Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Wisdom from a Metro Train Operator as the Snow is Coming Down

The train rolled into the Shady Grove station at about 5:15, and the Operator made his standard announcement: "Now approaching Shady Grove Station. Doors will open on the right. Thank you for riding Metro and I'll see you tomorrow," and you heard the brief crack as he turned off his microphone.

A moment later, after the Operator got a good look at the size of the flakes coming down, his microphone cracked again: "Maybe not."

Monocacy Aqueduct

I mentioned back in April that the restoration project on the Monocacy Aqueduct on the C&O Canal was nearly complete. We were up there Saturday, and the project is done. It looks really good:

If you're curious, here are Gazette articles about the start of the work in 2002 and the rededication in May, and some Civil War history from the Smithsonian.

I have only one little tiny problem with all the work they did. Aqueduct itself: improved. Access road to the park: improved. But where the portajohn in the Aqueduct parking lot used to be one of the best portajohns around (this is what I gained from cycling: encyclopedic knowledge on location and conditions of facilities along the back roads of the county), the new permanent outhouse is foul.

A few canal pictures

Bless Justice Douglas. Riding on the canal today, I could all too easily imagine it as a major road instead of what it is.

We took a short ride from the Monocacy Aqueduct to White's Ferry and back. I put a photo album up with some of the sights (including one of me with a big grin, Ted.) If you click on the pictures in the album they get even bigger, so you can actually see the text on the Park Service signs and read all about the Monocacy Aqueduct, saving me the effort of typing all that stuff in. (Because after all that riding [don't look at the map and see that it's only 13.5 miles], I'm pretty tired...)

C & O Canal

I've mentioned a few times that one of my reasons for getting the mountain bike is to be more comfortable riding on the canal. Nobody's actually pointed out to me "You nitwit, canals are full of water" or asked what I meant by that, but it did strike me that people who don't live here might not be familiar with the C&O Canal and its towpath (the towpath being what I mean when I so sloppily say "the canal").

Construction on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal began in 1828 in Washington, although the idea for a navigable waterway from the Potomac to the Ohio Valley was envisioned as early as George Washington's time. The 184.5 mile canal was completed in 1850, ending in Cumberland, Maryland, and for nearly 75 years it was a major route for moving coal (850,000 tons in 1871). Flooding was always an issue, however, and since the railroad had moved in by then, in 1924 the canal ceased operations following another flood.

In the 1930's, restoring the lower section of the canal was a Civilian Conservation Corps project, in anticipation of the canal becoming a national park. The canal itself only survived because of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, however. In the 1950's the plan was to turn the canal into a parkway to allow motor access through the park, and Justice Douglas, an avid hiker, wrote a letter to the Washington Post arguing for preserving the canal:

One who walked the canal its full length could plead that cause with the eloquence of a John Muir. He would get to know muskrats, badgers, and fox; he would hear the roar of wind in thickets; He would see strange islands and promontories through the fantasy of fog; he would discover the glory there is in the first flower of spring, the glory there is even in a blade of grass; the whistling wings of ducks would make silence have new values for him. Certain it is that he could never acquire that understanding going 60, or even 25, miles an hour.

He even organized a hike of editors and conservationists, sucessfully swaying public opinion away from the road and back to nature. Time reported on April 5, 1954:

By the time he was ten miles from the city, Douglas had 50 followers, and was being paralleled in the canal by canoeists bearing such signs as SAVE THE CANAL and LESS CARS—MORE CANOES !

The long walk ended at an old canal lock a quarter of a mile farther along. A National Park Service sightseeing barge, drawn by two mules, awaited the hikers. They climbed aboard to ride the last five miles to Georgetown. Their triumphal entry into the city, however, was just beginning. As the barge sloshed down the canal, hundreds of men, women & children hustled along the banks exchanging greetings with the expedition. Other well-wishers called greetings from overhead bridges. The escorting fleet of canoes grew. Automobiles jammed up along a parallel roadway.

The 12,000 acres, including the canal and towpath rather than a paved road, became a national park in 1971.

The canal is one of the treasures of this area (and almost never do you hear tourists asking goofy questions.) As a Girl Scout I hiked and camped and canoed there; now I hike or bike. My favorite ride ever was a misty spring day when Victor and left from Violette's Lock. We had lunch overlooking Great Falls, rode on to Georgetown, took a quick tourist trip to Capitol Hill, then back up the canal. It was my first metric century (100 km), but better, it was a day where I went through quiet woods with trees, birds, wildflowers, and bugs as well as downtown, all under my own power.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today was the last charity walk of the season, the Turkey Trot for So Others Might Eat.

