Like I care
500 block of R Street.
If you know what supposedly recently happened to the Shaw East area. I say 'supposedly' because I can't find any proof that this zoned restriction has occured yet by the DC gov powers that be... AND if you know my feelings on this, then you know why I don't care.
If the picture is too fuzzy for you, just know that it looks like vinyl siding is coming up.
DC demographic changes in miniature
Well C moved out this past weekend. She and her kids. I guess the last tax assessment was the last straw. I never saw the house up for sale. There was never a sign out front. Our neighborhood handyman, mentioned it and said 'everyone has a price.' It must have been a pretty good price because C had a strong reason to stay. Her parents lived just a couple of doors down. Really. Kids would run from her house to their grandparents house in a matter of seconds. Can you say free babysitting? Her kids seem to play well with the kids already on the block as they would all tear up and down the sidewalk, throwing the ball around, rough housing, doing what kids do. They were good kids. Now she's gone. One less black family. Fewer kids on the block. Fewer playmates for the kids who remain.
Her replacement, from what I can tell, is European-American, has no kids, but does have a dog (I tell you this block is going to the dogs), and didn't see a significant other. 1 replaces 3.
Why you need to wait a year before doing any work
You need to wait a year before engaging in any major capitol project on the house in a gentrifying area. Why? Crackheads, it all comes down to crackheads.
Cheap contractors getting houses ready for selling, hire cheap crackhead or questionably legal immigrant help who sometimes do poor work hidden behind the walls where the inspector can't see it. Also a year allows you to see seasonal screw ups.
Spring- Spring rains show you the gutters were improperly installed and that the yard is poorly graded and sending water towards your foundation.
Summer- Guess what? Air Conditioning doesn't work, or works so poorly it is not even worth using. Maybe it does work but condensation builds up in the walls and there is this wet spot forming in your ceiling. Or, notice you have no air conditioning?
Fall- Leaves. And the raccoon that moves into your crawl space waking you up at 4 am.
Winter- Furnace works poorly or dies. Windows don't shut all the way and house gets drafty. House has no insulation and costs more to heat.
Then there is other stuff you don't notice till you have been in the house a while. About 2 years into living in my house I got neighbors in a previously empty house. They are very nice people but I can hear them clearly through the wall. Lucky for me they are not speaking in English so I have no idea of what they are saying. I hear them come in, go up the stairs.... I can smell when they have burnt the toast, and they are always burning toast. I knew there was only 1 layer of brick between us** and with real live people next door, I now know what 1 layer means as far as noise and smell goes.
When you first see a house, you don't see its faults. When I saw my house I was so happy it wasn't a)condemned or b)in the middle of construction and c)it had a basement. I didn't notice the little things like the toilet being encased in tile or the windows being a little off, or the poor paint job that got paint on stuff I still can't get off. It's several months after buying and living in the house you begin to notice these quirks. Like plumbing pipes not being properly installed. They looked ok, but when you go to touch it, it falls apart. Not good.
Some of these houses in the neighborhoods housed the poor and were maintained by landlords who possibly didn't give a rat's rear about the house, as long as the section 8 check came in. So then they decide to cash in, get some horrid contractor who is accountable to no one and knows you're not going to find the faults until long after he and the seller have run off with your money. So beware.
**Yes, I know there is supposed to be two layers of brick, but there isn't. When I was trying to fix a crack in the wall I discovered the 1 brick situation, so please don't say anything about there 'should be 2 bricks', 'cause there ain't and you're not making it any better. Yes, it is a touchy subject with me.
Good neighbor
This morning I was running late, again, to work and was running down the sidewalk when my neighbor several doors down saw me as he was heading to his car. He offered me a ride to the metro. That was so nice of him. I have great neighbors.
For Liz
3 months of unpaid rent $1,500
20 some odd phone calls to Canada charged to your phone, $90
Fee to change your phone number to evade creditors, $30
"Loan" to cover U-haul rental, $500
Gas to get out of DC metro area, $50
Sending your deadbeat roommate off to Wisconsin to mooch off of someone else and getting your house/life back, pricelessNot about me, or any of my former Shaw roommates, but a good friend who has finally got her chronically unemployed roommate out of the house. Read this story and take heed all ye who have roommates or will get roommates or boarders.
So lets call my friend Liz, Liz and her now ex-roommie, Kay. Liz and Kay meet through a common geeky interest group and because the common geeky interest group throws parties that run late, Kay and other geeks would wind up on Liz's couch often. One day, Kay asked to stay on Liz's couch for a 'couple of weeks' until she could get a job so she could pay for the last semester of college at [expensive private NW DC university]. Long story short Kay was a financial disaster, her parents were bankrupt, she couldn't pay most of her bills and was hounded by creditors, she was sick and health care expensive, and despite nearly finishing at a top flight school lacked any sort of financial common sense. It didn't help that she had several girlfriends out of state (read: long long-distance phone calls), one being unemployed and unable to support her end of the relationship financially. Kay had a thing for women who were also financially incompetent.
