"I have the fortunate task of progress monitoring at least three-quarters of the students in my classroom. To progress monitor a student in the intermediate elementary school grades, the assessment takes approximately thirty minutes to complete. And here's the cherry on this hot-mess sundae -- for students identified as high-risk, I have to perform the assessments every two weeks and for the students identified as some-risk, I have to perform them every three-weeks. YIKES!"

Greater Greater Washington goes deep into the archives for a history lesson on Carroll Row.

And Now, Anacostia notes that the Salvation Army building has finally opened.

In Bloom sorta responds to a listserv post asking for Bloomingdale to become a gated community. Someone is fed up with crime! The blogger writes:

"Frankly, if neighboring LeDroit Park couldn't do it from the start, it's a fair bet to say that it's not going to happen here and now. With several major thoroughfares running through the area (First Street, North Capitol Street, and Rhode Island Avenue, just to name a few), it would wreak havoc on traffic as well."

The Georgetown Metropolitan calls off Ginkgogate 2009:

"While the wretched threat of their putrid load still hangs menacingly over our heads or lies under our feet, GM is now confident that a full-blown Ginkgogate 2009 has been avoided.

This time last year we we’re under a deluge of foul smelling berries. The city had switched to a new concoction to stem the growth of the ginkgo berries. It was a total disaster. We had berries straight through the spring."

Frozen Tropics factchecks a WaPo piece on H Street.

Prince of Petworth notes that there will be a community meeting this Wednesday to discuss the recent spike in violent crime in the neighborhood.

Now, as the Prince of Petworth has relayed in two recent blog posts, the local ANC 1A will be considering a new proposal on Wednesday night.  The Mission is trying a more moderate tack for the space, which it owns: retail combined with affordable housing.

Seems like a pretty un-contentious proposal. But if PoP’s comments section is any indication, the meeting will be, well, interesting. Some neighborhood residents are rather frank about who they don’t want moving in next door. One commenter writes:

“Can someone explain to me why poor people need to get subsidized ‘affordable’ housing in expensive neighborhoods? There’s a ton of affordable housing in DC as is - it’s called NE and across the river.”

“'Affordable Housing' = artificially concentrated poverty, more crime,” another says. “Build your projects in Georgetown, don’t dump on our neighborhood just because we’re not as rich.”

Another commenter suggested that the proposed development is actually a devious bait-and-switch by the Christian charity, still scheming to slip a homeless shelter into Parkview:

“What they are trying to do is very transparent. They want to get the special exception and build the building and then change the use to a shelter for men. Georgia Avenue will be doomed if this happens.”

ANC 1A chair Cliff Valenti, who fought the shelter plans last year, is supporting the current proposal. At the meeting tomorrow, he plans to assure the concerned blog commenters that their worries about incoming “projects” and “poor people” are unfounded.

“There’s a lot of confusion with people as to what ‘affordable housing’ means,” he told the Washington City Paper over the phone. “Where people get confused is when federal vouchers come in. This proposal says nothing about those vouchers. This is truly housing for people who have jobs, who are working.”

Valenti said he also expects reassurance from the Mission that they won’t transform the building into a homeless shelter after the proposal is approved.

You gonna argue with him?

Davis, a 6'3", 253-pound former University of Maryland star and now tight end with the San Francisco 49ers, has done his share to speed the city's transition away from hoop-centricity and toward the gridiron.

He and his little brother Vontae, a University of Illinois defensive back and recent first round pick of the Miami Dolphins in the 2009 NFL draft, grew up on Emerson Street in Petworth, and can now make a claim on being the best sibling athletes ever to come out of DC. Vernon, 25, and Vontae, 21, are only the third pair of brothers, behind the Mannings and the McDougles, ever to be chosen in the first round in NFL.

The Davises were back in their hometown over the weekend to run a free youth football clinic at their shared alma mater, Dunbar Senior High School.

"With the success of the guys coming out of DC, me being a high draft pick and then my brother being a number one pick, that's brought a lot of attention to the football here, to the talent and people all over respect that now," says Vernon. "I'm excited what DC has done with football, what's happening here now."

The athletic facilities here have never lived up to the talent level, both brothers told me. Vernon says he wasn't even the best athlete in his neighborhood growing up. But for reasons that by now just sound cliche, we'll never hear about the kids who had better tools. "Guys went in a different direction than I did, to the streets," he says.

Things have improved quite a bit in recent years around Petworth and on the city's football scene, however. The field at Dunbar has gone from dirt to artificial turf, the bubbled and worn out track surrounding the gridiron has been replaced, and the locker rooms and training facilities have been upgraded since the Davises toiled for the Crimson Tide.