And while it started out unusually warm for November (and considerably warmer than last year), you could see the cold front moving in...

...in the form of ominous clouds. And it did start to rain just before the race began, so I have no pictures from the actual route. (But it was up and back on Ohio Drive, so the pictures of the Jefferson Memorial from last week should suffice.)

I actually would not have minded being in a warm costume once the rain began. And I can't believe how blurry this is...I guess I must have been moved by the wind.

The rain had pretty much stopped by the end of the walk, so I did pause for a few more pictures. Including, of course...

Another Saturday

Another group of pictures to prove I live in Washington.

Today was the Help the Homeless Walkathon, a 5K around the Tidal Basin and Mall. As always, even on a fairly gloomy day (but mild, which I appreciate) I was struck by how beautiful this city is.

More pictures (including geese, of course) in my gallery.

Saturday's Walk for Diabetes

Yesterday was busy, busy, busy...social butterflies that we are, we had two parties, a housewarming in the afternoon and a Halloween costume party in the evening. But before that, I did go downtown with my sister for the Walk for Diabetes. (Victor, bless him, stayed behind and took rat Jim to the vet for me.)

While wandering around the sponsor tables before the walk began, we were picking up pamphlets on exercise and eating. My sister remarked that a big reason she does all the walking and watches her diet is to avoid ending up like our grandmother, who had diabetes and ultimately several strokes. MK sounded almost ashamed that her motivation wasn't more global. But that's a huge part of my motivation too...I can't remember where I saw the statistic, but I have read that lifestyle is over 50% of your risk factor for diseases like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease (that's the next walk, by the way, Heart Association in two weeks). I watched three grandparents die and I see the struggles my living grandmother and great aunt are having with their health now, and I see what my parents are doing now to try to mitigate earlier diet and exercise choices.

If I can help anybody else along the way to helping myself and my family, that's a nice bonus.

Here are the pictures...setting the scene:

I'm not bald...I realized that in all these walk pictures, because I tend to tie my hair back and wear a cap, I look it.

The Casimir Pulasiki statue at Freedom Plaza.

Waterfowl! Even in the city, I find waterfowl!

It wasn't the prettiest day for touristy pictures. Usually you can see a pointy top to this landmark.

Saturday at the WWII Memorial

The friend we were meeting moved west a couple of years ago and was back in town this week for business. He wanted to walk around the Mall, one of the things he misses about the city, and while there we visited the World War II Memorial.

This may make me unpopular, but honestly...I was less than moved. The memorial is impressive but to me it lacks poignancy, and it doesn't seem to encourage contemplation. It has too many elements: Pillars! Arches! Waterfalls! Fountains! I found myself wondering what was symbolically significant (are the states in some kind of order? If the moving water represents the sea battles, what represents land and air?) and what was just architecture for its own sake.

In some ways, because the scale of the memorial is so huge, it's more like a park within a park rather than a monument. It's going to be a nice place to eat lunch on a warm day, and that's not bad thing...being able to sit in a nice park and eat lunch with views of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the Capitol dome may be an excellent way to pay tribute to the Greatest Generation, if you remember what they did to allow you to be there.

It's been several years since I last visited the Vietnam Memorial, but to me that had quite a different atmosphere, one that really did promote remembrence. People were hushed at the Wall. It was reflective. As I said, though, I haven't been there for years, and maybe it's not like that anymore.

Like they do at the Wall, people are leaving things at the WWII Memorial...flowers, photographs, newspaper clipping. Here is a page from a program remembering the USS Gilligan and a medal. That's when this becomes poignant and what I think of as a true memorial.

Update to add: The medal is a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Saturday in Dupont Circle

Victor and I went to brunch at Luna Grill at Dupont Circle. Actually, brunch was serindipidy; I'd forgotten they serve it on Saturday as well as Sunday. Not that I needed Hollandaise sauce, but I so rarely have the opportunity to eat Hollandaise sauce, that, well, what the heck.

Then we checked out the August Sander and Aaron Siskind photography exhibits at the Phillips. I really liked Siskind's work...the abstract designs, the depth and texture. (The last show I caught at the Phillips was Edward Weston. When I played at photography, I found myself trying to turn common objects into interesting abstractions using angles or closeups and things like that. I never had a great eye, though, and I was a terrible slob in the darkroom...too impatient...and since the classes I took were photojournalism rather than art, I didn't have great incentive to concentrate on being technically good. Our rule of thumb was "f8 and be there." Because of my shortcomings I really admire artists who do so well what I did so poorly.)

