Bethesda Magazine: July/August 2021 Digital Edition by MoCo360

INTERVIEW WITH JAMIE & SARAH RASKIN

COOL SECOND HOMES

JULY/AUGUST 2021

$4.95

TOP Doctors 431 PHYSICIANS IN 58 SPECIALTIES

Dr. Sonya Chawla and her husband, Dr. Vivek Patil

WHAT OUR DOCTORS SAY about their call to practice medicine “I like each person and solving their problems, getting to know them, and figuring out how their problems are impacting them and how I can best help them.” —Wayne Meyer, MD, Internal Medicine

“I love to help my patients discover why they have certain conditions— and what they can do to fix them.” —T Newsome, MD, Internal Medicine

“I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. I’m glad to be in radiology where technology is so promising. There are always advancements-there’s always a hopeful future.” —Sonya Kella, MD, Breast Radiologist

“I chose medicine because I wanted to help people. I can’t imagine anything more exciting than prescribing a cure.” — Andrew Catanzaro, MD, Infectious Disease

“My dad was a surgeon and it never occurred to me to be anything other than a surgeon. The thing I like most about surgery is that while I am doing it, there’s nothing else in the world that exists except trying to do a perfect operation, so when I come out I can tell them your heart is fixed.” — Paul Massimiano, MD, Cardiovascular Surgery

Our 1,948 Adventist HealthCare doctors are here for you. Find the right one for you at AdventistHealthCare.com/WhereYouAre.

WHAT OUR PATIENTS ARE SAYING “

Before my open-heart surgery for mitral valve prolapse and coronary bypass I could only walk one block with significant shortness of breath. Six weeks after surgery I could walk 4 miles without any symptoms. I am truly grateful to have had this doctor perform my surgery. He is an elite surgeon and a specialist in mitral valve dysfunctions. —White Oak Medical Center Heart Patient

“

Everyone was so nice, scheduling my appointment, the receptionist, nurse, and doctor! They all seemed genuinely concerned about me and my needs. This is a rare combination to have this level of professionalism and courtesy! — Germantown Urgent Care Patient

”

“

If a person can describe a physician’s presence as comforting, then my doctor was comfortable to talk with. Concerning my health, I was able to relax and honestly share with her, information that was previously left unsaid to any other doctor! She is thorough, patient and thoughtful. As my PCP, she satisfies! — College Park Primary Care Patient

“

”

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TO CARE

The neurology staff led by Dr. Perry Smith is phenomenal. He is one of the most loving and caring doctors you will ever meet. Every member of the ER team and on-call doctors are all extremely caring and professional. I highly recommend this hospital. We’ve stayed at every hospital in a 50 mile radius just about, and this one takes the cake by far. — Shady Grove Medical Center ER Patient

”

“

Makes you feel welcome, relaxed and at home; which creates a conducive atmosphere to tell your story without reservations. Good listener and clear communicator. —Silver Spring Urology Patient

”

Montgomery County’s Largest Healthcare System

To learn more about our plans for the future, see the Top Doctors section of this issue. AdventistHealthCare.com/WhereYouAre

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Reflecting Upon and Building Upon The Legacy of a Leader r. DeRionne Pollard has served our community with purpose and, yes, audacity for the past 11 years! Her contributions to students, to academia, to Montgomery County, and to society are numerous and profound. As she prepares to assume the role of president of Nevada State College, we reflect upon and build upon her legacy.

providing a seamless pathway from Montgomery County Public Schools to Montgomery College and through the Universities at Shady Grove.

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July/August 2021 | Volume 18 Issue 4

contents

ON THE COVER 49 Top Doctors

We highlight 431 physicians in 58 specialties in Montgomery County and Upper Northwest D.C.

Dr. Thomas Matthew

PHOTO BY MICHAEL VENTURA

COVER: Photo by Michael Ventura

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

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WE ARE PLE ASE D TO WE LCOM E

Traci Johnson Marion Smith TO OUR FIRM

Welcome Home TR ACI J O H N S O N 703-239-3082 traci.johnson@wfp.com

MARION SMITH 917-952-2367 marion.smith@wfp.com

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contents 94 Bethesda Interview

FEATURES P. 102

Chris Zhu, co-owner of China Garden

Congressman Jamie Raskin and his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, talk about meeting in law school at Harvard, how they were changed by the riot at the Capitol, and the acts of kindness inspired by the death of their son, Tommy BY STEVE ROBERTS

102 Staying Strong The pandemic threatened to put these Asian restaurant owners out of business, and racism continues to test their resilience BY DAVID HAGEDORN

110 ‘She’s Still My Mom’ Two years ago, Holly Gross was diagnosed with ALS, a disease she calls ‘a monster with no mercy.’ As her husband struggles with Parkinson’s, it’s her sons who mostly take care of her. She can’t use her voice, but she talks to them. She can’t move, but she keeps them on track. All they want now is more time with her. BY AMY HALPERN

120 Back to the Nest Just when some parents had adjusted to their older kids being away, the pandemic brought them home BY AMY HALPERN

128 Leaving Eden When the world went into quarantine, a Bethesda mom was hoping time would stop for a while. But her 4-year-old son kept growing up. BY RACHEL POMERANCE BERL

141 In Their Own Words PHOTO BY DEB LINDSEY

The short stories and essays that took the top prizes in our annual writing competition

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

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BEST OF BETHESDA!

Antoinette King Antoinette continues to demonstrate the superb attributes of a highly successful Realtor. Exceptional client relationships and service, skilled negotiating strategies for buyers and sellers and a resilient work ethic being available to her clients, 24/7. Work with a “Top Producer” on your next move. Antoinette King. (A.King1agent@gmail.com)

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contents

P. 26

Rocky Point Creamery

DEPARTMENTS 18 | TO OUR READERS 20 | CONTRIBUTORS

26 good

life

28 | BEST BETS Can’t-miss arts events

banter

40 | BOOK REPORT New books by local authors, and more

44 | HOMETOWN With 7,000 fruit trees and his ‘pet’ cows, Gene Kingsbury keeps busy running the Dickerson farm that’s been in his family for five generations BY STEVE ROBERTS

159

191

home

health

215

216 | TABLE TALK

192 | BE WELL

160 | HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS Animal prints are migrating from the fashion runway to interior design. Get the look with these bold home goods.

164 | THE GREAT ESCAPE For some local residents, fleeing the suburbs during the pandemic meant buying a vacation home

178 | HOME SALES BY THE NUMBERS

etc.

A Rockville meditation teacher focuses on being kind to ourselves

What’s happening on the local food scene

194 | GROUP EFFORT

A Silver Spring couple held an intimate ceremony at Washington National Cathedral, where the bride’s parents had wed 40 years earlier

For 90 days, a bunch of men from Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Kensington gave up alcohol and sweets, took cold showers and committed to praying for an hour each day. It wasn’t easy, but the impact on their health and spirituality made the journey worth it.

220 | WEDDINGS

230 | PETS Fostering cats was a great way to ease pandemic woes

231 | FLASHBACK

232 | OUTTAKES

AD SECTIONS PROFILES: PHYSICIANS 73

CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2021 134

LONG & FOSTER AD SECTION 155

COMPASS AD SECTION 174

SHOWCASE: LUXURY CONDOS, APARTMENTS, TOWNHOMES 184

PROFILES: DENTISTS 202

PRIVATE SCHOOLS AD SECTION 224

PHOTO BY BREANN FIELDS

How a grocery store magnate created an agrarian showcase in Bethesda

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

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DARLA J. MCCLURE

Principal

Employment Law

5 TIPS FOR GETTING BACK TO BUSINESS IN A VACCINATED WORLD

What’s online @

BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

Navigating the COVID aftermath is the next big hurdle that businesses must face. Here are some tips on the best ways to start or continue the return-to-work transition. 1) Be flexible – The executive orders, ordinances, guidelines and laws from various federal, state and local jurisdictions provided to employers are constantly changing and evolving. Employers should monitor applicable guidelines and seek advice from an employment attorney to make sure they are in compliance with the most recent developments.

❱❱ ONLINE ARCHIVES

Explore past issues and stories using our searchable archives.

2) Maintain consistent communication with your employees – Employers should continue to reassure employees that their health is a top priority and provide information on evolving safety measures. 3) Handle the topic of vaccinations with care – While certain employers may be able to mandate that employees get vaccinated, they need to consider employment laws including, but not limited to, the Americans with Disability Act and Title VII dealing with religious accommodations. Employers are permitted to ask employees if they have been vaccinated and can request proof of vaccination prior to providing any sort of vaccination incentive but cannot require employees to provide any medical information as part of that proof. 4) Continue to safeguard staff and customers – Employers should continue to follow CDC guidelines for mask wearing, social distancing, screening staff and customers and requiring employees to stay home when ill. Employers must maintain their policies on what to do if an employee tests positive for COVID and update the policies, as necessary. 5) Get employees back to the office – Regardless of all the safety measures an employer puts in place, some employees may still feel unsure about coming back to work. Of concern are those employees with qualified disabilities under the ADA and who may be considered high-risk. It is likely that some of these high-risk individuals may request reasonable accommodations, which employers should take into consideration. Taking into account such legal considerations, once an employer has decided to reopen and has provided the necessary safety precautions, an employer has the right to require its employees to return to the office.

301-340-2020 www.steinsperling.com Darla McClure’s practice consists of representing companies in various business matters with a particular emphasis on helping management navigate the ever changing employment law landscape. She counsels her clients on legal issues faced by businesses on a daily basis, which frequently includes providing counsel and guidance regarding employment matters such as resolution of employment disputes, compliance with federal, state and local laws as well as assisting in drafting employment policies, handbooks and employment contracts. Darla also spends time advising clients on general corporate matters such as contract review and preparation, business transitions and other general corporate matters. 16

Bethesda Beat is Bethesda Magazine’s local news site. Each weekday, Bethesda Beat publishes an average of eight news stories covering local politics and government, development, crime, schools and restaurants. Read Bethesda Beat at BethesdaMagazine.com.

❱❱ DAILY NEWSLETTER Get local news delivered right to your inbox by signing up for the free Bethesda Beat daily newsletter. The newsletter contains headlines from the most recent Bethesda Beat stories. Sign up for the newsletter at BethesdaMagazine.com.

❱❱ MEMBERSHIP

Support local journalism by becoming a Bethesda Beat Member. Members receive a variety of benefits and help Bethesda Beat to provide even more local coverage. For more information, go to BethesdaMagazine.com/ membership.

❱❱ STAY CONNECTED Follow Bethesda Beat at @BethesdaBeat Find Bethesda Beat at facebook.com/BethesdaBeat

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

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to our readers

FINDING INSPIRATION AFTER LOSS ON THE SUNDAY BEFORE the 2018 general election, I ran into Congressman Jamie Raskin hiking with his family in Rock Creek Park. Most politicians would be out seeking votes two days before facing the voters, but Jamie, who represents a significant part of Montgomery County in the House, had good reason to be confident. In a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2 to 1, he had won his inaugural run for the seat in 2016 with 60.6% of the vote. Jamie’s confidence in 2018 was well placed: He received 68.2% of the vote (and the exact same percentage in 2020). During his first two terms representing the 8th district, Jamie became a favorite of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a regular on cable news shows. But two tragic events within a week profoundly altered Jamie’s life and thrust him into the national spotlight. On New Year’s Eve, 2020, Jamie’s 25-yearold son, Tommy, took his own life. And just six days later, insurrectionists occupied and ransacked the U.S. Capitol, leading to the second impeachment of President Donald Trump. Jamie was chosen by Pelosi to lead the prosecution in the Senate trial. The public reaction to Tommy’s death was extraordinary. Over 10,000 people wrote to Jamie and his family to express their condolences. More than $1 million was contributed to a memorial fund in Tommy’s honor. And countless people wrote to the Raskin family about the good deeds they had performed in Tommy’s name. A letter that Jamie and his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, wrote about Tommy was published and/ or covered by the news media around the country and the world. At the Senate impeachment trial, Jamie’s emotional opening remarks recounted how his younger daughter, Tabitha, and his older daughter’s husband, Hank Kronick, had come to the Capitol on Jan. 6 to watch the counting of the electoral votes. When the insurrectionists breached the building, Tabitha and Hank hid under a desk in an office off the House floor. “They thought they were going to die,” Jamie told the senators. Over the last six months, interview requests and book offers have poured in for Jamie—and he is, indeed, writing a book about Tommy, the events of Jan. 6 and the Senate impeachment trial that he led. 18

Last November, Bethesda Magazine’s Steve Roberts interviewed Jamie for a Q&A that was scheduled to run in the March/April issue. After Tommy’s death and the tragic events that followed, we asked Steve to interview Jamie again, but this time with Sarah participating. The interview took place in May. I asked Steve how Jamie was different from the earlier interview. “He seemed more subdued, reflective, even a little shaken,” Steve says. “As he said in the second interview, two pillars holding up his world—his children and the Constitution—had both suffered severe blows within a week. But he also seemed resilient and determined. Shaken perhaps, but certainly not deterred.” Steve experienced his own loss in 2019, when his wife of 53 years, Cokie Roberts, died. “We agreed that we shared a special appreciation for folks who reached out to us in the worst of times,” Steve says. Jamie and Sarah, of course, are still figuring out where their lives go from here. But two things are of paramount importance to them, Steve says. “Personally, as a couple, as a family, they are deeply devoted to keeping their son Tommy’s memory alive and finding practical ways to do that,” he says. “Professionally, Jamie feels deeply that even though Trump was not convicted by the Senate and barred from future office, he has to do everything possible to make sure Trump does not successfully resurrect his career.” Steve’s interview with Jamie and Sarah begins on page 94.

THERE’S LOTS MORE IN this, the 103rd issue of Bethesda Magazine. There’s our biannual list of the top doctors in the area, a heartbreaking yet inspiring story of how two sons are caring for their ailing mother, and the winning entries from our annual short story and essay contest, co-presented by the Bethesda Urban Partnership. I hope you enjoy the issue.

STEVE HULL Editor & Publisher

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

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OUR NEWSROOM SERVES YOU. Support our work by becoming a member today.

bethesdamagazine.com/

membership

ANDREA COLANTTI WITT

RACHEL POMERANCE BERL

LIVES IN: Bethesda

IN THIS ISSUE: Fact-checked the list of physicians in Top Doctors. “I learned a lot about the various ways a doctor can practice medicine in different settings and disciplines.”

IN THIS ISSUE: Wrote about her hope that the quarantine could somehow let her freeze time with her 4-year-old son. “It turns out you can’t press pause on life, even during a lockdown. But I learned to appreciate the unfolding moments with him and try to embrace the bittersweetness of time passing.”

WHAT SHE DOES: After retiring from a career in law firm management, mostly with Arnold & Porter in the District, she now enjoys doing volunteer work. Most mornings she walks her two dogs in the Bethesda neighborhoods near her home. SUPPORT SYSTEM: “Over the years, my family members and I have had really great doctors who not only kept us healthy, but are kind people who are genuinely supportive. After talking with doctors and their staff, I can understand why they are on the list of Top Doctors. No matter what the circumstances, you want to know you are in the hands of caring and competent people.”

WHAT SHE DOES: A freelance writer, she has written for newspapers, wire services and magazines, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post and The New York Times. She got her start in journalism as an intern, first at Washington Monthly and then Washingtonian. FAVORITE THING ABOUT SUMMER: “Almost all of it. The freedom of long days and fewer layers—of going without a jacket on summer nights, driving with the windows down, and especially, socklessness. I think my favorite time of the year is the moment it becomes sandal weather.”

COURTESY PHOTO; RACHEL POMERANCE BERL PHOTO BY LIZ LYNCH

contributors

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

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Nothing is too far out for us. Even from the most discerning of clients. Dream forward.

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EDITORIAL

EDITOR

Steve Hull SENIOR EDITOR

Cindy Rich ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Kathleen Seiler Neary ART DIRECTOR

Jenny Fischer DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR

Laura F. Goode DESIGNER

Olivia Sadka BETHESDA BEAT MANAGING EDITOR

Andrew Schotz BETHESDA BEAT REPORTERS

Steve Bohnel, Caitlynn Peetz, Dan Schere WEB PRODUCER

Erin Roby RESTAURANT CRITIC

David Hagedorn CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Eugene L. Meyer, Louis Peck, Julie Rasicot, Carole Sugarman COPY EDITORS

Elisabeth Herschbach, Steve Wilder CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Caralee Adams, Jennifer Barger, Stephanie Siegel Burke, Amanda Cherrin, Dina ElBoghdady, Margaret Engel, Dana Gerber, Michael S. Gerber, Amy Halpern, Melanie D.G. Kaplan, Christine Koubek, Amy Reinink, Steve Roberts, Mike Unger, Mark Walston, Carolyn Weber, PHOTOGRAPHERS & ILLUSTRATORS

Edgar Artiga, Skip Brown, Goodloe Byron, Erick Gibson, Stacy Zarin Goldberg, Lisa Helfert, Alice Kresse, Deb Lindsey, Liz Lynch, Lindsey Max, Evan RobinsonJohnson, Mary Ann Smith, Louis Tinsley, Joseph Tran, Michael Ventura

David B. Hurwitz

CFP®, CRPC®, CRPS®, RICP®, APMA®

Private Wealth Advisor Certiÿed Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certiÿcation marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and CFP (with °ame desig n) in the U.S. Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC. © 2018 Ameriprise Financial, Inc., All rights reserved.

6400 Goldsboro Road, Suite 550 Bethesda, MD 20817 Direct: (301) 263-8509 Email: david.b.hurwitz@ampf.com davidbhurwitz.com

Bethesda Magazine is published six times a year by Z-Pop Media, LLC © 2021 Letters to the editor: Please send letters (with your name, the town you live in and your daytime phone number) to letters@bethesdamagazine.com. Story ideas: Please send ideas for stories to editorial@bethesdamagazine.com. Bethesda Magazine 7768 Woodmont Ave., #204, Bethesda, MD 20814 Phone: 301-718-7787/ Fax: 301-718-1875 BethesdaMagazine.com

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

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T T R S I R .CO M | B R O K E R AG ES : B E T H ES DA R OW — 4 8 0 9 B E T H ES DA AV E N U E , B E T H ES DA , M D — + 1 3 0 1 5 1 6 1 2 1 2 C H E V Y C H AS E , D C • A N N A P O L I S, M D • E ASTO N , M D • G EO R G E TOW N , D C • D OW N TOW N , D C • M c L E A N , VA • A L E X A N D R I A , VA • A R L I N GTO N , VA • T H E P L A I N S, VA ©2021 TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, licensed real estate broker. Sotheby’s International Realty and the Sotheby’s International Realty logo are registered service marks used with permission. Each Office Is Independently Owned And Operated. Equal housing opportunity. All information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Price and availability subject to change.

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art. festivals. culture. day trips. hidden gems.

good life

FARM-FRESH TREATS ABOUT 40 MILES OUTSIDE of Bethesda, a sweet reward awaits at Rocky Point Creamery, which is part of a dairy farm sitting off a winding road in rural Frederick County. You’ll find a wide variety of ice cream treats—shakes, hand-dipped cones, floats and pies—made from the milk of the farm’s Holstein cows. Open since 2012, the red barnlike creamery is set against the backdrop of the dairy farm, with its barns and silos nestled among lush green fields dotted with grazing cattle. The Fry family owns and operates the farm, which also produces milk, cheeses and a range of beef products—all for sale on-site. Choose from 24 flavors of ice cream— recent choices included Banana Puddin’ and Cowfee Bean—from the creamery’s rotation of more than 100 options,

including sugar-free varieties. There are also sorbets. Customers can order inside the creamery or at a drive-thru window, which has proved to be the most popular option, according to Emily Snyder, who co-owns the creamery with Chuck Fry. After you’ve ordered, grab a picnic table painted in the distinctive black and white of the Holsteins or spread a blanket on the thick grass surrounding the parking lot. Kids can keep busy by climbing on an old green combine retrofitted with yellow tube slides, or exploring a tractor and wagon made of wood. Rocky Point Creamery, 4323A Tuscarora Road, Tuscarora, Maryland, 301-874-5810, rockypointcreamery.com. n —Julie Rasicot

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PHOTO BY BREANN FIELDS

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good life

BEST BETS

Our picks for things to see and do in July and August BY STEPHANIE SIEGEL BURKE July 24

MAGIC MAN

YouTube videos show people freaking out after self-described mentalist and magician Kourosh Taie seemingly reads their thoughts, guessing names of celebrities or friends they’ve imagined, or random words they’ve thought up. He amazes people with new twists on sleight-of-hand tricks, somehow knowing beforehand which card a person will pull from a deck or making a person’s initials magically appear on a coin they’re holding. During A Virtual Magic Hour with Kourosh Taie, presented by Gaithersburg’s Arts on the Green visual and performing arts program, the entertainer presents his signature style of magic and mind reading in an interactive virtual format. Recommended for ages 12 and older. Ticketholders will be sent a link to the online performance. 8 p.m., $22, virtual event, gaithersburgmd.gov

GO GLOBAL

After more than a year with no festivals due to COVID-19 restrictions, street fairs are making a comeback this summer. That’s a good enough reason to dance in the streets, and the International Food and Craft Festival in Silver Spring is a great place to do it. A DJ will spin international tunes while vendors and artisans sell their wares. Expect a diverse selection of handmade jewelry, textiles, candles and more, as well as food selections from around the globe. The event will be held in accordance with CDC and county health guidelines.

ALL IN THE HOUR

2-8 p.m., free, 1 Veterans Place, Silver Spring, chiceventsdc.com

More than 30 years ago, siblings Sean and Sara Watkins, along with Chris Thile, formed Americana band Nickel Creek. With Sean on guitar and Sara on fiddle, the two also performed as the Watkins Family Hour, playing live shows and incorporating special guests, such as Fiona Apple and Jackson Browne. But it was only last year that they released their first album of original songs as a duo. Brother Sister features lush harmonies and pretty melodies that reflect the siblings’ upbringing in bluegrass and folk music traditions. Strathmore’s new outdoor Patio Stage is a great showcase for the pair’s folksy originals and fun covers.

Aug. 11

6:30 & 8:30 p.m., $176-$232 per table (seats up to four), Patio Stage at The Music Center at Strathmore, strathmore.org

CATCH A SHOOTING STAR

According to NASA, the Perseid meteor shower is the best one of the year. Sky watchers can see 50 to 100 meteors per hour during its peak, which falls on Aug. 11 and 12 this year. Check out Stargazers for Starters, held outside the Black Hill Visitor Center in Boyds, to learn the basics of observing the night sky and to possibly see some of the Perseids, which appear as shooting stars but are actually pieces of the Swift-Tuttle comet. No equipment is needed but attendees are welcome to use their own binoculars. The rain date is Aug. 12. 8:30-9:30 p.m., $2, ages 10 and older, Black Hill Regional Park, montgomeryparks.org, register at activemontgomery.org

Aug. 7

TOP PHOTO COURTESY OF GAITHERSBURG ARTS BARN; BOTTOM PHOTO COURTESY OF STRATHMORE

Aug. 1

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Bal

The

SUMMER

2021

An open-air venue on the Trawick Terrace Located behind the Music Center, Strathmore’s Patio Stage is a comfortable, outdoor space for summer concerts. Reserve your table now and remember the magic of experiencing live music together.

Summer Highlights OLIVER WOOD

FEATURING JANO RIX & TED PECCHIO Sun, July 11 Half of soulful folk duo The Wood Brothers

ANN HAMPTON CALLAWAY

WATKINS FAMILY HOUR Sat, Aug 7 Sean and Sara Watkins of bluegrass trio Nickel Creek

EMMET COHEN TRIO Thu, Aug 19

Fri, July 16

Innovative jazz piano

Chanteuse pays tribute to Linda Ronstadt

SUSAN WERNER

ALSARAH & THE NUBATONES Thu, July 29

Fri, Aug 20 Singer-songwriter known for her razor-sharp wit and versatility

East African retro pop

NELLA Fri, July 30 Venezuelan songstress named Latin Grammy Best New Artist 2019

LIVINGSTON TAYLOR Sun, Aug 1 Rock royalty

FREDDY JONES BAND Fri, Sept 3 Roots rockers known for hits “In a Daydream” and “One World”

AMYTHYST KIAH Thu, Sept 30 “One of Americana’s great up-andcoming secrets” (Rolling Stone)

& many more!

The Patio Stage will be in full swing through September. Only 30 tables available for each performance!

STRATHMORE.ORG/PATIOSTAGE From top: Nella, Emmet Cohen, The Lone Bellow by Adam Kissick, Oliver Wood by Come to Life, Amythyst Kiah by Sandlin Gaither, Watkins Family Hour by Jacob Boll

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people. politics. current events. books.

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DC Express teammates (from left) Will Angrick, Tyler Kuehl, Connor Davis (behind the goal), Ethan Till (sitting), Lucas Hilsenrath and Jake Cohen

PHOTO BY SKIP BROWN

STICKING TOGETHER The making of a lacrosse powerhouse BY MIKE UNGER

THE FIRST LACROSSE PRACTICE Darren Anzelone held for his son Kieran and six other 6-year-olds was about as elementary as it gets. “I started by saying, ‘Here’s how you hold the stick. Here’s how you scoop the ball up. Here’s how you attempt to catch and throw,’ ” Anzelone, now 50, recalls. “For two years, that was most of it.” From those early days, a group of lacrosse stars was born. The boys grew up to comprise the core of one of the nation’s most successful club lacrosse

teams. They started winning in their earliest seasons as a rec team and didn’t stop until COVID-19 ruined their chance at a three-peat in one of the most prestigious tournaments in the country last year. When their magical ride ended, 22 of the 23 players on their DC Express team, made up mostly of players who live in Montgomery County, had committed to playing collegiate lacrosse; the other one will play hockey at Brown University. “All of us get along so well, and we’ve

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known each other and played with each other since we were little guys,” says Will Angrick, a recent Georgetown Prep graduate who will attend the University of Notre Dame. “I think we pushed each other to get better.” A former lacrosse player at the U.S. Naval Academy, Anzelone began coaching the neighborhood kids in 2008 at a field in their River Falls neighborhood in Potomac. “Their helmets were bigger than their bodies,” recalls Cristina Hilsenrath, whose family had just moved to the area from Long Island, New York. Her son Lucas was a baseball player, but his father encouraged him to try something new. “I never played lacrosse before, but I fell in love with the speed of it,” says Lucas, who went to Walt Whitman High School before transferring to Bullis for his senior year. He’s headed to Harvard. “It’s called the fastest sport on two legs, and that’s how I played it.” The original seven quickly became close friends. When they weren’t at practice or a game, they’d play pickup football and basketball together, or ride bikes to the park and practice shooting on lacrosse goals. The young team tasted immediate success. As third graders they made the Bethesda Lacrosse League title game. In overtime, Angrick secured a ground ball and then drew two defenders before passing to Kieran Anzelone, who scored the winning goal. “We built this team chemistry that felt instant,” Angrick says. “I know my friends’ tendencies, and they know mine. If someone’s a good feeder, I know where to be and I know where he’s going to throw the ball.” Along with the fundamentals and a few higher-level concepts, like fast breaks, Darren Anzelone stressed conditioning. During the spring and summer, the team practiced three times a week for 90 minutes. Games were on weekends. “Wednesdays were our big run days. Darren would just kill us. He’s a Navy grad, so he’s a tough dude,” says Connor Davis, who will play for Bucknell 32

University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. I don’t need to be the guy making the The Bullis graduate remembers a rule play, but I need to keep the ball going so when the boys were about 12 that anyone that guy who can make the play has the who was overly penalized in a game had opportunity to do so.” to run a mile at practice. (That taught In 2018, the summer before their him not to commit penalties.) 10th grade year, DC Express traveled In 2013, Anzelone helped create the to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to play in Bethesda Lacrosse Club. That entity, the National Lacrosse Federation Club which operates within the Bethesda National Championships. The team Lacrosse Association, includes 10 to trailed in several games that it ultimately 12 teams—usually two each for second graders through seventh graders— that travel to tournaments all over the country. During those trips, the boys enjoyed hanging out at hotel pools and going to dinner with their families (pizza on Long Island was always a favorite). They once played a pickup baseball game in a hotel parking lot. In the summer of 2016, Anzelone co-founded DC Express, a club with teams for eighth through 11th graders. The club, which Darren is majority owned by Anzelone, Performance Sport Systhe team’s tems (Bethesda Lacrosse former coach, with his son Association is a minority Kieran after owner), licenses its name the national from Long Island Express, championship in July 2019 a well-known club in New York. During that transition, Anzelone thought it was time for won, but in an early round contest one the kids to hear some different voices, of its defenders committed a late turnso he hung up his whistle and brought in over that led to an opponent’s goal. DC new coaches. Mike Winter, who played Express lost by one; a spot in the single at Salisbury University, was one of them. elimination playoff bracket looked “My style is to coach kids at a colle- squandered. giate level if they want to be collegiate “The kid was bummed out,” Winter players,” says Winter, 33, an assistant says. “Meanwhile, all the other kids were under head coach Tommy Rothert. picking him up. All the coaches, all the At practice, Winter would arrange parents were saying, ‘Don’t worry about the kids in a triangle on the field to show it.’ I remember one kid saying, ‘That one them how each player’s perspective can play didn’t lose us the game. We had differ during the same play. “Someone plenty of opportunities all day.’ That’s a who’s not open to me might be open to very mature thing that I remember not the guy who’s the next pass,” he says. “So learning until probably I was a coach.”

