V.w.verweij

A woman struggles to pick up a baby stroller at the top of a stairwell leading down to a subway station in New York City. She is wearing a large purse—almost more like a duffel bag—slung over her shoulder and her baby is crying.

She stands precariously, putting the weight of the stroller on her thighs while her bag swings behind her, pulling her backwards. People frown as they squeeze past her on their way up out onto the street. It’s lunchtime and the sidewalk is crowded. The stairwell is crowded.

The woman curses herself. Why didn’t she use the Baby Bjorn? Why did she bring such a heavy bag with her? Why did she have a kid?

Tears are brimming in her eyes when a tall man in a baseball cap stops two steps from the top of the stairs. “Here,” he says, taking the rubber strap between the front wheels of the stroller in his hands. “Ready?” he says.

The woman nods and they carry the child down the stairs together.

By the time they reach the bottom and set the stroller down, the woman is smiling a very wide smile, on the verge of the laughter.

“All right?” says the man.

“Yes thank you so much,” says the woman. And then, giggling, “Your hat…”

The man furrows his brow, he does not remember which one he chose to put on this morning. He takes the cap off and turns the brim so he can read it.

In bright red, yellow and green letters it say, “Don’t Ask Me 4 Shit.”

(Previously.)

Photo via Woodland’s Vegan Bistro Facebook

Thanks to a reader for sending word from earlier in the week. Woodland’s Facebook has a couple of photos posted Jan. 25th:

“They could have chosen to eat anywhere, but they chose us. ‪#‎WoodlandsVeganBistro‬ ‪#‎GoVegan‬ ‪#‎NuVeganCafe‬ ‪#‎KayneWest‬ ‪#‎KimK‬ ‪#‎BETHonors2015‬”

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it’s pretty cool. Must be something about vegan restaurants attracting the power players – back in October Stevie Wonder visited Evolve Vegan in Takoma.

Side note: New condo next door to Woodland’s is looking good too on the 2900 block of Georgia Avenue, NW:

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 6-8 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible. If you’re not using an iphone any size is fine.

“Duncan in Dupont!”

“Hoover, originally from the mean streets in PA, says Christmas calories don’t count”

“Gus sitting around in Petworth”

This is a cool PBS video dug up by GoDCer Joe and sent along to share with all of you. You may have already seen this, but if you haven’t, you’ll love this.

Pretty great video right?

Below is the excerpted description of the video.

Each day, thousands of residents, commuters and visitors traverse Washington DC’s Dupont Circle, one of the most historic and iconic neighborhoods in the nation’s capital. Below its well-traveled streets, however, lies a secret unknown to many who pass above: 75,000 square feet of abandoned tunnels that have remained inaccessible for most of the last 50 years.

Built in the 1940s to alleviate traffic concerns in the growing metropolis above, the tunnels allowed for trolley cars to pass under Dupont Circle and pick up passengers at two below ground stations. Following the closure of the DC’s trolley system in the early 1960s, the tunnels were abruptly abandoned. Apart from a brief, unsuccessful venture in the mid-1990s to install a food court on the western side of the tracks, the space below Dupont has been largely forgotten by the world above. In the mid-2000s, a new organization called the Arts Coalition for the Dupont Underground was formed to pursue a new use for the space as a cultural destination. After years of petitioning, the Arts Coalition signed a 5-year lease with the city in late 2014 that will provide an opportunity to test out possible future uses for the space.

For more information about the development of the Dupont Underground, visit dupontunderground.org

Two couples sat in a restaurant having dinner together. They were old friends, but haven’t seen each other in a long time. One of the men had lost his job in the months that had passed since.

The man described his daily routine. He pretty much just stayed home all day doing nothing, he said. His wife, meanwhile, had a busy job as a television show producer. She would come home and tell him about the big news stories her show was airing, the celebrities that she was working with. “She gets home and tells me all these interesting things,” he said. “And then she asks me about my day and all I can say is, like, ‘Today I saw a man with a big dog.’”

They all laughed.

“I find that very interesting,” said the other man. “What kind of dog was it? Like, a St. Bernard? Those things are huge!”

The first man shakes his head, and lets out an exaggerated sigh. “There wasn’t even a dog,” he says, letting his head drop. “I was making it up.”

They enjoy themselves all through the meal, the two couples, and promise not to let so much time pass before they next see each other.

Dear Concessionist,

One of my friends is elitist. I don’t have very many close friends, and she’s only recently become one of them; still, I love her and trust her like any of my older friends. She’s a native uptown New Yorker who went to a prep school and later an Ivy League college. She’s really smart and hard working. She has a great job that I know she got only by making use of her own credentials. We met over four years ago now—we’re in our mid-twenties—and now we see each other at least every two weeks. We live in different neighborhoods, so it feels like we hang out frequently.

