Belated Binge Watch

Six months late, I just binge watched my way through Season 1 of House of Cards. While it is somewhat Sopranos meets the West Wing, it is also an addictive, over-the-top faux version of a DC soap opera. I think they taped in Baltimore, and it showed. There was a lots of unrealistic DC-type things, but the story definitely resonates. The receptions, the drinking, the elevation of some non-profit causes (drinking water) to pivotal. Like the West Wing, the show is a glossier version of Washington, and it's not how I know this city. But it's a version that speaks truth to some of the worst parts of DC.

Kevin Spacey and Robin White are marvelous, and the dialogue is quite zippy at times. I'm thinking season 2 will be one reason to hold onto my Netflix subscription.

Reunion

Tonight is my roommate reunion.

It's been a decade or so. Which is an astonishing length of time for me, since I lived with these women for four years and in that house for seven. And it's been eight since I left, five since I've been married. I've lived with the husband for much longer.

I can close my eyes and sort of remember being 22. It really is remarkable at how quickly you forget those days. DC is a challenging city for anyone. You are young, far from "home," you have to create friendships and live on $22,000 a year. You start from scratch when other friends from college are far away and immersed in serious relationships. You can't go home to your mom and dad on weekends. You move in with strangers, living intimately with them day to day, they see you at your best and at your worst. And you create these group house friendships that last for a little or maybe even a long while.

I have mixed emotions. Awkwardness. Discomfort, maybe. I don't know. I feel like I need a drink to take the edge off, and that reflects how I have changed since 22. It's been nearly 15 years to the day since I started my first job, and wow, oh how the years go by.

Maybe you are more authentically yourself at 22 than 37. Now there's a temptation to be at your best, dress your best, impress someones who don't need or care about that. But at 22, maybe this is all the more acute. You can hide in yourself more. You are more transparent at 37. You can't reveal everything, but your job/marriage/parenthood status is glaringly obvious. At 37, it isn't acceptable to be stuck in that rut. And we are coming from very different stages and phases, loves and lucks and tragedies.

So you enter into reunions with an open-mind, grateful for who you are and where you came from. And you know that this is all at face value, and then you turn away once again. Maybe meet up at 52? If we can be so lucky.

A Year Ago..

One year ago today, we were enroute to Africa.

It was such an anticipated trip, the farthest away I had ever traveled away from home. And it was an entirely new experience,a different one, and it was the focal point of the summer of 2012.

This year? We get to meet a new nephew this weekend. He's so cute, with a head full of dark hair. Definitely looks more like the SIL. He has a helpful big brother, and an aunt who already adores him. Love love love.

And then it's off to celebrate our five year anniversary and then it's a few days at home before Texas and a trip to Montana. So then we'll spend late August at home, ready for the football season and ready for Autumn. And the long, hot, power-outage filled summer will draw to a close. And I don't even know where it went to begin with.

One thing I hate is how already, in late July, the days are shortening. I hate early sunsets and it always makes me sad to see the night time creep longer, so soon it will fall before 8pm. And then 7pm by September or so. And then the darkness will fill the days of winter. I'm not fond of the cold.

I need a new project or life initiative or something to fill up the hours of light. And I'm mulling over ideas, but I don't know where they will lead. I just need to record this moment and thought process.

Royal Baby

I don't know why this makes me ridiculously excited, but Princess Kate is in labor!

I think there is so much bad news in the world. Babies are joyful and happy and are greeted with so much love, and this one certainly will. And speculation is that she's having a girl, but we shall see. Updated later!

Update: It's a BOY!! (or as Drudge reports...a king!!!!)

Detroit's Bankrupt...Blame Game

I'm already seeing these points about "who is to blame" for the unprecedent bankruptcy proceedings that Detroit will be mired in for the unforeseeable future. And of course, blame the white people who "abandoned" the city is one component.

Says one Post reporter: 

Of course the city did explode, in riots in 1967, and that was when Detroit’s downfall — its current path to insolvency — was set in agonizing slow motion. The white families in my neighborhood, my friends, all fled to the safety of the suburbs. My street, and my neighborhood, went from mixed to all black in an instant. Many of the black newcomers who came couldn’t get mortgages, so most ended up as renters, not homeowners...

