Those Important Neighborhood Support Services

ambulance

UPS truck

Segway cop

Sometimes I don't see all the support services that we have in this city neighborhood and it's easy to forget how useful they are. For instance, there's those cable guys from Verizon or Comcast hanging about on the lines in the alleys. And, every once in a while someone calls an ambulance and it arrives!  It's worth noting that ambulance service is now dispatched much more efficiently than when I first moved to Washington DC when this service was also being used by some for non-emergency visits to local hospitals and consequently, service was more erratic!  Then there's those marvelous UPS (and Fedex) trucks which leave us so much of value on our front porches (ask them to hide stuff under the porch so it doesn't get pinched in the recent wave of thievery!).  And, up until recently, it seemed like we had police patrols using Segways rolling around and preventing drug dealing and other miscreantry. Of course there are other support services, such as police, the US postal service (USPS) and store delivery services like Sears and Peapod (both of which I've used and find very helpful), services that one sees occasionally making a foray into our streets.  And of course now is the season for UHaul and other similar vans as it again is moving time for the more transient population living here. I suppose I could mention the dry cleaners, bars, hospitals and a public library all within walking distance, but I haven't got around to photo'ing all of them yet and didn't want to have too many thumbnail pics jammed into this one blog. I could also mention the mostly 24/7/365 clean running water, gas and electricity but that's really basic infrastructure and might be the subject of another blog about things we take for granted. But these services here really do make our life in the city so much easier, don't you think? And, Thank God!

There Goes that Elusive Verizon FiOs Truck!

Sometime in the past month I actually for the first time ever saw a FiOs truck go by me here in DC. Big and white and shiny with a picture of a giant TV with blue ribbons tailing along the side of the van, it surely looked like something new in town as I sat at the bus stop watching the traffic go by.  You have to realize that in my neighborhood no-one has Verizon FiOs as they haven't laid the fiber cable yet here and I've heard it will be years before it will happen. While there's some diehard over-the-air free TV types, most either have cable or satellite TV and most get Internet either via DSL or a bundled cable TV package. Some spring for 4G wireless but that really adds to the bill.  As a DirecTV subscriber AND a Verizon DSL subscriber, we'd like to lower the costs of all our electronic communications so we keep hoping FiOs will come to our neighborhood soon.  We receive Comcast promotion cards in the mail all the time, trying to persuade us to switch back to cable TV in a bundled package with their phone and Internet. We also see Comcast trucks a lot.  And I have a neighbor who works for Comcast and he says it's a great company.  Somehow, though, we've come to really like our satellite TV service as the service people are extraordinarily nice when you talk to them about adding a TV channel or two or otherwise adjusting the bill. But, there I was at the bus stop and there went that elusive FiOs truck and I started to imagine having all my communications service on one bill, and a really fast and strong connection and maybe even a bit cheaper than all the different providers we have now.......hmm....

Gargoyle or GeeGaw?

Everyone knows I'm on Capitol Hill quite a bit lobbying on disability issues, but it's also an opportunity for me to snap a few photos with the miracle of a cell phone camera. Nope, not an iPhone, just a simple ole LG for $40 that came with the Verizon service plan. This time I looked up from my walk from Rayburn over to the Ford building as I stood in the shade to cool off from the 90 degree weather. Not only was I standing under a wonderful flowering Southern Magnolia but I could see this gargoyle gee-gaw thing on the top of the wall column. It seems to be a cornucopia or horn held by a creature like a squirrel and looks over toward the HHS building, past the ornamental garden that is alongside the Route 395 entrance way. I'd never noticed this before and wondered what was behind the design for this. If you look closely, it turns out to be the head of a little winged horse with a giant horn behind it and it may have waves carved in the base stone, although it's hard to see from below. It does remind me of the wonderful fountain sculpture in front of the old Library of Congress, so I think one day I will conduct some research and find out about this stone creature and when it was put there and what the iconography is all about. It just doesn't seem to fit into our techno modern world of sleek literal easily understood icons. Or at any rate, I've forgotten whatever it is I might have learned in Art History about this type of ornamental sculpture. But what a mystery to bump into, on the way to a policy wonk meeting with committee staff in a drab building! It quite got my mind in a better frame of thought, curious about its meaning. Can I say it influenced what I said at the wonk  meeting or did I say less as a consequence? I don't remember but the image has stuck with me where the conversation has not.

Hostel Droid Does Apps

Well I couldn't resist snapping this word line-up at the corner of 11th and K streets where the International Hostel is located. They've put a brand new sign on the hostel building and on the old building adjacent they've hung another one of those giant fabric ads that says "Droid does apps" and which you see just about everywhere. We drove by the hostel and saw a horde of young people -- all very Euro looking with backpacks and guides and maps in hand -- perched on the steps and sidewalk in front of the hostel. The fabric ad is wrapped around the building and has the giant globe thing on one facade. I'm not sure what that's all about but I guess it's high techie and spacey and sells a lot of Motorola phones using Google apps on the Android wireless platform on the Verizon network, none of which you need to call to God. I also like the red convertible racing through the intersection too which my miraculous little LG cell phone with no apps -- a couple of widgets only! -- caught in the image of the hostel droid snapped while we were at the red light. I'm just amazed with technology these days.  For instance, 20 years ago who would have known what "droid does apps" means?  Does anyone not know what it's about? It's hard to believe how fast we accept all the new stuff. What a creative world we live in!

Park Not Lest Ye Be Towed

As the Route 80 bus wends its way from the corner of the street where I live through downtown it passes the corner near St. Mary's Mother of God church on the corner of 5th & H street. This church has the blessing of a parking lot on H street but since nearby is the Verizon Center they have to be sure no one parks there without permission. Hence the sign "park not lest ye be towed away." But since it's a church parking lot it's easier to lapse into a theological view of this fence. Okay, fine, "park not" means don't leave your car there. Or leave anything where it shouldn't be. Especially valuable things like cars. Or other valuable things, like your heart, or soul. But "lest ye be towed away" is definitely a warning of some consequence if you "park" that valuable thing. And it's definitely about taking away your car if you dare to park it. Like, park it and lose it. But what if you saw this positively, about taking a risk. Drive in, leave your car where you don't have permission to leave it. And it gets towed, taken away somewhere. Like, give your heart up, to something, and it gets towed away. By God. To somewhere you don't know where it will go, unless you risk it.

Not Your Typical Watergate

It took me 45 minutes on the bus this morning to get to work because of some tie-up along H Street NW just before Chinatown, but it did give me time to look out the window and notice how the building height limitation in D.C. (less than 10-21 storeys?) means that the streets haven't become canyons and you don't get the sense of being in a "downtown" area. That is, since all the buildings for the several square miles of DC are about the same height, there is no concentration of sky-scrapers. By the way I love the french word for skyscrapers (les gratte-ciels). All the streets have the about the same height and the a rchitecture is quite varied. The Kennedy Center and the Watergate apartment buildings are examples of older styles of "modern" architecture subject to the same limitation and I snapped them together recently using the miracle of a cell phone camera.. However, now there's a lot more glass and modern buildings than when I first came to DC 25 years ago. There's still  lots of older brick and stone buildings and quite a few churches scattered about downtown but it's changing. Apparently, at one time, the churches were the tallest buildings in town! Chinatown is always interesting as that corner is looking more and more like New York City with the live video screens and huge crowds crossing the road and the general hurly-burly there. I do remember when that section of the city was quite run-down and bedraggled, that is, before they built Verizon (used to be MCI) Center and restored some of the buildings on 7th street. Growth and change is not so strange when its incremental!