Three Beautiful Things 08/11/15: Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, Jazz and Justice, Sort of a Tapas Dinner

1.  I continued my exploration of NE Washington D. C. today, as well as my exploration of all the natural beauty in this area that sits in the midst of all the bewildering urban/suburban sprawl I live on the northeast edge of, by driving less than thirty minutes to the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, marshy wetland alive with lotuses, lilypads, other exotic flowers and water fowl and other wild life on the easterly bank of the Anacostia River.  Here are some of the pictures I took. If you'd like to see more of the color pictures, just go here and if you'd like to see more black and white, they are here.  If you'd like to see the whole batch of over seventy pictures from the gardens, they are here.  I post all my pictures, without prejudice, over at flickr.

2. Over in SE Washington, DC, another terrible conflict continues as developers and the DC Housing Authority push to dislocate, in the name of gentrification, low-income tenants from their homes in the Barry Farm neighborhood. I listened to members of the Barry Farms Tenants and Allies Association discuss their plight on 89.3 WPFW-FM.  WPFW-FM describes itself as the Jazz and Justice station and I have learned more in just the last two weeks listening to this station, not just about the hardships people of color in D. C. endure, but, even more so, about the numerous people and organizations in D.C. neighborhoods working hard, doing positive things to improve everything from housing problems to the difficulties families with members who are incarcerated live through to the history of the ignored and often despised people living in poverty in Washington, D.C.  I've never listened to a radio station like this one -- which means never before have I heard, first hand, so many raw stories and so much untold history of so many people whose lives are so very different from my own.

Oh! And the music on this station is really good, too -- it's jazz and a lot more.

3. I've been home alone for about ten days now since the Deke traveled to Nyack to visit Adrienne and Jack. I haven't been motivated to cook, in part because of the heat and, in part, I have more fun cooking when it's for more than myself. Tonight I did one of my favorite things for dinner.  I ate one half of a ciabatta roll broken in to pieces and dipped into olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I munched on cheese slices and salami and crisp sea salt crackers. I covered the other half of the ciabatta roll with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and layered feta cheese, fresh basil, and golden delicious apple slices on the open face. I enjoyed a chick pea salad I bought at the Co-op. It was a sort of tapas dinner.  It was a lot of fun.