The Chinese Shops of Walmart in Georgetown Mall??

Yesterday (I said this somewhere else on this blog, too) I had to renew my DC drivers license.  As I've done for years, I went to the DC DMV office on the ground floor of the fancy "The Shops of Georgetown" mall on M St. NW, just past the intersection of M and Wisconsin.  It's always been a great place to shop:  J. Crew, Ralph Lauren, Comfort Shoes, F.A.O. Schwarz, Victoria's Secret, Brookstone.  They even had a bookstore there maybe 10 years ago.

Yesterday, the place was almost empty.  No, not because it was the Tuesday afternoon after the Thanksgiving shopping orgy.  The eponymous shops were almost all empty and dark.  Huh?  Was it closing?  Looked like it.  Comfort Shoes was selling out the last of its shoes at $19/pair (or was that apiece??).

Of all the things I've read about or seen in DC the past couple of years, this was the scariest!  I don't remember reading much about this in the WashPost.  Or online.  I contacted the blogger who writes Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space.  What is going on with this?  He replied:

Redev. process is underway.  Not sure what they will do.  It was held up for years in courts between two developer competitors.  Someone else bought the mortgage. 

For the most part, this "mall" doesn't work on the interior, because people go to Georgetown to be outside and walk the streets, not to spend time in a mall.  Because it was unsuccessful, by default it became a place for independents, which is not how malls usually work. 

The mall-ness is likely to be removed, in other words, the interior will be redeveloped into a conglomerated space. 

Hmmm....well, what if WalMart were to take this over and open each of their departments as a SEPARATE SHOP?  And if, as has been suggested, DC's
Chinatown is a lost cause.  It's now mostly "Gallery Place" or the "Verizon Center" with its two pro basketball teams (the Wizards--men--and the Mystics--women) and the Capitols hockey team. WalMart has been running into flak in its move to open a big box store here in DC.

So....how about this?  Let's let WalMart take over the EMPTY Shops of Georgetown mall, make each department a separate shop, and staff it with Chinese workers as befits a store that sells merchandise made mostly in China?  They can call it the "Chinese Shops at WalMart in Georgetown Mall."

All of this has made me think that the so-called "slow/bad economy" is really the result of the 1% watching out for themselves and playing us like a flute.

Better get ready to enjoy fish heads and rice and other 3rd world delicacies.  Goodbye to Clydes and oysters and hamburgers and french fries.

Tranquil Tuesday

I am considering spending at least half of every other day each week out of doors.  Far from my various computing devices, refrigerator, and toaster.  Out among all trees and flowers and growing things (buildings, too, which here seem to be behaving like mushrooms, springing up overnight and multiplying), there to communicate with spirit to whom I belong.  In the company of a little sketch pad and pencil.  Or maybe just nothing....

See how it goes....

Meltdown Monday......

I really lost it today.  I took my weekend visitor down to K Street to wait for the bus to Annapolis.  The schedule said the stop was at "16th St and K St NW, 12:27p."  Fine.

We got to the bus stop, and there was indeed a sign post for the non-Metro buses going toward the Eastern Shore.  The bus we were waiting for (which we had identified in a 2-hour session with the schedules last night) was not listed, but we decided to ask the various bus drivers if they knew where that particular Annapolis bus stopped.  So far, so good.

Bus 1 to Annapolis arrived.  Not the right one, and the driver (of the bus from a different, i.e., wrong, company) did not know where my friend's bus stopped other than to wave his hand and say "Here."

Bus 2 to Annapolis arrived. Again, not the right one, and again, other than to say "Here, I guess," the driver (from yet a third company) did not know where that particular bus would stop.

Bus 3 arrived.  It was the right bus.  It had the right number, was the right company, and was in the right place at...tada...12:27p, but the only reason it stopped was because there was a red light.  I knocked on the glass, and the driver opened the door slightly.  My friend, who has a strong South African accent and is deaf, proceeded to ask him if this was....blah blah blah...and yes, it was, but he set his mouth and shook his head "no" when I asked if he could help her put her BIG suitcase under the bus.  He also shook his head when we asked if she could get on the bus.

I blew up.  "Jesus H. Christ!  This is HER BUS!!!" and at that point, my friend got out her schedule (the RED one, not the brown one) and showed it to him.  He rolled his eyes and stormed off the bus. He yelled at me, "Don't you dare take the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in vain!!"  Then he tossed my friend's suitcase in the compartment under the bus and waved her on.  He also had a few more choice words for me as he followed her up the steps. I smiled and said "Thank you, sir!"

