Splitting the check and breaking the bank

A few weeks ago I was back in Boston visiting some friends and a series of events triggered my memory and I decided to finally write this long-awaited post.

There are several ways to split a check at a bar or restaurant. For some reason, whatever way the table chooses to deal with the check, I always seem to be the one getting short-changed. The following are the various ways I have encountered check splitting and as far as I can tell, none of them work out, well, at least to my advantage.

1. The 5-Way. The check arrives at the table and someone in your party of 5 announces: "Ah, let's just spilt the check 5 ways." Freeze. My mind races as I recount what I ordered: one beer, and the vegetarian curry. I quickly compare my dinner with those at the table who ordered appetizers, fancy mixed drinks, and expensive meat dishes. Not wanting to be the miser of the group and remind everyone that my dinner was only $11 + tax and tip, I bite my tongue, and begrudgingly put $30 on my credit card.

2. The "I have to head out." Right after everyone takes their last bite of Pho noodle soup, one person at a table of 6 says: "Sorry guys! I have to head out! I'm meeting some friends downtown for a birthday party." They throw a wad of cash on the table, put their coat on, and walk out the door- never to be heard from again. This person is usually a friend of a friend, or someone's new boy or girlfriend. No one has the guts to grab the cash at this point and count it. So, the wad sits there until the check comes and when it does, someone finally grabs the cash, counts it, and throws the abandoned $12 in the pile of money accumulating in the center of the table. When everyone has examined the check, put their portion in, another person (usually the same one who grabbed the abandoned cash) takes all the money and begins to count. There's a moment of silence- a bit of nervousness goes around the table until the check MC announces: "We're $5 short. Everybody throw in another dollar." Wait a second. How does that asshole who left early get out of paying tax and tip on their soup and drink? Again, I convince myself, it's only a dollar, and fork it over.

3. The No Cash option. Several times, I've gone to a restaurant without any cash whatsoever. In fact, my last dime was shoved in the parking meter outside and even that wasn't enough to get me another 15 minutes. So, after a wonderful brunch complete with omelets, coffee, and home fries, the dreaded check arrives and everyone whips out their wallet. I get out mine and quickly remember I'm going plastic this morning. I announce this to the two other diners sitting with me and they usually reply by giving me their cash and telling me to put the whole bill on my credit card. At first I'm happy about this: cash money! Awesome. After handing the card to the waiter and getting the form back to sign, I calculate a $7 tip on a $38 check, walk out of the restaurant, grab the parking ticket off my car, and hastily count the cash I was given. Total: $25. I drive away debating if my $20 breakfast was worth my $35 parking ticket.

4. The separate check route. There will be times, usually with a smaller table, when diners decide to do separate checks. This also depends on the establishment (many times, bars and restaurants refuse to do more than one check per party). Three of us go out for beers and because I didn't get a chance to eat dinner, I order an appetizer of nachos. The oh-so-kind waitress brings out the piping hot nachos and three plates, and three napkin-wrapped bunches of silverware (which no one uses for nachos anyways). Hummm... there goes my dinner. I think to myself while my friends dig in: "Who in their right mind would deny their friends the opportunity to chow down on tasty nachos?" The checks come and I look at mine already sensing my impending doom. Two $4 beers and the $7 nachos. I put down $19 dollars and leave starving.

Oh, and don't think you might as well order the most expensive thing on the menu and ask for 4 refills on that martini, because just when you do, the table decides they don't want to do the 5-way anymore, but rather: "We'll take separate checks."

Underneath this carpet, 35 years ago...

As the youngest in my family, I heard many stories about the time before I was born. There was the story about how my parents had my brother, Scott, at Purdue and lived in married student housing on campus. There was also the story about my sister, Kate, and how her face was all pushed in when she was born. Of course, the story about my other sister, Liz eating a bag of sugar behind the couch. But one of the most memorable stories of all was the one which involved Scott and Kate before either Liz or I was born.

Mom and dad had just bought the farm- literally, they had purchased an 80 acre farm from the Buffenbarger family in 1973. On the property were several out buildings including a large barn, an outhouse, and a chicken coop, cherry, apple, plum, pear and peach trees, and of course, the house that I grew up in. The Buffenbarger family built the original house in the 1850s and they were cheap. The upstairs had never seen a coat of paint, wooden floors had been varnished around the rugs (the logic was: visitors would never see the upstairs and why varnish the whole floor when you only see the bit around the edge of the rug?), and to top it all off, when Mr. Buffenbarger moved out, he took with him a drawer straight from the kitchen cabinets.

