Mysteries

(The Malaysian Boeing 777-200ER that has gone missing, taking off in better times last year. Photo Malaysian Air Lines.)

Goodness, there is a lot going out there in the wide world. The mystery of the missing Boeing Jet in the South China Sea- or as of this morning, perhaps the Strait of Malacca- is one big riddle. Some apparent facts are dribbling out. Two Iranian men are said to have used passports stolen in Thailand to have gained access to the world air travel system.

Their travels supposedly originated in Doha, in the Emirates, and then led to Malaysia and onto the vanished jet, heading for Beijing and then further transportation to points in Europe. Too soon to speculate, though of course that is the first thing we all do. Young men, probably Shia by religion, one might reasonably suppose, were one to profile passengers, which of course we are not supposed to do these days.

I have more than a passing interest in this. I was listening to National Public Radio yesterday, motoring up from the farm to the collective delusion we call Washington. Around the truck stops at the Opal junction, I heard an interview with an informative US Navy commander, who explained some of the capabilities being deployed to search for wreckage. He was calling from the same ship that the JG is riding, so the family is on the case.

In my time, I worked the side issues of other aviation mysteries. Korean Airlines Flight 007 was shot down by the Soviets when I was an analyst in the Pacific, and I was on active duty during the Lockerby bombing against Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. That particular horror killed 259 passengers and crew and another 11 on the ground. I still have questions about that one, as well as about TWA Flight 800 that exploded over Long Island Sound in 1996, killing 230 passengers and crew.

All three of those flights were Boeing 747s, the long-range versions intended for intercontinental flight.

I am not going to bring up the matter of Pan Am Flight 73, a 747 that was hijacked on the ground in Pakistan, and never departed the runway, though it degenerated into a massacre.

Just to step back for a moment: here is what is known about the fate of the Boeing 777-200ER:

Malaysian military radar suggests plane turned back and flew some distance- it may have traveled a long way from last air traffic contact.

Hijack, sabotage, mechanical failure also being investigated.
Search in fourth day by maritime forces of nine nations.
227 passengers and 12 crew presumed dead aboard lost flight.
19-year-old Iranian holding a stolen passport aboard the plane.
Interpol says 43 million travel documents are known to possibly be in circulation.

I naturally thought of an act of terror when I first heard the aircraft was missing. But realistically, pilot error or mechanical malfunction are equally logical solutions to a conundrum. The jet itself was one of Boeing’s better efforts- I had to ensure it was not one of the troubled Boeing 787 Dreamliners, the ones with the erratic batteries that periodically burst into flames.

The Boeing 777 flown by Malaysia Airlines that is missing is one of the world’s safest jets. The first fatal crash in its 19-year operational history only came last July when an Asiana Airlines jet landed short of the runway in San Francisco, killing three.

There was something very troubling about that incident. It appeared to be clear pilot error, nothing intrinsic to the jet itself. Interviews with veteran Captains suggest that many of the world’s airlines rely completely on the software and computers to fly the jets, and the only time the crew actually is hands-on the controls is during take off and landing. That, as it turns out, is what doomed KAL 007- the navigation way-points were entered incorrectly, routing the aircraft over sensitive military installations on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The crew never realized they were off course. I took that flight more than once when I was living in Korea, and I find the trend of human disengagement to be more than a little troubling.

The loss of Air France Flight 447 confirmed the fact that even a first-world national airline no longer has the comprehensive flight skills to overcome a lack of training and experience. That crash- an Airbus- shares several aspects with the Malaysian mystery: the flight recorders were not found for 23 months, and the truth, once it became known, was yesterday’s news.

Here is a key judgement from the accident investigation, once the flight recorders were finally found and the data analyzed:

“The pilots were accustomed to using an autopilot system during cruise and may have been out of their element when forced to fly manually in situations other than takeoff and landing. They were poorly trained for emergency situations at high altitudes and did not seem to realize that the plane was stalling until it was too late.”

So, too soon to know anything for sure, though the search for Flight 447 suggests that however deep the mystery, eventually the truth will emerge.

For my part, I was crashing around myself in the semi-darkness since the Maids are coming today, which means I have to get the place tidy enough to be cleaned. Passing through the semi-darkened kitchen, something larger than a tarantula and smaller than a baseball dropped off a counter and hit the floor with a soft fleshy sound disappeared, presumably into the minor gap on the skirting under the dishwasher.

There is another mystery to deal with. I appear to have an infestation of some sort, which requires an offensive by this human against vermin. It is too metaphoric this morning to dwell on. I am sure we will be talking about this and the other mystery de jour as the Spring arrives in Mystery City.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303.

In Like a Lion

I got out of Arlington later than I had anticipated- hey, it was Sunday, right, and after that unpleasant Spring Forward that cost us an hour of sweet sleep?

I had several good ideas that did not come to fruition, but the drive was pleasant under crisp blue skies, a little cooler than Sunday, but with the promise of seasonal temperatures to start the week.

