Celebrate Star Trek Day Today!

Photo by Tim Williams

September 8th is a holiday, the 45th anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek. It was on this day in 1966 that the series first opened with those immortal words: “Space…the final frontier… These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five year mission: to reach out to new life and new civilization” (although that mission was cut short by the network, NBC, after just three). But the characters, vessels, alien worlds and fictional technologies that sprang from the fertile mind of producer/creator Gene Roddenberry live on forever. So we honor them on this galactically significant day. Live long and prosper!

Best Places In and Around DC to See Holiday Light Displays

Recently on the Cleveland Park Listserv a poster wondered where to go to see the best displays of holiday lights.  List members had a number of great suggestions, but please feel free to add others by using the comments section below.



This one is pretty remarkable. It's at 1602 Collingwood Road, Alexandria, VA.  You can read more about it here:  http://bit.ly/fvM69P



See the house at the far northern tip of DC at N. Portal Drive and Birch Drive.  The house, known as the Bishop's House, attracts crowds every year. It was written up in the Washington Post in December 2003.


Outside of the Mormon Temple, just beyond the Beltway in Kensington, MD, there are thousands of lights on the grounds that you can stroll around.  (Note: Only members of the Mormon church are allowed to go inside the temple.) For information and directions go to: http://dctemplelights.lds.org/.


If you're willing to go slightly outside the DC area, Baltimore's 34th Street is always worth checking out. I once saw a busload of Japanese tourists there snapping pictures.

Still Life with Robin: A Festivus Story

by Peggy Robin

The Cleveland Park Listserv gets its share of complaints about city services. That’s one of its reasons to exist, to give people a chance to air their grievances. (I’m writing this close to the Seinfeldian holiday of Festivus, December 23rd,  dedicated to the Airing of Grievances, so it’s the appropriate time of year for this subject.)

Here’s my complaint, complete with surprise ending (wait for it). About a week ago I noticed that the deadline for the city to vacuum up the leaves on our block had come and gone. Piles of leaves that the residents (or their paid helpers) had dutifully raked to the treebox strip were still there. DPW leaf crews had been spotted sweeping up very similar piles all along Newark and Ordway Streets, just a block away in each direction, but somehow they had skipped over our block. I decided to report the omission and request the return of the leaf truck.

It should be a simple matter, I thought, to fill out a service request form at DC.gov, but it was a bit trickier than I thought. On the pull-down menu of problems to report, there was no choice for “uncollected leaf piles.” The closest thing I could find was “uncollected yard waste.” I selected that, but in the free-form comments box I made clear that the leaf truck needed to return to vacuum up the large piles of leaves on the corner; I was not asking for our regular sanitation crew to pick up bagged leaves. I completed all the parts of the online form, submitted it, and in return received a tracking number.

Still Life with Robin: Holiday Shopping, Online Or Off?

by Peggy Robin

It’s Black Friday but many of you have already started your holiday shopping -- especially if you’re celebrating Hanukkah, which starts on December 1 this year and is over by the 8th. Such pressure! Each year I have to decide which is better (or more accurately, which is the lesser of two evils): Navigating the crowds at the mall or navigating the wilds of the worldwide web? This year I’m asking for your opinion, too. Vote in the poll. And let me know your thoughts, as well (in the comments section below).

Here are the factors I’m already mulling over in my mind – followed by the point values I’ve assigned to each. At the end I’ll add up all the scores and we’ll see which form of holiday shopping emerges as the better gift-producing strategy.

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For On-line Shopping/Against Going to Stores:

Avoid the crowds and the long lines at checkout. +5

Saves on gas, better for the environment. +3

Don’t have to fight for a parking space at the mall – or remember where it is once I leave the car. +3

No need to stand in line to use the bathroom. +2

If I want to interrupt my shopping to get something to eat or drink, all I have to do is go to the kitchen. +2

Still Life With Robin: Whoooo Loves Halloween?

by Peggy Robin

I would say that Halloween is my favorite holiday -- and believe I mean it -- except for the vague memory I have of myself last summer declaring that the Fourth of July is my favorite holiday, and last spring telling the guests around the Seder table that Passover is the best. At least let me stake the claim that it's my favorite October holiday. (I can't even swear that it's the best fall holiday, because I may want to make the case for Thanksgiving later in the season.) But just take me at my word: I really love Halloween.

