Archive for September 2003

Zounds, Sparks and Flames

This picture of the Capitol Dome was taken on Saturday night. Another view from Devon’s roof. And no relation to the rest of this post.

I saw the Shakespeare Theatre’s uproarious production of Sheridan’s “The Rivals” tonight, courtesy of my friend Cal who works there. Nancy Robinette, as Mrs. Malaprop, and David Sabin, as Captain Absolute, didn’t just chew the scenery up, no, they devoured it in big gulps the way cocker spaniels polish off a bowl of dog food (or at least the way Fanny does).

The audience tonight was a full of people who had to laugh too loudly at some of the more obscure gags just to suggest to others that they got the joke (even though they probably hadn’t) and that the rest of us, poor illiterates that we are, should have just stayed home to watch Temptation Hotel or some other Fox offering. Welcome to DC.

It was also a chatty crowd for the Shakespeare Theatre, with a number or running commentaries going on around me. It gave the whole proceeding the air of “Freddy vs. Jason” for white 50-something NPR listeners. And these are the same people who get snitty when somebody yells out in a slasher movie “No, girl, you fool, don’t you go opening that basement door!” even though that’s the whole point in seeing “Yet Another Endless Nightmare on Elm Street: The Return Again Part 19.”

Even so, it was great, convulsive, rolling-in-the aisles fun. Really. “Zounds, sparks and flames!” to quote Bob Acres of Clod Hall, one of the characters in the play. (Thanks, Cal.)

Water, water everywhere and not a cube of ice

Saturday was Ben’s birthday and Devon, who has one of the best rooftop decks in Washington, had a party. I took my last July 4th fireworks photos from his deck. And this was the view of the Potomac from there on Saturday.

Judging from this picture, it would be hard to imagine that a hurricane blew through on Thursday. The Potomac had receded, boats were out, a pink sunset lit the sky. The real effect of the storm was less visible. Devon and Ben had spent two hours looking for ice. The Northern Virginia water supply had been contaminated when the water plants lost power; the ice factories in Maryland still had no power.

When I talked to Devon on the phone he asked me to try to find ice. Fresh Fields had been ravaged of ice, by the suburban hoardes swarming into the parts of the District which, thanks to underground lines, still had power. The clerk at Barrel House liquours laughed at me when I asked about ice. Hey, I had no idea.

But I found a trove of ice at Tienda Izalco, the Latin market just around the corner from me. Apparently all the suburban SUV crowd were afraid to venture out of their SUVs into an ethnic market on 14th Street to look for ice. So did I feel guilty that we were going to be able to ice our beer while a kid in Chevy Chase drank warm Pepsi by flashlight? No, not so much.

Everybody at the party had a great time downing iced German beer and dining on grilled bratwurst, German potato salad and sauerkraut. Even when feuding with the Germans, Oktoberfest is hard to resist.

The wrath of Isabel

18th and Q St., N.W., September 19, 2003, 1:07 p.m.

17th and P St., N.W., September 19, 2003, 12:31 p.m.

Massachusetts Avenue and 17th Street, N.W., September 19, 2003, 12:20 p.m.

Well, Isabel blew into DC yesterday at about 5:30 p.m. Not so impressive at first, just periodic bouts of heavy rain and wind. Things didn’t really get going until 3 a.m. or so, and that’s apparently when trees started falling. Not falling really, as much as uprooted by the wind. I’m glad I was tucked safely into bed when all this business was going on.

The office was closed again today as was the Federal government. Plenty of people were out and about inspecting the damage. Like the mom who posed her three year old inside a felled tree and took his picture. What was she thinking? Her story on the photo will probably be that a tree fell on Dexter and the little angel miraculously survived. I think we can safely assume that the black car crushed by the same tree didn’t belong to her.

Notwithstanding trees down all over the place, not a city worker was in sight doing anything about them. Hey, the D.C. government is closed, what do you expect? Some guys from the neigborhood with chain saws were cutting down to size an uprooted tree that was blocking Massachusetts Avenue. The civic responsibility thing is good, but you have to wonder what people in the city are doing with chain saws. I imagine they were thinking yesterday “cool, I may finally get to use the chain saw that’s been sitting around in my bedroom.”

Calm before the storm

So, DC is shut down as we wait for Hurricane Isabel to blow through. This was a shot of L Street last night, a calm clear evening with no hint of the hurricane on its way.

I was supposed to be on jury duty today, which of course was cancelled. How’s that for great luck? I’m sure there will be some compensating payback.

I went out earlier to get a few essentials: cigarettes, rum, diet coke, tuna salad, and crab cakes. I’m good to go no matter what Isabel has in store for us.

Fresh Fields was totally chaotic. It took me 40 minutes to check out. In the express lane. This, of course, gave me plenty of time to examine the shopping choices of the people in line with me. The hefty woman in front of me was about 20 or so items over the 15 item limit. Most of the excess consisted of pastries which she could well afford to leave behind. What’s up with stocking up on eclairs anyway? The guy behind me had about 20 gallons of water and about 10 wedges of imported cheese, an imminently more sensible choice, in my view.

Washington National Cathedral

This is the view of the Washington National Cathedral from my roof.

Mars

On August 27 Mars was as close to Earth as it has been for 60,000 years. Of course, on August 27, it was overcast here in DC. Mars will not be this close until 2287 and it’s safe to say I won’t have the opportunity to witness the next occurence of this phenomenon.

There is a Ray Bradbury story I read when I was kid about Venus, where Bradbury imagines that the Sun appears for an hour once every several hundred years. In the story, some school children living on a colonized Venus lock one of their classmates in the closet during one of the rare appearances of the Sun, emphasizing that people can be often be crueler than nature. So I suppose I have no reason to complain about the cloud cover on the eventful night.

Tonight was the first clear night since August 27. And even though Mars has receded only slightly, it was still the brightest thing in the sky other than the moon. I took this picture from my rooftop, and you can see how bright Mars was in comparison to the stars.

We had today, and will have for the next week, the beautifully clear September weather that we had on September 11, 2001, the same beautifully clear weather that provided amateur pilots the opportunity to fly their planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Once again proving that people are crueler than nature.

Brookings Barriers

My five-day weekend vacation is over so I need to stop being lazy about posting here. This is the front of the Brookings Institution, just several blocks up Mass. Ave. When it was renovated they installed these barriers in front of the entrance. As if the terrorists were about to drive a truck into the lobby of the Brookings Institution. Then again, I can just see Bill O’Reilly in a Hummer heading towards the entrance, all the while screaming “Shut Up!”. So maybe the barriers were a good idea. . . .