All save a few swatches of white were gone from the Culpeper fields, and I stopped at Croftburn Farms to get some dinner and breakfast materials. There were still two dozen eggs left from the local farms, a welcome sign, but looking in the white refrigerated case, the offerings were pretty well picked over. No sausage-with-sage left, and the local steaks were a bit pricey. I sighed and thought about imposing some discipline on purchasing.

So, eggs, an onion, maple sausage and a pound of local hamburger rounded out the purchase, as I got the idea of doing a loaf of 2/3rds beef and a third sausage- I know, the maple sweetness angle kind of threw me, too, but I planned to fold in some corn meal, an egg to bind it all, adobo, garlic and pepper for seasoning and chop up half of a good Vidalia onion.

Andrew, the master and commander of Croftburn, asked about my time down in the Keys, and I almost went into a reverie right in front of the meat counter. He concluded with the admonition that the Russians were probably going to be departing early in the afternoon. I refrained from asking about the Countess, Natasha’s lovely daughter, and the mother to darling Sasha, the Czarina-in-waiting.

The adults of our generation are hoping for romantic developments between Andrew and the Countess. She is quite Russian, and unburdened by some of the conventional American wisdom about the role of men and women. She is stunning in that regard.

Anyway, with the knowledge that they might be taking off early, I swung into their muddy lane in the Panzer before arriving at Refuge Farm. The snow melt has not been fully absorbed into the red clay soil, and at this time of the year I marvel that the great armies that marched on foot and dragged equipment by horsepower maneuvered these very fields in this very mud.

The lift gate was up on the silver SUV, so Andrew’s intelligence was quite accurate, which made me suspect he was in regular communication with the Countess, a good thing, in my estimation. A formal relationship would cement the influence of our little clan on the local food chain, right?

Anyway, I shut down the car and tossed the keys on the driver’s seat as Natasha emerged from the 1910 white farmhouse. She was carrying a glass of Old House Winery’s Chardonnay, and I asked impertinently, where mine was. She smiled and handed me the glass, saying she would get more, and that she had a few minutes to stand and watch bees with Mattski in the back pasture.

I took a sip while she went back to the kitchen and then we walked the squishy grass back past the cinder block garage and past the elongated fenced truck patch that Natasha is already germinating young vegetables to get in the ground when the threat of hard frost is gone.

Mattski was sitting in one of the green plastic Adirondack chairs, observing his bees. The rascals were quite busy, coming and going from the slot on the bottom of several stacked white wooden boxes that hold the hive in a striated society not much different than ours.

“I am going for seven hives this year,” said Mattski. “I am committed to this. We will be drinking mead in two years. I am serious.” I nodded, thinking that alcohol produced from the bounty of this very field would be pretty cool.

Natasha stood as we talked about the change in the weather, the way March comes in like a lion and leaves less so, the timing of the last hard frost, the great melt, and Biscuit the Wonder Spaniel ran around wagging her tail. She was perfectly in tune with the raptor sculling in the skies above and the swarming bees. “The workers are hard at it.”

“They are all drone males, aren’t they?”

Natasha smiled thinly. “Is not. They are all females. The idea that men work is absurd.”

Mattski and I made haste to agree, and it was not long until we got to the matter at hand, which was, whither Crimea?

This is a personal issue down in Culpeper. Natasha is from Yalta. She grew up there, before marriage and Moscow and the Rocket Institute called her up to Moscow. She has been in touch with Aunts and Uncles and the video coverage of the crisis shows her roads and corners that she knows well.

I asked her what was going to happen, and if the people of the Crimean Peninsula were going to opt to be Russian, or stay Ukrainian. “Is Putin coming in like the month of March?” I mused.

“Is hard question. I am split- I have both sides to me, and I don’t know what will happen. When I was young girl we were all Crimeans. I think the crisis means they will start being Russian, and Greek, and Jew again as society fragments into its components.”

Then we talked about the social makeup of the peninsula, and the differences between east and west Ukraine. And of course we remarked on the boldness of Mr. Putin, and Article 5 of the NATO pact, which holds that “an attack on one member state is an attack on all.”

A zephyr brought the still present chill breeze through the weft of my sweater, reminding me the winter was not yet gone. We wondered about the viability of the Baltic States and their ability to survive an assault from the East, and the marvel that Poland was again in the middle of everything. Then came the question of whether the West would be willing to launch WW III to protect East Europe was a question that went along with where the new hives were going to go, and how the newly planted vines had survived the winter, and when the first tomatoes would be in.

I thought a thick and mildly spicy tomato sauce would be nice to add to the simmer of the loaf, and perhaps finish it with some Mexican four-cheese grate from the only non-local ingredient in the mix. I resolved to do something to support local cheese, and we finished the glass of white wine. Sasha appeared in tall rubber boots, and wanted to check the Groundhog trap and see if they had caught one of the big rodents. We traipsed across the field to the derelict barn and chicken coop where the mesh trap, baited with small domestic apples, sat empty.

