John Kelly is a great journalist who writes a column on DC for the Washington Post. He also plays drums for a local band, the Stepping Stones. Joe saw this tweet from John the other day: The Stepping Stones are a Monkees tribute band. Well, of course we were interested, for several reasons: We love local bands. We love the Monkees. (Yeah, I said it.) We've met John Kelly, because his wife, the lovely and... Read more →
Joe and I had quite an active weekend -- well, if you can call going to a movie and driving through a huge garden active. We went to the movies on Saturday, a rainy, damp, gray day -- perfect for a movie, actually. We saw The Wolverine. I liked it! I may not know all the lore behind the X-Men, but I did quite enjoy watching a moody, shirtless Hugh Jackman for a couple of... Read more →
I started out just snapping an occasional picture of the interesting graffiti along the Red Line during my daily commute. Now I have over 250 photos of street art in a Flickr set. I think this has become a full-fledged hobby! In fact, I now have actual graffiti artists following me on Instagram and Flickr! Who knew? I simply tagged the Instagram photos as "#urbanart" and "#graffiti" as pretty soon folks named "trill_ass_arnold" and "durkstevens"... Read more →
I've only been to one presidential inauguration, that of John F. Kennedy. I was nine years old. Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic president, so all of us Catlicks were beyond thrilled. (In my Catlick school classroom were two portraits: the Pope and John F. Kennedy.) The only thing I remember about that day is that it was freezing cold. I don't remember the parade; I don't remember seeing the presidential motorcade. I just remember... Read more →
I ride the Red Line to work every damn day, and when I'm not shooting birds at pigs or playing Scabble with my phone, I like to look at the urban art along the way. I've posted many of these to Instagram and Facebook, but I don't get a chance to talk about them much there. Some people think that graffiti is awful and ugly, a blight on the landscape, or malicious destruction of property.... Read more →
Late spring has arrived early in DC this year. The trees have burst wide open, daffodils and forsythia are carpeting the median strips and highway embankments, and the temperatures are in the high 70s. Unfortunately, my allergies are also in full bloom. My throat starting itching and my nose started flowing, so hello, Benadryl! Well, this too shall pass. Today was the first day in the new office space. The move went off without a... Read more →
Today's Photo-A-Day theme is "sign." I thought about being creative on this one, but ultimately I just snapped a picture of this helpful piece of user documentation near the Silver Spring Metro stop. The reason for this sign (and many others like it on the surrounding blocks) is that the county (or maybe the state? I don't know!) is building a brandy-new transit center that will consolidate buses, subway trains, Amtrak trains, MARC trains, bicycles,... Read more →
So, Valentine's Day came and went, didn't it? Joe, that sneak, slipped a card and some Ghiradelli chocolates on the kitchen table while I was in the shower and then went back to bed. I, therefore, bought his card and a Toblerone after work. When we got home from our super-romantic dinner at a local barbeque joint, I slipped them on the kitchen table while he was communing with the feral cats. Hah! I can... Read more →
Here are some vignettes from the past week. Once a Mom, always a Mom. Last Monday morning, it was 33 degrees. That is, in a word, cold. Most people with a modicum of common sense would wear warm clothes: long sleeves, jackets, hats, that sort of thing. Alas, there are those who do not possess common sense, like this young woman on the Metro: I really wanted to wag my finger at her and say,... Read more →
Yes, yes, yes... there's a goddamn hurricane bearing down on the east coast. Ocean City is under a mandatory evacuation order, blah blah blah. I will, no doubt, write about the goddamn hurricane, but not now. Now I want to talk about how I helped set a new world record! My great good friend Andrea posted on Facebook about UkeFest 2011 and asked if anyone would like to go with her. Now how, I ask... Read more →