COURTESY PHOTO

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banter DC Express was able to advance, however, based on a fewest-goalsallowed tiebreaker. The team was the eighth seed in the eight-team bracket, so it had to defeat the No. 1 seed en route to making the final. Which it did. DC Express faced the second seed in the title game, a defensive struggle it eventually won 6-4. “That was our first experience playing in a game like that,” says Landon graduate Jake Cohen, who’s Yale-bound. “That was the first time we were playing

with college coaches watching, and there were cameras there. It was very cool.” A year later, at the same tournament in Amherst, Massachusetts, DC Express was the hunted rather than the hunter. The team came from behind to win several games and trailed 4-1 in the final before rallying to win 7-6. “[This] DC Express team is exceptional,” says Matt Hogan, the owner of HoganLax, which runs club lacrosse tournaments throughout the country. “They’ve got a ton of

When the boys were going into fifth grade, their Bethesda Lacrosse Club team played at a tournament in Berlin, Maryland.

talent. They’ve gotten better every year.” The pandemic forced the cancellation of the team’s final club season in 2020, but the players, whose school teams occasionally go head to head, kept practicing on their own in preparation for their senior high school seasons. “I have a rebounder in my basement, which is a little unsettling for my mom,” Cohen says. The piece of lacrosse equipment ricochets shots back to the player. “I’ll throw on a show—right now I’m watching The Sopranos—and just bang on the rebounder while I’m watching.” Although most kids don’t play lacrosse to earn financial scholarships, which aren’t common in the sport, excelling on the field can help them get into a school that might otherwise be out of reach. Still, it’s unusual for a club team to send almost all of its players to college lacrosse programs. “We all made our minutes count instead of counting our minutes,” Angrick says. “I think that’s why we were able to be so successful, because we didn’t focus on our individual needs but rather the team as a whole.” n

TOP PHOTO COURTESY; BOTTOM PHOTO BY SKIP BROWN

The pandemic forced the cancellation of the team’s final club season in 2020, but the players kept practicing on their own to prepare for their senior high school seasons.

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CLOSE TO HOME A local author gives one Bethesda neighborhood a starring role in her new murder mystery BY MARGARET ENGEL

Aggie Blum Thompson at home in Bethesda

now finds cringe-worthy, A Panegyric to Female Adolescence, was produced at her high school. She studied English at Columbia University, taught literacy in AmeriCorps and earned a master’s in journalism at the University of Maryland. Her first newspaper job, at the Star-News in Wilmington, North Carolina, introduced her to crime reporting and to a culture far removed from her Jewish roots. “It was surreal to encounter the racism and sexism of that time,” she says. Her cop beat continued at the Virginian-Pilot, where she covered Virginia Beach. In 1999, a friend fixed her up with Bethesda native John Thompson, and

the two dated long-distance as he finished law school at Harvard University. But 9/11 changed her life. The next day, she felt compelled to drive from Virginia to lower Manhattan to cover the tragedy, getting there just before barriers closed the area. She found survivors and rescue workers with connections to Virginia, filed her story, and decided it was time to make some big choices. She moved to join John in Boston, where she worked as a correspondent for The Boston Globe and started writing her first novel, a coming-of-age story based on her time bartending in New York City after college. After initial interest, the book wasn’t sold.

PHOTO BY ERICK GIBSON

IN HER FIRST PUBLISHED novel, I Don’t Forgive You, former police reporter Aggie Blum Thompson weaves neighborhood dynamics into a murder mystery propelled by identity theft. Fake posts on Facebook, Tinder and a community listserv bring shame and police charges for a photographer mom when she’s wrongly linked to a neighbor’s death. Bethesda has a starring role: A local elementary school and swim club, plus landmarks like the Farm Women’s Market, are backdrops for the terror sparked by sexual come-ons posted under the woman’s name. It’s a fastpaced read where family secrets explode and friendships are tested. Now, Thompson’s real-life Westbrook neighbors want to know if she modeled any of the characters after them. “My husband jokes we’ll have to move,” she says. Thompson, 50, has been a writer since growing up in a bookish family in Great Neck, Long Island. Visiting New York City with her psychiatrist father and French professor mother meant trips to the original Barnes & Noble, which then sold used books. “My dad would give my brother, Asher, and me each $10,” she says. “You could buy a lot of remaindered books for that.” Writing short stories and plays was her childhood obsession. One play she

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Jeffrey N. Greenblatt

The couple married in 2003 and moved to Washington, D.C., for John’s job at a civil rights firm. Thompson covered Montgomery County for The Gazette. Moves to Charlottesville, Virginia, and Paris for her husband’s legal work followed. Thompson wrote a second novel, about a police reporter in the South, and the couple began a family. They have two daughters—Roxy, now 14, and Nina, 11. After returning from France, the family first moved to Silver Spring and then to Westbrook, John’s childhood neighborhood in Bethesda. I Don’t Forgive You, which came out in June, was nurtured in an eight-week evening class at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda with teacher Kathryn Johnson. “I knew she was a good writer,” says Johnson, who requires students to sign a contract promising to write for 90 minutes, six days a week. “She had that drive and desire to put writing first and finish her book.” Publishers liked it, and a modest bidding war brought a two-book deal for Thompson with Forge Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The movie rights have been sold to a Hollywood producer. “My dream was to have my book in a bookstore where my girls could see it,” says Thompson, who spent two years writing and revising the novel. Her daughters are excited that she used their hometown in the book. So are their neighbors. “Three book clubs here have asked me to speak, and the Little Falls Swim Club is hosting a book party.” The attention is welcome encouragement for Thompson, who was diagnosed two years ago with a rare kidney disease that required chemotherapy, which appears to have worked. “It’s good to be older and have all my publishing dreams finally come true,” she says. Her next mystery, already finished, deals with something she knows well from her reporting days in Virginia Beach: the chaos of Beach Week. 

Known for his passion representing his client’s interests in family law cases, Mr. Greenblatt earned many awards and the highest rating from Martindale Hubbell. Named one of the top 25 divorce attorneys in the metro area, he is a well-known lecturer and author on family law issues. If you have concerns regarding COVID’s impact on alimony, child support, visitation & custody you should contact Jeffrey N. Greenblatt at 240-399-7894.

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THE DEALMAKER Rockville’s Jack Fitzgerald is the driving force behind an auto empire BY BARRY D. WOOD

JERRY COHEN REMEMBERS offering Jack Fitzgerald his first job selling cars in 1956, when Cohen was an assistant sales manager of a dealership on Georgia Avenue in Northwest Washington, D.C. Cohen, who later founded Jerry’s Ford and Jerry’s Chevrolet in the metropolitan area, says he was in need of a salesman “when this unassuming schlub came through the door” looking for work. The 20-year-old Fitzgerald said he knew about cars and needed a job, says Cohen, who decided to hire him. “He turned out to be my best hire, our ace in the hole,” Cohen, now 89, says of the young man who worked long hours and came in late at night to sell just one more car in order to meet monthly sales targets. “The kid was like

a submarine—you never knew where he would come up.” More than 65 years later, Fitzgerald is still working hard, now as head of an auto sales empire with 1,700 employees and 25 Fitzgerald Auto Mall dealerships in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Florida. In Montgomery County, the company owns dealerships in Wheaton, Rockville, Gaithersburg and Germantown. Though Fitzgerald will turn 86 in September, the Rockville resident continues to work every day, arriving at his dealership on Rockville Pike by 7:30 a.m. after attending church, ready to make sure his staff practices the key to being successful salespeople. “The customer will tell you what he or she wants,” he says. “Our job is satisfying those desires.”

PHOTO BY LOUIS TINSLEY

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PHOTO BY LOUIS TINSLEY

Jack Fitzgerald at his Rockville office

Growing up in Northeast D.C. after World War II, Fitzgerald says he was smitten with twin passions: cars and making money. His hero was Hollywood rebel James Dean, who wore a pompadour and drove a 1949 Mercury coupe. Fitzgerald got his first car—a 1936 Ford V-8 that didn’t have a heater— when he was in high school. Fitzgerald says he barely made it through high school, struggling academically at St. Aloysius School and then St. John’s College High School before finally graduating from D.C.’s McKinley Technology High School. “I worked hard in school, I really did, but I wasn’t getting good grades,” says Fitzgerald, who didn’t go to college and was diagnosed as an adult with dyslexia.

Even today he runs his finger along each line while reading to make it easier. By age 11, Fitzgerald had discovered a knack for selling, and his father, John, encouraged his son’s interest in sales. By the time Fitzgerald graduated from high school, he had saved several hundred dollars he’d earned by selling greeting cards, vacuum cleaners, shoes, encyclopedias and even fire alarms door to door. In 1966, 10 years after Cohen hired him as a car salesman, Fitzgerald, 31, and his partner at the time, Bob Dowd, put up $90,000 for a Dodge dealership with a one-car showroom in Bethesda. As his auto empire grew locally, Fitzgerald gambled on expanding into Florida in 1989 after one of his best sales managers moved there. Fitzgerald found a distressed dealership in Clearwater on the Gulf Coast near Tampa and hired his former sales manager to run it. Today, there are five Fitzgerald dealerships in Clearwater. Fitzgerald achieved national prominence in 2009, when General Motors and Chrysler were moving through bankruptcy. The two automakers planned to close more than 2,600 dealerships, including several that Fitzgerald owned. Convinced that GM and Chrysler were making dealers scapegoats for manufacturing failures, Fitzgerald led a media blitz to reverse the automakers’ action. Armed with Consumer Reports data showing that the automakers lagged far behind their Japanese competitors in quality, Fitzgerald joined forces with Tammy Darvish, then of Darcars Automotive Group, another local car dealer that was one of the largest in the country. Together they created a nationwide coalition of dealers and spent weeks lobbying Congress to convince lawmakers to roll back the automakers’ action. Darvish, now president of U.S. operations for AutoCanada, says Fitzgerald is a master at bringing people together. “We knocked on every door,

seeing almost every member of Congress, telling them dealers were vital to local communities,” she says. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Kensington, who was then a congressman representing Maryland’s 8th District, credits Fitzgerald with leading the fight for the franchise protection legislation. “Jack successfully fought to defend dealers against unfair and abusive practices of the big auto manufacturers,” Van Hollen says. Though Fitzgerald remains in charge as CEO, three family members co-own and help run the company. When Fitzgerald bought that first dealership in Bethesda, his sister, Dottie, now 73 and his only sibling, dropped out of college and began working as a switchboard operator there. She and Fitzgerald’s son, John III, along with his stepson, Bill, are shareholders and members of the board of directors. Twice a month or so, Fitzgerald flies two hours in his private jet—a 2004 Beech Premier with a tail registration ending with his initials, “JF”—to Clearwater to check on his dealerships. Fitzgerald has owned four planes since 1965 and still maintains his flying license, but these days a corporate pilot handles that responsibility. “Sometimes he’s in the service department, sometimes he’s on the lot going over used cars. He always wants to know what is selling and what customers are talking about,” Eric Coffey, president of the Clearwater operations, says about Fitzgerald’s visits. “Jack has unmatched instincts, and I’ve learned that when he speaks, I need to listen.” As Fitzgerald built his business over the years, he says he kept in mind the best advice he ever received, which came from the manager of the meat department at a neighborhood grocery store where, at 11 years old, he stocked shelves. “Jackie,” the manager told him, “in this world, you get paid for what you know.” “I’m proof of the American dream,” says Fitzgerald, reflecting on his success. “It all depends on what you choose to do with your life.” n

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BOOK REPORT

Ann McCallum Staats tried skydiving, rode in a Formula One race car, and went scuba diving. The Kensington writer says the experiences helped her convey the passion and drive of the people she profiled in Thrill Seekers: 15 Remarkable Women in Extreme Sports (Chicago Review Press, March 2021). “I had a taste of why these women would do it,” Staats says of the mountain climber, snowboarder and others she covered. “To me, it was a feeling of freedom…doing something outside the ordinary that pushes yourself, but makes you feel alive.” Staats, who teaches English for Speakers of Other Languages at Rockville High School, says she hopes the book (aimed at ages 12 and older) will motivate readers to persevere in whatever sport or activity they pursue. 40

Mei Xu arrived in the U.S. from China in 1991. In department stores, she was struck by the contrast of the fashion floors with stylish designer products and the home furnishing floors that reminded her of a grandma’s house. Xu says being an immigrant gave her a fresh eye to identify gaps in the home decor market. The Bethesda resident tells of her journey as the founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle in Burn: How Grit, Innovation, and a Dash of Luck Ignited a MultiMillion Dollar Success Story (Wiley, March 2021). “Many people think about innovation when they think about ideas that relate to technology. But innovation can reside in very mundane objects, such as candles,” says Xu, who recently launched Yes She May, an e-commerce website to support women-owned businesses.

After a career as an anesthesiologist, Dr. David Sherer became a consumer health advocate and writer—and now a novelist. His new book, Into the Ether (Armin Lear Press, February 2021), traces the story of a burned out, middle-aged physician who gets caught up in a financial scheme and skips the country under a new identity. “I found fiction writing was infinitely more fun,” says Sherer, who grew up in Bethesda and now lives in Chevy Chase. “I had a smile on my face when I was writing because I could create whatever I wanted.” Still, Sherer continued with his health writing, and in March released What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You: The Real Reasons You Don’t Feel Good and What You Can Do About It, published by Humanix Books.

Morowa Yejidé’s second novel, Creatures of Passage (Akashic Books, March 2021), draws on her family roots in Washington, D.C., which go back more than a century. She creates a mystical world that includes the realm of Anacostia and the Kingdoms of Virginia and Maryland. Just as her grandmother drove a cab in D.C., so does the book’s main character—but with a twist of fantasy as she takes passengers on supernatural journeys. “The magical realism is deliberately placed to give an opportunity for people to have a different view of Washington—a familiar, yet a different view— because of the magical aspects,” says Yejidé, who lives in Silver Spring. “The chapters morphed along with the city over the years.”

ALL BOOK COVERS FILE PHOTOS

BY CARALEE ADAMS

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READING LIST

DATA PROVIDED BY

The top-selling books in our area. Data is based on books sold at Politics and Prose’s Connecticut Avenue location in Upper Northwest D.C. and online from April 28 to May 12, 2021.

HARDCOVER FICTION

PAPERBACK

1. Whereabouts, Jhumpa Lahiri

1. Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens

2. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir

2. Accidental Birds of the Carolinas, Marjorie Hudson

3. The Devil May Dance (Charlie and Margaret Marder Mystery, No. 2), Jake Tapper

3. Deacon King Kong, James McBride

4. Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro

5. Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid

5. Hour of the Witch, Chris Bohjalian 6. Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell 7. The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett 8. Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead 9. Second Place, Rachel Cusk 10. While Justice Sleeps, Stacey Abrams

4. Monogamy, Sue Miller 6. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen 7. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer 8. Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, Cathy Park Hong 9. The Rose Code, Kate Quinn 10. Circe, Madeline Miller

HARDCOVER NONFICTION 2. What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, Oprah Winfrey, Bruce D. Perry 3. The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, Michael Lewis 4. Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, Suzanne Simard

CHILDREN & YOUNG ADULT 1. While I Was Away, Waka T. Brown 2. The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country, Amanda Gorman

5. Sunshine Girl: An Unexpected Life, Julianna Margulies

3. Max Meow: Donuts and Danger (Max Meow Series, No. 2), John Gallagher

6. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, Patrick Radden Keefe

4. Have You Ever Seen a Flower?, Shawn Harris

7. Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner

5. Max Meow: Cat Crusader (Max Meow Series, No. 1), John Gallagher

8. Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power, Susan Page

6. Jungle Night, Sandra Boynton

9. Everybody: A Book About Freedom, Olivia Laing 10. Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR, Lisa Napoli

7. The Rock from the Sky, Jon Klassen 8. Max and the Midknights: Battle of the Bodkins (Max and the Midknights Series, No. 2), Lincoln Peirce 9. InvestiGators (InvestiGators Series, No. 1), John Patrick Green 10. The Case of the Missing Cheetah (Secret Spy Society Series, No. 1), Veronica Mang

ALL BOOK COVERS FILE PHOTOS

1. Persist, Elizabeth Warren

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BY STEVE ROBERTS

‘PEACH GUY’ With 7,000 fruit trees and his ‘pet’ cows, Gene Kingsbury keeps busy running the Dickerson farm that’s been in his family for five generations

GENE KINGSBURY’S GREAT-GREATgrandparents came to the northwest corner of Montgomery County in 1907 and bought the land near the hamlet of Dickerson that he still farms today. Just a few miles away, the county is home to booming, blooming suburbs and more than 1 million residents. But on the 132 acres of Kingsbury’s Orchard, the rhythms of rural life still rule. There are far more fruit trees here than people—about 7,000 of them—and like his ancestors, Gene works the land every day. Planting, pruning and picking; spraying, sorting and selling. A fair amount of

praying is involved as well, to ward off the sudden freezes that can devastate a crop in a matter of minutes if they hit at the wrong time. “It’s that connection with your farm land that keeps you going,” he tells me, “because anybody with a practical mind would sell the place.” It all seems so timeless, sitting at a picnic table in the warmth of a May afternoon, as a dozen head of cattle— Kingsbury calls them his pets—graze peacefully nearby. But it turns out that a fruit orchard is a dynamic place, with new varieties to plant, new customers to please, new technologies and techniques

PHOTO BY BREANN FIELDS

Gene Kingsbury on his farm in Dickerson

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banter | HOMETOWN

to try. Just one example: Immigrants from Asia are streaming to the area and now make up about 80% of the orchard’s clientele. So Kingsbury devotes 8 acres to Asian pears and this year planted another 140 trees. He’s also added “donut” peaches, a small, flat fruit that his new neighbors prize for its exceptional sweetness. “We’re trying to accommodate the Asian market for fruit the best we can,” he explains. Kingsbury’s instructor and inspiration was his great-grandfather, Phil Horine, who first planted peaches in 1932 to provide extra income during the Depression. “I was very lucky to know my great-grandfather very well,” he says. “He lived here on the property in an old log house and I actually had him around until I was almost 14. He was the peach guy, he started all this stuff and it skipped

a couple of generations and came to me. I was the next one who caught the bug.” Gene’s parents ran a dairy operation on the property for more than 50 years, maintaining the orchard as a sideline, which they turned over to their son, another “peach guy,” when he was just a teenager. “I enjoyed the dairy farm too, but the peaches, I guess they smelled better” than the cows, Kingsbury jokes. “You smell better too.” Gene tended the orchard on nights and weekends as he earned degrees in economics from the University of Maryland and American University and took a job with the Federal Aviation Administration. Then two events altered his trajectory. In 1980, Montgomery County created the agricultural reserve, which shielded 93,000 acres and more than 500

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farms from new development. “There’s no way I’d still be farming here today without the ag reserve,” he says. “It’d be too much pressure for development and you couldn’t afford to do what we do on this land.” Many farmers, Kingsbury concedes, “didn’t like the ag reserve because they took a financial hit for sure. But we were happy because we wanted to farm and it helped us keep it in the family.” Then in 2000, his parents sold off their dairy herd and retired, leaving vast stretches of pasture unused. Soon Gene was filling the land with new trees and looking to expand beyond peaches, which are ripe for only a short period of time. He recalls a work trip to Seattle, where he stopped by the famous Pike Street market. “That’s where I got my first Fuji apple,” he says. The Fuji variety started in

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banter | HOMETOWN

Japan, appeals to Asian consumers and ripens late, enabling the orchard’s market stand to stay open through Thanksgiving. “I said, ‘this is the answer to my prayers,’ because I was having trouble starting an apple business here.” Peaches, however, remain his passion. At one point in the late ’90s, he noticed a mutation growing on one of his trees and liked the taste of the strange new fruit. Starting with just a few small branches, Gene eventually developed Kingsbury Pride, a peach variety now grown on 200 of his trees and sold only by his orchard. As the orchard expanded, so did the workload, and Kingsbury eventually retired from the government to devote himself full time to fruit-growing. He follows his great-grandfather’s dictum: Prune the trees regularly to let in the

sun, and they look like leafy candelabras, with widely spaced limbs branching out from the main trunk. “We’re out here all winter pruning in the cold and the wind every day, seven days a week if it’s not raining,” he says. Spraying the trees with fungicides has to be done when the wind dies down, and “it’s not unusual to be out here until after midnight.” About a quarter of Kingsbury’s crop is available through local supermarkets, especially Giant stores. The rest is sold directly on the farm, and once peach season starts in early July, as many as 300 cars will come through on a weekend day. He allows families to feed damaged apples to his “pet” cows and an aged donkey named Jack who protects the herd against coyotes. But he’s so attached to his trees that he won’t

permit customers to pick their own fruit. “You have to know which ones to take off each time if they’re going to have the right flavor and stuff,” he says. “If they’re not supervised, this is a mess. And they want to climb the peach trees. I would just be too stressed out.” Now 67, Kingsbury has no children, nor does his sister, who lives next door and helps run the market stand. After five generations and 114 years, it’s not clear what will happen to this land. It needs another “peach guy” to carry on the legacy. n Steve Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. His new book, about his late wife, Cokie, will be out in November. Send ideas for future columns to sroberts@gwu.edu.

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Terrance Sheehan, MD, CMO, Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation

Patsy McNeil, MD, CMO and ED physician, Shady Grove Medical Center

Griffin Davis, MD, CMO and ED physician, Fort Washington Medical Center

A LEGACY OF HEALTHCARE LEADERSHIP BEST PLACE TO WORK

Recognized as a best place to work by Forbes in 2020

HOME CARE

Home Care services recognized among the top 25% in the nation

WHOLE-PERSON CARE Our commitment for 114 years and counting.

MENTAL HEALTH

Wayne Meyer, MD, Medical Director, Primary Care, Adventist Medical Group

Jim Rost, MD, CMO and neonatologist, White Oak Medical Center

Amra Nasir, MD, Medical Director, Adventist HealthCare Urgent Care

WE’VE GOT YOU as a partner in health and wellness

Adventist HealthCare celebrates our

1,948 DOCTORS

Largest mental health provider in Montgomery County

HEART HEALTH

Cardiac Surgery program ranked in the top 10% of hospitals nationwide and conducted first open-hea t surgery in DC region

STROKE CARE

Frontrunner in stroke care, safely administering clot-busting tPA with speeds that lead the nation

ROBOTIC SURGERY

Local pioneers in robotic surgery technology for shoulder, hip and knee replacement

CHEST PAIN CENTERS

Only Montgomery County hospitals with accredited Chest Pain Centers, which fast-track heart attack patients when minutes matter

Caring for all our neighbors in the Washington, DC, region Shady Grove Medical Center • White Oak Medical Center Fort Washington Medical Center • Rehabilitation Urgent Care • Adventist Medical Group Home Care • Imaging

NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE

A neonatal intensive care unit that’s garnered the Maryland Patient Safety Center award for innovations in quality

REHABILITATION

Montgomery County’s Largest Healthcare System

First rehab facility to become accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) in our fi e-state area, and first rehab hospital in the DC region to earn special CARF accreditation in amputee rehabilitation

CANCER CARE

Two comprehensive cancer centers with personalized, state-of-the-art treatment and holistic care

JOINT CENTER

Surgery teams who’ve earned the Gold Seal of Approval for shoulder, hip and knee replacement from The Joint Commission

AdventistHealthCare.com/WhereYouAre

LEADING YOU TO A HEALTHY FUTURE NEW CANCER CENTER AT WHITE OAK MEDICAL CENTER

OPENING IN 2024

Our seven-story Medical Pavilion at Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center is home to White Oak Cancer Center, rehab services and physician offices.

BRINGING MORE ACCESS TO CARE With a growing physician network, telehealth, urgent care and imaging centers, we’re meeting you where you need us.

NEW PATIENT TOWER AT SHADY GROVE MEDICAL CENTER

OUR MISSION We extend God’s care through the ministry of physical, mental and spiritual healing.

NEW HEALTH DESTINATION AT NATIONAL HARBOR We’re building a medical hub at National Harbor, including a surgery center, imaging, cancer care, heart and vascular care, wound care and hyperbaric medicine. Plus, we’re upgrading Adventist HealthCare Fort Washington Medical Center to better serve Prince George’s County.

Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center’s six-floor patient tower will feature all-private patient rooms and will expand the ICU and Emergency Department.

OUR VISION We provide a world-class patient experience to every person, every time.

LEADING YOU TO A HEALTHY FUTURE NEW CANCER CENTER AT WHITE OAK MEDICAL CENTER

OPENING IN 2024

Our seven-story Medical Pavilion at Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center is home to White Oak Cancer Center, rehab services and physician offices.

BRINGING MORE ACCESS TO CARE With a growing physician network, telehealth, urgent care and imaging centers, we’re meeting you where you need us.

NEW PATIENT TOWER AT SHADY GROVE MEDICAL CENTER

OUR MISSION We extend God’s care through the ministry of physical, mental and spiritual healing.

Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center’s six-floor patient tower will feature all-private patient rooms and will expand the ICU and Emergency Department.

OUR VISION We provide a world-class patient experience to every person, every time.

Terrance Sheehan, MD, CMO, Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation

Patsy McNeil, MD, CMO and ED physician, Shady Grove Medical Center

Griffin Davis, MD, CMO and ED physician, Fort Washington Medical Center

A LEGACY OF HEALTHCARE LEADERSHIP BEST PLACE TO WORK

Recognized as a best place to work by Forbes in 2020

HOME CARE

Home Care services recognized among the top 25% in the nation

WHOLE-PERSON CARE Our commitment for 114 years and counting.

MENTAL HEALTH

Wayne Meyer, MD, Medical Director, Primary Care, Adventist Medical Group

Jim Rost, MD, CMO and neonatologist, White Oak Medical Center

Amra Nasir, MD, Medical Director, Adventist HealthCare Urgent Care

WE’VE GOT YOU as a partner in health and wellness

Adventist HealthCare celebrates our

1,948 DOCTORS

Largest mental health provider in Montgomery County

HEART HEALTH

Cardiac Surgery program ranked in the top 10% of hospitals nationwide and conducted first open-hea t surgery in DC region

STROKE CARE

Frontrunner in stroke care, safely administering clot-busting tPA with speeds that lead the nation

ROBOTIC SURGERY

Local pioneers in robotic surgery technology for shoulder, hip and knee replacement

CHEST PAIN CENTERS

Only Montgomery County hospitals with accredited Chest Pain Centers, which fast-track heart attack patients when minutes matter

NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE

A neonatal intensive care unit that’s garnered the Maryland Patient Safety Center award for innovations in quality

REHABILITATION

Montgomery County’s Largest Healthcare System

CANCER CARE

Two comprehensive cancer centers with personalized, state-of-the-art treatment and holistic care

JOINT CENTER

Surgery teams who’ve earned the Gold Seal of Approval for shoulder, hip and knee replacement from The Joint Commission

AdventistHealthCare.com/WhereYouAre

TOP DOCTORS 2021

Looking for a doctor? Here are 431 physicians in 58 specialties in Montgomery County and Upper Northwest D.C. (ZIP codes 20015 and 20016) who were chosen as the best in their fields through a rigorous screening and selection process by Professional Research Services. PHOTOS BY MICHAEL VENTURA

BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021

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top doctors 2021 The doctors in this feature were selected by Professional Research Services (PRS), which conducted an online peer-review survey of area physicians in Montgomery County and Upper Northwest D.C. (ZIP codes 20015 and 20016). Physicians were asked to nominate fellow physicians they deemed the best in their field of practice. Many votes were cast honoring excellence in all fields of medicine. The featured doctors were screened and selected through the verification of licensing and review of any infractions through applicable boards, agencies and rating services. For additional information, visit prscom.com.

Note: Doctors may appear on the list in more than one specialty. While some physicians work in more than one office, we have only listed a primary location, and we included up to three hospital affiliations. An online version of this guide, at BethesdaMagazine.com, includes several search filters.

ADDICTION MEDICINE John Carr Potomac Psychiatry Rockville; 301-327-0172

Aditi Mohan Shrikhande Dr. Aditi Mohan Shrikhande, MD Chevy Chase; 202-320-7704

ADOLESCENT MEDICINE

Kirsten B. Hawkins MedStar Health Washington, D.C.; 202-295-0547 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital Dana Kornfeld Pediatric Care Center Bethesda; 301-564-5880 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital

ALLERGY AND IMMUNOLOGY

Howard Boltansky Allergy & Asthma Center Washington, D.C.; 202-966-7100 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Athena Economides Institute for Asthma & Allergy Chevy Chase; 301-986-9262 Shelby Josephs Allergy & Asthma Center North Bethesda; 240-747-5750 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Huamin H. Li Institute for Asthma & Allergy Wheaton; 301-962-5800 Y. Howard Pung Capital Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Rockville; 301-770-7756 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Suburban Hospital Mark D. Scarupa Institute for Asthma & Allergy Wheaton; 301-962-5800 Rachel L. Schreiber Schreiber Allergy Rockville; 301-545-5512 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Kristin Sokol Schreiber Allergy Rockville; 301-545-5512 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist

HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Alicia Trotter Fishman Allergy and Asthma Washington, D.C.; 202-244-9000 Carla M. Ward Institute for Asthma & Allergy Wheaton; 301-962-5800

ANESTHESIOLOGY

Melvin Coursey U.S. Anesthesia Partners Rockville; 240-826-6000 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Ali Emamhosseini U.S. Anesthesia Partners Rockville; 240-826-6000 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

BREAST SURGERY

Colette Magnant Maryland Oncology Hematology Rockville; 240-238-3551 Elizabeth O’Leary Chevy Chase Breast Center Chevy Chase; 301-656-9010 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Eric A. Oristian Eric A. Oristian, M.D. Rockville; 301-942-4080 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Marie Pennanen Chevy Chase Breast Center Chevy Chase; 301-656-9010 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Glenn Sandler Advanced Surgery PC Rockville; 301-251-4128 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Surupa Sen Gupta Maryland Oncology Hematology Rockville; 240-238-3566 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center Bonnie Sun Johns Hopkins Community Physicians–Breast Surgery Bethesda; 301-530-5151 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Pamela A. Wright Johns Hopkins Community Physicians–Breast Surgery Bethesda; 301-530-5151 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Thomas Zorc Chevy Chase Breast Center Chevy Chase; 301-656-9010 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

CARDIAC SURGERY

Thomas Matthew Johns Hopkins Cardiothoriacic Surgery at Suburban Hospital Bethesda; 301-896-7610 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital

CARDIOLOGY

Catherine Bennet CardioCare Chevy Chase; 301-656-5050 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Harry J. Bigham Jr. Johns Hopkins Medicine– Community Physicians–Heart Care Bethesda; 301-897-5301 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Edward Bodurian Johns Hopkins Medicine– Community Physicians–Heart Care Chevy Chase; 301-656-4064 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Virginia C. Colliver Johns Hopkins Medicine– Community Physicians–Heart Care Bethesda; 301-897-5301 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Sean M. Dwyer Cardiology & Internal Medicine, P. A. Chevy Chase; 301-656-9070 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Jack Flyer CardioCare Chevy Chase; 301-656-5050 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Robert A. Gallino MedStar Health Olney; 301-570-7404 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Montgomery Medical Center

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Matthew, what you did for my father, brother, sister, myself…’ Over and over I heard that. Then I looked at all the specialties, and cardiac surgery piqued my interest because it involved a pump that had an electrical circuit and had a system of arteries, capillaries and veins. ...It appealed to the engineer in me.

