Potpourri

Random things that are rattling around in my brain and photo library

A new year is supposed to give you fresh energy to form new habits and experience new things. But I don’t do resolutions or predictions, and I’m certainly not going to come up with a list of what’s in and what’s out. Plus it’s been cold and gray so I’m not exactly motivated to get out there and live my best life. I have been tidying up, however, and while my house and my brain are not really a mess, I do have some work to do here on Substack. I have more than a dozen posts started but am lacking in inspiration to get them finished and on their way to your in box. Some day I’ll tell you about my visit to the U.S. Botanic Garden, the revamped Folger Shakespeare Library, and the museum at the U.S. Department of the Interior. But to quote Arya Stark from Game of Thrones, “not today.”

So let’s do easy things first. I have more than 4,000 photos on my phone and it’s time to do some Swedish death cleaning so I have space for other things (like apps for every single damn airline).

Yard signs

The neighbors continue to play a strong yard sign game. I’ve even started to see some signs for the mayoral and council races that will surely proliferate in the weeks leading up to the primary in June.

Traffic signs

Some smarty pants has been hard at work.

Animals in Santa hats

Once you’ve seen a flamingo and an octopus dressed up for Christmas, it is maybe less bothersome that penguins (who famously live at the South Pole) are decked out as Santa’s helpers. Don’t get me started on dinosaurs — there are a lot of them. Also what’s with the 12 foot Halloween skeletons in full Kris Kringle attire? I guess when you’ve made that big of an investment, you’ve got to make it pay off.

Hat tip to my sister-in-law Barbara in Kansas City for sharing the octopus photo.

Urban renewal

Small houses on small lots are being knocked down to be replaced by 6 bedroom McMansions. The bungalow on the top left below, built in the 1920s, is a mere 764 square foot with 2 bedrooms and one bath. Guessing that there are lots more baths and closets in the house on the right that replaces it. The soon to be finished house at the bottom right is listed with 7 beds and 7 baths for a cool $3.25 million. The cute house previously on the lot (bottom left) had 3 beds and 2 baths.

Utilities hidden in plain sight

It’s a fact of modern life that the things that make our day-to-day routines comfortable are not always pretty. Consider for example, this geegaw operated by Washington Gas placed in the tree box of a residential street.

Points for the solar panel but otherwise, no thanks. Where were the industrial designers when this apparatus was conceived?

Thankfully, some utilities are doing a better job of concealing the otherwise ugly machinery necessary to transmitting and connecting us to the juice that makes our lives go. Pepco (formerly the Potomac Electric Power Company but now formally going by its abbreviation) has concealed several electric substations in my neck of the woods as typical red brick colonial residences.

Back next week with more coherent thoughts.