Attn: D.C. Bloggers -- Help with a Piece of Furniture

Given the breadth of the blogging community in D.C., I'm posting this to see if anyone has any ideas or leads. This request was posted on the intranet of the organization I'm working for.

Title:
Anyone moving from Washington D.C. area to Geneva, Switzerland?

Announcement:
We are looking for someone moving from DC area to Geneva who might be willing to include in their shipment, an antique piece of furniture we recently inherited from a deceased, beloved grandmother. If you know of anyone, please let me know. Thanks ++

Like the announcement says, if you know of anyone, let me know and I'll pass the information along to the person who posted this.

Thanks!

Mangy Rangy Messy Mop

I need a haircut. BADLY. Normally, this is the 'do I sport...

The Dapper Dyke Look

My friend, Adriana, refers to this as my "dapper dyke" look. I like it. It's short, obviously, and really easy to take care of and I can wear it all sticky-up and pokey. When it's this short, I sometimes refer to it as my "F*ck you" hair. As in f*ck you if you have an issue with my hair. That's your problem, not mine.

Needless to say, my very short hair and tongue-in-cheek attitude often haven't played well in this puckered-up town; I even had one job where I was chastised for my hair and told it wasn't conservative enough. Read: I wasn't wearing it in the standard D.C. bob for women.

The Softer Side of the Dapper Dyke

This is my hair when it's a little longer, but still manageable. I know it's not a good picture, but hopefully you get the idea. I'm thinking maybe that's what I should go back to. I'll still retain my dapper dyke image, but acquire some softness in the process.

Not the Dapper Dyke Look.

You'll have to excuse the hideousness of these pictures.
It's after midnight, I've had a long day, the lighting is bad,
and gray is obviously not a flattering color on me.
(Click on images to enlarge, if you really want to.)

Currently, this is what my hair looks like. It's long and rangy and out of control and in my eyes and just plain drivin' me INSANE!

Of course, being slightly unemployed, I've unofficially fired my stylist (who charged me $50/cut and was inconsistent in her quality) and have been seeking a replacement ever since. I refuse to go to the Hair Slaughtery. I did have one insane moment when I considered going to a beauty college I ran across in Silver Spring, but I quickly came to my senses. There's a little blue-haired-ladies-mostly salon in Takoma Park that's not bad, but when you wear your hair short/shortish, it's important to make sure you get a good cut. If you don't, all the bad parts show.

All of that said and in conclusion, I'm left with three options. Option 1: Go back to a high-priced salon and abstain from gas and groceries for a month. Option 2: Go to a barber, where they specialize in short hair for a mostly male clientele and get a decent, but cheap cut. Option 3: Find a totally different hair style that requires less maintenance, i.e. frequent cutting, trimming, and shaping, but doesn't make me crazy with shagginess.

The floor is open for suggestions. Barring any recommendations, I may have to resort to this:

It Could Happen, You Know!

Oh, and just for the record, this haircut is NOT an option. Nine out of 10 women in Washington wear their hair this way. I am not one of those nine. I'm just sayin'...

P.S. I think I've blogged about this hair thing before... It's feeling very deja vu-y... The difference this time is, I'm looking for suggestions. I probably did that last time, too. Chalk it up to early onset senility.

Calling All Cars...

So, next year, my family is hosting a family reunion in the Old Dominion. Part of the reunion includes the gathering and publishing of a written, family history. Each daughter (there are four) and their children (there are 16 of us) and their grandchildren (there are 23 of those) are to submit a personal, written history from the time they were born until the present day. All of these will be gathered together and compiled in a book that will eventually find its way into each of our homes and into the collection at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Frankly, I don't care for projects like this, but I'm doing it because I love my mom and she asked me to participate.

I want to write my history using lines from literature and great authors. I've got a few bits from Dickens, Melville, and Shakespeare I think I can weave into fun, light-hearted prose as part of my written history. But... I need help.

Here's where you come in, oh great, learned, and well-read readers. Please supply a line, the author, and the text.

To get us--and my history started--I am using this:

"I record that I was born (as I have been informed and I believe)"(1) on May the 14th in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-eight. The hospital in which I entered this world no longer exists and is, today, a 7-11 on the corner of Tennessee Street in the former naval port of Vallejo, Solano County, California....

1. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

Any great literary or movie lines are welcome! Thank you for your creative genius and your time!

Photo copyright: Eikongraphia

Tewkesbury Ward Service Project. Or, How Not to Landscape.

My frontyard. This little patch of green is about 6 x 9.
I hate, hate, hate those three bushes.
And I'm torn as to whether to do anything with the porch.
(Click on image to enlarge.)

One of the things I've not liked about our home is the lack of landscaping in the yard. Granted, it's not a very big yard, so there's not a lot of room to do spectacular things. (See above.) But, I'm not looking for spectacular. I'm looking for colorful, proportional, easily maintained, and healthy.

Case in point with the last want on that list: the side yard. (See below.) It only gets about an hour of sun in the summer afternoon, otherwise it's shaded. Grass hasn't done well here and it's poorly terraced (as in, the idiot who flipped it, stacked cinder block-like pavers three high and three across and called it good.)

The awful, awful, gets-little-shade-in-the-summer sideyard. As much as I hate the three bushes, I really hate this feature on the house. Eventually, those stairs you see in the far background will be removed and replaced with a safer structure that will also double as a garden shed underneath. Don't be deceived by the green, semi-lushness in this picture. It's spring and it's been raining here the last few days, so it looks healthier than it really is. (Click image to enlarge.)

The backyard, what little there is, is an absolute eyesore, but I have a solution for it already. I'm going to till the soil to loosen it, then I'll dig out and discard a good five inches of it and put down recovered brick. This will expand the parking possibilities and/or provide a space for planters that can be moved and placed as wanted/needed. That part's figured out.

It's the side and front I can't figure out. So, here's the deal: looking at the two pictures I've posted above and knowing that I want to get rid of this stupid trio of cheap, crappy bushes and knowing that, not to repeat myself, "I'm looking for colorful, proportional, easily maintained, and healthy," what would you do or recommend for this space?

Oh, and as an added caveat, I'm also looking for plants or landscaping devices that are repellent to cats. While I'm grateful for the hoards and herds of feral cats in our neighborhood--I've seen nary a rat, mouse, or cockroach inside or out since moving here. I use to see them all the time when I lived downtown--I'm not grateful that they use my yard as a litter box.

Help!