DC Adventure Ho!

At the start of 2009, I wrote about my DC wishlist, all the restaurants I want to try in the city. In six months, I've knocked exactly six measly places off said list. To be fair, if I'd checked out all of these places in six months, I'd be subsisting solely on Easy Mac & cans of beans. This week, though, as I read through the newly discovered DC Concierge blog, I'm reminded just how many things I want to do & see in the District that I've not yet gotten around to because I am either A) too tired/lazy, B) too broke or C) unable to convince others to join in the fun.

So I've been compiling a mental list & have come up with the following:

• Listen to jazz in the Sculpture Garden, even though I'm not actually a big fan of jazz (just seems like something I should try)
  
• Return to Artomatic to explore more than two of its nine floors of creative genius
• Kayak on the Potomac, even though I'm wildly afraid of water
• Go paddle-boating in the Tidal Basin, even though I'm still wildly afraid of water
• Picnic in Rock Creek Park because I'm obsessed with picnicking but never do it (OK, except when I organized one last month!)
• Check out a free performance on the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, which I rarely want to go to because it feels far away but really want to go to because the shows are free, cultural & every single weeknight
  
• Attend a show at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre's Pay-What-You-Can Night
• Sit under the stars at the Rock Creek Park planetarium, though I will probably cry because sometimes stars do that to me (& now that I've admitted that, no one will ever agree to join me on this one!)
• Go inside the Washington Monument, which I haven't done since I was a kid, though this requires the dreaded early-morning wake-up
• Shop at Eastern Market, where I have shamefully never been & which also requires an early-morning wake-up
  
• Get inspired at a Busboys & Poets open mic night, though it will probably inspire me to attempt to be artsy, which is not usually a successful endeavor
  
• Go on an embassy tour, despite reports that they're a tourism frenzy

Seriously, it's time to start being a little more adventurous. No more Big Hunt & Paragon Thai. Now accepting suggestions for additional activities to add to the list - & friends with whom to do any & all of them! I promise to stop being tired/lazy, though I can't make any promises to stop being broke.

Blog Carnival: Most Miserable Morning Ever

This post is a part of 20SB’s Looking Back Blog Carnival, and Ben & Jerry’s is awarding free ice cream to lucky bloggers and readers! More info on the Blog Carnival is here, but the gist this time is that participating bloggers re-post an entry from their first two months of blogging - one that captures their blogging mentality at the time. Since the August 2007 inception of Suburban Sweetheart, I truly don't think my "mentality" has changed much - if anything, I've become less adept at surrpetitious Metro photography & as a result post fewer photographs of pitiful strangers.

But one major thing has changed: I live in the District now. I began this blog because I was living out in Silver Spring, MD, traveling an hour to work & encountering a series of bizarre experiences along the way: Memorable incidents include the time I thought my car was stolen and the time I was threatened with death. But I think this one, written only a few weeks into my post-Ohio life, really captures the full extent of my transportation misery. Enjoy.

_____________________________________________

Most Miserable Morning Ever

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

7:43 a.m. --- I leave my house to drive to the bus station to catch the 7:51 bus.

7:47ish a.m. --- I double-check with a woman who's also waiting: "Does this bus go to Glenmont?" She tells me it does... so I wait.

7:51 a.m. --- The bus going the other direction has come & gone (with Directional Woman on board). I sit alone at the station with an Ethiopian woman dressed in a parking attendant uniform. No bus.

7:52 a.m. --- The garbage truck passes by, emitting a smell so nauseating that Ethiopian Attendant & I gag in tandem.

7:55 a.m. --- A white poodle pees on the side of the busstop sign in front of us. "Wow, we sure do have a great spot here," I joke. Ethiopian Attendant laughs. We strike up a conversation about the woes of public transportation. We have both been in D.C. for fewer than two weeks.

8:00 a.m. --- Still no bus.

8:05 a.m. --- Still no bus.

