Things I'm Talking About

• District Bridges, the nonprofit that manages many Main Street programs in DC, is losing its funding for their vulnerable community member program in 2 weeks.
  • You can donate to help cover the gap while they scramble to secure funding (including getting a VIP ticket to Sunday's chili cook off)
• Arlington County has voted to end the use of Flock cameras​
• Joia Burger is opening a late night burger spot at 14th & T NW
• National Zoo is getting two of the world's rarest cats: Arabian leopards
• ​Kennedy Center will shut down for two years
• ​The Chainsmokers are headlining a show on Pennsylvania Ave next month and I feel like I'm in the twilight zone because are they still big enough to headline anything? Surely MK is bigger than them at this point?
• I'm looking for beta testers to give feedback on a new things to do recommendations method--if you're up for it, reply and let me know!

Valerie

Give your opinion, and check back next week for the results.

Last week, we asked: Labor Day is over. Is summer over too? You responded:

• Not on my watch (60%)
• Yes, it's no longer summer on my watch (40%)

Think your favorite local spot makes the best chili in the neighborhood?

Prove it. Or better yet, go find out for yourself.

At the 6th Annual Chili Cook-Off on Lower Georgia Avenue, local businesses compete for cash prizes and neighborhood bragging rights, while you get to be the judge. Grab a taste, cast your vote, and help decide who takes home the People's Choice Award.

Sunday, September 20th, 2-5 pm at Sonny's Pizza & No Kisses Bar.

Free general admission, or go VIP to skip the line, get a free drink, and support a local nonprofit.

​Grab your tickets here >>>​

Tried & True features your favorite go-to restaurants that have been around for a while and serve you consistently good food.

This Week's Feature: Los Hermanos

"Los Hermanos. Mostly locals, no frills, and great Dominican food." seatekt

Location: 1428 Park Rd NW
​Website​

😋 What is your favorite tried and true restaurant?

Where do you find yourself going back time and time again? Reply and let me know who should be featured and why, and share the love for a local DC restaurant.

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Looking for something specific? Check out these options:

• ​Ways to disconnect in DC​
• ​Museum parties & happy hours​
• ​Mosaics classes
• ​Pottery & ceramics classes​
• ​Knitting & crochet classes​
• ​Photography classes​
• ​Run clubs​

• 🎭 The hometown DC closing event at MLK Library features a live performance by Verbal Gymnastics Theater Company drawing on oral histories collected from DC neighborhoods throughout the project. Wednesday 9/16. Free.
• 🎭 The American History Museum screens two episodes of “American Muslims: A History Revealed”, tracing Muslim history in America back over 200 years to the nation’s founding. A panel discussion with historians follows the screening. Wednesday 9/16. Free.
• 🖼️ NMWA Nights is the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ monthly after-hours event, where you can wander the galleries, catch a live performance, make some art, and get a drink. Wednesday 9/16. $25.
• 📖 Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz discusses The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker, her account of the 1851 Christiana Resistance where an enslaver’s death led to a treason trial that put slavery itself on the stand. Howard University historian Nikki M. Taylor joins the conversation. Wednesday 9/16. Free.
• 🖌️ Bonsai Bar at Urban Garden Brewhouse is a two-hour workshop where you pick a dwarf jade tree, pot it in a ceramic bonsai pot, and leave knowing how to keep it alive. Wednesday 9/16. $100.

• 🎈 The Anacostia Community Museum's 59th anniversary celebration is an after-hours evening with live music from Marcus Mitchell and his band, a pop-up perfume bar exploring scent and memory, and access to the museum's current exhibition. Thursday 9/17. Free.
• 🤸 State of the Party’s After Dark Neon Run Club takes over the National Mall with the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial lit up as the backdrop. RSVP through Strava required. Thursday 9/17. Free.
• 🍲 Cordelia’s Fall Wine Dinner Series kicks off with winemaker Kelby James Russell of Apollo’s Praise, pouring Finger Lakes wines from his Seneca Lake vineyard alongside a five-course tasting menu from Chef Josh Hunt. Thursday 9/17. $150.
• 🖌️ Craft and Cinema Night: Clueless is a low-key screening at Creative Alliance where you bring whatever you’re working on (knitting, embroidery, sketching) and watch the movie with the lights kept dim enough to see your project. Thursday 9/17. $18.
• 🍲 José Andrés hosts NoVA native Benny Blanco at Oyamel for the F*ck Failure book release party, with tacos, signature cocktails, and tequila and mezcal pours. Thursday 9/17. $250+.
• 🌲 The United States Botanic Garden stays open until 8pm on select summer Thursdays, with live music, botanical mocktails, and ice cream available while you wander the conservatory and state flowers exhibit at golden hour. Thursday 9/17. Free.

