Genious. PBR Popovers baked in the can!
It was the perfect fall weekend. Golden light, sunshine and crisp mornings meant for sipping hot beverages and talking leisurely strolls. Glorious.
Soon schedules will fill up with invitations and obligations both fun and dreaded. This weekend was a chance to pause a bit and enjoy this all too brief season.
How did you all spend your weekends?
Kate: We enjoyed a really mellow Saturday at home on Sunday, topped off with take-out from CH Tandoor & Grill. On Sunday, savoring a good night of baby sleep, we made it to church at St Marks and then Ava had her first Eastern Market visit to pick up some chorizo at Canales. All weekend we talked about going to the new park at the Yards, but we still haven’t made it over. Next weekend!
Sharee: Met lots of great people who absolutely love their block when I went to the Duncan Place, NE block clean up day on Saturday to introduce myself and talk with people about my ANC 6A05 campaign. Saturday night we hosted supper club with friends from the neighborhood (theme ingredient: The Apple). Sunday started with a trip to Frager’s to pick up tennis balls and then a hard fought match between me and the hubby at the Randall Rec Center. And, of course, if its Sunday, its the Cowboys at The Argonaut.
Jon: We had a birthday dinner on Friday night at Matchbox on 8th Street for my daughter. Her third birthday was marked by three sliders and an inhaled piece of chocolate cake. Saturday we had the actual party for the birthday, celebrating with family at home in the afternoon. I managed to take my folks to the Yards Park and the new Arena Stage earlier in the day to show them the progress on the waterfront. Sunday started with church, bagels from Bagels & Baguettes, then a trip to Eastern Market; it was a low-key day to recoup from all the celebrating and playing tour guide.
Tim: Great weekend away with my extended family in the Shenandoah Valley. Had fun with them and look forward to meeting two new nephews in a few months. Came back to DC and scored an Honorable Mention at the PBR potluck contest at Hill’s Kitchen.
Claudia: My weekend centered around food (shocker), starting with a roast at Poste Modern Brasserie (first time I’ve had goat — delicious), followed by brunch at Eatonville on Saturday where I tried a beermosa for the first time. Sunday I went to Restaurant 3’s Bacon Week brunch (one of the best bacon Bloody Mary’s I’ve had so far), and then went to the PBR potluck and cookoff at Hill’s Kitchen. I don’t think I need to eat for the rest of the week now…
Nichole: This weekend was a bit of a mixed bag. On the plus side, there was the announcement of the winner of the design competition of the new District Architecture Center at Contemporaria in Georgetown, Art4Art benefiting Theatre Alliance at the amazing outdoor space of Gallery O on H on Saturday and the PBR potluck contest at Hill’s Kitchen on Sunday. On the negative side, there was some Grade A Assholery from my neighbors on 10th Street NE that included leaving a full bottle of dripping Round Up on our patio which the dogs discovered, dumping their trash in our tree boxes, and them helping themselves to our power via an extension cord we run out of my window (classy, I know) – all without asking – and then expecting us to thank them because they cleaned our treeboxes during a clean-up day (to which we were neither invited nor made aware). I really don’t like feuding with neighbors, and thankfully the good ones outweigh the bad. While it was nice of them to clean up our treeboxes, unfortunately the bad outweighed the good on that one. But, I’d say the weekend ended firmly in the “win” column with the fun times outnumbering the BS.
Maria: Low-key weekend, kicked off with some fancy drinks at Wisdom. Much cleaning, fussing, gardening, cooking and relaxing was accomplished, as well as squeezing in time to go see the newest Bruce Willis movie. Life can be good.
Liz: Hmm. With husband in California for a funeral (RIP U.F.) e, I got a babysitter, went for a bike ride, bought a house plant, cooked, cleaned, and Sunday, with husband back, made rounds at Eastern Market, empanada stand, Frager’s, open houses of homeowners far more creative than I am with decor–there are alway more surprises on the Hill–and finished off the daylight by making S’mores with husband the kids and some neighbors in the backyard, and am now bracing for an extremely busy week.
Jen: Spent a reasonably quiet weekend centered entirely the Hill. Friday night showed the boys Field of Dream and ate pizza from the Bistro Italiano…(I’m saying it’s the best pizza you can get delivered on the Hill.) Saturday I went to Bikram Yoga and “enjoyed” sweating out the week’s tensions then watched my 7 year old’s little league team lose a tough game, poor kids. Saturday night we had dinner with neighbors decided there was so much food leftover we then had them over Sunday for brunch. Sunday night I headed over to Hill’s Kitchen for the PBR potluck with my veggie-PBR strata creation. I had to leave for a meeting and so missed out on trying any of the entries including my own. So my dinner last night was a PBR cupcake and a PBR. Don’t tell my kids.
Hmmm, soo several of us entered the PBR cook off….what do you think that says about us? Food obsessed? Weirdly competitive? I think we could do a cook off of our own…what do you all think?