Mom and dad began to do some renovations to the house while trying to raise their 3 year-old son and 1 year-old daughter. First things first, the bare plaster in the bedrooms upstairs needed a nice coat of paint. They decided on a neutral cream shade and got to work. While dad was working, mom was working outside, and the kids were supposed to be napping, one of my all-time favorite stories occurred- one which I recently found evidence to support its validity.

A few weeks ago, mom and I were talking about the old carpet upstairs and how it "must be allergen-ridden." After getting the okay from dad, I ripped the carpet out with my own two hands and got rid of it for good, after all, it had served the Fergusson family for 35 years.

Underneath the carpet the story of my brother Scott asking my sister Kate if she wanted to be a ghost came back to life. After she said "yes," Scott proceeded to dump a gallon of that aforementioned cream colored paint on her head. When the paint reached her eyes, she screamed and mom came in from outside and grabbed Kate- immediately throwing her in the kitchen sink and calling the doctor.

The image I posted above was proof for me, who had never witnessed this long-heard about event. Underneath the carpet I saw small white foot prints. I initially thought they were Kate's since she was the one who was painted "like a ghost," but when I recounted the story, they couldn't be because my mom grabbed her and took her down the stairs. The footsteps were Scott's! Upon closer examination, I also saw my mom's sneaker prints in the paint, and not to mention, varnish around a rug that was once there.

When I had heard the story, I imagined the details much differently than the evidence showed. Mom and dad always said that Scott followed mom and left a trail of little white footprints going down the stairs. For some reason, I had always imagined those footprints as one print in the middle of each step. But I didn't think to account for the fact that my brother was only three! In actuality, the prints were against the right side (where he could hang on to the wall) and there were two prints to each step! Scott, with paint-covered feet slowly walked down the hallway, hesitated at the top of the stairs and right foot first, stepped down and repeated the same with the left foot. He did this all the way down the stairs, with the prints and my memory of an event I don't remember, getting lighter and lighter.

Goose Island Brewery!

Today I'm headed to Chicago to visit Goose Island Brewery. If you can't tell, I'm pretty excited; what's better than good beer, Chicago, and three of my favorite friends? We are all set up to tour the brewery and afterward, of course, tastings! Luckily for my friend who has wheat allergies, they also brew ginger ale, root beer, and cream soda.

That brings me to my current brewing situation. We finally tasted our double-hopped IPA (that was made in the ol' moonshine keg this summer!) and it was out of this world. (the Belgian Blanc was sadly, not) My brother couldn't believe that we had actually made this amber-colored ale and said that he not only wanted two cases, but wanted to turn the farm into an organic brewery. He envisions that all the grains and hops would be grown on the property and we would use unfiltered well water. Ahhh... what a dream. He has another agenda; he likes the idea of serving family beers at his bar in his new house.

This fall I also planted a few grape vines. Although I don't want to claim that I am a wine expert or even know anything about wine, I'd like to know how it's made. I don't want to read in books, but rather plant the vines, wait a few years, harvest the grapes and go from there.

Next on tap (for tomorrow's brewing schedule) will be another IPA... although this one is a reserve and the hop schedule is much more interesting: Mt. Hood and Tetnanger, with twice as much brewer's yeast, and a bit more brewer's sugar. Should prove to be a great winter ale as well as high alcohol content.

Winchester Street Monday Mornings

A leaf print in the sidewalk
separated by cracks
to keep from freezing but
was soft at one time.
cassette tape pulled out
and filters seem like leaves
on the side
cold dust and bits of plastic trying,
to figure out what they used to be
looking for salvage.

curb your dog.
one 6-pointed meets fifty 5-pointed.
perfectly manicured green grass had to
pay for that sign in your lawn.
you dug up the tree in mid-summer’s nights dream
and I told you it would die,
not the right time,
poor withered lace-leaf red maple.
I got to look down when you come.

watering can in hand,
pants are too high and gut is too big.
you know they are nice
everyone knows they are the nicest on Winchester.
of course the buyers will love the color yellow,
new windows, new sod, new porch,
new-old house.
on the right the slope is high-
some can’t deal,
using a penetrating vine that abuses.
barrel of rock salt and a funeral procession no,
that was Sunday morning.

