Christmas Tree Fight in Chevy Chase

Christmas. A time of joy and happiness. A time to consider what's really important in our lives.

Except.  Except if you live in the Chevy Chase neighborhood where there's an annual fight over whether or not certain holiday tree vendors are complying with the Montgomery County law that bars selling trees in lots in residentially zoned neighborhoods prior to December 5th. The fight is heating up the Chevy Chase listserv, where neighbors are arguing over whether those business that have already --illegally-- started selling trees have an unfair advantage over tree companies that follow the law and have not yet opened for business.

One Chevy Chase resident wrote on the local listserv, "The NorthStar lot, at Norwood and Wisconsin  is the first lot you would see heading south on Wisconsin from Bradley. In recent years, NorthStar has consistently opened early, well before the legal Dec. 5 date...Please consider which dealer is a responsible member of the community, carrying on holiday traditions in a respectful manner."

Other neighbors chimed in and pointed out that many community groups, firehouses and schools sell trees, and buying from one of these groups helps raise money for them: You get your tree and you help your local school all at the same time. Buy your tree from your local school only, is their chorus.

The debate over who should be allowed to sell holiday trees and when has become an ideological dispute. Said one Chevy Chase resident, "I am afraid I cannot get incensed over this issue. We buy our tree from NorthStar each year on Thanksgiving weekend.  And, while I am not an advocate of breaking the law, I would like to suggest that perhaps it is the law that needs to be changed rather then boycotting an independent local business that employs many of our neighborhood high school and college age children. In an era when many feel there is too much government regulation, I can only respond to a law that determines when I may decorate for Christmas with a good grief!"

Be Prepared for Snowmageddon II With This Bike

The Bond Bike was made for DC's notoriously snowy winters. It has a caterpillar wheel, like a snowmobile. It has an anti-theft ejection seat. It has a flame thrower for melting away snowbanks. There is no more perfect creation for getting around in Washington, DC in winter snow.

There's only one problem. It's not in production yet. Maybe it will be in time for Snowmageddon III.

Mixed Signals from School Crossing Guard

Noted:  A crossing guard in Northwest DC may not be paying close attention to the traffic he's directing. If a traffic situation doesn't look right, but somebody's directing you through it anyway --a crossing guard, a flagman, a police officer, Woody Allen (see the video below)-- don't go. Here's a firsthand report about that school crossing guard:

In the past two days, I've had two dangerous interactions with the "official" crossing guard/traffic assistant near Janney  School on Albemarle. Yesterday he was loudly directing a car to turn into the intersection despite the fact that there was a bicycle commuter in the road. The driver was waiting for the bicycle rider to pass but the guard was repeatedly whistling and waving him to proceed. Today my husband and I were in the crosswalk when he began waving cars through, despite the fact that we had a crossing signal. There seems to be something off about this person and he appears to be making things worse instead of better.

Scene from Woodey Allen's Bananas:

Washington Tweets

by Bill Adler

Washington tweets. A lot. The Washington Tweets column is a collection of the most interesting, recent Washington-area tweets. These tweets reveal a candid and fascinating portrait of what is on our collective minds: Twitter gives a snapshot of what we're doing, thinking and hoping for as a group. Washington Tweets is Washington in the raw and appears on All Life Is Local. Bill Adler tweets at @billadler.

ah, washington dc: a city where dating involves conflict of interest checks.

tomorrow I will be driving in a giant circle around DC... College Park -- Rockville -- Cleveland Park -- to Capitol Hill -- back to CP. FML

On my way back to DC...labor day weekend you were good to me

I need to go grocery shopping when I get back to dc.. Better yet I MUST find a new job!!!!!! College life = budget life smh I need $$

Beautiful day out in DC...renting some bikes and touring around with a friend.....happy labor day to everyone

The Top Ten Reasons to Join the Cleveland Park Listserv

Cleveland Park is an email list for people who live in Washington, DC and the Cleveland Park neighborhood. It's a way to meet, exchange news, and find out what's happening in the area. The Cleveland Park Listserv is Washington's most vibrant electronic community, the largest neighborhood email list in the country, and the only neighborhood email list with an columns and features.  Visit www.cleveland-park.com to join.

10.  It's an A-List that doesn't require you to be a major donor to any political party.

9.  You'll find out about new restaurants, secret parking places, neighborhood events, street construction, crime, and other activities that affect your life.