The white population’s abandonment of the city left Detroit with a shrinking tax base and deteriorating, segregated public schools — a system locked in place by a Supreme Court order that halted busing across school district lines. But blacks left behind in Detroit had one thing left — political power. And they would guard it jealously against any encroachment, real or imagined.

My family didn't leave Detroit until 1990. We "abandoned" the city for the same reason may middle-class black families left: soaring crime rates, horrible public schools, and corrupt liberal governance, among other reasons. White families didn't "abandon" the city because of some deep-seated racial animus. I resent the charge of abandonment, honestly. We loved our neighborhood, and I have so many fond memories of playing with children of all backgrounds in the late 1970s/1980s. We left because the city was decaying--even 30 years ago, city services weren't up to par (neighborhood moms collecting for snow retrieval, even on a street where school buses ran), and Detroit's murder rate led the nation. Remember 1984? The Tigers won the World Series and led the nation in arson. And murders. And yeah, Coleman Young's infamous phrase about "hitting 8 Mile" may not mean purely law-abiding white people, but we all knew how to read the man.

The right is saying what the left won't: liberal policies explain so much of this mess. Detroit's decline accelerated after the 1967 riots and the 1973 election of Young. It snowballed during the Kwame years. Pockets or hipster trendiness may pop up, but the city needs more than narrow enterprising zones. It needed (a decade ago or more) a city-wide reevaluation. Can you imagine what a Rudy Giuliani could have done in Detroit?

I don't know what the answers are, or if there are any answers to be found. Bankruptcy is a start, and I think it's a start that will start at a rock-bottom impasse. But it's a step forward, and that's why I applaud it. I may never be a resident of Detroit again, but I'm forever a Detroiter. And I want to see my hometown rebound.

Detroit: Bankruptcy all but Official

The Free Press is reporting that Detroit could file for bankruptcy as soon as tomorrow.

The City of Detroit is in final preparations to file for federal bankruptcy as early as Friday morning, several sources told the Free Press today.

The filing would begin a 30- to 90-day period that will determine whether the city is eligible for Chapter 9 protection and define how many claimants might compete for the limited settlement resources that Detroit has to offer. The bankruptcy petition would seek protection from creditors and unions who are renegotiating $18.5 billion in debt and other liabilities...

Detroit’s would be by far the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, in terms of the city’s population of about 700,000 and the amount of its debts and liabilities, which Orr has said could be as high as $20 billion. Because of the stakes involved, and the impact on residents statewide, as well as 30,000 current and retired city workers and Detroit’s ability to stay in business, the case could be precedent setting in the federal judiciary. It could also set an important trajectory for the way troubled cities nationwide settle their financial difficulties.

This will be a sad day. No one wanted this, but it was inevitable, I think. Something needs to be reset, although this could only screw over pensioners and others who served the city and could now be screwed out of their legitimate compensation. But there's no money left. None. And this could set a precedent for many other states and cities that have spent beyond their means to offer benefits they cannot afford. 

Updated: Never mind...it's official

Packard Plant Renovations?

This, I will believe it when I see it, but there's a developer in talks to renovate the long-abandoned derelict Packard auto plant.

A Wayne County official expressed cautious optimism today that a Chicago developer will be able to renovate the derelict Packard plant, but only in a deal that would allow the county to take the building back if the development fails to perform.

David Szymanski, the county’s chief deputy treasurer, said the county has been negotiating with Chicago developer Bill Hults to sell him the Packard plant for the amount of delinquent taxes on it, an amount that grows monthly with interest and that now tops $970,000.

Happy Birthday, Baby Nephew

Happy birth day to my newest nephew. Born happy and healthy this morning. Wish I could be there, and wish I could see the big brother's reaction. 

Big Government Implodes

Daniel Henninger gets it just right when he details just how f'ed we are.

To call the U.S. federal government a black hole is a disservice to black holes, which have a neutral majesty. Excepting the military's fighting units, the federal government has become a giant slug, like Jabba the Hutt, inert but dangerous. Like Jabba, the government increasingly survives by issuing authoritarian decrees from this or that agency.

Obamacare is only one aspect where we're too big...well for outer space. Whether it is the NSA and Snowden, the IRS singling out tea party groups, the weather services, the State Department, etc. we're teetering past the edge over largesse. And he doesn't even get into the massive new regulatory, unaccountable bureaucracies created by Dodd Frank to play Big Brother over the finance industry. Or the diminished federalism exerted by the Court in the DOMA decision. Like Henninger said, multiple parts of the federal government are breaking down simultaneously. And there's no way to stop it. 

