DC MeFites, stay safe!

January 6, 2021 12:54 PM

Hey DC folks, I hope you all are hunkered down and avoiding the Capitol area. Please be careful and stay safe.
posted by Going To Maine to MetaFilter-Related at 12:54 PM (7 comments total)

Thank you. This morning we decided not to go into town. Good move, it turns out.
posted by doctornemo at 3:27 PM on January 6, 2021 [5 favorites]

I worked the opening shift at [BIG RETAIL STORE WITH A RED AND WHITE LOGO] and was supposed to clock out at 3, but the curfew alert came in and we had to scramble to close the store early. Meanwhile a customer had a medical emergency at our service desk, so we were also scrambling to reroute people while EMTs responded. All our employees made it out safely and I clocked out just after 4:30, and I've now had two shots of whiskey, dinner, and a cocktail. Stay home and safe, everyone.
posted by fedward at 3:49 PM on January 6, 2021 [22 favorites]

I'm in Arlington, VA, within spitting distance of DC (I can walk there in about a half hour over several bridges and it is one Metro/subway stop away). My two friends who live on Capitol Hill are fortunately not that close to what is going on. I've been seeing MAGA people in my area for the last few days (of course no masks or masks pulled down), because of the number of hotels in the vicinity, as well as the convenient Metro stops. I went for a walk around this afternoon to work off a bit of adrenaline from what is going on, trying to go in back/neighborhood ways where I was unlikely to run into anyone. I still ran into some people with Trump hats, and banners, including someone heading into the subway (trying to go downtown?), and I saw pickups flying big Trump and Blue Lives Matter flags driving by. On the first part of my walk, I could pretty much hear continuous sirens from one of the feeder highways into DC as vehicles headed in to the city to help out. I can still hear sirens off and on as I am typing this. They are shutting the subway down at 8 PM and the bus system down at 9. DC curfew kicked in at 6 PM (in theory). This is a pretty blue area and I saw a neighbor moving a pro Biden sign from his yard out closer to the street as I walked by. It was making me nervous what some of these people will do if they clear them out of the city and then they come back here and they are still wired from today, but then Virginia's governor declared a 6 PM - 6 AM curfew here in Arlington (as well as Alexandria).

Fingers crossed everyone, stay safe.
posted by gudrun at 4:22 PM on January 6, 2021 [5 favorites]

Hope everyone is well! I got suspended from Twitter for callin Brit Hume a bad name. So thought I’d stop by and say hello. It’s been a long time!
posted by Roger Dodger at 9:34 PM on January 6, 2021 [9 favorites]

I'm about a mile from the Capitol and haven't seen much from my windows aside from batshit traffic and lots of speeding cop cars. I decided to take a break from it all to do a virtual restorative yoga class last night, which was great until everyone's phones went nuts with an emergency alert during supported child's pose.

Yesterday morning (before the was any whiff of violence or a curfew) my book club (which had planned to meet outside around a fire pit in someone's backyard) decided to postpone our discussion of Caste until next week - we'll have much more to talk about now!
posted by kinsey at 3:59 AM on January 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

I have talked to several colleagues and former coworkers and friends who were in the mix or live near the capitol, and all I have to say is fuck these fucking assholes coming to this city at this time with these goals. We are safe, for the moment. But we're mostly prepared for horrid wingnuts to come through again. And frankly I don't know that we'll be so assiduously avoiding engagement next time.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:27 PM on January 8, 2021 [4 favorites]

Hey does anyone have a DC area link for donations to people who are probably hunkering down in the face of the clusterfuck descending on y'all over the next ~hopefully not forever~???

I looked for mutual aid groups and found a bunch, but at this point my resources are thinner and would love to know if anyone local has a specific recommendation. I've never lived in DC and don't really know neighborhoods. If I have 15 bucks for a monthly donation what's the best place to put it?
posted by Lawn Beaver at 1:24 PM on January 13, 2021