Welcome to Petworth.

Before I moved to this neighborhood, I read a little bit of a blog that has Petworth as its subject.

I think that the blog certainly has its uses, but it's mostly of the "OMG Petworth is the best!!!!" variety. The superlatives and adulation might just be a bit too much for me. I know that I too am prone to hyperbole, and I probably said many nice things about Columbia Heights because I don't want people to think badly of it. However, I think that living in the city has made me a little more skeptical, a little more cynical and a lot more realistic.

So I will say this:

I don't know what I think of Petworth just yet. I've just moved here. There are some cool things--like the nicest lady dentist in town, and there are some not so cool things--like the lack of a good grocery store. (The people who work there are nice. The produce is shite.) :(

However there is some hilarious stuff that happens here.

Take for example, my recent adventure to the rundown midcentury modern Safeway in my neighborhood. I don't know if it's Scary Safeway or the Unsafeway, or what, but it certainly needs some work. I went there to pick up some catfood for Miss Stella (who is getting older and crankier by the day).

As I crossed the parking lot, some man was finishing putting his groceries in his truck. The red empty Safeway cart (trolley) was sitting next to him. He turned to me and asked if I wouldn't mind taking the grocery cart back to the store.

Was he hurt? No.

Was he impaired in some way? Hell no.

But what does this man have the audacity to do?

He rolls the cart in my direction and it hits me in the leg! So I take the stupid cart back to the store. The jerkface shouts "Thank you!" as he pulls away in his truck.

Yeah, Mr. I write "OMG Petworth is perfect!" blog, it's not so perfect. *Some* people here are impolite.

But this part of town is growing on me.

OMG. Drugs, y'all.

(He essentially called my neighborhood the slums.
Perhaps it hit a little to close to home. )

This morning (or should I say yesterday morning), I left my apartment to go to work and I saw two people standing close to one another whispering about something. I saw money and a small package exchange hands. Even though I've only ever seen one episode each of Homicide: Life on the Streets, and The Wire, I know what I saw. Drugs, y'all! People were buying drugs on my street!

First, I think that the woman buying the drugs should not have been wearing unflattering bike shorts while purchasing her daily (or weekly?) stash. I noticed her because of her navy bike shorts with matching too small stretch tank top. And the piece de la resistance? Keds. You're not going for a run in those, sweetheart. Don't kid yourself or the rest of us.

I was lugging my work bag and my gym bag and trying to seem like I wasn't being a Miss Nosy McNoserson. But I was.

Then (!) this evening, I was walking up 14th street and I saw that cops had raided this store that used to sell wall to wall carpeting. The store had just gotten a mysterious makeover. It was painting and had a for sale sign on it for a while.

Well, this evening, standing in the door of the mystery store were three cops in kevlar vests (should I feel unsafe by not having a kevlar vest?) and they were holding packs of drugs. It was like I had just stepped into the movie Blow--only I was the cute extra in workout clothes lugging a Target bag down the street. Oh and I was trying not to stare. Sometimes my growing up in the suburbs rears its head from time to time.

Then, when I turned the corner onto my street, I saw a cop car in the alley blocking another car. I don't know if any arrests were made or what, but that's the most action I've ever seen in my part of Columbia Heights. I wonder if people are selling drugs to help pay for gas?

So yes. OMG. My neighborhood is out of control. Or at least I think it is. Or at least it was today.