How do you calm a patient’s anxiety before surgery? The first thing I always show them is their pathology. I often take a printout of the cardiac catheterization that shows the blockages in the coronary arteries. I show them actually what the problem is, and then I show them how we’re going to fix it. And then I share with them that our operative risk is under 2% for coronary artery bypass grafting. …I share with them that their risk of not having the surgery is actually higher than the risk of having the surgery. That really helps, when they can understand what we’re doing is correcting a problem.

Dr. Thomas Matthew, Cardiac Surgery A SURGEON FOR NEARLY 30 years, Dr. Thomas Matthew is director of the Johns Hopkins Cardiothoracic Surgery Program at Suburban Hospital. Matthew studied electrical engineering at Harvard, earned his medical degree from Columbia University, and received a Master of Science degree in surgical research from the University of Virginia. He is also an assistant professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins and chairman of the Maryland Cardiac Surgery Quality Initiative, a consortium of 11 cardiac surgery programs in Maryland. Matthew lives in Northwest D.C. with

his wife, Dayna Bowen Matthew, dean of the George Washington University Law School.

Why did you want to become a heart surgeon? My father was the first Black neurosurgeon trained in the United States and practiced for 40 years in New York City…so he was my first influence. And surgery was just so interesting because you actually made a difference immediately in a person’s life. We couldn’t go to a restaurant in New York without somebody coming up and saying, ‘Dr.

What advice do you offer to younger surgeons? Believe the patient. The patient will tell you what’s going on. A careful history is important, and with a physical examination you can very often find things that will give you clues—if not what the underlying problem is, what are some of the things that you need to be concerned about. Because surgery is not just cutting. It’s a process of preparing the patient for surgery beforehand, doing the surgery, and then managing their comorbidities postoperatively. All of that requires careful, detailed attention to the patient—and then also developing a relationship. If the patient believes in you and they trust you, they do so much better. —Caralee Adams

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top doctors 2021 Thomas S. Goldbaum Johns Hopkins Medicine– Community Physicians–Heart Care Chevy Chase; 301-656-4064 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Shubir Sofat Montgomery Cardiology Rockville; 301-610-4000 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center

Greg Kumkumian Johns Hopkins Medicine– Community Physicians–Heart Care Bethesda; 301-897-5301 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Barry S. Talesnick Cardiology & Internal Medicine, P. A. Chevy Chase; 301-656-9070 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Ramin Oskoui Foxhall Cardiology Washington, D.C.; 202-464-5770 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Joseph A. Vassallo Cardiology & Internal Medicine, P. A. Chevy Chase; 301-656-9070 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Richard Rubin CardioCare Chevy Chase; 301-656-5050 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Richard I. Weinstein MedStar Health Olney; 301-570-7404 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center

Peter Sabia Associates in Cardiology P. A. Silver Spring; 301-681-5700 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Reza Sanai CardioCare Chevy Chase; 301-656-5050 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Alan Ira Schneider Johns Hopkins Medicine– Community Physicians–Heart Care Silver Spring; 301-681-9095 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Daniel Schwartz Johns Hopkins Medicine– Community Physicians–Heart Care Bethesda; 301-897-5301 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Sameer Sofat Montgomery Cardiology Rockville; 301-610-4000 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center

COLON AND RECTAL SURGERY

Bradley H. Bennett Metro Colon and Rectal Surgery PC Rockville; 301-681-6437 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Mohammed M. Kalan Washington Institute of Surgery Chevy Chase; 301-656-6704 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Rami Makhoul Metro Colon and Rectal Surgery PC Rockville; 301-681-6437 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Vivek Patil Colorectal Surgery of Maryland and Washington, D.C. Bethesda; 240-487-7522 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital Martin G. Paul Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 202-895-1440 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE AND PULMONARY DISEASE Joseph A. Ball Pulmonologists, P. C. Gaithersburg; 301-963-2770 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital D. Scott Cohen Chevy Chase Pulmonary Associates Chevy Chase; 301-656-7374 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Peter G. Hamm Chevy Chase Pulmonary Associates Chevy Chase; 301-656-7374 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Steven T. Kariya Pulmonologists, P. C. Kensington; 301-942-2977 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital Carlos E. Picone Chevy Chase Pulmonary Associates Chevy Chase; 301-656-7374 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

DERMATOLOGY

Melissa Abrams DermAssociates Silver Spring; 301-681-7000 Jay Barnett Greater Washington Dermatology Rockville; 301-990-6565 Brenda J. Berberian Brenda J. Berberian, MD Chevy Chase; 301-656-7660 Joy Y. Chen Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Center North Bethesda; 301-770-0033 Amy B. Cole DermAssociates Silver Spring; 301-681-7000 Hyland Cronin Cronin Dermatology and Skin Cancer Center Chevy Chase; 301-986-1880

Dr. Sonya Chawla, Internal Medicine, and Dr. Vivek Patil, Colon and Rectal Surgery SONYA CHAWLA AND VIVEK PATIL were both training to be doctors in 2008 when they met in a hallway at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in D.C. Dating someone in the same profession with a demanding schedule meant understanding that a dinner date could be at 3 p.m. And more than flowers, Chawla appreciated Patil bringing her coffee before a late-night shift. They say they connected over their idealistic values and desire to make an impact, and they married two years later. They have two daughters and live in Bethesda, where they both practice (Patil also has an office in Rockville). Chawla grew up in Potomac and attended Holton-Arms School. She studied government and English at Georgetown University, received a master’s in journalism from Columbia University, and earned her medical degree at the University of Chicago. Patil, who is from St. Mary’s County, also went to Georgetown as an undergraduate, where he majored in biology. He taught middle school science for a year in D.C. before returning to Georgetown for medical school. Patil completed six years of surgical training with a sub-specialization in colon and rectal surgery.

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Why did you want to become a physician? Chawla: I decided to take a turn in my career path from journalism to medicine. That decision was really rooted in my direct experiences being in New York and reporting on victims and families on 9/11. It wasn’t enough to be reporting on the stories—I wanted something that would allow me to help in a more tangible way. It may not be the most obvious path, but in the end, so much of internal medicine is about the skill of communication, helping people better understand their disease process in clear, relatable language, and really empowering them to take care of themselves. I definitely found my calling. Patil: I always have enjoyed science. One thing that drew me to medicine was the fact that you could apply scientific principles, but there’s this framework of compassion and empathy that always underlies it. So it becomes a sort of a living science—that really fascinated me and

drew me in. Surgery, specifically, because I really liked the immediacy of it and the ability to change the course of a person’s disease with your hands.

What’s it like having two doctors in the family? Chawla: It’s great. We’re both physicians, but the nature of our work—as an internist and a surgeon—is very different. For my career, I love the thinking, the relationship building and the longitudinal follow-up over years. He’s the one who sees a problem and gets to use a scalpel to cure it. Patil: I think being able to be in these fields gives you this gratitude that sort of carries over throughout the rest of your life—and it’s really wonderful to be able to share that with your partner. How were you and your work affected by COVID? Patil: Initially, everything shut down

except for the most emergent surgeries. Sonya and I volunteered to be members of the workforce at the local hospitals. Patients weren’t getting colonoscopies and people weren’t going to doctors’ offices, [and] unfortunately that meant more advanced presentation in the emergency room. Things came back online gradually. There were no visiting hours because of COVID. These patients would be undergoing major operations and recovering alone in a hospital bed. They were attended to by people who are masked, gowned and gloved. As dedicated as the staffing is in the hospital, you’re missing simple human touch and things like that that really helped you heal. Chawla: The most difficult part was watching the oldest and most vulnerable patients in our population, who had lived such full lives, die alone. I’m still processing that. It didn’t seem like the end to their life that they deserved. —Caralee Adams

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top doctors 2021 Arden S. Edwards Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Center North Bethesda; 301-770-0033

Samantha Toerge Samantha A. Toerge MD Chevy Chase; 301-951-7905

Walter J. Giblin Anne Arundel Dermatology Rockville; 301-216-2980

Brendan J. Carmody Johns Hopkins Medicine– Suburban Hospital Bethesda; 301-896-3880 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital

Lawrence J. Green Aesthetics & Dermatology Center Rockville; 301-610-0663 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Mark J. Jaffe Anne Arundel Dermatology Bethesda; 301-530-4800 Matthew Katz Anne Arundel Dermatology Rockville; 443-351-3376 Ann M. Lindgren Anne Arundel Dermatology Bethesda; 301-530-4800 Benjamin N. Lockshin DermAssociates Silver Spring; 301-681-7000 Andrew D. Montemarano Anne Arundel Dermatology Bethesda; 301-564-3131

EMERGENCY MEDICINE

Nadia M. Eltaki Alteon Health Germantown; 240-686-2300 Brett Gamma US Acute Care Services Rockville; 240-826-6000 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center Barton Walker Leonard Johns Hopkins Medicine– Suburban Hospital Bethesda; 301-896-3100 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital

ENDOCRINOLOGY, DIABETES AND METABOLISM

Samuel S. Norvell Jr. Samuel S. Norvell Jr. Rockville; 301-738-0047

Shabina Ahmed Johns Hopkins Medicine– Community Physicians– Downtown Bethesda Bethesda; 240-235-9120

John F. O’Neill Jr. Anne Arundel Dermatology Bethesda; 301-530-4800

David R. Brown David R. Brown, MD, PhD, PA Rockville; 301-977-9272

Tania Peters Capital Laser & Skin Care Chevy Chase; 301-945-8626

Beatriz Chanduvi Endocrine & Diabetes Associates Bethesda; 301-468-1451 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

Ronald B. Prussick Washington Dermatology Center Rockville; 855-314-1424 Geeta Shah Capital Laser & Skin Care Chevy Chase; 301-945-8626 Maral Skelsey Dermatologic Surgery Center of Washington Chevy Chase; 301-652-8081 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital Pantea Tamjidi Tamjidi Skin Institute Chevy Chase; 301-652-4828 Elizabeth Tanzi Capital Laser & Skin Care Chevy Chase; 301-945-8626

Michael A. Dempsey Endocrine & Metabolic Consultants Rockville; 301-770-7373 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Anurag Gupta Endocrine & Diabetes Associates Bethesda; 301-468-1451 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Linda Liu Endocrine & Diabetes Associates Bethesda; 301-468-1451 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

John J. Merendino Jr. John J. Merendino, Jr., MD Bethesda; 301-230-0300 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Patricia Petrick Endocrine & Diabetes Associates Bethesda; 301-468-1451 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Helena W. Rodbard Endocrine & Metabolic Consultants Rockville; 301-770-7373

FAMILY MEDICINE

Mindi E. Cohen Comprehensive Primary Care Rockville; 301-869-9776 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital Edward T. Cullen Cullen, Umosella, Cullen & Cullen Bethesda; 301-951-0420 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Katherine David Contemporary Family Medicine Associates Chevy Chase; 240-223-2639 Joanna Macapinlac Delaney One Medical Chevy Chase; 301-942-2212 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Kevin M. Gil Kevin M. Gil, MD, FAAF P Rockville; 301-610-0500 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Monica J. Howard Family Healthcare Germantown; 301-972-0400 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital Bradley J. Hunter MDVIP Rockville; 240-386-8379 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Tiffini Lucas Contemporary Family Medicine Associates Chevy Chase; 240-223-2639 Lee Jonathan Musher Metropolitan Physicians Practice

Chevy Chase; 301-986-4774 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Suburban Hospital Carolyn Baier O’Conor Comprehensive Primary Care Rockville; 301-738-0300 Steven M. Schwartz One Medical Chevy Chase; 301-942-2212 April D. Tweedt MedStar Health Olney; 301-570-7770 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Charles A. Umosella Cullen, Umosella, Cullen & Cullen Bethesda; 301-951-0420 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

GASTROENTEROLOGY

Ajay Bakhshi Ajay Bakhshi, MD Bethesda; 301-530-5142 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Suburban Hospital Lawrence A. Bassin Capital Digestive Care Rockville; 301-340-3252 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center George Bolen Capital Digestive Care Bethesda; 240-737-0085 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Brian Ciampa Capital Digestive Care Rockville; 301-340-3252 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center David B. Doman Montgomery Gastroenterology Silver Spring; 301-942-3550 Robert G. Finkel Capital Digestive Care Silver Spring; 301-593-2002 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Mark S. Gloger Capital Digestive Care Rockville; 301-251-1244 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist

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cine, fundamentally, is more important oftentimes than some of the complexities of science or what we do with medicine or machines. It’s the human interaction that we really bring to the table as clinicians.

What’s motivated you to teach medicine in other countries? It’s important to give back. I target training programs for nurses, physicians and medical students that I hope leave them with impactful information that can affect change long after I’m gone. I go there also to learn. In this country, we see tuberculosis, HIV/ AIDS, but typically not tetanus, for example. They teach me about some of these conditions that they’re so much more medically versed in. Many would be very surprised to see how robust their preventative medicine strategies are. That’s helped me understand the importance of vaccine programs, which is one of the reasons I think we’re all a little bit distraught about vaccine compliance in the United States when we see so much good [it has done] overseas.

Dr. Marc DiFazio, Pediatric Neurology PEDIATRIC NEUROLOGIST Marc DiFazio didn’t stop seeing patients at Children’s National Hospital when he became vice president of ambulatory services at the D.C. hospital in March. He says it’s important for him to stay connected to the people he treats for epilepsy, concussions, Tourette’s syndrome and other conditions, even with his new leadership role. Before coming to Children’s in 2012, DiFazio was in private practice in Rockville. He went to medical school at Loyola University in Chicago and was on active duty with the U.S. Army for 15 years, including serving as chief of child and adolescent neurol-

ogy services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He’s in the U.S. Army Reserve and lives in Gaithersburg. He travels a few times a year to other countries to train medical personnel.

What lessons have you learned since you began practicing? Just out of medical school or residency, you’re enthralled by the science and pathology. It’s just such an incredible gift for parents to give you to share their children with you and let you into their lives. As I matured, I recognized that understanding the human connection in medi-

How do you feel medicine will be different going forward, having been through the pandemic? People are beginning to wake up to the fact that telemedicine is not just about convenience, it’s about effective communication. That is a dramatic shift in medicine. I believe telemedicine and secure texting with families will continue. Instead of them coming to me and holding their baby, I’m going into some of these families’ homes [remotely]— and, weirdly, meeting their dogs. But it’s another potential way to gain a connection. —Caralee Adams

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office in the basement of our house in Potomac. I could crawl out of bed in the summer in my jammies and walk downstairs and say hi to her patients. I knew that kind of Norman Rockwell, smaller medicine, not big insurance, Big Pharma, big contract medicine. …The medicine I grew up hoping to emulate was very old school, so to speak. You knew your patients forever and their whole families. When the phone rang in my house, my mom picked up regardless of the time. The levels of bureaucracy, prior authorizations, the nonmedical medicine [now] is what is a little bit disheartening to me and many others.

What kind of impact has COVID-19 had on your practice? For many reasons, it’s been trying. We basically came to a virtual standstill in April and May [of 2020]. It wasn’t good for anyone—certainly not for patients who were missing out on care they needed and there were definitely people who were putting off much-needed procedures. All of us were doing telemedicine. Obviously, you can only garner so much from those platforms, but it’s better than nothing. … We’re technically a small business. We did furlough a bunch of people, but most are back. Now we’re near where we should be, but there is a huge backlog. We did what we could, and we were fortunate enough to have made it through.

Dr. Kathryn Kirk, Gastroenterology DR. KATHRYN KIRK SEES some patients in her Chevy Chase office of Capital Digestive Care who travel over an hour for appointments with her because she speaks Spanish. She says Latinos are among the most underscreened populations for colorectal cancer and can be reluctant to get colonoscopies, so she is especially happy when they seek out care. Kirk, whose mother was from Puerto Rico, grew up in Potomac and attended National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C. After studying English at Princeton University, she went to Cornell University Medical College. In New York City, 56

Kirk did her residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center, and a fellowship in gastroenterology at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital, before going into private practice. While her friends would vacation in the Hamptons, Kirk says she would come to Maryland to eat crabs with her family. In 2010, she moved back and settled in Bethesda. “My soul never left this area,” she says.

How is practicing as a physician different from what you expected? My late mother was very much my role model. She was a physician. She had an

What do you enjoy outside of the office? I have another job coaching springboard diving at a pool in Bethesda. It’s something I did in high school and college. I love that the kids are so stoked about diving. Many come in with a lot of trepidation, and they leave having gained a lot of confidence. One of the ways I stay sane is balancing all the things that I do. For me, too much of one thing is never good. So [coaching] gets me into my happy space—not that medicine isn’t. But if I’ve had a heavy medicine day, getting outside to the pool with smiley kids who want to learn is always fun. —Caralee Adams

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top doctors 2021 HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital Naveen K. Gupta Ajay Bakhshi, MD Bethesda; 301-530-5142 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Suburban Hospital Kathryn Kirk Capital Digestive Care Chevy Chase; 240-737-0085 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Jonathan M. Koff Capital Digestive Care Chevy Chase; 240-737-0085 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Olanma Y. Okoji Capital Digestive Care Rockville; 301-340-3252 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Eric A. Pollack Capital Digestive Care Bethesda; 240-737-0085

Frederick C. Finelli MedStar Health Olney; 301-774-8962 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Jonathan M. Hernandez National Cancer Institute– Center for Cancer Research Bethesda; 240-858-7006 Hospital Affiliation: National Institutes of Health

GERIATRIC MEDICINE

Michael Grady Michael Grady, MD Washington, D.C.; 202-686-0813 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Ava A. Kaufman MDVIP Bethesda; 301-215-8402 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital

Katherine Graw Lamond Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 202-895-1440 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Lee Jonathan Musher Metropolitan Physicians Practice Chevy Chase; 301-986-4774 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Suburban Hospital

Elizabeth O’Leary Chevy Chase Breast Center Chevy Chase; 301-656-9010 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

GYNECOLOGIC ONCOLOGY

Martin G. Paul Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 202-895-1440 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Margaret N. Alexander Oncology for Women Bethesda; 301-564-4966 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital James F. Barter Women’s Health Specialists of Advantia Rockville; 301-770-4967 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring

Michael S. Schindler Capital Digestive Care Silver Spring; 301-593-2002 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

James W. Robey James W. Robey, MD Bethesda; 301-986-4288 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Mildred R. Chernofsky Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 202-243-5295 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

William R. Stern Capital Digestive Care Rockville; 301-340-3252 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

Glenn Sandler Advanced Surgery PC Rockville; 301-251-4128 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

Jeffrey Y. Lin Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 202-243-5295 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital

Michael L. Weinstein Capital Digestive Care Chevy Chase; 240-737-0085 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

Thomas Zorc Chevy Chase Breast Center Chevy Chase; 301-656-9010 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

GENERAL SURGERY

GENETICS

Jason A. Brodsky Inpatient Surgical Consultants Rockville; 240-403-0621 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Suburban Hospital Craig Colliver Advanced Surgery PC Rockville; 301-251-4128 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

Kenneth Rosenbaum Children’s National Hospital Rockville; 301-765-5400 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Children’s National Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Reem Saadeh-Haddad MedStar Health Washington, D.C.; 202-243-3400 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital

Albert J. Steren Women’s Health Specialists of Advantia Rockville; 301-770-4967 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring

HAND SURGERY

Richard W. Barth Washington Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine Chevy Chase; 301-657-1996 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Sunjay Berdia The Orthopaedic Center Rockville; 301-251-1433 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist

HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital Edward J. Bieber OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Mahidhar M. Durbhakula OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Suburban Hospital Mustafa A. Haque The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics: Summit Orthopedics Chevy Chase; 301-657-9876 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital David P. Moss Washington Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine Chevy Chase; 301-657-1996 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Noah Raizman Orthopaedic Medicine & Surgery Germantown; 301-456-0086 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Leo Rozmaryn The Orthopaedic Center Rockville; 301-251-1433 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital Harrison Solomon The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics, Montgomery Orthopaedics Division Chevy Chase; 301-949-8100 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Sophia Anne Strike Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 240-762-5100 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Suburban Hospital Steven L. Tuck Shady Grove Orthopaedic Associates Rockville; 301-340-9200 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

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sampling, which is a placenta biopsy, and that’s how we determined fetal well-being. Now there are so many blood tests that are available that are noninvasive. It’s become very sophisticated. It’s the basis for the gender reveal parties.

Dr. Thomas Pinckert, Maternal and Fetal Medicine DR. THOMAS PINCKERT GREW up

in Arizona and went to medical school on a U.S. Air Force scholarship at the University Oregon Health Sciences Center. He was active duty for four years at Travis Air Force Base in California and then four years at the Air Force Academy Hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He gained expertise in high-risk obstetrics and clinical genetics through fellowships at the University of California-San Francisco. In 2002, he opened Greater Washington MaternalFetal Medicine and Genetics with offices in Rockville, Silver Spring, and Fairfax, Virginia. Pinckert is a clinical professor in OBGYN at the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences. He 58

lives in Potomac with his wife, Dr. Nicolette Horbach, a urogynecologist.

What big changes have you witnessed in your field, especially with technology? The revolution and definition with the ultrasound. It used to be very fuzzy. You could sort of see the heart rate, but it was difficult. Now we can find things like spina bifida, structural or skeletal problems. Occasionally we see a baby with a gallstone or evidence of maternal infection. Secondarily, blood tests. It used to be that women who were over age 35 could have an amniocentesis or a chorionic villus

What do you enjoy about your work? We have a lot of patients who are just eternally grateful. I remember a mother who had six losses at 20 weeks. She had weakness in her cervix. We were able to do a surgery to help strengthen that, and then she had three term babies. I had another mom who came in recently with her 16-year-old daughter and said, ‘You saved my daughter’s life. I was having premature labor, and you were able to stop that.’ I joke and say we’re just fancy midwives. We have a great job because we take people at their worst moment— when they’re scared and worried—and, if we are able, we can turn that around. Do you keep a tally of your deliveries? Any memorable ones? No, but it’s upwards of 6,000 or 8,000. A while back, I had a mom who had three kids, [ages] 6, 4 and 2. She wanted to have one more baby and ended up with quadruplets. Of course, we were worried about her and I recommended a cesarean section. She said, ‘I am not having a cesarean, I had three vaginal deliveries.’ I still remember delivering this woman’s quadruplets vaginally. One was head first, two were breech and the fourth was head first. They all delivered beautifully in about 17 minutes. Luckily, everybody did great. —Caralee Adams

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top doctors 2021 HEMATOLOGY AND ONCOLOGY

Manish Agrawal Maryland Oncology Hematology Rockville; 301-424-6231 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Ralph V. Boccia The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders Bethesda; 301-571-0019 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring

Cheryl A. Aylesworth Maryland Oncology Hematology Bethesda; 301-424-6231 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center

Ari D. Fishman Maryland Oncology Hematology Bethesda; 301-424-6231 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital

Paul Bannen Regional Cancer Care Associates Olney; 301-774-6136 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center

Joseph M. Haggerty Maryland Oncology Hematology Rockville; 301-424-6231 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Frederick Barr Regional Cancer Care Associates Chevy Chase; 301-690-0710 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

Carolyn Hendricks Maryland Oncology Hematology Bethesda; 301-424-6231 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital

Benjamin Philip Levy Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 202-660-6500 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Shannon O’Connor Maryland Oncology Hematology Germantown; 301-424-6231 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital Victor M. Priego The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders Bethesda; 301-571-0019 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Chitra Rajagopal Regional Cancer Care Associates Rockville; 301-279-7510 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring

Frederick P. Smith Regional Cancer Care Associates Chevy Chase; 301-690-0710 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital George Sotos Maryland Oncology Hematology Rockville; 301-424-6231 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital John Wallmark Maryland Oncology Hematology Rockville; 301-424-6231 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital

HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE MEDICINE Steven D. Wilks Johns Hopkins Medicine– Suburban Hospital Bethesda; 301-896-3139 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Suburban Hospital

MedStar Health Congratulates our Top Doctors. In a year when we didn’t know what we could count on, we could always count on you. MedStarHealth.org

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top doctors 2021 INFECTIOUS DISEASE

Mark R. Abbruzzese Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 202-243-2500 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital Sameh A. Aly Metro Infectious Disease Consultants Rockville; 301-605-7468 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital John I. McNeil Maximed Associates Inc. Silver Spring; 301-460-6664 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Lynette Posorske Montgomery Infectious Disease Associates Silver Spring; 301-588-2525 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Suburban Hospital Vasilios J. Pyrgos Montgomery Infectious Disease Associates Silver Spring; 301-588-2525 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Suburban Hospital Ramani B. Reddy Maximed Associates Inc. Silver Spring; 301-460-6664 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Rebecca Shaffer Montgomery Infectious Disease Associates Silver Spring; 301-588-2525 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Suburban Hospital Phuong D. Trinh Montgomery Infectious Disease Associates Silver Spring; 301-588-2525 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Suburban Hospital

INTERNAL MEDICINE

Clay Ackerly Foxhall Internists, PC Washington, D.C.; 202-362-4467 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital Ira Berger Rockville Internal Medicine Group Rockville; 301-762-5020 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Sonya V. Chawla Sonya Chawla M.D. Bethesda; 301-530-6000 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital Dave Chen Bethesda Internal Medical Partners Bethesda; 301-493-4440 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Jane H. Chretien Bethesda Physicians, PC Bethesda; 301-656-4010 Brent Cole Bethesda Internal Medical Partners Bethesda; 301-493-4440 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Christopher Duke Internal Medicine of Chevy Chase P A Chevy Chase; 301-656-9170 Helene C. Freeman Helene C. Freeman, MD F ACP Washington, D.C.; 202-686-0812 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Pallavi Gowda Dr. Pallavi Gowda, Concierge Internal Medicine Rockville; 301-309-0940 Rebecca Musher Gross One Medical Chevy Chase; 301-942-2212 Bradley J. Hunter MDVIP Rockville; 240-386-8379 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Erica W. Hwang Bethesda Physicians, PC Bethesda; 301-656-4010 Sue Danziger Kanter Sue Kanter, MD Bethesda; 301-530-0400

Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Tracie Lanter MDVIP Chevy Chase; 301-634-1346 Joe McDonald Your MD Bethesda; 240-560-5100 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Matthew L. Mintz Matthew L. Mintz, MD, F ACP Bethesda; 855-646-8963 Hospital Affiliation: The George Washington University Hospital, Suburban Hospital Alan R. Morrison Morrison Membership Practice Washington, D.C.; 202-966-0622 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Rahul Patel Rockville Internal Medicine Group Rockville; 301-762-5020 Assil S. Saleh Foxhall Internists, PC Washington, D.C.; 202-362-4467 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital Ali Sanai Comprehensive Primary Care Rockville; 301-869-9776 Lakshmi Sastry Bethesda Internal Medical Partners Bethesda; 301-493-4440 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Aimee Seidman Rockville Concierge Doctors Rockville; 301-545-1811 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Kristin E. Thomas Foxhall Medicine Washington, D.C.; 202-243-0271 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Andrew N. Umhau Foxhall Internists, PC Washington, D.C.; 202-362-4467 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital Deidra Woods Internal Medicine of Chevy Chase P A Chevy Chase; 301-656-9170

MATERNAL AND FETAL MEDICINE

Richard E. Broth TLC Perinatal, PA Silver Spring; 301-681-0004 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Rita W. Driggers Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 202-537-4000 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital Michael Gallagher GW Medical Faculty Associates Bethesda; 240-395-1050 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Sheri Hamersley Maternal-Fetal Medicine Associates of Maryland Rockville; 301-315-2227 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Wayne Kramer Maryland Perinatal Associates, PC Rockville; 301-251-8611 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Thomas L. Pinckert Greater Washington Maternal-Fetal Medicine & Genetics Rockville; 301-279-6060 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring

NEONATAL AND PERINATAL MEDICINE Chrysanthe G. Gaitatzes Community Neonatal Associates Silver Spring; 301-754-7490 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Sharon C. Kiernan Community Neonatal Associates Silver Spring; 301-754-7490 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring

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Top doctors whose care you can count on. Congratulations to the Children’s National Hospital physicians voted Top Doctors by Bethesda Magazine. Their expert care is one of the reasons Children’s National is ranked a top 10 pediatric hospital in the nation. It’s their efforts, expertise and dedication that helps kids and their families everyday.