But they're not complaining about the lot they were dealt."I was just talking about this with my brother, remembering the locker rooms, and how small the [Dunbar] workout room used to be," says Vernon. "But we were talking about how much we got done in those little spaces. We worked so hard, and we had the the coaches behind us. So it's not about the size of the room, it's about the work you put in, and the people, and we had incredible support from the people here."

"But I tell the guys there now: it's a blessing they have the facilities that we didn't have," adds Vontae. "Things were a lot rougher when we were here. The locker rooms, the field, all of it. But if we had the fields they've got, we probably would have been even faster than we were."

The Davises admit that their profession will keep them away from DC except for an occasional fall Sunday.

"I love DC," Vontae says. "But I'm moving to Miami to live. You can't beat that."

Every Independence Day, the show on the streets gives me giggles and makes me fall in love with my neighborhood all over again.

Mike Ratel's got a trailer for "On Your Mark, Get Set, Mow!"

But without some more funds, the rest of his lawnmower racing movie will end up on the cutting room floor.

Ratel, who lives on Upshur Street NW in Petworth, alleges that a project that has roots in trying to let the world know about a subculture where frustrated Dale Jr.'s tweak their ride-ons until they can cut the grass at 50 MPH has grown into something deeper. He wants to tell the story of the Mikulas of Sparta, Mich., who, along with being the First Family of lawnmower racing in their region, are also big-time fundraisers for Huntington's Disease, a degenerative illness that has killed five members of the clan.

Ratel's been shooting lawnmower racing events all over the U.S. on his own dime since March 2008. He's been unemployed for several months now, and will depend on the kindness of others to finish the job. If he gets some cash, Ratel will go back to Sparta in a few weeks to film the Mikulas annual lawnmower race/Huntington's disease fundraiser at Sparta's Town and Country Fair.

Ratel's set up a web site for donations. As righteous as blowing the lid off lawnmower racing is, Ratel reminds anybody thinking about giving him a buck: "Contributions are not tax deductible."

Police charged Troy Renard Thomas, 18, of the 3000 block of Third Street N.W. , with first-degree premeditated murder while armed of Ryan Randy Trotman.

Arrested in the Columbia Heights case was Robert Larry Brock, 28, of Beltsville in the shooting of Marcus Robertson on May 15. Brock was also charged with first-degree premeditated murder while armed.

The story, reported by Theola Labbé-DeBose, makes no mention that the two homicides, while apparently unrelated, are both allegedly tied to gang beefs going on in different neighborhoods.

Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham told his constituents last month that Brock was targeted for the shooting in "gang beefs that have been ongoing since the murders in Dec/Jan.  Another young adult, Paul Jones, was shot and killed by LaFonte Carlton this past January on the 1300 block of Columbia.  Carlton is now facing two murder charges," Graham reported in a May 16 post to the MPD-3D Listserv.

Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser, meanwhile, has said police are investigating Trotman's killing and another gun-related incident later that night as gang-related.

Trotman, 28, of the 7400 block of 7th Street, N.W., later died of his injuries. The name of the other victim, a woman who was shot in the leg, is being withheld because she witnessed the crime.

But a quick call the police didn't net anything new about whether the shooting and another incident a few blocks away the same night were part of a beef between rival gangs in the Petworth-Park View area.

“There are no updates” Officer Quintin Peterson in the police department’s Office of Public Affairs said this afternoon.

Howard Marshall, director of the facility, tells me that the fountains are being worked on and will be turned on for the season next Monday, June 15. And the spray park will be open Monday to Saturday through the rest of the summer.

The assortment of colorful nozzles opened in Petworth two years ago.

Other cities I've been to in the last year don't have the need to build spray parks like D.C. did. In Charleston, S.C., and, particularly, Boston, it seemed like pretty much all open fountains became de facto spray parks in the warmer months. Folks just walked into spray whenever the spirit moved them.

And this lifted up the mood of the whole neighborhood.

Because not only is it impossible to be grumpy while you're getting sprayed with cold water, it's impossible to be grumpy while watching folks get sprayed. Fountains become joy factories.

Couldn't D.C. use some joy?

Again, Monday's a big day in Petworth.

In addition to the new Safeway coming to Georgetown, the go-to D.C. grocery chain is planning similar overhauls at the Southwest Waterfront and Petworth.

At the Waterfront, preliminary work is under way for the new store, which will go up behind the current building near the Metro. When completed in 2011, the old store will be demolished. And, much to the delight of the lunch-starved masses, it will have an enhanced deli with sandwiches made to order.

Petworth's store on Georgia Avenue NW will follow a model similar to what's going on in Georgetown---a new, expanded store will go up where the existing store stands. That means the old store will close at some point. Also, parking will be moved below ground. The space occupied by the current parking lot will be added to the footprint of the new store, taking it from about 20,000 square feet to about 55,000 square feet. Safeway spokesman Craig Muckle says Petworth's plans are not as far along as the Waterfront's and hesitated to give a projected completion date. "I don't have a good sense right now, but I'd say ballpark will be sometime in 2011. It won't be next year, I can tell you that," he says.

