Ting has placed this thing in Carole’s front yard

Hello neighbors! Have you been enjoying the seamless process that Ting employed to lay down fiber optic throughout the ‘hood?

Mark the street. Put down tape. Dig a trench. Come back next week with actual cable. Slop some messy concrete in the trench. Come back two or three more times for fine detail work on the asphalt. This has taken longer than the entire season of The Last of Us (so freaking good — watch it!).

Suffice to say, every time I see those paper No Parking signs lining the streets, I want to mow them down with my scooter. Anyhoo…

Just when we thought our long BevHills nightmare was over, the “Ting has placed this thing in Carole’s front yard” email complaint hit the listserv. Subsequent comments from the peanut gallery have included:

Carol looks ecstatic!

Helpful to know the “box” is called a “passive cabinet” and is allowing hundreds of people to receive symmetrical gigabit speed internet in the surrounding neighborhoods. (ergo, why the city permitted it).

Apologies to Carol, but the box is actually not in her yard but in something called “the public right of way,” and the City gave TING permission to put it there.

It’s beautiful isn’t it?! Wondering how long before a big truck takes one out 

I walked passed it the other day…and my thoughts were…eeee gads…that’s ugly.

Looks like Carol won the Ting eyesore lottery. They should give you free internet for mounting that beast in your yard without asking. 

Of course, it didn’t take long for the optimists among us to recommend that these ugly boxes be painted to become beautiful works of art. I am all for the beautification of BevHills (AS LONG AS YOU DO NOT TRIM MY BUSHES!), so I’d like to present some bespoke creations that I believe really capture the spunk and spirit of our beloved neighborhood.

Take that Dogs of Del Ray! We have the BevHills Bitch Sesh:

West Glebe Road Bridge Completion Countdown Clock

Homage to the Halal Chicken Slaughterhouse Market

Trompe l’oeil scooter parking

A welcoming location to leave those steaming poop bags we all love

Glass recycling art when you can’t make it to the purple dumpsters

Can’t wait to see the creative minds of BevHills add to my initial artistry!

Look out! The poors are coming!

Have you been following the 3 day+ rager on the listserv about supposed plans for George Mason Elementary school?

For those of you that just read this blog for comedic value and can’t be bothered with your idiotic neighbors’ rants, there was a PowerPoint deck that went out from ACPS to parents at the school outlining how they plan to rebuild the aging building. Only, an earlier draft had a mention of the space’s potential for housing, and someone read it and freaked the hell out thinking there was a land grab. The final draft that’s online has no mention of the school being used for housing, but hahahaha who can be bothered to read, and why do facts matter?

In no particular order, the BH listserv worked themselves into a froth about:

• Racism
• Class warfare
• Why people of more modest means would want to live among seven-figure dwellings (Jesus f’ing Christ, people!)
• Greenspace
• The difference between affordable housing and low-income housing
• Parking
• The Mayor’s developer mafia
• Traffic
• Number and types of cars in BH
• The annual salaries of firefighters
• What constitutes an ACPS employee versus a contractor
• Will my home value go down if everyone near me isn’t rich
• The number of square feet a single mom and 2 kids need
• Zoning rules (and wouldn’t these people be better in Del Ray?!)

Honest to god though, I had to pick my jaw off the floor, when I read THIS gem from the lovely Jennifer M.:

What’s perplexing to me is how anyone can think that folks living in affordable housing want to live in a neighborhood with $1M+ homes.  You think that’s going to make them feel better about themselves?  Taking the bus while a neighbor is driving a Mercedes is going to perk them up?  Think they are going to feel like they belong to the local community??  Come on – who would want that?

Seriously, JFC. I hope everyone throws their dog poop bags in your city trash can, Jennifer.

Anyway, I’ve been sitting back writing and rewriting a possible blog post for the past several days, and then I see that my fans have spoken (Thanks, Tom E.! I’ll bring by a halal chicken to reward you for the plug!).

Wait, so this was all one big misunderstanding?  Oh boy…can’t wait to see what Tales from the BH Listserv is going to say about this!!!!

It’s time for Bev to chime in.

May I present to you a one-act play I’ve written, entitled “The George Mason Commons”:

———

The sun is rising and people across Beverley Hills are getting ready to go to work.

A brown-skinned person walks out of the old George Mason Elementary school, recently renamed “The George Mason Commons” because affordable housing brought a wave of commoners into the neighborhood.

She waves at the recycling truck crew as they drive by. After all, they all live in the building. “Damn,” she thinks, “this Beverley Hills neighborhood might not be everything I dreamed it would be. They don’t even have curbside glass recycling here. What have I gotten myself into?!”

She tries to put it out of her mind, only to look up and see one of those fancy-pants single-family-home dwellers drive by in a Mercedes. Sigh. Clearly, she is unable to see a nice car and not hate on herself.