Then back to the house where Natasha’s son Grigori reported that the chicken was done, and the early dinner ready to be set out. I took my leave to do the opening chores, and put together dinner and maybe have another glass of wine. The extra daylight in the evening was welcome, as much as I hate the loss of light in the morning, I have to tell you that the savory smell of the loaf and the quiet tranquility of the back deck were a splendid way to conclude a day that started urban and ended country.

The question that remains for me is whether this is like 1914, or if it is as simple as acquiescing to the equivalent of Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland, you know? The loaf, when cooked for two hours at 325 degrees was savory, local, and delicious.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Stretch

(Peggy’s Stretch Lincoln Town Car at the Willowcroft Farm Winery on the first short-sleeve day of pre-Spring).

I was going to take off early for the farm but the early news suggested the first fatality of Daylight Savings Time may have happened at the junction of US-29 and Vint Hill Road, which is about a mile south of my shortcut from I-66 to bypass Gainesville.

It is a tricky intersection- coming northbound there is a swale shaped like a humpback whale that conceals the stop light at the junction, so even sober and in daylight it can be a very surprising pop into a line of cars waiting at the red light. The flashing yellow warning lights that are illuminated in consonance with the traffic signal. I am going to take a wild guess and say it was either a drunk or a long-haul driver who was not aware of what was obscured by the modest rise ahead of them.

The whole road was shut down, or at least it seemed to be on the radio version of reality, so I deferred the idea of getting on the road early. Instead, I downloaded the pictures from the smart phone of the wineries tour out in Loudoun.

A cadre of the Usual Suspects from the Amen Corner took a tour of three wineries yesterday via Reston Limousine Lincoln stretch car with able chauffeur Peggy Thompson at the wheel. The limo was a fine way to approach the transportation problem, though the length of the beast on the dirt roads of Loudoun County made her honk the horn with energy at the approach to each turn to advise oncoming traffic of our imminent bulk.

Actually, driving through the countryside honking the horn wildly was just one of the highlights of the trip. Loudoun real estate boomed through the first decade of this century- right through the Great Recession as more and more money concentrated in the National Capital Region, and it beat out Fairfax as the richest County in America (and hence in the history of the West). I looked for property out there a decade ago, and could not find anything like Refuge Farm that did not have a decimal point prominently in the price.

It is quite remarkable to see the sprawl that now accompanies the transportation corridors, but off the main roads you can see it is just a veneer. A half mile off The Leesburg Pike (modern Rt 7) or the Greenway toll road the country is still crisscrossed by gravel lanes that Confederate Irregular horseman John Singleton Mosby would recognize. Except of course for the curious (and apparently) air-dropped gigantic McMansions that stud the old pastures and fields.

Anyway, three wineries were on tap for tasting sessions, and we visited the cellars of the Fabbioli clan, 8 Chains North and the third of the trifecta was a vague tribute to our local watering hole, Willowcroft Farm Vineyards.

Fabbioli Wines: Route 15 North. About 4 miles from the center of historic Leesburg on Limestone School Road. “Our new, upgraded tasting format has been a huge hit! Every month, we offer 7 of our fine wines perfectly paired with 7 gourmet food bites, created by local chefs and food artisans. You’ll enjoy sitting at one of our cozy tasting tables while our wine educators present a fun, unique and delicious experience.” Fabbioli is one of the older of the new school of wineries in Virginia, and they have the tasting experience down. We were sober when we walked in, and though less so when we left, the place was impressive in its professionalism, the contrasting tastes of food and wine, and a marvelous start to the day. I bought a bottle of their Governor’s Cup Tannat, a full-bodied red with plum and raspberry highlights and smoke and earth tones on the finish.

http://www.fabbioliwines.com/

8 Chains North: “A small family-owned and operated farm winery located in the town of Waterford in picturesque Loudoun County, Virginia. Our business began in 2006 when our original vineyard, Furnace Mountain, was planted by father and son on the bluffs of the Potomac River. We believe that the best wines begin in the vineyard, and invite you to enjoy a glass or bottle with us in our Tasting Room.” The name apparently comes from the plot of ground where the first grapes were planted, a place originally cleared by General Lee’s men, eight chains north of the old turnpike for the invasion of Maryland near Point of Rocks. Buckley-the-bartender was fun and approachable and the views were superb.

http://8chainsnorth.com/

Willowcroft Farm Vineyard: On Harmony Church Road, past the first Wine Tours sign at Mt. Gilead Rd. to Loudoun Orchard Rd. “One of the oldest of the wineries in Northern Virginia. The historic barn boasts breathless panoramic views of Loudoun Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Willowcroft’s personal attention to detail, both in the vineyard and the winery, has resulted in national award-winning wines, time after time. Once an orchard, the slopes are now planted in mature grapes. The rustic beauty, historic red barn, and the award-winning wines, will give you reason to return to this peaceful spot.” This was the least organized of the three stops, since we brought two bottles of white from 8 Chains North in the car to tide us over. We talked at least as much about the stink bugs in the barn as we did about the wine. Still, a lovely place and well worth the stop.

http://willowcroftwine.com/

They were all fun stops, and each had a distinct personality. We were earnest and focused at Fabbioli, so perhaps that reflects the results of the post-stop quiz from Peggy.

