An Introductory Fanfare

Morning! It may be gray out there, but it is bright to me since I am what Section Leader DeMille calls “Large and in Charge” through the weekend. I have thought about complaining to Legal, where I am assigned as an “unpaid intern” and perfectly within guidelines for my height and gender and keep it so.

(Drawing by Splash, 2024)

This is me, btw. I have better pictures, but this one is a crop of a sketch Splash did during one of the endless morning meetings I have to sit through to ensure the old guys don’t veer off into topic trouble. I am getting a haircut next week, something a little peppy, so there will be better ones, but times being what they are, I like this one since you won’t be google the results for geo-locational information. We are close to places that might be trouble, even in this wealthy little enclave.

Oh, I am Melissa. I do the stories they started handing off when the rash of robberies over on Columbia Pike started to attract attention to the neighborhood. Some of the members of the Socotra House Creative Section go over there when they are on electric scooters and don’t want to go the extra seven blocks to get in line to enter Fort Myer where the cheaper liquor, grocery and gas station prices used to make driving over from the HQ worth the time. 

It doesn’t matter to me that much, since I have digs over in the Marymount University Quad complex until Spring and never go to South Arlington unless I have a group to be with. 

Plus, I can’t carry much more than dinner on the scooter, when I have a charge, and they don’t make me ride mine down south of Rt 50 toward Columbia Pike where the trouble has been lately. 

I was going to write about that this morning, since they busted that guy who did four armed robberies down there- one of 17 he reportedly committed in the area this year. I have a picture they ran in the ArlingtonNow from one of the security cameras, but it shows information that could be used to castigate me for violating one of the popular identity categories we have been told to avoid.

I may not be a credentialed attorney yet, but the picture (while useful for self-protection) could   wind up making me accused of something, and who has time for that stuff? 

There will be plenty of time for discussions about that while they are doing dirty laundry on the people nominated for the Cabinet. It should be quite a show, since they can’t even come up for confirmation until the current government has 69 days to mess around with them. And that will only be the start of the storm here in Arlington. And the rest of the old District that distributes the $7 trillion dollar annual budget. 

That is seven thousand billion dollars, and if you recall a couple months ago a billion of them was still a thousand million. So it is a bunch of cash. 

The arrest of the armed robber whose picture I can’t use is a useful thing, considering the other two stories about that block of Columbia Pike, which is where the “two groups of teens” had the shootout that wounded three, two critically, and the woman who got bushwacked yesterday. She was uninjured, but her purse, keys and phone were lifted. They nailed the guy- I think I can say these are all young men- and apparently the way they get around for crime is by the Metro. They got this guy over at the Clarendon stop on the Blue Line. 

But I don’t know much about it but will avoid the 7-11, the smoke shop and the Lost Dog Café until things get a little clearer. 

Oh, I favorably endorse the Lost Dog in case they have a legal department, like Socotra House does. 

Which was a way to get around to talking about the $177 million dollar project to put the new West Entrance to the Ballston Station on the Metro Orange line, which is the closest mass transit way to get across the River and go down to what used to be the other part of the District, which is why Arlington is what it is. 

That would be worth a story all by itself, but it is part of an urban saga that has been going on for a couple decades, so it can wait while we sort out the peaceful transition or whatever it is we are going to be doing. 

Anyway, that was an opportunity to introduce myself and take ownership of my corner of that rickety white picnic table the Creative Section uses when they are not sneaking off to do whatever it is they do in the parking lot by the amphitheater over at Lubber Run during the afternoon.

So, “Hi.” I am supposed to do some other introductions, and get you ready for the new project about the peaceful transformation from the last peaceful transition that rejected the last one that was rejected. I am looking forward to a whole career in this stuff. The future looks good for women in litigation, you know?

In the meantime, they let me expand the fifteen minute city, which is either a cliché or someone else’s copyright so I can establish my own, completely independent of Socotra House. This is the Fifteen Minute County, and it belongs to me. Melissa.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotrawww.vicsocotra.com