Everything should be great between us, but I struggle sometimes because she’s kind of an asshole about class. For instance, most of our acquaintances (common or not) live in Brooklyn. I find myself in the borough almost every weekend to hang out. She won’t go to Brooklyn, ever, under any circumstance. I’m not sure when was the last time she went. Maybe Smorgasburg in 2013? There have been over 20 house parties in the past two years that she’s been invited to but refused to attend. A couple of times I’ve co-hosted said parties. Still, nothing. Bushwick, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, not even Clinton Hill she’ll do. When people ask me about it, I often say she works really hard and is a huge trek for her to come all the way from Tribeca to Utica Ave., even though I made an even longer trip from East Harlem.

The party thing above is kind of petty, but it’s her most repeated offense. Her lifestyle is questionable on Marxist grounds in other ways. She won’t live in a building without a doorman, or a bunch of other amenities. She won’t date people who didn’t go to “good schools,” which I’m pretty sure means “an Ivy League institution, save Cornell.” She is a member of private clubs in the city. She will judge you for wearing vintage clothes.

I brought this to her attention when it exploded, and she “kind of [saw] her point.”

She just doesn’t get it.

At the same time, she mustn’t abide by these rules 100% because I wear second-hand clothes, use the subway regularly, and, like, make under 40K, yet she calls me her friend. This makes it all the odder when I detect hints of elitism in her behavior. I call her out on it constantly, too, but she always replies with something along the lines of “that’s just who I am,” which, let’s ignore for the moment.

I’ve grown to love her but I’m not sure I can continue to call a friend someone who seems to be so out of tune with her (our) reality. What do you think?

A Friend In Deed

Dear Friend,

Your friend is absolutely identifiable to you, to herself, and to everyone on the avenue. She is queen of The Manhattan Snoots. Molly Ringwald with a rainbow of Birkins. I dig it. She is alien to you. But she totally and fully gets herself, and she is not ever going to take the G train with you. You would not want her to take the G train with you. You would be embarrassed, and she wouldn’t care. She knows what she likes.

Plus she grew up here, so her tastes and identity have cemented with a rigidity unknown elsewhere in the world except Paris, Tokyo, Singapore and possibly Beirut. She is utterly clear about this.

This is all quite central to who she is. These are not secrets. And… for some reason, you keep bringing all this up with her? This seems really rude! I mean, I’m glad someone’s ragging on her about not stepping on the necks of poor people on her way to the safety deposit box packed with conflict diamonds, but… is that really our job as actual friends?

Why is she putting up with this? And what are you getting out of it? And then why, when she says “yes, that’s who I am, enough already” are you persisting in picking at her and picking at her? That’s not a friendly thing for a friend to do. Even if you’re actually Brooklyn’s consensus-elected social justice sheriff, give yourself the night off once in a while.

Friends are, at a bare minimum, supposed to say “Yo, that is racist” when white friends say something racist. Definitely we are supposed to speak up when people start ranting about the One World Zionist Government. But actual friends are not supposed to be running after each other nipping at their heels for their behavior. Yes, it’s hard when someone says “I only date people from good schools” because, I know, it is so LOL-worthy. But you know already that the LOL is on them.

There’s a bigger question underneath here about whose New York we all live in. In many senses, the rich people were here first. New York may have belonged briefly to The People at a couple of junctures, but it most certainly does not now. Between the rental and the vacancy rates dangles the truth about #deBlasiosNewYork. It should not be a surprise that you and I aren’t coming up on top, pal. Upper middle class or actually straight-up rich people have been either entering or returning to neighborhoods their sort haven’t seen in decades, if not a century. The rest of us are just trashy froth on the sea of this great movement of real estate investment facilitated by deliciously low interest rates.

So what is this cool, vintage-clad, super-sensitive, rent-party-havin’ city of leisure-Marxists you think you live in? Hey, the subway costs ALMOST THREE DOLLARS NOW, whether you’re going to Ridgewood or the The Hotel on Rivington. I am sure that half your non-snobby 25-year-old pals are rent-subsidized by a force other than their own paychecks. Maybe you’re actually just living in a former slum, but all around you, the kids are just slumming it. You’re not dumb, you know this already.

On a slightly more shallow note, why do you hate nice things? I don’t really know what you have against doormen and private clubs. You KNOW how hard it is to get a fucking package delivered in this town. I’d kill to have a doorman. You know who would love a doorman to keep track of shit for them? Most poor people. Private clubs are so nice too, I love when people take me to a club and I get a very ridiculous mocktail and gaze upon all sorts of expensively sandblasted people I don’t care about and will never see again.