Everyone agreed that was the best of the three, and we were equally unanimous that three stops was preferable to four, since we would have been completely trashed when we got back to town.

According to the survey conducted by Driver Peggy, Fabbioli was probably the best enjoyed, since there were paired food morsels- tiny ones- that were paired with each of the seven vintages we sampled in really small doses. Each of the wineries was happy to sell us uncorked bottles to go, and the party was very well lubricated as we left 8 Chains, passing by a Llama farm in which the furry beasts looked at us with great curiosity.

Being originally from Bolivia, TLB was an authority on the species. She instructed us to address the animals only in Spanish when Peggy brought the limo to a crawl to observe the Loudoun Llamas close up.

Along the way I struck up a lively dialogue with perky Peggy. Her husband was a retired Naval Officer, and we had some shared memories of places far away. She confided that Robert Duval was among her regular customers out in Loudoun, and she rattled off a couple other celebrities I vaguely recognized, and then she got mysterious and said there were others she could not reveal.

I am content to leave her with her limo mysteries, and the image of her long sleek vehicle sliding through the dark nights on the back roads of Loudoun County.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Spring Ahead, Part 14

It is a lovely pre-spring morning, though it comes with a certain chronological anxiety. It makes me savor this morning, since the light is back, at least until tomorrow, as the seasons begin their stately transition.

The Government is going to step on that, of course, since at midnight tonight we are going to set our clocks ahead an hour for some perfectly fine reasons- I am trying to think what they might be, since the Great Change causes people to be cranky from what is an essentially jet-lagged National Capital, and for them to crash their cars in the morning darkness and all that.

Old Jim has several theories on that, and is very sensitive to the amount of light available during the hours of socially acceptable drinking. We have a standard discussion about the nature of the “Longest” and “Shortest” days of the year, which are, as he notes, nothing of the sort. They are all pretty much the same, only varying seasonally about the amount of sunlight in them.

We have Benjamin Franklin to thank for Daylight savings time. During his time as Ambassador to France, he awoke one morning earlier than his custom, and marveled at the light streaming through his curtains. Ever the tinkerer, he wrote an essay that changing the clocks with the season would avail citizens of “free sunshine” for many more hours saving on expensive candles. Changing the clocks would be a net benefit to all.

Of course he wasn’t driving down to the Quai Dorsey every day, but I take his point.

There were some fits and starts and experiments on the clocks through the 19th century. The railroads had forced standardization of the time, which has developed as a wild patchwork in which adjacent jurisdictions legislated their own times. At one point there were 300 different time zones in the Continental US, and that made scheduling the trains a real problem. The Feds decreed that there would be only four in 1883, and Great Britain followed the next year, establishing the time at the Prime Meridian at Greenwich .

As usual, it was the imperative of War that drove the first attempt at establishing a seasonal adjustment to time, almost precisely for the reasons that occurred to Dr. Franklin. Conservation of energy during the brief American participation in World War One changed the clocks, though it was repealed in the plague year of 1919. The matter rested there until the second installment of our Hundred Years War, 1942 to 1945. In 1966 the United States officially adopted the Uniform Time Act, which declared that Daylight Saving Time would begin on the last Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday in October.

The Oil Shock of 1973 brought the matter up again, saving all sorts of candles, and perhaps the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil each day. After the energy crisis was over in 1976, the US changed their DST schedule again to begin on the last Sunday in April. DST was amended again to begin on the first Sunday in April in 1987. The last tinkering with time came in August of 2005, when President W. signed the energy policy and Defeating the Taliban Act- I am making up the second part, hahaha- which extended DST even further, from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.

Read more: http://pix11.com/2014/03/07/daylight-saving-time-2014-when-do-we-turn-our-clocks-forward-and-why/#ixzz2vNdKJ8C8

The benefits to all this are supposed to be outweighed by the advantages, but there are a lot of people not even in the Willow Bar who feel that the dark winter mornings endanger the lives of kids walking to school. Oh, throw in heart attacks, traffic accidents and a curious inability of people to use the extra time for something productive, like exercise, and instead arguing about what time it is at local versions of The Amen Corner.

We were talking about this with a new player who sat at Jim’s left, and had opinions about all sorts of things. We dubbed him “F-250 Jeff ,” and we will see whether we made the cut to make him a regular. He does the VRE commuter train out of Union Station, and had no opinions whatsoever about sobriety check-points. I will have less time than usual this weekend to investigate strategies for compliance.

So we Spring Ahead, even if I do not think that Old Man Winter is done with us just yet. Oh, yeah, Great Lakes Ice may have peaked yesterday at 92.2% coverage, and we will have temperatures in the 50s here today, and 60s tomorrow before the next chilly front comes through next week.