10/12/2006

Hay bales- the Moroccan way

While driving (or rather, riding) on the way to Rabat from Marrakech, Morocco I saw many small farms beside the highway. The ride is about 2.5 hours long, and for the most part, the scenery is rural. Out my window I saw several groups of animals and to my surprise, they were ALWAYS guarded by a shepherd. Some cows, some goats, some chickens, and a lot of sheep- regardless of the animal, a boy or man was always found nearby. Usually holding a stick, or a gardening tool of some kind, the shepherd looked deep in thought sitting on a rock, or, when about to rain, circling the group of animals. All of the animals were quite dirty- none of Mary's little lambs around, but instead, dingy sheep. Also, in the middle of these fields were small mud-brick shanties where, I presume the shepherd kept supplies for lunch and the animals, or spent lonely nights.

The fields are not what I am used to in Indiana. I mean, they host the typical crops, hay, alfalfa, beans and even, to my surprise, corn! But, the shape of the fields is truly bizarre. No, squares or rectangles or even circles for that matter, but strange trapezoidal shapes which appear to have no logic behind them. When asking my own native Moroccan, he told me that the government has jurisdiction over the property and has historically split it up again and again for years. The result: very strange scraps of land for the farmers.

Another amazing sight was the hay bale "buildings." This I found to be a truly impressive feat without the help of a crane or other hi-tech building equipment. The bales are the traditional square bales of my childhood- solid (heavy) rectangular "bricks" held together with baler twine which serve a second purpose as "handles" to move the bales around. However, these bales were not stored in barns like I am used to, but compactly stacked in building formations. The photo above is not too great as it was (obviously) taken from the window of the car. But, in it you can see a "building" constructed solely of hay bales. This one looks like a pole barn, but there were others with rounded, or domed, ceilings too! The bales were so tightly put together that nothing larger than a mouse could penetrate the stack. I wonder how the rain we received yesterday and today is affecting the hay because as any farmer knows, the struggle with storing hay is preventing mold and mildew. You can also see that in the photo there is a silo and other typical farming equipment/buildings, yet the Moroccan farmer stores hay in an artful way.

Holy Tomatillos!

Last week I picked 20 pounds of tomatillos from our garden. Tomatillos are small, firm, green tomatoes with a paper husk. The tomatillo plant is similar to that of a standard tomato we are used to; it is from the night shade family and typically requires some kind of cage or trellis for the weak vine to rely on. We have three different cultivars of tomatillos growing this year. Some of them had purple-ish husks. The fruit is slightly crunchy, low in acid and high in pectin. This makes for great tasting salsa with perfect consistency! When I picked them they easily plucked off the vine. When picking tomatillos, you want to give them a little squeeze while still on the vine to make sure that the fruit has filled in the husk. Don't pick them before they are bursting out of this translucent paper wrapper!

When picking (and later when husking) the tomatillos are sticky. I found this sticky-ness to be almost oily, which was to me, a unique experience. While husking, I ate a few whole-- sweet and crunchy like an apple, slightly acidic like a tomato. Then, I simply quartered the larger ones (halving the smaller ones) and placed them in roasting pans. I baked them in the oven at 350 degress for an hour and a half. As the tomatillos were roasting, I threw three poblano, three anneheim, two serrano, and one jalepeno chile pepper on the grill. I just blackened their skins then let them sweat out in a ziploc bag. After they were cooled, I peeled the blackened skins off and took the seeds and stems out. I also sauteed 10 small white onions and six cloves of chopped garlic until the onions were soft and translucent. I drained the tomatillos of any excess water they let out while roasting and threw them, the roasted peppers, the onion and garlic mixture (both from our garden), three cups of chopped fresh cilantro (also from our garden) the juice of three limes, a half cup of white vinegar and some sea salt to taste into the blender.