Anti Giant Forces Sue to Block Supermarket...Again

Reported yesterday on the Cleveland Park Listserv:  A handful of neighbors filed a lawsuit to block the development of a new supermarket and residential/commercial complex at Wisconsin Avenue and Newark Street.  Despite the fact than an overwhelming majority of neighbors --93 percent in a Listserv poll-- support the new supermarket project, a few neighbors think that their vision of Cleveland Park should prevail.  

A determined few have been trying to block the new Giant for ten years.  Their strategy of block and delay has been, unfortunately, successful.  Hopefully, this is their last stand and they will fail.

For some people, that vision includes the idea that a neighborhood like Cleveland Park --what they think of as a "village" in Washington, DC-- shouldn't even have a modern, well-stocked supermarket.  They worry that a large supermarket will attract shoppers on their way home from work.  Personally, I've never understood the fear of having people who live outside of one neighborhood shop in another.  It's actually a good thing when dollars are brought into a community. Other supermarket opponents insist that Cleveland Park can get along just fine with a small supermarket.  "Busy city dwellers do not need to spend an hour doing the family shopping, walking miles around inside huge markets," wrote one person on the Cleveland Park Listserv who opposes the concept of a larger supermarket.  Never mind that other people want a better supermarket; the opponents think they know what's best.

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.

Fun Places to Go Without Leaving Your Desk

My purpose today is twofold: First, to give out the web addresses of some fun and diverting websites that I hope you'll enjoy, and second, to balance out the number of curmudgeonly columns I've written with something that's entirely positive. This is something I intend to make a regular practice of doing, because I really don't want to be known as that cranky lady who only writes about things that go wrong, don't work, or blow up in her face. I could end up looking like Wile E. Coyote, if I don't watch myself! I'm also happy to have your suggestions for good things to write about. Have a good luck story, a bit of serendipity? Send it my way at AllLifeIsLocal @ fastmail.net. Now on to today's fun stuff.


My very first column was about the Complaints Choir of Chicago and the complaints choirs of a few other major cities. Too bad our city doesn't have one, I complained. By the time my second column was out, I had learned that we do indeed have a Complaints Choir of Washington, and by the time the third column was out, I had the assurances of the director that the choir's video was being edited and would be available soon. Soon means right now! I'm pleased to report that it's everything you would expect in a song complaining about life in DC, from tourists standing on the wrong side of the escalator to summer interns wearing unsuitable apparel, as well as a lot of deeply weird surprises. A word of warning to parents of young children: This is not exactly family-friendly fare!

http://voicesofwashington.org/complain

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Now here's a fun web site if you're stuck inside on a beautiful day and wish you could go for a long walk, maybe visit the zoo, but you just don't have the time. Just pop on over to PandaCam and see what Tian Tian and Mei Xiang are up to:

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas

Want to see any the flamingoes? black-footed ferrets? clouded leopards? naked mole rats? some strange species you never heard of? (Gharials, anyone?) Here's the complete lineup of available animals you can spy on:

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/WebCams/default.cfm

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It will soon be summertime and you may wish you were at Rehoboth Beach, especially if your friends are there while you're on this side of the Bay Bridge. Here's what you do: Call a friend at the beach on her cell and then tell her to walk to Dolle's Candy Shop on the Boardwalk at Rehoboth Avenue and look up at the nearest light pole to find the beach video camera, then stand in front of it and wave at you. After you're clicked on the Dolle's web cam link at http://www.rehobothboardwalk.com , you should be able to see her. (Note: Don't try this just yet; you need to wait for "the season" to start before the camera is activated.) My French nieces had fun with this a few years ago, when they called friends in France -- it was close to midnight there -- and told them to wander over to the site and they'd be there. And they were

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If Rehoboth Beach in the summer is too hot for you, try London. And one of the best things about London is the possibility of seeing a great sidewalk chalk artist at work. Almost as good as seeing the real thing is the online version:

http://www.etntalk.com/sidewalk

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Although plenty of people admire the monuments of DC, when you're here all the time, the buildings can begin to seem beige and bland and mostly alike. Want to see some architecture that could never be built here? Through the wonders of armchair travel here are some places you can visit that have buildings to make you wonder how they ever got built at all:

http://villageofjoy.com/50-strange-buildings-of-the-world
http://www.strangebuildings.com
http://lilomag.com/2010/01/10/20-most-strange-looking-buildings
http://atlasobscura.com/category/architectural-oddities
http://nitish1987.blogspot.com/search/label/Architecture -- keep clicking through "older posts" to get to the Swallow's Nest Castle in Crimea, Ukraine -- it's worth it! Then go to the home page, which is titled "Most Amazing and Funny Things in the World." Go on, procrastinate your whole day away looking at the various categories. It's addictive. Don't say I didn't warn you!