I am off on a winery excursion today with the Willow crowd, via hired bus. There are a variety of rules about what we can do in the vehicle, but no liability for consuming alcohol and riding as a passenger. I will have a full report for you tomorrow, unless the lack of sleep and artificial jet leg throws me off schedule.

Aside from the apparent collapse of the West, this looks like it is going to be a splendid weekend, regardless of what time it is.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

 

Half Smoke

(A crowd estimated at 500 gathers outside Ben’s Chili Bowl’s new location on Wilson Boulevard in Arlington. (Photo by Kimberly Suiters/All-News 99.1 WNEW)

Too freaking cool. I will not have to comment this morning on the Jobs Numbers, or the stand-off in Crimea, or the latest razor cut of this awful winter’s sleety mix. I keep looking for the emerging crocus stalks that will signal the arrival of Spring, but it isn’t happening. Rather than plow into the snow-bank that is life in the imperial city, there is good news that needs to be reported.

We will not have to venture down to U Street to get a decent half-smoke, smothered in what has been recognized as America’s finest chili. Ben’s has opened a new outpost in the wilds of Arlington, a signal moment in the Economic Recovery.

First off, I should mention why Ben’s is an institution here. No restaurant becomes an icon of success and renewal without having a decent product. In the case of Ben’s, it is the ‘half-smoke.’ a food peculiar to the District.

A half-smoke is a sausage-like tube with natural casing filled with an emulsified mixture of half pork and half beef. It renders something in taste about midway between a smoked sausage and a regular hot dog. Tourists may have tried a half-smoke from the food trucks that line up outside the museums and think they have had one, since that is what the sign said on the cart. Not so. There is no comparison between the wimpy-limp, steamed sausages served up at the food carts to the ones grilled up to order at Ben’s.

Ben’s has been a landmark for more than a half century at the location on U Street. For those of us who have been around the block a couple times, U Street encompasses the tumultuous history of the District of Columbia north of the stately white marble of the Federal Enclave.

Back in the day, U Street was known as Black Broadway, and Duke Ellington’s band was a regular act on the street, and the rhythm of the age echoed through the bars and ballrooms there. I was working for the phone company at The Bus Station down on New York Avenue a few years ago, and some of the original tenants of the new building regaled us on smoke breaks under the heroic Greyhound marquee which had been retained in the construction of the imposing office building that this location once marked the northernmost advance of urban renewal. Further north from the building things were dicey, and trouble beckoned.

The station had opened in 1940 as an Art Deco marvel of air conditioning and fashionable architecture, jammed with the hoards of newly-minted Washingtonians who came to Washington as part of the coming War Effort. The jailbreak of the bureaucrats to the Virginia and Maryland suburbs left the District north of Pennsylvania Avenue behind, and the riots just about finished the city off.

Writing in the Washington Post a couple years after I first visited my future home in 1970 to protest some war or another, columnist Henry Allen wrote a profile of the Greyhound terminal, and the neighborhood around it. The elegance was gone, and he reported:

“…that bus station smell…the stale, sweet, sooty urban smell of cigar smoke, cold sweat and carbon monoxide; the tart, grimy smell of winos, and the starchy air of the cafeteria, like the mess hall of a troop ship.” T

The City had changed. Instead of leather benches with chrome accents, there were “plastic seats with bolted-on TV sets that nobody watches” and “it was hard not to be jaded at that point, surrounded by the assortment of “pimps, pickpockets. winos, junkies, whores, transvestites, Murphy men, pushers, all-round hustlers and restroom commandos.”

The magnificent marble of Union Station, adjacent to the sprawl of the US Senate office buildings, was barricaded and the tracks only accessible through the vast darkness of the domed waiting room through long white-painted corridors of plywood. You could hear water dripping down the walls and it was frankly pretty creepy.

Over by Building 213 at the Navy Yard, the sound of gunfire was a regular feature. There was an exception to the squalor and despair on U Street: Ben’s Chili Bowl.

Ben and Virginia Ali opened their restaurant in 1958 in U Street in the District, and it’s since become a staple on the D.C. food scene. It stayed open through race riots in the late ’60s that devastated the neighborhood, serving as a sort of informal command post for both police and local activists as the famous Black Broadway shuttered itself and hit the skids.

They even stayed open during the construction of The Metro ‘s yellow and Green Lines, which made the late 1980s U Street neighborhood a wasteland of heavy construction and boarded up storefronts. Ben’s was a light in the darkness- these images are courtesy of the Alis:

The city was changing for the better, and a tip of the topper to the astonishing Mayor Marion Barry, who we hear is ailing these days. His unique and creative approach to governance (the District had been turned over to Home Rule by then) a marvel of both vision and corruption. Our little band of phone company pioneers planned a walking trip from the Bus Station to Ben’s one pleasant spring lunch time, and we were amazed to see the gentrification in progress, and the revitalization of the area.