What did this have to do with Liz, who had a thing for locals with decent savings accounts?
When Kay couldn't pay for those long distance calls and the phone bill had to get paid, Liz paid for it.
When Kay wanted to visit out of state/ country lovers, who did she 'borrow' money from? Liz.
When Kay couldn't pay her credit card bills and they started hounding her for money, who had to talk to the creditors 'cause she was silly enough to answer her own phone? Liz.
When Kay needed medication for her depression, who got it for her? Liz.
Why? Cause you live in the same unit with a person it is hard to not be impacted by their life, their depression and girlfriends. And they KNOW how much money you have and when you are the only
responsible adult in the room, apparently you are expected to pay the tab for everything.
Liz is now swearing she will screen future roommates.
What if everyday was like Sunday btwn 9AM-1PM?
Parking.
Gotta think about parking.
Right now you have it.
But think of a future, of greater economic development attracting people with cars, and by golly, they'll want to park them, in front of your house.
I'm not poo-pooing economic development, just thinking about the type of development I'd like to see. What I'd like to see is something that serves the people who already live here and can walk or bike to a business.
What got me thinking about parking, which doesn't happen often as I don't have a car, was trying to suggest a place to eat to friends with car. I know of a dozen places in Dupont and the western end of U Street that I'd like to go. But the problem is, where do you park the darned car. Is searching for a parking space for 20 minutes a sign that a neighborhood has made it? And once you've made it, is not being able to find a parking spot near your house worth it? Yes, some houses have parking in the back, but many don't.
I'm just thinking out loud here, anyone have other thoughts?
Why you should put your whole address on trash can
I highly suspect the crackheads did it.
Anyway, for about a week a foreign blue recycle bin has been sitting on our block near the house of the crackhead, or the cheese woman, as B. has called her. Anyway I noticed the address on the bin and this Sunday wandered over to the Eckington... Yes, Eckington, crackheads done stole a recycle bin from Eckington and rolled it over to Truxton. Anyway, I wander over to Eckington and leave a note for the owners of the bin to come over to my block and pick it up. Well, after church the blue bin was gone. Today I need to find out who you report wayward grocery carts to at Giant, 'cause the damned crackheads left that on the sidewalk near their house too.
Bug Flexcar for cars
I emailed the local Flexcar rep about why our cars keep going bye-bye here in eastern Shaw/Truxton/LeDroit this is the response I got:Hi,
I'm sorry that we've taken all of your cars. We are working now to
get more cars in that area. You can have everyone that wants the cars back
there to keep flooding my e-mail box with requests. I forward all of them
to my General Manager as well as the CEO. If I receive a huge amount of
feedback from that area they are more likely to put one there quicker.
Thank you for your continued patronage and thank you for the feedback. It's
appreciated!
Heath Dean
Member Care
heath.dean @ flexcar.com
202-296-1359
Washington, DC
Happy Earth Day-misc postings
In PrintThis Old House made my day.
From the cover I see just another remodel your bathroom, blah, but several articles in there was something that made my heart go pitter patter. Green roofs. There were pictures of a beautiful Cap Cod with a sod covered roof.
I've been thinking of a green roof for the house. But I need to pay off the second mortgage before I can do anything with the house, and one of my hopes, is to have a rooftop garden with a green roof.
In The BackyardYou know I have the gardening bug when I rush home to strip out of my work clothes and into something more ratty, just to fool around with dirt. Yesterday was mix more dirt for containers day. I spent the whole evening mixing peat moss with manure and garden soil, tracking dirt through the house, and planting seed, and that was the best part of my day. I was hungry when I came home but my desire to go in the back and work on the garden trumped the hunger. I'd nibble at the pea shoot I trimmed back. I also took bites of the arugula and Bibb lettuce, and then took the trimmings and made a very tiny salad of them. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and freshly ground pepper, yummy.
One of those neat city moments
So I'm coming home after a meeting on the Green line, sitting on the train, just listening to my music. For most of the ride my eyes do not focus on anything, and then I notice a familiar face. It's W., a friend and ex-boss of one of my former roommates, who lives on the other side of New Jersey in Shaw. I disconnect my earphones and she comes over to sit and chat. We exit out the same station and we just talk and catch up all the way to her door. After I wave goodbye to her I start to think, if I drove alone to and from work, instead of taking public transit, I would have missed such a wonderful opportunity to connect with one of my neighbors.
Brixton, UK and Shaw, DC
About a week ago I got an email from a Paul Bakalite who lives in Brixton, a London neighborhood. He sent me an article he'd written about the gentrification going around him and possibly it will get published somewhere soon. Although it doesn't reflect my point of view regarding gentrification, because I have certain ideas about property and other things, it is good to calmly hear other points of view.... or at least that's what they taught me in grad school.
