Because "Russet Brown" Isn't a Five-Letter Word, That's Why

We were so surprised when we stumbled upon this halfway through our ninth cup of coffee one morning this weekend, we nearly tumbled head first into our shag carpeted conversation pit! Apparently someone on the Failing New York Times' "puzzles staff," which is apparently a real thing and may employ more editors than write headlines for, you know, boring stuff, is familiar with the questionable color palette of our plastic fantastic planned community; no notes, the end.

Mauve Friday: RTC Named Top Christmas Spot, But Spirit of the Season Is Everywhere

It's the holiday season once again, and our BFFs at the Washington Post gave us an early holiday present, if by "present" you mean naming our favorite ersatz downtown one of DC's best "festive neighborhoods," if by "neighborhood" you mean a "midscale shopping center with a confusing parking app."

But we digress! Give us some good blockquote, our favorite correspondent, the Peasant from Less Sought After South Reston: 

Words I never thought applied to Reston Town Center, aka one of the DMV’s “8 most festive neighborhoods,” according to the Washington Post... Right up there with the moneyed elites of Capitol Hill and Georgetown, as well as the hip and edgy Penn Quarter and Adams Morgan. Words fail me, which is why this is such a short email.

Along with the ice rink and a couple of RTC's midscale eateries and watering holes, the Post gushes about a pop-up Christmas bar that's located... not in Reston Town Center proper, but its equally edgy neighbor. But that's okay! We've got plenty of festive spirit in Reston. Even if we can't imagine it, we can enlist our trusty semi-sentient, HOA-friendly MI (mauve intelligence) bot to give us a sense of why we live in such a festive place:

The crack RTC parking squad has apparently turned in their golf carts and bumblebees for more seasonally appropriate attire. But there's more!

It's always nice to see the DRB put aside their differences about white stone and red mulch to focus on the spirit of the holidays. Also, it appears that approximately 2/3 of the board has been cloned, but that's a small price to pay for the Spirit of the Season. Speaking of which:

We honestly can't tell if Santa is trying to rip off the chimney so he can distribute gifts on his appointed rounds, or whether he's been enlisted by the Clone DRB to appropriately sanction homeowners who fail to paint their chimney stacks the appropriate color of taupe. 

We boiled the equivalent of all the water in Lake Anne and Lake Newport to generate these images, and honestly, we have no regrets. And luckily, we don't need AI to illustrate how you, a proud Restonian, can give and receive in the spirit of the holidays without leaving home:

Just keep checking your mailbox for the annual, ever-so-slightly larger RA assessment delivered not by Santa, but a uniformed federal agent, the end.

It's Off to the Races!

By now, you've probably heard about the epic drag race between a Lamborghini and a Cybertruck that took place on Rt. 7 in Tysons Corner (given the traffic, they probably both reached a breakneck three miles per hour before hitting a traffic light). While that's all well and good for an area that's angling to replace a used car lot with a casino and all the classy activities associated with them, we in Reston deserve some excitement too! So what can we race?

County planners vs. the DRB. The classic tortoise vs. hare contest. While the planners chase every potential development with dollar signs popping out of their eyes like cartoon characters, the DRB can argue for hours over the positioning of a downspout. The only loser? Our patience.

Cyclists vs. muffler-free cars. Aerodynamic spandex and the fancy new bridge over Wiehle Avenue give the bikers a slight edge, but the folks that roll coal around Reston for hours in cars that sound like someone dropped a roll of quarters into a leaf blower win on decibels.

Roundabouts vs. RTC. If planners get their way in redesigning the intersection of Wiehle and Sunrise Valley, you'll be able to spin around in circles until you reach Warp 2 and literally turn back time. The other will put a butterfly on your car, essentially stopping time.

Spotted lanternflies vs. English ivy. An epic battle of invasive organisms! One flies, the other crawls, but only one is addressed by official recommendations to "squish" it. Clear winner.

Developers vs. golfers. An eternal battle dating back to the 1980 cinematic masterpiece Caddyshack, the golfers have the upper hand... for now. Just watch for the pesky gopher, and by gopher we mean "the aforementioned county planners with dollar signs popping out of their eyes like cartoon characters."

Terraset vs. an inert iron rod. Reston may not rate a rad drag race with a Cybertruck, but our favorite semi-subterranean elementary school bears an uncanny resemblance to one (really, just Google it). It might not move quickly, but we'll take the elementary school over the inert iron rod, the end.

This post was originally published in the Reston Letter.

Law & Order SFU: Special Fixtures Unit

 

Behold this scene of carnage along one of Reston's otherwise idyllic paths, where a grisly crime scene has been encircled by police tape. Not for the faint of heart.

The victim: An incandescent street trail light, age 57, height 11'1", 175 pounds. No identifying marks.