ChildrensNational.org/stronger | 1-888-884-BEAR

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top doctors 2021 NEPHROLOGY

Raymond A. Bass Montgomery Renal Associates, P. A. Wheaton; 301-942-5355 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Suburban Hospital Steven A. Burka Steven A. Burka MD F ACP Chevy Chase; 301-654-3803 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Vrinda Mahajan Montgomery Renal Associates, P. A. Rockville; 301-330-0550 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Fahim Malik Washington Nephrology Associates Rockville; 301-907-4646 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Jeffrey Perlmutter Nephrology Associates of Montgomery County Rockville; 301-231-7111 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Gail L. Seiken Washington Nephrology Associates Rockville; 301-907-4646 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Stephen Vaccarezza Nephrology Associates of Montgomery County Rockville; 301-231-7111 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center

NEUROLOGY

Ezra D. Cohen The Neurology Center Rockville; 301-562-7200 Kenneth Eckmann The Neurology Center White Oak; 301-562-7200 David M. Katz Bethesda Neurology North Bethesda; 301-540-2700

Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Nirjal Nikhar Neurology Clinic of Washington Olney; 301-260-7600 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Aman A. Savani The Neurology Center Chevy Chase; 301-562-7200

NEUROSURGERY

Aminullah Amini Center for Brain & Spine Silver Spring; 301-585-7900 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring

Nathan Moskowitz Nathan Moskowitz, MD, PhD Rockville; 301-309-0566 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Jay W. Rhee National Capital Neurosurgery Rockville; 301-718-9611 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Jean-Marc Voyadzis MedStar Health Chevy Chase; 301-856-2323 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital

Heather L. Johnson Reiter, Hill & Johnson of Advantia Chevy Chase; 301-654-5700 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Scott Osmun Bloom OB/GYN Washington, D.C.; 202-449-9570 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Diane J. Snyder Women’s Health Specialists of Advantia Rockville; 301-770-4967 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Delara Kebritsaz Tavakoli Tavicare Chevy Chase; 301-859-4400

Joshua Ammerman Washington Neurosurgical Associates Washington, D.C.; 202-966-6300 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

Joshua Wind Washington Neurosurgical Associates Washington, D.C.; 202-966-6300 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

Carolynn M. Young Rockville Gynecology Rockville; 301-330-7007 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

Matthew Ammerman Washington Neurosurgical Associates Washington, D.C.; 202-966-6300 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY

OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE

Darryn Band Capital Women’s Care Silver Spring; 301-681-9101 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring

OPHTHALMOLOGY

David W. Herzig National Capital Neurosurgery Rockville; 301-718-9611 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Zachary T. Levine National Capital Neurosurgery Rockville; 301-718-9611 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Shih-Chun Lin Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 301-896-6069 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Suburban Hospital Jared Marks Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 301-896-6069 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Margaret N. Alexander Oncology for Women Bethesda; 301-564-4966 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Tobie Beckerman Beckerman Women’s Health Rockville; 301-230-1488 Nancy Behram Congressional OB/GYN Rockville; 301-294-8525 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital Steve Behram Congressional OB/GYN Rockville; 301-294-8525 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital Brendan F. Burke Friendship Heights Women’s Health of Advantia Chevy Chase; 301-652-7623 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital

Michael Sauri Occupational Health Consultants Rockville; 301-738-6420 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Rosalie Bair Rosalie Bair MD PA Bethesda; 301-571-4334

Melanie J. Buttross Eye Associates of Washington, DC Washington, D.C.; 202-686-6700 Omar Chaudhary Capital Eye Care Bethesda; 301-530-5200 Thomas E. Clinch Eye Doctors of Washington Chevy Chase; 301-215-7100 Todd A. Goodglick Washington Eye Physicians & Surgeons Chevy Chase; 301-657-5700 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital Amy Green-Simms Eye Physicians of Washington Rockville; 301-770-2424 Holly M. Gross Central Maryland Eye Associates Rockville; 301-610-2020

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Sibley Memorial Hospital

Suburban Hospital

Johns Hopkins Medicine Congratulates Top Docs

Johns Hopkins Medicine congratulates physicians at Sibley Memorial Hospital and Suburban Hospital who have been recognized in many specialties by their peers. From preventive care to specialty care, our physicians continuously meet the health care needs of the people across the greater Washington area. Together we are improving the health of the community and setting the standards for patient care, education and research.

sibley.org suburbanhospital.org

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top doctors 2021 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Jordan Heffez Capital Eye Care Bethesda; 301-530-5200 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital James M. Heltzer Capital Eye Care Bethesda; 301-530-5200 Harry H. Huang Harry H. Huang M.D., P. A. Bethesda; 301-897-3322 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Howard Kane Montgomery Eye Physicians & Surgeons Rockville; 301-881-5888 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Khuram Khan Germantown Retina Germantown; 301-366-0748 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital Tamer Mansour The GW Medical Faculty Associates Washington, D.C.; 202-741-2800 Hospital Affiliation: The George Washington University Hospital Wanda Pak Wanda Pak, MD, PC Washington, D.C.; 202-244-9404 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Washington Hospital Center David Parver Capital Eye Care Bethesda; 301-530-5200 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Suburban Hospital Daniel Pluznik Eye Physicians of Washington Rockville; 301-770-2424 Erwin Puente Capital Eye Care Bethesda; 301-530-5200 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Srinivas M. Sastry Bethesda Retina Bethesda; 301-896-0101 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Michael Tigani Metropolitan Ophthalmology Associates PC Chevy Chase; 301-657-4171 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital G. Vike Vicente Eye Doctors of Washington Chevy Chase; 301-215-7100 Howard S. Weiss Washington Eye Physicians & Surgeons Chevy Chase; 301-657-5700 Thomas H. Yau Silver Spring Eye Silver Spring; 301-587-1220

ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY

Steven H. Bernstein Jr. The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics: Summit Orthopedics Chevy Chase; 301-657-9876 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Edward J. Bieber OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Philip D. Bobrow The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics: Summit Orthopedics Chevy Chase; 301-657-9876 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Barry P. Boden The Orthopaedic Center Rockville; 301-251-1433 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Christopher J. Cannova OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital, Virginia Hospital Center Sridhar M. Durbhakula OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Suburban Hospital Christopher M. Farrell Orthopaedic Specialists of Metropolitan Washington Silver Spring; 301-681-5400 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown

Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring

Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

Kenneth M. Fine The Orthopaedic Center Germantown; 301-251-1433 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital

Bruce R. Knolmayer MedStar Health Olney; 301-774-8958 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Montgomery Medical Center

Ira D. Fisch OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Jonathan Agner Forsberg Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 240-762-5100 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital Andre R. Gazdag OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital James E. Gilbert Metro Orthopedics & Sports Therapy Potomac; 301-588-7888 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital Michael E. Goldsmith The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics: Summit Orthopedics Chevy Chase; 301-657-9876 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Antoni B. Goral The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics, Montgomery Orthopaedics Division Chevy Chase; 301-949-8100 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Andrew S. Holmes OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital John J. Keeling The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics, Montgomery Orthopaedics Division Chevy Chase; 301-949-8100 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring John J. Klimkiewicz Washington Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine Chevy Chase; 301-657-1996

Craig A. Miller OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Suburban Hospital Gabriel L. Petruccelli Greater Washington Orthopaedic Group, PA Rockville; 301-589-3324 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Christopher Raffo The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics: Maryland Orthopedic Specialists Bethesda; 301-515-0900 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Jonas R. Rudzki Washington Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine Chevy Chase; 301-657-1996 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Kurt C. Schluntz OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Philip L. Schneider The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics, Montgomery Orthopaedics Division Chevy Chase; 301-949-8100 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Gautam Siram The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics: Summit Orthopedics Chevy Chase; 301-657-9876 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Daniel J. Valaik Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 240-762-5100 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

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o·to·lar·yn·gol·o·gy Saying “otolaryngology” is the hard part. Getting an appointment with one of our otolaryngologists is easy. Johns Hopkins otolaryngologists, audiologists and speech-language pathologists offer comprehensive ear, nose, throat, and head and neck care at our convenient location in Bethesda. We congratulate our physicians who were named 2021 “Top Doctors” in Bethesda Magazine:

Shaun Desai, M.D. Facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon

Wojtek Mydlarz, M.D. Head and neck cancer surgeon

Murray Ramanathan Jr., M.D., Sinus and skull base surgeon Additional team members practicing in Bethesda are:

To schedule an appointment, call 301-923-9018. hopkinsmedicine.org/oto/bethesda

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Simon Best, M.D. Wade Chien, M.D. Vaninder “Vinny” Dhillon, M.D. Rachel Dunham, Au.D. Deepa Galaiya, M.D. Alexander Hillel, M.D. Claire Ligon, M.Ed. Nyall London, Jr., M.D., Ph.D. Carrie Nieman, M.D., M.P.H. Lindsey Roque, Au.D. Michelle Wilson, CCC-SLP Colleen Zenczak, Au.D.

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top doctors 2021 OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE John E. Toerge John E. Toerge, DO Rockville; 301-377-2661

OTOLARYNGOLOGY

Valerie A. Asher Maryland ENT Associates Silver Spring; 301-989-2300 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Suburban Hospital David Bianchi Maryland ENT Associates Silver Spring; 301-989-2300 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring John M. Bosworth Jr. Centers for Advanced ENT Care –Siegel, Bosworth and Sorensen Division Rockville; 240-361-9000 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Shaun C. Desai Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 301-896-3332 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Suburban Hospital Mark A. Dettelbach Cadent-Feldman ENT Division Chevy Chase; 301-652-8847 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Natalie A. Earl Cadent-Feldman ENT Division Chevy Chase; 301-652-8847 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Lindsay Golden Montgomery Otolaryngology Consultants Gaithersburg; 301-963-6334 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Leslie Hao Chevy Chase ENT Associates Chevy Chase; 301-656-8630 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Wojciech Mydlarz Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 301-896-3332 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Liesl Nottingham Maryland ENT Associates Silver Spring; 301-989-2300 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Suburban Hospital

Thomas Winkler Chevy Chase ENT Associates Chevy Chase; 301-656-8630 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital

Seth F. Oringher Cadent-Feldman ENT Division Chevy Chase; 301-652-8847 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

PAIN MEDICINE

Annette Mai Pham Metro ENT & Facial Plastic Surgery, a Division of the Centers for Advanced ENT Care Rockville; 301-315-0003 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital Sanjay Prasad The Centers for Advanced ENT Care Rockville; 301-493-9409 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Murugappan Ramanathan Jr. Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 301-896-3332 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Suburban Hospital Jerome S. Schwartz Cadent-Feldman ENT Division Chevy Chase; 301-652-8847 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Michael B. Siegel Centers for Advanced ENT Care–Siegel, Bosworth and Sorensen Division Rockville; 240-361-9000 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Christopher K. Sinha Montgomery Otolaryngology Consultants Gaithersburg; 301-963-6334 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Pete Sorensen Centers for Advanced ENT Care–Siegel, Bosworth and Sorensen Division Rockville; 240-361-9000 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

Babak Arvanaghi Pain Management Institute Bethesda; 301-530-7303 Thomas W. Heckman MedStar Health Olney; 301-570-7415 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Stuart Hough Pain Management Specialists Rockville; 240-453-9182 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Caleb Kroll Pain Management Institute Bethesda; 301-530-7303 Frank Lee Pain Management Institute Bethesda; 301-530-7303 Ramani Peruvemba Pain Management Specialists Rockville; 240-220-9141 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center

PEDIATRIC DERMATOLOGY Melissa Abrams DermAssociates Silver Spring; 301-681-7000

Robert A. Silverman MedStar Health Washington, D.C.; 202-243-3400 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital

PEDIATRIC ENDOCRINOLOGY

Ali Mohamadi Ali Mohamadi, M.D. Chevy Chase; 301-466-1207

PEDIATRIC GASTROENTEROLOGY

Benny Kerzner Children’s National Hospital Rockville; 301-765-5400 Hospital Affiliation: Children’s National Hospital Otto Louis-Jacques Children’s National Hospital Rockville; 301-765-5400 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Children’s National Hospital

PEDIATRIC NEUROLOGY

Marc DiFazio Children’s National Hospital Rockville; 301-765-5400 Hospital Affiliation: Children’s National Hospital, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring

Aneesh K. Singla National Spine & Pain Centers Rockville; 301-881-7246 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital

Sonal G. Patel Magnificent Minds Neurology Center Bethesda; 301-652-6800

José Surós Point Performance Bethesda; 301-493-8884 Hospital Affiliation: SIbley Memorial Hospital

Shusila Rajasingham Bethesda Child Neurology Gaithersburg; 240-477-5650 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

PATHOLOGY

PEDIATRIC PSYCHIATRY

Pablo D. Gutman Pathology Associates of Silver Spring Silver Spring; 301-754-7330 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Norris John Nolan III Johns Hopkins Medicine–Suburban Hospital Bethesda; 301-896-2566 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Mark A. Novitsky Jr. Potomac Psychiatry Rockville; 301-327-1764

Michelle Seelman Dr. Seelman Bethesda; 301-656-1770 Robyn L. Wechsler Capital Mental Health Chevy Chase; 301-718-0003

PEDIATRIC PULMONOLOGY Samuel M. Rosenberg Children’s National Hospital Rockville; 301-738-7011 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist

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HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Children’s National Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring

PEDIATRIC SURGERY

Philip Guzzetta Children’s National Hospital Rockville; 301-765-5400 Hospital Affiliation: Children’s National Hospital Louis Marmon Children’s National Hospital Rockville; 301-765-5400 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Children’s National Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring

PEDIATRICS

Victor P. Abdow Abdow Friendship Pediatrics Rockville; 301-468-6171 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Raymond Coleman Coleman Pediatrics Rockville; 301-468-9225

Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Sabine De La Croix-Vaubois Washington International Pediatrics Bethesda; 301-654-9476 Shreelata Durbhakula Friendship Pediatrics, P. A. Chevy Chase; 301-656-2745 Sirisha A. Durbhakula Pediatric & Adolescent Care, P. A. Gaithersburg; 301-869-2292 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Daniel Finkelstein Capitol Medical Group Chevy Chase; 301-907-3960 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Caren Glassman Potomac Pediatrics Rockville; 301-279-6750 Linda Goldstein Friendship Pediatrics, P. A. Chevy Chase; 301-656-2745

Jeffrey Greenberg Coleman Pediatrics Rockville; 301-468-9225 Hospital Affiliation: Children’s National Hospital

Ziad Idriss Kenwood Pediatrics Bethesda; 301-654-6303 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

Leila Hall Next Generation Pediatrics Bethesda; 301-832-6049

Amy Kaplan Potomac Pediatrics Rockville; 301-279-6750

Steven Hirsch Hirsch Pediatrics Rockville; 301-990-3030 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

Dana Kornfeld Pediatric Care Center Bethesda; 301-564-5880 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital

Joseph C. Hsu THH Pediatrics Germantown; 301-540-0811 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital

Jessica M. Long Spring Valley Pediatrics Washington, D.C.; 202-966-5000 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

Nadine Idriss Kenwood Pediatrics Bethesda; 301-654-6303 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital

Mindy Maggid Shady Grove Pediatric Associates Rockville; 301-330-3216 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

WHEATON

2730 University Blvd. West, Suite 310 Wheaton, MD 20902 ROCKVILLE

14995 Shady Grove Road, Suite 250 Rockville, MD 20850 CHEVY CHASE

5454 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 600 Chevy Chase, MD 20815 OLNEY

The DMV’s Premier Rheumatology Practice Rheumatologists are specialists in the non-surgical management of musculoskeletal conditions and autoimmune diseases. • Joint Pain • Shoulder Pain • Back and Neck Pain

• Knee Pain • Hand Pain • Gout

18111 Prince Philip Drive, Suite 323 Olney, MD 20832 FREDERICK

71 Thomas Johnson Drive Frederick, MD 21702 WASHINGTON, DC

2021 K Street, NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20006

• Osteoarthritis • Osteoporosis • Systemic Rheumatic Diseases

8270 Willow Oaks Corporate Dr., Suite 150 Fairfax, VA 22031

ONSITE SERVICES PROVIDED INCLUDE: Physician appointments, Infusion Services by ARISE Infusion, X-rays, Lab Tests, Ultrasound, Physical Therapy

301.942.7600 | FAIRFAX: 703.573.2220

FAIRFAX

www.arapc.com

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top doctors 2021 James Mattey Pediatric Care Center Bethesda; 301-564-5880 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital Nelson Niu Nelson Niu MD Gaithersburg; 301-990-2544 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Reva E. Snow Capitol Medical Group Chevy Chase; 301-907-3960 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Stuart B. Taylor Pediatric & Adolescent Care, P. A. Gaithersburg; 301-869-2292 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Bina Valsangkar White Oak Pediatrics Gaithersburg; 301-977-4100 Peter I. Warfield Spring Valley Pediatrics Washington, D.C.; 202-966-5000 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Gail Warner Growth & Wellness Pediatrics Bethesda; 240-630-8882 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Paul Weiner Pediatric Care Center Bethesda; 301-564-5880 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital Scott Wissman Wonder Years Pediatrics Rockville; 301-563-9333 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

PHYSICAL MEDICINE AND REHABILITATION

Mark D. Klaiman Point Performance Bethesda; 301-493-8884 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Terrence P. Sheehan Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation Rockville; 240-864-6000 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation, Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center John E. Toerge John E. Toerge, DO Rockville; 301-377-2661

PLASTIC AND RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY

C. Coleman Brown Bruno|Brown Plastic Surgery Chevy Chase; 301-215-5955 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Mary Ella Carter Mary Ella Carter, M.D. F.A.C.S. Washington, D.C.; 202-363-6844 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Stephane Corriveau Affiliates in Plastic Surgery Chevy Chase; 301-986-0010 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Steven P. Davison DAVinci Plastic Surgery Washington, D.C.; 202-966-9590 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Shaun C. Desai Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 301-896-3332 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Suburban Hospital Craig R. Dufresne Craig R. Dufresne & Associates M.D. Chevy Chase; 301-654-9151 Hospital Affiliation: Inova Fairfax Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital Brent Faulkner Faulkner Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics North Bethesda; 240-802-8100 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital Jules Feledy Belmont Aesthetic & Reconstructive Plastic Surgery

Chevy Chase; 301-321-7536 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Douglas Forman Plastic Surgery Institute of Washington North Bethesda; 301-881-7770 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Roger Friedman Plastic Surgery Institute of Washington North Bethesda; 301-881-7770 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Kathy Huang Plastic Surgery Institute of Washington North Bethesda; 301-881-7770 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital A. Dean Jabs Cosmetic Surgery Associates Bethesda; 301-493-4334 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Sheilah A. Lynch Lynch Plastic Surgery Chevy Chase; 301-652-5933 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Keshav Magge Cosmetic Surgery Associates Bethesda; 301-493-4334 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Joseph Michaels Michaels Aesthetic & Reconstructive Plastic Surgery Rockville; 301-468-5991 Hospital Affiliation: Inova Fairfax Hospital, Inova Fair Oaks Hospital Jennifer Parker Porter Chevy Chase Facial Plastic Surgery Bethesda; 301-618-0733 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital G. Wesley Price Center for Plastic Surgery Chevy Chase; 301-652-7700 Hospital Affiliation: Inova Fairfax Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital

Samir S. Rao Center for Plastic Surgery Chevy Chase; 301-652-7700 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Franklin D. Richards Cosmetic Surgery Associates Bethesda; 301-493-4334 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital Mark E. Richards Ageless Impressions Plastic Surgery Institute North Bethesda; 202-845-7252 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Philip S. Schoenfeld Cadent-Feldman ENT Division Chevy Chase; 301-652-8847 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Navin Singh Washingtonian Plastic Surgery Chevy Chase; 301-244-0277 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Adam G. Tattelbaum AT Cosmetics Rockville; 301-433-7240 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Michael P. Vincent Ambulatory Plastic Surgery Center Associates Rockville; 240-912-4708 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Suburban Hospital

PODIATRY

Amir Assili Shady Grove Podiatry Gaithersburg; 301-948-2995 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital David Baek Shady Grove Podiatry Gaithersburg; 301-948-2995 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital David A. Engorn National Foot & Ankle Potomac; 301-241-7488 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

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Maryland Oncology Hematology Gives New Meaning to Personalized Cancer Care Maryland Oncology Hematology believes in providing patients with advanced, comprehensive cancer therapies in a community setting. This allows patients to receive care conveniently, in their neighborhood, near their support systems. Our highly trained and experienced physicians work closely with a talented clinical team that is sensitive to the needs of cancer patients and their caregivers. From diagnosis through treatment to recovery, our team is dedicated to providing individualized, compassionate, stateof-the-art care for people with cancer and blood disorders.

A Partnership Between Physicians and Their Community

Bethesda 6420 Rockledge Drive #4200 Bethesda, MD 20817-7847 Phone: 301-424-6231 Fax: 301-929-0611

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Maryland Oncology Hematology is an independent practice, entirely owned and run by Maryland physicians who believe that patients are more than a number. Working on behalf of our community for the benefit of patients, we provide the best of care, close to home.

Germantown 20330 Seneca Meadows Parkway Suite B Germantown, MD 20876 Phone: 301-424-6231 Fax: 301-279-9169

Rockville – Aquilino Cancer Center 9905 Medical Center Drive Suite 200 Rockville, MD 20850-6535 Phone: 301-424-6231 Fax: 301-294-4648

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top doctors 2021 Lee Firestone Foot & Ankle Specialists of the Mid-Atlantic Chevy Chase; 301-913-5225 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Franklin R. Polun National Foot & Ankle Potomac; 301-241-7488 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Erika Schwartz Foot & Ankle Specialists of the Mid-Atlantic Chevy Chase; 301-913-5225

PSYCHIATRY

Hedy Howard Hedy Howard MD Chevy Chase; 301-452-7508 Bruce A. Kehr Potomac Psychiatry Rockville; 301-327-1764 Guillermo Portillo Potomac Psychiatry Rockville; 301-327-0172

RADIATION ONCOLOGY

James D. Bridges Adventist HealthCare Radiation Oncology Center Rockville; 301-309-6765 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Stephen C. Greco Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 301-896-2012 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Sheela D. Modin Holy Cross Hospital Radiation Treatment Center Silver Spring; 301-681-4422 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Brandi Page Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 301-896-2012 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Susan F. Stinson Johns Hopkins Medicine–Health Care and Surgery Center Bethesda; 301-896-2012

Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Suburban Hospital

RADIOLOGY

Letitia R. Clark Medstar Radiology at Foxhall Square Washington, D.C.; 202-686-1316 William Dalton Craig Johns Hopkins Medicine– Suburban Hospital Bethesda; 301-896-2222 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Stewart B. Karr Diagnostic Medical Imaging–HCH Silver Spring; 301-754-7350 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Alexander S. Mark MedStar Radiology Network Rockville; 301-657-2444 Sameer Samtani Adventist HealthCare Imaging Rockville; 301-590-8999 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation, Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center Janet Storella Community Radiology Associates Bethesda; 888-601-0943

REPRODUCTIVE ENDOCRINOLOGY/ INFERTILITY

Frank E. Chang Shady Grove Fertility Rockville; 301-340-1188 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Jeanne E. O’Brien Shady Grove Fertility Rockville; 301-340-1188 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center

RHEUMATOLOGY

Herbert S.B. Baraf Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates, P. C. Wheaton; 301-942-7600 Ashley D. Beall Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates, P. C. Rockville; 301-942-7600

Emma DiIorlio Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates, P. C. Rockville; 301-942-7600 Madalene K. Greene Potomac Arthritis & Rheumatism Rockville; 301-530-9490 Rachel Kaiser Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates, P. C. Chevy Chase; 301-942-7600 Deborah S. Litman Deborah S. Litman, MD Chevy Chase; 301-215-4167 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital William W. Mullins Center for Rheumatic Diseases and Osteoporosis North Bethesda; 301-230-5888 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Robert L. Rosenberg Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates, P. C. Wheaton; 301-942-7600 Assil S. Saleh Foxhall Internists, PC Washington, D.C.; 202-362-4467 Hospital Affiliation: MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital Evan L. Siegel Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates, P. C. Wheaton; 301-942-7600 David P. Wolfe Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates, P. C. Chevy Chase; 301-942-7600 Angus B. Worthing Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates, P. C. Chevy Chase; 301-942-7600

SLEEP MEDICINE

Helene A. Emsellem Center for Sleep & Wake Disorders Chevy Chase; 301-654-1575 Asefa Mekonnen Rockville Internal Medicine Group Rockville; 301-762-5020 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Mark W. Miller American Sleep Medicine Rockville; 240-912-7771

SPORTS MEDICINE

Barry P. Boden The Orthopaedic Center Rockville; 301-251-1433 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Kenneth M. Fine The Orthopaedic Center Germantown; 301-251-1433 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital James E. Gilbert Metro Orthopedics & Sports Therapy Potomac; 301-588-7888 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital Craig A. Miller OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Suburban Hospital Daniel J. Pereles The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics, Montgomery Orthopaedics Division Chevy Chase; 301-949-8100 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring Christopher Raffo The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics: Maryland Orthopedic Specialists Bethesda; 301-515-0900 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center Kurt C. Schluntz OrthoBethesda Bethesda; 301-231-1835 Hospital Affiliation: Suburban Hospital

THORACIC SURGERY

Stephen R. Broderick Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Medical Building Washington, D.C.; 202-660-7510 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Keith Mortman The GW Medical Faculty Associates Rockville; 202-741-3220 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, The George Washington University Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital

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Need Orthopaedic care? NOW? Convenient Patient Care for Inconvenient Injuries

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top doctors 2021 VASCULAR/ INTERVENTIONAL RADIOLOGY

Bryan M. Steinberg Capital Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery Associates Rockville; 301-270-2844 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring

Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital– Silver Spring Juan Litvak Chesapeake Urology Associates Bethesda; 301-530-1700 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Nikhil Bhagat Johns Hopkins Medicine– Suburban Hospital Bethesda; 301-896-3202 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

UROLOGY

Bart Radolinski Chesapeake Urology Associates Bethesda; 301-530-1700 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Brian Johnson Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 202-537-4781 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Mark Rosenblum Chesapeake Urology Associates Bethesda; 301-530-1700 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Stewart B. Karr Diagnostic Medical Imaging–HCH Silver Spring; 301-754-7350 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital–Silver Spring

Kathleen Sterling Chesapeake Urology Associates Bethesda; 301-530-1700 Hospital Affiliation: Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Abhishek Srinivas Johns Hopkins Medicine– Sibley Memorial Hospital Washington, D.C.; 202-537-4781 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital

Leonard S. Bloom Chesapeake Urology Associates Rockville; 301-258-1919 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital Mary C. DuPont Capitol Urogynecology Chevy Chase; 301-654-5530 Hospital Affiliation: Sibley Memorial Hospital Gary Friedlander Chesapeake Urology Associates Rockville; 301-258-1919 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown

Surgical management of cancers involving the liver, bile ducts, pancreas and gastrointestinal tract Chief, Surgical Oncology Section, Surgical Oncology Program, NIH Head, Metastasis Biology Section, NIH Associate Professor of Surgery, USUHS

VASCULAR SURGERY

Andrew Howard Schulick Johns Hopkins Medicine– Suburban Hospital Bethesda; 301-896-7619 Hospital Affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital Richard A. Silva Horizon Vascular Specialists Germantown; 301-762-0277 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Jeffrey Y. Wang Horizon Vascular Specialists Germantown; 301-762-0277 Hospital Affiliation: Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center n

2021 SUMMER LEARNING PROGRAMS KEEP YOUR CHILD ENGAGED & LEARNING (WHILE HAVING FUN!)

Dr. Jonathan Hernandez

Dr. Jonathan Hernandez is a board-certified surgical oncologist and scientist at the Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. His clinical and research efforts focus on improving the oncologic outcomes for people with cancers of the liver, bile ducts and pancreas. He is the principal investigator of several clinical trials that study novel approaches to prevent and treat cancer recurrence. Dr. Hernandez will treat or provide second opinions for patients with a wide range of cancers at the nation's federally funded cancer center, where treatment is free to those receiving care at the NIH Clinical Center.

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hello@illuminos.co www.illuminos.co

(571) 313-5163

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LISA HELFERT

Bruce Alan Kehr, M.D., President Julie Wendt, MS, LN, CNS, Functional Nutritionist Root Cause Analysis at Potomac Psychiatry See Profile page 76 BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021 73

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HILARY SCHWAB

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A. Dean Jabs, MD, Ph.D., FACS & Keshav Magge, M.D., FACS COSMETIC SURGERY ASSOCIATE Specialties & Qualifications Board Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery Fellow, American College of Surgeons Member, American Society of Plastic Surgeons Member, American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Member, Southeastern Society of Plastic Surgeons Certificate of Added Qualification in Cosmetic Surgery, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery President, National Capital Society of Plastic Surgeons 6430 Rockledge Drive, Suite 100 Bethesda, MD 20817 301-493-4334 www.cosmeticplastics.com

At Cosmetic Surgery Associates, elective cosmetic surgery is all they do. Each surgeon is highly trained with extensive experience in plastic surgery and thousands of happy patients. The practice caters to patients to provide the results they desire in a safe, discrete and caring environment. Their own certified operating rooms are staffed with the best nurses and technicians in the area, and they use only Board Certified anesthesiologists. Your safety is their primary concern. Both Dr. Jabs and Dr. Magge are Board Certified plastic surgeons and Fellows of the American College of Surgeons. In addition, they are members of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery and the American Society of Plastic Surgery. Dr. Jabs served on the International Committee of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery and has served as Chairman of the Dept. of Plastic Surgery at Johns-Hopkins Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. Both doctors offer decades of experience and have performed thousands of successful procedures in their fully accredited surgery suite. Dr. Jabs and Dr. Magge are well known for their warm, caring personalities and commitment to excellence. They put their patients at ease and take time to listen to their goals. Their entire team treats each patient like family. Cosmetic Surgery Associates is at the forefront of the latest aesthetic surgery techniques and performs most of their procedures under twilight anesthesia, obviating the need for general anesthesia. Their patients know they can count on them to provide safe, effective procedures with outstanding results.

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Root Cause Analysis at Potomac Psychiatry FROM LEFT: BRUCE ALAN KEHR, M.D. GUILLERMO PORTILLO, M.D. MARK A. NOVITSKY, JR., M.D. JOHN CARR, M.D. JULIE WENDT, MS, LN, CNS Awards & Honors “Best Psychiatric Care Provider in Maryland,” Global Health & Pharma (GHP), Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Awards, 2020. Repeatedly awarded “Washingtonian magazine Top Doctors.” “One of the top 100 most inspirational and influential people in the life sciences industry,” PharmaVOICE 100 Awards (Dr. Kehr). Bethesda Magazine Top Doctor (Dr. Kehr), 2020. 5920 Hubbard Drive Rockville, MD 20852 301-984-9791 www.PotomacPsychiatry.com

“In the twenty-first century… we are constructing a new epidemiology of self: we are beginning to describe illness, identity, affinity, temperament, preferences—and, ultimately, fate and choice—in terms of genes and genomes. The influence of genes on our lives and beings is richer, deeper and more unnerving than we had imagined.” -Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D., Pulitzer Prize Winning Author We will do Whatever It Takes to help you feel well and recover your health. We practice Root Cause Psychiatry. Root causes of emotional distress lie in many biological and environmental factors, from our DNA to our gut health, from the food we eat to the childhood we survived. These root causes constantly re-create our experience of the world and our place in it—and thanks to incredible new scientific discoveries, we have the tools to discern these causes, assess their impacts on your mental health and create a personalized roadmap to recovery. How?

