![[Fireworks, Washington, DC.]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2522/3689057178_9be3718902.jpg)
Explore the Photo Set:
Rooftop Fireworks, Washington, DC
Rooftop Fireworks, Washington, DC
Mount Pleasant
rooftop fireworks |
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||
found photo: mount pleasant, dc |
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
![[]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3618/3622101437_96db8a383d.jpg)
into the closet, pt 2 |
|||||||||||||||||
|
this whole baby thing is going to have a profound impact on the lady sparkler’s life, but in no way more than the loss of the second bedroom as her own private boudoir. in a vain attempt to soften the blow, baby mama’s birthday present this year is a container store / elfa makeover for her closet … because she now has to make room in there for baby sparklet (a conversation which we’ve already had with her spleen and bladder). the purchase was easy enough. i sketched something out beforehand — with Google Sketchup because i am a dork — and the store turned it into a “parts” list. someone in the back readied the order and put it into our car, while the sales clerk walked us through how to assemble the new system. my personal life-goal now shifted to not having to paint the closet. first, i unloaded all of the crap from the closet … and tried to ignore that the closet needed to be painted. then i took down the existing shelves … and tried to ignore that the closet needed to be painted. then i repaired the 30+ holes from the use of railroad spikes to hold up said shelves … and tried to ignore that the closet needed to be painted. then i went to bed … and tried to ignore that the closet needed to be painted. and then i woke up, and painted the closet. in the end, the closet went together fine and the baby now has about three-eighths of the closet (two hanging bars, two shelves and three drawers). it’s not quite the space savings i was hoping for, but it will do for now. i sure hope baby sparklet is small, and doesn’t grow much. |
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
nesting, pt 1: into the closet |
|||||||||||||||||
|
we’ve already identified some of the things we “need” to do:
but, good news … this past weekend, we ticked one item off the list, and managed to not add any new ones. we got a couple of shelving units (one set of industrial strength wire shelve procured by my father, and a hanging wall unit from the Container Store) and all of a sudden, we can fit (quite literally) four times as much stuff in there. i could get used to this “nesting” thing. |
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
good friday in columbia heights |
|||||||||||||||||
|
We were walking back from the Target tonight, when we got caught up in a Good Friday procession in front of the big Catholic Church on the corner of Park and 16th Streets NW. It was amazingly intricate, with floats on flat beds, a pick-up truck with a generator and loud speakers, and what must have been a couple of thousand people. Shut down the neighborhood for blocks in all directions. |
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
anarchy and chaos in mount pleasant |
|||||||||||||||||
|
our building is replacing each of our 35 year-old (single-paned, leaks like a sieve) windows, and workers are up and moving (and banging, and crow-barring) at 6:45 each morning. as if that wasn’t enough excitement, D.C. has decided to rebuild Park Road between us and Columbia Heights as part of a streetscape project. We’ve got new storm drains going in, new (shiny!) marble curbs, and sidewalks are being widened for better pedestrian flow. of course, that’s another cacophony of sound each morning (7:00ish) as the jack-hammers, earth movers and angry commuters all battle for auditory supremacy. obviously, the lady sparkler and i are adult enough to see the benefits coming after the passing trauma, but the big loser in all this is Emily the Cat. the poor thing thinks she has been shipped off to a war zone. we took her to the vet today, and no kitty prozac for now … but she has a follow up appointment this weekend, so she may still get the good stuff if keeps at it. |
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
anarchy and chaos has broken out in our quiet little corner of mount pleasant.