I encourage all readers to see how nice 10th Street looks after the neighborhood cleanup this weekend. It’s too bad Nicole wasn’t appreciative of our efforts. We apologized for the Round Up and moved the bags. But she still went to great lengths to call in her “friends,” including our ANC commissioner. She threatened to call the cops and take it to the city council because we made our street beautiful! If she truly loved the Hill, she’d take a minute, get off her butt, put her 40 oz cans aside, and clean her own front yard. 10th and Constitution is a pig sty because of her and her roomys. And, it’s a lie to say she doesn’t like to feud with neighbors – she’s famous for it. I will no longer read this post because she is affiliated with it. She’s an embarassment to our community.
The more cookoffs the better!
Good Neighbor, how do you expect her to participate in the cleanup if she wasn’t invited?
I didn’t expect her to participate. We just didn’t need her grief while we were sweating to clean up the street. If she didn’t receive the flyer, I will mention something to the 90 year old man who delivered them.
Good Neighbor on 10th: you will recall that I was actually the one who decided to talk our landlord down from calling the police. I consulted the ANC commissioner because the tree box being built was too close to the curb and would make it difficult for people to open their car doors. No one mentioned the city council.
It’s hilarious that you’re going to hide behind “making our street beautiful” as a defense. As I and another tenant in my building explained: had we been asked/informed – we would have happily participated in the clean up, but as it was, my neighbor came home to someone on our patio trying to use our electricity, and when I let our dogs out, they discovered the Round Up. Not to mention the bags of trash in our treebox, which were only removed when the landlord spoke to the neighbors.
As has been mentioned several times in this blog, the grass in our tree boxes is unkempt. However, it’s not out of line with several of the other tree boxes on Constitution. To that end, we’ve decided to cover it in plastic to kill it, because dirt requires less maintenance.
Finally, as for feuding with neighbors – I can’t think of any time that I’ve had interactions with most the 10th street people, beyond a casual hello.
No one is faulting you for cleaning the street, but there are ways to handle things. All that you had to do was ask and not only would we have gladly allowed you to use our electricity, put the trash in our treeboxes, and store your chemicals in a safe place on our patio, we would have participated. But unfortunately, it seems that simply ringing our doorbell – which none of you has ever done in the 10 years that I’ve lived here- was too difficult a task.
I really liked Nichole’s comment, “However, it’s not out of line with several of the other tree boxes on Constitution.” I read that as, “Since other people are lazy and don’t care, I guess I’ll be lazy and not care too.” Maybe if you took care of your property it would encourage others to do the same. Also, “dirt and plastic” sounds like a great addition to our Capitol Hill streets – I can’t wait to see your handy work.
Good Neighbors: the tenants on 3 and I would be interested in having a reasonable discussion with all of you. We actually didn’t realize until this weekend how many issues with us you seem to have. While we regret that things have gotten so far and that for whatever reason you have never felt comfortable speaking to us, we’d like to put that behind us as well as move forward to have a more productive relationship with all of you since none of us is going anywhere.
Please email me at nicholethehillishome at gmail dot com if you’d like to have this conversation with us. Thanks!
Wow, I am glad people are reading Circle Time.. . I had better go tend my tree box, now! I would never tend the treebox on that corner, though, for safety issues–the traffic there would sweep one off her feet.. .If someone knows they can’t tend a treebox, he or she should do the responsible thing, like Nichole, and make it hassle-free, or end up with bedraggled zinnia and overgrown thronbushes. Also, any large planting there would impair traffic visibility on an already dangerous intersection. Remember, nothing over 18 inches — DDOT regulations! Maybe the owner of the building can help pitch in… I feel safer walking that way when Nichole and Ramona are home!
I can’t speak for the others, but I have no desire to sit down and talk about this. You were the one that took this fight public – calling us assholes (when such language isn’t tolerated on this “family friendly” forum) and berating us through twitter. We were simply defending ourselves and letting the public know there was another side to you. We’re moving on…
You know what is amusing: when you click on “Good Neighbor on 10th” above, ti sends you to this Yahoo link:
http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/sesame-street-teaches-self-esteem-22512445
Nichole: the neighbors are accurate in calling you out for “taking the fight public.” Though my take on your original post still is that you probably weren’t trying to stir things up to this extent, I can still how the neighbors could have taken these things personally.
Neighbors: while I think your point about the public aspect of this discussion is accurate, I think you both are making some pretty harsh statements that are backed by pretty lame arguments.
“If she didn’t receive the flyer, I will mention something to the 90 year old man who delivered them.” That might be pouring it on a little thick. Why not just say “I’m not sure why you didn’t receive the flyer.” Did we need to include the 90 year old man who has nothing at all to do with this discussion?
“And, it’s a lie to say she doesn’t like to feud with neighbors – she’s famous for it.” Kind of reminds me of a certain “people are saying …” Additionally, it’s just rude and is a pretty inflammatory statement to make for someone who is a “good neighbor.”