Rapidly advancing knowledge of genetics, microbiome science, nutrition and computational biology suggest a series of root causes that form an entirely new architecture of the mind and the self. Root Cause Psychiatry—Your Blueprint to Build Mental Health—will endow you with the knowledge and power to become the architect of your mental health destiny. Inside our bodies, everything is constantly changing at unbelievably fast speeds, offering a continuous opportunity to improve or worsen the underlying health of our cellular and mental processes. As DNA is life’s driving force, we use genetic tests to help build better mental health. “Microtraumas” affect the very fabric of one’s biological being. They impact your DNA, the molecules within your cells, and the very cells themselves. Damaged DNA and traumatized cells need to be restored to health. We assess your DNA, gut health, cellular molecular and nutrients status, and screening blood studies to pinpoint areas in need of restoration, and create targeted treatments to improve your mental health and brain health, from the inside out.

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From left to right (standing): Dr. Ira Fisch Dr. Eric Feuchtbaum Dr. Joseph O'Brien The Spine Specialists at OrthoBethesda have been restoring function and improving quality of life for more than 50 years. They have received Top Doctor recognition in Washingtonian and Bethesda Magazine. Dr. O’Brien and Dr. Feuchtbaum also see patients at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington. OrthoBethesda Ira Fisch, MD Joseph O’Brien, MD Eric Feuchtbaum, MD 10215 Fernwood Road, Suite 506 Bethesda, MD 20817 301-530-1010

www.orthobethesda.com

At the Washington Spine & Scoliosis Institute of OrthoBethesda, Drs. Ira Fisch, Joseph O’Brien and Eric Feuchtbaum specialize in treating spinal conditions and allowing people to once again live and move with less pain. Together, the doctors have over 50 years of experience treating conditions that affect the spine, including sports injuries, arthritis, sciatica and disc problems. Using a multidisciplinary approach, they emphasize conservative treatments, such as spinal rehabilitation and injections, before considering surgery. “My obligation is to treat people non-surgically and then use surgery only when absolutely necessary,” says Dr. Fisch. Above all, the doctors highlight the importance of putting patients first. They listen to their patients’ concerns and collaborate with them on a treatment plan. “Healthcare is personal,” says Dr. O’Brien. “It’s so important to have the patients’ best interests in mind. I’ve always tried to give them the care that I would want.”

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

When surgery is the most appropriate option, the doctors use minimally invasive and robot-guided procedures to relieve pain and restore function. “We use muscle-sparing techniques that require much smaller incisions than traditional surgery,” says Dr. Feuchtbaum. “Our patients spend less time in the hospital, recover more quickly and take less opiate pain medication after surgery.” Their high rate of successful outcomes reflects each doctor’s commitment to delivering individualized treatments that work. “The best reward for a surgeon is seeing your patient with an improved quality of life after surgery—that’s why we went into this field,” says Dr. Feuchtbaum. “We really can make a tremendous impact on each patient’s life.”

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Jennifer Parker Porter, MD, FACS CHEVY CHASE FACIAL PLASTIC SURGERY Awards & Honors Double board-certified Facial Plastic Surgeon; Bethesda Magazine Top Doctor, 2019, 2021; Best of the Best, Best Cosmetic Surgeon 2021; Top Vote Getter, Best Cosmetic Surgeon, 2017, 2020; Director, American Board of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery; Acting VP of Task Force for Diversity and Inclusion, American Academy of Facial and Reconstructive Surgery

STEPHANIE WILLIAMS

7201 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 515 Bethesda, MD 20814 301-652-8191 www.ChevyChaseFace.com

Chevy Chase Facial Plastic Surgery is a high-end, boutique-style practice that values quality over quantity. Founded in 2003 by Dr. Jennifer Parker Porter, the practice offers a full spectrum of cosmetic treatments and procedures. “We individualize rather than standardize,” says Dr. Porter, a double board-certified facial plastic surgeon specializing in rhinoplasty and surgical and nonsurgical facial rejuvenation. “Every course of treatment I prescribe is unique to that patient. I take into account their face shape, bone structure, age, skin thickness and a variety of other factors that may influence the outcome of surgery.” Dr. Porter has received numerous awards and honors during her 23 years of practice. She’s been named a Bethesda Magazine Top Doctor and Top Vote Getter several times, and she was recently honored as “Best of the Best” for Cosmetic Surgery. She gives back to her specialty as Director of the American Board of Otolaryngology, and she serves as acting vice president and former chair of the American Academy of Facial and Reconstructive Surgery’s Task Force for Diversity and Inclusion. The growing team at Chevy Chase Facial Plastic Surgery focuses on delivering balanced and natural results. They have extensive experience with facelifts, eyelid surgery, Botox, fillers, Aerolase Neo, EmbraceRF and a variety of skin care treatments. Conveniently located a few blocks from the Bethesda Metro, Chevy Chase Facial Plastic Surgery is the only facial plastic surgery practice in downtown Bethesda. They are pleased to offer 10% off your treatment (Botox/Dysport) when you download and book your appointment through their Tox2GO app. BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021 79

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GAIL LINN, AUD, CCC-A TRICIA TERLEP, AUD Awards & Honors “Best Audiologist,” Best of Bethesda Readers’ Poll, Bethesda Magazine, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 11300 Rockville Pike, Suite 105 Rockville, MD 20852 240-477-1010 www.PotomacAudiology.com

A third-generation Washingtonian, Dr. Gail Linn leads a team of four experienced and highly respected audiologists who provide personalized, state-of-theart care for people with hearing loss. Using advanced technology, Potomac Audiology diagnoses hearing problems and dispenses the latest hearing aids and other devices to improve hearing in patients of all ages. “We can help anyone with hearing issues using the tools we have available today,” says Dr. Lin. Among those tools are custom-made ear molds for musicians, contractors, hunters and people who work in noisy environments. Custom swim molds help swimmers minimize ear infections by keeping water out of the ear canal. With 36 years of experience, Dr. Linn has worked with many government agencies and organizations including the FCC, FDA and OSHA to raise awareness of hearing loss and advance the level of patient care. She has also collaborated with researchers at NIH – most recently

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

with developers of the TELLYHealth system, software designed to educate patients on the use of hearing aids. “People are often in denial about hearing loss,” she says. “We like educating them and helping them discover what it’s like to hear again.” Dr. Linn serves on the board of the Maryland Academy of Audiology and is a longtime mentor of audiology students both locally and nationwide. Her family practice includes her daughter, audiologist Dr. Tricia Terlep, and Tricia’s husband Vince, director of operations. “We’re not just selling hearing aids – we’re improving quality of life,” says Dr. Linn. “We’re helping people hear again, and that’s amazing.”

COURTESY PHOTO

Potomac Audiology

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Congressional OB-GYN JINKAL SAINI, PA-C STEVE BEHRAM, MD, FACOG NANCY BEHRAM, MD, FACOG In addition to OB-GYN services, we offer nutritional coaching and medical intervention to help our patients achieve their weight-loss goals and maintain a healthy weight. Dr. Nancy Behram is board certified in both OB-GYN and obesity medicine. We integrate these services to deliver comprehensive care and meet our patient’s needs.

HILARY SCHWAB

14995 Shady Grove Road, Suite 410 Rockville, MD 20850 301-294-8525 www.congressionalobgyn.com

The providers at Congressional OB-GYN deliver comprehensive care for women, including pregnancy care, fertility, fibroids, endometriosis, PCOS, menopause and many other conditions. Drs. Steve and Nancy Behram, along with Jinkal Saini, PA-C, are committed to creating a caring and convenient setting for their patients, including access to blood draw services and ultrasound imaging all at one location. Additionally, they offer the convenience of telemedicine and extended hours, including weekends. Their brand new office is conveniently located just off of I-270. In addition to being board certified in OB-GYN, Dr. Nancy Behram is also board certified in obesity medicine and oversees the different weight loss programs offered through the office. “We take a holistic approach to the patient’s wellbeing,” says Dr. Nancy Behram, who has been caring for patients in the community for over 20 years. These additional services include health coaching, nutritional guidance and medical intervention for practice patients.

Most services are covered by insurance. “We offer customized weight loss services, combined with web-based resources, to match our patients’ diverse needs,” she says. “Access to a state-of-the-art surgery center allows patients to get world-class care with minimal intervention,” says Dr. Steve Behram. “This brand-new facility is located at Lerner’s Fallsgrove Plaza, which recently received the LEED® Gold Certification from the United States Green Building Council.” This office was specifically designed to minimize environmental impact, while providing a beautiful space for the delivery of care. “We welcome you to our growing family,” says Dr. Steve Behram.

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PROFILES

physicians SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

MARAGH DERMATOLOGY, SURGERY & VEIN INSTITUTE Awards & Honors 2020, Best of Suburbia, Best Vein Clinic; Best of Suburbia, Best Dermatologist, Posh Seven Magazine, 2019; Best (for Botox, fillers and injectables) of Suburbia, Posh Seven Magazine, 2018 14995 Shady Grove Road, Suite 150 Rockville, MD 20850 301-358-5919 www.maraghdermatology.com

“Skin is the body’s largest organ,” Dr. Sherry Maragh says. It’s important to care for this protective layer just as one would any other part of the body.” Dr. Maragh leads a thriving dermatology practice with state-of-the-art offices in Rockville, Ashburn, Virginia and Warrenton, Virginia. The Maragh Dermatology, Surgery and Vein Institute has established itself as one of the premier centers for comprehensive dermatological treatment in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Maragh Dermatology specializes in the most advanced techniques of medical, laser, cosmetic and surgical dermatology. Besides treating a wide spectrum of general dermatological conditions, the board-certified physicians at Maragh Dermatology also offer a variety of minimally invasive treatments for face and body rejuvenation – including liposuction, cellulite treatment, body contouring (featuring EMSculpt Neo) and vein removal. Laser technology is used to repair stretch marks and tighten skin, as

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

well as treat acne and rosacea. With extensive training in Mohs micrographic surgery, Dr. Maragh has performed over 5,000 skin cancer surgeries with cosmetic facial reconstruction. Dr. Maragh and her team take the time to get to know every patient, providing compassionate medical care with treatments carefully tailored to each patient’s individual needs. Sun exposure over time causes cumulative damage to the skin, but early detection can save lives. Dr. Maragh encourages patients to be proactive by setting up routine screenings to maintain skin health. Dr. Maragh is a leading expert on the latest advances and techniques in dermatologic and cosmetic surgery and a frequent speaker at medical conferences nationwide.

TONY J. LEWIS

Sherry L. H. Maragh, MD, FAAD, FACS, FACMS

PROFILES

physicians

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Horizon Vascular Specialists RICHARD A. SILVA, MD, FACS, RPVI; SHAN-E-ALI HAIDER, MD, FACS, RPVI; JEFFREY Y. WANG, MD, FACS, RVT; WILLIAM X. NGHIEM, MD, CAQ; AND DUSTIN Y. YOON, MD, MS, FACS, RPVI

HILARY SCHWAB

“Here, procedures to return patients to an active lifestyle and reduce their discomfort are offered in a state-of-the-art facility where expert, specialized care is provided without complicated visits to the hospital.” 9715 Medical Center Drive, Suite 105 Rockville, MD 20850 18111 Prince Philip Drive, Suite 226 Olney, MD 20832 20410 Observation Drive, Suite 100 Germantown, MD 20876 301-762-0277 info@horizonvascularspecialists.com www.horizonvascularspecialists.com

“If you have ever smoked or suffer from risk factors such as leg pain, diabetes, hypertension, high blood cholesterol or obesity, you should consult a vascular specialist,” says Dr. Jeffrey Wang, vascular surgeon at Horizon Vascular Specialists. “Many treatment options can be done non-surgically on an outpatient basis. Based on your individual needs, we will develop a personalized treatment plan to ensure the best outcome for you.” Horizon Vascular Specialists is the Washington area’s leading provider of comprehensive care for vascular health, treating arterial and venous conditions such as Peripheral Artery Disease, varicose veins, and Deep Vein Thrombosis. Horizon Vascular Specialists also offers specialized women’s health services, treating conditions like pelvic congestion syndrome or uterine fibroids through minimally invasive techniques. Additionally, for those suffering from migraines, Horizon now provides a short, simple procedure for migraine pain relief.

Horizon delivers an exceptional level of medical expertise and patient education, incorporating minimally invasive techniques with superior outcomes. Horizon’s integrated, highly specialized staff and comprehensive suite of services provides effective diagnosis, treatment and recovery of vascular conditions. Above all, Horizon is dedicated to providing the best care and patient experience possible. “Here, procedures to return patients to an active lifestyle and reduce their discomfort are offered in a state-of-the-art facility where expert, specialized care is provided without complicated visits to the hospital,” says Dr. Richard Silva. “Our patients see amazing results and appreciate the personalized attention they receive from our doctors and clinicians.”

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PROFILES

physicians SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Our highly trained team of experts specializes in innovative treatments for a wide range of conditions, including sports injuries, spinal disorders, muscular pain syndromes, migraines, concussion, stroke and other neurological diseases. We offer regenerative medicine, vestibular management, medical massage, athletic enhancement, personal medical training, yoga therapy, acupuncture, dry needling and more. 6400 Goldsboro Road, Suite 340 Bethesda, MD 20817 301-493-8884 (Medicine) 301-244-9099 (Physical Therapy) ppminfo@pointperformance.com www.pointperformance.com

Whether they’re helping an athlete with a sports injury, a person with neck or back pain or someone recovering from a stroke, the Point Performance team delivers effective, holistic care. They draw on their varied expertise, which includes sports medicine, pain management and manual therapies, to provide several nonsurgical treatments, including medical acupuncture and dry needling. As leaders in innovative regenerative medicine, the team specializes in proteinrich-plasma (PRP) treatments, stem cell injections and shock wave therapy to promote healing in damaged tissues. “These evidence-based procedures consistently result in better outcomes for our patients,” says Dr. Mark Klaiman. “Using proven techniques and an integrative approach, our goal is to reduce pain, improve function and keep people away from surgery.” When Dr. Klaiman and Dr. Haim Hechtman created Point Performance, they paid close attention to every detail of the state-of-the-art facility.

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The space—which includes two gyms, private treatment rooms and therapeutic massage suites—also features a light-filled waiting room with wall-to-wall windows that offer serene views of towering trees outside. “We intentionally designed our practice to provide a place where people feel they can heal,” says Dr. Klaiman. At Point Performance, healing begins with listening. The entire team is committed to taking the time to discuss each patient’s health, lifestyle and goals. That quality time translates into a deeper understanding of their patient’s concerns and allows them to deliver more effective treatments. “We communicate and collaborate with our patients,” says Dr. Hechtman. “We treat the whole person, not just their concern.”

MICHAEL VENTURA

Point Performance

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physicians

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Plastic Surgery Institute of Washington & Luxe Medspa ROGER J. FRIEDMAN, MD; DOUGLAS L. FORMAN, MD & KATHY HUANG, MD

COURTESY PHOTO

Designations & Awards A Top Vote Getter, Best Practice for Medical Aesthetics, Bethesda Magazine’s Best of Bethesda Readers Poll, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2020 and 2021. Board Certified Plastic Surgeons. Top Doctors, Washingtonian, every year 2005-Present. Top Doctors, U.S. News. Top Rated in Consumers’ Checkbook. 11210 Old Georgetown Road, N. Bethesda, MD 20852 | 301-881-7770 info@plasticsurgerynow.com @DCplasticsurg www.plasticsurgerynow.com

PSIW prides itself on creating a friendly, comfortable and engaging environment with the shared goal of promoting confidence while emphasizing patient education and quality care. Their boardcertified plastic surgeons have served this community for over 35 years with exceptional individualized patient care, using state-of-the-art techniques to meet your aesthetic needs. Beyond surgical treatments, PSIW’s Luxe Medspa is staffed by highly experienced Registered Nurses and Aestheticians specializing in non-invasive facial rejuvenation and Coolsculpting® (body contouring). The Luxe team works closely with surgeons to offer creative and effective treatments for both men and women. “We’re proud to continue to serve this community with exceptional, personalized patient care using the latest surgical and non-operative aesthetic treatments,” says Dr. Forman. All three doctors are highly accomplished, board-certified surgeons. Their team delivers exceptional care in an exclu-

sive, private environment, with an on-site accredited Ambulatory Surgery Center, staffed by board-certified anesthesiologists to ensure the safety of your surgical journey. “We make your journey a pleasure, from start to finish,” says Dr. Friedman. “We welcome you to our practice,” says Dr. Huang. “Our team of professionals can introduce you to the latest developments in aesthetic medicine.” PSIW surgeons specialize in Facial Rejuvenation, Body Contouring and Breast Procedures. These surgeries include Face and Neck Lift, Eyelid and Brow Lift, Rhinoplasty, Liposuction, Tummy Tuck, Brazilian Butt Lift, Post Weight Loss, Mommy Makeover, Labiaplasty, Breast Augmentation, Lift, Reduction, Gynecomastia, Reconstruction, Revisions and Transgender procedures. Non-surgical services include Coolsculpting®, Cellfina™, Fraxel®, Laser Hair Removal, IPL, Microneedling with PRP, HydraFacialMD®, Chemical Peels, Botox®, and Fillers.

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PROFILES

physicians SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Adam G. Tattelbaum, MD WASHINGTON PLASTIC SURGERY GROUP Dr. Tattelbaum is a board-certified plastic surgeon in Rockville. He’s been in practice for over 25 years and specializes in mommy makeovers, breast enhancements, tummy tucks and facial rejuvenation. He completed his plastic surgery training at Georgetown University and has been recognized as one of the Top Plastic Surgeons by Washingtonian and Bethesda magazines.

Dr. Tattelbaum grew up in the home of an artisan, and early experiences are what eventually drew him to aesthetic surgery. “My mother was a jeweler, sculptor and creative force in my life," he says. "The tools I used in her workshop are surprisingly similar to the tools I use today, only the medium is far more complex." "I love seeing the results of my surgeries, and making patients look and feel normal again." In addition to private practice, he is also an active member of the professional staff at Georgetown University and an attending physician at regional hospitals. "I try to distill 25 years of experience into concepts that my patients can easily understand," he says of his passion for teaching. "I love to see the lightbulbs go off in my patients' heads as they better understand what they are considering. The more my patients understand, the more gratifying their experience.” He strives to create a relaxed atmosphere, with no high-pressure sales tactics. Consultations are educational and realistic. "My goal is that patients learn the important details so that they can make informed decisions.” “I treat each of my patients as I would treat a member of my own family and only make the kind of recommendations to them that I would make to someone dear to me. I believe that it is just as important to point out when patients do not need a particular procedure as when they do.” 86

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HILARY SCHWAB

Adam G.Tattelbaum MD PC 3203 Tower Oaks Blvd., Suite 200 Rockville, MD 20852 301-656-6398 Pei@washingtonplastics.com @drtattelbaum www.atcosmetics.com

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physicians

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Maryland Oncology Hematology, PA AQUILINO CANCER CENTER

STEPHANIE WILLIAMS

Recognition Recognized as "Top Doctors" by Bethesda Magazine and Washingtonian magazine; "Super Doctors" by SuperDoctors. com and "Top MD" by Washington Consumers' Checkbook. Rockville- Aquilino Cancer Center 9905 Medical Center Drive, Suite 200 Rockville, MD 20850 Bethesda 6420 Rockledge Drive, Suite 4200 Bethesda, MD 20817 Germantown 20330 Seneca Meadows Parkway, Suite B Germantown, MD 20876 301-424-6231 www.marylandoncology.com

This distinguished group is a leading provider of community cancer care and treatment of blood disorders in suburban Maryland. The highly specialized team of board-certified physicians at Maryland Oncology Hematology provides the highest level of expertise and cutting-edge treatment options for patients throughout the state and the mid-Atlantic region. At Maryland Oncology Hematology, the dedicated physicians, nurses and staff will guide you and your family through all available treatment options, while tailoring your care to your individual needs. Using sophisticated technology and the latest treatments, including targeted agents and immunotherapies, Maryland Oncology Hematology offers compassionate care while keeping you close to home. Maryland Oncology Hematology's state-of-the-art infusion centers offer a full range of chemotherapy services, laboratory testing, clinical trials, genetic counseling and support services, as well.

JOSEPH M. HAGGERTY, MD, FACP GEORGE A. SOTOS, MD, FACP JOHN M. WALLMARK, MD PAUL M. THAMBI, MD MANISH AGRAWAL, MD SYED MAHMOOD, MD SHANNON C. O'CONNOR, MD CAROLYN HENDRICKS, MD, FASCO CHERYL AYLESWORTH, MD SURUPA SEN GUPTA, MD COLETTE MAGNANT, MD, FACS NOT PICTURED: ARI D. FISHMAN, MD, FACP NICHOLAS J. FARRELL, MD, VIVEK PATIL, MD

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PROFILES

physicians SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Brent Faulkner, MD FAULKNER PLASTIC SURGERY & AESTHETICS

Faulkner Plastic Surgery and Aesthetics offers a full range of cosmetic procedures, from chemical peels, microneedling and skincare to minimally invasive body contouring and complex surgeries. Voted a Washingtonian 2020 Top Doctor, Dr. Brent Faulkner, a board-certified plastic surgeon, tailors procedures to meet his patient’s individual needs. “My method is to address a concern or problem you have and use my education and expertise to find the best treatment for you,” says Dr. Faulkner. In addition to breast augmentation, CoolSculpting® and “mommy makeovers,” Dr. Faulkner also specializes in breast reconstruction surgery and skin cancer treatment. Through comprehensive, customized treatments, Dr. Faulkner is passionate about meeting his patients where they are and helping them reach their goals.

MICHAEL VENTURA

6000 Executive Blvd., Suite 204 N. Bethesda, MD 20852 240-880-2349 www.faulknerplasticsurgery.com

Lee Jonathan Musher, MD, CMD METROPOLITAN PHYSICIANS PRACTICE, LLC 5530 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 1045 Chevy Chase, MD 20815 301-986-4774 Fax: 301-652-3278

Dr Musher is a family practitioner and fellowshiptrained geriatrician with expertise in weight loss and anti-aging medicine. His concierge practice is a blend between traditional medicine and health and wellness. He believes it is important to keep you healthy and prevent disease before it happens. That means not only focusing on your medical needs but also on good nutrition, exercise and wellness coaching. He strives to make your care experience as personal, convenient and productive as possible. 88

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HILARY SCHWAB

Specializations, Honors & Affiliations Adult Medicine, Geriatrics, Health &Wellness and Anti–aging; Chair of Family Medicine, Suburban Hospital/Johns Hopkins Medicine; Past President, AMDA-Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine; Washingtonian Top Doctor

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Carolynn Young, MD, Gynecologist ROCKVILLE GYNECOLOGY

MICHAEL VENTURA

15204 Omega Drive, Suite 200 Rockville, MD 20850 301-330-7007 office@rockvillegynecology.com www.rockvillegynecology.com

Patients describe Dr. Carolynn Young as compassionate, encouraging and diligent with a wonderful bedside manner. She cares for patients holistically—the whole woman for her whole life—considering their physical and emotional aspects. "I learn about them as people," she says. "I educate about issues and treatment options, certainly, but also about health maintenance. Communication is critical with patients and their referring providers." "What brings me the most satisfaction is improving patients’ quality of life—especially women suffering from abnormal bleeding or fibroids—and seeing their joy when problems resolve. I love my office staff, too. Everyone plays a vital role in providing top-notch patient care." Dr. Young was the area’s first female physician to perform robotic surgery, and the first to incorporate Mona Lisa Touch, a laser treatment for vaginal dryness and pain with intercourse. The office, including the new Surgery Center for Women, is beautifully appointed, creating a calming and welcoming environment. The practice recently incorporated new technologies including the Emsella chair and the O-shot. The Emsella chair is a non-invasive treatment for urinary issues. One sits fully-clothed on a chair with a powerful magnet which, during the 28-minute session, performs 11,200 very strong Kegels exercises for a patient. This treatment is painless, requiring no medication or surgery. It's very effective at treating urinary leakage and frequency/urgency. It also increases genital sensation, and often improves decreased libido. Rockville Gynecology also performs the O-shot, which uses platelet-rich plasma (PRP) to improve sexual dysfunction and urinary issues. BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021 89

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Michelle Graves Seelman, MD, LLC PSYCHIATRY FOR CHILDREN, ADOLESCENTS AND YOUNG ADULTS

Dr. Seelman specializes in the mental health needs of children, adolescents and young adults struggling with mood disorders, behavior problems, school difficulties and family disruption. Working closely with parents, therapists, school counselors and pediatricians, Dr. Seelman develops treatment plans carefully tailored to the unique needs of every patient. When medication is required, she draws from the latest research, including genetic testing. Dr. Seelman limits the size of her practice to ensure that each patient receives the highest quality care. Early in her career, Dr. Seelman served as a medical officer for Navy pilots. Today, board-certified in General Psychiatry and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, she continues to serve by empowering individuals and their families to lead happier, more productive lives.

STEPHANIE WILLIAMS

4800 Hampden Lane, Suite 200 Bethesda, MD 20814 301-656-1770 www.drseelman.com

Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders

For over 25 years, The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders has provided exceptional care to patients in the Bethesda area. Headed by nationally recognized, board-certified oncologists and hematologists Ralph V. Boccia, MD, FACP; Victor M. Priego, MD; Mark Goldstein, MD, FACP; and Bruce D. Cheson, MD, FACP, FAAAS, FASCO; they are committed to delivering the most advanced and innovative treatments focused on each patient. Their individualized approach to patient care includes chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy and, when appropriate, clinical trials. Patients receive home delivery of oral cancer medications, in-house lab and pathology and on-site infusion therapy. The practice also offers integrative medicine and comprehensive support, including nutrition guidance and financial counseling. New patients are seen within 48 hours. RALPH V. BOCCIA, M.D., F.A.C.P; VICTOR M. PRIEGO, M.D.; MARK G. GOLDSTEIN, M.D., F.A.C.P.; BRUCE D. CHESON, M.D, FACP, FAAAS, FASCO 90

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COURTESY PHOTOS

6410 Rockledge Drive, Suite 660 Bethesda, MD 20817 301-571-0019 www.CCBDMD.com

PROFILES

physicians

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Mark E. Richards, MD AGELESS IMPRESSIONS PLASTIC SURGERY INSTITUTE Awards & Honors Repeatedly listed as a Top Plastic Surgeon nationally from various organizations including U.S. News & World Report. National press and TV recognition as Plastic Surgery Expert.

HILARY SCHWAB

11300 Rockville Pike, Suite 912 Rockville, MD 20852 301-468-3458 www.drmarkrichards.com

Patients typically describe Dr. Mark Richards as a caring and creative surgical artist of extraordinary abilities. His plastic surgery training in Boston included Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Lahey Clinic, Boston University and Harvard Children’s Hospital. While in private practice, he has taught plastic surgery residents from the Georgetown University Hospital and Johns Hopkins University Hospital in aesthetic surgery. Every patient is unique in needs, appearance and individual desires for improvement. Communication is as critical as the analysis of problem and creation of a plan for rejuvenation. Dr. Richards' professional joy is the happy patients for whom he has restored a rejuvenated and natural appearance. In private practice for over 30 years, Dr. Richards has been an innovator in plastic surgery. He developed new techniques and ways of thinking about aesthetic problems, and better techniques to address them. He has published new surgical ideas and procedures in plastic surgery journals and presented them internationally. He does not believe in patenting his surgical techniques and creating trendy names as sales gimmicks. He would rather all surgeons and patients benefit from improved techniques without restriction. Technological advances continue to elevate the quality of results by plastic surgeons. However, technology alone cannot give better outcomes. The combination of wisdom and experience coupled with the proper use of technology can deliver exceptional results. Still, patients need to remember that both surgical and non-surgical techniques require healing. Healing is a process that varies greatly between people. Exceeding expectations is always the goal at Ageless Impressions Plastic Surgery Institute. BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021 91

PROFILES

physicians SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Dr. Navin Singh WASHINGTONIAN PLASTIC SURGERY

Dr. Navin Singh is one of the area’s leading awardwinning, dual board-certified plastic surgeons. Serving patients throughout the metro area at Washingtonian Plastic Surgery’s McLean, Reston and Chevy Chase offices, he is renowned for providing quality care and a variety of cutting-edge and minimally invasive procedures, as well as customized treatment plans for each patient to ensure beautiful results that exceed patient expectations. Dr. Singh has earned prestigious credentials from Brown, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins. His specialties include liquid lifts, mommy makeovers, laser liposuction, 360 lipo, body lifts and contouring, face and neck lifts, gynecomastia, breast augmentations and breast reductions. Dr. Singh forms strong, lifelong relationships with his patients. “They are my walking billboards,” he says. “I’m most proud of each and every thank you that I get from a satisfied patient.”

PHOTO COURTESY

Office locations in Chevy Chase, MD and McLean, VA 703-345-4377 www.WashingtonianPlasticSurgery.com

Rachel Cohn Optometrist, Wink Eyewear Boutique

Glasses should reflect the way you want to be viewed by the world, flattering your face but also matching your personality. The right eyewear is important. After all, when people converse, they look at each others' faces, not their designer bags or pricey shoes. And just as we change up our bags and shoes, we can do the same by having more than one pair of glasses at a time. My staff has both a sense of style and optical knowledge that will ensure that you find the perfect frame or frames for your face and your prescription. Experts suggest a variety of guidelines to consider when buying glasses, but we encourage people to have fun trying on lots of pairs, even things that don't have immediate appeal. Try tortoise or sophisticated black. Don’t be afraid of color as it can add life to your face. Something different might be a good surprise. 92

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TAMZIN B. SMITH PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY

1095 Seven Locks Road Potomac, MD 20854 301-545-1111 www.wink.net

PROFILES

physicians

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The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics Montgomery Orthopaedics Division

HILARY SCHWAB

CAO Montgomery Orthopaedics is one of the area's largest and most respected surgical and physical therapy practices with a 35-year history in the community. The practice offers particular expertise in minimally invasive techniques/arthroscopy, hand surgery, joint replacement, spine surgery, sports medicine and foot and ankle surgery. 8401 Connecticut Ave, Suite 800 Chevy Chase, MD 20815 301-949-8100 www.montgomeryorthopaedics.com

At CAO Montgomery Orthopedics you will find highly trained, compassionate physicians who focus on treating their patients with a conservative yet efficient approach. Our primary goal is to get you healed—as quickly as possible. We take pride in seeing patients in a timely and professional matter. Our Xpress Care Program enables us to see acute injuries on a same day, and walk-in basis. Don't bother with the inconvenience of a trip to the ER. Our staff understands the need for prompt diagnosis and treatment of emergent orthopaedic injuries and fractures. The experienced physicians and physician assistants are available for same day and next day evaluation, x-rays, treatment and followup of your urgent orthopaedic needs. CAO Montgomery Orthopaedics is a state-of-the-art facility equipped with on-site parking, digital x-ray capture, and ultrasound, also utilizing an advanced electronic medical record system. There is also on-site physical therapy and occupational hand therapy, as well as

custom bracing and orthotic fitting. The physicians at CAO Montgomery Orthopaedic are highly trained subspecialists with perennial Top Doctor awards and decades of experience in all aspects of orthopedic surgery. We are focused on getting you in quickly, so you can get the treatment you need.