8:06 a.m. --- "I'm going to drive to the Metro station," I tell Ethiopian Attendant. Somewhat trepidatiously, I offer, "Do you want a ride?" She accepts, & we walk to my car as I think to myself, "Shit. I am about to be mugged & left for dead by a middle-aged immigrant woman wearing Velcro shoes."

8:15 a.m. --- I confide in Ethiopian Attendant (real name: Ganette) that I'm afraid someday I'll drive to the station only to find myself parking-spotless. And whaddaya know? The lot is, you guessed it, full.

8:16 a.m. --- Graciously, I drop Ganette off on the 5th floor of the parking structure so that she can catch a train. "Drive carefully," she tells me. "And thank you so much. Have a good day!" I mentally pat myself on the back: If I'm going to pick up a stranger, at least I chose one with good manners.

8:17 a.m. --- Panic sets in. No parking. I have, essentially, driven to the Metro station for the sole purpose of dropping off a stranger at the train station. I decide that karma probably owes me one.

8:18 a.m. --- I leave my mother a frantic voicemail, as though she can help me from Ohio. I ask two Metro policemen for directions, then promptly burst into tears. "Drive to Wheaton," one tells me."There are always spots there." His directions to Wheaton suck. I keep crying.

8:19 a.m. --- In succession, I leave voicemails for Becca & Jessie telling them I'll be late to work. In a last-ditch effort, I also call Ben, who answers... & I start crying again. I promptly feel like a toolbag, despite his niceness.

8:22 a.m. --- I am supposed to be at work in half an hour. My commute takes approximately 45. After making a couple more laps around the parking structure, I do the natural thing... and head home.

8:31 a.m. --- I arrive back at my original bus stop, where I've chosen to park my car & wait for the next bus. I realize that the 7:51 bus I'd been waiting for was actually scheduled to arrive at 8:08 - exactly two minutes after I hopped in my car to drive to Glenmont. I remind myself to look at the "Monday - Friday" schedule from now on, & not the "Sunday" schedule. But if I ever need a 7:51 a.m. ride to Glenmont on a Sunday, I now know such transportation exists.

8:36 a.m. --- Bus arrives, thankthefreakinglord.

8:45ish a.m. --- I finally (& angrily) board my em-effing train.

9:00 a.m. --- I am supposed to be at work. Instead, I'm somewhere near Takoma, listening to Eminem's "Slim Shady" on my iPod.

9:30 a.m. --- I arrive at the Dupont station.

9:33 a.m. --- I walk into my place of employment.

9:34 a.m. --- I reach into my purse & am struck by its emptiness. Astonished (& pissed), I realize why: My lunch is missing. Who the hell loses canned tuna & a butterscotch pudding? And more importantly - how??? I begin to wonder whether Ganette stole my home-packed meal.

______________________

____CUT TO EVENING____

______________________

9:07 p.m. --- After bowling & dinner with my coworkers, I board the redline Metro toward home.

9:50 p.m. --- And after an excruciating ride that forced me to listen to a fellow Ohioan (& recent D.C. transplant) tell his former Miami University frat brother about his swanky new job as a legislative assistant (whateverrrr), I arrive at my stop & literally sprint to the busstop upstairs, only to find that tonight's bus did, in fact, depart on time - at 9:47, a whopping three minutes ago.

9:51 p.m. --- I spend $12 to take a taxicab to my car, still parked five-ish miles away at this morning's busstop.

10:03 p.m. --- My canned tuna, butterscotch pudding & Capri Sun are sitting on the passenger's seat of my car, where they have apparently been all day. After all this, I am oddly comforted to realize that my hitchhiker didn't rob me of lunch.

On-The-Go Beauty

I guess sometimes you just don't have time to trim your beard before leaving the house.



Do yo' thang, my friend.

Fear Factor II: They're Baaaaaack!

OH, SWEET JESUS, THERE ARE MORE OF THEM.



This one was dead. But where there are dead ones, there are surely more live ones...

Cue hyperventilation.

"It's Like Riding a Bike."

A teaser: This post will include A) one of the least attractive photos of me ever taken, and B) one of my most shameful stories to date.

