Dragon Food

The Chinese Dragon carry-out at the corner of First and Rhode Island is closed most of the day. It only seems to open in the afternoon and evening for those who want to eat on the street. I've never bought a single thing from them as I don't have a clue what the food really is about.  This particular street food store got a bad name for itself during the crack-headed 90s because there was at least one shooting either inside the doorway or on the sidewalk out front every season. Somehow the place was associated with the drug dealing that used to occur 24/7 at the corner. There always seemed to be some sort of incident going down in front of the Dragon and in front of what used to be a liquor store on the right side. There were a number of local dealers who stood around and used the payphone that was out front. So the neighborhood activists signed a petition to have the payphone removed as a way to break up their business. Now the dealers use throwaway cell phones and seem to have other ways to meet their customers. Both the carryout and liquor store had counters with huge sheets of thick plexiglass in front of the cashiers to repel bullets and stick-ups, a feature that caused consternation when younger suburbanites started moving back into the neighborhood more recently.  The liquor store next door was bought out by an enterprising Ethiopian family who turned it into a more upmarket coffee shop, grocery, cafe and wine store -- with WiFi access!! -- and now it seems to be a going concern. It is certainly a lot sheeker store than what was there before. I wonder if the Dragon will go the way of the liquor store?

Bus Rides in Summer

This morning, I got off the Route 80 bus at the bottom of North Capitol street to switch to the DC Circulator bus as the noise in the Route 80 bus was just too loud for me. Everyone was having extreme cell phone calls at 8:45 a.m. in the morning, telling off their kids or screaming at their spouses or demanding something from somebody or telling the dentist they were going to be late, or things like that. Plus the bus was crowded; even though I got a seat, I found myself jammed into an inside seat by a very large man who, of course, was yelling into his cell phone the whole time the bus meandered its way down North Capitol street from my street to the Post Office at the corner. And everyone was standing and lurching into one another at every stop and looking like they could bite someone if you looked at them the wrong way. At the Florida Avenue intersection a very drunk looking older guy was yelling at the bus waving his fist, looking already like he was over-heated and quite dehydrated. Even more people piled onto the bus so, feeling more than just slightly claustrophobic, I got off before the Massachusetts Avenue turn to transfer to a nice uncrowded Circulator bus which pulled up almost immediately. Since that's the beginning of that route, there were only three people on the bus and I got a wide seat all to myself. This lasted until 7th street when a huge crowd got on bringing gusts of hot August air in with them, turning the bus into another hot, human-filled metal container. But no one was making loud cell phone calls; instead they all seemed to have plugs in their ears attached to those IPod music things so they couldn't hear anybody and clearly didn't want to talk to anyone. The bus got caught in traffic and took ten minutes to go from 11th to 14th streets due to some tie-up involving an out-of-town car backing into moving traffic just to drive the rest of us crazy in the heat in the summer. Bus rides can be a humbling experience! Lord, get me through today!

Orphan Garden on 16th St NW

I regularly wait for a bus at the corner of P and 16th streets NW and spotted this little orphan garden on the northwest corner. It was filled with sunflowers and some other plants and clearly was regularly tended by some loving neighbor. The yellow stakes around the edge warned off the peeing dogs and I suspect that someone had drawn the graffiti scarecrow person on the grey switch box also to scare off intruders. I know this orphan garden was watered often because anyone who has ever grown sunflowers know they are total guzzlers and will droop over the minute they get thirsty.  These flowers were happily growing and lovely to look at and the seeds will feed some birds, for sure. So someone planted this and the rest of us get to enjoy their stewardship.

They Still Sell Newspapers, Don't They?

There was this row of brightly colored newspaper boxes on the corner of K and 15th streets NW so I just had to photo them, wondering how many people still read newspapers. I went into the nearby Starbucks for my customary small mild coffee made with an inch of hot water -- since I love the taste of coffee but find it's too strong -- and sat and watched this corner for a while. No one either bought a newspaper or took one of the free ones from the eleven boxes hanging out there. Someone was reading a newspaper in the coffee shop but mostly people were talking or on their cell phones. Sometimes people ask me if I saw a particular story in the newspaper, but generally I don't read the paper as I just don't seem to have time. I will read an article if someone sends me something or it's about something I'm interested in or I will click on a headline electronically or go look something up. My mother and mother-in-law are both in the habit of reading the newspaper but I think it's a generational thing with younger people getting their news electronically. How things change! It's the absolute that stands.