Brixton and Shaw have a lot in common. Both are neighborhoods in capitol cities. Both have a large population of people of African decent. Both experienced riots that caused significant property damage and now both are dealing with gentrification.
My Brixton, particularly Brixton circa 1993, which was in between the 1991 riot and the 1995 riot, was an escape from the Central London areas I worked in for a Summer. I would go there for the small open air food/veggie market, to get my hair done, and to wander over to the Tesco's (think Giant). And I believe at the time there was talk about parts of Brixton getting posh, gentrified. In Paul's Brixton, the gentrification is not just displacing people but an atmosphere, an openness, a spirit of the neighborhood that attracts people to it in the first place.
So I present part of Paul's article:
How Brixton is now facing different division…
Paul Bakalite urges newer residents of Brixton to show some humility and Lambeth council to take more notice of the real needs of local people.
March 2005
While I'd acknowledge I was a more naive person when I washed up in Brixton the best part of twenty years ago, I was never like the upscale types who arrive here now. I didn't tell the weed dealers, on my doorstep back then, to “get off my property”. I got to know them. They were there first. It was their street, and my neighbours' - not mine.
I first came to live in Brixton in the late 1980s. Part of me craved excitement and freedom. It’s an interesting area, Brixton. But looking back I see now that what I really craved, and what I have found here, is acceptance and somewhere to belong. I am an articulate man (although not for obvious reasons: I didn't go to a posh school or to university) and I am white. Even so, principally because I am gay, I know how prejudice can gnaw at a person’s sense of self-worth. Especially if they start on you early! Alot of people rejected by elsewhere have gravitated to Brixton over the years. Damaged people somehow drawn to find spiritual kinship amongst oppressed people perhaps? A place where you didn't have to be either wealthy or conventional to live... to count...
Do you now?
There's always been something special here, an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding that Brixton has because of it’s history, it’s peoples... and its troubles. There is cohesion across communities, of black, white and others. Cohesion across race and to a lesser extent, across class. And a rightful defiance of anyone who’d dare push Brixton people around. In Brixton the marginal and the outsiders could be insiders.
But this is under threat, from people who don't even know that their own security and sense of entitlement gives them power - because they've always had it. And from systems biased in their favour. The cohesion I mention is delicate. It relies on mutual respect. Some of the newer residents just don’t get it.
Brixton's current fashionability was largely built on the backs of black people and on the backs of poorer people. And arty, radical types helped glue it together. Many are left out of this fashionability now or have been forced out. (Not everyone is a home-owner or a career high-flyer). Brixton is being re-packaged and resold by and for a more conservative consumer. Poorer people can't move to the neighbourhood anymore as they can't afford to rent here. Dissident minds struggle to find brotherhood here. Residents who don't fit in with recent conformity (and Brixton’s current fashionability is a form of conformism) can sometimes feel crushed by the demands of professionals who’ve read in a magazine that Brixton is hip, moved in recently and within months want everything their way. Brixton is an area these people would previously have never considered as a home. They may have no real affinity for it. They attempt (and will fail) to control it. They don’t engage with it.
Trendy bars and gated-developments do not a happy community make. Lots of existing locals find the new prosperity and venues excluding, expensive and irrelevant. And just boring too. Rapacious “market forces”, allowed precedence over pretty much anything of real worth today, ensure that the needs of the well-to-do, floating from style-bar to luxury apartment, are met. Those with the deepest pockets are first in the queue, while schools and sports facilities for everyone are often left to rot.
Paul Bakalite is environment champion for Coldharbour/Angel Working Group, Brixton
There is more to it, but as it hasn't been published in print I would like Mr. Bakalite to have the opportunity to have it fully published in a newspaper or other such thing.
Lively Alley
For a moment the alley was as busy as the front of the street. I was out in the backyard puttering over my plants, 'cause I like puttering. Mxn and her gang of family and friends were out moving things into the house, and yelling, 'cause she wouldn't be herself if she didn't yell at somebody. After the Mxn gang moved on into the house, a large truck came easing down the alley, and may have hit a fence as our alley is kinda skinny. I watched the truck for a while because in the past trucks would come through and dump things in the alley. Now that there are few backyards left open, that rarely happens now.
The guys in the truck kept peering over the fences and I asked them if they needed any help. Apparently they were looking for a particular house number, and well we no longer have house numbers on the alley side. So they asked people in Mxn's house, nope. Then they brought out the people in the monstrosity of a house, they had just moved in and were not really sure what their house number was.
I lost interest in the search for the right house number when IT appeared. He popped out around about the same time as the neighbors on his other side came out. He greeted his neighbors, then me and we got to talking. So for about 5 minutes there was all this chatter over the fences, the truckers, the new people, the neighbors and of course, Mxn yelling.
Can't get this in the 'burbs.
