naming a fantasy league is hard

I decided that this year, I want to run my own fantasy football league. This is partially because I didn't have another one to join, and partially because I think playing with all my friends will be WAY more fun than playing with a bunch of someone else's. And before I can even encounter any problems as the commissioner, I'm faced with the most epic challenge of all: naming the damn thing.

Here are the current contenders:
DMVPs
Not Great Bob
Password Is Taco
Lazy Sundays
Team Zissou

I'm thinking that my team name will probably be Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood, or maybe I'll go with last year's epically rude Yankee Doodle Handy.*

Anyway, help me come up with a league name, so I can invite people already. I'm spending way too much time on this part. I've got a team to put together!


*Dear strangers reading this blog, in my personal life, an unusually large proportion of the words that come out of my mouth are filthy. I'm like Joe Biden with better boobs. And so, for both that image of vice-presidential man-boobs and my keeping it clean here, you're welcome.

what I've been up to

I'm posting more photos than usual lately, mostly because they do a better job than I could at describing what I've been doing. This post is no different.

I finished my summer policy internship last Friday, and have been completely throwing myself into getting the house together. The yard has been entirely in my domain, since Nick hates plants and lawns. Fine. But here's how far I've come in my week off:

Before. Super intense, right? When the neighbors saw I was doing yardwork, they all started rushing out offering to loan me their lawnmowers. It was actually kinda sweet, even though they've clearly been judging the crap out of my yard.

After. Glorious, glorious after. And the vines on the railing belong there: that's spaghetti squash.

And here's a close-up of my mulched out garden bed and new tree, before the lawn was mowed.

Not bad, is it? And I did it all by myself with just hand tools. Well, except for the guys who mowed the lawn.*

Nick and I did rip out the basement carpe together; he pulled it up and cut it into pieces, and I rolled it up and toted it up the stairs and outside. I didn't write about it here, but soon after we moved in, Beans got a bladder infection and started peeing ALL OVER the basement (poor sweet thing hadn't gone outside the litter box before and hasn't since). We steam cleaned down there and briefly had a tenant; it was OK during her tenure. But then, right during the June heatwave, we had unexplained flooding down there (thanks broken AC and washing machine!), so our carpet had become a travesty.

But then, there's what we found underneath:

That's right. It's effing asbestos tile. Because apparently this IS your grandma's house.

But are you sure it's really asbest- Oh. Yeah, that's asbestos.

So our next unexpected project is to seal off the vinyl asbestos tile (wasn't the previous owner supposed to disclose this? raggedy heifer), put down quarter-inch Hardiebacker and then slap down some smooth-ass wood look ceramic tile. Seriously, have you seen this stuff? It's dope. 

And that's a week in the life of the Jolly-Paleos house. I'm giving myself a two-week vacation before I jump back into research on September 2nd, so expect more house photos.


*Chris Morrison of Out of Control Lawns (rude!) is seriously one of the nicest guys ever. He did our front and back yard, plus detailing some of our edges, and only charged us $35. You should call him and get your lawn did - (301) 908-3569.

What'd the five fingers say to the face?

SLAP. 

I love her and all, but if I have to listen to her sing "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" into this lighter-microphone and call back, "Whitney, somebody lied to you!" 

ONE. 

MORE. 

TIME. 

I'm gonna go slap him myself. 

oh, this desert life, the high life

Sorry no recent posts. I've been living the good life with some of my sorority sisters at one's family lake house in New Jersey. This is what dreams are made of. 

Here's some photos in lieu of words:

Lake Arcadia

Guthrie is totally over this sparkletini

Tasha and Milo

My not so secret guilty pleasure. I ate three bags this weekend. 

We're gonna take the same exact photo every year. Can't wait for next year. 

shoulda put a ring on it

This is easily my favorite YouTube video of all time.

overheard at work today

"'What's a hoe without a pimp? What's a pimp without a hoe?' There are no rappers out there are willing to ask the existential questions anymore."

"Don't worry, girl. You're not interrupting anything but a conference call with Ice Cube."

I love my co-workers.

move to Shipley - it's safer here

This morning on the Metro, I pulled last week's Local Living section out of my purse – I don’t know why, but I've been carrying it around in my purse like it's my towel* or something - and looked at the crime report. The report is broken down first by ward, and then by crime: assaults, burglaries, homicides, motor vehicle thefts, robberies, thefts. Now, scary, scary Ward 8's incidents are roughly equal in number to the crimes reported in totally safe Wards 2, 5 and 6 (is your sarcasm detector working yet?). This doesn’t surprise me one bit.

