Tag: Washington D.C.
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accident vs. incompetence
soooo, i rear ended someone today in our (somewhat) new (to us) prius. i’m fine, and *certainly* wasn’t at fault, but it reminds me how much i hate driving on the wrong side of the river.here are the things that the driver (from Virginia, natch) did wrong (with a photo illustration in case you get confused):
- 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.
- he ignored a “circle traffic must stay in the circle during rush hour” sign, and pulled out into the flow of traffic.
- he cut across four lanes of traffic — four! — including three lanes with solid white lines.
- 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.
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going downtown
our nanny-share has shut down for the week — the nanny’s on vacation — so i’m off this week for some bonding-with-sparklet time.nothing in particular planned, but it’s so #$%^#ing hot that whatever we end up doing, it’ll be indoors — first stop, national museum of natural history.
strange how the weather always seem to suck on my weeks off with sparklet.
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francis public pool
i’ve got to say that dc public pools are nothing like what i’d imagined — though given the state of some dc public school buildings, what i was expecting was a pretty low bar.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.
See All the Photos on Flickr:
francis public pool, washington, dc -
national zoo
you’d think with the number of times we’ve been to the petting zoo that sparklet would have actually pet something by now — but sadly it’s not the case.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?
See All the Photos on Flickr:
national zoo -
oh, ethyl — we hardly knew ye so well
i love going to the petting zoo, and — according to gowalla, and foursquare before that — we’ve been to the “kid’s farm” roughly two dozen times since early May.we go because i love that sparklet enjoys going to a “farm,” even if it is a fake farm with fru-fru animals like Miniature Mediterranean Donkeys and Anglo-Nubian Goats. that, and it’s only a couple blocks away so we go all the time.today, however, we noticed someone was missing — Ethyl, one of two Nigerian Dwarf Goats. (fwiw, the other is named Lucy … in a fit of “I Love Lucy” hilarity.)
we asked one of the zoo keepers (who was really quite worked up about it) about what happened and she said Ethyl passed away earlier in the week after some time in the Zoo’s hospital.
now, sparklet’s obviously too young to know any better … but before we lose any more Zoo friends, we decided to do a “guestbook” of those we see the most:
See All the Photos on Flickr:
kids farm, national zoo, washington, dc
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walter pierce park, washington, dc