“I’ll show those snobs,” she thinks, walking past the bus stop of lowlife scum waiting for transport to the Pentagon, DC law firms, and other low-class jobs.

Finding a pile of abandoned scooters in a heap across the sidewalk, she heads off, helmetless, toward her job at the newly opened halal butcher shop.

Of course, the fastest option is to zip her scooter down Seminary Road. Ever since the road diet (high five, Mayor Wilson!), she can get to work before the angry picketing crowds show up and ruin her mood. Speaking of mood, she’s having such a fun, fast ride that she waves to all the cars waiting. A few of the drivers see her and honk. “Wait, are those middle fingers?” she wonders. “No, they couldn’t be. Not here. I’m pretty sure those drivers are just telling me I’m #1 based on my eco-friendly commute!”

The scooter breaks down about a block away from work when she jumps it over one of the ridiculously high speedbumps recently installed. “Hmm,” she thinks, “maybe some of Mayor Wilson’s developer cronies put these here.” Angered,  she flings the scooter in the road, because scooter riders do what they want.

Her workday at the butcher is pretty quiet and uneventful, except for all the dogs outside howling because the blood makes them crazy. She ignores the sound, and when she eventually gets bored, her mind wanders. “Man, I’m so lucky to have scored that affordable housing in the middle of Beverley Hills. To think it was all because a sneaky ACPS ‘contractor’ stuck that slide in a PowerPoint deck a few years ago and set it all in motion. Surely, this is the only way a person of color like me could ever gain entrance to such a utopia. I don’t even have a European car.”

With her shift done and unable to find a scooter, she hops on the bus (ew, gross!) and makes her way back to the four-story George Mason Commons building she now calls home.

Walking up to the building, she narrowly avoids stepping in a fresh pile of dog poo that someone neglected to pick up. “What a jerk!” she says. “Dog poo belongs in people’s city-provided trash cans!” At last, the brown-skinned woman climbs the stairs to her apartment. First floor, firefighters. Second floor, trash truck folks. Third floor, sketchy potential child molesters. And finally, fourth floor, the poors.

Home sweet home. As she walks in the door, she can’t help but sing the words to the Weezer song, “Beverly Hills”:
Where I come from isn’t all that great
My automobile is a piece of crap
My fashion sense is a little whack
And my friends are just as screwy as me

Beverly Hills!
That’s where I want to be!
Gimme gimme gimme gimme!
Living in Beverly Hills!

[Aaaaand scene]

PS. How has our opinionated “Donna” not chimed in on this thread after 3 days?? Has anyone checked in on her? Does she have cats? They get so hungry…

The listserv is down. I repeat, the listserv is down!

OMG, the BevHills listserv was down all day and now it’s like a firehose of emails complaining, looking for electricians, and selling their crap.

The absolute best was a thread about folks cutting down mature trees.

It involved a lot of public shaming of a realtor involved in a recent house flipping project who had every last bit of greenery ripped out.

Someone posted the realtor’s work information so people could call him and complain, so naturally, that person was accused of doxxing (they helpfully included the Webster’s definition).

Accusations of public shaming began to fly. There were calls to be civil. Somewhere in the distance, a fox howled and dog took a huge crap in someone’s lawn.

A gentle warning: Watch out for unpicked up dog poop

<popcorn!>

I will start by noting that my Google search history is forever ruined by the phrase “image of person throwing dog poop.”

So…it seems the ridiculously rainy spring has finally drove the residents to the brink.

Yes, that’s right, dog poop posts are back.

And this time, the poop is *airborne*.

Watch out for unpicked up dog poop. I was parking my car in front of my home a few minutes ago when I saw a couple with a small dog pooping in front of my house. They rushed off when they saw me. When I got out of the car, I saw a big blob of dog poop on the sidewalk.

[Editor’s Note: I love how the poor grammar makes it seem as though the *couple* was pooping in her yard with their dog as witness and ran off when spotted.]

I figured they hadn’t gone far so I drove down the block to track them and get them to come and pick up the poop. The man was very unpleasant. At first he denied it and threatened to throw dog poop on my car window. But, I wasn’t going to get frightened, and I said I was going to drive behind them slowly and make sure they picked it up. <emphasis added, because good LORD!>

So watch out for them. He is about 6’3”, with light brown/blonde hair, and a blue T-shirt. The girl with him is about 4’5″, looks about 12 or 13 years old, and wearing white flowered tights. Their dog is a small black dog, probably part Shi tzu or some kind of a toy breed. He had a very menacing tone. Please look out for them in case they’re headed your way.

For those in the know, this post was initiated by a listserv regular who lists her location as “on Spring Street,” and has been known to post about her cat’s irritable bowel syndrome.

Can you seriously imagine someone slowly stalking you with their car, yelling about dog poop?!

