This is my friend Andrew working in the office at Swing's Coffee Shop on 17th and G Sts NW. The company is around 80 years old, so is this typewriter. Swing's is a traditional kind of place and also an old area business. This Tower Typewriter requires no electricity, and is streamline designed leaving out the 1 key for less drag. "It isn't made with one. You have to type the lowercase "L" key for a one," Andrew told me. That typewriter is the closest thing to a computer (aside from the copy machine, stereo, telephone and cell phones, and the occasional Nintendo Game Boy) in Swing's office.
This is my favorite meal in the neighborhood. Half a chicken, rice or french fries, and a cup of lettuce and dressing for $7 even, at El Pollo Sabroso on Mt Pleasant St. The only bank close isn't mine, so I had to buy a 2 liter at 7-Eleven with my card and get $10 cash back. Now I have a full stomach and bus money.
Over the past week I have been noticing the Ronald Regan Building and National Trade Center while passing it on the bus. Yesterday, I specifically remember thinking they could have done a better job of carving the building's title into its rotunda (and caused the letters to look less cramped) had they used a smaller font for "and." I was at my friend Andrew's and his brother Matt was using the internet. Andrew looked over at the screen and said, "Ronald Regan is dead!" I guess I felt relieved. Ronald Regan is the first president I remember as a child. It was a safer time ... the end of the Cold War. Even democrats can mourn the death of this jelly bean eating movie cowboy. I remember I first learned of Ronald Regan from a MAD Magazine and my mom.
I went out with a bunch of new friends tonight. Well, I've met them before, I just forgot their names. We walked up and down 18th St in Adams-Morgan. It's great to see that much activity from time to time. The thing is, I don't live far away and I'm usually annoyed with the activity. The sidewalks are impossible to walk on. Most of the time I see 18th St as a club-filled tourist trap, but tonight it was fun. This is Ian trying to pick up the "CitiBank chick" during a routine ATM stop. Turned down dude? Oh well, she had a mustache anyway.
I was down at the WWII Monument again today. There are a lot of photographers down there. I saw all kinds of cameras, large and medium format, 35mm, digital point-and-shoots and SLRs. It's a regular photographers' convention. I saw this bird down there this evening taking a bath, the same type of bird that was stuck in my chimney for a few days.
I remember when the WWII Memorial was still under construction. I remember the cranes lifting the towers and stone before I even realized what they were building. I make it down to the WWII Memorial as often as I can, about once every three days. I didn't make it very close to the memorial this Memorial Day Weekend though, no ticket for the opening ceremony. One of the side effects to all this "remembering" and Memorial Day is a lot of talk on the bus and at the sidewalk, mostly pertaining to WWII. If some dude had a great uncle that served in WWII they have recently become battlefield experts. I couldn't help overhearing two middle-aged men on the bus loudly going over details of the First World War under the impression they were discussing WWII! God save our country, we're morons!
The rat that I thought was in my chimney pipe a couple days ago turned out to be a bird. I took the chimney pipe apart today, after realizing that my feathered friend had been held captive by my heating apparatus for at least two days. I used my laundry bag and a Mag-Lite to help get the bird out. Then it flew around my house for a while before I let it out the front door.
Every time I pass this Sun Trust Building on 15th St and New York Ave NW I am amazed by its brass rotunda. Every time I see brass I think of sailors polishing it. Really ... every time. I pass by this building a lot but never get a photo. Today, before we passed the building, I reached in front of me and opened up the bus window, then hopped into the seat in front of me and shot back at the building as we passed by. I hopped back into my seat and closed the window. I heard some lady on the bus say I was probably "some kind of secret agent."
There was a rat stuck in one of my heater vent pipes earlier today. I could hear him scratching around. I grabbed a Mag-Lite and a hand saw and went to the heater closet. i opened it slowly and discovered the sound was coming from the large pipe from the heater. I called the landlord. He called animal control. I banged the side of the pipe with the Mag-Lite. Now the rat is gone.
Today the cicadas were all over the Mimosa tree in the front yard, and buzzing around all over every tree in the neighborhood. They lay their eggs in branches that break off and fall to the ground. The eggs will hatch and the larva will burrow into the ground and emerge in another 17 years. The males die after mating and the females die shortly after laying their eggs. A lot of them end up smashed on the sidewalk, an inclimactic end to a 17 year life.
