Civic Pride

And no, I'm not making a pun about our 2002 Honda Civic. Apparently my neighborhood is one of the 10 best in the country, at least according to the American Planning Association. Of course, I didn't need an organization I've never heard of to tell me that.

Independence Day

At 10am we go to a parade -- a band, a Go Kart, balloons aplenty, a bulldozer, various cars decked out in flags, various marchers, a little kid dressed up as Spiderman and escorted by his (her?) Dad. Interesting to see a small slice of Americana right here in DC, on Capitol Hill no less. This parade has been taking place for many years, but it's the first time we check it out. I'm not sure we even knew it took place before this year -- something about having a child, I suppose.

At 1:30 we head out to McLean to attend a picnic put together by a college friend of Kathy's that we've hardly seen in the 10 months since he and his family moved into the area (they're foreign service, and head for Kyrgyzstan in a couple of months). We'd love to stay for a while, but we're out of there after 90 minutes, so much left to do.

At 4:30 we're back in DC, amazingly enough no traffic getting back into town. We do a quick clean-up, and Kathy starts the food prep for having a small gathering of our own.

At 9pm, after we've finished dinner, about 12 of us head to our roof, where we can see the fireworks on the Mall (due West), and in pretty much every other direction. We've got the tallest roof on our side of the street, and are afforded pretty good views -- a veritable 360 of explosions continues long after the "big event" had finished, and several sites were still lighting up the sky when we finally left the roof at 10:30.

All in all, an active but very enjoyable holiday. I hope everyone's 4th of July was equally satisfying.

Eastern Market

Weren't you there when the carousel burned down
The fire and confusion, the smoke and the sound
I swear you were there when the carousel burned down
We were all around
The rings charred and tarnished all over the ground
And the heads hung down
And we all left town the next day

-- Todd Rundgren, The Night The Carousel Burnt Down

On days that I walk to work, I pass the main building of the Library of Congress, the U.S. Capitol, House Office Buildings, the Botanical Gardens, the Museum of the American Indian, the Air and Space Museum, and the Smithsonian Castle. The first landmark on my journey, however, is Eastern Market -- housed in an historic building and operating continuously since 1873, it's part of my neighborhood and it's the only market left in town. While the other sites on my walk are attractions for everyone, few tourists know of Eastern Market. They don't wait in line on a warm Saturday morning to get a stack of blues (blueberry pancakes) at Market Lunch, get great cheeses from the curmudgeonly cheese monger, or attend the outdoor weekend markets filled with arts and crafts. Off the top of my head, I count eight pictures we've bought at Eastern Market that hang in our house.

My first date with Kathy started at Eastern Market -- it was my first visit to Eastern Market, even though I had moved to Capitol Hill about a month earlier. I'm not sure I knew it was much more than a Metro stop the five years I lived in the Virginia suburbs, but now it's the center of my community.

In the wee hours of this morning the South Hall, which houses the food merchants, was badly damaged by fire (fortunately, no one was hurt). I felt compelled to see the horror for myself this morning, and here are the pictures I took (and here are some photos by the Washington Post). The mayor and other city officials and representatives have already promised to rebuild, and to find alternate places for the merchants whose shops were lost in the meantime.

Halloween on the Hill

The term "inside the Beltway" has gained some meaning to the outside world -- the Beltway refers to I-495, the road that surrounds Washington, DC and its immediate suburbs. So when "inside the Beltway" is used, it refers to the mindset that separates DC from the rest of the United States. That midset has to do with politics, and how people inside the Beltway generally respond differently to political events than do people in the rest of the country.

At times it seems that Capitol Hill, where we live, has a hyper-political perspective that exceeds even the rest of the area inside the Beltway. Such perspective can be reinforced by various stimuli, and one that did so to me this weekend was a rather liberal take on Halloween.

Take a look at the standard Halloween scene erected in this yard a few blocks from me:




















Now look a bit closer at some of the gravestones:






































On another side of the house they even had a last-minute addition:


























At least such sights demonstrate that Washingtonians have a sense of humor. It may be a little more pointed than humor elsewhere, but it's something.