Meanwhile, demo is slightly behind schedule at the Social Safeway, which closed last Sunday and will remain closed for nine or 10 months. Knock-down will happen "in the next couple of weeks," says Muckle, who had previously stated it was going to happen right after the store closed. "I'm not going to call anybody out," he says, on why it's taking longer than planned, but added Safeway is going forward with an "aggressive" plan to open the new store by March 2010.

Renovations are also coming to Columbia Road. Adams Morgan's Safeway will stay open during its facelift. Despite the empty storefronts adjacent to the cramped store, there are no plans to expand. "We weren't able to work anything out," says Muckle.

It's a jarring look, no doubt, and likely to catch on.

I couldn't tell if his garb was intended to cover up his identity for what he was about to do, or cover up his mouth so he doesn't get the swine flu.

But I was glad I'm not a clerk in that store.

I learned that early this morning. Exiting my Petworth abode, I spotted a squirrel scampering pell-mell down a tree across the street. Was he fleeing a jealous mate? Had my roommate's snakes gotten loose?

Neither, it turned out. The squirrel had merely trespassed on a robin's nest, and the robin was not amused. It pursued the frantic rodent down the tree, up the street, through gutters, under cars, and finally onto my lawn, before the squirrel sought asylum within the wooden latticework of my porch.

Home free? Not a whit. Sounds of scuffling indicated that the robin, unflappable, had broken through and was now tormenting a beast three times its size. By the time the ragged combatants emerged, the robin had clamped his beak to the squirrel's tail. A great general flailing ensued; then, mutual retreat. Peace, or something like it, had been restored.

Are the robins particularly mean this year? Do they have ancestral beef with the squirrels? Has anyone seen anything like this before?

Photograph above by photoholic1

Evelyn Y. Davis wants to go to Petworth, she just doesn't want to go now.

Just across the street from the U.S. Soldiers' and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery sits Rock Creek Cemetery, an equally beautiful resting place for civilians. It's on the grounds of the oldest church in DC, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and bodies have been buried here since 1719.

Teddy Roosevelt's daughter, Alice Longworth, Constitution signer Abraham Baldwin and "Meet the Press" icon Tim Russert are among the assembled dead.

And, again, it's a beautiful place to visit.

Seeing the burial plot for Davis is alone worth the trip.

She’s a DC resident who has gained international fame after decades of playing the gadfly role at stockholders meetings.

One more thing about Davis: She's very much alive.

But she set up a fabulous monument to herself years ago, and pretty much engraved her life story on the many stones that make up the place. Why let others write your epitaph?

She's had to change the etched-in-stone bio over time, to take into account job changes and add in a divorce or two.

I once called up Davis to ask about the fabulous plot, but she didn't want to talk about it for a couple reasons. She said it was “her busy stockholder meeting season. And besides, she added, "Everybody already knows about that."

That second statement ain't true at all, but in all my years of asking questions, that’s the best non-answer I've ever gotten.

Further bulletins forthcoming.

UPDATE ~10:50 p.m.: Officer Peterson at the D.C. Police Public Information Office reports that the suspect's still at large. "He's still out there," Peterson said. "He got away."

More details on the shooting: After jacking the car—a Ford Escape—the perpetrator drove north before encountering three officers at 3rd and Upshur Streets NW. "He took a couple potshots at them," Peterson said. No one was injured. Police have recovered the car, which the culprit ditched to proceed on foot.

UPDATE ~12:01 p.m. 2/13/09: Officer Kenny Bryson at the D.C. PIO confirms that the shooting happened at 3rd and Taylor NW, not NE. This morning's Washington Post mistakenly identifies the 300 block of Taylor St. NE as the site of the carjacking.

More as it comes.

I believe he's right.

And with even less reporting, and though lacking Andrew's finger-on-the-pulse gifts, I'm ready to make a companion declaration: Nobody from Petworth is going to actually attend Barack Obama's inauguration, either.

Petworth is a neighborhood that loves its public displays.

But everybody I've talked to around here lately, neighbors and fellow breakfasters at the fabulous Tony's Place, tells the same tale of wanting to attend the ceremony but losing interest because of all the reported hassles.

"I'm just going to watch it on TV at my church," said the lady sitting on the stool next to me at Tony's.

I've gone to a lot of these things. Since Carter's, I've only missed the second term swearing-ins for Bush II and Reagan's in 1985. And I only missed Reagan's 1985 ceremony because there wasn't one.

But, like ALL OF PETWORTH, I've lost the will to show up at Obama's.

Again, given the hassles, most of which are clearly designed not for safety but just to keep the hoi polloi away, why doesn't the government just do the honest thing and cease with these faux open ceremonies?