Weekend wrap up
New restaurants on P St.Well
Merkado has opened up on the 1400 block of P this weekend. I probably won't venture in until later this month. It is owned by the same folks who brought you Logan Tavern, which really isn't a tavern and is just a few door down. If anyone has been to it I'd love to hear your reviews. Also, on the same 1400 block a new (French?) bistro was supposed to open up as well. I didn't check back at it's proposed opening time, and passing by on Sunday it didn't look open. It does have a nice looking menu.
Shaw Eco-Village workshopsThis weekend I attended in one of hopefully many Shaw Eco Village workshops. This one was a rain barrel workshop where for $5 and a talk by the kids on the evils of a combined sewer system, I got a 50 gallon rainbarrel that I dragged home. The goal is to get the run off from the roofs and other impervious surfaces from going into the sewer system. Sadly, one would need 12 such barrels to catch all the rain that comes off a typical DC roof in a 1 inch rainstorm.
You know screaming woman is yelling at her kids too loudly when...So I'm talking to B. from one side of my fence and he's on the other side, and we are about 3 feet from each other and then Mxn, screaming woman, starts yelling at her kids. Mxn is across the alley from us. In her house. Yelling at kids in the house. And I can barely hear B. over Mxn. That is too loud.
updated to have Merkado's actual website with menu
Living in Shaw with no car: Car Sharing
Sometimes you just need a car.
There are two car sharing companies operating in the DC metro area,
Zipcar and
Flexcar. I can't speak about Zipcar as I am not a member and I don't use their cars. However I have been a Flexcar member for about 3 years and can talk about them from experience.
The reason why I joined Flexcar boiled down to this, Flexcar ain't afraid of the hood. At one point in the company's history it had 2 cars for Truxton Circle residents. One at Rhode Island and New Jersey and another at Florida and Q St., both at cheapo cash-only gas stations, that I figure kicked Flexcar to the curb so that now the closest Flexcar sits at 7th and R St at the Shaw/Howard metro station. The closest Zip car is over on 14th St.
I typically use the Flexcar car for trips to Home Depot to pick up dirt, or something that is too heavy or awkward for the bus. It is a 1.5 hour trip for me and at Flexcar's current rates that's about $13.50 which includes gas and insurance. The price may seem steep but compared to owning a car, especially at current gas prices, it is a deal. Other errands with the Flexcar have included grabbing the Greenbelt hybrid for trips to
IKEA and
Behnke's, the
pickup truck at Columbia Heights for a furniture run, and the College Park car to harass friends and family.
I really miss the NJ and RI car. It served both Truxton and LeDroit park and it was just minutes from the house. Oh well.
As Flexcar doesn't have a monthly fee it works for me as there will be a month or so when I'm not using the car. I use it more when it is cold and waiting for the bus or biking is not an option. The other good thing is that there are cars at many of the metro stations around the District so it can be a decent supplement to one's metro trip.
If you have questions about Flexcar feel free to contact them at (202)296-1FLX (1359) or e-mail me (see right side panel).
Other Living in Shaw with no car posts:Living in Shaw with no car: Walking Living in Shaw with no car: BikingLiving in Shaw with no car: Metro
Cat fight
Looking at the Truxton Circle daily dispatch I noticed this:
PSA 501
4/11/2005
2000 Hours
Assault With A Deadly Weapon - Other
100 Block Q ST NW
CCN #05045912
C1 REPORTS THAT SHE AND S1 GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT ABOUT S1'S BOYFRIEND AT WHICH
TIME S1 BECAME ANGRY AND GRABBED C1'S HAIR. BOTH C1 AND S1 FELL TO THE GROUND
AND THEN S1 BEGAN BITING C1 IN THE FACE. S1 THEN FLED
Guuurl, no man ain't worth gettin' bit in the face for. No man.
Living in Shaw with no car: Metro
It isn't New York or London or some other city where traveling on public transit is a given, but it is what we got.
The good thing about Truxton Circle is that there are several metro options around. The
Shaw/Howard University stop is over on 7th and S and R Streets, about a 10 minute walk for some. A little ways over is the new
New York Avenue (NYAFAGU) station over on the 200 block of Florida Avenue NE. From these stations the rest of the DC metro area opens up. I use it to get to College Park for work, or to Friendship Heights for fun or British food at
Rodman's. Quick jumps to Chinatown, just 2 stops away from Shaw or rare long hauls out to Vienna (bring a book). Switching over at Mt. Vernon Square, to the yellow line from the green I can go to the Pentagon City mall or the airport. BWI, the airport I can use, is a good bet because I go from Shaw to Greenbelt and catch the B30.
Then there are all the buses that pass through and by. The 96 to Ellington Bridge takes me through U Street and Adams Morgan and stops on the other side of the bridge from
Woodley Park. In the other direction the 96 to Stadium Armory or Capitol Heights, takes me to Union Station, and the Library of Congress. I haven't bothered taking it past those points. The G2 is only good in one direction, west. The westward G2 to Georgetown University, starting somewhere near Howard University, goes along P Street, past the Giant, past the Whole Foods, through Dupont, and eventually up at the gates of Georgetown University in about 20 minutes. The G8 to Farragut Square goes past the rear of the Giant, past the Convention Center, and by McPherson Square. In the other direction to Avondale, it goes by the National Wholesalers Warehouse whatchamacallit on 4th and RI NE, up to Catholic University metro, through Brookland, and ends at the DC MD border. Over on North Capitol, you can catch the 80 to Ft. Totten or the scenic route to Kennedy Center and the P6 to Rhode Island (Home Depot & Giant) or Anacostia Station.