• 📖 Cocktails & Conversation with Emily Lyon and Anne-Claire Michoux digs into the women who ran the English stage starting in 1660: actresses, playwrights, managers, and celebrities who fought their own gossip mills through portraiture and their own writing. A book signing for Lyon's Expand the Canon follows at the Folger Shop. Friday 9/18. $20.
• 🎭 Drunk Black History puts comedians and writers on stage, buzzed, to recap a Black historical figure or event that’s been skipped over in school. Think The Daily Show meets Drunk History, at Penn Social’s Little Penn. Friday 9/18. $20.
• 🕺 Garth Brooks: Blame It All On My Roots brings the country hitmaker back to arena stages, with Capital One Arena as the fourth stop on the tour and a live recording built into the show. Friday 9/18-9/19. $155. *
• 🤝 Hands Around the Kennedy Center is a grassroots demonstration where people link up around the building’s perimeter to advocate for preserving JFK’s living memorial. Friday 9/18. Free.
• 🏰 Hometown Treasures: Capital Region lets you bring up to three family heirlooms (photos, letters, quilts, military memorabilia) for a one-on-one review with preservation specialists, plus a community expo with heritage organizations and hands-on workshops. Friday 9/18-9/19. Free.
• 🖼️ The Much Here Is Beautiful opening brings together photographers from the NEA’s bicentennial survey projects to talk through their work documenting American communities around 1976. Twelve photographers will be in the galleries alongside the curators who organized the show. Friday 9/18. Free.
• 🎈 NoMa in Color: Color Jam is the closing party for NoMa’s annual mural festival, with live music, food trucks, a beer garden, and hands-on art activities in Alethia Tanner Park. Friday 9/18. Free.
• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 PARK(ing) Day is an annual event where residents, businesses, and community groups take over metered parking spaces across DC and turn them into temporary public parks for a day. Friday 9/18. Free.
• 🕺 Michael Grandinetti is a TV illusionist (NBC, The CW) doing a live show at the Kennedy Center that pulls audience members into the act. Friday 9/18. Free.
• 🎭 Happy Gilmore is an outdoor screening on the Georgetown Waterfront, where you can bring a blanket, grab food from the nearby restaurants, and watch the 1996 Adam Sandler classic by the water. Friday 9/18. Free.

