residents, hold the employees, and draw in the shoppers and diners who give life to the streets below.
And then I saw the lightening in the distance, and high tailed it out of there.
So Hawt
What is it, like 96 degrees outside?
It’s 79 in the house. Oh, the SpacePak A/C system works fine, it is just that I’ve gotten my Pepco bill. I know energy costs have gone up, and I can kiss the days of $30 electric bills goodbye, but really, $100! I can cut costs somewhere.
Seriously, it is so hot out my worms are running from my composter like it was a house on fire. It is truly a distressing sight to see globs of earthworms streaming out of the vent holes. All the moisture from this morning has left the composter and the worms were trying to leave as well, in droves.
It is so hot, I put an old window a/c unit out on the sidewalk late last night and now it is gone.
How many more months of this?
I called animal control
Wasn’t the first time.
Around about 5 something in the morning, around about the time I wake up before the radio alarm comes on, I heard the low sorrowful howl of the dog across the alley. The howling didn’t wake me up. He’d been howling long since before I went to bed. So I opened up the window and spoke to him, which quieted him for about 2 minutes, and went back to bed. When I opened the window I realized it was raining.
It isn’t unusual for the people of the house across the alley to just leave their dog, a beige and chocolate husky of some sort, out side for the whole weekend, or several days on end. He sits on the deck, howling every time a siren wails. Howling at night. Howling in the rain. That rain we had a week or two ago, he was out in that. I don’t know how his fur works but he never seems drenched. He could be going under the deck periodically, but most of the time he just paces on the deck staring at the kitchen door.
Regardless, I called the city 311 number, who then transferred me over to the 24 hour animal control number. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. I was told, I was the second person to call this morning about the dog.
Back during the flood watch, I called animal control and they did send someone out to check on the dog. By the time they showed up, it stopped raining and the dog was just sitting on the deck, all calm like. Nothing happened. I don’t know what to expect when several neighbors call because his howling is so loud and so sad. He doesn’t bark, but rather belts out a low deep ‘arrooogh’.
UPDATE:Animal Control called me back and said there was a call 2 weeks ago about the dog. They checked it out, contacted the owners, and told them they needed a dog house for the dog. Today, there is a dog house under the deck, and so animal control seems to be satisfied with the situation. Unfortunately, the dog doesn’t spend any time near or in his house.