Dear DC

Dear DC:

Oh, this is precious.

You think that, just because I've been gone eight months, you can still get a rise out of me by trading for my (admittedly polarizing) quarterback? You think I'd take something like that personally, don't you?

DC, you are correct.

Now, DC, I know this has as much to do with the usual breathtaking forward-thinking of the Eagles' front office as anything else, but I am not talking to them right now.

I am talking to you.

So, since you insist on being yourself, let me make a few things clear.

DC, I prefer my cramped walkup apartment with no A/C to my old 1200-square-foot, rooftop pool and gym, 24-hour front desk Mass Ave shangri-la any day. That is how glad I am to not be with you.

DC, New York is more interesting, better-looking and more virile than you will ever be.

DC, they have Five Guys here. So I REALLY don't need you anymore.

DC...okay, DC, you still have Ben's and the 9:30 Club. You've got me there. And IOTA. But that's technically in Virginia, so not germane to our discussion. God, they have good fries at IOTA...

DC, Jeff Laurie may make me want to kick puppies sometimes, but Dan Snyder? Right. Discussion over before it starts, DC, and you know it.

DC, nine times out of ten...NO...nineteen times out of twenty...I was faking it.

DC, I will take the vomit and blood-spattered streets of First Avenue over any of your damn cherry blossoms any day.

DC, you may take my money, you may take my quarterback, but you will never take my freedom.

And I sweartagod, DC, if you win a Super Bowl this year, I will get on a Bolt bus, and I will come down there, and I will cut you.

And, DC, if we win a Super Bowl this year, I am deleting this blog post.

I hate you, DC. God, I hate you.

XO
R

PS Oh, and DC? If you're wondering why I live in New York and not Philadelphia, I will thank you not to change the freakin' subject. Jerk.

Fireworks on the Mall

Okay, okay. Sometimes being in DC can be pretty cool. But only when it's July 4 or a once-in-a-lifetime inaugural event. Other than that New York beats it every time.

Orange Crush

Rush hour on the DC Metro orange line to Vienna. Only the strong survive.

Happy Erfday To You!

Apparently it's Earth Day. I know this because there was a massive concert on the Mall this weekend, and because just about every other TV commercial over the past week or so is making me feel morally inferior about something I am or am not doing to save the planet. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally on board. I was the kid rocking a straight-up lunchbox rather than brown bags in elementary school, complete with reusable Tupperware sandwich holders. I even have a Tupperware cookie holster, so as not to waste precious Saran wrap, so I'm totally down. Just...please stop yelling at me. I have tiny little fetus feet anyway. They don't leave much of a footprint of any kind, carbon or otherwise. 'Kay. Thanks.

But I will say that the Green Generation can throw a kick-ass party. My pals and I went down to the Mall to catch the delightfully silly Flaming Lips at the free Earth Day concert. Nevermind that what started as a beautiful 80-degree day turned into a blustery, 60-degree day in about 2 hours. That's just Mother Nature saying hello. Happily, hippies like to share, and one of our number was kind enough to loan me the World's Biggest Most Ridiculous Poncho to break the wind. So to speak.

And speaking of the "Green Generation," that term was thrown around quite a bit, and I want to be clear that it refers to the heightened awareness of the youth of today, and not to the funny smell that pervaded the scene (and made everything extra special hilarious that day), nor the fact that the festivities were held in such proximity to 4/20. And these guys just love music. That's ALL:

We did manage to get right up close to the stage, thanks to the zeal of my compatriots, emboldened by tasty street vendor food, and maybe a little bit of fermented apple-y beverages. So we were right up close to Wayne Coyne and the Lips. Close enough to be showered by the contents of his confetti bazooka. That did rile up the organizers some, but Mr. Coyne insisted that if anybody would pick up after themselves, it's a bunch of potentially chemically-altered, environmentally-conscious hippies. And wouldn't you know, when that show was over, the Mall by the stage was spotless. Save for a few hundred cigarette butts, because no one wants to touch those.

So, all in all, it was a good day. And so the tired celebrants trundled home on the Metro, including one poor random fellow who, in the span of two stops, made himself nice and comfy and went night night. Saving the earth is hard work.

I leave you with Robyn's-Eye-View footage of Wayne Coyne surfing the crowd in a giant bubble -- for the planet! XO

2 Girls, 1 Bidet

Way back on inauguration weekend, two childhood friends, we'll call them KraByn, decided to celebrate history by enjoying some frozen adult beverages with the American University crowd at Guapo's in Tenleytown.One friend, we'll call her Kra, excused herself to use the ladies' room.

Moments later, her companion received a call on her Sidekick. It was Kra, demanding that her companion get downstairs to the bathroom. Immediately.There, the friends discovered that Guapo's had entered into some strange pact with a bidet company, and had installed bidets in all of the ladies' toilets, complete with promotional materials for installing a bidet in the comfort of your own home. Since Guapo's is hardly the type of establishment where one finds such classy personal hygiene accouterments, and since one of the friends had a video camera, and since they were a little happy with margaritas, they decided to have a bit of fun.

And then all hell broke loose...

Civics in Action

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all. We're having suitably grey Irish weather in Washington this afternoon, I am suitably dressed in green, and I am suitably having leftovers and staying in tonight. Washington's major family-friendly festivities for the holiday were held yesterday, and had Jeffrey and I not expended our weekend energies at the previous day's protest I may have had an interest in attending. As it was, we did not.

