In recent days, the Shepherd Park listserv went nuts over a missing stop sign. There were multiple posts on this mystery. Here's one from "Marcie":

"What's going on with the missing stop sign at Sudbury and West Beach (heading north)? Is that intentional? If so, shouldn't the one heading south be taken down too? It's a bit of a hazard because the folks who travel that road frequently still stop, while others new to the road do not. Can with Councilwoman Bowser's office or MPD or DPW (or whoever the appropriate entity is) shed some light on this?"

Today, the listserv got some good news about that stop sign.

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Neighborhood Listservs are no place to notify the neighborhood of local businesses that may serve the neighborhood. Or so says our friend Bill D over on the mostly-entertaining Second-Best Neighborhood Listserv. Uncle Bill offers this plea to his fellow angry Adams-Morganers:

Can we limit or eliminate the commercial use of the listserv?  It doesn't matter if your business is yoga, furniture, real estate or restaurant/bar....it's still a business and this is not the place to advertise. City Paper or Craigslist are better suited to this purpose

Per usual, a flurry of responses (if Bill D is for it, well then, I'm against it) follow. Hey: at least he got the name right.

Keeping a decent neighborhood listserv going means posting a lot about lost dogs, reporting on gunshots, and cranky neighbors dropping weird racial stereotypes related to crime. All of these will keep the message board well stocked with posts. But few posts beat the mysterious stranger knocking on doors thread that pops up once in a while. Years ago, we chronicled one mystery woman roaming Cap Hill.

The Shepherd Park listserv has a pretty good mystery stranger story this week. A poster writes:

"There was a guy in front of my house this afternoon at about 4 ranting at people who were coming up my steps.  He was yelling about wanting to talk about real estate and how is parents watched me move in.  He said he was from the neighborhood.  I told him we were busy, but he persisted and knocked on the door.  I repeated that we were not interested in talking and he went away."

A cop then responded to the listserv.

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Nora Greer, a 55-year-old woman who lives in Barnaby Woods, posted a message to the Cleveland Park Listserv in the hope of finding a kidney donor. It reads:

SOS. Next year I'll need a transplant as I slip closer to acute renal failure. I haven't been able to find a compatible match from family or friends. I'm seeking a healthy person with TYPE O blood willing to consider the donation of a kidney. I know it's a huge gift and can only come from a very special person. I'm desperately trying to avoid dialysis. The official waiting time for a cadaver kidney in DC is four to seven years. All donor expenses will be covered by the recipient.

She also posted to the Chevy Chase board and plans to put a message out on the Listserv for Tenley Circle. So far, she says, she's received well wishes, but no takers. She remains encouraged. Another woman who lives in Scarsdale, N.Y., Beth Abramowitz, received a kidney from a donor who read a plea on Facebook. The plea was posted by an old high school boyfriend and was read by a mother in Tallahassee, Fla., who agreed to give up an organ to a stranger. Abramowitz found out about Greer's appeal and got in touch to tell her to keep trying.

Greer's kidneys are 21 percent functional. As that number dips lower, she'll be forced to go on dialysis. Her doctor told her last summer she'll need a new kidney in 2009 and that she should start asking people she knows. It's a prospect that doesn't thrill her.

"Some of us have trouble asking for rides," she says. "It's a huge thing....Some people I know have come forward, but they're the wrong blood type, or they have physical limitations, or they're the wrong age."

This is a huge problem nationally---and in D.C., where Greer says there are more than 1,000 people in need of kidneys. "There are not enough cadavers, not enough people want to donate their organs."

Greer, a freelance editor and writer, came to D.C. from her native Chicago in 1977. She's married and does not have kids, in part because of the damage to her body caused by lithium treatments administered before she moved here. (She is diagnosed with bipolar disorder; her family, she says, has a history with the disease.) The lithium, widely administered after gaining FDA approval in 1970, also scarred her kidneys, she says.  A study published by the National Institutes of Health states that renal damage is a known side effect and that "although this effect of lithium is probably functional and reversible early in treatment, it may become structural and irreversible over time."

Greer's ideal donor is between 20 and 60 years old, is Type O or Type-O compatible, and has no health problems. For her part, Greer plans to continue to pursue whatever legal means to find a kidney. "But it's scary to me. I'd probably be more of an expert on how to do this at this point, but I put it away some days. Sometimes I don't want to accept this is happening."