Then there are the 90 buses (
90, 92, 93 & X3). Good lord I hate the 90 buses. I step on a 90 bus I know there's a good chance I'm going to get harassed. No matter what I'm wearing, and typically I dress conservatively, no matter, some old dirty man wants to hit on me. Or there will be some seriously disturbed person on the bus. It can also get crowded. I hate the 90 bus. But I love where it goes. Like the 96 going west, it goes through U Street, past
Cake Love, and through the main drag of Adams Morgan. Unlike the 96, the 90s go over Ellington Bridge to Woodley Park, then over by the National Cathedral and stops at the Giant on Wisconsin in McLean Gardens. In the other direction heading south east, the 90 buses go past the
New York Avenue station, past Gallaudet University, down 8th St NE, by
Eastern Market in Capitol Hill and stops somewhere south of that.
You can check what comes close your home by clicking
here.
I keep track of the buses and trains with my beloved Palm by copying and pasting the bus schedules from the
Ride Guide, or downloading the Palm files. The 90, 92, 93 route has a PDA schedule. So I can tell when the next bus is coming and I can get where I need to go.
Next time: Living in Shaw with no car: Car Sharing
Nothin's the matter with kids
Well it is funny when you think about it.
After work I dragged my garbage can back to the back yard chatted with a neighbor and locked up the gate, only after the realization that I didn't have the key for the rear door. I also didn't have the key for the gate lock that I just locked, so I was locked inside my yard.
The sun was shining and it was warm so I figured I'd sit out there and possibly wait for my neighbor B. to get home and eventually go out in the backyard to putter over his plants. That waiting lasted a good 5 minutes and then I was trying to figure out how to escape from my yard. I tried to see if I could climb over the fence. Nope, too tall and an empty trash can wasn't going to hold my weight. Under it. Nope, torso too big. And besides, I was wearing drycleanable clothes.
And that's when the band of boys, who I'd been
complaining about before wandered into the alley. I couldn't see them, but I could hear them. I called out the name of one kid, who lives around the block. He answered, and I explained my problem and gave him the key to my front door and the ball they had thrown into my yard the day before. After some trial and error, he and the other kids let me into my house. I paid him $4 for rescuing me. Kid labor, cheap.
Of course, by the time the kids let me in B. had come home.
Living in Shaw with no car: Biking
Part 2 of the Living in Shaw with no car series. See Part 1, walking for the begining.One step up from walking is biking. Still requires human power to get around, but a whole lot faster. With a bike, I can get to more places, and places further away that I wouldn't go to if I had to walk.
I bike to Dupont, U Street, Chinatown and recently Foggy Bottom. This is all on the crappy 3 speed. I have a mountain bike but I want to trade it in for a decent hybrid or road bike for part of my commute this summer.
Most of the time I run errands on the bike. A trip to Giant here, pick up a weeks worth of groceries. A trip to Rice or other spots along 14th like the Garden District, pick up more stuff. Trip downtown for research. And unlike a car, I can find someplace to park it in neighborhoods like Dupont or Adams Morgan, where finding a parking spot is difficult.
Not that finding a bike parking spot is a breeze. I don't lock the bike to sign posts as they are not always in the sidewalk properly. I lock the bike to parking meters and lately, more parking meters have been popping up in Shaw. I've noticed parking meters near the Shaw metro station, when a few years back there were very few. Places where there are no parking meters one has to think creatively as to what public structure can be used as bike parking.
There is one place that I think makes having a bike easier in Shaw and that is the non-profit
Chain Reaction bike shop. I bought the ugly bike (it was not pretty when I bought it and I've just made it uglier) from them for less than $50. They have been there when I needed new tires, when some jerk bent my rear wheel, flats, new brakes, everything. Yes, it is not a big shop, and it is very cramped but it is close enough from the house that I can drag my busted bike to them and get it fixed so I'm back on the road again.
Other cool things I've noticed pop up in the greater Shaw region are bike lanes. There is a bike lane on R St starting at 7th going until 14th? I'd love to see some on Q Street, and 7th & 9th Sts. There is enough space between the parked cars and the car traffic to ride between the two on those streets, but I really like the clearly marked bike lanes.