We feasted on half-smokes smothered in the signature chili, and fries drowned the same way. It was dynamite, and the pictures of the other folks who valued the community resource that is Ben’s were all over the walls:. Pop culture icons like Ella Fitzgerald, Chris Rock, Usher, Bono, Tyrese, Nick Cannon, Chris Tucker, Sarah Jessica Parker, Serena Williams and Bill Cosby grace the walls, along with actual world historic figures like Dr. Martin Luther King and the President of the United States.

Media coverage includes features on “Man vs. Food,” “Oprah,” Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations,” “Good Morning America,” “The Daily Show,” just to name a few.

There have been rumors that Ben’s might expand. The Alis opened a counter inside National’s Park, but the flagship restaurant on U Street was the only sit-down place of business until yesterday. Ben’s opened at 1725 Wilson Boulevard right here in Arlington, with none other than Bill Cosby to cut the ribbon.

The Alis did their market research pretty well. I first ate in that strip mall not long after DESERT STORM. In those days the address was occupied by the superb Vietnamese soup shop Pho ’75. That was in the time of the great South Vietnamese diaspora, and when Rosslyn was the hub of a vibrant Southeast Asian community. Pho ’75 moved further out to Falls Church, in what we know now as Vietnam Town, and was ultimately replaced by Ray’s the Steak, and then Ray’s Hell Burger.

Michael Landrum (“Ray”) is a hell of food guy. His steaks are to die for, and his style autocratic and a bit imperious. His burgers featured things like fois gras toppings, and made enough of a stir that president Obama took then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev there for lunch, and later munched sweet-potation fries there with VP “Smokin’ Joe” Biden. The first visit generated enough publicity and interest that Landrum was forced to expand the restaurant in place, and then move up the street to a place with a larger footprint.

And as of 10:30 yesterday morning, under leaden winter skies, Bill Cosby cut the ribbon on the latest addition to the vibrant Wilson Boulevard corridor in front of hundreds of Chili Bowl fans. In his remarks, Cosby joked that he wants to be buried at nearby Arlington National Cemetery, where I am planning on spending the rest of eternity when this ephemeral life is gone. Bill said he wanted to join us there, “so his ghost can come by for chili half-smokes as it pleases. Over in that cemetery,” he said, “there is no cholesterol. There are no triglycerides. Eat as many as you like. Double down on the cheese and the fries.”

Ben’s is now in Arlington, and I have a feeling I know where I am going for lunch. I don’t think Tracy O’Grady at Willow will mind- Bens serves no alcohol, so I know where I will be for Happy Hour.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com <http://www.vicsocotra.com>
Twitter: @jayare303

The Big Thaw

The Big Thaw is not here, not today. We had a good start yesterday and the snow is off the police car’s blue flanks, but it lingers elsewhere. It is gray and hovering below freezing, but the happy voices on the radio tell us that we will be up to the sixties by this weekend.
ice3 lake michigan.jpg

Be still, my heart. Not today, but soon.

Not back in Michigan. By the time the Bay turns up there back into blue water, it might be August. The Webbs of Kalamazoo sent me these three pictures of an outing to the Lake Michigan coast the other day. They make me shiver.

There is a bunch of other stuff to talk about, that thing in the Senate, and the stand off in Crimea, and stalemate about the German family that applied for asylum because they were prohibited from home schooling their kids. The climate thing and all the rest of it is tantalizing, but you know what? It is still too cold.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303w

Mardi Gras

We are supposed to soar in temperature all the way to the mid-40s today, which is a good thing, since I have to venture out to the wilds of Fairfax County this morning. The roads are passible, but the relative warmth is going to make everything soupy and salty by early afternoon.

I packed up the two phone-book sized legal binder for deliver and looked through the seventy-odd messages that piled up while the gang broke cabin fever at Willow yesterday afternoon in order to celebrate Fat Tuesday, and the end of the long bacchanal in New Orleans. Lovely Jamie is back from Tampa; Ann and Bill are re-united via a Delta connection in Atlanta and Grand Turk Island; Old Jim and Mary were laughing it up with Mary’s Sister and Montana Chris. Kevin the Nieghbor was with TLB and Jon-without, who were preparing for Lent. TLB was wearing here shiny Mardi Gras beads, and Jon has sworn to lay of the demon rum after midnight for the duration. But until midnight, he was sticking with Old Fashions.

The rest of the bar was an edgy mix of the courageous and the fool-hardy. We talked and laughed about Mardi Gras days gone past, and how nice it would be to be strolling around The Big Easy. A big luncheon party had cancelled on Executive Chef Tracy O’Grady, and the Monday lunch special meat loaf was on the bar menu for dinner, sliding Monday to Tuesday due to storm.