Antoni B. Goral, MD, FAAOS David E. Gwinn, MD, MA, FAAOS Clifford Hinkes, MD, FAAOS John J. Keeling, MD, FAAOS Daniel J. Pereles, MD, FAAOS Philip L. Schneider, MD, FAAOS Harrison Solomon, MD, FAAOS Megan Baird, PA-C Not Pictured: Taylor Raum, PA-C

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interview

A CONVERSATION WITH

JAMIE RASKIN AND SARAH BLOOM RASKIN The congressman and his wife talk about meeting in law school at Harvard, how they were changed by the riot at the Capitol, and the acts of kindness inspired by the death of their son, Tommy BY STEVE ROBERTS | PHOTO BY MICHAEL VENTURA

ON JAN. 6, Sarah Bloom Raskin was home in Takoma Park watching the assault against the U.S. Capitol on television. Just the day before, she and her husband, Rep. Jamie Raskin, had buried their 25-year-old son, Tommy. Now, Jamie, the couple’s daughter Tabitha, and their daughter Hannah’s husband, Hank Kronick, were all at the Capitol, threatened by a menacing mob. “We were petrified,” Sarah says. “I was thinking, has my life taken this dramatic turn where I’m going to be losing my entire family?” Jamie, Tabitha and Hank had gone to the Capitol to witness the ceremonial counting of the Electoral College ballots making Joe Biden president. Jamie says the confluence of the two events—the suicide of their son and the storming of the Capitol—has left an indelible mark: “We experienced the violent attack on Congress and the insurrection against the government, which was a public trauma to accompany our family trauma. In that period of about a week, a lot of basic pillars of my existence were demolished. We lost one of the three people most precious to us, and we discovered the precariousness of democracy itself.” Six days after the insurrection, House Democrats voted to pursue the impeachment of President Donald Trump, and Raskin—a former professor of constitutional law at American University whose district covers about half of Montgomery County—was named the lead manager of the effort. Trump’s Senate 94

trial in February ended in his acquittal, but Raskin’s eloquent speeches, and his emotional invocation of his son’s memory, converted him from a relatively obscure third-term congressman to a national figure. Jamie and Sarah published a lengthy essay about their son’s death in January, and now Jamie is writing a book about the events of the last few months. “As I kept saying through the trial, I had no doubt that Tommy Raskin was with me in my heart the whole time,” he says. “It gave me a sense of calm and a sense of purpose about what we were doing.” Jamie, 58, grew up in Washington and attended Georgetown Day School before going on to Harvard for his undergraduate and law degrees. His father, Marcus, was a major figure in the anti-war movement of the 1960s. His mother, Barbara, wrote an influential feminist novel, Hot Flashes, which was on the New York Times’ bestseller list for four months. “I grew up as a feminist kid because I was surrounded by strong, intelligent women,” Raskin says. So it is not surprising that he married one. Sarah, 60, has held a string of high-level jobs, including as a governor of the Federal Reserve system and deputy treasury secretary under President Barack Obama. Now a visiting professor at Duke Law School, she graduated from Amherst College before attending Harvard Law, where the couple met. I talked to them via Zoom in early May.

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6/10/21 4:33 PM

Sarah and Jamie Raskin with their dog Toby at home in Takoma Park

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How did the two of you meet? Jamie: Sarah was in her third year, an older woman. I was in my second year. We were both in the same constitutional law class and we sat across from each other in this huge, cavernous lecture hall. And I used to go basically just to look at Sarah, and I could have sworn she was looking right back at me the whole time, but it turns out that she didn’t have her contact lenses in. We didn’t actually meet until the end of the semester. I was in the library coming down the stairs, and Sarah was coming up the stairs and we passed each other. My heart started to beat, and then I said, ‘Hi.’ And she said, ‘Hi.’ And then she said, ‘What’s your name?’ And I said, ‘Jamie.’ And she said, ‘Oh good. I just wanted to know because I did dream about you last night.’ So that was the beginning of our friendship. I kept going back to the library at that point, bringing her chocolate brownies or ice cream or whatever I could find; I had no money. How did you come to settle in Montgomery County? Jamie: When I got back here and started teaching, Sarah and I started asking people, what would be a great place for us to live? Everybody said you’ve got to go check out Takoma Park. And I fell in love with it immediately. Takoma Park is really an old-fashioned town, and that’s what we were looking for. It’s got progressive family values, it’s a very kidoriented community. Everybody lives for the Fourth of July and Halloween and the soccer league and the baseball league and going to the farmers market. Our public school was right up the street, and the parents would meet at the corner with their coffee to walk the kids to school and catch up. I thought it’s really a storybook community. We’re creatures of habit, so we fit right in, and our kids always loved it. Sarah: We’re in the same house that we started in. I hadn’t ever seen a town like 96

this before, these Victorian houses and big old trees that completely create this canopy, a refuge. It was very unlike where I had grown up in the suburbs of Chicago. This was something different for sure. Jamie: When I got back from the impeachment trial, the neighbors had put up all these lovely signs thanking us, and quotes from me at the trial and stuff like that. It was just very moving; this is just home for us. It’s the only place Sarah and I have ever lived together. Jamie, you spent 10 years in the state legislature—how did you decide to run for Congress? Jamie: I decided impulsively. It was not on my mind because everybody thought that Chris Van Hollen [the 8th District congressman at the time] was going to stay in office and try to become the speaker of the House. And then Chris called me up and he said that Sen. [Barbara] Mikulski was going to step down. He asked, ‘Will you support me?’ And I said, ‘Chris, not only will I support you— I’ll run for your seat.’ I just knew right at that moment it was something that I wanted to do. Election night was a great night for our family, but also a pretty horrible night, too, because Donald Trump won at the exact same time. I was going to be a freshman member of the minority party with a Republican president. Sarah, did it change family life at all to have him in Congress, especially since his district is so close to Washington? Sarah: It certainly thrusts you into the public eye for everything. Jamie is always on call. A lot of the members, when they come to Washington, they’re probably not even recognizable, they actually can have some private space. But Jamie, he’s always the congressman, wherever he is. So we can be walking our dogs in the morning and people will come up and Jamie essentially will be holding office

hours or doing constituent service when we’re just out walking. Does that ever intrude on your privacy as a family? Sarah: No. I think Jamie gets a lot of energy actually from being here and from being around constituents. Jamie: I’m definitely the more extroverted of the two of us, and Sarah’s right—I do derive a lot of energy from interacting with people and going to events. I mean, COVID-19 was terrible in a lot of ways, but it was especially hard on extroverts who couldn’t go out and mingle with people. Sarah has been a great sport about it all, and she comes to all of the major important stuff, but I only made her go knock on doors with me one time, I think, in my entire political career. After we got to the second door and somebody shooed us away like a dog, which happens every now and then, Sarah was so traumatized she said she wanted to go home and take a nap. Being a Fed governor doesn’t train you well for retail politics? Jamie: When she was a Fed governor, she was able to say no to everything. And that was the same with deputy secretary of the treasury. I think she keeps getting these really important jobs so she has a good reason not to have to go out and campaign with me. You can never say to anybody in Takoma Park or Bethesda, ‘Sorry, I can’t do that, I’m going to be in Washington.’ You’re living here, and there are a lot of demands on your time, and that is not true for many members of Congress. Jamie: You’re catching me at a time when I’m feeling especially grateful to all of my constituents because people have been so amazingly supportive of us. We have 10,000 letters at our house. People have brought us food, chocolate chip cookies and banana bread, and they

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have been very kind to us about Tommy and supporting us through the impeachment process, too. You’ve talked very publicly about Tommy and about the depression that ultimately consumed him. In the last few months, what have you learned that you didn’t know before? Sarah: One thing I’ve learned since Tommy died is that not everybody understands depression really is a disease and to actually speak about it as a disease is quite liberating for people’s understanding. Jamie: There really should be no stigma associated with depression. We should be able to understand it as an illness. And when you put it in that context, and because we did put it in that context, we’ve received a lot of letters and outreach from people who want to tell us that they are going through it themselves, and they find it to be important that it’s seen as an illness but doesn’t define a person. Give me an example or two of people who have drawn a lesson or an inspiration from Tommy’s life. Sarah: We hear about something every day. We got a letter from the woman who’s married to the ambassador in Burma. We don’t know her, she doesn’t know us, but she had read what Jamie and I wrote about Tommy. And she decides that she is going to organize this gift to an orphanage in Rangoon of over 400 pounds of cooking oil and 200 boxes of toiletries, this massive drive for this orphanage in a war-torn area. And she said, ‘We did this in the name of Tommy Raskin.’ Jamie: We just got an email today from a veterinarian in Michigan who said she was inspired by our friend Kari McDonough, who lives in Takoma Park. Kari had started something right after we lost Tommy called Acts of Goodness for Tommy Raskin. She invited

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everybody to do an act of goodness, and then she asked them to email them to her, and she created a website and then they would present them to us as a gift in honor of Tommy. And it started off as just a local thing in Takoma Park with the McDonoughs and their family. Then hundreds of people started doing it around here, then thousands across Maryland, and then all over the world. Sarah: One person wrote, ‘I found a kitten under the car and I gave it to my 92-year-old father.’ Another said, ‘I bought groceries for a neighbor because I thought about what would Tommy Raskin do.’ Somebody gave an anonymous contribution of $5,000 for mosquito nets because mosquito nets are really important for controlling malaria. We have pages and pages of these acts of goodness. A few days after he died, we decided to create the Tommy Raskin Memorial Fund for People and Animals to raise money for the causes that he believed in and to advance his values. And there’s more than a million dollars in it now. It’s run by his sisters and cousins and people in their generation, their friends and Tommy’s friends. And they gave away their first $40,000 to Oxfam to do civilian relief work in Yemen because of the war there. There’s a group that Tommy worked for in California called Mercy For Animals, and our fund is financing paid internships because they had only unpaid internships. How and why do you think this happened? What was it about Tommy’s story, Tommy’s life, that touched so many people? Jamie: Well, I have thought a lot about it. The thing that was truly amazing about him was this overwhelming love and compassion that he had for the world and for people and animals. And he had a sense of urgency about other people’s pain and suffering. You and I can read about what’s happening in the Yemen 98

war, or about children who are being trafficked in Thailand, and we hope our political leaders will do something about it. But for Tommy, it was like he’d just gotten a phone call from a close friend or one of his sisters to say there’s this emergency situation, something must be done. The quote that he frequently invoked was Father Daniel Berrigan saying that Dorothy Day lived as though the truth were true. And Tommy quoted him a lot, because what he meant was that other people’s pain and suffering and their longing for things in life are real. And we have to treat them like they’re real. And so that kind of sensibility is so uncommon in people that when someone comes along with that kind of spirit, it touches the world. The terribly sad thing is that he internalized so much of his own pain and depression about how bad things were getting. My perspective has changed in that I see his situation now as not just part of his own individual journey, but also it’s very connected to what was going on in the country and in society. We lost him on the last day of 2020, which has got to be one of the worst years in American history, where we lost hundreds of thousands of our people to a plague while the leader of our government hawked quack miracle cures and refused to organize a real strategy to defeat the disease. So it was a time of great chaos and darkness, and luckily we’re out of it now, and it is a terrible tragedy for us that we weren’t able to get Tommy out of that year before it ended. Sarah, what’s your take on how and why Tommy’s story has touched so many people? Sarah: I think it was Tommy having this exceptional sensibility that Jamie talks about. Tommy was teaching a section of students in an undergraduate course at Harvard; it was called Justice. And he took a portion of his paycheck and he actually made contributions in the name

of the individual students in his class. Jamie: The other thing to keep in mind is that the depression didn’t manifest itself with a gloom and a heaviness. Tommy was a fun-loving, hilarious, light-hearted, lively person, and so I think there was probably this element of shock for people to realize that depression can coexist with such a life-affirming kind of person. Sarah: Tommy was the friend that his friends could turn to for help on anything from school to family to relationships to career. Jamie: He was very wise in that he connected with people’s longing and their hopes. So it’s tremendously painful that we lost him, but he galvanized people’s goodness, because people couldn’t bear to think that that kind of light in the world just goes out, you know? We’ve always quoted my father, who used to say, ‘If everything looks hopeless, you’re the hope.’ And Tommy was the hope for so many people. We’d obviously much rather have Tommy back with us, but we can be proud that his memory still lives through these acts of goodness and these values that people were upholding. How have you both been changed? You talk about other people. What about each of you? Sarah: It’s still kind of early to know precisely. But I can tell you that you’re not the same. I’m not on the same path I might’ve been on; your sense of priorities is definitely rearranged. One of the things that I’ve seen through these last several months is the caring and the nurturing and the love that has been extended to us. This kind of force is usually invisible to people, and yet it’s an extraordinary force. A lot of people who have a loss, they know what this is about. They know if you’re going to love, you’re going to lose, right? So this isn’t a kind of problem to get over, this loss of a loved one. You don’t get over it. You don’t. You don’t. I come from an economic policy world where you measure things. Everything is

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measurable, and if you can’t measure it, it kind of doesn’t exist. But there’s a lot we can’t measure in terms of compassion and care and love, and to me that’s really what it’s about. Sen. [Don] Riegle [Democrat of Michigan], the first person I worked for on the Hill, sent a very beautiful note at the beginning, while Jamie and I were in a complete kind of hell here, trying to make sense of everything that had happened and just in a complete state of shock. Maybe this is going to sound trite, but he said, ‘You can spend a lot of time trying to figure out what happened. But in the end, only two things matter. And that is that you loved Tommy and he loved you.’ I thought, that’s it, that’s all it is. We loved him. He loved us. And that is not at all quantifiable. But guess what? That is the core. We did everything we could. When we knew that Tommy was suffering from depression, we did everything humanly possible. And in the end, there was someM&WLawFirm_forPRINT.indd thing much more powerful than anything that the two of us could do. And so what we’re left with is love.

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Have you been changed, Jamie? Jamie: We’ve experienced terrible trauma. And the word trauma is from the Greek word for wound. And the psychologists tell you that trauma is a violent assault on a person and all of their expectations about the world. So it’s something that demolishes all of your assumptions, like your child will always be with you as long as you’re alive. It’s a terribly disorienting thing. If you experience trauma like this, you can either try to run a million miles away from your life and just say you have somehow failed everybody because there is a lot of selfblame and self-prosecution involved. Or you can try to dive back in and deepen the bonds of relationship and love. Tommy’s got two amazing, incredible sisters who we love infinitely, and we have lots of family members and lots of friends who we would do anything for. And they need us now more than ever. BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021

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You were talking about how this tragedy focuses both of you on what’s important, the relationships and the love that Sarah described. And yet this period has also made you a national figure in a way that you were not six months ago. You are a different person, in terms of your public reputation. How do you think about that? Jamie: I’m writing a book about Tommy and about these events to try to understand them. There was a lot of passion at the [impeachment] trial. And I told my managers not to censor the passion. We had spent so much time going over the facts of the case and going over our legal argument that I felt that we had that down cold, and I didn’t want people to leave the passion behind. That passion was built on a lot of anger about what had taken place in terms of a violent attack on the Congress and on the election in an attempt to nullify Joe Biden’s victory and essentially overthrow the democracy, and that anger in turn rested on a lot of love for our country and for our Constitution and for what America has done for all of our families. Tommy gave me a lot of emotional and intellectual clarity about what we were doing. Tommy was somebody who couldn’t stand violence at any level— domestic violence, war, violence against animals. If he had seen what happened on Jan. 6, and that Tabitha and Hank were in harm’s way, that would have broken his heart. But I felt that he was standing with us. I felt he was really in my heart when I was arguing that the Constitution and the rule of law is all we’ve got against that kind of violence and chaos that Donald Trump helped bring down on us. There’s a scene you’ve described many times with Tabitha and Hank really fearing for their lives and sending out messages, thinking they might be their last ones. Were you there? Jamie: No, they were in [House Majority Leader] Steny Hoyer’s office, just off the House floor, and they had locked the 100

door. They had barricaded it with furniture and hid under the desk, but people were banging on the doors, just like they were banging on the doors of the House floor. That is a sound I will never forget, of them barreling up against the door. It sounded like a battering ram. A lot of us moved towards the door to try to protect it. And then Capitol officers came running in with their firearms drawn telling us to back off. And they guarded that door, but we evacuated pretty soon thereafter. You’ve quoted Tabitha saying she never wanted to go back to the Capitol. How does she feel today? Has she been back? Jamie: No, she’s not been back yet. I haven’t asked her back yet. She knows we would love for her to come back at some point, but we’ll let her take her time. I mean, it was really a traumatic event. And I felt terribly guilty because I had assured them that there could be no violence inside the Capitol, and I was wrong about that. Both Tabitha and Hank told me what a lot of the young staff people have told me, which is they assumed that someone had an assault weapon because that’s what they grew up with, from Columbine to Sandy Hook to the Pulse nightclub to the Tree of Life synagogue. This has been the experience of a generation. And so what they knew was that hundreds and hundreds of people were entering the Capitol with Confederate battle flags, chanting, ‘We want Trump’ and ‘Hang Mike Pence,’ and they’d come in without going through the metal detectors, they’d come in without any security screening at all. And so, in a situation like that, people’s minds leap to the worst possible conclusion. Lindsey Graham [Republican senator from South Carolina] said when it was all over, we all could have died. One of those people could have had a bomb. And it’s true. And of course, Sarah, you were in such a fragile state since you had

buried Tommy just the day before. The impact must’ve been so magnified in terms of your reactions. Sarah: That’s exactly right. Anything can put you over the edge in that state. Where my mind was going was horrifying. Horrifying. Did it cross your mind, too, that they might have weapons? Sarah: Completely, completely. That was what we were saying: Do they have guns? Do they have guns? Has there been shooting? That’s the frame by which we look at all these issues now, the frame of gun violence. What’s your reaction to the attempt to downplay the significance of Jan. 6 by Trump and his supporters? Jamie: First of all, we had an extraordinary team of impeachment managers. They were remarkably good and focused and disciplined, and 57 to 43 is a resounding statement of the president’s guilt in inciting a violent insurrection against the republic. It is essential that we did that and you can see why today, because they are already trying to engage in an Orwellian retelling of the whole event. I mean, if you listen to Donald Trump, he said that his followers entered the Capitol hugging and kissing the Capitol officers. I don’t think so; more than 140 of them were injured because of the violence being rained down upon them by the insurrectionary mob. It’s just a lie, and it is now an ancillary lie supporting the big lie that Donald Trump actually won the election. So I’m glad that we created a meticulous documentary record in words and in video that will never go away, and it will be a standing refutation to Trump’s big lies. Tell me about the book you’re writing. What do you want it to accomplish? Jamie: I’m trying to capture the spirit and the life force of our beautiful son, trying to talk about some of the values of our family. And then I’m trying to talk about

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the beauty and the fragility of democracy, and how close we came to losing it all on Jan. 6 and how that wasn’t the end of the struggle. That really puts us in the middle of the struggle right now. The Republican Party now has positioned itself outside of the constitutional order. 2020 was an extraordinary year for a lot of reasons, and one of them was that the Republican Party had no platform. It was the first time in history that either the Republican or the Democratic party chose not to adopt a platform. What does that tell you? Well, Donald Trump was their platform; whatever he says goes. That is the sign of either a political dictatorship or a religious cult of personality. So we have to defend everything right now, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and democracy, and everything

that our parents and grandparents and prior generations have built. We are upholding the legacy of the people who fought and died in World War II to stop fascism and to uphold democracy. They saw Nazis marching down the street, and they didn’t see good people on both sides. They knew it was time to go and fight to defend the free world. And our parents and grandparents fought in the civil rights movement and the women’s movement and the labor movement and the environmental movement and LGBTQ movement and this is our legacy. If Donald Trump and a bunch of neo-Nazi extremists think that they’re going to storm the Congress and we’re going to roll over and give them our democracy and everything that our parents and grandparents fought and died

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for, they don’t know who they’re dealing with. They don’t know who we are. Sarah, what are you doing to mark this period, to process it, to crystallize the lessons and the legacy of what you’ve been through? Sarah: I’m with my family, with the girls and my mother and my brother and Jamie’s siblings, our friends, figuring out how we weave Tommy into our lives going forward. That’s the path I’m on, figuring out what values he stood for and keeping them alive in the work that we do. n Steve Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. The Bethesda Interview is edited for clarity and length.

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STAYING

STRONG

The pandemic threatened to put these Asian restaurant owners out of business, and racism continues to test their resilience BY DAVID HAGEDORN | PHOTOS BY DEB LINDSEY

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Chris Zhu, co-owner of China Garden in Rockville

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IN EARLY MARCH, Javier Fernandez

instituted a buddy system at his Rockville restaurant, Kuya Ja’s Lechon Belly. In the past, a manager or sous-chef often locked up the restaurant alone, sometimes staying well beyond the 9 p.m. closing time, but now Fernandez encourages staff to leave together—never by themselves—and to keep an eye on each other as they walk to their cars in the White Flint Plaza parking lot. News stories throughout the pandemic about anti-Asian hate around the country have been unsettling to Fernandez, 37, who lives in Rockville with his wife, Jennifer, and their two young daughters. “It has been a roller coaster of emotions about the Asian hate going on,” he says. “I was born in the Philippines

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and grew up in [Montgomery County], and never really thought [being Asian] was a big problem, but this past year it feels like we’re being targeted, especially as a business and what’s going on with Chinese restaurants. Every day I feel like we have to watch our backs. Going for a run, I think, ‘What if a driver drives by and thinks I’m Asian and spits on me?’ ” Two incidents early this year in which women of Asian descent were followed home from their Montgomery County restaurants and robbed violently at gunpoint (one on Jan. 7, the other on Feb. 16) hit Fernandez close to home—the parHollywood East Cafe owner Janet Yu and her sons Tim (left) and Corey, who work at the restaurant with her

ents of one of his managers own a Chinese carryout not far from one of the victims’ restaurants. This made it clearer to Fernandez that all Asians are in this fight together. Fernandez says that being Filipino, rather than Chinese, doesn’t mean he’s less susceptible to anti-Asian hatred, because the people who express it don’t necessarily make a distinction. Jennifer Fernandez, 33, who handles the payroll and marketing for Kuya Ja’s and, before the pandemic, worked the line or the counter when necessary, says, “They start with Chinese and then they group all Asians as Chinese. I was hoping that as a Filipino establishment we’d be less targeted, but at the same time we are all Asian.” Jennifer says she often experienced

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anti-Chinese bullying while at Damascus High School, where there were few Asian students. “I’m actually mixed— Chinese, Cambodian and Thai,” she says. “My parents were welcomed here as refugees [from Cambodia]. They didn’t do anything illegal to get here, if that’s what [people are] thinking. Plenty of times growing up, people would say to me, ‘Go back to China.’ I’ve never been to China. I was born here. I’m American.” The anti-Asian environment was so pervasive when she went to the University of North Carolina Wilmington that she transferred to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) after one semester. That’s where she and Javier met in 2006. “Some people [at school] called [UMBC] ‘You Must Be Chinese’ because it has a large Asian population,” Javier says.

ALL CULTURES BRING something

special to the table, including Asian entrepreneurs, who contribute significantly to Montgomery County’s food scene. Of the 10 new restaurants spotlighted in Bethesda Magazine’s May/June 2021 issue, four are Asian—Hawkers Asian Street Food (pan-Asian), ChiKo (Chinese Korean) and two Indian restaurants, Chennai Hoppers and Virraaj Fine Indian Cuisine. Of more than 375 restaurants in the magazine’s dining guide, about 20% are Asian. The pandemic hit all small business owners hard, but Asian Americans bore and continue to bear the extra burdens of xenophobia and racism, with the fear of verbal or physical attacks hanging over them. On March 16, 2020, the day Gov. Larry Hogan ordered bars and restaurants closed for indoor dining, thenPresident Donald Trump referred to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus” in a tweet. A University of California, San Francisco study published a year later that analyzed nearly 700,000 tweets the week before and after March 16 found that “there was a significantly greater increase in anti-Asian hashtags associated with #chinesevirus compared with #covid19.” Recently, Stop AAPI (Asian

American and Pacific Islander) Hate, an organization founded on March 19, 2020, to track self-reported incidents of antiAsian hate, violence, harassment, bullying and shunning in the U.S., announced that 6,603 such incidents took place between that date and March 31, 2021, with a significant jump in March 2021. Chris Zhu, the majority owner of China Garden in Rockville, recounts that before the restaurant closed for the shutdown, a customer who had to wait a little for his takeout said, “F--- China! F--- Wuhan! F--- the Wuhan virus!” on his way out the door. Danny Lee, who opened an outlet of ChiKo in Bethesda this past January, says that such comments shouldn’t be taken lightly. “I’ve been called ‘China virus’ many times walking to my car [in Washington, D.C.]. Even though it’s verbal, it’s an assault. It’s not a brush-it-off innocent comment. It is a hateful assault.” Chef Satang Ruangsangwatana, coowner of Silver Spring-based Thai supper club Fat Nomads, now drives from her Wheaton home to a consulting gig at Thai Chef Street Food in Dupont Circle. “I would get harassed on the Metro by people talking mock Chinese to me. One day, I was wearing black pants and a white shirt and they called me ‘panda.’ I’m a middle-aged person. I’m in the target group,” says Ruangsangwatana, 42. On March 16, 2021, six of the eight people killed in shootings at three Atlanta-area locations were women of Asian descent. It hasn’t been determined in a court of law that these were antiAsian hate crimes, but Lydia Chang, who spearheads business development for her family’s restaurant group—which includes Q by Peter Chang in Bethesda and Peter Chang Rockville—doesn’t require proof. Three days after the Atlanta-area shootings, Chang, 33, wrote a piece for the restaurant software and media company Resy entitled, “What It’s Like to be an Asian American Restaurant Owner Right Now.” In it, she expresses her frustration when people ask her how she knows that crimes—including two

smashed-window burglaries at Chang properties, one at Q this past January and the other two months later at their Baltimore restaurant, NiHao—are anti-Asian. “I want to say to them: ‘Do you know what it feels like to be an Asian American right now?’ ” she wrote. “How do you actually prove a hate crime against Asian Americans? In a lot of these cases, you can’t. But we do see a pattern here; a lot of the victims are Asian, so how do you explain that? How do people around us not know that that matters?”

THE LUNAR NEW YEAR on Jan. 25, 2020, should have meant big business for Chinese restaurants in the U.S., with celebrations taking place for weeks afterward. Chinese restaurant owners had indications early in 2020 that their businesses could be in for a rough ride. Information about COVID in China was being shared on WeChat, the app many Chinese Americans use to communicate with relatives in China. Lockdowns were taking place in various Chinese cities in January 2020. Wuhan went under quarantine on Jan. 23. On Jan. 27, the city of Rockville canceled its annual Lunar New Year festival scheduled for Feb. 1. A week later, Chris Zhu knew there was a problem at her 8,600-square-foot, 400-seat restaurant and banquet hall, which specializes in dim sum and Cantonese food. “That was the day we had our lion dance for the New Year,” she says, referring to the ceremony in which dancers in a lion costume make their way through the crowd for prosperity and good luck. “Usually we’d be full, with a line to get in, but we weren’t. Many large parties, each for maybe 200 or 300 people, canceled in February.” Chinese people, who account for at least half of her clientele, weren’t in the mood for celebrating and were afraid to go out. Employees didn’t want to come to work. Zhu says she noticed less non-Chinese business at the restaurant at the onset of the pandemic. After the incident with the customer spewing racial insults, Zhu, who is 41 and lives in North Potomac, experienced sadness

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and a shocking bolt of reality, because she hadn’t previously experienced any such enmity. “I realized that this coronavirus will really affect my business because of some of the American thinking,” she says. It’s hard to say if that business has returned to its pre-pandemic level because her customers still prefer takeout to dining inside or on the restaurant’s 15-seat patio. Zhu and a business partner bought the original China Garden, which had opened in Rosslyn, Virginia, in 1973, from its owners, Ken and Linda Lee, in 2015. When the landlord bought back the lease two years later, Zhu moved China Garden to Rockville. The Lees had taken Zhu under their wings when she emigrated from Canton in China in 2000 to get married. Her wedding was at China Garden, as was her daughter’s first birthday. (A child’s first birthday is a seminal celebration in Chinese culture.) Zhu became a certified image consultant in 2006. “Community leaders encouraged me to create a pageant to teach the younger generation to have a good image,” she says, so she started the Washington Metropolitan Miss Chinese American Pageant in 2008, which became the Pacific Miss Asian American Beauty Pageant in 2013. The Lees entrusted China Garden to Zhu, who had created a wide networking base in the Chinese American community. She considered carrying on the restaurant’s legacy a tremendous honor, so it was especially heartbreaking for her to watch the business dwindle from a full dim sum house to a nearly empty one in early March 2020. When the shutdown came on March 16, she closed the business, stuck with a huge Lunar New Year inventory and a rent of $32,000 a month. She reopened on Mother’s Day, jettisoning pages of the menu and serving only takeout dim sum. “We couldn’t just not pay rent. We negotiated with the landlord to pay less—$26,000—for half a year and got on WeChat, organizing remote deliveries of 30 orders each, cash and check only, to 20 parking lot pickup points a day.” 106

China Garden resumed indoor seating at 50% capacity with social distancing this March. “The chefs are coming back. Business is catching up gradually. Now we pay full rent again,” Zhu says. “We survived.”

