And the Angels Sing

The title of this post comes from the inscription on songwriter Johnny Mercer's grave. It's a nice sentiment. I wonder if Mr. Mercer stood around and watched the stone being inscribed. Imagine the annoyance of the guy doing the carving, wondering if Johnny was going to change his mind mid-cut. Do you suppose he kept reminding Johnny that the slab of marble being worked on was extremely expensive? I would.

The salient features of my neighborhood are two mammoth hotels, the Omni Shoreham and the Wardman Park Marriott. Both are loaded with history. The Wardman Park was once residential, and housed notables like J. Edgar Hoover. The Shoreham is quite haunted. You can see Denzel Washington dashing from its front doors in The Pelican Brief. He's not running from the ghosts. He's acting in a movie.

The nice thing about living with two hotels nearby is that the neighborhood demographic changes constantly. The not-so-nice thing is as follows:

Woodley Park Metro station serves both hotels and the rest of the neighborhood. It has one of the tallest escalators in the world. I suppose that confronting such a thing for the first time would be daunting. Those of us who live here trot down the steps, anxious to get to our destinations. We're busy. We need to be somewhere. The freakishly long escalator is a nuisance.

To our city's visitors, the escalator is a thrill ride. They scream and gasp when they get to the edge, then pile on en masse, chit-chatting and making merry on their leisurely ride to the bottom. This is especially annoying at rush hour. To those of us who live and work here, they cease to be human beings. They become obstacles.

One needs to balance one's irritation with these folks. They're on vacation. They want to relax. They spend tremendous amounts of money in this city. And, frankly, when they clog the stairs, there's no way of getting around them short of mosh-diving their heads and hoping they help out. Otherwise, serious injury could result.

And the angels sing.

Tomorrow: The Haunted Pussy!