We have to adapt, but I really feel for the small businesses whose existence is so dependent on ease of travel, and the hunger of the contractors and bureaucrats who live and work in the area. Several of us hale from the Motor City, and naturally the topic of the ice on the lakes came up. We all still think of the region as ‘home,’ though no one is going back any time soon. Certainly not until the ice is off the roads.

We had noted when Superior in her ice-covered mansion went 100% covered. The last cold snap extended the coverage on the rest of the lakes, and the reporting yesterday from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor indicated that total ice cover reached the second highest value on record 91%, beating the previous 2nd highest value set in 1994 of 90.7%.

The record of 94.7% coverage was set back in 1979, two years after I packed my sea bag and escaped. Someone laughed about that, or maybe something else, but I heard someone say that the ice was going to linger through the summer if the winds did not pile it up and bring open water.

“Cherry blossoms at the end of the month,” growled Jim. “Can’t come a minute too soon.”

“Think pink,” said Jon-without and waved at Jasper. “I’ll have another, Dr. J. You can re-use the glass.”

“I am thinking about going back to Key West until it is safe,” I said. “This is unreal.”

“It has happened before and it will happen again,” said Kevin. “The ice comes and goes.”

“I just want it to go away from here,” said Mary, and that was something to which we could all raise a glass. And we did.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Making the Bed

I am uncertain about making the bed this morning. Normally, it is an element of faith, that once out of the embrace of the eiderdown, it is the grown up thing to put it back in good order, sheets folded down on top, covers tight as a drum, and the pillows stacked just so.

I am fairly sure that I will be back in the disarray and safely horizontal, though. We will see what the rest of the morning brings.

The elements have our attention here. I am watching one of the Porters moving some snow on the ramp up from the basement garage. WTOP claims we can expect several more inches of snow over the course of the morning, and it is falling on pavement that started wet and then iced up in a sheet before the snow began. Pre-treatment with chemicals was ineffective because of the long period of rain.

The governments that collectively direct our conduct are closed, of course, OPM directing the shut-down late yesterday. I buzzed around doing some mundane chores- picking up a quilt that I commissioned to be made with a facing of commemorative t-shirt images from my running days- and fresh vegetables and eggs for the larder, since there is every possibility that this will freeze travel for a couple days, anyway.

The Harris Teeter supermarket was jammed, and people prowling the aisles looked grim and tired of winter.

I take that as the general mood of things here. I did not feel that in the Keys- there were all sorts of reasons to be vaguely happy all the time with the knowledge that that the sky would be blue as the water on the next day.

Not here, of course, this being the seventh or eighth snow event day that will complicate the lives of parents with children underfoot and those whose businesses (like Willow) will take a hit as an institution, and loss of wages and tips for the young people who work there.

There is some more troubling news on the morning electronic mullet wrappers. It appears that the Chinese are lining up with Mr. Putin to support the incursion into Ukraine; tanks are massing near Belgorod, between the not-so-ancient slaughterfields of Kursk and Kharkov.

For its part, Ukraine is mobilizing its toothless military. The plucky Baltic State are feeling a chill draft. The Japanese are looking warily at the Chinese about the uninhabited Senkaku Islands- or will they be called the Diaoyus, as the PRC desires?

I don’t know. It appears the best face that can be put on things is that the Cold War is back, and with the dramatic backdrop of the Sochi Olympics now complete, the re-establishment of Great Russia can proceed apace.

Which gets me back to the decision about the bed. I finally decided to make it, but I made a compromise, just in case an emergency recline calls.

I put the new quilt on top of the comforter, and looked at it closely for the first time. A have a pal in the wilds of Fairfax who I used to smoke with in between rings of the Pentagon after they banned the practice inside in the early 1990s, the time we thought we had beaten the Russians.

He is now retired and more irascible than before. His wife is Donna, a woman of formidable sewing skills. On a visit a couple months ago, before this awful winter began, I saw some of her handiwork: Quilts and wall-hangings of amazing complexity, created with tradititonal motifs and some of my pal’s old favorite commemorative t-shirts.

I had just reached a level in the sedimentary debris in the garage at Refuge Farm where a load of old clothing surfaced. The shirts I had saved down through the years were ones that commemorated specific events or places, and I honestly had no idea what to do with them. Seemed too significant to take to the Goodwill, but really.

Wearing a shirt announcing that you have completed the 1983 Honolulu Marathon is about on par in pretention as putting a decal on the back of your SUV that reads “26.2,” the distance in miles of the race. Pathetic.

Still, the hundreds of hours of training required to finish the race came back as I looked at the shirts, and I decided to ask Donna to do a quilt out of a representative sample. When I saw it yesterday I was knocked out by the detail, the memories and the craftsmanship.

See for yourself. If you have things you would like to preserve in a work of art, I can hook you up.

The other thing about the quilt is that I can slide under it without any need to unmake the bed, and be just as comfy as if I did. The quilt is a thing of wonder.

In the meantime, I am thinking about Ukraine and the implications for the fledgling democracies of East Europe. That appears to be a bed that has been unmade for quite some time, and there appears to be someone else getting in it altogether.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Bracing for the Storm

(A detail from the painting “Charge of the Light Brigade” by James Edwin McConnell).

