Flashback Monday: Scenes from Lake Anne

As we shudder through the winter cold, please to be enjoying this grainy video from a summer afternoon a long time ago, in a village center far, far away. Through the magic of "jump cuts," as the moviemaking kids probably haven't said since the MTV days, we are witness to countless tranquil scenes of everyday life at Lake Anne Plaza during the the heyday of Super 8 movies and earth-toned clothing. Mothers stroll with their children, shirtless teens row canoes while their younger siblings explore the plaza's brutalist concrete skull-cracking play features.

And then there are these young roughies at play on what may or may not have been the result of a construction error:


Inadvisable then, quite possibly dangerous now, thanks to the creatures of the deep that call Reston's lakes home. Or was something more sinister at play? Was that young man pushed?


The Cigarette Man Sunhat Lady isn't talking. But we think we're through the looking glass.

Just In Time For The Holidays, Here's Your Official Restonian Last-Minute Gift Guide

If you're like us, the rigors of nonstop 24-7 "web logging" have left you confronting the final days of the holidays with a few holes in your gift list. Not to fear!

Our BFFs at newish web log Modern Reston shared a list of "holiday gifts that celebrate Reston" a few weeks back. While the ideas were nice -- classy, even! -- we decided to add a few more that truly capture the frisson of Reston at the end of 2014.

First on the list for all of us shiny-new Silver Line commuters who have grown tired of playing "guess the stain" on Metro's not-so-shiny-or-new rolling stock is a fancy new series 7000 rail car, complete with retro 80s interior design flair. Note that unlike in those annoying Lexus commercials, the ribbon is extra, and it's unlikely to be shipped in time for Christmas... Christmas 2015, that is.

Our Favorite Correspondent, the Peasant From Less Sought After South Reston, pointed out that the Reston Museum sells fair trade "Reston Roast Coffee." No word, though, on whether that minty metallic tang comes from a brewing process that involves water circulated through our very own jet-age air conditioning system -- but your cuppa joe is guaranteed to be a piping cool tepid 84.4 degrees, summer or winter! And while supplies may not be limited, the system itself just might be!

Fans of obscure Italian sports didn't exactly get what they wished for this year, but fortunately the wage slaves elves at Amazon have the next-best thing: a "bocce in a bag" kit. And at $85, it comes in at a whopping $19,915 less than previous estimates, making it perfect for the good little HOA on your list!

You might want to give this little stocking stuffer to your favorite North Reston neighbors who don't like the sound of dogs barking disturbing the calming sound of traffic on Wiehle Avenue. And if money's a bit tight this holiday season, you might even be able to crowdfund its cost.

Folks around Lake Anne might want a new pharmacy, while their neighbors near Tall Oaks might welcome a new anything. Many of us would like a new bookstore, and the menfolk around us might still be hoping against hope for a classy new eatery. And all of us would probably welcome the wheelbarrows of cash our homes were supposed to be fetching now that they're a short walk to a Metro station -- not to mention that fancy new bridge crossing the Toll Road right about now. Sadly, Santa is just a magical elfin creature, not a miracle worker.

We all probably have a golf lover on our list, and given recent developments, it might be prudent to pick up one of these executive putting kits -- just in case. You may want to caution the recipient that their insurance company might decide the corner of the office where they put this is ripe for redevelopment.

And finally, the fashion-forward fashionista on your list will love just about anything that's in the official Pantone Color of 2015, though a word of caution is in order: Ripping window treatments or plywood siding off the side of your 1970s era home probably won't be seen as thoughtful regifting by its recipient.

So there you have it! You can thank us for Saving Christmas later. But even though everyone loves a good gift card, given the crappy holiday surprise left for their Reston employees, under no circumstances should any Restonian pick up one of these:

BREAKING: Macaroni Grill Closes, Takes With It All Our Hopes And Dreams (Updated)

FOUR-SIREN ALARM NEWS. Reston, we may have sampled our last all-you-can-eat breadstick platter.

