I got something to say

Okay, here’s where we are:

Having illegally deployed not only National Guardsmen but also active-duty Marines to Los Angeles, to “assist” various DHS thugs in abducting and detaining hundreds of people for the crime of being dark skinned, the Kleptocrat has escalated his militarization of police. As you know, he’s now got 8,000 NG troops in the nation’s capital in response to one of his big, bad DOGiE bros getting mugged by a 15-year-old girl a couple of weeks ago.

Guardsmen, FBI agents and other feds are augmenting Metropolitan PD, rousting homeless folks, bullying residents drinking beer or smoking weed on their front porches (both of which are legal in the District) and generally being assholes. When a White guy yelled at one of the tacticaled up, face-covered up to the eyeballs (and you know this jerk was not covering his nose four years ago) goons, “Why are you doing this—you’re ruining the country!” the hood replied, “The liberals already ruined it,” and went on beating a victim.

At time of writing, the Kleptocrat even announced that he was planning on “patrolling the streets” with his big, manly troops, lowering crime and making DC safe for right-wing White people. (And not those old hippies Stephen Miller claims have been showing up to protest.)

So it seems entirely appropriate for today for us to have N.W.A.’s 1989 “Fuck tha Police”. ‘Nuff said.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Pantry staples

Sometime back in the 90s, I recall reading an article that proclaimed you were a yuppie (roughly defined as a Beamer-driving, condo-residing, dressing-for-success Young Urban Professional) if you had more than three types of vinegar.

I remember getting a kind of sinking feeling in my stomach, because at that time I knew my pantry held apple cider, red wine, white, white wine and sherry vinegars. I also had EVOO, corn oil and peanut oil.

So, after yesterday’s confessional exercise, I thought I’d take inventory. Yeah—so far over the line.

Vinegars:

Oils:

(The peanut oil lives in the refrigerator because it goes rancid at room temperature after being opened. And the Wegman's basting oil is something they gave away for getting their shopping card, back in the 90s, which I've never opened.)

And a bunch of infused olive oils my sister gave me for Christmas possibly 15 years ago, which I should probably start using.

I am somewhat curious about the chocolate one.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Move over, Sally

I just want everyone to know: I do not have a baking problem.

I can give it up whenever I want.

I, uh, also have bread flour (in 10lb sacks), whole wheat flour, rye flour, cake flour and 00 flour (for pizzas). Moreover, I buy granulated sugar 10 pounds at a time, because Big Sugar (and therefore all supermarkets) now sells what used to be five pounds in four-pound bags. That pissed me off. Costco used to have 7lb sacks of icing sugar, but they stopped carrying those. It's 50lbs or nothing, which is really annoying.

(The only reason I don't have 50lb sacks is because I can't lift them off the Costco shelves or into the trunk of my car.)

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

Personal statements

Time for another installment of vanity plates in NoVa. In no particular order:

 I've pondered this for a long time but I've never decoded it:

I'm assuming this is the Walker family?

To be clear, I wasn't driving when I shot this:

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: They're still here

On Sundays (the only days when construction crews aren’t out on the site from before the legal start time of 0700 until dusk), I walk over to where developers are cramming 82 three- and four-story townhouses on five acres of land. You know—on the former corporate campus with the ponds, water lilies, herons and sacred lotus.

It’s truly depressing to see these structures that are designed to look like every other townhouse development in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, with no attempt to suit the surroundings. (I read through the design documents that Fairfax County Planning Commission staff thumbed up. The cars the artists used to depict parking were BMWs and Porsches. So much for solving the housing shortage.) These—the model units—are presumably the three-story design, because they clearly are not the two-over-two that are meant to comprise the four-story ones. And yet they have a fourth floor taking up half the structure footprint. My guess is the half-the-space part is the “loft opening to a roof terrace” and I wonder if that was what FCPC approved?

Well, but after I threw up a little in my mouth, I wandered towards the ponds and noticed that the site has had other visitors, whose journeys were memorialized in the construction dirt that turned to mud over the past week:

And all those little pawprints made me happy. I’m grateful that they’ve not yet abandoned us, despite the desecration of their habitat.

And I hope they pee on the luxury townhouses.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu