MissAdventures

Mommy, why are you ruining Halloween?

I live in a half crunchy/half alpha-mom neighborhood, and I love it. Typical topics on the community listserve are “home birthing options,” playgroups, yoga classes, vaccine debates, and baby clothing swaps. I really don’t pay much attention to most of the discussions, except for maybe the free/heavily discounted stuff. But I have been a bit riled by a recent conversation about Halloween.

It seems that the people in my neighborhood are going to be putting up green ribbons to signify non-candy-giving houses on Halloween. People are talking about giving away non-food items, like notepads, cheap, plastic Made-in-China toys (my embellishment), and the like.

Why are you ruining Halloween for your kids, people?!

When I was a kid, about the worst you could hope for was getting an apple while trick or treating. Or, if you believed the rumors, you’d get an apple with a razor blade in it – sweet! Now people are giving out packs of pretzels or junky little toys just so kids don’t get a sugar high.

Lame.

I’m going trick-or-treating with my 3yo this year. It should be fun, as it should be the first time he “gets” it. And I’ll be marking down the houses that are flying the green ribbon so I’ll know later that those are the moms that probably won’t want to have a martini playdate someday either.

Down with the DC Cellular Surcharge!

I’m getting ready to settle down in the DC area again after a long while of living overseas. So, I’m getting things in order. One of the first things I did upon coming back to the States was get a new cell phone. I’m loving my new iPhone (a topic for another post) and my DC phone number (complete with 202 area code).

But now the bill has come in and I’m wondering if I was wise to get a DC phone number. I looked at my bill and there were additional charges of about $11 (on top of a whopping $74/month contract fee). Here’s the rundown of the fees:

Do you see the third charge listed above – DC Cellular Surcharge Residential? I looked online to see what this is and saw that consumerist.com covered this a couple years ago. It really seems like an outrage to me and I am surprised that, two years on, people haven’t been marching in the streets over this. How can having a cell phone in DC be considered a luxury?

Anyhow, I am on a fact-finding mission to find out the reason behind this surcharge. What is it? What is it helping to fund? Why are people in DC allowing this to go through, month-after-month, without complaining?

I am determined to get to the bottom of this. I’m also considering changing my new phone number. *sigh*

4th of July Ideas

Coming to the DC area for the 4th and want to know what to do? Here are a few events that I profiled for AOL Digital Cities:

• Independence Eve Bash
• National Archives July 4 Celebration
• University of Maryland July 4 Concert & Fireworks

And more from AOL…

The Case FOR Baseball in DC

Last night, I had the pleasure of watching the New York Yankees trounce the Baltimore Orioles 10-4. So the Yankees bought their talent – isn’t that what professional baseball teams are supposed to do? Alex Rodriguez’s salary is indeed bloated, but after seeing him belt two homers – and drive in half of the Yankees’ runs – I certainly feel like he was worth every penny. He made me a believer.

I’m sure he made a number of Orioles fans believers, too, even if they didn’t like the score. Last night was the highest attendance EVER at Camden Yards. 49,696 people came to the game. And though it was a great night for a ballgame, I’m pretty sure that many people showed up on a Tuesday evening just to watch A-Rod play.

Baseball is back, and early attendance records can back me up. For this reason, but not for this reason alone, I’d like to advocate the relocation of the Montreal Expos to Washington, DC.
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Deciphering the Reagan Funeral

No matter what you think of “Reagan: The Man,” “Reagan: The Funeral” should be a fascinating nugget of history in the making. Major traffic arteries in Washington will be closed beginning at about 3pm today to make way for a funeral procession steeped in tradition.

Yes, Washingtonians will complain over the next few days because they won’t be able to go anywhere without encountering security checkpoints and road blocks. Then again, many federal and city workers within the vicinity of downtown have been granted “liberal leave” this afternoon, meaning that they can use the Reagan funeral as an excuse to ditch out of work early without using their vacation time. On Friday, government workers, financial workers, and companies that follow the government schedule (most all in Washington) will have the day off.

We’ve really got it good in this city of ceremony.
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Lying in State

The saturation Reagan coverage is cathartic to some, annoying to others. All I know is that we’re about to get bombarded with Reaganites over the next few days.

My day job has followed the Federal Government and declared offices closed on Friday (thanks, Ronnie!). Starting tomorrow, traffic around here is going to be hellish. Barriers and fencing are already up near the National Cathedral. I haven’t had a chance to look downtown yet, but I’m sure it’s a mess, too.

I have mixed feelings about Reagan, mostly because I was too young during his presidency to really get angry about his policies. A little older, a little wiser, I’m a bit disappointed that some of the negatives of the Reagan years are not being mentioned in the media. CNN’s site has some good ones, though. I’m touched by some of the people from the former Soviet Bloc (just wrote Soviet Blog – that’d be a cool one!) who feel that they owe RR for their freedom. Then again, this is the man who ordered an invasion on tiny Grenada and refused to speak out about the AIDS crisis. This guy says it pretty well:
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Gay Pride in DC

Back when the whole hullabaloo over gay marriage was in effect, I wrote this lil service article on spec, just for the hell of it. I shopped it out a few places, but I think that the mainstream papers are a little apprehensive about gay-oriented travel.

I’m not gay but I occasionally work in a gay-friendly restaurant (oh, I’ve got some fun stories!), and I can’t imagine why catering to the gay market or occasionally running a gay travel feature could hurt any kind of publication. Advertisers and editors have no idea what kind of disposable income they’re sniffing at.

Anyhow, with Capital Pride upon us, I thought I’d share this piece with y’all. It’s too late to sell it now and the info will be stale next time around.

Oh yeah…and this is also a bit in response to the people on the Boots forum who listed DC as their least favorite city of all time. There’s so much more beyond the monuments…you have no idea…
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