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Posted on the Cleveland Park Listserv, http:www.cleveland-park.com , on April 9, 2010.

To Print!

Today's story is a lot like the perennial joke about changing a light bulb. But the object here is not to shed light, but to get a printer to print – so the question is not how many people does it take, but how many days does it take to change a printer cartridge? (The answer is at the end of this column.) A long shaggy dog story follows. Apologies in advance for the length, which I suppose will try the patience of the tech-savvy among you but which I hope will engender sympathy from the rest of humanity.

March 20. I notice that my color laser printer, a Konica 2400w, is out of black ink and can no longer print. I find I have a spare black ink cartridge lying around (great!) and so I open up the printer, thinking I can just stick it in -- a no-brainer. Inside of the lid of the printer I find a set of diagrams illustrating how to pull out the old cartridge and insert the new cartridge. But these diagrams are both primitive and cryptic. I suspect they were drawn by the same person who does all of IKEA's wordless furniture assembly pictures. Which is to say, they are impossible to follow. I decide I need to get hold of the manual. But I'm going on a trip out of town the next day, so I need to do that when I return, in a week's time.

March 28. Knowing that the printer came without a manual (since absolutely nothing comes with a manual anymore), I go to Konica.com to view the instructions online. After I successfully navigate the company's website to find the right model, I come at last to the relevant page of the 100-plus-page PDF document to read the full instructions for changing the cartridge. I attempt to follow the instructions, but am stumped at the outset by the command to locate the "Print Tab" and then choose "Toner Replace." What's this "Print Tab" and where is it located? On the outside of the printer? On the inside? In one of my computer programs? Clearly, I need some help in understanding the terms in the manual. So I spend some more time online looking for a Konica help line, or failing to find that, an email address to send my question, or maybe a web form to fill out to get an answer back the next day. After some searching, I strike out on all three counts. Discouraged, I decide to investigate further another day.

March 29 and 30. On advice of members of my family who are more computer-savvy than I (that is, my husband and my teenager), I decide to Google the question and get some help from people who know how to explain things in plain English, not hieroglyphics. This turns out to be a complicated task, requiring more time than I can put into it on a single day. On the first day, I foolishly enter the name and model of the printer and the cartridge into Google. That gets me a bazillion hits to buy printers and cartridges. I refine my search by adding the words, "change printer cartridge." That takes me straight back to the online manual. I refine my search again, by asking for a forum on troubleshooting problems with this printer. That takes me to multiple discussion forums dealing with every manner of problem that every customer has ever had with this model of printer: installing drivers, uninstalling drivers, unjamming it, changing the drum…everything, it seems, except changing the printer cartridge. Hours pass almost without my realizing it. At midnight on the 30th, I decide it's time to give up.

March 31. I decide I have invested way too many hours of my life into changing this $!#% cartridge on this demonic printer. I am now determined to buy a whole new printer. Yes, that's right. A new one will come with a whole new cartridge in it, ready to use. Amazon can ship one to me overnight, and I'll be printing again tomorrow. I can stop Googling printer instructions, and actually get some work done. It's not such a crazy idea. I can get a new HP color laser printer for just $189. Or I can order up a color inkjet, which goes for a mere $79 -- that's just $9 more than the cost of the replacement laser cartridge! Plus, Amazon's offering me a special deal of $3.99 for next-day delivery. The only thing that stops me from putting this plan into action is what to do with my old printer that merely needs its cartridge changed. I can't throw it away – that's too wasteful. But it seems wrong to give it to some worthy organization. If I can't change the cartridge, why would I expect some poor, underpaid employee of a nonprofit to wrestle with the task? Besides, I tell myself, I am just not the sort of person who gets rid of something out of inability to change a part. I'm smarter than that. It can't defeat me. I won't let it. I'm not going to give away a perfectly good printer just because the instructions are in IKEA-nese. I will crack the code. But not today. Tomorrow, as some determined heroine once vowed, is another day.

