i was actually in new york for work, so missed most of the excitement. what i got was a strange surge of vertigo (i was on the 18th floor) and didn’t realize it was an earthquake until my knees started bouncing half a beat later.

the lady sparkler had it the worst, being forced to walk the mile and a half home because the District (as expected) lost it’s collective minds.

most buildings downtown were evacuated, traffic was at a standstill which put a kaibosh on the bus, and the metro ground to a halt under unprecedented ridership and speed restrictions through the whole system.

unfortunately, none of this is terribly surprising. given how badly we handle snowstorms, i expected the District would see roving packs of bureaucrats in ripped suites — with bandanas made from yesterday’s ties — ransacking local stores for water, plastic sheeting and duct tape.

sparklet, for her part, was walking down the street and didn’t seem to have a problem with the quake itself, but more the fact that each and every front door within view immediately popped open and all at once people started flooding the/her street.

so, what’s next — a hurricane?

just a friendly reminder that your friendly neighbors here in Washington, DC pay all the taxes you do, get federal bureaucrats / international ambassadors / presidential motorcades clogging up our roads, and get to welcome your tour groups / protests / elected officials to our little town each spring and summer (and fall, and winter) — all without voting representation in the process you all seem to deride so much.

(i’m not great with history, but i hear wars have broken out over just this sort of thing.)

so, while the rest of the country is basking in the warm glow of a recently passed federal budget — DC is once again being told how to spend it’s money by a bunch of outsiders who use our city’s name as a kind of expletive to describe everything that is wrong with the planet.

for the record, we don’t mind (necessarily) doing our part for democracy and taking one for the team. we’d just like to be able to vote against it.

mount pleasant is a lot of things, but “hot bed of Yoshino cherry trees” is sadly not one of them — though i guess that means it’s also not a “hot bed of tourists in ugly shorts jacked up to their necks.”

you win some, you lose some.

Public transit isn’t especially kind to me these days.

I’ve got 3 bus lines and a metro stop within 10 minutes of my door, but it takes a little under 70 minutes to actually use them to get to work.

… which does not compare favorably to the 22 minutes it takes me to get to the office by car.

… even if that office is a major conservation organization (we’re Eco-friendly, not Eco-crazy).

I digress.

We’re getting a POD (portable storage container) delivered to the house on Saturday, just in time to have our M.O.H. spend the weekend helping is pack.

Unfortunately, the District hasn’t seemed particularly interested in giving us a permit (in a timely manner, at least) to park the POD on city streets.

… which means we can’t put up emergency no parking signs asking people not to park where we need to put the POD.

… which means we’re using the car to block off that space.

… which means I’m commuting by public transit, regardless of fact that it increases my daily commute time by 416%.

If there is a silver lining, it’s that I’m actually listening to music that I bought three months ago (Sara Barellies, The Killers, Arcade Fire) that I haven’t been alone with my MP3 player long enough to listen to.

That, and I have plenty of time to blog about things that I would have otherwise completely ignored.

there are a couple of problems with this scenario:

• we never got the original notice of the parking violation for which we are now “delinquent.”
• i wasn’t in montgomery county that day — twelve minutes before our “violation,” i took these pictures of kate at our home in mount pleasant and proceeded to upload them to flickr four minutes *after* our violation.
• my wife wasn’t in montgomery county that day — thirty minutes after our “violation,” the lady sparkler stopped by pupusaria san miguel on her way home from work (for the best latin food in D.C., incidentally).
• the “infraction” occurred on a federal holiday (Veteran’s Day) when parking restrictions don’t apply.
• the citation *does not* list a make or model, so there is no confirmation that it was our car and not just a typo of our license plate.

however, the only recourse Montgomery County provides is to appear — in person — before the 6th District Court in Rockville.

given the cost of the ticket (at least in relation to my wife’s billing rate) and the distance between my work and the courthouse (55 minutes in decent traffic) there is no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks that we’re going to contest the citation.

you suck, montgomery county — yet another reason i’m never moving to the suburbs.

