The huge storms yesterday may have brought down tree limbs, but my tax dollars are at work, with Cheverly's Public Works Department to the rescue!

ChvBlog mentions the power outages and floods, both of which our house managed to avoid - yea!

Between the first and second storms, the Public Works guys had cut down the hanging branches and cleared our neighbor's driveway. It was still raining and lightening was not far off.

This morning, the rest of the clean-up had begun...

(C) Susan Pruden.

(C) Susan Pruden.

These "over-50" eyes don't multitask as well as they used to. I don't seem to be able to juggle map book, MLS property printout, and driving as well as I used to. Well, I used to call it multitasking. Nowadays it's called "distracted driving".

Anyway, I broke down and got a GPS system. She talks to me, tells me what turns to take and how far I have to drive before I get to that turn. Very helpful, even if occasionally I confuse her by taking detours that aren't in her plan. Like to the grocery store. She politely tells me that she is "re-calculating route", then tells me to make a "legal u-turn" as soon as is possible.

But the funniest part is her pronunciation of certain words. "Maryland" seems to flummox her a bit, but it is recognizable as "Maryland". But my absolute favorite is her pronunciation of "Belleview Avenue" in Cheverly.

As I enter Cheverly, she crisply says "Turn right at Believe You Avenue"! So for all my friends who have an address on Belleview Avenue, just be warned, there is a new way to say it, so say it proudly!  "I live on Believe You Avenue in Cheverly!"

Thanks goodness for things to be amused by.

(C) Susan Pruden.

I've been noticing Verizon trucks around town for quite a while now, putting in new cable. They pulled up outside our house today, so of course I went and asked what they were doing.

They're in the first steps of bringing FIOS to our town. I'm so ready for choices -- Comcast has been a disappointment, to say the least. We have intermittent service to our house because we're at the end of the line and Comcast has done everything in their power to ... do nothing.

The Verizon guy that I talked to said that in about 3 to 4 months, we should get mail from Verizon, letting us know that FIOS is here and what the first service is that they'll offer -- he speculated that it would be television.

I came  across a blog by a guy in Newton, Massachusetts, with a detailed description of what you see in your neighborhood, on the line near your house, on the side of your house, and inside when you get Verizon's FIOS Internet service.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to having a choice for my cable service.

Update: Another interesting blog entry on FIOS vs. Comcast.

(C) Susan Pruden.

A house recently came on the market here in Cheverly -- one identified in the "Sears, Roebuck and Company Mail Order House Survey in Prince George's County" (available through the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission) as the Crescent model. Priced at either $1,744 or $2,281, depending on which version of the floor plan was built.

I haven't been inside yet -- I plan to take a look over the weekend -- but I confess to a weakness for these mail-order homes. Cheverly has a fairly significant concentration of Sears catalog houses, along with homes built from other mail order catalogs. When the survey was done in 1988, 82 Sears homes were identified in the County, with 25 of them in Cheverly (20 different models).  Since then, others have been identified in the county and and more are suspected to be Sears houses, but they've had additions or alterations over the years and are not as easy to identify. Our own Mr. Ray Bellamy, former Historic Preservation Commissioner in the County, is responsible for compiling the list in the M-NCPPC book.

What's not to love with a description that starts out like the one in the catalog? "To the folks who like a touch of individuality with good taste..." What a great phrase! I may use it sometime on one of my listings.

(C) Susan Pruden.