Next time, Living in Shaw with no car:Metro
Links
Washington Area Bicyclists AssociationKryponite Locks- They are recalling some of their locks
Cops being around when you need them
This morning I want to tip my hat to the alert police officer who stopped a car. I was heading west on R Street crossing 6th when R Street had the light. A car from a 1/2 block up was barreling off of Rhode Island. I travel up and down R St. enough to know the traffic patterns and if the light is green on R, there is no left turn on Rhode Island. So I was afraid of getting hit as I was crossing 6th and this car is coming fast in my direction and I know it didn't have the light. Well the police spotted the violation and stopped the guy. Yea!
Living in Shaw with no car: Walking
This might be another great InShaw series, or not. But I should start somewhere.I haven't owned a car since 1993 when I sold my one and only car after graduating college. Since then I either had no money for a car (gas, insurance, maintenance, etc) or lived in areas where parking was a game of skill and cunning, and there was ample public transportation, I just never bothered to buy another car. So here I am, more than a decade later, and still no car. So I walk.
I chose the neighborhoods where I lived in the DC metro area based on the public transportation and what was in walking distance. When I first moved to Shaw, over in Logan Circle, I picked the place because #1 it was cheap, second because within walking distance was a Laundromat, the Giant, the metro station, and my hairdresser. Whole Foods hadn't opened up until I was ready to move, it was 3 blocks away. When I bought the house and moved to the other end of Shaw, I could still walk to the Giant, I can walk to a Laundromat, the metro, and on a good day, when the sun is shining, my hairdresser.
Walking and having to walk is one of the good things about living in the city. Separates us from the far flung suburbanites. We got sidewalks, lots of 'em. Things are just close enough that you can walk to them, when there are things to walk to.
Almost everyday, I walk to the metro, to and from work. Depending on my needs and the season, I walk to the Giant or to the corner store for milk. I walk to the Dunkin Donuts, canceling out any health benefits walking may give. I walk over to friends' homes. Sometimes I just walk to look around and see what is going on with the neighborhood.
Walking, good for you.
Alley party
Last night in the house of the screaming woman, they had a little party. Well, "cookout" as they like to call it. Their cookouts are upsetting to me because it always rolls out into the alley and so does their garbage. Oh then there is the noise, but for now that's not my pet peeve, I can call the cops about the noise. No my problem is the trash that they produce. B. told me they threw part of a hot dog in his yard. I walked out and noticed a plastic juice drink bottle in mine. I have seen guests at other such cookouts they've held throw trash into neighboring yards. Almost makes me angry enough to want to use the N word to describe them and their behavior. It's one thing to trash your own yard, it is another thing to trash someone else's.
Kids! Whatsamatta wit kids today?
After a day of dancing out at Dupont Circle this Sunday I rode back home with the intention of collasping on the bed and passing out. But I couldn't because of the ruckus in the alley behind the house. Thinking I heard something in my yard, I looked out the window and about 5 boys around the age of 10 or 12 where bouncing a ball around between their tiny yard and the alley. I watched them because last year when they got a homemade basketball hoop up, rough play kept banging against my fence and my fence is not strong enough for that. For the longest while they were figuring out their play, bounce the ball, bang wood, run around or talk smack about girls. Another neighbor, attracted by the noise came out for a while and later yelled to someone inside the house to call the police when the boys started banging wood in a vacant yard.
Kids have no sense of private property.
Oh, they understand yours, mine, and theirs. But they don't seem to give a second thought into wandering into someone's yard, or even hitting balls on someone else's wall or fence.
I caught Kwan with his new kitty in someone's front yard standing on some stone edgers. I believe the cat was looking at the yard like a litter box and Kwan was focused on the cat, not on the fact he was stepping all over someone's front yard. I told him he could fall standing on the edgers and got him out of that yard. It didn't help that the yard did not have a fence.
Kids will also abuse fences. They will swing on the gate, sit on the fence, lean on the fence, and depending on the amount of give, bounce off the fence. Some of the fences on our block are not anchored well and bounce back when kids ram into them. Or just remain leaned back. When I do replace my fence, it will be kid proof.
Wishful thinking or possible future?
My renting friends keep saying the market is going to bust. The housing market, because 5 years ago, they, with their single salaries could have bought in the city. Nothing big mind you, but a small bit of terra firma, or a very small studio condo. But they were too cool or what they could buy was not good enough, so they waited. And now we are here with vacant crack houses starting at 200K. So they (okay mainly just Bigg Al) keeps saying the market is going to bust, it is going to bust like the tech stocks. I say deflate. Also even if my house reverts back to the price I bought it at, I still got a house. Roof over my head. Bed to sleep in. Basement that floods. Mine, all mine. Unlike tech stocks I'm not left with just worthless numbers on a screen.
Keep saying the sky is falling, as long as terrorists don't strike and the roof stays up, I'm good.
Sala Thai
Back when
Sala Thai opened I asked them if they delivered to my house, thinking I was well in their 2 mile delivery zone. Well no. So I come home today and in the mail is a menu for Sala Thai. "Bastards," I think to myself. They taunt me with their menu when I can't order delivery from them. Phooey, I spit on them. So I call them up, to demand why they tease me with descriptions of cilantro and lemon grass. Well, apparently, now they deliver to this neck of the hood. Go figure. So I order and in 45 minutes I'm eating Panang Gai on the floor in front of my TV.