Thank goodness the BevHills comedian vigilantes were eager to take up the case. God bless the man who posted this zinger:

I’ve come back from a 30 minute patrol looking for these two menaces. I saw a couple that matches your description but all I attempted to question threatened to throw feces at me and other citizens upon continued inquiry. Potential suspects I confronted said that sometimes shit happens and if people feel unsafe we have the option to contact public safety officials. Their hands looked clean but I will remain vigilant.

 

Someone took all our Halloween Candy

Apparently my delusional neighbors here in BevHills think that our bucolic avenues here are somehow exempt from the time-honored antics of Halloween.

You know the drill:

We left a very large bag full of Halloween candy on our doorstep with a note saying please take some. We have a newborn baby and so didn’t want people ringing our doorbell. Some kids just came to the door and when we went out, the whole bag had gone. The candy was there to be given away, but we feel disappointed that we had nothing to give those children because someone was selfish enough to take the whole lot.

We got hit too. Next year I am going to add a line to my “please just take a few pieces” note that says “camera surveillance in use”. Maybe that will scare them straight!

GASP! Hooligans and ruffians have invaded, because clearly they could NOT have been raised here and display such horrid manners!

Same for us.  An overflowing bowl, gone while unattended for less than 30 minutes, and before dark.  That tells me the culprits were likely accompanied by parents who were ostensibly raised better than that.  Very disappointing.

My old buddy Donna (who wrote in a post-mortem listserv email about the Gun Shots? post that I was *jealous *of her) was kind enough to chime in and make unsubstantiated claims about the nature of the mischief:

I saw several large groups of pre-teens/teens without adult supervision on Russell Rd. before dark. I got the young ones at my house after dark (with adults). They were very polite!

Thankfully, my neighbor “Henry” made my blog posting easier with this gem:

The several large groups of pre-teens/teens without adult supervision on Russell Rd. came to Circle Hill after that and REPLENISHED my empty bowl.  Some were dressed (?) as gypsies and Rajis and poop bags.

Which reminds me, did any of you see my costume this year?

I think it was rather inspired.

No dog poo in the Dumpster!

Thanks to my two informers, I can share that the dog poop unrest continues to simmer…

Dog Poop in my Recycling Bin

Like the great eye of Sauron, the BevHills listserv focused with laser intensity on dog poop once again.

When the words “dog poop” show up in my inbox, you can pretty much pop the popcorn and sit back to enjoy instant hilarity. Today did NOT disappoint.

No other topic brings out the absolute utter insanity of the neighborhood quite like excrement.

At issue (once again) is the disposal of poop bags in other people’s big green curbside trash cans. One person gently reminded the group of that these cans actually belong to the City of Alexandria, so they are actually not personal property. The response?!

This sounds to me like an open invitation for everyone to put their dog poop in Tina’s* garbage can on Dogwood Drive? What’s your house number so we can dispose of our dog’s poop and then you can clean the can out when the waste turns to maggots?

(*All names changed to protect the crazies.)

From there, not surprisingly, the thread exploded.

Neighbor 1: Yesterday a lady with a very large dog on a very long lead decided that my front garden was her dogs new marking ground and let him roam for about 3 minutes doing his business here and there. I watched her from upstairs. Next time I’ll be squirting her (not the dog who is not at fault) with a water gun.

And then, perhaps, some voice of reason:

Neighbor 2: Dear God you people are freaking nuts. How old are you, 10? You seriously have nothing better to do than sit in your window monitoring your yard for dog walkers? You’re actually going to pull out a hose and squirt someone? That says an awful lot about you as a person.

Followed by an inspired current event joke:

Neighbor 3 [responding to person who rallied everyone to put poop in Tina’s can]: Thank you for becoming the Donald Trump of the listserv.

Zing!

But WAIT! Tina decides to double-down!

XXXX Dogwood Drive. I am happy to continue to be a good neighbor and let you use the can loaned to me by the city for your doggies do-do.

And then, like a unicorn pooping glitter rainbows (pun intended), the thread morphs into another cherished listserv topic on animal care and eco-friendliness when the owner of a pet shop in Del Ray chimes in…

Feeding a dog and/or cat raw frozen or freeze dried meals actually reduces the smell of feces considerably! One of the benefits of Raw Feeding your dog is the less mess that they leave behind. Because they are able to glean most of the nutrition from the food that they eat (Raw meals & meaty bones), the waste is considerably less. What they do leave behind crumbles away in a couple of days.

Here’s a quick Youtube vid to show you the result of a dog on raw meals! (WARNING, VIDEO CONTAINS DOG POO!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoIhJnTeu94

My head is already exploding from the hilarity of the past 3 hours of comments, when “Donna”, a prolific poster chimes in with:

I wish the people who let their cats roam freely would come to my yard and pick up their cat’s feces!!!!  And, talk about smell – cat urine has got to be one of the worst, especially on a hot day!

I’ll swing by and get that poop on my way to Tina’s house. Never change, Beverley Hills. Never change.