By Wayan
Taxi looking for warmth
We here at the Wayan homestead are in a fight over the heat. As you can see, Taxi, like I is chilled by these 50 degree freezing(!) nights than only make it to 72 in the day. Yet my hot pregnant wife is refusing to heat the house.
While I have no hope of hot air, what’s the verdict in your home? Heat yet?
Or do you just snuggle with cold feet, determined to save a few pennies while embracing the fall chill?
By Wayan
Evidence of a quick stop
For all those that are speeding along New Hampshire Avenue NW, caution as you pass Georgia Avenue NW, headed north. Ahead is Grant Circle, and if you are going too fast, you’ll see it up close.
About once a month, someone winds up in Grant Circle, with skid marks showing their lack of foresight. This morning its just hubcaps and dead grass. Tomorrow, let it not be you.
By Wayan
Are they still buying houses in this market?
I always thought these folks were kinda fly-by-night, the “We Buy Houses” crowd. Now I wonder if they are still buying houses or if they’ve flown out in this harsh new light.
As they leave, I only hope they take their ugly signs with them. The worst are the “We Buy Ugly Houses” signs. Can someone please spank those visual polluters with a credit default swap?
By Wayan
Walking home tonight, I saw another DC kiss in action – this time someone backed into another car, and post-crunch, sped off. That makes me wonder:
What do you do if your the DC Kisser?
Do you flee the scene as this scofflaw did, or do you stick around and say your sorry, or at least leave a note? The deviant in me says haul ass, but as a “kissed” car owner I am so glad my neighbour owned up quick.
What’s your plan of action?
By Wayan
Mine are still red - yours?
While this cold snap may make you think its winter already, I’m still enjoying the fruits of summer. Specifically, my amazing tomato garden. The green orbs of spring are still cranking out red globs of love apples ready for my enjoyment. And that’s even after Don raided my garden last Saturday.
So let’s hear it DC – you still in the red, ripe, and delicious too? Or did my Mexican sunflowers shade my tomatoes from the summer heat, giving me an extended harvest, perfect timing as I spent August in Africa.
By Wayan
Caution - that's a speed trap!
This is the view southbound on Sherman Avenue NW as you approach Florida Avenue NW – that parked police car is there specifically to give you a speeding ticket. I know not because I got one, but because after noticing it there for a few days in a row, I stopped and asked the officer what they were doing.
On the front dashboard of the police cruiser was a super-fancy speed camera that was photographing speeders as they zoomed down Sherman Avenue NW pretty much all day – from the morning rush hour to past dusk. And that police car has been there since at least early July.
So be aware. You’ve been warned of the Sherman Avenue speed trap.
By Wayan
A for sale sign does not bother me. A foreclosure sign insight some worry. But its the tall grass of household abandonment that generates concern for my neighbourhood.
In this market where people are talking about 10% of borrowers behind or in default, I expect some pain all around, yet when pain becomes neglect the impact goes from citizen to community.
What is yours doing to mitigate the mortgage mess? In Petworth, I am going to cut the grass.
By Wayan
I have an update on the visual pollution at Upshur and New Hampshire NW, the Petworth Eyesore, where a builder is trying to make what was once a shell into several apartments.
After he tore off the porch, the recent rains have flooded the basement. And even though there are a few glassless windows, someone is getting mail.
I just wish he’d obey the notice on the front door and cut the rat-nesting weeds in his yard.
By Wayan
Walking through Rock Creek Church Cemetery, I spotted this debris cluttered headstone. David Roy Moncrieffe II, may he rest in peace.
And may all of us be so lucky to be remembered by our friends like his remember him, four years on. That debris, it was signs of a night spent remembering the good times and great days that David enjoyed before he died.
Cheers David for his love of life and his friends for their love of David.
By Wayan
Fort Slocum in Washington DC - managed by the National Park Service
Here’s an oasis of green you don’t see often in the middle of a city: Fort Slocum Park, where a cool urban forest abuts the row houses of Northwest DC.
Nestled in northern Petworth, you’ll first notice Fort Slocum by the green hill you see on Kansas Avenue NW, the only remnant of the Civil War earthworks that defended Washington DC from Confederate General Jubal A. Early’s attack in June 1864.
While the National Park Service description is brief, the Historic Marker Database tells the full story:
When the Confederates demonstrated against Fort Stevens, to the west, Fort Slocum had the honor of opening the engagement by firing its long range guns. During the battle, some 1,500 employees of the Army Quartermaster office, led by General Montgomery Meigs, assisted the fort’s garrison.
Juxtaposed to that history is a modern escape for all manner of Washingtonians, as I found on a recent exploration of its central woods..
By Wayan
The House Strip Club and E.L. Haynes Public Charter School
The E.L. Haynes Public Charter School at 3600 Georgia Avenue NW, currently serves Pre-K to 5th grade students in the Petworth neighborhood. They hope to add a grade each year until they are serving students through grade twelve.
From this angle, you can see their new five-story school soaring over the existing Georgia Avenue businesses. You may also see a slight problem with the school. Its soaring over not-so-school-friendly local businesses like The House strip club and too many liquor stores.
You can also expect to see a dispute or two soon enough with horny teenagers looking to sneak a peek, or at least a sip of the adult-only entertainment that surrounds the school. Who do you think will win? Businesses that have been on the block for decades, or protective parents trying to keep innocence from being lost?
In the battle that everyone knows will soon come despite rumored promises of neutrality by the school, I’ll be betting on the parents, especially now that I have a prospective student on the way.
Kids beat tits every day of the week.
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By Wayan
Rolling with the WashPost article on the area’s tomato crop, I went and checked on my backyard garden this morning.
The verdict: I got great gobs of green tomatoes popping out, but not a ripe one in sight.
I do have crazy big basil from all the rain, but no ripe love apples to go with it.
What’s your tomato situation?
By Wayan
After five hours crammed into this seat on a red-eye from San Francisco, I can tell by the shift in the plane, that we’ve started our decent into IAD. Its another bi-coastal BBQ week for me, and I can’t wait to be home.
Home, where the South Asian driver of the Washington Flyer taxi and I will have a long talk about Pakistani politics as we glide past iconic symbols of our nation and then drop into the green valley of Rock Creek park.
Home, where my block party neighbours will be just waking, about to take their morning walks around the neighbourhood, where I shall soon join them with my personal Taxi in tow.
Home, where my half-million dollar mortgage shelters my still-sleeping wife, who let’s me travel even with a Ziggy on the way.
Home, where after a decade I feel I have found my place, my life, a whole community of good friends and great times that make me love this great city.
Home, I love Washington DC because its my home.
By Wayan
Washington DC has its official fireworks on the Mall, but forgive me I find them insignificant. For me, the formal symphony + lightshow is a distant second, if even ranked, when compared with the neighbourhood effort.
And that would be every neighbourhood in this city – from Congress Heights to Foggy Bottom, Park View to Palisades. On every block, on each street, we have an orgy of light and sound, all amateur, and therefore, so much more creative and intimate.
In Petworth, we had our own fireworks festival. With the full block party audience in attendance, we had all kinds of sparkling, shootings, and showers of crackling through the night. Even Taxi Dog got in on the show.
And this morning? Happiness with firework detritus strewn about.