Now, my favorite part-- canning! I washed and prepared lids for 10 pint jars and filled them almost to the top with my wonderfully green salsa. Then, after dipping in a water bath for 30 minutes, they sealed themselves closed on the kitchen counter while cooling off. Granted there were only 10 jars, but excitingly, my own tomatillo salsa sold out at the farmer's market in Dublin, OH. It's best on plain old tortilla chips, but I also found it very tasty as a tapanade for baked cod or salmon.

The 'Ol Moonshine Keg

So lately I've been into home brewing. I want to brew with my own, homegrown, hops next year, but this year, I will stick to the hopped malt syrups. Well, Younes and I bought a cheap-o plastic brewing kit at CVS the day after Christmas- everything was on sale. I'm brewing a belgian blanc in that 2 gallon keg. However, it's this 6 gallon keg pictured here that I want to bring to your attention.

This 6 gallon keg was in the basement at the farm for over 30 years. I remember, in highschool, going down to the basement and daring my friends to drink what I called, "moonshine." Nobody knew what was in the keg. It was a brownish color, smelled like some sort of alcohol and tasted gross. It was only last week that the keg was unearthed, dusted off, and drained. As I began to drain it I felt sad that 6 gallons of "liquid" were going to waste. I had to save some of it. What if it's aged and worth something now? What if it's some kind of amazing liquor that would go great with lamb?

Needless to say, I put a glass under the tap and saved some. It was truly murky. I looked at it. Remembered the days I willingly drank the stuff in highschool and took a sip. The best way to describe it was 50% rubbing alcohol and 50% tannin aftertaste. Ugh. There must be a better way to remember this keg and how it did its job for over 30 years with no complaints. So I cleaned and sanitized it and dressed it to the nines with a triple-hopped IPA. Let's see if this batch lasts as long as the 'ol moonshine.

Today I quit my job

I did- I quit my job today. For the last two years, I worked as the Director of the Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center. You'd think that today would be "My Day"- that people would want to know why I'm leaving, where I'm going, and what I will be doing in the future. Instead, today, I'm finding, is really about everyone else.

I say that because the minute the "shock heard around the world" here, people came to me to get the scoop. Then, after a few minutes of my describing my hatred towards DC and my love of a certain farm in Indiana and the energy I get from my family, it was on to them.

"That's not what happened to me when I gave my letter of resignation!" said a co-worker who resigned a few weeks ago and is counting his days until freedom. "I didn't get those nice emails like you did."

Another co-worker, who's been job searching for months, replied "Well, I'm not leaving DC, how should I phrase my resignation letter?" Or another co-worker, frustrated with DC folks said "I just don't feel like I fit in here. I think relationships in DC are so superficial." Yet another co-worker said, "I'm so jealous you had the balls to quit- I envy you." I had the final visitor-co-worker of the day standing in front of me in my office just now. "I'm thinking about moving on too... as soon as my business takes off and I get my finances in order, probably by the end of the year, I'm out of here. I've been here 6 years, I'm not going to stay until 10 or 11!"

Wow. It's so fascinating to see how one decision: moving away from big city life towards farm life with family opens up the flood gates for everyone to do some self-reflection! What's the point of living a certain life just to SAY you're living it? Why not make a decision that (although difficult, yes) will make your life more fulfilled? Instead of homeless people, and rude neighbors, why not surround yourself with people you love and people who love you? To me, this only makes sense- it is very clear. However, sometimes it takes seeing someone else take the plunge to get enough courage to do it yourself.

Hallo from Berlin: 12/10/2007

Hallo.

I am currently sick. despite all the vitamins, and the
airborne tablets I ATE straight up, my nose is all
broken out and I have a fever. I am in the hotel room
tonight while everyone else is out.

other than that I am having a good time. Berlin is a
very interesting place. It really hasn't made too much
progress since WWII. It is fascinating to see
destroyed buildings and massive reconstruction
projects going on everywhere. You would think that
after so many years, the place would be cleaned up by
now, but it isn't. Just as the residual landscape of
war is in your face in Berlin, so is the extreme
racism and an uncomfortably all-white, all-educated,
all-pretty public. We have met so many Germans who
have never met a Jew (who was alive) before. At the
same time, there are Holocaust memorials that groups
go to and I see them jumping on the memorial stones.
Luckily the monuments are sprayed with a protective
coating to save them from being destroyed by grafitti
or gum. Other memorials erected in the last 15 or so
years have in fact been destroyed by Berlin citizens.