I had participated in a walk-out against the war in New York, but I had never been to a protest of the scale of the one on Saturday before. I was pleased to see that there were a lot of different kinds of people there, as opposed to the stereotypical anarchist hoodlums that give such gatherings a bad name. There were old people and kids, families and college students, veterans and people who lost children in the previous Gulf War. There were a few speakers who got on my nerves a bit when they tried to push other issues in conjunction with the anti-war sentiment and a few people who seemed more delighted at the fact that they could put dirty words on big signs than they were about the cause, but a lot of people were protest novices like myself. I was pretty shy about it in the beginning and insisted that I wouldn't hold a sign and was nervous on the Metro. But by the end of it I was quite comfortable and held one of the three signs Jeffrey took to the event. I wasn't even all that fazed when we passed a smallish group of pro-Bush protesters. Everyone behaved very well and the police were very good about the whole thing. I think it would have been an arrest-free event if it weren't for a few anarchist yahoos who broke away from the larger group to trash the World Bank. There's always someone that has to cause trouble.

I may go to another one if it's organized even half as well. Next time, though, I should probably bring sunblock, as I'm none too thrilled with the burns inflicted on my suitably Irish skin tone at the moment.

Robyn

The Short-Lived Charm of Snow

Sure, it was charming two days ago.

Yesterday it was laughable.

Now this crap must cease.

Blizzards in New York are okay, because New York is such a pedestrian city that you're still able to navigate. Blizzards in Richboro are okay, because the community knows how to clean up after itself in such an event.

Blizzards in Forestville, Maryland are no fun whatsoever. Apparently, this area doesn't see 18 inches of snow all that often. I think this qualifies as the fifth-largest snowstorm in recorded history in the DC area. So they have no bloody idea what to do about this. Two days after it stopped snowing, most of the main streets are clear, but small roads and parking lots are a mess. Lots of places are still shut down.

For the past few days I've been playing the jaded Northeasterner to Jeffrey's the-folks-back-home-won't-believe-this Texan. I've been saying things like eighteen inches isn't so bad. Wait until a three-footer. I can so handle this.

But I never had the joy of shoveling a car out of an apartment complex parking lot, without a shovel. Not only must you contend with your neighbor shoveling snow into the vicinity of your vehicle, thereby doubling your workload, but you must do so with a mixing bowl and a dustpan. The let's-go-play-in-the-snow-whilst-we-dig mentality fades real fast. At least some other neighbors are nice, and they have shovels, and they save your bowl-scooping behind from three hours of liberating the Blazer.

And it's only the middle of February. I'm buying a shovel.

Robyn

Playing House

There has been a severe lack of updates due to a severe lack of opportunity to go online due to a severe lack of a stable existence over the past few weeks.

Got that?

To whit, I left New York on December 21, went to Washington DC for three days, went to Richboro for two days, DC for one day, Texas for a week, and returned to DC on Saturday.

Life is slowly returning to something resembling normal, although the apartment is still in the moving-in stage. Which is a nice way of saying my books, videos and other assorted crap is strewn all over the place awaiting the arrival of bookcases and other furnishings that will make it a little more homey in here.

And there's the pesky lack of employment to contend with as well. And insurance, phone plans, etc.

Playing house is hard.

I suppose that should suffice as far as boring personal updates go. Next time I'll talk about something more fascinating, like the Animal Planet channel.

How I love Animal Planet.

We'll talk later.

Robyn

So Long, Farewell

I couldn't ask to leave New York in grander style.

Mum came up for the afternoon for lunch, and we went to the Rainbow Room at the Big Pretty Building. Unlike most times that we've gone to pricey, famous New York eateries, we actually enjoyed the food and atmosphere. When we first got up there, it was pretty foggy. But after awhile (and after Mom temporarily convinced me that a particularly nasty front was about to unleash a tornado upon Midtown Manhattan), the weather cleared and we had a lovely view of the south of the city. We followed the nice lunch with a victory lap through Rockefeller Plaza, Fifth Avenue, Grand Central and finally Penn Station. Now my feet are tired and I'm too weary to go out and do more even if I wanted to.

So I guess that does it for me in New York for awhile. It's been a swell three years. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sad to go. But I believe I'm going for a reason that is infinitely worth whatever heartache comes with leaving. Besides, there's a lot more trouble to cause, er, good work to be done in Washington as far as making a difference in the world at large. So let's see what I can find...

Adios, New York. It was fun.

Robyn

Washington, DC

Have you ever walked around Washington at night? You should. It's very pretty. At least the parts around the White House and Pennsylvania Avenue. I'm sure there are parts of the city that are a bit more unsavory, but that can be said of anywhere. Moving on.

This was my first visit to downtown Washington in four and a half years. Last time I was there, it was January 1998, and there were TV cameras everywhere to cover the newly-hatched Monica Lewinsky scandal. This weekend there were only a few protesters camped out in fromt of the White House to mar the scenery, but I suppose you can't fault them too much for that.
The monumental buildings are fairly impressive in the daylight, but at night they're all lit up and quite pretty. And the Metro in DC kicks the New York subway's butt as far as aesthetics and safety go, so it's all right to stick around that particular part of the District after hours. Not a lot of pedestrians, but lots and lots of cops and official-type people about.

Try to stop by the Old Ebbitt Grill as well. The menu changes every day, and it's quite reasonable. That's my recommendation for the day.

Robyn