Author: Vic Socotra

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

(I’ve Been Working) on the Railroad

(Canadian navvies in the green dark forest building the railroad that spanned a continent. Photo Wikpedia). It is a chill but delightful day in Your Nation’s Capital. I was moderately pleased about yesterday’s outing- I got some positive feedback on the analysis of the “97% of Doctors Who Smoke, Smoke Camels” methodology of the Global […]

Everybody Knows (This is No Where)

(Image copyright M. Ramos). It is snowing again this morning. A little heavier version of what happened yesterday, which made the sixth or seventh “significant” snow in DC this winter cycle. We all know about the Polar Vortex weather pattern that has driven colder and snowier airmasses across the midsection of America. We used to […]