Anyway, the only bad thing at the Phillips was that I got nailed for being the Asshole with a Cellphone that everyone hates. We were meeting up with a friend later in the afternoon but hadn't firmed up plans, and of course his call came in while we were in the Georges Rouault room. I tried to be very quiet, unobtrusive, and quick (my phone was on vibrate, not ring) but the docent was on me in about a nanosecond. I felt about three inches tall, and I apologize profusely to all patrons I disturbed.

Other than that, though...more serindipity. We had time to kill before meeting our friend, and walking back through Dupont Circle we found ourselves in the park just in time for the Pets-DC Pride of Pets dog show. This ain't no prissy dog show with purebreds marching around the ring with snobby people in suits...classes include Best Costume and Least Obedient. (I think our dog has a good chance of blowing the competition out of the water in that category, and next year we may enter.) Two great costumes were a dachshund wearing a hot dog bun (while his owner was dressed as a mustard bottle) and a spaniel dressed as a cicada.

Saturday's Wildlife Pictures

In my photo gallery: A heron, turtles, geese, and fish. Oh, and of course, there are still a few cicadas...

The pictures are from a local park where we rented a pedal boat this afternoon. Since we're used to cycling, we figured that would be a good way to make the transition to water. Since we're used to cycling, not being able to adjust the seat didn't feel right, and neither did pedalling without fulling extending the legs. Ah, well, it was still a lot of fun, and as we went around the lake we were able to rescue a few cicadas who'd made water landings only to find that they are not amphibious.

Some of the pictures are a little blurry. I need to RTFM and learn how to set the shutter speed and apature instead of relying on auto settings; I think I was shooting too slow for the telephoto and the movement of the boat.

Next time I think we'll try a kayak so we can get in closer to the shore where the herons and turtles hang out.

It was beautiful being out there...to think this is just a few minutes from the traffic and the strip malls.

Race for the Cure

I almost didn't bother to go down for yesterday's Race for the Cure. It was pouring rain when my alarm went off. But when I turned on the tv news to see the weather report, they were interviewing a 14-year breast cancer survivor from Louisiana who talked about how moved and inspired she was by the huge number of people at the race in D.C. After that, I couldn't blow it off.

We did get damp, but not soaked. And there really is something impressive about 51,000 people walking together through the city. And while I do walks like this for my own selfish reasons (to get the exercise and the t-shirts), I get a lump in my throat when, for example, I find myself behind an older man with a limp and a sign on his back listing his mother and two sisters, or a teenager with one that says "In memory of my mom. I miss you."

Are you completely sick of cicadas yet?

I'm not!

One decided to hitch a ride home with me tonight. I saw him on my shoe while I was stopped at a red light...no problem. Then he decided to crawl up under my pants leg. I'm neither scared nor disgusted, but still, I don't want bugs in my pants. Thinking of Zenchick, I very carefully lifted my slacks and offered him my hand, which he thankfully stepped onto (also thankfully, it's a long light at that intersection). I put my hand out the window and said "Fly, little friend, be free!"

He liked me. He started crawling back up my arm. The light changed. He stuck like glue. At the next light I opened the door and flicked him off my arm...I suspect he probably smacked into a windshield behind me, but I did the best I could. These critters ain't the smartest.

If you are missing the cicada experience: I took a seven-second video outside my office at lunchtime. You don't see any of them flying, unfortunately, but there are several clinging to the tree branch. And you can hear their trippy song.

It's not easy being green

Kermit is a bit cuter, but this guy is closer to home.

(We saw him this morning, not far from where I saw the beaver yesterday. I'm really loving our walks around the lake. Um, beavers don't eat frogs, do they? If they do, don't tell me.)

In which I vist Kermit

There is a new statue of Kermit (with his creator Jim Henson, one of our favorite sons) in front of the student union at the University of Maryland.

I was out in College Park today with my camera...a few pictures of campus (wow, it has changed since I graduated)...and cicadas...in my gallery.

More Suburban Wildlife

Another new neighbor:

Actually, we have had beavers as long as I have lived here, this is just the first time I've seen one up close. (He's bigger than I realized...in Ranger Rick drawings, all the little woodland creatures looked to be the size of squirels.) One year their dams were so effective that the creek flooded and washed out the bike path. A lot of people wanted to get rid of them (the same people who consider the geese pests, and don't like deer because they eat gardens)...I admire their adaptability, myself. And the animals eating my tomato plants and crapping on the sidewalk doesn't irk me nearly as much as the neighbors who park in my reserved parking space.