I want a bike. In fact, I want a bike so badly that I check Craigslist at least four times a week in the hopes that someone will be selling one within my price range. No dice.

One of my friends (the one I discovered The Cookie Diet with) is in St. Louis for the weekend. In her absence, I was granted temporary possession of her bicycle, which was locked up at our office. Yesterday, as I headed out to dinner at Cafe Luna for a girls' night (refer back to yesterday's post about my favorite typo ever), I realized I had the blessed option of riding "my" bike there. Enthusiasm abounded.

I walked it to dinner because a friend joined me for the trek, but I was beyond jazzed about the prospect of riding home afterward. Unsurprisingly, a few factors quickly brought my usual nerves to full attention:

• A sideways-raining thunderstorm queued up halfway through dinner, soaking the city.
• I was reminded that there are no bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue, greatly increasing my chances of being mowed down by a vehicle.

Needless to say, I began to think of all the many ways I could die a painful bike-related death on the two-mile ride home:


Post-meal, my about-to-bike-ride situation went down as follows, as a crowd of guys looked on in disdain & my friends laughed at, not with, me:

• I could not get the bike unlocked.
• Once unlocked, I could not figure out what to do with the lock while I rode.
• Once we realized there was a lock-holder, we struggled to get the lock into it, & I ultimately threw it in my purse.
• As I tried to hop on, I discovered the seat was so high that I couldn't keep my balance.
• I struggled to readjust the seat, deferring to my friend Jill, who handy(wo)manned it into a manageable height.
• Once on the bike, I could not get my feet in the pedal straps, resulting in much unsteadiness.
  
• Once I really made it on, I promptly tumbled onto a parked Vespa & damaged whatever dignity I'd held onto.
• And once I actually made it on & got moving, I was too scared to ride in the road, thus pissing off people on the sidewalks.

Three blocks in, I bailed, walking the bike back to work & hopping on the Metro. Needless to say, that old cliche is wildly false. I am 24 years old. And I can no longer ride a bike.

I Prefer My Lettuce Be Gender-Neutral

Metro Outage Phenomenon: Urban Hitchhiking!

The damage caused by yesterday's Metro accident carried over into this morning, when WMATA.com told me there were delays on all lines of all colors. Intent on finding another way to work, I left my place circa 9:45 a.m. just in time to miss a bus.

No big deal because apparently the bus refused to pick up the would-be passengers waiting at my stop, anyway! The folks waiting were livid - apparently at least two buses had already made their way by without letting them on, each claiming, "There's a bus behind me!" A few more passed before two of my fellow trying-to-be-travelers did the unthinkable - they stuck their thumbs out to solicit rides from passersby in vehicles.

To my surprise, a few folks stopped to ask where we were headed, apologizing when they weren't going our way. Finally, a friendly guy flying solo said he could take us as far as Dupont. Four of us piled in, one toting a suitcase, & off we went down Connecticut Avenue.

I tried to ignore the fact that our Good Samaritan chauffeur bore a strikingly strong resemblance to Sylar, the brain-slicing villain from "Heroes," & instead focus on what good karma this dude was packing. I just kept thinking, "Hey, we could take him if we needed to" & thinking what my mom would say once I told her about this newest adventure.

Proof of my urban hitchhiking experience lives in this photo, surreptitiously snapped from my spot in the back seat. Please ignore the shadow of my finger; it's tough to be sly when you're riding bitch.

DC's Public Transportation Nightmare

In case you haven't turned on a television, listened to a radio or used a computer in the past two & a half hours, today's big news is this: The Metro crashed.

Two train cars on the redline (the line I live on), collided head-to-rear around the start of rush hour between Fort Totten & Takoma Park when one train slammed into a stopped train ahead of it. A 7:15 press conference by Mayor drian Fenty, DC Fire Chief Dennis Rubin & Metro General Manager John Catoe confirmed that at least four people are dead, including the driver of the latter train, & as many as 100 are injured, some critically. It's being reported as the deadliest Metro crash in history - & the fire department has indicated that it suspects the body count will rise.


