C A P I C O S T I A

  Surprised and delighted to find live music and cafe life, just past the D.C. state line and sitting next to an art gallery, in Mount Rainier, Maryland. Seriously. I am not imagining this. When I recently learned that the  Urban Eats Arts and Music Cafe has just celebrated two years in business, at 3311 Rhode Island Avenue (Mount Rainier, MD), ..I was thrilled! As I'm always looking for places like this, away from the bustle of Downtown Washington and Capitol Hill, and rarely finding them, ..clearly, I have been missing out. There's a cafe area, with charming, little tables for two or three, and a couple of larger, roadhouse tables for small meetings, over coffee. There's the prerequisite, cozy, little lounge area - a coffeehouse standard - with cushy sofas and loveseats, ..where a good buddy of mine reads his comics, while locals soak up the FREE WI-FI on their laptops. The lounge area gives you a fro...

By Mel Dyer I've been warning people in Penn Branch how dangerous it would be, when our neighborhood no longer produced enough revenue to keep it competitive with the affluent communities popping up, all around us in SE. There's Capitol Hill, Near Southeast, Historic Anacostia - to keep Downtown interested in delivering top-priority EMS/police services to Penn Branch, as it did in the past.  It has been a controversial opinion to share with all of you, but, right or wrong, I have been consistent in it, ..until I have reason to consider, otherwise.  For this reason, I am not surprised that almost no one has listened...   And that day is here.   For the safety of my family, I've secured emergency resources and an exit strategy to get us - my mother is a stroke survivor - out of harm's way in a natural disaster that might prevent or delay police and EMS from reaching Penn Branch. Though it was not easy to leave, with God's blessing, I f...

Penn Branch may be a little behind the times and short on modern amenities, but we got cars. We can drive, wherever we like. A major coffee retailer, with a name that sounds something like 'War-bucks' , will NOT be coming to Penn Branch or anywhere else in Southeast Washington, D.C. in the Fall of 2011, ..and if you read differently here, and this is a little bit of a letdown for you, I hope you aren't taking the truth too hard. Bummer, huh? It was all a big April Fool's gag , courtesy of yours truly. It might be a bitter pill to swallow, but, eventually, we're going to have to swallow it, my friends. The market research for this area (for reasons I won't get into here) is so terrible and nearly impossible to compile, that we are commercially invisible. Besides groceries, gasoline, liquor and a few other things, no retailer can determine, with any measure of certainty, what we are or aren't buying in Southeast or anywhere else, and, without the ...

Happy Turkey Day, Washington, D.C. (from Tenor.com )   For all of you, who're working so hard to make this holiday something special - in your kitchens, stuck in holiday traffic or sweating it out in the diners and big-box stores - for everything you're putting up with, out there, while the rest of us stuff our faces with turkey and Soul-style macaroni and cheese, thank you. God bless you... And Happy Thanksgiving. Mel of Seven Bee

  The Marine Corps War Memorial from CNBC.com   Wishing all of you, who have answered the call to defend our great nation, here in Seven Bee and everywhere...a dignified and respectful Veteran's Day celebration.   Mel Dyer

By Mel Dyer Yes! Penn Branch has an urban legend. That of the Big Bird Witch  or Hawk-woman, who haunts our wild, emerald hills... If you're over 35 and grew up in the Southeast D.C. neighborhood, Penn Branch, in the mid-1960s, ..you've probably seen or heard of this creature, at one time in your life. You probably thought you were imagining things ..or that it was just crazy-talk. You may have even heard that it had a woman's head and white, bulging eyes, ..or that it was a witch. While I don't believe that part, I've seen the creature that might have inspired this urban legend, with my own disbelieving eyes, ..perched menacingly on a rooftop, at Carpenter Street and Highwood Drive! ...One neighbor recently told me that this thing, ..which she described as a witch in black feathers, with a chalk-white face and large, staring eyes, ..glided over a backyard family gathering, back in the mid-70s, and scared the hell out of their guests! An electrician, who no ...