Last night around 9:30, I biked down and met Matt at the Hirshorn Museum on the Mall. He was biking on his way back from class, so it was easy to meet in the middle. We sat outside and watched this awesome movie being projected on the circular exterior of the building. It was pretty amazing, and I remember saying I felt really mesmerized, perhaps a little hypnotized, by the time we left, which was after about 20 minutes of watching and listening to an adapted/updated version of “I Only Have Eyes For You” and the accompanying movie imagery. If you haven’t been to see it yet, it runs until May 13 every night from sunset to midnight.
The song is still running through my head this morning….
I took this photo this past Saturday morning while we were wandering around NoMa. We went on a little stroll (Bowser included) over to CVS to get some black-and-white film for the Pentax and I shot off half a roll before realizing the light meter wasn’t moving much and it probably needs a new battery. Sooo, might be some bad pics in there, we’ll see when I get it developed. I ordered a new battery on Amazon today. They only came in packs of 10, so I guess I am set for… EVER. If anyone needs a 1.5V silver oxide battery, hit me up. I have spares.
I also ordered some printer paper, regular envelopes, bubbly wrap envelopes, and green looseleaf tea (had to put it over $25 for the FREE SUPER-SAVER SHIPPING). Whoever is reviewing my order is going to think I’m the lamest person in the world.
Back to the photo though… looking up at the clouds and the glass, pretty hypnotizing if you stared at it long enough, especially since they were moving kinda fast. As mom would say “COOL CLOUD DAY!!!!”
Bleh. The bad part about fall coming is that the ginkgo trees have pooped all over the sidewalks again. The little yellow balls are everywhere, and it stinks. Literally. Thankfully, the tree directly in front of our house is a male and it doesn’t drop any of the foul bombs, so I shouldn’t complain, but… just about every other tree on the block is a female and the smell is horrendous. Even Bowser, who thinks that anything on the sidewalk is some sort of delicacy, won’t go near the things. This is the same dog that has sometimes been known to sneak nibbles out of the kitty litter box, so you know these ginkgo fruits must be BAD. Gross. I have to check my shoes every time I get back to the house to make sure they aren’t encrusted with yellow slime. I also make it a point now to park the car on the opposite side of the street, where the neighborhood kids are known to jump all over the hood, just to avoid having the fruits drop all over the car. Hood dents > ginkgo berries. Why has no one invented a way to tell if the tree is male or female before it matures? Come on dendrologists! I know you can do this!
It’s actually just sad because the rest of the year, the trees are so sturdy and beautiful (so deceiving) and then they go and do this once a year. ugh. I think a great solution would be for everyone who lives in the shadow of a female ginkgo to take charge and sweep the berries off of the sidewalk before they get all mushed up underfoot. We could treat it just like snow removal — you get your little piece of sidewalk, and I’ll get mine. oh, wait… that requires proactivity on the part of some. And then some people would just sweep all the berries from their side onto to our side, or brush a little, tiny, 4-inch wide ginkgo-free path down the middle of the sidewalk. That isn’t going to work. Guess I’ll have to keep playing sidewalk tiptoe like the berries are molten, burning lava pits. I can’t be the only one in this city that does that.
Yesterday we checked out the H Street Festival and all the eye-candy it had to offer. It was PERFECT fall festival weather – cool and comfortable. We ate some delicious street vendor food, ran into lots of friends and neighbors, and enjoyed all of the people and dog watching. Love this neighborhood!
the Atlas Armada ran up and down the streetcar tracks. human-powered!
one of the many decorated cars on display. how awesome is that paint job?
(and with “taxation without representation” tags, no less)
You know what happened between the hours of 3pm and 8pm today? THIS. A spider went nuts-o building this incredible web all over our gate across the backdoor, which happens to be the only way out the back of the house. The web was so big that it kinda reminded me of the time we duct-taped over the outside of Jackie and Andrea’s freshman dorm room door while they were still inside. They had no idea what was going on outside. Only this was much creepier with the spider sitting there, and there was no way I was tearing this down and busting my way out. Unfortunately, I stood there for a few minutes thinking about ways to get around it and get outside, when suddenly Moesha went slinking out past the gate. I had to entice her back inside by shaking the food bowl around, because I had already decided not to disturb the web. (Kitty will always come running for dinner number two of the evening.) Then of course I had to take a bunch of photos (really close-up) with my little point-and-shoot camera because I couldn’t find the Nikon with the zoom lens, and now I have the creepy-crawlies and feel like spiders are crawling all over me. I know I will have scary nightmares tonight about it… I just hope John Goodman shows up to save the day.
I love all the little city vignettes (<—also love that word, yeah!) that I come across when I’m out walking Bowser around the neighborhood. For example, this old, white-painted door that is now a hose holder. I mean, it looks like a good place to hang your garden hose, so why not?
Twas a beautiful day on Monday — uncharacteristically warm at 80 degrees. Luckily I had half an hour to kill after work and before Matt gave a talk about green/LEED things (“Neighborhoods Go Green – Scaling Up Sustainability”) at the American Institute of Architects HQ. I wandered into Rawlins Park to sit for awhile and enjoy the sun and pink blossoms. There were several other photographers taking shots of the beautiful trees, as well as what appeared to be some sort of glamour shoot involving a woman in 5-inch heels.
I, however, was simply enjoying watching the flower petals bob up and down in the water, a slow mass oozing together in the wind. It was quiet and peaceful with the canopies of the trees providing just enough of a blockade to the cars zipping up 18th street on their way home. If only the weather could stay that way always….
I’m feeling lucky today! Not sure why though, I haven’t got any Irish in me (that I know of anyways) just some Polish, Hungarian, and a (new-ish) Dutch last name. I am, however, wearing my green bicycle-love shirt from Kookai, that I bought while in Paris, and that just makes me feel happy and lucky today. So that might explain it.
Unrelatedly, this photo was taken at the Florida Ave Market on 4th St NE and it’s about as green as it gets, and so see how I tied all those things together in one blog post?
We finally got some film developed from the past few weeks… or maybe it’s months now? Anyways, between moving and the holidays, all kinds of things got off track. We’ve also yet to find a super-convenient film development option near our new house. It sure was nice being 1 block from the CVS 1-hour photo dealie when we lived on Q Street. So, we ended up going with the mail-away development option through Snapfish, only to find that they can’t develop film without making prints at the same time. This is not very great, because we just want the photos on disc (for starters anyways) and I don’t want to have to box the thousands of photos taken every year.
This photo is from the Olympus XA2, shot a few weeks back at the SW Waterfront Fish Market when we got one of those lame snow dustings we’ve been getting around here lately. I say that menacingly in hopes that the snow gods will hear me and be angered by tomorrow, when we are expected to once again be on the snow/rain line for the latest winter “event.” Come on, blizzard!! Anyways, it we quite empty and peaceful there with the layer of clean snow, unlike the usual fish market hullabaloo.