April 1 (it's April Fool's day). Back to the challenge. It's back to the Internet. This time I get a few pages into the hits on Google that I've summoned by using yet another, more refined set of keywords. And this time I get somewhere: a third-party site, LaserQuipt, http://www.laserquipt.com/ , that has a page with nice, detailed, clear illustrations – and well written text! -- showing step-by-step how to change the black ink cartridge on my model of printer. If only I could print them out to hold them in front of me while I work! Despite this ironic setback, I am buoyed with hope. I discover that I have missed a crucial step. To make the old cartridge removable, I have to press a button on the printer's control panel that rotates the colors until the low-ink cartridge is positioned so that its pull-tab is face-up. Then and only then can it be dislodged. Bingo. I do that, and triumphantly, I pull the old cartridge out. Now all I have to do is to slip the new one in, and I'm good to go. Right? Wrong! The new one won't fit in. I keep trying at various intervals during the day, until it's no longer April Fool's Day, and then I go to sleep.

Today, April 2, in the morning. I wake up full of energy and resolve, and get back to the problem. I take advice from my husband and in-house tech support, Bill, who suggests that I first power the printer off and back on again. That doesn't help. I try rebooting my computer. (I don't know why I think that would help, but I do it, just because it's one of those things I've been conditioned to do with any type of computer problem.) I go back to trying to force the new cartridge into the slot, where it obviously doesn't fit. I go back to contemplating buying a whole new printer. So close, and yet so far! Then a new thought: Why don't I call one of the highly skilled tech consultants that I can find among the recommendations on the wonderful Cleveland Park Listserv. Yes, it will be a sort of defeat. Yes, that means paying someone $75 essentially to pop in a slab of ink. But at least this long ordeal will be over. I grit my teeth and search for a phone number. For tomorrow, if it comes to that. I'm going to give it one more shot today.

Today, April 2, in the afternoon. I'm re-studying the LaserQuipt instructions, and I notice that the hooks that hold the cartridge in place are shown higher up in the diagram than they are in real life on my printer. Remember that "rotate" button I told you about earlier? It seems that my printer rotated enough to allow me to remove the old cartridge, but not enough to allow me to insert the new cartridge. I press "rotate" again, even though the instructions don't say to do this. My printer whirrs for a second, and when I open the lid, there are the little hooks again, but now moved up by half an inch, just enough to allow me to pop in the new cartridge, which now fits snugly in the slot and makes a satisfying click when it's locked in place. The cover closes and the "ready" light goes on. Hallelujah! Now all I have to do is press print, and I'm good to go, yes? Well…no. It's not that easy. (Is it ever?) Now I find that my computer no longer recognizes my printer. But that's the sort of software problem that I know either my husband or my daughter can solve. Bill sits, opens up some program that I don't even know I have, clicks on some things, and my computer is again on speaking terms with my printer. He gives me back my chair, I open up the document which has the draft of this ordeal that I've written down for my column today, I hit print, and, miracle of miracles, the printer starts whirring and in just seconds, does what it has not done for the past week and a half: It prints!

I proofread the copy on the printed page (an environmentally unfriendly habit, I must admit, that I have retained from my pre-computer-age youth), and then post it as today's All Life Is Local column.

And the answer to the question, "How many days does it take to change a printer cartridge?" Six.

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Published on the Cleveland Park Listserv, www.cleveland-park.com, on April 2, 2010.

Thngs I've Lost at the Airport

I like to think of myself as savvy traveler. Before I pack, I check to make sure my carry-on will fit in the overhead bin of the type of aircraft I'll be flying on. And I keep my favorite shampoo and conditioner in three-ounce bottles, packed in clear, quart-sized plastic bags, to be sure they'll pass TSA muster. I wear shoes that are easy to take on and off. My netbook fits into a travel-sleeve so that it's protected while it sails through the screening machine. But no matter how well prepared I think I am, I always lose something to airport security. I just got back from a five-day trip to Panama, and this time was no different. We were already through the screening process and in the secure area of the airport in Panama City when we -- meaning all the passengers on the flight bound for Miami, not just my family -- were put through a second screening that involved a hand search through everyone's carry-on. The security man took away a bottle of water that I had just bought from a shop next to the gate. They took away everyone's water bottles, so I can't complain of being singled out. I'm just baffled, that's all.

Because I'm still slightly jet-lagged, this will be a short column, a list of all the things I've lost, going backwards from yesterday's de-aguafication.

Item: Water bottle, bought at shop in secure area of airport. Panama City, Panama. Reason prohibited: Unknown.