PHOTO: Uploaded to Flickr by eddie.welker on 7 Sep 09, 12.59PM EST, via Creative Commons license.

kids flock in from all around the city. streets are shut down to make room for the hordes. there is even a certifiable street-to-street rivalry to see who’s going to throw the biggest block party.

sparklet spent her first real Halloween — last year didn’t count for obvious reasons — over on hobart street where every house was open for trick-or-treaters, at least one in every three houses was decorated, and one house even had a fully scripted halloween performance (“haunted hobart street has talent!”) with scheduled showings at 7 and 9pm.

unfortunately, sparklet’s wasn’t doing so well.

it’s officially 7 to 10 days after her first year vaccinations, which is when all the nasty side effects are supposed to kick in — and boy are they kicking in. she made a good run at trick or treating, but just didn’t make it very far before the crankiness consumed her.

she did, however, get her first real lick of candy — eg. not through a wrapper or cardboard box — a cherry dum-dum lollipop which mommy dutifully unwrapped for her.

she made it through three of four licks before she took it out of her mouth … by the wrong end … got her hands all sticky … got the lollipop stuck to her hands … and spent 30 seconds trying to toss it on the ground, to absolutely no avail.

priceless.

we’re pretty sure she’s getting sick (head cold), she’s teething out of her skull (we’re up to 8 teeth now, at least that we can see), she’s not sleeping (see first two) and now that she’s walking regularly, she’s just not finding the sweet confines of a high chair quite as alluring.

i did the first (of what i’m sure will be many) evacuation of a restaurant so others could eat in peace — which is more than fine, as i’m always the first one done eating.

we decided to play in traffic (and with strange dogs) instead.

here are the things that the driver (from Virginia, natch) did wrong (with a photo illustration in case you get confused):

1. he was coming from alexandria, so in order to be where he was he had to illegally cut across at least one lane of traffic to get there.
2. he ignored a “circle traffic must stay in the circle during rush hour” sign, and pulled out into the flow of traffic.
3. he cut across four lanes of traffic — four! — including three lanes with solid white lines.
4. he cut me off, and then immediately slammed on his breaks for a pedestrian in the crosswalk.

the only good news is that he stopped, and didn’t hit the pedestrian (who was emerging from behind a big lumbering passenger van).

that’s when it got fun.

he blamed the van driver for “letting” the pedestrian use the crosswalk, and then eagerly blew off the damage to his car (you can make out the outline of my license plate on his rear bumper) to get the heck out of dodge.

i double checked The Prius soon after i started breathing again, and no damage to my car — or me, for that matter. he did give me his information after i took a picture of his license plate, but strangely didn’t seem interested in waiting for mine.

wonder if he’ll do that little stunt again.

there were maybe 25 people at the pool at 4pm on a Sunday, mostly parents with children.

oddly enough, lots of international types who weren’t speaking the English so good — but no hordes of unattended kids whose parents had dumped them at the pool 8 hours earlier.

the kiddy pool was gi-normous (15′ x 30′ish) and sloped like a beach from inches to about two feet deep.

don’t get me wrong — the pool wasn’t gleaming (i wouldn’t put sparklet down on the floor of the shower room) but it was certainly no worse than the neighborhood pool where i grew up.

and, for DC, that’s pretty outstanding.

most of the time it’s just me and the sparklet and there are just too many things to lose track of — hands on livestock, hands near eyes, hands in mouth mouth, stroller, camera, sanity, etc.

but this time i had help. and she had petting (that’s Flash the Miniature Mediterranean Donkey, btw).

the result? a bit of a yawner, actually.

sparklet only really identifies things as animals when they move — everything else is just a big carpet. but, if the animals are moving, she can’t pet them. if they’re not moving, then what’s the point?

besides brunch with the mightymightyboigs (the highlight!) we spent the day hiding from the heat, and the night putting sparklet back to sleep after being woken up by late night, unlicensed “community” displays of patriotic exuberance.

go, team america.

it’s crazy hot right now, which has mostly kept us inside in the afternoons, but we made a rare exception and drove over to the zoo to run in an see the new baby gorilla in her (mercifully) air conditioned enclosure.