Things I'm Talking About

• Street sweeping in DC ends on Saturday for the year, so no more needing to move your car for it.
• It's Halloween weekend, with Halloween falling on a Saturday this year. As people imbibe, there are a few ways to get a free or discounted ride home safely:
  • Arlington's ART buses will be fare-free on 10/31
  • Espòlon Tequila will reimburse you for 50% of rides during certain hours (up to $25)
  • ​SoberRide will post Lyft credit codes on Friday and Saturday at 9 PM for you to grab and redeem . They're usually about $15.
• The Taco Bell DC 50K is back this year, and registrations are open. If you like the idea of running a 50K while exploring local Taco Bells, this is for you.
• DC Public Library has a contest to design the next library card​
• See something you like on social media and want to save it so you don't forget about it? Try importing it to the Not Bored app!

Valerie

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

Last week, we asked: Should we have driving days on Beach Drive? You responded:

• Yes, it's just 2 days a year (47.1%)
• No, people should be have one road without cars (43.1%)
• I don't know (9.8%

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: La Chaumiere DC

"La Chaumiere in Georgetown- almost 50 years in business and excellent!!!!" geegeepain

Location: 2813 M St 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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• 🌐 Purple Patch marks Filipino American History Month with Tinikling and a Lion Dance performance, live music from p.no1se, DJ sets, and vendors like Tista's Creations and Kwento. Canlast Productions brings an LED truck running Filipino American content throughout the night. Wednesday 10/28. Free.
• 🍾 Aquarium After Dark is the National Aquarium’s Halloween edition of its 21+ night, with costumes encouraged (aquatic-themed gets bonus points) and a drink included as you wander the galleries kid-free. Wednesday 10/28. $59.95.
• 🖌️ Art After Hours: Halloween Happy Hour pairs a fall craft painting session with seasonal cocktails and after-hours access to the exhibits at The People’s House. Ticket includes supplies and two drinks. Wednesday 10/28. $30.*
• 🎭 DC Public Library’s Ciné International Film Series screens Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), the Italian horror classic that’s as visually striking as it is unsettling. Wednesday 10/28. Free.
• 🖌️ DIY Pumpkin Candles at Southwest Neighborhood Library turns mini pumpkins into actual candles, pumpkins included. Wednesday 10/28. Free.
• 🤝 Garlic Planting Day puts you to work at The Farm at Kelly Miller, planting garlic alongside Dreaming Out Loud’s farmers and picking up tips on growing and harvesting. Refreshments and giveaways included. Wednesday 10/28. Free.

• 🖌️ This Autumn Table Decor Workshop at Shepherd Park Library walks through hands-on table styling for fall gatherings. Thursday 10/29. Free.
• 🎭 Craft and Cinema Night screens the 1996 teen witch horror classic in a low-lit theater where you’re encouraged to bring your knitting, embroidery, or whatever you’re currently working on. Thursday 10/29. $18.
• 🏞️ Fungi Frolic is a walk from Cleveland Park Library into Rock Creek Park to spot and identify the neighborhood’s mushrooms, including some of the creepier, more intelligent specimens. Bring walking shoes and a water bottle. Thursday 10/29. Free.
• 🎈 Metro Transit Police parks a decked-out, haunted Spooky Bus at Waterfront station, open for families to step aboard. Thursday 10/29. Free.
• 🍲 Our Common Table: The Sweets That Bring Us Together pulls from the Library of Congress’s culinary archives for a conversation with a cake historian, a pie author, and an ice cream maker on what dessert reveals about migration, memory, and American identity. A display of historic cookbooks and recipes precedes a dessert social. Thursday 10/29. Free.
• 🍲 Spooky Sips at District Winery pairs five 1-oz pours with the candy that matches each one best. Thursday 10/29-10/31. $55, add $25 for a take-home bottle.

• 📜 Devil's Night: Brookland is a twilight bike ride from Bar Alegria up the Metropolitan Branch Trail to the actual church tied to the 1949 exorcism case that inspired The Exorcist. Cost includes a pre-ride drink, archival artifacts, and a guide who worked directly with director William Friedkin. Friday 10/30. $20.
• 🖌️ Discover Glassblowing: DIY Pumpkin Workshop puts you at the furnace with an instructor to shape your own pair of blown glass pumpkins, color choices included. This one’s already full, but the waitlist is open if plans shift. Friday 10/30. $160 ($157 members).
• 🍾 Highway to Hell is DC9’s Halloween costume contest, judging on who best embodies someone you’d meet on the way to hell (lobbyists and exes welcome). Cash prizes go to the best costumes, with drink specials running all night. Friday 10/30. First 50 free entry or $5.
• 🖌️ Paint Like Yayoi Kusama: Pumpkin Painting Night at ArtsClub Dupont walks through Kusama’s work before you paint your own polka-dot pumpkin, supplies included and no experience needed. Friday 10/30. $65.
• 🖼️ Washington: A Meridian of Artistic Modernity in the Americas opens at the Art Museum of the Americas for its 50th anniversary, pairing Latin American modernist works with letters, catalogs, and photos tracing José Gómez Sicre’s role building the collection. The show includes Mario Carreño’s The Birth of the Americas and a final section dedicated to the newly launched Association of Legacies of American Modernity. Friday 10/30. Free.
• 🍾 The Cleveland Park Halloween Bar Crawl hits Atomic Billiards and the bars around it, with ticket proceeds going toward Cleveland Park Main Street’s neighborhood programs. Costumes encouraged. Friday 10/30. $20.
• 📜 The Haunted Lantern Tour takes you through the Lee-Fendall House in Old Town Alexandria at night, covering the home’s history and its ghost stories by lantern light. Small groups, two floors, genuinely atmospheric. Friday 10/30-10/31. $20.
• 🍾 Nightmare on 14th Street turns The Park at 14th into a costume-mandatory Halloween party with High Status Entertainment running the night. 21+, dress to impress. Friday 10/30-10/31. $35.
• 🎭 Rocky Horror Picture Show with Live Drag Hosts at metrobar pairs the cult screening with performances from Hennessey, Masvusi, Ruth Allen Ginsburg, and Brooke N Hymen, plus games for first-time viewers. Come in costume, yell your call-outs, do the Time Warp. Friday 10/30. Free.