Where is my fishing pole?

Catch a snakehead fish, win a hat!

Concerned by yet another snakehead fish, the natural resource guys are enlisting the help of the fishing public:

Officials say they have no systematic way of determining how many snakeheads, if any, remain in the Potomac. Their only option, they said, is to rely on reports from anglers. Early said the state is asking them to kill any snakeheads they catch. Anyone who catches one is asked to call the Department of Natural Resources at 410-260-8320.

There is no cash reward for the outlaw fish, Early said. But officials are designing a snakehead hat.

"If we get a bona fide snakehead, the reward is the hat," he said.

Bugsbugsbugsbugsbugs

Any day now my knowledge of cicadas will be qualifying me as a geek.

One of my co-workers presented me with an exoskeleton this morning.

One of the newscasters on the radio station I listen to referred to themselves as the "news, traffic, and cicada station" this morning. I am looking forward to the special cicada flashback feature, a 1987 retrospective, which starts tomorrow.

Washingtonpost.com has a special section.

My alma mater has a cicada news desk staffed with entomology grad students ready to answer questions...and they are also selling t-shirts (Don't fear the cicada).

I've only seen the few bugs around the office, none at home yet. In 1987 I was living in a neighborhood that had been build only eleven years prior, so the construction had pretty much knocked out the local cicada population. Around my office then, though, were two wooded lots full of them, and I can remember cruching my way through the exoskeletons in the parking lot every day.

Victor is carrying his camera around waiting for his first sighting, so I expect he'll have a cicada album up soon enough. For those of you west of the great plains (or outside North America) who have no earthly idea what I'm talking about, here's a picture from the University of Maryland's collection.

(And I haven't forgotten our other local creepy-(sometimes) crawlies: somebody caught another snakehead fish.)

Sometimes humans are not my favorite animal

There is a house in my neighborhood between my house and the gym that faces the main road. They have a big dog, maybe a collie mix of some kind, that they sometimes leave tethered on a chain in their front yard. Not all the time...I didn't see the dog left out in the winter, for example, nor have I noticed him outside in the rain. But still, he's left out a little too often for my comfort as a dog owner, and it's bothered me to see the poor thing straining at the end of the chain, barking at everyone who passed.

Well, today on my way home I got to know the dog a little better...he'd managed to pull out the tether. As I came down the sidewalk, he jumped up on me. I did the few things I remembered for behavior with an unknown dog: no eye contact, low soothing voice, offered him the back of my hand to smell. He jumped and slobbered and wrapped the chain around my feet as he flailed. I think he was freaked out because he was no longer restrained. I was trying to get ahold of the chain (one of those rubber-coated metal cables, thankfully, not an actual metal linked chain, or my legs would be in bad shape now) to lead him back home, but he was moving fast and, on his hind legs, he was taller than I.

He actually knocked me down once, and when I was down I was able to free my feet and step on the cable. I was close to getting a decent grip on his collar...although he did put his mouth on my arm and I was starting to worry about being bitten...when his owner came out.

Well, actually, it was the teenage daughter and her friend. The dog went right to them. I told the kid very calmly but in what I hope was my best adult authority-figure voice that the county has a law prohibiting tethering dogs, and they risk being fined or having their dog taken away. The kid apologized profusely to me, but I have a bad feeling my real point--you're gonna get your dog killed or confiscated!--didn't get through. I left, mostly relieved I wasn't hurt and that the dog was safely inside.

In just the two more minutes it took to get home, though, I got pissed. For one thing, I was starting to feel the scratches and bruise on my arm. That wasn't a vicious dog, but he was scared, and could have really hurt someone. He could have also darted right onto the fairly busy road, getting himself hurt or killed, and potentially causing an accident where people could be hurt or killed. And as far as the traffic...while I was essentially being attacked by this dog, several cars drove by. I made actual eye contact with one guy who stared out the window at me...I clearly was not someone out for a nice walk with my own dog. Not one freaking driver stopped to see if I needed any help. Thanks, neighbors.

I'm not sure if I'd have stopped either, I admit it. I hope I would have, but I'm not sure. I will now.

I looked up the animal control law, too, and unfortunately I'm wrong about the tethering...it isn't completely illegal. I'm not sure if their conditions were okay or not...certainly the dog being able to get away is not allowed. I'm still considering paying the adults in the family a visit (while you can see my bruises...as I typed this, my arm and hand did start hurting), or giving animal control a call. If nothing else, I will be keeping a really close eye out, because that poor dog deserves better than what he's got.

Walking in the rain, with chili

The WalkAmerica walk for the March of Dimes turned out to be only seven miles, and the rain turned out to be only a heavy mist for most of it. Thank God for that, because I admit that my hips and knees are really sore...another mile and more water might have done me in.

Getting old sucks.

Hard Times, a local chili parlor, provided the post-walk lunch, which was very cool...or warming, as the case may be. I don't go there very often anymore (partly the health kick, partly because I no longer work just around the corner), but back in the day I knew Hard Times very well...Texas chili mac, wet, with cheddar cheese, chopped onion, and tomato, washed down with a Lone Star.

I took a Texan there for Frito Pie. Have you ever eaten with Texans outside Texas? Nothing is ever right. And even it nobody claimed the food was supposed to be Texas-like ("It's the Hunan Palace!") they find fault.

My Texan friend did like the Frito Pie, though.

Next week I have the Arthritis Walk. (I may be using the services of the Arthritis Foundation soon, the way I'm going.) And this walk is practically around the corner from Hard Times (and yes, my old office; different corner, though.) This might be a good new post-walk tradition: Chili and ibuprofen. Yum.

Kinetic Sculpture Race

Okay, when we turned the corner in front of the Visionary Arts Museum and saw this

I knew we were in for a good time.

And it was a good time...and a bit of a long and tiring day, and I have eight rainy miles to walk tomorrow. Bug Victor for more pictures; I'm going to bed.

The Snakeheads are back!

Victor stole my blog subject for today, but that's okay, because I have a new one...the snakeheads are back!

I read the news headlines on Nature Science Update most days, and today (or tomorrow, if you look at the date) I saw Return of the Snakehead. That sounds like a sequel to an actual Sci-Fi movie that sounds right up Ted's B-movie alley: Snakehead Terror. (It stars Bruce Boxleitner. I have to admit...ah, wait, I don't have to admit anything. Never mind.)

Anyway, Nature mentions that "some escaped northern snakeheads (Channa argus) did indeed cause a panic two years ago when they were caught by fishermen in Maryland."

Now, I live in Maryland, and I wouldn't say we were panicked, exactly. But it was a little weird, these biting fish that can apparently breathe a little air and slither from pond to pond being found in what was essentially a drainage pond behind a shopping center. I remembered a really funny piece in the Post about the snakeheads, so I went to the archive to see if I could find it.

Talk about amazing coincidence...my first hit on a search for "snakeheads" turned up a story from today. Apparently we have (cue horror movie music) a true Return of the Snakeheads !

Oh, but that name's been taken. How about Dawn of the Snakeheads? Revenge of the Snakeheads? Radioactive Snakeheads from Beyond the Terrible Deep?

I just hope Bruce Boxleitner shows up.

Out of the mouths of babes

I overheard a mother and son (I'm guessing 4 or 5 years old) at a restaurant downtown tonight. Mom asked the little boy what he'd seen in Washington today. The boy answered "Spongebob Squarepants...and that big white house where the president lives."

Duck duck goose

It has been cool and very rainy here. "Nice day, if you're a duck," my mom used to say about this kind of weather. I'm not sure about ducks, but I did see a goose on the sidewalk after work today. I actually see him around the building pretty frequently, and it concerns me, because somebody told me once that lone geese don't survive very long. Apparently they need the rest of the flock, or at least a mate, or they starve to death, because geese take turns eating and standing guard. If there isn't another goose around to watch his back, a goose won't be able to put his head down to feed.

I haven't been able to verify if this is true, but if it is, it seems really sad. I'd like to set up a little sanctuary or something where the single geese could re-flock and a form new social bonds. If nothing else, I could act as watcher while they ate. I have offered to do as much for the goose at work, but every time I talk to him he runs away, his big web feet fwap-fwap-fwaping across the parking lot...

Actually, now that I think about it, in the parking lot there is evidence that either the goose has friends or that he is eating. "Through a goose," as they say.

I will sleep better tonight, now that I've realized that.

Oh, and I was thinking about geese for a reason. I set up a little online photo gallery on this domain. Right now there's nothing on it but snapshots I took Saturday while I was playing with my new camera (most of the pictures are of geese; that's the connection), but it's another cool feature on my new site. I am like a kid in a candy store right now!