“I will no longer read this post because she is affiliated with it. She’s an embarassment to our community.” That’s just a pretty wack statement there. I would be the embarrassed one for going on a public blog under the guise of being a “good neighbor” and then throwing insults around. Do you know Nichole personally? Do you know her well enough to claim that she’s an embarrassment to the community? Because that’s a hefty insult to lodge based on the fact that she was upset over things that seem like perfectly legitimate things to be upset about. Again, not saying it was a good thing to have this discussion on a public website, but that really doesn’t negate the fact that you all did some pretty irresponsible things.
“We just didn’t need her grief while we were sweating to clean up the street.” Now it sounds to me as if you actually did know she wasn’t notified about the clean-up activity despite the fact that your next sentence alludes to the fact that you had no idea and would let the poor, meager, old man who probably didn’t even have shoes and was probably also blind and walking on a cane know that he left Nichole out. How dare he!? I mean, I assume you were very clear with this elderly man that he needed to be sure to drop that flyer off at Nichole and her roomys’ place to ensure that she was included, right? But I mean the bigger question is isn’t it kind of insensitive to make such an elderly man do this work?
“I can’t speak for the others, but I have no desire to sit down and talk about this.” Why oh why would you go this route? From the outside here, it looks to me that while Nichole’s actions were inappropriate — making this issue a public one — she follow up with a message very clearly saying that she and her fellow “roomys” as you call them were interested in sitting down and discussing the issues each of you has in an effort to come to resolution so that EVERYONE could just move on. But you completely closed the door on that conversation, claiming that you’re moving on. How do you honestly expect to move on if you don’t even take the opportunity to meet and find solutions to your issues with one another? Sounds more like you’re planning on moving on and continuing to carry your disdain for these people because that’s just easier for you.
Look, I’m not saying either of you is completely right or completely wrong and without knowing any of the people involved in this personally, I can’t really speak to any of your characters. But I will say that from the outside, it appears to me that Nichole took the issue public, you responded, she responded by taking the higher road and trying to find a way for you all to work it out in a copacetic manner, and then you responded by flinging more insults and basically saying “thanks but no thanks.”
And her calling you an asshole is really no worse than you saying she’s an embarrassment to the community, is lazy, and sits around drinking 40 oz beers – which, BTW, I’ve never seen in a can.
There is not enough time in life for this bullshit. And I believe in people. And I believe in communication. Seems to me that an in-person meeting of the minds would be the ultimate way to find a path forward where everyone can be friendly and neighborly — isn’t that what our neighborhood is supposed to be about?
And honestly, the bottom line — regardless of how Nichole went about getting the info “out there”–is that you used their electricity and left chemicals on their patio, and put trash in a space that was not your space to leave trash. Whether you like her or not, whether she’s famous for feuding or not, there’s no excuse for the things that you all did. ESPECIALLY when you’re trying to come off as the good neighbors. It seems to me that at some point, an apology might have ended all of this.
Furthermore, I haven’t seen any of you admit to the fact that your accusations about her calling in her “friends” and the ANC and the DC Council !? were incorrect despite the fact that she clearly laid out that she had convinced her landlord NOT to call the cops.
It would appear that you good neighbors are looking for nothing more than a fight. And again, I can see where your initial anger stemmed from, but as the comments on this post grew, it seems that one side of this argument was looking for a way to have a productive, meaningful discussion while the other side just continues to just basically try to defame her.
“letting the public know there was another side to you …” it’s unfortunate that you post these messages under an alias. If you’re comfortable throwing someone else under the bus and “exposing” this dark side that you seem to be intimately familiar with, then why not post under your real name and give folks the opportunity to see both sides of who you both are.
And if not, then stop using the name “good neighbor.” Because to me, none of you – Nichole included – has been a very good neighbor to one another. But at least Nichole and whoever is on 3 are trying. You’ve just decided to throw your hands up despite this effort. This, good neighbor, amounts to a conscious attempt to be a NOTgood neighbor.
I hope the good neighbors will realize that life is too short to perpetuate these ridiculous arguments. If you don’t want people to be involved in your projects, then don’t involve them … but don’t then come back and use their lack of involvment as some kind of justification for the fact that you are the ones whose actions started this entire argument.
Why not just get off your high horse and take the opportunity to get to know your neighbor, Nichole, and see if you can’t turn this into a happy ending? “We were simply trying defending ourselves…” then defend yourselves with facts about the situation, not mudslinging and character assassination. It just makes you look worse.
Bottom line: your actions were wrong. You should have apologized. I am sure that you would have been pretty pissed off if Nichole and her neighbors left chemicals in your yard or used your electricity, wouldn’t you? Put yourself in their shoes and maybe you’ll understand the situation better.
And to Nichole: you need to keep your arguments with your neighbors out of the public realm.
But in the end, whether this conversation went public or not, it doesn’t make what you did with the trash/electric/chemicals right.
Sherri