Item: Souvenir key-chain with minuscule folding tools, bought as souvenir of the Atlanta Olympics. Taken away at BWI. Reason: One folding tool was a tiny scissors and another was a mini-pen-knife. Not sure which one was deemed the potential weapon. Maybe it was having them in combination. As I was in a rush to make my flight, I never asked.

Item: An eyeglass repair kit, which had a miniature screwdriver. Taken away at Dulles. It had passed muster on a number of other flights, so I thought it was okay, but this time it wasn't.

Item: A tweezers, seized in Manchester, New Hampshire. This incident was the closest I came to speaking up, since I was very fond of that tweezers and can't imagine any scenario in which a villain could do any damage with that implement other than use it to aggressively over-pluck a victim's eyebrows. And really, if anyone tried that, I think the other passengers could put a stop to it. Well, that's what I thought at the time, but refrained from pointing out.

Item: Bamboo knitting needles, size: number 10. These weren't actually mine, but my then-12-year-old daughter's. Taken away at London Heathrow. I asked why and the screener shrugged and said apologetically, they were on the prohibited list. The only bright spot was that that my daughter had no current knitting project attached to the needles.

Items: Multiple bottles of toiletries, toothpaste in a tube, and a prescription cream that cost about $300. This was in Melbourne, Australia, the same day that shoe-bomber Richard Reid attempted to blow up the plane he was on. All at once the rules changed, and all passengers in Melbourne were hand-screened, hand-frisked, and all liquids, gels, pastes – even Tylenol in liqui-gel capsules – got taken away. Everyone was just grateful that all flights were not completely shut down, and so no one made a peep about anything.

I'm sure I've left out at least three items from this list, but that's okay. It's not the length of the list that matters, it's that not one item on this list was in any way a credible threat to anyone in the air or on the ground. I do understand the need to be one hundred percent sure that nothing gets on board that could conceivably used as a weapon. And I completely accept the premise that it's best to err on the side of caution. That's why I never tried to talk my way into keeping any of the things I lost. Besides, the airport security personnel don't make the rules, and they don't get to bend them for anyone. So this column is not calling for change, for more common sense in the rules, or for anything else, for that matter. It's just the personal musing of someone who sat on a three-hour flight yesterday without a water bottle, scribbled in draft form while waiting, waiting, waiting for the flight attendant to come around with the drinks cart.

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Published on the Cleveland Park Listserv, March 26, 2010.

Compliments, Not Complaints, for Helpful Strangers

My very first column for "All Life Is Local" generated some interesting reader feedback. One of the first reactions came from a reader who said she's sick of hearing complaints, even comedic complaints put to music and sung by a choir. She writes: "I think we should be more positive and focus on the beautiful things in life... I'm tired of the complaining." Point taken: So I thought with this second column, I should heed her call --um, her complaint, actually--and present some anecdotes about people who have been helpful to strangers. Fortunately, two other responses I received to the column fit the bill nicely.

First, from Lois on Woodley Road: During the height (depths) of the snow, I watched my husband try to dig his car out with our flat-edged, dented, aluminum shovel. Fitfully slow. So I found my pointed garden shovel out back. I was handing it to him when I noticed a young woman across the street trying to dig out her car with a tool as pitiful as my husband's, only plastic. Before giving my shovel to said husband, I punched my way around the ice near the woman's tires, hoping for a quick liberation. It took just a few minutes, and her huge smile and thank you's flooded the street. Soon, too, my stubby garden shovel had freed my husband's car. I then handed the woman my shovel for her to try a few more whacks at the ice, for good measure. More profound thanks followed, in fact, way too much for my small gesture. A few days later I found a lovely, hand-made valentine in my mailbox, along with a bag of Lindt chocolate truffles from the young woman. Now that's appreciation!

And next, from Charlotte on 38th Street: When we rescheduled our tickets to The Rivalry at Fords Theatre, after the snows, the theatre didn't have two seats together, so I was sitting by myself. Behind me, I heard someone say to his companion, "Once at Ford's Theatre we heard, oh, what was his name, he was a cabinet secretary in the Eisenhower administration and then president of U. of Oregon?" Amazingly, since I attended U. of Oregon, I knew the answer! Despite my reluctance to interrupt, I turned around. The three of us, all from greater Cleveland Park, talked avidly about 1960s Oregon. How unlikely is that? One benefit of the snows: more willingness to connect. Oh, the answer: Arthur Fleming, secretary of HEW under Eisenhower.