When was the last time you went somewhere snooty with Miss Snoots? Why aren’t you opening your horizons to the real money-laden freakshow of our city? Are you going to the enormous and unending galleries of Chelsea, our maddening auction houses, the great fabled stores of Madison Avenue, the silly boutiques of NoLIta? These are all TOTALLY FREE resources, where anyone can be educated on the very best in art, fashion, design and commerce. WHERE ELSE CAN YOU SEE $1100 JEANS? Don’t you want to know how and why they’re made? Why aren’t you going to parties and EATING FREE FOOD? That is the whole point of being 25 in New York City! And then, with a mind full of fresh ideas, you can go back to your Bushwick bedsit and boil some corn on your hotplate.

Because you have a tendency to be a bit of a pill. One little thing that’s really interesting here is that you’re making excuses for her not appearing in Brooklyn. “Oh, she couldn’t make it, she just works so hard you know.” Whaaat. You sound like a sexist 1940s cliché of an alcoholic’s wife! Why are you doing this? When I blow off a party because I don’t feel like dragging my ass to another borough or because I just don’t feel like it period the end, the last thing I want is someone making excuses for me. You know why I’m not at your party? I had something better to do. Maybe it was merging with the couch for 90 minutes because I just found out all of Friday is online. But I’m me, I’m intact as a human, and I can communicate regarding my presence or absence as I see fit, when I see fit.

I like you, and I realize I’ve just been ranking on you for ages here. YOU SEEM GREAT AND FUN AND NICE. (Even though I still sorta can’t decide if your letter is real or fake. I eventually decided I didn’t care, because it was so interesting.) Lemme leave you with a couple little obvious things:

1. It’s okay for people to be different. Not all my friends are marching in ideological lockstep with me! That would be really difficult to achieve. Plus the tribunals would get exhausting. What crime is too small to prosecute? And where does it stop? Do I have to cull my Tumblr followers? Do I have to block lots of people on Twitter who are miserable full-time victims? You know, the kind that is on the hourly hunt for offense and martyrdom, who are really just looking for people to scream at? Who have so terribly lost their way online that they don’t know what they’re even doing on the Internet anymore? Who have gone so thoroughly through the mirror in their pursuit of bullies that they have become that thing they hated? Oh right, yes, I do have to go block them all, good point, BRB.

2. SORRY, GOT DISTRACTED THERE. People change over time. They really do. I have seen really rigid friends soften, and vice versa. I can unblock those people I just went and blocked at any later date. They will change, you will change, I will change, she will change, who knows, maybe you’ll end up being a huge, rich, horrible Wall Street jerk. Kick me down a little something when that happens, okay? Meanwhile, chill.

3. There’s more to learn about what you like and care about. If I could ask one thing of you, it’d be to challenge yourself with a weekly expedition in discomfort. Discomfort is great! It’s like hunger, but it gets fixed by feeding your brain.

And if none of this advice works, then just remember this message from “Good Wife” actor Matt Czuchry:

Wherever you are, whoever you are, I want you to know you are an amazing and beautiful person. pic.twitter.com/JSYAM1k5h7

— Matt Czuchry (@CzuchryMatt) November 18, 2014

Ha ha, I know, the poor thing, he must be starving. Let’s go eat some food too.

The Concessionist is an adult human in New York City who is somewhat worn down and willing to make a good number of sacrifices for a peaceful life. Is it decision fatigue? Or just ennui? That’s probably a question for a psychiatrist. Anything else, ask me.

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 6-8 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible. If you’re not using an iphone any size is fine.

“Pearl from Shaw. WARL Alum once featured during an escape attempt!”

“This is Otto from Brightwood next to the words that define his existence.”

“Queen Lucy of Manor Park, looking particularly expressive one fine evening. 1 y.o. American Dingo.”

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 6-8 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible. If you’re not using an iphone any size is fine.

“Carmen from Park View (Golden Puppy) meeting her new BFF, Myrtle at her place in Brookland”

“Tumbleweed from Petworth has taken over our tiny dining area and made it her own. ”

“Trigger (Homeward Trails rescue pup) full of H Street pride in his garden gnome getup on Halloween.”

“Women! Let us meet.” This is how Lagusta Yearwood, chef and owner of chocolate shop Lagusta’s Luscious in New Paltz, New York, calls together her employees for a staff meeting. “And Jacob,” she adds, a sweet afterthought, to include her partner of 16 years, who’s running around the small shop taking care of orders to be shipped out. Four women stand around Lagusta, all in vintage aprons, listening as she discusses the business of the day: a new whipped cream recipe, strategies for most efficiently using the enrober to get 1,400 caramels out. Over to the side, I note a “Kill Your Local Misogynists” mug.

