March 28, 2008
Overheard in D.C.: Spring Love
Love is a burning thing. Two people coming together, sparks flying, cartoon birds, little cherubs flying around shooting heart-shaped arrows, all that good stuff. Sometimes you see somebody across the bar, and you just know. Sometimes it's on the Metro, and probably almost never it's a Missed Connection on Craigslist. But it's springtime, so why not go for something romantic?
Overheard of the Week
At the Target last Saturday:
20-something guy reminiscing fondly to his female friend: "You remember (name)? Man, she was the first girl I let handcuff me."
After the jump, odd things to tell one's boss, murderous cockroaches, and bagpipes.
It's nice out, skip work and go hear stuff. Then send the results to overheardindc (at) gmail (dot) com
Photo by apium
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Columbia Hipsters
Saturday at The Heights in Columbia Heights:
Four 20-something girls having brunch outdoors: "This is great... now all we need is an Urban Outfitters!"
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I can't tell the songs apart anyway
At the National Police Memorial on F Street on the Sunday before St. Patrick's Day:
A bagpipe group and other folks have assembled, and the pipers have just started playing "Amazing Grace."
Homeless guy watching, to no one in particular: "Jesus, can't they play any other song on those fucking pipes?"
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Scientists are baffled why the divorce rate is so high.
At a bar near GW on a slow Sunday night:
Bar regulars are chatting with a college-aged female server about her virginity and her plans "to wait for marriage."
Regular: "Bullshit. You're not a virgin - you could never wait that long to have sex."
Server: "That's why I say I'm gonna get married in the next two years - 'cause I don't think I'm gonna be able to wait much longer."
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Ah, the smell of spring.
Outside the Westin on M Street
A blind man with a guide dog was walking past some freshly manured/fertilized flower beds: "It sure doesn't smell like cherry blossoms."
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"Doctor, what happened to him?" "Run over by cockroaches."
Near Eastern Market:
Lady getting off a bus, screaming into her cell phone: "You are SATAN! SATAN! You DESERVED to be hit by that truck! And the cockroaches!"
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You went to prom with your boss?
Friday evening in the ladies room at Cue Bar:
Young lady in middle stall: "Wow, tonight feels like when I got roofied at prom."
Friend in next stall: "YOU GOT ROOFIED?"
Young lady in middle stall: "Well, no. I was just drunk, but that's what I told my really cute boss. You know, the one I have a crush on."
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Wait, which time?
At a bus stop:
Guy on cell phone: "Remember that time you picked me up from jail?"
(this was in the comments last week. Don't forget to email them to overheardindc (at) gmail (dot) com)
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Love stopped being a burning thing to me the day I discovered penicillin.
I gotta agree with the blind dude - the fertilized smell all over town isn't pleasant.
i gotta say, some trees smell like crap, so it might not be fertilizer. i was showing some friends around the hill last weekend, and there were some really pretty trees but they smelled like rotten fish. i forgot what they're called, but we had one in our high school courtyard and it was so bad that someone chopped it down as a school prank.
also, that GW bar server might be from kentucky. i swear that's why so many people i know got married right out of high school and before they turned 21.
Au contraire. Nothing says "Welcome to DC" quite like that wide-open ass smell. From local and Federal politics to the privileged attitude many residents take, that aroma works on so many levels.
And from above, the Hirschorn looks exactly like a butthole.
I think MSto is referring to Bradford pear trees, which smell like cat pee when they're flowering. But they're gorgeous. Bastards.
Bradford pears are the worst trees ever. Sure they look all pretty in the spring, what with their little white flowers and all, but come summer they've got a canopy full of leaves just waiting for the first strong thunderstorm to move through. All it takes is come included bark (which they're famous for) and a good gust of wind and all you're left with is half a tree and a limb on the roof of your car.
And the smell is just disgusting.
Bradford pears. Smells like home.
The trees. Not the cat pee.
ginkgo trees stink to high heaven too
Yeah, that was my guess too - those little squishy pellet things that gingkos drop smell awful.
in college (in PA, near the MD border), we had these pretty white-flower trees all over campus (and right outside my house) that stank to the high heavens, aptly earning the name "cum trees."
:: shudder ::
IMGoph, Andrew: It's only female gingko trees that produce the smelly seeds -- something to keep in mind when planting.
You know I have to admit that Monkeyerotica has got it right about the Hirschhorn. .
i'd never plant a male or female ginkgo (and i think i'm spelling it right, right?). i think the silhouette of the tree is scrawny and ugly.
For some reason the mulch they are using these days smells absolutely terrible. Mulch used to smelll like freshly chopped wood but now it smells ilke a lovely mix of crap and puke.
not a fan of the maidenhair tree imgoph? even when they turn that lovely yellow color in the fall?
IMGoph: You're right about the spelling -- my bad. Though I disagree about the trees themselves -- when they're in full bloom the leaves look almost like a host of butterflies.
Between this flower thread and the cherry blossom thread, I'm reminded of a passage from Miss Lonelyhearts:
What the little park needed, even more than he did, was a drink. Neither alcohol nor rain would do. Tomorrow, in his column, he would ask Brokenhearted, Sick-of-it-all, Desperate, Disillusioned-with-tubercular-husband and the rest of his correspondents to come here and water the soil with their tears. Flowers would then spring up. Flowers that smelled of feet.
everyone has their own opinions on trees, so i'll give you that, but personally, i'm an oak person. the willow oaks lining rhode island ave. from scott circle up to mt. rainier make for (in the places where they're all still there) one of the prettiest streets in the city, IMO.
the unit and 1300 blocks nw are the best.
some trees are mad sexy.