That leads me to my own little story about a helpful word from a stranger, similar to Charlotte's. I was waiting in a long, slow-moving line with my daughter, and to pass the time, we were discussing her upcoming test in US history, which would cover the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations. I remarked to my daughter that when I was in high school during the Johnson Administration, all students had to take a course in Civics, which required us to memorize the names of all members of LBJ's cabinet, and all 9 justices of the US Supreme Court, along with the top positions of both parties in the House and Senate. I aced that test, and I still remember most of them to this day. My daughter pooh-poohed this sort of course, saying any teenager or adult living in Washington who is the least bit interested in current events could name the people in these positions without having to study. Go, I challenged her, name all 9 justices of the current court. She rattled off the first five without hesitation. With some thought she came up with a sixth name. After a bit more pondering, she named a seventh. Then she was stumped and could not come up with another name. I was able to think of one more. But for some reason neither one of us could summon up the last name to complete the court. We were about to give up in frustration (since neither of us had a smartphone with us to allow us just to Google the answer), when a white-haired gentleman in front of us in the line turned around and quietly said one word: Stevens. Thank you, Mr. Random Retired Washington Lawyer Waiting In Line! Only in DC!

And finally, the most helpful responses I received to my column came from readers who alerted me to the existence of Voices of Washington, which is organizing a Complaints Choir of Washington. So far there's just a very spare web site, http://www.voicesofwashington.org/contact.php , with little more than a name, phone number and email address on the "contact" page. But if you'd like to get involved in this effort, that's clearly the place to start. I'm sure the main contact person would welcome any and all helpful strangers willing to come together to make this happen for our city. (My thanks to Susanna Beiser for being the first to pass along this information.)

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Published on the Cleveland Park Listserv on March 5, 2010.

All Life Is Local, debut column: A Chorus of Complaints

This is the premiere of a new feature on the Cleveland Park Listerv (www.cleveland-park.com), a column called All Life Is Local. It will appear every Friday and will be a sort of grab-bag of a column, with stories from the neighborhood, odd little quirks and anecdotes that people send in, and musings about this and that, not necessarily all neighborhood connected but all in some way adding a bit of flavor to the stew that is our local life. The inspiration comes from former House Speaker Tip O'Neill's observation that "All politics is local," but that's just a jumping-off point, as the column won't be limited to politics or even just to this particular local area. Today's column, for example, is more about Chicago than DC, but the subject is universal: Complaints. Of which there is no shortage here in Cleveland Park.


A Chorus of Complaints

Ever since Snowmageddon, I've been hearing a loud chorus of complaints: about snow, about cabin fever, and shoveling, and people who don't shovel, and people who save parking spaces with lawn chairs, and from those who put those lawn chairs in their shoveled-out spaces moaning that space-takers don't respect the amount of work it took to shovel out that spot. We've had complaints about city snow plows that never arrived, followed by complaints about the city snow plow that did arrive but left a giant snow barrier in its wake. You've read all these things and more on the listserv. (You haven't? Just visit Cleveland-Park and click on the "join this group" link at the top of your screen.) Add to that all the other complaints of everyday life, snow or no snow (late night noise, early morning noise, misdelivered mail, people with too many items in the 15-or-less line, signs that say "15 or less" when they should say "15 or fewer," -- the list goes on and on until life itself seems like one unending chorus of complaint. What if somebody were to put all those complaints to music? Make them sound nice by turning our whines into an actual song? Well, someone already has. And not just one somebody with one song but a whole lot of somebodies, enough to make up a choir. And not just one choir either, but a network of them from all over the world. Where and how? On the Internet, of course. (Isn't everything on the Internet?) Take Chicago's Complaints Choir, for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvWVxHEaWDU

Want more? Pick your city or region from the main site of Complaints Choirs:

http://www.complaintschoir.org/choirs.html

I like Philadelphia's Complaints Choir, and the one from the "As It Happens" Radio Show of Canada. But some of the videos on the ComplaintsChoir.org site don't work – that's my complaint!

How can we get a complaints choir of DC? I'd organize one but I don't have a single one of the skills needed to assemble a choir, write and arrange the song, videotape the result and upload it to Complaintschoir.org. But somebody ought to do it! Isn't that the nature of complaints? That you always want somebody to do something? Until that happens, I hope these other choirs of complaint fill the void.

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First published on the Cleveland Park Listserv, www.cleveland-park.com, on Feb. 26, 2010.



Send me your comments, complaints, compliments, funny stories, yada-yada: AllLifeIsLocal at fastmail dot net