As if the city hadn't housed enough hatred already, it
is divided- east from west, still today. This morning
we went to Checkpoint Charlie, where so many people
were killed as they attempted to cross over the Berlin
Wall into West Berlin. Although the wall is down now, there are rarely cross-overs---
meaning, never a person who dates a person from the
other side, therefore, if you were born on one side of
Berlin- you stay on that side. Even our tour guide,
who was born in West Berlin, barely knew the streets
or attractions of East Berlin.

East Berlin is where we are staying. It is the place
with the most Jewish "sites." I put "sites" in quotes
because the sites used to have Jewish significance but
were destroyed. So, really when you visit them, you
are visiting the LACK of a site. A void, loss is the
attraction to the place. There were places we visited
like the "missing house" which resembled a street of
connected row houses, and all of a sudden, a row house
was missing, as if it was skipped over. This house was
inhabited by Jews and destroyed in the 1930s and never
rebuilt. Also, empty lots which appear to be just
squares of grass, used to house synagogues, or Jewish
stores.

Sorry this is so long, I didn't think it actually
would be...There is so much more to tell. This is
really an eye-opening experience.

xoxox,
wendy

Halloween Night, an email from Wendy on 11/1/2000

Halloween 2000

It was like this:

3:00 am I hear banging noises. Where are they coming from? I put on my glasses to see the faint image of a girl's legs behind my mini-blinds.

Tip-toeing to the window above mine she keeps banging. "Nick, why are you doing this to me?" Crying she continues, "Why do you fuck me and then ignore me?!" A voice from inside the apartment right above me answers, "You're acting crazy, go home!" Sobbing she falls to the ground, her skirt fluttering in the cold wind. This episode repeats another 3 times and finally Nick says, "Don't you realize there are other people who live in this house?" "I don't care!"-she yells. "Well, I do because I live here!"- was the last I heard of the guy above me.

I waited for about 5 minutes, hearing her sob and repeating "why, why me?"

I could tell that she was tossing and turning about because the leaves were crunching every time she moved. I couldn't stand it. There was a reason I had to hear this. So, I got dressed and went out there. It was like a black and white photograph. She was sprawled out amongst the grass and leaves- still crying. I asked if she was "ok"- the only thing I could think of at the moment. Everything seemed to lose its color as I went outside. She had a white dress on and her face was painted white to match her costume. Dark eye makeup ran down her cheeks along with her tears.

The grass and fallen leaves seemed like a sea of black engulfing this little costumed creature.

She didn't want me to walk her home and she constantly said "sorry" for waking me up. I told her that it always seems 10 times worse at night and that she should go home, go to bed and it would be a little better in the morning. She replied, gasping for air, that it was always 10 times worse in the morning because you wake up and realize the person isn't there and they don't care about you. I was dumbfounded and hard up for words. I left her there and came back into the bright light of the hallway which now smelled like microwave popcorn.

Wendy

S2 to Swine Flu

I had, quite possibly, the worst bus ride of my life tonight. I got on the S2 by the Giant in Silver Spring around 10:00pm. Just after having yummy spaghetti and meatballs with my amazing chef-boyfriend. He walked me to the bus stop and after about a 5 minute wait, the bus came and I got on. As per usual, everyone was sitting one person to each two-person bench. So, I was forced to sit with someone and I could choose, virtually, anyone I wanted. I chose a skinny Ethiopian guy, and quickly sat down. No sooner did I open my book, the guy across the aisle from me started coughing. I'm not talking a "friendly" cough, or one that could be a tickle, or anything ordinary, but a full-blown, hacking/vomiting cough. I mean, I could hear his lungs rattling with mucus. Not only is he not covering his mouth, but rather, his arms are fully inside his striped polo shirt. The guy sitting in front of the coughing man, probably petrified by the media's recent swine flu craze, soon moved to the back of the bus. Now, the entire bench in front of him was empty. As the bus turned on Georgia and proceeded to Alaska Ave., his disgusting cough continued. At that very turn, we left Silver Spring and entered DC. A large Black man came forward from the back of the bus and yelled at this little Black coughing man. "Now we in DC! THIS is my fucking city- MY town! You best cover yo mouth! Cover yo mouth when you cough! We ain't in Montgom-ry county no more, no! not in Montgom-ry county!" The coughing man said, "ok, geez, ok."