I don't know what HIS problem was, and I don't think my friend appreciated my loss of composure, but what the eff....she was on the right bus, and she was on her way home, and I wandered off in search of a hotdog because I hadn't even had breakfast yet, and it was almost 1 p.m.

Jesus H. Christ, if you are paying attention, thanks for getting my friend on the right bus home.  Amen.

Saturday Night Cuteness!

Democracy for Bell, a spinoff of Democracy for California, has this tucked into the chat feature.  Isn't this baby-dog combo cute as heck??

Here's Something New....

Lori Skoog's blog always has such gorgeous photos of her farm and surrounding areas, and Lori's of course a dedicated horsewoman, writer, and artist.  This fascinating video was on her blog post today:



Happy Thanksgiving!!

Wow....

Maybe once or twice a year I come upon a blog that makes me want to get up and dance down the aisle of the bus or twirl around one of the poles in the aisle of  the metro.  I found TWO good ones this week, and it's only Monday already.

First is Nailing Jello to the Wall. I actually found that a year ago, but the author took a rather longish hiatus and I forgot about it.  I'm happy to report that she's BACK!!

Second is Suburban Lesbian Housewife. Here's a sample (and the best thing written yet about Penn State):

How many children need to be raped before a University does something? Who could watch a child be raped and do nothing? Nothing at all? 

I see something like that? I'm getting a baseball bat or the heaviest object near me and I'm stopping it. Then, I'm going to the police. But I do not wait and go to my boss.

If someone was murdered, would you wait to tell your boss? Or do you call 9-1-1?

What football program is more important than reporting directly to the police a crime?

My god, what is wrong with this country? Full disclosure: I am a football fan. Love watching, playing, and I've been a Penn State fan for years. My grandfather went there, left a large donation and there's some plaque by a pond on campus with his name on it. I have always respected the graduation rates of football players from Penn State. 

Paterno knew for years. Years. Not a week, or a month, but long enough to have stopped the pain for many more victims. He could have stopped a predator. 

But he didn't. 

I'm suppose to sit here and shed a tear for him? I don't care what he did for how many years. 

And then there's her post "Meet Baby." A smidgen of that:

Meet Baby

I know you all think I'm miserably depressed all the time, and mostly that's true but I do still know how to laugh.

While Zachary and Jake were away on a road trip, I sent them pictures on their phones. Any time I saw a "punch buggy" I sent it to Jake and said, Punch yourself.

He would promptly punch Zachary.

I had found Zachary's "Baby" in the Ogunquit house. It was a gift from a good friend of mine and Zachary did love Baby. That is, when he was a baby. Poor Baby ended up on top of the refrigerator, long forgotten. Until I got Baby, dusted her off and took her on adventures.

Meet Baby.



Now, Baby did get a little annoyed while sitting on the refrigerator for so long.



If you mess with Baby, she will give you the finger.



Baby likes cake.

There's more...more Baby, more astute political comments..Enjoy!

Saturday night blog reading...

Emilie Johnson, whose blog displays her incredible photographs and writing, has a great post today: "Brecht."

A friend, Katelin Wilcox's, one woman show last night, performed at Theater Row on 42nd Street in the United Solo Fest left me thinking thinking thinking. She was stunning in a brilliantly written piece she herself wrote of the tale of Bertolt Brecht (1989-1956), or rather, the tale of his women. She switched between the roles of five fundamental women in the playwright's life - their love, losses and perspectives. These women each not only fueled Brecht's creativity, but were often the literal composers of his work, only eventually to be discarded. It was a feminist tale and one that, unfortunately, could be told countless times across history. One of the women, Elisabeth Hauptmann, literally wrote the piece that launched Brecht's career (The Threepenny Opera) and received next to no credit for having done so. If you look up the piece, she is still often listed, at best, as a 'collaborator' - when 80-90% of the writing was hers. The women in his life were writers, actors, creative forces who were stunted merely because they were women (Brecht seized the opportunity to make use of their force and these women often saw the 'collaboration' as the only way their voices could be heard, having been rejected from publishers and industry heads repeatedly).

The performance and its story were such a great illustrative response to anyone who asks, where were women in history? Artists, writers, thinkers, philosophers - they were there. 