• 🌐 The DC Catrina Parade marches from the World War II Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial with papier-mâché Catrinas, traditional altars, piñatas, and satirical poetry readings. Latidos Retro closes it out with live music. Saturday 10/31. Free.
• 🎈 The Dupont Fall Festival & Bluegrass Jamboree fills the park with a free pumpkin patch, live sets from Shannon Leigh and the Good Bygones, and three separate costume contests for kids, pets, and adults, with winners taking home up to $100 to spend at neighborhood restaurants. Saturday 10/31. Free.
• 🌲 Black QTs Camp’s Fruit & Nut Foraging Workshop takes you through Lederer Food Forest with Candise from Forested, pointing out which plants growing around the city are actually edible or medicinal. Saturday 10/31. Free.
• 🤓 Hocus Pocus Trivia at Astro Beer Hall’s 1969 Bar tests your Halloween movie knowledge with a $50 gift card on the line, timed right before the venue’s 8pm Hocus Pocus party. Saturday 10/31. Free.
• 🤓 Smash Kingdom brings a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament with a $1000 prize pool to GameOn Bar + Arcade, with a best cosplay grand prize for anyone who shows up in costume. Cosplay isn’t required, and retro arcade and console games are also on hand. Saturday 10/31. Free.
• 🍾 Haunted Night at Bonne Vie is a costume contest on the rooftop and lounge judged by Eater DC and The BeList, with $600 in cash prizes split three ways. Dress flirty, fairy, gothic, or scary; winners announced at midnight. Saturday 10/31. $10.
• 🌐 Taqueria Habanero’s Día de los Muertos Halloween Fiesta mixes a community altar for loved ones with a petting zoo, trick-or-treat bingo, and cultural performances from Corazón Folklórico DC. Vendors from Dreamer’s Collective sell vintage finds and baked goods alongside tacos and margaritas. Saturday 10/31. Free.
• 🎭 The District Horror Creatives Short Film Showcase screens original dystopian shorts made by local filmmakers in DC Public Library’s Cohort 5 workshop, covering alien invasions, AI gone wrong, and genetic tampering. Seats are limited and registration is required. Saturday 10/31. Free.
• 🏞️ District Walk Club’s Dupont Loop is a Halloween-themed 2.5-mile walk starting and ending at Lyle, with coffee before and a ticket for a free mimosa or bloody mary if you stay for Lyle’s drag brunch after. Saturday 10/31. Free.
• 🍾 The DMV Anime Club Halloween Party is a 21+ costume party for the local anime crowd, now at a new location after outgrowing the last one. No costume, no entry. Saturday 10/31. $20.

• 🖌️ This embroidery workshop with local artist Miri Artyukhina of Capital Stitch Co. teaches essential stitching techniques through a book-inspired pattern you design yourself. Space is limited, and registration closes October 18. Sunday 11/1. $20.
• 🧠 Intro to Power Tools at TradeWorx Academy in Fair Oaks Mall gets you hands-on with miter saws, drills, and reciprocating saws under instructor guidance. Sunday 11/1. $225.
• 🤸 the RESET at The Morrow stacks a yoga class, sound bath, and flower bar into one day, then closes it out with bottomless mimosas and rooftop brunch. Sunday 11/1. $38 admission.
• 🏞️ This autumn walking tour follows an arborist through LeDroit Park to talk trees and neighborhood history, ending at Andy’s Pizza Shaw, where registered walkers get a free slice with any drink purchase. Sunday 11/1. $25.
• 🌐 Día de los Muertos at The Wharf brings live music from Mariachi Imperio and Sol y Rumba, sugar skull decorating, Modelo beer gardens, and a community light procession along the waterfront as the sun sets. Decorated altars honoring loved ones are on display throughout the event. Sunday 11/1. Free.
• 🧑‍🍳 Knifework 102: Chicken Butchery at Hill’s Kitchen walks you through breaking down two whole birds, no bone-cutting required. You leave with two butchered chickens, a bag of parts for stock, and a container of poultry brine. Sunday 11/1. $106.
• 🍲 Mini Veg-Fest at LivingWell in Silver Spring is a sampling table of vegan and vegetarian holiday food, from plant-based roasts to meat substitutes to seasonal soups. Sunday 11/1. Free.
• 🎭 Noir-vember Matinees kicks off with “In a Lonely Place,” Humphrey Bogart as a screenwriter under suspicion of murder, at Cleveland Park Library. Two more Bogart classics follow later in the month, no registration needed. Sunday 11/1. Free.
• 🐾 Paws in the Park is the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria’s annual gathering at Oronoco Bay Park, with a dog costume contest, beer and wine garden, and adoptable animals on site. Sunday 11/1. Free.
• 🎭 Crossing a Deep River is a staged reading confronting Montpelier’s history as a former site of enslavement, followed by a talkback with storyteller Mélisande Short-Colomb and other scholars. It’s the final day to see The African Odyssey exhibition beforehand, which traces Rev. Dr. Joanne Braxton’s research trip to West Africa. Sunday 11/1. $20.

🤫 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.