Now for the reasons:  Number one, guilt-free candy. Normally, I try to limit my intake. I have my dentist to nag me on this score, and my own negative reinforcement that comes from owning a mouthful of fillings, the result of a childhood that included a daily walk home from school past a candy store, always with a stopover to make a purchase and consume it before I reached my front door. Eventually I learned from all my experiences of the drill to give up my daily sugar fix. Except for this one day a year when I hand out Kitkats and Almond Joys to trick-or-treaters and make sure to save a precious few for myself. (This year any leftovers once I've had my fill are going to neighbors Judy and Gary Kopff, who are collecting for our active duty forces abroad, and invite you to drop off goodies at their front porch at  2939 Newark Street, NW.)

Happy [Fill in the Blank] Day!

Today, April 16, is Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in the District of Columbia. I love holidays, but not all of them equally. This one, however, meets all of my personal criteria for a very good holiday:

* It commemorates a real and important event, something worth learning about: Lincoln's proclamation that freed the slaves of the District of Columbia on this date in 1862.
* It has activities and/or ceremonies for present-day celebrants -- in this case, a rally for DC voting rights at Freedom Plaza. (It ended at noon.)
* It's not disruptive of normal life -- that is, there's still trash pickup, school is still on, and everyone's open for business.
* It's a free parking day!

Some other holidays that meet these criteria are: Halloween, Valentine's Day, Cinco de Mayo, Groundhog Day, Pi Day (that's 3-14 at 1:59pm and 26 seconds), Bloomsday (June 16) and Talk Like a Pirate Day (aarrrgh, that one be September 19, matey). Okay, I know what you're thinking: By these standards any day of the year could be a holiday. Yes, it could ... and what's wrong with that? It's not a bad idea to have something special to note about each day of your life. There are national days of other countries, 192 of them. There are days that mark historic events. There are days set aside to appreciate things in nature (Arbor Day, the last Friday in April), to honor a national symbol (Flag Day, June 14), to campaign to protect the planet (Earth Day, April 22), as well as dozens and dozens of lesser known, should-be-known days set aside to celebrate or appreciate something in our lives.

How do you find out about these days? An easy and fun way is to call Verizon's weather line (202-936-1212) first thing each morning. If the weatherman on the line is Neal Pizzano, you will be treated first to his reading of the day's weather report in his indefatigably cheery voice, followed by his proclamation of the day's "holidays." It's National Mushroom Day! -- he will announce -- and it's No-Socks Day! And Caps Lock Day! Yes, these are all real days that have been declared by some group or other, with observances that the organizers want you to know about. You can Google them if you don't believe me. Neal's usually on at 7am, but if he's not, you can go to the source of many, if not most, of the goofy, oddball holidays he comes up with: http://www.brownielocks.com .

Of course, there's a big difference between marking a day on which people became free and, say, the day you take your teddy bear to lunch (Teddy Bears' Picnic Day, July 10). I just thought I'd say that, before I get angry notes from people who think I'm lumping the solemn holidays in with the silly. Yes, today's Emancipation Day rally is far more noteworthy than tomorrow's Ford Mustang Day. But that shouldn't stop owners of Ford Mustangs from tooling around in their cars and having a glorious time on the 17th.

Since I couldn't make it to this morning's DC voting rights event, my participation in today's Emancipation Day celebration will be limited to publicizing the day through my column. Hooray for DC voting rights! Most of the time I don't do a single thing to mark the day, except smile when I hear what I should be commemorating on this day. If you like the idea of finding something that makes each day worth honoring, you might want to start with your own birthday. For something substantive and significant to celebrate, try "This Day in History" by the History Channel: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history . I learned that my birthday, June 19, like today, marks an important advance in the fight to end slavery. It's called the Juneteenth, and on that day in 1864 Lincoln signed a proclamation that freed slaves in all parts of the South then under Union control. It's a legal holiday in 35 states.

That's it for this Friday's column. Prithee visit again on Friday next, April 23 -- Shakespeare's birthday!

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Posted on the Cleveland Park Listserv, on April 16, 2010.