Live Q&As

Good day, update readers.   Today the washingtonpost.com  is presenting brief, dueling accolades to Washington and Baltimore.   I live in Washington, and have been asked to make its case.   I do so below.

First, I will not speak ill of Baltimore; to argue for oneself, it is unnecessary and unseemly to disparage a competitor.  Besides, I like Baltimore.    I like its baseball stadium, which was meticulously crafted to approximate the feel of those actual old stadiums that remain cathedrals to the game; I like Baltimore’s famed Inner Harbor, which was built to meticulously resemble Bayfront Park in Miami, and Jacksonville Landing in Jacksonville, and a half dozen other venues designed and landscaped in accordance with the most modern, pleasant marketing concepts for urban pedestrian malls featuring upscale chain franchises.    So, Baltimore is swell with me.

Instead, I want to tell you about where I live in Washington.     Every morning I take my dog, Murphy, for a walk down brick and cobblestone tree-shaded streets.   A block away, we stop at my neighborhood auto repair shop, in operation on site since the days of the Model T.     There, Murphy finds Monica, who gives her a treat from a canister filled with goodies for the neighborhood dogs, of which there are many.      Whenever my car needs oil, or maintenance, I give Monica my keys, and her workers find my car, bring it in, do the work, and leave it in front of my house.

I live on Capitol Hill, near Eastern Market.    On my block live a United States senator, a dog trainer, a picture framer, and a female admiral of the Navy.   Some own, some rent, everybody knows everybody and nobody’s putting on airs.   I walk everywhere, including to my dry cleaner, my bank, my post office, my fish market, my produce market, my meat market, my drug store,  my rug store, my barber, my liquor store, my pet store, and half a hundred restaurants, including a British pub that will sell you, for eight bucks,  a slice of homemade crusty bread and the marrow from three fat beef bones -- which, when married together, are a meal as succulent as caviar.      On weekends in the local schoolyard, there’s a flea market at which I’ve purchased old clocks, new socks, and a leather-bound volume of risqué 18th-century limericks.   It all happens – all of Capitol Hill – under a canopy of trees.

My house, like most of the houses in my neighborhood, was built during the Grover Cleveland administration.   Until 1970, I’m told, there was a working outhouse in my backyard.      Like most neighborhoods in D.C., mine wasn’t planned; the row houses are all different, made to accommodate different tastes, different sized families and pocketbooks.   What they share is age and eccentricity.   Mine has skylights, a closet that is for some reason two feet off the floor, and – for the prurient – glass transoms over the bedroom doors.  

Oh, on weekends the neighborhood garage is closed, so Murphy doesn’t get her treat.  Instead, we walk over to the flea market.     Mitch The Crepe Guy sees us coming a block away, so by the time we arrive, he’s already cooking up his Murphy Special, with farmer cheese and cinnamon sugar.   Murphy gets it all.    Then, sometimes, we’ll walk on down to the U.S. Capitol, which Murphy assumes was built for her.   She likes to roll on her back in the soft, moist, well-tended grass -- goofy, squirmy, happy, at peace.    It’s her neighborhood, too.