Motive: Unknown. An unapproved tree removal? Unpaid electric bills? A jealous EV charger?

In Reston, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Fixtures Unit. These are their stories.

Finally, A Campaign Sign We Can All Agree With

 

Amid all the signs about open borders and cat ladies and whatnot, some random Next Door Neighbor Dot Com user posted this sign seen on the median of Baron Cameron Avenue. After hearing what sounds like a roll of quarters getting dropped into a leaf blower almost every night on the roads near Restonian World Headquarters, consider this a vote for a little peace and quiet, the end.

With Reston Roundabout Proposal, Our Glorious Transit-Oriented Future Looking Like a Combination of New Jersey and Amsterdam

V. v. exciting news about the future of Wiehle Avenue. No, silly rabbits, they're not going to bulldoze the whole thing and turn it into a maglev loop for Elon's robot taxis, but this week Fairfax County settled on the next best thing: a traffic circle!

That's right. If county planners get their way, the traffic-clogged, pedestrian-defying intersection where Wiehle dead-ends at Sunrise Valley Drive will be replaced with a traffic-clogged, pedestrian-defying roundabout. Sadly, the original proposal included a second traffic circle at the intersection of Wiehle and Sunset Hills, but planners deleted it from the newest version of the proposal, denying us the chance of slingshotting back and forth across the Toll Road at speeds so high they could reverse the flow of time and take us back to a more idyllic era before parallelogram-shaped skyscrapers and woonerf and whatnot, as demonstrated scientifically here.  Cowards!

Planners also proposed a sweeeet protected two-way "cycle track" going down one side of Wiehle, allowing spandex-wearing cyclists moving in different directions to high-five each other as they zip by stalled traffic awaiting the opportunity to approach the roundabout and slingshot their way over to South Lakes.

A final community meeting to present the updated plan will be held on Oct. 28 at Langston Hughes Middle School, so be sure to bring up the time-travel thing; county planners love that. Give us some sweet transit-oriented blockquote, BFFs at Reston Now:

The third public meeting will share information on the revised concept, including updated analysis, planning-level cost estimates and implementation schedule, considerations for the bridge over the Dulles Toll Road, and a 3-D rendering of the corridor. FCDOT will also note the trade-offs with the design, particularly at the roundabout intersection, and offer a second option.

NO SECOND OPTION. SAVE THE ROUNDABOUT. Not to well-actually, but traffic circles tend to handle traffic flows better until they hit a certain volume, at which point... (looks out the window at the current intersection). But we digress! The design proposal also calls for an "opportunity for creative pavement design," as illustrated in this blurry rendering from the proposal:

We haven't been this excited since similar plans called for fanciful concrete bollards and rad 80s art on the Wiehle Metro station pedestrian bridge, and we all know how well those turned out, the end.

There's an App for That!

The Reston Association has a new website! We haven't been this excited since we bought a 300 baud modem back in 1985, and for good reason.

This redesign has been years in the making and replaces a temporary site that was built using everyone's favorite podcast sponsor and platform of choice for homemade candle vendors. Among other things, the RA added some nifty email lists, so you can be the first in your cluster to know the next time the nearest pool is closed due to "contamination." Which is great, but why stop there? With a modern website in place, our favorite homeowners' association is now poised for online domination! Once obsolete itself, just consider the other websites reston.org could now make obsolete:

eBay. People often go to desperate ends to find aging fixtures that meet their neighborhood's design standards, so providing a place where people can outbid each other for the last taupe incandescent outdoor light fixture manufactured in 1968 that hasn't been landfilled is a perfect fit.

NextDoor. All the RA has to do is add a "why is the chopper over my house" button to its site, and everyone's favorite website for cranks and busybodies will be out of business before the next flyover.

EHarmony/Tinder/Grindr, etc. It's hard to find that someone special, and especially so in a suburban plastic fantastic planned community, so why not add a personals section for people seeking companions whose favorite color is (harvest) brown, love pickleball and long walks around manmade lakes, and aren't afraid to cry when their assessment comes in the mail?

X/Twitter/Whatever: Bringing Elon on board could get us a wedge-shaped, stainless steel Nature Center whose front door only opens with an app.

America Online. Originally founded just down the road in Vienna, but like so many people in our area, AOL "graduated" to Loudoun County before becoming irrelevant. So why not use whatever's left in the IT budget to bring it back? Instead of the tinny "you've got mail" message, we could all open our laptops to hear "your carport's been cited!"

TikTok: We don't watch the RA meeting livestreams, but we definitely would if they were 45 seconds long and featured dancing board members.

Restonian.org. Big companies often buy similar-sounding domain names for big bucks. Not saying nothing, but our assessment's going to be due in about six months and we could use a little extra cash, the end.

This post was originally published in the Reston Letter.