Where are all the women, indeed?  It's always teed me off no end to look up the new videos on TED and see so few women (2 out of 15 on today's first page).  Ditto re the Writer's Almanac, although today's featured writer is poet Sharon Olds, with a marvelous poem about her daughter.  (Keep up the good work, Garrison. Remember, MORE WOMEN....or at least as many as the men.)

And thank you, Ms. Johnson, for blogging so all of us out here can see your spirit.

The Green Man!

Got this from Jimmy Feeney this a.m.  Oh, how wonderful!  I wish I could do this.  I wish I could dye my hair green, too.

Steve Martin's Contribution to Hymnology

Yes, it's funny.....

Christians have their hymns and pages,
Hava Nagila’s for the Jews,
Baptists have the rock of ages,
Atheists just sing the blues.

Romantics play Claire de Lune,
Born agains sing He is risen,
But no one ever wrote a tune,
For godless existentialism.

For Atheists,
There’s no good news,
They’ll never sing a song of faith.

For atheists,
They have a rule,
The “he” is always lowercase.
The “he” is always lowercase.

Some folks sing a Bach cantata,
Lutherans get Christmas trees,
Atheist songs add up to nada,
But they do have Sundays free.

Pentecostalists sing they sing to heaven,
Coptics have the books of scrolls,
Numerologists can count to seven,
Atheists have rock and roll.

For Atheists,
There’s no good news,
They’ll never sing a song of Faith.

In their songs,
They have a rule,
The “he” is always lowercase.
The “he” is always lowercase.

Catholics dress up for Mass,
And listen to, Gregorian chants.

Atheists just take a pass,
Watch football in their underpants.
Watch football in their underpants.

Atheists, Atheists, Atheists,
Don’t have no songs!

Saturday Blogaround While Cooking....

Ok, I have been up since 6:43am preparing dinner for four: roasted chicken, scalloped potatoes & onions, romaine lettuce with olive oil & lemon juice, sweet basil carrots (minus the basil...oops), and apple pie.  I'm doing this for a friend and her partner, who will be entertaining the friend's former partner and her husband. (Oh, go ahead, raise your eyebrows....it's life here in the City of Satan, and I love it). Chop chop chop chop, stir stir stir stir.

The pie is done, ditto the potato dish and the carrots, and the chicken is in the oven with something I've never tried before:  making herb butter and stuffing it under the skin.  I must say the place smells divine!!!  I expect the neighbors will be telling me this when I run into them in the hallway soon.

Meanwhile, however, I'm horsing around online and checking the blogs.  You may enjoy this one in particular, too:  Old Phat Stu, who had a fascinating post yesterday on ejection seats (as in pilots).  Stu was a flight instructor for "going on three decades," and he knows his stuff.  Stu also has a policy of using email for comments.  So I'm sharing my email/comments to & from him with you. He lives far, far away.

My first question regarding his post was this:

But how could he be killed with all those precautionary restraints?  or did he pull the handle himself?  you know SO MUCH!  glory....

To which he replied:

Given that I was a flying instructor for nigh on three decades, Mary, it would be an embuggerance (q.v) if I did NOT Know how an ejection seat works.
 
All technical devices (and even social structures) only work as intended when a (perhaps implicit) set of assumptions are satisfied.
Part of doing risk analyses is identifying those assumptions ( aka drawing a risk tree) and checking they are satisfied.
 
For Fukushima these (should have) included simultaneous earthquake AND tsunami;
uncovering the cores and the dampening pools, loss of electricity for more than 3 days, running out of diesel fuel , etc etc.
 
For crossing the road it includes looking both ways first. We teach our kids specific instances like that one, but as a rule people are not taught how to do General risk assessment.  

And I said:

As I read your note @technology and risk assessment, I am on the Metro going downtown to meet a friend to borrow a pie tin. An ordinary trip that usually takes abt 17 mins. And....tada....the train has stopped. A Metro employee walks through the cars shaking her head. Soon the train backs up to the platform, the doors open, and a bunch of people get on. Did the doors not open at that platform the first time? Now we're moving....and now we're stopped again. Does Metro do this to annoy us? It seems to be the law of technology these days that it always breaks down--whether it's a massive failure involving natural phenomena like Fukushima or just a Saturday morning glitch involving a worn-out switch. Ha. Soon I'll meet my friend, get the pie tin, and go back home to cook Sat. pm dinner--with apple pie. That I can do with my bare hands and my little red-handled knife (and the mostly risk-free assumption that the oven will work and the water in the sink will run).