But when I narrow it down to just where I live in Shipley, there were only three crimes reported during the week in question (July 11-17). Also not a surprise to me, since the only thing really going on over here  is fireworks popping at ungodly hours (when does school start again?), but since you’re curious now, here are our three horrendous, terrifying, drive-through-at-your-own-peril crimes:

ASSAULTS
Stanton Rd. SE, 3300 block, 9:45 a.m. July 11 (with knife)
MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS
Southern Ave. SE, 2500 block, 2:07 a.m. July 14
ROBBERIES
19^th St. SE, 3500 block, 5:20 p.m. July 12 (with gun)

You might be thinking, “Wow. Two violent crimes and an auto theft in one week? That does sound dangerous!”Or maybe you're asking “So what?” right around this point. Don’t worry – I’m getting to my point… now. Why is it that the same folks who are so scared and reluctant to come to my house in an automobile are happier than pigs in shit to drunk-stumble around Columbia Heights? I really don’t get it.** Because they’ve got crime like whoa, y’all:

BURGLARIES
14^th St. NW, 2700 block, 7:37 a.m. July 11
Belmont St. NW, 1400 block, 4:10 p.m. July 16
HOMICIDES
Sherman Ave. NW, 2900 block, 12 a.m. July 13 (with gun)
MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS
Spring Rd. NW, 1400 block, 3:20 p.m. July 15
ROBBERIES
16^th St. NW, 3500 block, 1:10 a.m. July 14
Spring Rd. NW, 1400 block, 3 a.m. July 14 (with gun)
15^th St. NW, 2300 block, 5:10 a.m. July 14 (with gun)
14^th St. NW, 3100 block, 1:32 a.m. July 15
Irving St. NW, 1000 block, 7:14 a.m. July 16
THEFTS
16^th St. NW, 2600 block, 7:26 a.m. July 11 (from vehicle)
Euclid St. NW, 1300 block, 4:42 p.m. July 11
11^th St. NW, 2700 block, 6:48 p.m. July 11
14^th St. NW, 2100 block, 3:25 p.m. July 12
Clifton St. NW, 1300 block, 4 p.m. July 12
16^th St. NW, 2400 block, 8:53 a.m. July 13 (from vehicle)
14^th St. NW, 3000 block, 2:44 p.m. July 13
16^th St. NW, 2400 block, 11:31 a.m. July 14
16^th St. NW, 2400 block, 12:22 p.m. July 14 (twice in the same block in the same hour!)
14^th St. NW, 3500 block, 2:35 p.m. July 14
14^th St. NW, 3100 block, 7:01 p.m. July 14
Kenyon St. NW, 1300 block, 7:26 p.m. July 14
14^th St. NW, 3000 block, 3:28 p.m. July 15 (from vehicle)
13^th St. NW, 3500 block, 3:17 p.m. July 15
Columbia Rd. NW, 1100 block, 8:48 a.m. July 16
Belmont St. NW, 1400 block, 12:50 p.m. July 16 (from vehicle)
14 St. NW, 3100 block, 7:20 p.m. July 17
Otis Pl. NW, 1000 block, 9:06 p.m. July 17 (from vehicle)

Have I made my point yet? Let me just drive it all the way home: this data clearly shows that despite the public perception of its incredible safety, Columbia Heights is far more dangerous than Shipley, the neighborhood where I live East of the River. This naturally leads one to wonder how it is possible that my neighborhood could be considered more dangerous and terrifying than one that had two burglaries, five robberies, eighteen thefts, and a murder. In the same week when mine clocked in at three. No murder.

You know where this is going. Let’s not even try to pretend that the answer is much other than a simple “black people live there.” Sure, we could throw in a little bit of media sensationalism, a(n un)healthy dose of relative poverty, a dash of ignorance (because really, how do you know it’s dangerous if you’ve never even been here?), and a hearty helping of the PR nightmare that exists in Councilman Barry. But what do all of those other reasons boil back down to? Ah! Black people are going to rob and kill me!

What do we do to combat this? Because the piss-poor level of services that exist in my neighborhood, and in the ward at large, is real-life proof that this fear and public misperception is preventing us from attracting the development we desperately need to economically thrive.

I’ll be over here brainstorming solutions, because I love this place more than my never-gonna-happen first-born child. You’re even free to help me if you like. But whether you do or not, stop calling my neighborhood scary and dangerous- or I’ll put you in a cab to Columbia Heights.



*That's right, that was a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy joke. Get some.
**This is disingenuous. I totally get it. Black people. We’re terrifying. Boo.