It wasn't long before the coughing man couldn't resist, and had to cough again. At this point, I felt as if I needed to cough as well and was doing all I could to ignore the increasing tickle in my throat. The big guy who yelled, rang the bell for the next stop and as he was walking by, handed the coughing man a small bottle of hand sanitizer and said "use this, you better put this on man-- just PUT it on." then he got off.

As we got onto 16th street, the bus stopped and fresh blood got on. Folks who didn't realize that this guy was a wack-o, but thought "hey! It's my lucky day! Everyone is crammed into the other seats while there's this whole empty bench here!" and sat down in the dreaded seat in front of coughing man. Oh no, I thought, while I tried to focus more on my book and squelch the feeling of coughing or getting off at the next stop. Soon enough, he started hacking again. At first, the person in front of the coughing man would fidget a bit. The second cough would merit a full head turn from the person in front. The following coughs received more and more fidgeting, until finally, the person just couldn't stand it any more and went either to the very front of the bus, or the very back. It was ironic, but when a person would sit in the seat next to coughing dude, they actually lasted longer, it was if, even after all this awful coughing, they didn't want to offend him by switching seats! One innocent man, who didn't know what he was getting into, got on the bus and plopped down next to coughing man. After a few coughs, he started glaring at me, as if to say "How could you? How could you have let me sit down next to this?"

As we started getting into single-syllable street names, I looked over at coughing man and saw that he was rubbing the hand sanitizer all over his face, hands, and even lifting up the legs of his pants to put it on his ankles. I couldn't look anymore, I had to switch to survival mode: must focus on book, must get through this bus ride, must make it home.

Another round of new bus-riders got on and a young, well-dressed Black guy sits down next to you-know-who. He soon learns to put his back towards the coughing guy and quickly notices the bottle of hand sanitizer on the floor of the bus. He picks it up and puts it on my bag "Excuse me mam- is this yours?" in a polite way. I almost screamed at the sight of that bottle so close to me but oddly all I could do is shake my head back and forth several times. I was in shock.

Soon, there was no more energy left to focus, I had lost my wits, and had to escape. The bus stopped and two other people and I rushed off; I was walking as fast as I could, then running, to get away from the recently disembarked bus riders and the bus. All of a sudden I stopped, bent over at the waist, and now that I was alone on the sidewalk, coughed.

More than one brick make the best neighbors

I live on a one way street. The street is three lanes wide with cars parked on both sides... so I guess that makes five lanes. Thankfully, there are no bus stops on my street so there is no loitering or bus noise. My apartment is one floor of a row house which was built in the 1880s. On the north side of the house is an alley (where sadly many rapes have occurred) and on the south side of the house is another house! This means there are only windows on the east and west sides of the house.

The house that adjoins my house is undergoing construction and has been since June 2008. Before this time (and a whopping 60 years prior) an elderly Black woman occupied the house. The house is much, much bigger than my house. It has four floors each with 750 square feet. The woman told me all about how she lived in the house when Martin Luther King was murdered and many of the streets in this neighborhood were up in flames in protest and mourning. In May 2008, I began seeing miss-matched furniture on the sidewalk and realized the woman was slowly, slowly moving out. In June 2008, my new neighbors purchased the house and began gutting the place from floor to ceiling (four times).

Matt, my new neighbor, and his wife purchased the home for over a million dollars. Right after they closed on the house, the invited me in for a "before" tour. I saw gorgeous hardwood floors, deep enameled cast-iron tubs (with clawed feet), wonderfully worn farm kitchen sinks, and beautiful original door knobs and window hardware. Matt saw a dump with potential. He proceed to tell me he was going to take the smooth plaster off the walls to expose the brick, rip up the hard wood floors to pour polished concrete, and split this rare-in-DC one family home into three units. My heart sank. First, because I could literally feel the house crying and second, I knew I was going to be the recipient of a lot of construction noise and dust for the second year of my two year lease.