found photo: mount pleasant, dc |
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
![[Mount Pleasant, Washington, DC.]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3621/3627481614_1afc99c127.jpg)
the furnace man only knocks twice |
||||||||||||||||||
|
so, the lady sparkler went away on tuesday … and all of a sudden, i start having problem sleeping. is it because i miss her loving presence? because i can’t sleep without someone kicking me the bejeesus out of me throughout the night? or maybe because the moment she left the furnace started knocking like a nuclear powered jiffy pop machine? we had been getting some light pinging from the new family furnace ever since it was installed last month, but nothing particularly noticable. being a slacker, i was giving it a couple of weeks to see if it fixed itself … because inanimate objects often do that sort of thing. then, all of a sudden, yesterday the noise became loud enough to wake the dead — seriously, if sparkler would have been here, even *she* would have woken up. the very nice people from the local furnace conglomerate came by this morning, tweaked a few screws, and — poof! — didn’t make another sound. until five minutes after he left when it started shaking it’s milkshake again. turns out it was something in the exhaust pipe. the very nice people came back again, replaced the whoe thing, and now it is as silent as the lambs … and not just the ones with the fava beans. now, sparkler can come home and continue to sleep through absolutely any noise — hurricanes, tornadoes, motley crue concerts — uninterupted. all is well with the world. |
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
some assembly (not) required |
|||||||||||||||||
|
it came, instead, from pottery barn. last week, we went anniversary present shopping and settled on a 33%-off console table to replace a piece of crap we bought at Ikea five years ago. it wasn’t in stock, but they had extras at the big, bad warehouse in the sky, and promised to ship one over to a store-near-us as soon as they could. well, we got the call yesterday, crossed the bridge into rural Arlington to go pick it up. when we pulled up front, a very nice boy wheeled the box out to our car … and that’s when all hell broke loose. the box was enormous. like really big. like “size of a piece of furniture” big. there are apparently places in the world where you can buy furniture that doesn’t require assembly. more importantly, there are apparently places in the world where you can buy furniture which requires something bigger that a Volkswagen Jetta. now, don’t get me wrong … i had heard rumors of such extravagance, but bushed them aide as if tales of the fortress of Atlantis, or a land filled with Unicorns, or a country of people who’d reelect some one from the Bush family. i mean, really … would would have thought such a place existed?!? after getting a grip on our new found alternate reality, “very nice boy pottery barn boy” led us to the conclusion that the Jetta just wasn’t going to cut it (and we galloped off to rent a pick up truck from ZipCar). but, let this serve as a cautionary tale for the youth of america. there comes a time when you will be allowed to vote, sent to war, drink, and afford to buy furniture that comes assembled — assuming that you catch a really good sale. so, excercise your rights (responsibilities?) with caution … |
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
home installation: cropp-metcalfe vs. the aircraft carrier furnace |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
so, i’ve been fibbing about how idyllic our life in dc’s mount pleasant is … sure the neighborhood is great, and the food authentic, and everything is walkable. our space is big, with lots of windows and beautiful hard wood floors. sure, we’ve decorated and painted just about every square inch of our abode. but, our ac/furnace sounds like you are living on the deck of an aircraft carrier. … right at the base of the aircraft catapult. … during the first 24 hours of the Operation Desert Storm. so, i did what any reasonable home owner would do, which is coincidentally what the lady sparkler did when she wanted a new coffee pot: i bribed our cat to destroy the heat exchanger with an acetylene torch so that it “had” to be replaced by a quieter model. (and, by “bribing our cat” i mean “it was at the end of its lifecycle” and, by “destroy the heat exchanger” i mean “it apparently kept catching itself on fire.”) being the expert and savvy city-dweller that my wife is, we quickly came to the conclusion that uncontrolled fire in our home was a bad thing, and that we should (indeed) replace our beast with a model whose white noise wouldn’t encourage me to kill the Beatles. so, we solicited ourselves some bids (by “we” i mean “she”), selected a vendor who ridiculously underbid the job for the equipment they were giving us, and i stayed home from work today to see it through (by “see it through” i mean “sat here and stayed out of the way.”) cropp-metcalfe was great. our home inspector couldn’t believe their price, and we had a friendly install team comprised of a 60-year old west african who couldn’t really speak any english and a 20-year old latin american who couldn’t really speak any english. the language barrier was funny enough during the installtion — they seemed to have fundamental differences of understanding on the words “up” vs. “down” and “back” vs. “forward” — but the situation became farcical when it came time to explain to me the many features of our brand spanking new (and shiny!) Carrier Infinity Series 2-stage, variable speed high efficiency furnace (58CVA). but, it’s up and running, works like a champ, and the whole unit makes just a whisper of a hum, compared to our old unit’s voice of God which passeth all understanding and causes our frail human melons to explode. if i sound giddy … it’s because i am. it’s like christmas, only in october. it’s like that independence day movie when the fireworks going off after the alien ship blew up, only better. or like when hellen keller learned to sign the word “water,” only more poignent. so, i’m going to celebrate tonight by (a) sleeping through the night, (b) watching TV with the sound about 20 decibels lower, and (c) going out with my wife to celebrate our anniversary. good night, and god bless you, and god bless the United States of America. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
i always assumed that the best show was from the mall, but i think the rest of the fireworks (they come from all around us, including Columbia Heights, Crestwood, Silver Spring and over by the National Cathedral) were even more fun.