Now I gotta see if Pizza Hut has changed its delivery policy.
Another gardening resource
Came across a useful UK based site for gardeners
Thompson & Morgan. They have a seed
germination guide, a
vegetable growing guide, and a few other useful tips if you are wondering (as I am) when stuff goes into the ground.
Hearing and seeing
I know it is warm so that is a perfectly good reason to open the windows. One of the neighbors on the other side of the alley has had her windows up for the past few days so when I sit out in the back I can hear them perfectly. All their family business. I don't want to hear their family business, but it's like being on the metro where the girl is talking to her friend on the phone real loud about something in the TMI range, you can't help but to hear. Makes it kind of hard to enjoy the backyard, listening to a woman constantly screaming at her kids and whomever also happens to be in the house. I understand the occasional "pick up your X" or other command screams, but from past history, I know that it can go into a hour long tirade of throat drying yelling about anything under the sun.
Add on that recently they have lost or pulled up the binds so you can see into the house from the alley. So pictures with sound. This is a bit easier to ignore. I can always veer my eyes away but the screaming draws them back to the source.
I guess my biggest problem is with the yelling. The never ending screams.
Lock your car and clean it out
A little warning as I saw one of our local crackheads peaking into a car and testing the door this morning as I was running to work. Dude? Have you no shame? I'm right here and looking at you! And I know it wasn't your car.
If you have crackheads, or crackheads pass through and you own a car, lock it. Don't assume that no one will try the doors. Also don't leave anything that will give them hope that there is something they may want in your car. So clean it out, or at least transfer it all to the trunk.
Still anti-Historic District
Gad, the whole thing makes me not want to continue with my neighborhood research. Actually I just want to shred it all of it and turn it into compost. Start over and do another Old City neighborhood. B. was bright enough to choose a history topic on the other end of town.
The map is of all the historic districts in DC. Except
Shaw East which was recently approved as an historic district. So all y'all within the Florida, 7th St, New Jersey, and N St borders got all your window replacements, changes and additions done so they can be grandfathered in. From the looks of the map and when you add Shaw East, the blue/purple takes up a good portion of the Old City 2. How much of the city needs to be in a historic district, especially when there are only 2 staff members to monitor them all.
My reasons for being anti-historic district rest on a couple of things, one being I don't like extra regulation and my house has issues. Some people don't mind it and it is not a big deal. I on the other hand would prefer to avoid homeowner associations, condo/co-op associations and local historic district boards. All those groups have their pluses but I really bristle at being told what I can and cannot do with my property. The second reason is the most important one, my house being a pile of crumbly bricks. You doubt me? Come on over, bring a butter knife, I'll show you can cut through a brick with it. My house, as well as several others on my block suffer from decades (if not a century) of neglect and poor maintenance. There are a huge laundry list of things inside and out that need correcting and to correct them will be a burden, possibly exceeding what I can afford to do on my single person salary. I don't need the extra burden of one more hoop and a 50% increase in cost.
Where'd that 50% come from? Well I wandered over to
Home Depot yesterday and asked for a cost comparison between vinyl windows and wood (on the outside) windows. For the dimensions I asked for the vinyl was $178, the wood was $260, that's about (if my math is correct) a 50% markup. That does not include installation and that could vary because they are installed differently. Nor does it include a protective coating for the wood to protect against wood rot. Also wood needs to be repainted every 3-5 years, vinyl stays white. Also talking to some other people who priced their renovations where they voluntarily considered wood windows found the cost to be 2x to 3x the cost of doing the same job with vinyl. Fiberglas doors and steel doors are cheaper than wood too, and less apt to warp and swell, a problem I have with one of my wood doors.
Of course, when asked about higher prices between wood and vinyl the preservationists said that it wasn't much higher. Well they don't have to pay for it.
Is there anything that will sway me? Yes. Knowledge that I might move and a stable home, of which I have neither. I am trying to bring this house back up, with the resources I have, one day at a time. I don't need to be rushed so I have to get everything I want done grandfathered in... Maybe if the windows and the floors weren't crooked, the fence falling down, the porch big enough to not have to step down to open the door, and the other slew of things that need fixing I'd be a bit more open to the idea. Or if I knew that I was going to move, sell the house and reap whatever investment put in, that might warm me to it.
Will it be the end of the world if Truxton, and especially my block becomes part of a historic district? No. I'd just have to put a rush on slapping something on and up. Rules were made to be worked around.
Previous Gentrification and Historic Preservation Posts:
Gentrification and Historic Preservation, pt 1 Gentrification and Historic Preservation, pt 2a: This Old House vs Old House Journal Gentrification and Historic Preservation pt 2b: This Old House (TOH) vs Old House Journal (OHJ) pt 2b Gentrification and Historic Preservation, pt 3: When it is rightLabels: historic districts
My compost...