PERMANENTLY CLOSING HER

Rockville restaurant, Hot Pot Legend, this past April emotionally devastated Ming Chou, 60. “Even though I was a small businesswoman for a long time, I had never failed before. I was really depressed,” she says. Chou’s business problems during the pandemic were largely the result of having a concept that flew in the face of social distancing and that relied greatly on Chinese labor and clientele. Still, she says, her business dropped considerably in February 2020 while non-Asian restaurants remained full, and she attributes the precipitous drop in business (eventually about 90%, she estimates) partly to nonAsian people being afraid to eat in Chinese restaurants. Chou, who lives in Derwood with her husband, two grown children and mother, has loved the restaurant business since she emigrated from Taiwan to join her parents here in 1981. In 1989, the three of them opened China Harvest in Olney, and the restaurant closed in 2005. Impressed by the Hot Pot Legend franchise she discovered on a trip to Sichuan province, Chou acquired the rights to bring the concept to the U.S., opening a location in Rockville in July 2018. Much of her clientele was Asian, many of them Chinese students attending D.C.-area colleges. It took a while to appeal to a wider crowd. A YouTube video made by one of Chou’s managers and demonstrating the establishment’s all-you-can-eat concept—cooking bits of meat, seafood and vegetables by dipping them in a pot of bubbling stock set in the center of the table—helped get the word out. Eventually, there were lines to get into the 2,700-square-foot, 80-seat restaurant. “I realized when the pandemic started that I’d have to close the restaurant. Once people started hearing about COVID,

Caroline Yi (left) and her sister, Alex Lee, own Sunday Morning Bakehouse in North Bethesda’s Pike & Rose development.

business dropped. The Chinese employees were afraid to work,” Chou says. “In Rockville, there are so many Asians and they don’t go out to eat. If they pick [food] up, they wear double masks and double gloves and they had you put [their food] in the car for them.” Schools had closed and Chinese students returned to China, because, she surmises, their wealthy parents feared the U.S. government wouldn’t handle the pandemic well. “I closed on March 21 and reopened in late April [2020] as carryout only, but people don’t want hot pot to go. There were no orders, and the employees just sat there.” Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) money—$60,000—came and went. Without knowing when the pandemic would end, she stuck it out, not taking a pay-

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check and losing about $30,000 a month. The restaurant was so small that few people could dine there when 25% capacity was allowed. Also, hot pot—like dim sum carts, Korean barbecue, and buffets—is a communal experience that doesn’t adapt well to social distancing. Chou says the landlord was unwilling to negotiate on the rent, so she shuttered the restaurant. Chou had signed a pre-pandemic deal to open a Hot Pot Legend in Ashburn, Virginia. It opened in January, designed with social distancing in mind. It’s a much larger space and seats 160.

THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS IS

in Janet Yu’s blood. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from China in 1948 and settled in the Wheaton area. In 1960,

when Yu was 5, they opened China Royal restaurant in Silver Spring, which had a 30-year run. Yu opened Hollywood East Cafe, specializing in Hong Kong-style cooking, including dim sum, in 1996. It has been in its current location—Westfield Wheaton mall—since 2010. “I grew up in a restaurant and so did my four boys,” says Yu, who is 66. “The new [Chinese] generation’s thing is that most don’t go into the business, so when the parents get old, the business ends there. But two of my boys [Tim, 28, and Corey, 34] are still in it with me. They really stepped up.” Yu is hesitant to call out anti-Asian racism but attests to its existence and to having experienced it. She explains that some customers assume that she doesn’t

speak English because Hollywood East is a Chinese restaurant. When they realize she speaks it perfectly, she says, the discrimination stops. “Sometimes, I’m appalled to think that very sophisticated people would have that kind of feeling,” Yu says. “Each person is different. I wouldn’t say all of society is that way, but there still is a lot.” Hollywood East held its 2020 lion dance festivities on Jan. 25, before COVID panic really grew. “Yes, we did lose some business because there was some, ‘You guys started it,’ ” but all in all, Yu says, business was good for the Lunar New Year. The restaurant was busy, even after the March 16 shutdown, with carryout and delivery orders. “We operated through March and the beginning

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staying strong of April. Then my husband [Alan] got sick and my whole life changed,” Yu says. Yu remembers a customer coming in at the end of March without a mask when Alan was working. The next day, he developed symptoms of COVID. She relates what happened with the calm weariness of someone still in a state of shock. Alan’s symptoms worsened. On Thursday, April 9, Corey dropped him off outside the emergency room at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring. Yu spoke to her husband over the phone for the next two days. On Saturday, they intubated him. On Monday, before midnight, the hospital called to say Alan’s condition was dire and asked what Yu wanted them to do. “Save him,” she said. He died a few hours later. He was 64. She closed the restaurant for a month. Before she reopened, she had a company do deep cleaning and sanitizing. “The cooks, mostly Chinese, were afraid to

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come in at first. The stories from home were all over WeChat,” Yu says. She, her boys, a friend and her brother-in-law, who hadn’t cooked in 15 years, worked. She took difficult-to-make dishes off the menu and cut back hours. The pared down carryout operation is doing well, but Yu faces another obstacle—her lease expires at the end of June. The landlord, as of this writing, hasn’t told her if he’d renegotiate, and she doesn’t even know if she wants to. “Maybe I’ll do a food truck,” she says.

ROCKVILLE RESIDENT AND Mont-

gomery County native Caroline Yi opened Sunday Morning Bakehouse with her sister, Alex Lee, in North Bethesda’s Pike & Rose development in October 2019 and soon amassed a cadre of regulars who couldn’t get enough of pastry chef Yi’s croissants, doughnuts and brioche. “When the shutdown came, I

thought we’d be closed for a week—and that would be devastating. March 17 [2020] was the last day we were open. No one was coming in. There wasn’t a soul on Grand Park Avenue. My dad came in and said, ‘I think we’ll have to close,’ ” Yi says. She shut down for a couple of days, trying to figure out what to do. “My best way to communicate with my customers is through Instagram. I posted saying we had to close, but if you’re interested in preorder, I would do it. We got hundreds of responses.” Prepaid, contactless pickup orders from 9 a.m. to noon became the new normal for two months, and she sold out every weekend. In June 2020, Yi reopened for regular business with COVID precautions in place. The bakery returned to a pre-COVID level of sales a few months after reopening. Yi, 29, attended Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville and the University of Maryland, where she earned a

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bachelor’s degree in American studies. She says there are maybe two or three times in her life that she felt discriminated against, but she is keenly aware of the AAPI hate brought to the forefront during the pandemic and feels strongly about raising awareness. “A lot of people think if they don’t know someone personally that has been treated violently, it’s like it doesn’t exist,” she says. “I grew up in diverse places, Prince George’s County and Rockville. My high school was more than 30% Asian, but there was still subtle racism. I’d say I went to Wootton, and [people] would say, ‘Oh, Wonton High School?’ Asians and non-Asians alike would say that because it’s so normalized.” She talks of the times people have come into Sunday Morning Bakehouse, looked at her and asked if it’s an Asian bakery. “I tell them that the style is more French and American. I think, Do they see anything Asian in the case? I just

happen to be a Korean who likes to bake French-style pastries. I try not to take it too personally.” ALL OF THE MILLENNIALS interviewed for this story said that recent anti-Asian violence has prompted them to become outspoken. Says Lydia Chang, “For the longest time, we have been quiet and silent. We like to embrace and endure. In Chinese, there is a phrase—‘eating bitter.’ We are proud of eating bitter. It makes you more resilient. At the same time, we need to say, ‘Enough is enough!’ ” Chang and Javier Fernandez have participated in Chefs Stopping AAPI Hate, a series of dinners organized by D.C. chefs Tim Ma and Kevin Tien to raise money for nonprofits such as Stop AAPI Hate. At a fundraising dinner Danny Lee organized in April at his D.C. restaurant Anju, he raised $20,000 for EmbraceRace, an organization that pro-

motes children’s racial learning. Yi raised $1,000 for the American Civil Liberties Union by dedicating a weekend’s worth of bread sales to them. “Anti-Asian racism and hate have unfortunately been around for quite some time, but awareness in the American public has not,” Lee says. “There is anti-Asian sentiment and there always was,” Janet Yu says. “We work hard to earn respect, but I still don’t think we are treated the way we should be. My father came here and served in the U.S. Army. So did my uncles. A lot of Chinese people served. And of course, before that, our grandfathers built the railroads, but do people know that?” n David Hagedorn is the restaurant critic for Bethesda Magazine and the co-author of several cookbooks, including Rasika: Flavors of India and My Irish Table: Recipes from the Homeland and Restaurant Eve.

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‘She’s Still

My Mom’

Two years ago, Holly Gross was diagnosed with ALS, a disease she calls ‘a monster with no mercy.’ As her husband struggles with Parkinson’s, it’s her sons who mostly take care of her. She can’t use her voice, but she talks to them. She can’t move, but she keeps them on track. All they want now is more time with her. BY AMY HALPERN From left to right: Jake, Jim, Holly and Nicholas Gross outside of their Kensington home

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PHOTO BY LISA HELFERT

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EARLY ONE SATURDAY MORNING

this past spring, Holly Gross wanted to make sure her son Nicholas, then a senior at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, was up and getting dressed. His varsity rowing team had a regatta at 10 a.m. So she sent him a text from her bedroom down the hall: “Nicholas, wake up. It’s time for crew.” She wrote the message by directing her eyes toward the letters on an electronic keyboard attached to a metal stand by her bed. The device lets her send texts through WhatsApp, scroll through her

Facebook and Instagram pages, and ask Alexa to play her favorite music. Elton John, James Taylor, the Rolling Stones. With the assistive technology, Holly can remind Nicholas and his brother, Jake, who just finished his junior year of college online, to do their schoolwork, avoid eating too much junk food, and to keep the house clean—she doesn’t like messes. At 55, she cannot speak, walk or move, but even though her sons are caring for her these days, she’s the one in charge. “If I tell her I’m going to be up at 7 for crew or something…she automati-

cally wakes up at that time somehow— with some superpower or something,” Nicholas says. “She’s still my mom.” The first sign that something was wrong occurred on Thanksgiving Day in 2018. Holly and her husband, Jim, were hosting dinner for 14 people—a small group compared with the 40 or so they usually had over—and she couldn’t project her voice above the noise of the crowd. People noticed that she was quieter and sounded hoarse. As concierge manager of West End Plastic Surgery in D.C., she spent a lot of time talking to

Nicholas, a recent B-CC High School graduate, with his mom, Holly

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Porter, examining a patient, is getting twice as many inquiries as she did before COVID.

Nicholas (left) and Jake sometimes take breaks and walk over to the neighborhood basketball court.

clients, and suddenly found herself slurring her words. She thought it might be Bell’s palsy or Botox poisoning and started meeting with specialists—neurologists, endocrinologists—who ruled out possible causes, such as a stroke, a brain tumor, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. But her symptoms kept getting worse. In July 2019, during an appointment at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Holly got the news she had hoped she would never hear. Her younger sister, Angela Woods, will never forget the text Holly sent her. All it said was: ALS.

PHOTOS BY LISA HELFERT

HOLLY’S SONS HAVE HER sched-

ule down to a science: A nurse comes to their house in Kensington every weekday morning to give her a sponge bath, dress her and administer the medicines she takes when she wakes up. Then one of the aides the family hired takes over at 10 a.m. and leaves at 5. After that, one of Holly’s friends usually comes and stays until about 7:30. Before her illness, Holly hosted happy hours on Friday afternoons

to celebrate the end of the workweek. Now, the same women who used to stop by for cocktails work the machines that help keep her alive. Even with the extra support, Nicholas, 18, and Jake, 21, are their mom’s primary caregivers. They take turns sleeping next to Holly’s hospital bed, sharing the kingsized bed in the master bedroom with their dad. The boys are the ones who lift her and suction the mucus that builds up deep in her throat since she can no longer swallow. “I was horrible at it at first,” Nicholas says of learning how to clear his mom’s throat without hurting her. “It took me awhile to get used to it.” These days, just like before she got sick, Holly chats with her boys about their classes, activities, and whatever else is on their minds. Only now, she types and they talk. The brother who isn’t on overnight duty sits with Holly in the evening and watches CNN and TV sitcoms with her. Lately, she and Nicholas have gotten into How I Met Your Mother, and she’ll lecture him on never becoming like Barney, a womanizer. Around 9 p.m., at the end of

the evening shift, they give her the medications that calm her nerves and help her sleep. There are no medicines available to halt or even significantly slow the progression of ALS. “It’s a monster with no mercy,” Holly posted on her Facebook page last summer. In the morning, one of her sons carries her from the bed to her wheelchair and sets her down in her recliner in the living room. He attaches her Eyegaze tablet to the stand next to the chair so she can communicate with everyone. When she fixes her eyes on a letter, it appears on the screen. There’s also a series of preprogrammed phrases for things she says a lot: her boys’ names, I love you, I’m proud of you. Throughout the day, Holly’s sons work her nebulizer, oxygen concentrator, cough-assist machine and BiPAP, a device that helps her breathe. Some of the aides and volunteers know how to use the equipment, but some are still learning. Every night, one of the boys brings her to bed. Their father, Jim, a lawyer, has Par-

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Above: Holly and her younger sister, Angela, during the Thanksgiving holiday in 2019, about four months after her diagnosis Top right: The Gross family in 2014 Right: Holly and Jake in Boston in 2017

like Holly, have a worse survival outlook than those who have the more common form of the disease, according to Dr. Justin Kwan, director of the Neurodegenerative Disorders Clinic at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Kwan, who is not treating Holly, says the first symptoms of bulbar onset ALS include difficulty speaking, chewing and swallowing. Soon the disease destroys the motor neurons that assist in breathing and control the muscles in the arms and legs. Kwan

says about a third of all ALS cases are bulbar onset, and two-thirds of patients are diagnosed with spinal or limb onset ALS, which typically impacts the use of their arms or legs before they lose their ability to speak and eat. The first symptoms often include tripping and falling, muscle cramping and twitching, and dropping things. Holly’s friend Dr. Delia Fine, an internist at Bethesda Physicians, was with her at the ALS Clinic at Johns Hopkins

COURTESY PHOTOS

kinson’s disease but helps his wife as much as he can. The 73-year-old can help Holly use the bathroom, but with his tremors and weakened muscle control he can’t carry her or use the suction device, which she sometimes needs several times an hour. “My dad wants to help so bad, but he just physically cannot,” Jake says. “And I think it kills him that he wants to be that third person who can take some weight off me and my brother’s shoulders.” ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that traps its victims in their bodies, while in most cases leaving their minds intact. Also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, it has no known cure and is always fatal. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, ALS affects as many as 30,000 people in the U.S., about the same number as multiple sclerosis, and 5,000 cases are diagnosed every year, mostly in people between the ages of 40 and 70. Fifty percent of ALS patients live three or more years after their diagnosis; 20% live five years or longer; and up to 10% will survive more than 10 years. Patients who have bulbar onset ALS,

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On May 8, about 30 guests attended a private graduation for Nicholas in his backyard. A friend of Holly’s contacted B-CC Principal Shelton Mooney (pictured above in the blue robe) to see if he would perform the ceremony.

the day she got the diagnosis. As devastated as Holly was, Fine says, the first question she asked the doctor was, “Is it genetic—will my boys get it?” According to the ALS Association, 90% of the time, the cause of the disease is unknown; 5% to 10% of cases are due to genetic mutations. After undergoing testing, Holly learned that in her family there was likely no hereditary link. “Thank God [I] didn’t have it,” she says through her app. Fine suspected that even though previous specialists hadn’t explicitly told Holly they thought she had ALS, getting an appointment at the clinic—a leading research center for the disease—likely meant that she did. “It’s pretty much the worst news you can get as a human, as a parent—it doesn’t get much worse than that as a diagnosis,” says Fine, who lives in Kensington. “It’s not something a doctor is going to tell you unless they are really, really sure that’s what it is.” A few months after she was diagnosed, Holly went with Angela, who goes by Angel, to the Rockville headquarters of the local ALS Association chapter. Angel had learned about a support group and persuaded her sister to give it a try. Just as they pulled up in front of the building, they spotted an older man in his electric wheelchair, his body seemingly immobile. Holly was still wearing high heels and driving herself to work every day. The man in the wheelchair represented her future, one she wasn’t quite ready to face. She wouldn’t get out of the car.

PHOTOS BY LINDSEY MAX

ON A WINDY AFTERNOON this May,

Nicholas’ crew coach is standing in his launch yelling through the bullhorn: “Shoulders stay low! Shoulders stay still!” Nicholas and his teammates are pulsing through the choppy waters of the Potomac River—he’s the stroke on the second of B-CC’s varsity racing shells, the position that comes with the most responsibility. “He sets the pace of the boat, and more,” Holly boasts through WhatsApp. His team pushes off from Thompson Boat House in D.C. five or six BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021

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‘she’s still my mom’

days a week, practicing for about three hours a day and competing in regattas on most weekends from March through the end of the school year. “It’s a brutal sport,” says coach Dan Engler. “There’s no bench. There’s no whistle. You are either in the game or you’re out.” For Nicholas, being out on the water is the only break he gets from all the pressure at home. He can’t think about anything but rowing while he’s in the boat. His crewmates are his best friends— some have donated a portion of their allowances to the GoFundMe account set up for his mom—but they don’t really know the extent of his role as a caregiver. He doesn’t talk about that. “He wants people to see him [as] Nick Gross,” and not pity him for what he’s going through, one friend says. Engler got a sense of how serious things are during a practice this past March, when Jake’s girlfriend, Renee, called him in an attempt to reach Nicholas. The team was on the water, about an hour away from where they usually practice. “Nicholas has to check his cellphone right away,” Renee said. “OK, but we’re in Poolesville,” the coach replied. He didn’t know that Nicholas’ mom was struggling to breathe, or that Jake feared she was about to die. Engler wanted to protect his student’s privacy, so he announced over the bullhorn that the winds were picking up and the guys needed to turn around. Nicholas had gotten a ride to practice with a teammate, so they both jumped into the car and raced toward his house. By the time they arrived, Holly’s breathing had stabilized. Nicholas thinks she panicked when Jake got called into work—that meant only Jim and the aide would be home with her—but hearing that he was on his way calmed her. “That’s one of the things with ALS; you get emotional easier,” Nicholas says. “I still don’t think my teammates knew what happened that day.” Nicholas and Jake have always been close. When Nicholas was a baby and Holly would put him down for a nap, his 116

older brother was so eager to play with him that he’d march past the nursery talking loudly in hopes of waking him. From the time Nicholas was in kindergarten and Jake was in third grade, they’d get off the school bus together and run down to the cul-de-sac near their house to play football or basketball with the neighborhood kids. Jake joined the crew team at B-CC, so three years later Nicholas did, too. Jake loved having a year when they were on the same team. Renee used to joke that of course Jake thinks Nicholas is hilarious— his brother is his “mini-me.” These days, when Holly’s friends can spare an extra half hour before they leave, the boys head to the basketball court near their house for a quick game of oneon-one. If it were up to Jake, he’d play basketball with his brother every day. “I feel like I need to release all this energy. I need to go do stuff constantly to keep my mind off of it,” he says. But it’s getting harder to convince Nicholas to go. “Now I really have to pry it out of him,” Jake says. Since crew resumed in the spring, if Nicholas has any free time in the evening he’d rather get his homework done so he can play Call of Duty on Xbox later with friends online. “I know it sounds kind of lame, but it’s been a reset for me at times just to calm down,” he says, “because if I look into the future and think of all the things I have to do, it’s overwhelming.” Lately, the siblings have been yelling at each other more than ever, which Jake says is the hardest thing for their mom to take—her face gets red and she starts to cry. “It breaks her heart that her condition is causing this rift between us,” he says. This past school year, the journalism and political science major at Boston University lived at home and worked a part-time job as a delivery driver for a birdseed company. Last summer he was a congressional intern. “We both get pretty loud and competitive,” says Nicholas, who was extra busy throughout the school year deciphering college scholarship materials

and running the B-CC environmental group he founded two years ago that organizes local cleanup events. Now that he’s decided on Villanova University in Pennsylvania for the fall, it’s one less thing on his mind, but that didn’t make the past year any easier. “There [were] a lot of [arguments over] who has it harder and who should have an easier schedule helping my mom and stuff.” As difficult as the year has been on his sons, their dad worries just as much about what will happen to them when their mom is no longer around. “They love their mother very much,” he says, “and [they are] just too young…to lose [her].”

THE PROCEDURE TO PUT in Holly’s

feeding tube took place just before the pandemic started. “If she hadn’t had that surgery the first week in March,” Angel says, “COVID hit—and she probably wouldn’t be alive because they wouldn’t have been able to take her.” Holly’s recovery was painful and slow. Leading up to the surgery, she’d had so much trouble swallowing that her naturally thin frame had become even thinner. “If [patients] have lost a lot of weight, they have a hard time bouncing back,” says Joan Deye, a volunteer with the ALS Association for 40 years. For a week after the operation, Nicholas handled Holly’s care by himself. She was so worried about contracting the coronavirus that she didn’t want anyone coming over. A nurse had shown the high school junior how to work the feeding tube in his mom’s abdomen and the port in her chest for the medication she was taking at the time. “I had to pull up all the bandages and stuff, and pull up the needle because the nurses couldn’t come,” he says. When Jake came home after his college closed for COVID, Nicholas taught him what to do and the boys began splitting duties. Then Angel quarantined for two weeks and came up from North Carolina to help. Holly, who’s five years older than her sister, had been like a mother

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figure to Angel while growing up. Holly was the product of their mom’s first marriage, which ended when Holly was about 3. Their mother’s second husband— Angel’s father—legally adopted Holly, but that marriage fell apart, too, and he left. The girls and their mother moved several times. At one point they lived on food stamps, and the girls shared a mattress and got free lunch at school. “Now, when I look back, it was totally normal that when [Holly] went to spend the night at a friend’s that I came with [her],” Angel says. “It was totally normal that when she went on a date that I was going, too.” The three eventually moved to Delaware, but Angel left home at 16. Holly stayed to take care of their mother. “She’d make sure the litter box was clean, the bills were paid,” Angel says. Holly no longer has a relationship with her mom or with the man who adopted her. She’s close to her four half-brothers from her biological father’s second marriage. Two of them, who live in Ohio, “try and come once a month,” she types.

HOLLY AND JIM MET on the beach in

Rehoboth in 1995. She was 29, managing a day spa in Wilmington, Delaware, and newly divorced after a brief marriage. Jim, who was 47, had also been married previously, but neither had children and Holly was eager to be a mom. After dating for about a year, she moved into his brownstone in D.C., and in 1997 they got married in the Bahamas. A year later, they moved to Potomac and Holly became pregnant with Jake. In 2004, a year after Nicholas was born, Jim started noticing a tremor in his left arm that he thought was the result of playing too much racquetball. Soon after, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. The following year, the family moved into a custom home they’d built in Chevy Chase, but as Jim’s illness progressed, he had to pass on more work to other attorneys. Holly had been a stay-at-home mom, PTA president, and a frequent fundraiser for her kids’ schools. When

Nicholas started middle school, she took a job as an office manager at a dermatologist’s office. Over time, the family began to rely on her salary. With two college tuitions looming and their savings depleting, Holly and Jim decided to sell the home they loved and downsize to a small 1950s ranch house a mile away. The lavish holiday dinners the couple regularly hosted became more subdued, and the get-togethers Holly was known for became more sporadic, but her circle of friends was still as big as ever. Then came her diagnosis. Jim couldn’t go to the ALS clinic in Baltimore with Holly that day—his own symptoms have worsened, so he rarely ventures beyond his home and Chevy Chase office—but he’ll never forget when he saw her at home. “I felt like that scene in that movie about Stephen Hawking [The Theory of Everything],” he says, “when the doctor comes in and says, ‘There’s nothing more we can do, I’m sorry,’ and walks off, and Stephen Hawking was just left there sitting in the hall.” Nicholas was used to Holly seeing different doctors about her voice, but she’d never come home in tears. When she told him she had ALS, he didn’t remember that five years earlier he and his mom had done the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge together. “I had to ask Jake what [ALS] was,” Nicholas says. “He knew enough to tell me it was terminal, and it was bad.” The next day, Holly and the boys flew to Aruba for a short vacation they’d been planning for months. She wanted to keep things as normal as possible. For her birthday in January 2020, she went with her sister and some friends to Spain, Gibraltar and Morocco. She worked until late February, when it was no longer safe for her to drive into D.C. and her voice, especially on the phone, had become mostly unintelligible. By last summer, Holly needed help walking. In August, even with one of her sons holding her up, she fell in the bathroom and knocked the sink off the wall. After that, she relied more on her

wheelchair. Angel had been coming up about every three weeks since the start of COVID. But once Holly felt comfortable having other people over, one of her longtime friends, Carly Glazier, created a “Hanging with Holly” page on SignUpGenius. “I think there’s probably any one of us that you talk to who would say, ‘Holly’s my best friend,’ ” says Glazier, who met Holly at a Gymboree class when their oldest sons were babies. The two women bonded right away over being “girly girls” who loved Barbies yet found themselves the mothers of boys. “[Holly] mastered being a mom early on,” says Glazier, who lives in Bethesda. “Some of us are still figuring it out.” Jim calls his wife’s support system their “band of angels.” Often the women will go grocery shopping for the family or cover small bills and expenses. They’ve helped Nicholas follow up on scholarship information and handled insurance claims. They fill the slots on a meal calendar on Holly’s CaringBridge page and bring over home-cooked dinners most nights of the week. (The other nights, Nicholas, who used to cook with his mom, is the family chef—his specialty is pasta from scratch.) “Holly, before she got ill, was kind of the center—she was the one who organized a lot of things and really kept this group together,” says Iresha Fletcher, who lives in Chevy Chase. Fletcher became Holly’s unofficial hair colorist even though she’d never done it before. “The first time I did it, I missed a big patch in the back and we were laughing about it,” she says, “so the next time I was very careful.” Lauren Itzkowitz, who moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, several years ago, now drives up at least one weekend a month to visit Holly. She recalls her first trip back after Holly started experimenting with the eyetracking tablet, when Holly was typing out a long text to Jake complaining about Jim. Something went wrong, and the tablet read the message out loud—at a really

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‘she’s still my mom’

high volume, in its monotone computer voice, over and over again. “ ‘Your father kept me up all night long with his snoring’—it repeated like six times,” Itzkowitz says. Looking back on that day, Holly says through WhatsApp, “I was laughing (my version of laughing). Jim rolled his eyes. Lauren wanted to crawl under a table.” On Sunday afternoons, two of Holly’s friends give her a full bath and wash her hair. They blast George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” and The Beatles’ “Let It Be,” two of her favorite songs. A couple of the women on the Sunday shift are divorced, and they’ll use the time to update Holly on their dating lives. Don’t think so much about finding the perfect mate, she’ll tell them. Just enjoy yourself—you never know what the future holds.

WEARING A BLUE CAP and gown, Nicholas makes his way down his family’s small slate patio and up to the patch of grass where B-CC Principal Shelton Mooney, Assistant Principal Samuel Levine, and one of Nicholas’ favorite teachers, John Zehner, are waiting for him in their faculty robes. It’s a breezy afternoon in May, and Mooney has brought a recording of the B-CC band playing “Pomp and Circumstance” to accompany Nicholas’ walk down the makeshift aisle, past the 30 or so guests sitting in folding chairs. But with the short distance and Nicholas’ long strides, barely a stanza plays before he’s standing next to his principal. Mooney proclaims Nicholas the valedictorian of his private ceremony and tells him, “I look out right now and see people who are here to support you, support your family, because it’s the right thing to do and we want to help you succeed in life.” After Mooney gives a short speech, Holly watches as her son accepts his high school diploma and shakes his principal’s hand. One of Holly’s friends had contacted Mooney weeks earlier to ask if he would perform a graduation at the family’s home ahead of the schoolwide gradu118

ation scheduled for June. Doctors had advised against bringing Holly to any large public events, even something outdoors, because of her weakened immune system. She was happy to have the festivities in her backyard. Her only request: that they hold off on the celebration until Jake was done with finals. Nicholas’ crewmates fill two rows of seats, and Holly’s friends fill the rest. Her boys’ second grade teacher, Ottilie Droggitis, drove down from her new home in Maine. She’d been a regular at Holly’s happy hours—everyone Holly knew had a standing invitation. Holly’s devoted nursing assistant, a soft-spoken woman affectionately known as “Ms. G,” has brought her 12-year-old son. “I tell him every day, ‘I would like you to be like Nick,’ ” she says, though she usually refers to Nicholas simply as “N.” That’s what Holly started calling him once it became too difficult for her to say his name. After the ceremony, guests mingle around the table of food and drinks that neighbors set up on the far side of the patio. For several minutes, Holly is left in her wheelchair about 10 feet away, still facing the grassy area where the principal had given Nicholas his diploma. All the action is happening behind her and she wants to be part of it. “Turn me around,” she types. Jim says Holly’s dying wish is for her sons to graduate from college—she never got her degree. “That’s what she wants for them, and that’s what I want for her,” he says, “to have her wish fulfilled.” But for both boys to go away to school, the family will need to have round-the-clock caregivers. That costs money they don’t have. When asked what she worries about most for her boys, Holly doesn’t type a response. The question only makes her cry. According to the ALS Association, when patients are in the late stages of the illness, the out-of-pocket cost of care is typically around $250,000 a year. “It’s called the bankruptcy disease,” Jim says. Last summer, Joan Deye arranged for a

ramp and sidewalk to be installed at the Grosses’ house at no cost to the family. She’d reached out to a man she knew on the board of directors of The Invisible Hand Foundation, a D.C.-based group of anonymous donors that helps financially distressed families in times of crisis. It was the same man Holly had seen in his wheelchair in the ALS Association parking lot soon after she was diagnosed.