And so on....then I asked him, since he's also a mathematician and so smart,

OK, so tell me. How do I pick a winning lottery number?

He says:

Buy ALL the tickets!!

Of course he's right. I'm still laughing.  

  

Christmas begins at HOME this year!!

Thanks to Darlene for sending this gem!  I agree....forget the stuff at Walmart or Target. Most of us already have absolutely everything anyone could possibly need.  Try this:

As the holidays approach, the giant non-U.S. factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods--merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American labor. This year will be different. This year Americans will give the gift of genuine concern for other Americans. There is no longer an excuse that, at gift giving time, nothing can be found that is produced by American hands. Yes there is!

It's time to think outside the box, people. Who says a gift needs to fit in a shirt box, wrapped in Chinese produced wrapping paper?

Everyone -- yes EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift certificates from your local American hair salon or barber? 

Gym membership? It's appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some health improvement.

Who wouldn't appreciate getting their car detailed? Small, American owned detail shops and car washes would love to sell you a gift certificate or a book of gift certificates.

Are you one of those extravagant givers who think nothing of plonking down the Benjamins on a Chinese made flat-screen? Perhaps that grateful gift receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course.

There are a bazillion owner-run restaurants -- all offering gift certificates. And, if your intended isn't the fancy eatery sort, what about a half dozen breakfasts at the local breakfast joint. Remember, folks this isn't about big National chains -- this is about supporting your home town Americans with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open.

How many people couldn't use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy?

Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a local cleaning lady for a day.

My computer could use a tune-up, and I KNOW I can find some young guy who is struggling to get his repair business up and running.

OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery and beautiful wooden boxes.

Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave your server a nice tip. And, how about going out to see a play or ballet at your hometown theatre?

Musicians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local bands.

Honestly, people, do you REALLY need to buy another ten thousand Chinese lights for the house? When you buy a five dollar string of light, about fifty cents stays in the community. If you have those kinds of bucks to burn, leave the mailperson, trash collector, or babysitter a nice BIG tip.

You see, Christmas is no longer about draining American pockets so that China can build another glittering city. Christmas is now about caring about US, encouraging American small businesses to keep plugging away to follow their dreams. And, when we care about other Americans, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we couldn't imagine. THIS is the new American Christmas tradition.

Forward this to everyone on your mailing list 

-- post it to discussion groups 

-- throw up a post on Craigslist for your city in the Rants and Raves section

-- send it to the editor of your local paper and radio stations, and TV news departments. 

This is a revolution of caring about each other, and isn't that what Christmas is about?

Yes, you!!

Thanks to http://www.comicstripoftheday.com/ for including this on Nov 5, 2011, and
for all his other wonderful posts.

Visualizing Bach: Alexander Chen’s Impossible Harp

I love this piece, especially the Casals portion.  The room is darkening, it's quiet and peaceful.  Perfect for listening to music.

Visualizing Bach: Alexander Chen’s Impossible Harp

Yup....that's how it goes

HEALTH MESSAGE   (give me a break) It's the tortoise life for me! 1.  If walking/cycling is good for your health, the postman would be immortal. 2.  A whale swims all day, only eats fish, drinks water, and is fat. 3.  A rabbit runs and hops and only lives 15 years. 4.  A tortoise doesn't run and does nothing, yet it lives for 450 years. And you tell me to exercise??  I don't think so. I'm retired.  Go around me!

Wonderful post by Minnesota Matron

Minnesota Matron's current post with sterling advice for Herman Cain came in over Google Reader this evening, and it's too good to keep for myself.  I especially like the part where she says, 

So The next time you have the bully pulpit, forget Congress, forget Wall Street, forget those angry bankers. Save that rage for the sex offenders and you have a sure-fire strategy for success.

You, Mr. Cain, are the Reform Candidate. Starting with yourself.

Hans Rosling Uses Ikea Props to Explain World of 7 Billion People

This is another cool TED talk.  With a few simple props from Ikea, it shows the relationship between the number of people on the planet and lifestyles.  I found it quite interesting.

Hans Rosling Uses Ikea Props to Explain World of 7 Billion People