Happy October — or not so happy depending on your perspective. I want to know what happened to September.

I’ve got about 15 draft posts to finish editing and publish to this site. So I’ll be publishing in reverse as I complete them.

Where does all my time go?

• visited the Encompassing the Globe exhibit at the Sackler Gallery. I am enamored with armillary spheres and astrolabes.
• went to a lecture on Portugal’s Golden Age
• learned about Malta’s prehistoric temples
• spent time at the Portuguese American Leadership Council annual meeting and attended a reception at the ambassador’s residence
• visited my ancient globes, maps, armillary spheres and compasses everyday for three days before the exhibit closed (yes, I can get obsessive)
• christened the back bar of James Hoban’s on Dupont Circle with a glass of scotch
• listened to four White House press secretaries reminisce about their jobs
• learned about Timbuktu
• watched Knocked Up
• traveled to Philadelphia for the first time
• went through the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute
• walked through the Amarna exhibit at the U Penn Museum
• watched The Kingdom
• stalked some of my favorite authors at the National Book Festival
• went on a diet

So how was your September in a nutshell?

The Examiner reported today on new census data that puts the DC’s median income at $52,000. But what is most striking is the economic divide between the city’s black and white citizens.

“Nearly 80 percent of the 108,000 District residents who live below the poverty line are black…. [The] median income for white residents was $88,969, while median income for blacks was $34,484.”

That really got me thinking … $34,484 per year… at a time when real estate in DC is all about new construction, upgrades and renovation… where do these people live when the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1100???

I covet the floor plans at 22West, a new building going up at the corner of New Hampshire and M Streets, NW. Construction isn’t finished yet and already 50 percent of the units have been sold. Pricing for a 948 s.f. one-bedroom apartment starts at $765,500.

How does the average white resident making $88,969 a year afford that, much less your average black resident?

I’m just whining because though I make more than my parents salaries combined when they were my age, I will never afford to buy a three-bedroom 1900 sf anything. And if I feel this hopeless of ever owning a little patch of DC, how does the person bringing in $34,484 feel?

Each week, I walk by this mansion at 2118 Massachusetts Avenue. And though I’ve passed by it for years, I never went inside.

Until Saturday. The doors were open with a sign that advertised tours between 1:00 – 4:00 pm. I was planning to go through the American Impressionism exhibit at the Phillips Collection, so I figured I’d be ambitious and do both.

Built for Larz Anderson III and his wife Isabel Weld Perkins by Little & Browne of Boston, the Beaux Arts style mansion was their winter residence and party central between 1905 and Anderson’s death in 1937.

Ground broke on the Anderson House in 1902. When the building was complete in 1905, legend has it three quarries in Italy shut down, emptied of all their marble.

Now, the mansion is headquarters to the Society of the Cincinnati and holds hour-long docent-led tours Tuesdays – Saturdays between 1-4:00 p.m.

Though the artwork is less than impressive, the architecture is well worth the tour. Secret passageways, goldleaf, murals that resemble tapestries, inlaid wood floors and marble everywhere.

On Tuesday, 28 August at 7:00 pm, there will be a lecture and book-signing by Scott W. Berg, assistant professor at George Mason University. He will discuss and sign copies of Grand Avenues: The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, DC.

There is also a concert series which begins on September 8.