She’s a feminist, anarchist, vegan chef. No matter how much like a hippie-skewering skit the sketch of her might seem, this woman is punk. After getting a degree in women’s studies, she attended New York City’s Natural Gourmet Institute and trained in Connecticut at the feminist cooperative vegetarian restaurant Bloodroot. She began her foray into being what she calls an “antipreneur” with a savory meal-delivery service. It was in off-hours from running that business that she began rolling and selling fair-trade-chocolate truffles out of her home. In 2010, she and Jacob bought the foreclosed laundromat that would become Lagusta’s Luscious, envisioning it as a wholesale chocolate factory with a shop up front for selling extras. Instead, the business is about 60-40 retail to mail order, and has become its own little utopia.

Read the rest at the Hairpin.

This week’s Arlington Pet(s) of the Week are Charlie and Ginger. Charlie is a 3-year-old golden retriever, Ginger is a 1-year-old cocker spaniel-poodle mix, and the two prove friends come in all shapes and sizes.

Here’s what owner Kate had to say:

Charlie is a 3-year-old golden retriever. He loves to lounge and sleep in the most inconvenient places, like right in front of the basement door or by the kitchen cabinet you need to get into. He loves to sleep in the bed with his parents. He often tries to speak — most often when there is food involved at the dinner table. We’re not sure if he thinks he is human or he thinks we are dogs.

Ginger is a 1-year-old cockapoo. Ginger loves to jump up on the kitchen table to help herself to leftover cereal and milk. Ginger is pretty sure she is a big dog trapped in a small dog’s body. She can often be found biting at Charlie’s ankles and jumping up to take a bite out of his ear, but most often she is found standing on top of the couch barking at dogs passing by in the neighborhood. Ginger’s favorite trick is to bolt out of the front door and then run away from her family members as they try to call her to come back.

Charlie and Ginger love their Lee Heights neighborhood. When not exploring the Zachary Taylor nature preserve or fetching balls at Taylor Elementary or H-B Woodlawn (off hours only, of course) they can be found enjoying a puppucino at the Lee Heights Starbucks or waiting for a slice of salami outside Arrowine.

Want your pet to be considered for the Arlington Pet of the Week? Email office@arlnow.com with a 2-3 paragraph bio and at least 3-4 horizontally-oriented photos of your pet.

Each week’s winner receives a sample of dog or cat treats from our sponsor, Becky’s Pet Care, along with $100 in Becky’s Bucks. Becky’s Pet Care, the winner of three Angie’s List Super Service Awards and the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters’ 2013 Business of the Year, provides professional dog walking and pet sitting services in Arlington and Northern Virginia.

The 2015 session of the Virginia General Assembly official begins at noon today, and a pair of Arlington lawmakers are using the session to try to protect victims of sexual assault on college campuses.

Del. Rip Sullivan (D), in his first regular session in the General Assembly after being chosen in a special election to replace now-retired Del. Bob Brink, has already filed a bill aimed to help campus sex assault victims. HB1508 would require college campuses to have a memorandum of understanding with “a local sexual assault crisis center” to allow those reporting sexual assault to be able to take their claims off campus.

State Sen. Barbara Favola (D) is co-patron of a bill in the senate, along with two Loudoun senators, Sens. Jennifer Wexton (D) and Jill Vogel (R). Favola said that despite Rolling Stone magazine retracting its story detailing a gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house, she’s still concerned about university responses to reports of sexual crimes on their campuses.

“The Rolling Stone article gave me great concern, even though I know there were questions on whether it happened,” she told ARLnow.com this morning. “The point is this is a pretty serious problem on college campuses… We wanted to empower victims to come forward and report.”

The bills would allow victims to make anonymous reports if they do not want to officially report an assault, and it would provide amnesty to students who are worried that the circumstances under which they were assaulted could jeopardize their academic standing — for example, if a 19-year-old student was raped while drinking underage.

“My bill shouldn’t be a burden” for colleges that have stringent sexual assault policies already on the books, she said, “but for the colleges and universities have not been as aggressive with this, this bill will actually be able to enforce a zero-tolerance for sexual assault policy.”

With Vogel as a co-sponsor, Favola and Sullivan hope the bills can draw votes from the Republican side of the aisle – a requirement if either were to get passed by the Republican-controlled houses in the state legislature.

“I hope this bill with Sen. Favola is one that will receive bipartisan support in this environment,” Sullivan said. “There is a lot of attention paid to the hot-button issues in which there can be disagreement and things turn into partisan wrangling, but a lot of good law is, as I understand it, made every session on a bipartisan basis that doesn’t attract much attention.”

File photo