What We Do for Love

We live just off a major artery, as they say, Connecticut Avenue, and there are some dangerous crosswalks about which constant debate goes on in the neighborhood. Some people want to put more stop lights on the Avenue and others argue that they are unnecessary and will just impede rush hour traffic. In any event, as a stopgap safety measure, the neighborhood agreed to put up red crossing flags at the most dangerous crosswalks and so when you want to cross one of them, you take a red flag out of a holder on one side and you deposit it in a holder on the other side once you are across. Theoretically, there should always be flags available on both sides of the street. This is not always the case and my husband, aka, The Goofy One, inevitably notices. Last night, coming home from dinner with Will and Ellen, he made us cross the street carrying more than one because none were on the other side.

Now, TGO, not walking around the neighborhood as often as I, didn't even know the flags had been put up until this summer. He happened to notice them for the first time when Carey was here. The three of us were walking up the street for dinner and when we went to cross, she picked up a flag and started marching authoritatively across the street. I thought TGO was going to keel over, he was laughing so hard. "What the hell is THAT!?" he asked. I explained, but he thought it was so funny he ordered Carey to just march back and forth. Of course, she didn't, but nonetheless....

The day before she left, I was taking some pictures and he wanted to know if I had gotten one of her crossing the street with the flag. Since I hadn't, Carey and I stopped up at the most dangerous of crosswalks, Morrison and Connecticut, before we went to Union Station the day she left, and I took pictures of her. There was no traffic, but you get the idea.