September 2007 – Page 3

Coppis on U Street

The wife and I had a little date night last night, having dinner at Coppi’s on U Street and then drinks at Saint Ex on 14th.

Coppi’s was courtesy of my occasionally blogging brother-in-law (As opposed to the others who don’t blog at all) and his girlfriend, who stayed with us a little while back, and were overly generous in expressing their gratitude.

In any event, Coppi’s was great. I beat the wife there by a bit, which meant I sat at the bar, chatted with a woman who was probably the manager, and drank an organic beer.

Then the wife arrived. We each had a salad and an entree, all delicious, and then shared a dessert. My salad was the Bietole al Forno, which was very good. For dinner I had a really nice lasagne. It was a bit more cream sauce than red sauce, which would not have been my first choice, but was very good anyway.

And then we shared the dessert. It’s not on their online menu, but it was recommended by the waiter. It was peaches with a wine and brown sugar sauce topped with ice cream, and it was quite good.

As for the restaurant itself, it was a great experience. The service was excellent, the place crowded but not uncomfortably so, and the music was eclectic and interesting. I would highly recommend them for dinner. Reservations are probably a good idea.

I’ve been to Saint Ex before. It’s one of the wife’s favorite bars. And it was, again, a nice place to hang out.

Columbia Heights associations meeting

Last night, the wife and I went to the joint meeting of three Columbia Heights community associations. Muriel Bowser (councilmember from Ward 4) and numerous high-ranking members of the police force were there.

The biggest topic of conversation was a letter that went out to many residents that, among other things, called the park at 14th and Girard NW a “hellhole”.

As you can imagine, many people who spend time in that park took offense. Much of this anger, I think, is because they feel this is an attack by the rich white people moving into the neighborhood on the poor black people who have lived there for years. And they probably have a point.

As one of the white people who has recently moved into the neighborhood, I try to be sensitive to this kind of thing. I don’t want to remake Columbia Heights in the image of Fairfax County. I don’t want to drive out the long-time residents. I LIKE Columbia Heights. Sure, there’s some crime, and I want to help get rid of it.

I think there is a communication problem. For example, I frequent the Columbia Heights Community Forum. There are people there who want to close the park. They think the shootings recently on the 1400 block of Girard originated at the park, and I think they are totally wrong. But I didn’t see them at the meeting. They communicate online. And frankly, that’s my preferred way of communicating. But it has to go beyond that. The people at the meeting last night don’t read the forum. I think many people on the forum would think differently about the park if they listened to the people who spend time there. I was also disappointed that there was no representative from the Latino community at the meeting. Columbia Heights has a large Spanish-speaking population, and I didn’t see it represented. I don’t know whether this is from the meeting organizers not reaching out, or the Spanish-speakers not responding, but it needs to change either way.

I wish I knew what to do about it. I want to stay in Columbia Heights. I want to raise children here, and I want to be able to send them to public schools and know that they’re safe, and that they’re getting a good education.

But I don’t really know what to do. I think we’ll keep going to the meetings. The police attendance at this one was not the usual, and this meeting felt rushed, so maybe normal meetings are different.

NB: I changed the name of the post from “Columbia Heights associations’ meeting” to “Columbia Heights associations meeting”, because the second version is correct. HOWEVER – I wasn’t as dumb as you think the first time. I really did mean to use the plural posessive. However, I don’t think the plural posessive is appropriate here. Arguments welcome in the comments.

Is traffic that bad right now?

I keep seeing articles about how this week is supposed to be really bad for traffic because everyone is back to work after various summer vacations. Yesterday (Tuesday) was supposed to be the worst.

But I’m not seeing it. In fact, today was one of the least crowded days on the Metro that I’ve seen in a while. I actually had a seat to myself from Mount Vernon Square all the way to Pentagon City on the Yellow line, which almost never happens.

I don’t know if car traffic is worse – I haven’t driven anywhere since Sunday, and I don’t think that counts. For those of you poor saps who drive to work in the DC Metro area – has it been bad this week?

Cats are not very bright

Based on advice from my friend, the cat whisperer, my cat doesn’t get any food in her dish between the time I go to work and 6pm. I started doing this months ago when it was either adjust the cat’s behavior or mail her to Abu Dhabi.

It’s now just after 5:30, so she’s getting food very shortly. Do you know what she’s doing now?

She’s licking the crumbs out of the bottom of the bowl. I’ve never seen her do that before. Maybe it’s because the construction next door started back up after the long weekend.

In any event, I’m not exactly sure what her problem is, but I guess I should feed her soon.