According to several Confidential Restonian Operatives, the Macaroni Grill is now closed -- a turn of events so shocking, so unanticipated that it forced Your Restonian to pick up our cellular telephone and do some "reporting," as journalists apparently call it. It is with a heavy heart that we can confirm that our favorite bastion of midscale chain dining and symbol of misguided big box Reston development is no more, all remnants of its memory scrubbed from the Macaroni Grill website like a Trotskyite in mid-century Russia:


They said that when the Soviet Union finally collapsed, it all happened so quickly that no one even saw it coming. This is kind of like that, only involving carb-laden appetizers instead of tanks.

It is with a heavy heart that we will update the Macaroni Grill Doomsday Clock for the last time later today. There are no words, just an empty hole in our heart that high-carb appetizers can no longer fill.

Update: This part stinks worse than day-old rigatoni:


Sad.

Our Favorite Correspondent, The Peasant From Less Sought After South Reston, suggested this image to represent the ticking of the final second of the Macaroni Grill Doomsday Clock, urging us to think of the red streaks as "burst cans of industrial strength tomato sauce."


Not bad, assuming you came of age during the golden age of the graphic novel. Us, we like our Sad Poneez:

Update to the Update: The sign that promised weary travelers serious carbs and easy living is ALREADY GONE. The monsters.


That festive wreath near the ground isn't fooling anyone.

Update: There's now an online fundraising campaign for the unceremoniously laid off Reston Macaroni Grill employees. A former hourly manager there writes:

Over my 4 years with the company the employees there became my family and now 33 hard working people, many with children and no other source of income, are now unemployed the week before Christmas.

I am asking for your help to make this incredibly trying time easier for the countless employees that devoted years to a restaurant that showed little courtesy to it's devoted team members.

Please spread the word and the cheer of the holiday season. Any donation of any size is appreciated.

As of Dec. 22, $600 had been raised, including a $300 donation from the former general manager.

It's a Wonderful Life in Reston, Unless You Live By the Golf Course, Or Like The Idea of Open Space Or Unclogged Roads

Ever since our earth-toned community got an unwelcome early Christmas present from the bank examiner Northwestern Mutual, our BFFs at Rescue Reston have been gearing up to fight the abrupt resurfacing of the insurance giant's attempt to challenge the zoning of Reston National Golf Course as open recreational space. Now it's getting into the spirt of the season to boot!

A secret developer, cloaked by an attorney, is attempting to turn our planned community into It's a Wonderful Life's "Pottersville." On January 21 the attorney for Northwestern Mutual will ask the BZA to overturn our County Zoning Administrator's determination that the 166 acres of Reston National Golf Course is zoned as permanent recreational open space.

Rescue Reston is planning a rally on January 10 and is urging people to write letters to the Board of Zoning Appeals and attend the January 21 BZA public hearing on the matter. In the meantime, please to be enjoying this lovely flyer and try to forget that one of the original options for naming Reston, while not quite Pottersville, was Simon City.


No truth to the rumor that the original script for It's a Wonderful Life ended with the line "Teacher says every time a bell rings, a developer gets a floor-area-ratio density bonus."

RTC Triffid Sculpture Has Friendly-Sounding Name

It's been nearly six months since the bloodthirsty Triffids primrose yellow public art project rose from the ground in front of the Hyatt at Reston Town Center, terrifying delighting us all. And now we know it has a name -- "Reston Rondo." How deceptively friendly, as though to lure human-sized morsels within striking distance whimsical!

On Monday, the public art project will devour us all be formally dedicated. Since we are but jaded "web loggers," incapable of appreciating art except by making childish comparisons to obscure cult horror movies and other pop-culture detritus, we'll share the official description and this fancy video from IPAR's website.

Reston Rondo aspires to be welcoming to people approaching Reston Town Center. The sculpture is gestural, its graceful movement inviting the viewer to move around and though it. With clean organic forms suggesting lively energy, Reston Rondo is intended to be elegant with a feeling of lyricism and whimsy.