After hearing the news, I raced home as well as one can "race" when taking a bus with what felt like the rest of the city (travel is mighty tight when there's no way to get home), & turned on the TV to discover that the photos & videos are much, much worse than I ever could have imagined. With one train literally sitting atop the other in a heap of twisted metal, it's like a scene ripped from "Die Hard."

If anything is fortunate about this situation, the only thing I can come up with is that it happened on one of the few stretches of the redline that's outside rather than underground. If anything is a blessing in such a tragedy, it's that 12 train cars full of wounded & shocked Metro riders weren't also trapped in underground tunnels, though my sometimes-clausterphobic self shudders in empathy for the folks on the otherwise-unaffected trains that are probably still stopped underground in wait as a result of the accident.


I first heard about it from one of our interns, & the from there, the "Are you OK?"s quickly started rolling in. My journalism friends from home, ever the diligent news readers, checked in on me one by one via frantic texts peppered with nervous exclamation points. Then my Twitter feed exploded, blogger friends checking in on one another's safety via "Where are you?" tweets. News stories began to expand, blog posts began to emerge, & I, for one, have successfully tracked down all but a couple of my DC friends to confirm their safety (fingers crossed for the others, please). Watching the press conference, I was struck by the enormity of my living in a city where something like this can happen.

After today's scare, I can promise you this: I will always, always check in via Twitter. If something goes down & you don't find me there, then you can start to worry. The only other good thing I can find in this disaster? Technology is, indeed, grand.

Father's Day Without a Father

My dad was 6' tall & lean, bald with a mustache, a loud laugh & an endless arsenal of bad jokes. He was an aspiring businessman who dropped out of college to support his family & went on to become a star salesman of, I kid you not, golf carts, genuinely charming & befriending everyone he met along the way. And while every little girl thinks her daddy is the most lovable man in the world, I, even now, still truly believe there was no one who met my dad that didn't like him. He worked a lot, but when I was little & an aspiring ballerina, he almost always made time to pick me up from my dance classes, usually stopping along the way at Swenson's, Northeast Ohio's most popular drive-in. He'd get a burger & I'd get a grilled cheese sandwich, & we'd both get sundaes before making our way home.

This past Friday was the 14th anniversary of my dad's death. He'd fought lung cancer for two years, & at age 10, I'd naively thought he was on the road to recovery. I visited him in the hospital on Father's Day 1995, where I made him an ice cream sundae with hot fudge at the sundae bar that the hospital had appropriately set up for the holiday, then I left to go to the lake with friends. The next day, I arrived home early from a sleepover to find my grandma & aunt on our back porch comforting my mother. The summer before I began sixth grade, my father was dead.

I am 24 years old now, & I've given three eulogies; I was recently shocked to learn that one of my bosses, a rabbi, is in his early 30s & has never even given one. The first of my three was for my 45-year-old father, written in rhyming poem form & recited outside on a sunny day in front of family & friends whose attendance I cannot remember. I only remember the other eulogies - one from my uncle, who talked of his friendship with my dad in terms of Sylvester Stallone films, & the other from my mom's best friend's husband, who talked about my dad's firm, memorable handshake. To this day, I strive to make the positive, warm first impression with my handshake that I learned at his funeral that my dad made with his.

There were, of course, times when I was bitter. How can you lose your father at 10 & not be? But it's been 14 years, & I've now been without him longer than I was with him. There have been times when I've even felt lucky to have been the first of my friends to lose a parent - times when I have been able to use my experience to comfort friends as they go through the loss of theirs, when I have wished desperately that they wouldn't have to suffer through what my mom & I did. I think of my dad often, but rarely with too much sadness anymore. Instead, I remember him fondly when I eat Oreos or watch the Indy 500, when I say I hate tomatoes & when I see a Mini Cooper. Of course, I wonder what life would be like had I grown up with him - but then I remember to be thankful for the many, many blessings that have come my way that would not have if he had been present. His headstone now reads "ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS," which he was; lucky for my mom & me, he surrounded himself with good guys, too.