• 🕺 Bring an instrument or just an audience-ready ear to the DC Video Game Music Jam at Shepherd Park Library, where musicians riff on classic game tunes with sheet music projected on the wall. This session's theme is anime and Vocaloid music (earplugs recommended, the cello runs loud). Saturday 9/19. Free.
• 🎈 The H Street Festival spans over a mile and 15 staging areas, each themed differently to cover music genres, dance, poetry, fashion, and youth performances. Expect around 150,000 people, DC-based artist exhibitors, and hands-on activity stations for kids. Saturday 9/19. Free.
• 🌐 Sawasdee DC Thai Festival brings Thai food, street art, and crafts to the National Mall, with local Thai restaurants serving dishes like pad thai, green curry, and mango sticky rice alongside a live cooking demo by a celebrity Thai chef. Saturday 9/19. Free.
• 🌐 The Tea Culture Festival at the Chinese American Museum covers Song Dynasty-style matcha preparation, gongfu tea brewing, and traditional calligraphy, with a signature tea drink included. Reservations are limited by venue capacity. Saturday 9/19. $20.
• 🤓 At the Accessible Game Meet-Up at MLK Library, you’ll play tactile, braille-labeled versions of Uno, Bananagrams, chess, and other board and card games with the Center for Accessibility. Saturday 9/19. Free.
• 🌐 Bluejacket’s Oktoberfest turns the brewery into a Bavarian beer hall for the day, debuting 8 German-inspired lagers including unfiltered Stichfass poured from traditional gravity kegs. Expect Oompah music, a stein-hoisting competition, a boot beer chugging contest, and bratwurst and schnitzel to go with it. Saturday 9/19. Free.
• 🎈 Celebrate Chevy Chase Day at the neighborhood library with blackout poetry pins, backpack decorating, and free giveaways while supplies last. Saturday 9/19. Free.
• 📜 A food historian walks through the recipes, ingredients, and dining practices of the Lee-Fendall House across generations, drawing on the Lewis family recipe book and Virginia’s agricultural history. Saturday 9/19. $15.
• 📜 Dupont “History on Q Street” Walking Tour covers five blocks of Q Street and packs in Italianate mansions, a hidden carriage house alley, a prominent LGBTQ landmark, and the story behind DC’s famous height restriction. Saturday 9/19. $50.

• 🍲 Local businesses are competing for bragging rights at the 6th Annual Chili Cook-Off on Lower Georgia Avenue, where you can sample as much chili as you want and vote for your favorite. The winners get cash prizes, plus the whole thing supports small businesses in the neighborhood. Sunday 9/20. Free.
• 🍲 Spirits of Latin America at The Roost is a walkaround tasting through 24 spirits from Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, from tequila and mezcal to pisco and cachaça, with pours from spirits professionals who know the stories behind each bottle. Bites and two mini cocktails are included, and a pop-up shop lets you buy your favorites to take home. Sunday 9/20. $53.
• 🤸 Meditate with a Monk at the National Mall is a guided meditation session at Constitution Gardens led by two Buddhist monks, open to first-timers and regular practitioners alike. Bring a cushion or folding chair and sit outside for a while. Sunday 9/20. Free.
• 🤸 A sound bath inside the George Washington Masonic National Memorial: crystal bowls, gongs, and chimes played inside one of the most acoustically dramatic rooms in the region. Bring a mat and something to lie on. Sunday 9/20. $55.
• 🤸 Autumn Equinox Forest Bathing at the National Arboretum is a guided two-hour walk through the gardens built around the Japanese practice of shinrin yoku, where you slow down, use your senses, and end with a small tea ceremony. Spots fill fast. Sunday 9/20. $39.
• 🖌️ Bouquet Crafting & Flower Design at Edgewood Community Farm is a hands-on workshop where you harvest flowers straight from the farm and leave with two finished bouquets. All materials are included. Sunday 9/20. $20.
• 🐾 DOGtoberfest at Wunder Garten turns the beer garden over to dogs for the day, with adoptable pups from City Dogs Rescue & City Kitties, free Pup-a-Chinos, and a Dog Grub vendor activation. Sunday 9/20. Free.
• 🤝 Bricks4DC’s LEGO Sorting Event needs hands to sort over 600 pounds of donated bricks headed to DC homeless shelters. Ages 10+ welcome, and community service hours are available. Sunday 9/20. Free.
• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 The Commanders vs. Cowboys Tailgate & Watch Party at metrobar is a two-way tailgate, with one crew repping DC and the other bringing Dallas energy, plus DJ Crank on the decks, cornhole, and wood-fired pizza from El Jefe. Wear your jersey. Sunday 9/20. Free.
• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Spend your Sunday watching professional polo matches at Congressional Polo Club while hanging out with friends in the beautiful Maryland countryside. There’s an onsite bar, food truck, lawn games, live music, and even a collection of luxury cars on display, so you can make a whole day of it. Sunday 9/20. $45.

🤫 Psst! I couldn't fit everything in this issue. See all the events happening over the next week!

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* Items marked with an asterisks contain affiliate links (for which I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you) or sponsored. Events are featured based on if I find them interesting and think others will too, regardless if they are affiliate or sponsored.