Crossed the river into Virginia this evening to meet friends at this restaurant in Old Town Alexandria for dinner. Old friends and a New Place: Can’t beat that for a winning combination! I travelled lots of new streets to get here too! This place actually was the old fire station in turn-of-the-century Alexandria, with the…
Today was a very special One New Place! I splurged and treated myself to this insider’s tour of Washington Nationals Park. Now, Nationals Park and I are no strangers. I have sat my butt in almost every section of that park, including right behind home plate, thank you very much! But this tour promised a…
I have a dream that recurs occasionally: I am in a familiar building. All of a sudden, something opens up, a door, a hallway, and I become aware of a room or rooms in the building that I never knew about before. I love this dream—it reminds me that the world is always bigger than…
“Big as can be;” “Right in front of my face;” “As plain as the nose on my face” —all these and other clichés about being unobservant apply to today’s New Place, a large school right across the street from where I frequently visit a friend. All these years, I’ve only had the vague sense that…
You gotta love Mimi’s, where Yoohoo chocolate soda and Teavana sit side-by-side in the refrigerator. Yeah, Mimi’s creates a whole new space: Yoohoo-vana—a mash-up of traditional naughty convenience (ice cream sandwiches, Fritos, Yoohoo) and New Age, wholesome convenience (seaweed snacks, gluten-free cookies, dried fruit). It’s a mash-up of cultures too—Japanese rice cracker party mix,…
And sometimes, you just feel like a complete idiot. . . For example, when you discover that this amazing little museum has existed for 20 years (That’s two decades. . . or one score in Gettysburg Address language!) only half a mile from your house, and you didn’t even know about it! I only stumbled…
Alley dive, today! I was feeling a little bit unenthusiastic about my New Place today: I didn’t have much time, so thought I would just duck into this alley while I was down in Dupont Circle, and check the New Place off my list. Boy, did I get a free attitude adjustment! This alley (behind…
Continuing my Civil War Fort series here in D.C., I ventured into the Brookland neighborhood today to check out Fort Bunker Hill Park. The “fort” part of this park has definitely been taken over by the “park” part of this park. Indeed, the Civil War fortifications seem to have been swallowed back up into the…
That “castle” on the corner in D.C.’s Dupont Circle neighborhood? For years I didn’t pay it any attention other than a passing glance. Until tonight, when an event I attended at the “Heurich House,” turned out to be this place. (Oh, it’s you!) This stone behemoth is actually a Gilded Age mansion built in 1892-94…
Found it! This is the alley I was looking for the other day. The colorful mural had caught my eye when I was driving down U street last week. But this alley turned out to be so much cooler than I ever could have guessed! I didn’t know, for example, that it was named after…