My dad's two best friends are brothers. When he died, they together stepped in to take care of my mom & me the only way they knew how, inviting us to every family reunion, every holiday celebration & every birthday party, adopting us as their own. When I speak about them now, I refer to them as my family - without caveats, unless absolutely necessary. I begged my mom to drive me to the hospital to visit my grandfather before he died of leukemia my sophomore year, & I drove home from college to see my grandmother in hospice care before she did. The first time I every truly cried tears of joy was when I learned that my younger cousin would be receiving his liver transplant, & the first person I called in hysterics when I received my first speeding ticket was my older cousin. They sat with me in the hospital after my back surgery & attended both my high school & college graduation ceremonies. Recently, a little down after spending time with friends & their siblings, I texted my cousin Eric, also an only child, to tell him that the time with them had made me wonder what life would be like with a brother or sister, & that it had made me miss him; he responded immediately to tell me that he loved & missed me. Without blood relation but without explanation or attribution, they are my family. "My dad's side of the family."

Maybe it would not have been this way had my dad been alive. But who can say? The reality is that he is not - but they are. And I am so lucky to have them, both of his best friends & their entire family - my entire family.

So-called "family values" activists claim that children cannot grow up to be happy & healthy unless they have both parents. They say this in reference to same-sex headed families & to parents who divorce, but what message does that send to children like me, the product of single mothers who never intended to be sans husband? I buck at insinuations that children without fathers are doomed to lives of dysfunction & disorder, because I know better. I am both happy & healthy, both normal & responsible - all without a father. I know this is not the case of all children like me, or those of other fatherless circumstances, but as a result of my experiences, I truly believe that the kind of adults that fatherless children grow up to become is not based upon the title of those present in their lives but the love of those present. I may have grown up without a father, but thanks to his two best friends, I never grew up without the love & discipline I needed from father-like figures.

As I once wrote in a column for my college newspaper (albeit about same-sex headed families, but the sentiment still stands), "Family is composed of the people who care for you the most, who look out for your best interests. That's why so many of us call family friends 'aunt' or 'uncle,' and why so many people don't differentiate between step-relatives and blood relatives. Your family members are the people who love you the most."

This Father's Day, I urge you to think beyond just your father, if you have one. Who are the men that have shaped your life? Don't forget to tell them you love them, too.

Happy Father's Day, Larry & Lanny. Thank you.

My Swine Flu Scare

OK, this title is sort of a lie. I don't think I have swine flu. Really. Even though it'd be great to have & survive swine flu & then join some sort of "I Survived Swine Flu 2009" group on Facebook, the truth is that I am sans swine flu, as far as I know, & that's just fine with me.

I am, however, currently fairly ill, although my level & type of illness are yet to be determined, as I slept for hours upon hours this afternoon but then felt OK enough to go to dinner with my grandma & three of my best friends this evening. Basically, I have a sore throat somethin' awful, so badly that I feel like a circus fire-eater on work-related disability. My grandma, who is not a particularly "grandmotherly" grandmother, made me a breakfast of fruit salad & a bagel this morning, which I promptly vomited up in a coughing fit (TMI? So sorry), then demanded that I stay home today rather than our venturing to Artomatic together. She also scored me cough drops & Dayquil, then later went back out for cough syrup, rendering her bff with the CVS pharmacist.

I learned today, though, that I've recently been exposed to someone who has Influenza A. And I know, you're all like, "There's a pandemic, who hasn't been?" but being sick with something else amidst a pandemic is sort of nerve-wracking. All day, I just kept thinking, "I'VE GOT IT," knowing that what I have is 99.9% likely not swine flu but worrying all the same. In a city where everyone's touching the same handrails & sitting on the same Metro seats, it sure does seem like a pandemic could spread mighty quickly. I think I've got something else, but still - who ever imagined I'd be thankful to have bronchitis/strep/the bubonic plague?

If I die, someone carry on this blog for me, will ya?