"Five Decade Katrina"

Another scary story from the Washington Post: 

The city’s population has plummeted by 26 percent since 2000, while the unemployment rate has jumped from 7.3 percent to 18.6 percent. Property tax collections are down 20 percent and income tax collections are down by more than a third in just the past five years — despite some of the highest tax rates in the state. Even casino taxes, a bright spot in recent years, are projected to decrease because of increased competition from nearby Toledo.

All of that has led to an alarming erosion of municipal services. The city is home to nearly 80,000 abandoned and blighted structures. It recently announced plans to close 50 of its remaining 107 parks. Police response times are up to nearly an hour, and 40 percent of the city’s street lights do not work. Meanwhile, Detroit has the highest violent crime rate among the nation’s big cities.

The True Detroit Tour

Like this--here's a revised itinerary for anyone wanting to take a tour of the true Detroit. First stop: the Packard plant ruins.

Packard Plant. One of the most modern factories in the world when built in the early 1900s, the plant closed in 1958 and has slowly rotted away ever since. George Galster, a Wayne State University professor and author of “Driving Detroit: The Quest for Respect in the Motor City,” says the Packard Plant “symbolizes the massive post-war loss of industrial tax base from the city.”

Bus Tour Cancelled

It's too bad that Kevyn Orr cancelled this bus tour. I really think Detroit's creditors should see just how bad it really has gotten in the city.

Earlier Orr said: 

Imagine what it’s like to be a mother riding that bus with no air-conditioning, that shows up late and takes an hour and a half to get you where you need to go. See what these neighborhoods look like, what you travel through and go home to every day. I think people don’t really believe it when I describe it. Even my friends in Washington say it can’t be as dire as what I’m describing. But it is.

Orr said if the creditors don’t take the deal he has offered, the city’s conditions — the blight, the lack of services, the profound deterioration of once-thriving neighborhoods — could get worse. “I need them to see that up-close,” he said.

Getaway

We had a wonderful stay at the Inn at Onancock during the weekend after July 4 for a spur of the moment getaway. The bed & breakfast was fabulous, and we enjoyed a variation on a crab benedict and a spinach & cheese quiche as the entrees for two four-course breakfasts we had over the weekend. Her biscuits, scones, and fruit tarts were also amazing and made-from-scratch. We particularly enjoyed the wine-down hour, and it was a wonderful opportunity to meet the other guests and enjoy some fantastic wines and appetizers. 

We went to the Charlotte for dinner, which was also delicious, and were very helpful with directing us to area attractions. 

We also got in some kayaking and beach time at the infamous Chincoteague, along with an infamous miniature golf rematch (I win! again!). So glad we got away, so wish it was for longer. Only a few more weeks til Jamaica...

July

How is it already July? Reflections on how fast the year has gone by are always so cliche. But summer is here, the days are getting closer, and we're about to hit the peak hotness for the year. And it was just spring. Well, maybe this constant sogginess means it still is Spring. Who knows. It's a welcome change from past triple digit temperatures.

Last year was the great Joey visit, and we were anticipating Africa. This year, it's slower for once. The hecticness was in June. But it begs the question of what's next. What is to be anticipated during the next six months? I mean, I'm ready for things to develop. I'm ready for a change at a time when work is eh and friendships are tough. We're all "busy," such another cliche. But that's life at 37.

So here's to a four day weekend and an escape from the recent drudgery. Here's to July.

Wine Tasting and Sushi

Saturday was just about the perfect day.

It was the rare respite from a ridiculous amount of rain. It was sunny and warm but not horrendously humid. I knew the husband was headed home. And I got in a decent 4.5 mile run to start the day.

So wine tasting it was.  We started out at Linden.

Then Glen Manor was perfect. Sipping cab franc, watching the beautiful blue sky, eating fresh salad. Gorgeous. And there was nowhere to be, nothing to do. Just sitting outside and picnicking with wine.

And Hikari Sushi was really good. The white tuna was like a stick of butter. Excellent cocktails, sake, fresh sushi and sashimi. I'll be back.

Some weekends are just about perfect. Life is too hectic sometimes, it's so busy and crazy and life doesn't stand still enough.

I'll take these weekends as they come.