Not bad, actually. We've actually been pleasantly surprised by the piece, given the plentiful opportunities we've had to observe it while stuck in traffic on Reston Parkway. The dedication will be at 3pm Monday. Be sure to wear something unappetizing looking primrose yellow if you choose to go.

Possible Reston Development Site Possibly Home to Possible Slave Cemetery

Remember how the Fairfax Hunt Club issued a request to rezone its property at the edge of Reston for residential development as part of Phase 2 of the Reston Master Plan? Yeah, that was awesome. Turns out the property is already home to some residents who have been there for quite some time. Give us some good blockquote, Fairfax Times "news paper":

Some members of Reston’s Hunt Club cluster are concerned for the future of what might potentially be a cemetery containing the graves of five former slaves who lived in Fairfax County prior to the Civil War.

The small family cemetery is located on the Fairfax County Hunt Club property.

Apparently the property contains "one field stone and five plus grave depressions under an oak tree about three feet in diameter.” Research done by a resident of the adjoining Hunt Club cluster, Heather Greenfield, suggests that the property once belonged to a woman named Mildred Johnson, "who also had a school house on her property."

According to Fairfax County tax records and Post-Civil War Southern Claims application submissions, Mildred H. Johnson owned property listed as “100 acres 3 miles SE of Dranesville” and that property was listed as containing a schoolhouse. “I’ve been able to look up burial records for Mildred Johnson and her children, and they were buried mostly in Browns Chapel. Johnson had five slaves according to the 1860 slave census, and there are five graves there,” said Greenfield, who formerly was a reporter with the Associated Press.

State law allows gravesites to be moved, and language in the master plan request suggests that the nearby clubhouse, with its 200-year-old log cabin, would be preserved in the event of development. Greenfield points out that leaves open the question of what might happen to the cemetery if and when the property is redeveloped:

“When I ask that, I am told that there would be multiple steps to try save the cemetery later, such as hearings,” Greenfield said. “I get that. But one thing I learned from covering this sort of thing as a reporter is that you get less conflict later, when people already know what to expect. If it’s up front that the cabin and cemetery would be preserved, a potential housing developer would already know what he’s buying. It would be frustrating for him and for us as neighbors, if it’s left vague, and we have to battle over it later.”

Homeowners battling to preserve open space because of what's included in a land use document? That doesn't sound like anything that's happened 'round these here parts, the end.

Flashback Monday: Another Lost Playground of Reston

Our Facebook BFFs at Reston, Remember When recently posted this exciting photo of a no-longer-extant playground along the idyllic shores of Lake Anne. Like another long-lost playground that once helped convince skeptical families to Make The Reston Dream Theirs, this one also has some nice skull-crackin' concrete adornments that would give the personal injury lawyers of today fever dreams of upgraded leather trim in their BMWs.


Nothing says "fun" like playing in a half-buried concrete culvert!

Or maybe we've got this all wrong. Given the location along Lake Anne, maybe this wasn't meant to be a playground at all. Instead, this could have been a never-completed upgrade to the jet-age air conditioning system, in hopes of opening the floodgates of chilled "cooled" lake water to a sweltering populace, the end.

Shocker: Mauve Is The New Black

Alert Confidential Restonian Operative "Kristina" passed along this very exciting news from Pantone, the makers of a rainbow palette of colors of which 99.9 percent are strictly Verboten for Reston homeowners.

Apparently every year, Pantone picks a Color of the Year, with 2014's color the DRB-infuriating "Radiant Orchid" pictured at right. No truth to the rumor that if you try to pick up a can of exterior paint in this shade at Home Depot, your coordinates are immediately dispatched to the DRB drones.

But 2015? Everything's coming up Reston! Reston, meet Marsala. We think we've seen you around these parts before, gracing our wood trim, our fencing, and the walls of our sweeeeeet sunken conversation pits.



Pantone calls Marsala "sensual and bold" and a "daringly inviting tone that nurtures, exuding confidence and stability while feeding the body, mind and soul." But we know it by its real name. That's right, mauve is the color of 2015. And, by logical extension, Reston is the new black.