Last week when I came home from a run, Matt invited me back into the house. The first two floor are being transformed into two one-bedroom units. The third and fourth floors are slated to become a two-bedroom unit for Matt and his wife. Strangely enough, I didn't feel sad when I went into the house this time; it wasn't a house, it was a shell. It smelled like sawdust and nails (yes, nails have a smell). Matt showed me around and told me all about the solar panels, energy efficient appliances, dual-head shower, foot-pedal sinks, and finally pointed out the obvious- the exposed brick walls.

I came back to my modest little apartment, jumped in the shower, and I had this strange claustrophobic feeling- my neighbors were now only one brick away.

McPherson Square: suicide, Homeless, seagulls, and Georgia Browns

About two weeks ago, a Metro bus driver apparently committed suicide by falling on the tracks at the McPherson square station. That station is an orange and blue line station. This incident really made me think about how selfish that type of suicide is: all those innocent people were forced to watch, the Metro was delayed for hours, the train was damaged, and the driver of the train and the passengers now have to live with that suicide for the rest of their lives.

But the incident also got me thinking about McPherson square. Why did the bus driver choose that particular station? Was it an orange or a blue line train?

McPherson Square is right on 15th and K Streets in Northwest DC. It is a small "park." On a sunny day, you'll find loads of seagulls. Why so far from the water you ask? Well, sitting on every single bench you'll see a homeless person. These homeless are primarily African-American men. Homeless people crowd around McPherson Square for a couple of reasons. First, several soup kitchens and other agencies bring food to them in the square daily. Second, like I said earlier, the park is right on K Street. K Street, home to many prominent lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, is probably the second most famous street in Washington outside Pennsylvania Avenue. Heck, K Street even had a short-lived HBO series named after it! I think the homeless flourish around this area on a steady stream of leftover power lunches, spare change, and bummed cigarettes.

Although most of the people eating at McPherson square do so in Styrofoam containers from food banks, strangely enough, one of the only gourmet Southern soul-food restaurants in the country, Georgia Brown's, is right across 15th street- spitting distance of McPherson square. As some of Washington's most affluent leave their jobs at 6:00 on K Street and head to Georgia Brown's, they cannot help but see close to 50 homeless and countless seagulls in this park on a sunny day.

McPherson square was named after James Birdseye McPherson- a Union-man in the Civil War. As if McPherson's middle name "Birdseye" wasn't prophetic enough for our lovely park in downtown DC- this noble Major General was killed in the Battle of Atlanta, umm, GEORGIA!

I guess this leads me back to the suicide. I later found out it was a blue line train. What's the connection you ask? Union uniforms were in fact blue, but maybe the bus driver, noticed how this city is polarized- just like this country was split in two during the Civil War. McPherson Square, as a microcosm of Washington, is slowly killing itself by sustaining the richest, most powerful people in the world while at the same time, allowing the rest of us to live on the scraps.

This stupid "green" movement

I'm getting angry. Well, scratch that, I'm beyond angry. So many individuals claim to be "green" and are "aware" of the environment that we all are forced to share.

In fact, I was just on a blog this morning called "Life Less Plastic" where folks were talking about buying a bread machine instead of buying store bread in those yucky plastic bags. First off, what is a bread machine made out of? Secondly, this may come as a news flash to some, you can actually make your own bread with out a "machine" and without any kind of bread kits! I know, it's crazy, but I have a metal 9" loaf pan that I received after my grandparents died (it was given to them on the occasion of their wedding in the 30s). Get this, when I put dough in it, and then put the whole thing in the oven (which I can use for countless other recipes), bread comes out!

Whole Foods, and now Walmart, have manufactured millions of reusable shopping bags. Why does there have to be a gimmic for people to simply just reuse what they have? Why do we need a special bag? Doesn't everyone already have a backpack at home? Really? Do we really need these stupid shopping bags with "Safeway," "Walmart," and "Whole Foods" written on the sides? You think you look "green" while walking down the street holding those dumb bags? Let's set the record straight- you bought, yet another, plastic bag. Only now, you're part of a marketing scheme.

Being resourceful is a way of life you cannot simply start living one day. It takes training; or in my case, spending the first 30 years of my life with minimal resources. When you don't have money to buy the bread maker or the new colorful reusable shopping bag, you make do with what you already have: a loaf pan and a backpack. Strangely enough, they seem to work just fine, and guess what? this color of green is much brighter to boot!