My compost brings
all the worms to
the yard
And they're like,
better than yours.
Dang right better
than yoursOver the past couple of weeks I've had a good time gettin' dirty. Mixing potting soil, peat moss, sand and compost, good times. Most of the compost was pretty much composted, with a few things that will take a forever and a half to decay, like avacado skins and mango pits, still entact. And the worms! My, they have been busy. So many worms. I'm gonna have to expand. I'm going to have to eat more veggies, or throw out more. I've got several hundered spineless mouths to feed.
Also discovered the importance of turning the compost. The bottom of the trash can/ compost pail wasn't aerated and when I got to it. OH MY GAWD! Smelled like a hog farm in July. Used it anyway, and after a few days the smell is not as bad.
To deal with the aeration problem, I'm thinking I will move to plastic bins that are shallow enough for my short girlie arms. The problem with the trash can is that it is too deep to get to all of the matter.
Anyway, good compost will hopefully make for a good crop this year.
Indoor Farm Report
Impatiens are a pain to grow from seed. They take too long. The Canendula (pot marigold)is much better, pops up after a few days. Tomatoes did well from seed. The key in many of the seedlings was to snip away the other seedlings growing near.
I haven't been very good about waiting till the 15th of April to put plants out. The tomatoes have been stuck in the ground and in outdoor pots. I've put out the thyme seedlings, several marigolds, coriander and one impatiens. Of course, I do have plenty of back ups growing inside, just in case a cold snap comes.
Homeownership and the single girl
I had some friends over for dinner, themed as the meeting of lapsed and current comic book geeks. It was boy, girl, boy, girl, with a difference being the girls were property owners and the guys were renters. Anyway we're talking about various things comic and non-comic related and Nora and I get to chatting about home repair things like sanding. The guys start zoning out a bit. We're talking power tools, POWER TOOLS! And the guys are zoning out, what's wrong with them? On other tangents of home repair, stuff breaking down, and such the guys start getting smug.
Ha, ha! We don't have to deal with that nah nanny nah nah.Whatever.
There are a lot of things that are a joy and a frustration with being single and owning a home. Then throw on the being female part and it adds another layer. First off, there is only one income and one person dealing with the repairs, maintenance and improvements. Sometimes you can get your friends to chip in their labor for the price of tasty beverages and snacks, but for the bulk it is all on you. A plus of being single, is I don't have to compromise on what it is I want. I can paint the house whatever color I desire and any other improvements are limited only by my finances. Being female is problem when it comes to dealing with some tradesmen. I don't like being talked down to and I don't like dumb assumptions about what I want because I'm a woman. Also the weak girly arms and the lousy upper body strength in general is annoying when taking on some household tasks, like hanging drywall. I mean, I could do it, but I tire out easy.
I know I'm not a freak of nature, as about
1/2 of single women are homeowners. I mean once I figured I was going to stay in the DC metro area for a length of time, it just made sense to buy something, after several years of renting.
I remember a male colleague (a renter who I might say earned 2x more than me) asking me about my decision to buy in relation to a guy I was dating at the time. My answer was "what about him?" I didn't see a ring on my finger, so whomever I was dating had no relationship to my homebuying wants or needs. Over dinner with the comic book geeks, we girls tried to explain to the guys, that should Mr. Right come along, we ain't moving. We do like our houses, they fit very well into our lives, and unless he has something that is amazingly better than our homes (which we put in hours and days of sweat equity in), we ain't moving. He'll have to rent out his property. Besides, most of the (datable) guys we know are renters. Course, I'm willing to move for a house closer to the metro, a Mercedes, swimming pool and room for a pony.
Going back to another point, being the only income for this household, and being the only one in the household, a household of one, impacted what I could buy and where I could live. I could rent a better location, closer to the metro but buying, even before the crack fueled crazed housing prices was hard. I didn't make that much, entry level professional's salary and qualified for some housing programs, but even with that, there just wasn't a lot in my price range, especially for a fee simple (not a condo) house. Almost everything I saw needed work. From the research I did, I knew what metro-able neighborhoods I could afford. Logan, no. U-Street, maybe something falling down. Columbia Heights, only east of 11th, maybe. LeDroit, eastside of 2nd. Now, as a single homeowner the problem is with inaccessible equity I can't tap into because of the single income. The notion of 'safe' was another issue, as a single woman, I had to play around with. I mapped out Shaw according to my comfort level, coloring streets and blocks by my willingness to walk down them. Do I worry when coming home at night? Depends. If I am feeling unsure, I take a cab or grab a 90something bus from U Street.
With the current housing prices I don't know if a single woman can buy a house in Shaw. She's got to be making a lot of money if she can buy because even shells are going for well over 200K. There are condos coming up, but throw on condo fees and that's a big monthly payment. I don't know if the streets are safer or if I've gotten more comfortable. The gangs of kids are more annoying than scary.