OK- another crap shoot. The metro guys are saying it will start in the darkness, and freezing rain to wintery mix to some significant snow- maybe a foot of it on top of the ice by the time dazed Washington attempts to deal with the morning commute.

I expect someone will be calling off the Government shortly, since it is supposed to keep up through the day. Time for a run to the store and stock up on alcohol. I should just get on the road and try to outrun the band of precipitation to the south, where the gentle breezes blow and I can put my flip flops and shorts back on.

But there is stuff that needs to be done here, and so we will just have to shrug and bear it, like the people of Ukraine.

Reports this morning are that cash-strapped Kiev mobilized its armed forces after Mr. Putin declared he had the right to invade, creating the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

The interim government that took power after Viktor Yanukovich fled last week does not have a lot of options, and neither do we. Mr. Putin obtained permission from the State Duma to use military force to “protect Russian citizens in Ukraine.”

This is all uncomfortably familiar, a spin on the complaint about oppressed ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe that had Mr. Chamberlain in such a dither in the brief break between horrors in the last century.

Russian forces have already bloodlessly seized Crimea, where their Black Sea base at Sevastopol gave them an impressive existing footprint.

I heard briefly from my neighbor Natasha about trying to track down family yesterday. There were confrontations between Russian and Ukrainian forces but so far no bloodshed. That may (or may not) continue. Any time forces are mobilized there is the opportunity for things to take a sudden and violent turn of their own.

There are no good options for Foggy Bottom- I mean, would we respond with troops if asked? The term of art for this invasion is telling- “Uncontested Arrival” was the phrase yesterday for the Russian incursion, a remarkable phrase I admire almost as much as “Leading from Behind.” But the events of today may render that term of art inoperative.

Ukraine as a whole is vital to Russian interests. The Crimea is essential; it is the warm-water port and access to the World Ocean year round that Petr Velikiy covetted.

The signs in Kiev’s Independence Square this morning read: “Putin, hands off Ukraine!”

That certainly is not going to happen, and I am apprehensive about what will. Poland is a NATO member, and I suppose that is where the line is drawn. A pal wrote this morning to remind me of the difference between Ukraine and the former East Block, which is what many in the western parts of the country are feeling now. He had dinner with some senior members of the Romanian MoD, and at one point he asked: “What are your top three national security concerns?”

The senior general responded that it was an easy question, ticking the answer off with his fingers: “The Russians, the Russians, and the Russians. Sooner or later those bastards will be back.”

Well, here they come.

Lord Tennyson the great British poet knew something about the region, and the strategic importance of its ports and agriculture. The British tried to block the forces of the Czar at Balaklava in 1854. Perhaps you recall the words?

“Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter’d & sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.”

That is a little prelude to whatever might happen as we are paralyzed by snow and indecision here in DC. I think the indecision thing is OK. But I would start talking to the Poles about how ready they are. And about that Missile Defense thing- think we might want to get back on that? Maybe think about re-setting the re-set?

(Russian troops occupy Crimea. Photo AP).

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Last Beef on Weck

Before Lent, anyway. Then Tracy is going to roll out the Fish Fridays in honor of the season. In the meantime, most of the usual suspects showed up for locally raised, humanely slaughtered, slow-cooked and thinly sliced beef on Kate Jansen’s home-made Kemmelweck rolls, topped with deep-fried olives and with horseradish, caramelized onions, sour cream and au juice on the side.

We might have talked about the Russian intervention in Ukraine, but I do not recall. I do know that John-with noted the new term of art being used at Foggy Bottom, which is “Uncontested Arrival.”

I said it was better than Leading From Behind, and marveled at what the language has become. John-With got his sandwich to go, and disappeared into the night. Jon-without and TLB had theirs at the bar.

The Master Chief was there for his monthly fix.

Old Jim does not indulge in the sandwich (he prefers the tuna sliders which are not on the menu for some seasonal mystery), nor did I, but the place was jammed and the joint was jumping. The new $10 bar lunch is a huge hit, and owner and executive chef Tracy O’Grady stopped by to say that the savory meat loaf (Mondays) and the rest of the weekly line-up would stay for a month, and then she would swap out the menu. It is really good to see the place alive with activity.

TLB talks to Heather 2, who came by to chat with the usual’s and has a new look- lighter and feathered around the bangs.

Jerry the Barrister retailed us with legal tales, and Bryan and Ann Marie were there in time to get a little table over in the Fish and Wildlife area, which had been occupied by newcomers eager to get a taste of Buffalo. There was no regulatory response from F&W, which seemed like a real possibility for a moment.

A grand time was had by all, and just in time for Lent to begin. And after that, the March Madness and The Masters and maybe this gawdawful winter will go into the books.

Another storm coming Monday. I probably should have got a Beef on Weck to go like John-With did to tide me over.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303