ON A SATURDAY NIGHT in late Feb-

ruary 2020, Holly looked beautiful and vibrant and full of life. She’d always been fashionable, and this evening was no different—she’d gone shopping with her friend Iresha to find the perfect cocktail dress. Holly’s niece, Angel’s daughter, had done her hair and makeup. She couldn’t wear heels, but “could still walk,” she says through the app, “no dancing.” She “wore a cute pair of sparkly sneakers,” she types, and calls it a “magical night.” Angel and a group of Holly’s friends had quickly organized a fundraiser and silent auction for Holly and the family at the now-shuttered Loft at 4935 in Bethesda. More than 150 guests waited in line to get in. “The coatracks kept falling over because there were so many coats,” Angel says. Several teachers from B-CC came to the event, including Nicholas’ crew coach. Holly’s friend Libby Nealis got the band she sings with to perform for free. Carly Glazier’s husband, Mitch, chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, arranged for one gold and one platinum record to be auctioned off. Other friends donated weeklong stays at their vacation homes, dinner parties, Capitals tickets—about 60 items in all. Nicholas auctioned off his signed Alex Ovechkin jersey, the one his mom gave him for Christmas when he was 11. She was hesitant at first about him donating it, he says, “but she understood that I was doing it to support her.” They raised more than $40,000 for Holly’s care. A year later, The Washington Post ran a story about Nicholas donating

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We Want Your Car. Fitzgerald Makes Selling or Trading In Your Car as Easy as One, Two, Three.

his prized jersey that night and included a photo of him holding it up when he was a kid. The Capitals saw the story and sent him another one. Today, when someone clicks on Holly’s GoFundMe website, the first thing ONE: Make an appointment TWO: Have your vehicle appraised they see is a glamorous black-and-white online or by phone. using ISO certified standards. photo of Holly taken several years ago. To the right of the picture is the amount raised to date. It looks like a lot of money, but it gets spent as soon as it comes in, says Angel, who runs the page. Their latest wish is to get a Hoyer lift, a sling-like contraption to move Holly from her bed to her wheelchair and back again. It’s covered by insurance, but they’ll have to widen the doorways and the shower area in the bathroom. They’ll likely have to move a wall or two. Insurance pays for some of the expenses but not all. Soon Holly will need paid caregivers 24/7, and “no insurance covers that,” Deye says.BETH MAG 2021_07_JULY/AUG_SQUARE_04.indd 1 For Holly, there’s always something coming up that gives her the strength to keep going: another Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter with her husband and sons. In September, Nicholas and Jake are slated to be signature speakers at the virtual Dine to Defeat ALS gala sponsored by the local chapter of the ALS Association. Holly wants to see her boys deliver their speeches and share the family’s story. She’d also like to help raise money for ALS research. It’s “shocking,” she types, “that they haven’t found a cure...look how quickly they did for [COVID].” Nicholas and Jake just want to have their mom around as long as they can. “She’s pushing past what anyone thought she could do—which is amazing,” Nicholas says. “My mindset is, ‘enjoy this now because it will get harder later,’ and ‘enjoy this now because you won’t have this later.’ ” n

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Amy Halpern is a journalist who has worked in print and television news, and as the associate producer of an Emmy award-winning documentary. She lives in Potomac. BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021

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PHOTO BY LIZ LYNCH

The Sitrin family at home in Bethesda

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Back to the Nest Just when some parents had adjusted to their older kids being away, the pandemic brought them home

BY AMY HALPERN

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WHEN KAREN KEARNEY AND

David Abramowitz bought their “city home” near Downtown Crown in Gaithersburg three years ago, it was the rooftop deck that won them over. The deck spans the entire third floor, and guests can be whisked up via a wood-paneled elevator. The soon-to-be empty nesters were looking forward to years of entertaining once the last of their five grown children—all from their previous marriages—left the house. As soon as Kearney’s son, the younger of her two kids, headed to college in the fall of 2019, the couple began having dinner parties and cocktail hours on the roof. They installed a flat-panel television and held movie nights with friends. “We got these squishy chairs with ottomans, and just being out there was wonderful,” Kearney says. “What more do you need?” Then the pandemic hit. Suddenly she and Abramowitz, both 55, were playing host to two of his three kids—an 18-yearold son and a 22-year-old daughter— and both of Kearney’s. (Abramowitz’s older daughter stayed in D.C.) All but one were college students who arrived lugging boxes and bags of clothes, shoes, books, bedding and sports equipment. Abramowitz’s youngest, a high school senior, already had a designated bedroom in their house, but before COVID-19 he 122

spent half his time with his mom. The pair’s four-bedroom home— perfect for their pre-pandemic lifestyle— was less than ideal for the six of them plus their Shih Tzu-poodle mix and two English shepherds. The kids’ stuff lined the hallways and covered the furniture for months until they had Costco install extra shelving in the garage. Abramowitz’s son would play video games late into the night with his friends online. Kearney and Abramowitz eventually had to lay down some ground rules. “They [would] put their headphones on and yell back and forth to each other, not realizing their volume or what time it is,” he says. “We had to say, hey, if you can’t keep it down, then maybe the PlayStation will no longer have internet access after 11 o’clock.” Twice, Kearney and her daughter, now 22, fled to Kearney’s parents’ empty condo in Rockville (they had decamped to Florida) to avoid contracting COVID. The first time, last summer, her son, 20, caught the virus and passed it to Abramowitz. The second time, Abramowitz’s son got sick at college and came home to recover. Luckily all three cases were mild. While all the kids were living there, Kearney spent more time at the boutique she owns—Karen’s Rocks & Rags in

David Abramowitz (in back) with a full house for dinner on Christmas Eve in 2020

Gaithersburg—than at her house. She’d go there even when her shop was closed. “Even though you love to spend time with your kids, it’s the dishwasher twice a day, the grocery store every other day— sometimes twice a day. It’s like, ‘wait, I can’t do my laundry because so-and-so is doing it, and so-and-so is in the shower, so, Dad, can I use your shower?’ ” she says. “And when you go into your pantry to eat your chips, they’re gone.” Even the dogs were whining. “They’re like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ ” For Abramowitz, a cybersecurity professional who worked from home before the pandemic, the tricky part was navigating around the fact that the kids aren’t really “theirs,” but rather “his” or “hers.” In a blended family, he says, “you might not be as comfortable parenting or policing something with the kids that aren’t yours because it’s not your place, so to speak.” Last fall, Kearney’s son, a sophomore at the University of Maryland, chose to stay in Gaithersburg and take classes virtually; the other three kids left. But soon she and Abramowitz will have a full house again. Two of the girls are graduating from college and don’t have jobs yet, so it will be a while before they get to rekindle their empty nest days. “We had thought they’d all be moving into apartments,” Kearney says.

LEFT PHOTO BY LIZ LYNCH; RIGHT COURTESY PHOTO

David Abramowitz and Karen Kearney on the rooftop deck of the “city home” they bought when they’d planned to be empty nesters

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ACCORDING TO THE PEW Research

Center’s analysis of monthly Census Bureau data, in July 2020, 52% of 18-to29-year-olds in the U.S. were living with their parents. That figure tops that of 1940, just after the Great Depression, when census data showed that 48% of young adults had moved back home. “When the teens are gone…there’s better sleep, there’s more time with each other, there’s more opportunities for sex, there’s more opportunities for intimacy,” says Jonah Green, a licensed clinical social worker in Kensington. With the return of their grown children, he says, many clients in their 50s and 60s are finding the relationship with their partner is even more strained than when their kids were in high school. Concerns over exposure to the virus, the kids’ unhappiness at home, and increased financial pressures have made it harder for some couples to function as a unit. Often, one parent thinks the other is either “coddling” or “being too harsh or always yelling,” Green says. He encourages couples to understand that their goals are the same—for their kids to be successful and happy— even though their approaches to a situation may be different. One Gaithersburg mom says she was more lenient than her husband in dealing with their grown daughter, who graduated from college virtually in the spring of 2020 and was having a hard time getting motivated to find a job. “[She] does very well with a schedule and a routine,

and when that gets taken away from you it’s, like, very tough,” the woman says. “There’s a fine line—you don’t want to nag, but you can’t just let them sleep all day.” Her husband kept trying to give their daughter projects, such as reorganizing the pantry, to keep her busy. “[She] would say to me, ‘He’s driving me crazy,’ and I would say, ‘I know.’ ” Bethesda psychologist Amanda Rahimi’s patients include se veral college graduates who returned home for financial reasons or to avoid feeling isolated. Some weren’t comfortable with the COVID-related choices their roommates were making. She says dating has been one of the biggest sources of angst for twentysomethings living with their parents. Trying to maintain a social life during the pandemic often forces young people to pare down to a single dating partner earlier than they might in typical times. And being at home means confronting parents’ questions about their choices sooner than they want. For those dating outside their race or expected gender preference, that’s been particularly challenging, Rahimi says. “Many [young adults] are selective and deliberate with what they are sharing, with the understanding that they are testing the waters.” For some empty nesters, it’s not the return of their adult children but the realization that those kids will be leaving again that causes stress, says Cheryl D. Taylor, a licensed clinical social worker

in Bethesda. For the past year, she’s been working with a patient whose two grown sons moved into her one-bedroom apartment. One of them moved out after about six months, but the other has stayed. She’s been driving him to and from work because he doesn’t have a driver’s license and she doesn’t want him taking public transportation. “Despite COVID being really…isolating and challenging, there was a comfort with her sons,” Taylor says. Her patient is working on “radical acceptance”—learning to face the situation as it is and not lamenting what can’t be controlled. “Focusing on the past or the unknown future means we aren’t… focused on enjoying the present moment.” Margaret Cohen and Anthony Clayman were happy to have their 18-year-old son back from college at the start of the pandemic—Cohen thought of it as “found time” with him. When her son started school in the fall of 2019, she was surprised at how much she missed him. “It’s so acute when you have an only child [and] all of a sudden…you don’t have that person,” she says. “The house felt empty for me without him there.” When he returned home to Bethesda, Cohen says she was much more intentional about having family dinners and movie nights, and sitting down for scheduled games of Rummikub—even though she had just started a demanding new job as the managing director of philanthropy for a New York-based nonprofit. “I was a lot more present and really appreciated that

The kids’ stuff lined the hallways and covered the furniture for months until the family had Costco install extra shelving in the garage. BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021

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IN MARCH 2020, WYNNE and Ron Sitrin welcomed home their three adult daughters, along with the youngest daughter’s boyfriend. He’s a teacher at a local school and had no family nearby. “I said to them, ‘You are either in or you’re

Aliza Sitrin (left) with her mom

out,’ ” Wynne says, “and they all picked in.” During the spring and summer, the six lived and worked under one roof. Every day they’d have breakfast together, gather for coffee in the afternoon, and eat a big family dinner. Wynne, 60, who loves to cook, was happy to have a big brood around the dining table. Ron, 58, says he enjoyed the “natural laughter” of a houseful of people after the quiet of an empty nest. It wasn’t always easy: Their middle daughter, who’d left in January 2020 for a two-year Peace Corps assignment in Ecuador, was forced to return a few weeks into the pandemic. It was “her dream job,” Wynne says. The open floor plan at their Bethesda home meant that they all had to be mindful of the “safe sound zones” so that no one’s Zoom calls could be overheard on another computer. None of the girls wanted to hold virtual meetings from their bedrooms, where the walls are still painted in their childhood shades of purple, green and blue. “We [each] claimed our space and we claimed our time,” Ron says. It worked out fine, he says. “It was more just comical.” By late last summer, their two older

The Sitrin family, from left: Wynne, Chloe, Ron, Aliza and Gabriella

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daughters were renting an apartment together in D.C. Their youngest returned to the University of Michigan, and her boyfriend headed back to his own place. As each left, the meals got simpler— which was bittersweet for Wynne. “We went from these large multicourse meals to my husband and I having maybe a rice bowl with roasted vegetables,” she says. They still don’t feel like empty nesters, though, because with two kids now living nearby and the girls’ social lives still on hold, there’s almost always someone home for a meal or a long weekend. Ron is happy to have them, but he feels bad that their young adult years have been so “radically altered” by the pandemic. “It’s a story of conflicting emotions,” he says. Bethesda Realtor Ilene Gordon and her partner, real estate agent and developer Marc Bassin, hosted her two grown sons and her pregnant daughter-in-law for five months during the pandemic. Her 32-year-old son and his wife had been living in Manhattan when COVID arrived. The couple packed up their apartment and their 2-year-old English bulldog and moved in with Gordon and Bassin. Gordon’s 29-year-old son had lived in London and Chicago for several years, but rented an apartment in D.C. six months before the pandemic. He pretty much moved in with them, too, so that he’d have company when everything around him closed down. Nine years earlier, Gordon and her exhusband sold their sprawling house with a pool on an acre and a half in Potomac. Her new home near downtown Bethesda is smaller, she says, but with five bedrooms there was room for everyone. She has no complaints about their time together, but she knows her kids were sometimes frustrated with the close quarters. One would occasionally set up a workstation in the kitchen, and Gordon couldn’t help starting up a conversation when she went in to grab a snack. Her kids were always polite about it, she says, but she’s pretty sure her small talk occasionally grated on them. “What was helpful was [the kids] could take a walk on the [Capital] Crescent Trail or go for a drive

TOP COURTESY PHOTO; BOTTOM PHOTO BY LIZ LYNCH

he was going to be gone again and I knew what that felt like.”

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whenever they found me too annoying,” she says. “And they did find me annoying at times—it’s hard to go back as adults and live with your mom.” For Gordon, the “silver lining” of the pandemic is that her older son and his wife decided to make the move permanent, buying a home just a few blocks away from hers. She spotted the house as soon as it hit the market at midnight and had the couple in to see it by 10 the next morning. They moved in last July, and Gordon’s first grandchild was born two months later. “I’m over there all the time,” she says. “They’ve got free babysitting whenever they want.” Right: Alec Powers with identical twin sons Sam (left) and Max

had been happy empty nesters for more than a year when they started renovating their 1955 split-level in Bethesda in January 2020. It seemed like the perfect time for a home makeover to reflect their new grown-up lifestyle. But just as the flooring was being installed, both of their sons’ colleges closed for COVID. The couple had booked a two-week stay for mid-March at a downtown Bethesda hotel, and the identical twins, then 20, had to tag along. “We moved into the hotel on a Sunday, then all the restaurants closed on that Monday, and then the hotel [closed] on Thursday,” Jen says. “We had to move into another hotel and spent the whole next week eating takeout from our hotel room with the kids taking classes on Zoom.” At the second hotel, they managed to get a two-bedroom suite instead of the single room

TOP COURTESY PHOTO; BOTTOM PHOTO BY LIZ LYNCH

Below: Alec and Jen (pictured in their newly renovated Bethesda home) had been empty nesters for more than a year when their sons’ colleges closed for COVID in March 2020.

JEN AND ALEC POWERS, both 53,

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back to the nest they’d crammed into at the first property. When they moved back to their house, the contractor added a plastic barrier between the workers and the family, and most of the house was off-limits for months. They were confined to a few rooms for sleeping, working and studying, and they all shared one bathroom. “The bathroom we could use changed every week, depending on what the contractors were working on,” Jen says. The family got up every day at 6 a.m., ate a quick breakfast, took turns showering, and scattered to their work corners to give the contractors run of the house. An intellectual property attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Alec had worked from home for years. Before the pandemic, his workday began after he dropped his wife at the Metro for her daily commute to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. With Jen at home, the boys jug-

gling classes, the internet constantly glitching, and the renovation, things got stressful. “All of a sudden, my office space became everybody’s space,” Alec says. For the boys, the new living arrangement gave them time to get to know each other as adults. “In high school, he was doing his own thing and I was doing mine,” says Sam, a theater and business administration major at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. While they were stuck at home, he and his brother, Max, would walk around the neighborhood every day to talk and get fresh air. Jen says she’d get texts from friends who were impressed seeing the boys outside while their own grown kids were still asleep. “I was like, ‘Don’t be impressed. They have no place to go—our house is literally torn upside down,’ ” she says. Today, their sons are back at school and the couple has the newly reno-

Congratulations to the 2021 Winners

of the Bethesda Urban Partnership and Bethesda Magazine

ESSAY AND SHORT STORY CONTEST

vated house to themselves. The secondtime-around empty nesters love sitting together in front of the new gas fireplace in their living room and cooking in their new kitchen. They’re still adjusting to grocery shopping for two instead of four. For months, Jen says, “we were throwing out a lot of produce.” But the pandemic brought the family closer. Before, all she’d get from her kids was a periodic “proof of life”—usually a quick phone call or a text. Now they Zoom every weekend. These days, Jen says, “we can decide at 7 o’clock what we want to have for dinner, and we’re not finding single socks on the floor of the laundry room—or at least not as often.” n Amy Halpern is a journalist who has worked in print and television news, and as the associate producer of an Emmy award-winning documentary. She lives in Potomac.

Essay Contest 1st Place Sarah Wang, Potomac, MD 2nd Place Cynthia Mamalian, Potomac, MD 3rd Place Tina Xia, Bethesda, MD

Essay Contest – High School 1st Place Leo Kalb Bourke, Walter Johnson HS 2nd Place Grace McGuire, Walt Whitman HS 3rd Place Armaan Salchak, Wootton HS

Short Story Contest 1st Place Kathleen Wheaton, Bethesda MD 2nd Place Matthew Kelly, Rockville, MD 3rd Place A. Jo Procter, Chevy Chase, MD

Short Story Contest – High School 1st Place Jillian Vordick, Walter Johnson HS 2nd Place Rashmi Kanipakala, Wootton HS 3rd Place Esme Pickel, Richard Montgomery HS

Essay & Short Story Honorable Mentions Sarah Birnbach, Cliff Gale, Nancy Hanlon, Briana Maley, Samantha Mouyard, Jaylen Panjehshahi, Rebekah Richards, Hannah Stearns, Alexander Toti, Avana Wang

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Kollar custom built home on 2 acres in Falconhurst. A first floor master suite plus five generous sized bedrooms, and 4.5 additional bathrooms compliment this comfortable home. Beginning with the captivating two story entry foyer with garden and fountain, the cathedral ceiling and enormous skylight grace this entryway. Natural light abounds through the first level surrounded by mostly continuous windows, patio doors and numerous skylights. This property is meticulously maintained and completely updated, with newer roof, HVAC systems, mostly new energy efficient double insulated windows, auto pool cover, rear deck with custom see thru railing, hot water heater and recent new stone heated 10004 Bentcross Drive Potomac Maryland 20854 $2,499,000 kitchen floor. A three car side loading garage is accessed by way of the new custom circular concrete driveway. JOSEPH G. ZORC The opulent first floor master suite is complimented with a double sink marColdwell Banker Realty ble bathroom with whirlpool tub, high ceilings and double walk in closets. A soaring second double stone fireplace accents the lower level separating Direct: 301.351.5274 two large game rooms, features a level walk out door and connects to a Main: 202.333.6100 fully enclosed breathtaking indoor swimming pool, with three sliding glass patio doors. This property is move in ready and relatively maintenance free for many years to come. Contact Joseph Zorc for more information.

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Leaving When the world went into quarantine, a Bethesda mom was hoping time would stop for a while. But her 4-year-old son kept growing up.

BY RACHEL POMERANCE BERL | PHOTOS BY LIZ LYNCH

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ENJAMIN SPRUNG INTO

the summer evening air, his 4-year-old legs boosting him close enough to the basketball hoop that he could swipe the bottom of the net on each propulsion. We bought a trampoline at the start of the pandemic (a panic buy ahead of homebound days with an exuberant child), and Benjamin was flying that night, free and wild, in only his Superman underpants, narrating a Wizards-Mavericks game he’d memorized. “And the Wizards take the lead, but there’s still time on the clock,” he reported, bounding about. “The Wizards win it! What a win! The Wizards won, 119-118! ...Mom, come up,” he said, breaking character to offer me his arm. I stopped recording, tossed the phone, and we jumped together in a spoon-ish embrace. That was a year ago. Already his legs stretch impossibly longer, the pitch of his voice dramatically different, as I learn from watching the iPhone video of that night. And he no longer hangs out in underpants. In fact, he wants privacy when he changes. Of all the firsts we’ve experienced together—the first haircut, the first toddler bed, the first big-boy bed, all of the steps away from me and into himself— the most painful are these, the steps out of Eden. When the world began to lock down, I hoped that finally we could somehow pause or stretch time with him, to sustain the magic of our bubble. And for a while, we did. Our daughter was born barely two months before work and school went virtual. With my husband, David, grounded from his usual travel, we relished time as a new family— the little ones plus my two stepkids, then 12 and 15. And life became slower, simpler and richer, if harder. When Zoom school proved preposterous for Benjamin, we opted for home school, each day chalking a schedule plucked from a menu 130

of activities: baking, reading, foreign language with the grandparents, basketball, of course, and, one of our favorites, meditation. Benjamin would choose a guided program from an app on my phone, and I’d cradle him in my lap while we rested. Most times he’d ask for another, longer one, craving what I did—the excuse to cuddle (or maybe, because he loves numbers, to monitor the countdown of minutes on the screen). Last summer, the night before Benjamin turned 4, we held a quasi-campout on the trampoline. We trotted out the whole family with pillows and blankets and snuggled together on a perfect evening, noticing the starlit sky dim in shades of blue and the mystical glow of the setting sun on the trees, lit like an overly obvious yet resplendent landscape. And in the quiet, we took in the idyllic scene of our backyard: a picturesque parcel just big enough for a decent game of tag or soccer; a hammock strung between two ancient oaks; and our bucolic screenedin porch, the one we hardly ever used, even though it sold us on the house with its beckoning vision of late-night toasts with family and friends. David would break away from his infinite legal work at 5, and we’d head out on a walk that culminated in a father-andson game of one-on-one at a hoop in our Bethesda neighborhood. Until then— and Benjamin counted the hours until then—Benjamin practiced his game, slamming shots against a jerry-rigged plastic hoop whiplashed from trauma. We played games that lasted all day and multiple days. He played against me and, while I was busy, for me—an achievement of his imagination to play against relatives over FaceTime, cartoon friends and villains, and even his baby sister, who could not yet sit. “78-78!” he announced of the nail-biter between them. “Who is gonna win?!” he asked, incredulous. “You’re well matched,” I replied. He

called out of bounds on her as he dunked, hustled and peppered the action with commentary: “Crush-ah!” he yelled with a fierce victory face. “Crushed it?” I asked. “Yeah,” he said, trying to nonchalantly cover his error, and I felt a stab of regret for piercing his world with a correction. Every day that summer, Benjamin wore a basketball jersey a friend gave him for his birthday. And so it felt like the days were on repeat, with Benjamin in the same uniform (to be fair, he also wore a Juan Soto shirt daily during and beyond the Nats’ heroic 2019 season), on the same court (our playroom) and along the same neighborhood walk, even as he grew taller and in and out of phases. He’s no longer, for example, pulling up his shorts as high as anatomically possible, somewhere between his belly button and neck, requiring him to use one hand to hold them up while dribbling with the other. When his older brother explained that Bradley Beal doesn’t hike up his pants, Benjamin promptly readjusted. Now we’re in the wearing-clothes-backward phase. Basketball may have saved Benjamin, but multiday games to 900 with his mother, whom he routinely called fouls on for kissing him, began to feel a little unnatural. He needed peers, even if from a social distance. So when fall rolled around and getting into a COVID learning pod was more elusive than a spot at the cool kids’ lunch table, we enrolled him in an in-person school, where he got swabbed each week, ostensibly kept a wide berth from other 4-year-olds, and understood COVID through the prism of gaming. Each morning, he and David would check the previous night’s sports scores along with the data on COVID’s peaks and valleys. “Who is winning? Us or the coronavirus?” Benjamin asked one fall day.

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“Right now, the coronavirus is winning,” I said. “What’s the score?” he pressed. “That’s harder to answer.” “Whose team are we on? Trump’s or the coronavirus?” “America’s,” I said, hoping to settle the queries. “Oh, so same team as Trump.” No comment. Sending him to school felt nearly as hard as the first time I took him to preschool, for a mere morning apart, at age 2. Only this time, I alone bore the heartache. As we adapted to his long, structured days, some of the simple joys of that early halcyon hunker-down period wore off. Over winter break, I asked Benjamin if he wanted to join me on an errand, an opportunity he relished early in the pandemic, leaping shoeless into the car for our curbside or drive-

thru event. “Errands! I love errands!” he would say. And I agreed. I knew it was telling when I was excited to leave the house for a COVID test, when it was a reprieve to drive somewhere so someone in a hazmat suit could stick a Q-tip up my nasal canal. “Who will be here if I stay home?” he said, weighing his options. “Can I play with Daddy?” “No, Daddy’s working.” “OK, I’ll stay here and watch my show.” Santiago of the Seas. I lost to a show with only six episodes at the time, one of which was too scary, leaving five shows he’d memorized. To think, two years ago he said he wanted to grow up so he could marry Mommy. Those were the Oedipal days I long for. Four COVID seasons have passed, and though it’s as if we watched them shift from our windows, feeling still inside,

Basketball helped save Benjamin during the isolating days of the pandemic.

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leaving eden

like a field packed with snow, quiet after the blizzard, we weren’t still at all. People were still dying and aging and being born. One president left and another began. Our baby turned 1. And no baby friends came to celebrate. Of course there’s no such thing as baby friends, but there have been few other babies for her to discover besides her reflection. And Benjamin, in some real but inchoate way, grew up this year. He no longer revels in asking what will happen when I reach an age of biblical proportions. “How old will I be when you’re 200? 300? 2,000?” he’d say, electrified by the prospect of grandiose calculations. That’s the thing about wonder, isn’t it? It’s a thirst for knowledge that ends up in knowing. And now Benjamin knows better. “Mom, please be fine,” he said when I tucked him in recently. “What do you mean?” I asked. “When older people get hurt, it’s harder for them.” My parents had just visited for the first time since the pandemic, and I wondered if seeing them spawned this. “Oh, but I’m still young,” I said with a forced smile. “No, you’re not,” he said, smiling back. “Well, we are going to live a very long time,” I answered. “Both of us?” “Yes.” “How do you know?” “I just do,” I said, lying. What I couldn’t have known a year ago is that Benjamin would become greater than he was last summer. Even if we both try to hold on to where we were. Sometimes Benjamin will attempt to curl into me—in a feat of flexibility—to play Mommy Bear and Baby Bear until he tires of it and returns to shooting hoops. I think of those parents carrying a kid who looks too big to be carried, the child’s long legs reaching too close to the

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floor, maybe only inches away, their bottoms somewhat secure if tipping over the ledge of the parent’s sure forearm. Maybe it’s an exception, you figure—the kid is having a moment. But maybe the parent is. I’ll scoop Benjamin out of the car and ferry him over to the garage door because I still can. Any sensible observer would chide me for straining my middle-aged back; he’s a robust boy, the biggest in his class, after all. But I’ll do it as long as I can, if it’s the private scoot from garage to home or swinging him into his bed, ticking off each lurch to reach his age: 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 and a half, 4 and threequarters, and now, 5. In a recent iteration of bedtime stalling, Benjamin asked why kids must sleep alone and grown-ups get each other. “Is the night long?” he asked, considering how long he’ll have to bear our time apart. “No,” I answered. “The nights are short. Just like the days.” So we take pictures and videos for the same reason artists paint a scene—in this futile attempt to capture time or at least remember it. Because you can no more freeze time than you can bottle a firefly, marveling at its luminosity for just a moment before you must let it slip away. We can only enjoy the bittersweetness of perfect passing moments—the bliss of a shameless boy on a trampoline one summer evening—and strive to realize when heaven descends on earth. Our daughter’s naming was the last big gathering our family and friends remember before the lockdown. We named her Eden. n

“Who is winning? Us or the coronavirus?” Benjamin asked one fall day.

Rachel Pomerance Berl is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Bethesda. She’s currently working on a collection of essays about motherhood.

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Post-Graduation Plans: University of Maryland, Major in Mathematics

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To Our 2021 High School and 8th Grade Graduates! M I D D L E S CH OOL S TUD ENTS

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St. Jane de Chantal Catholic education in the heart of Bethesda since 1953 Introducing St. Jane de Chantal’s 61st Graduating Class ALEXIA AGUILAR JIMENEZ • MATTHEW ALCORN • CONNIE BARTOLI PINERO • DAPHNE BEUZELIN • ANDERSON BISHOP JOHNNY BROOME • CLARE DANIELS • SYDNEY DEBNAM JEANNE DE PARSCAU • CHASE DONAHUE • J.J. EDWARDS EZRA ETHERLY • GRACE GAENZLER • RYAN GLEESON QUINN GOZYCKI • JORDAN HASSAN • FRANCIS HOAG ANDREW HOFFMAN • LANDON JANA • ARIA JEFFERSON PATRICK KELLEY • CAROLINE KIRVAN • TESSA KUTA HEATH LONG • TEAGAN LONG • DANI MAIER ANDREW MARCEY • LUKE MATELIS • AUSTIN MEDINA LILY OWENS • ALLIE RHEA • MIKE RUSSELL • HEATHER RYAN NICHOLAS SCHNAPPAUF • TOMMY SHAFFER • DYLAN SCHOEN

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Yoshiko Slater Hometown: Laurel, MD Barrie School Post-Graduation Plans: Committed to play soccer at Emerson College Study Marketing/Communications and Hearing and Deafness Minor

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Hometown: Derwood Parkland Middle School

Hometown: Silver Spring Barrie School Post-Graduation Plans: University of Pennsylvania studying Health and Societies and Neuroscience on a Pre-Med Track

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The short stories & essays that took the top prizes in our annual writing competition

IN THEIR OWN

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Bethesda Magazine and the Bethesda Urban Partnership sponsor an annual competition for local writers. This year, 304 adults and high school students entered the short story contest, and 222 adults and high school students entered the essay contest. The writers who placed in the contests were awarded cash prizes ranging from $25 to $500. The work of the first-place winners appears on the pages that follow. Check out the runners-up at BethesdaMagazine.com and bethesda.org.

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SHORT STORY WINNER

ADULT

KATHLEEN WHEATON LIVES IN: Bethesda AGE: 63 WHAT SHE DOES: “Babysit my new grandson. I don’t get paid, but finally having your child’s gratitude is priceless.”

Light Housework

HOW SHE GOT HER START: “I’ve been writing short stories since high school, though I was a freelance journalist for 25 years. Journalism is a great profession for the curious, plus you learn to be both concise and precise.”

HOW SHE GOT THE IDEA FOR THIS STORY: “An Argentine friend told me about going with her kids to a park and being taken for their nanny.” UP NEXT: “I’m shopping around a new short story collection with a rather grandiose title: A History of the Modern World.”

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BY KATHLEEN WHEATON

DEAREST GABRIEL, On my first day in America—Aug. 17, 1978—our children were awake before dawn and making noise. Six hours earlier, a Quaker woman named Peggy had met us at the airport and then driven us along quiet, tree-lined streets to her brick house. We were in the national capital, but we could hear insects chirping in the darkness, smell fresh-cut grass and damp earth. In Argentina, my knowledge of Quakers was limited to the picture on the oatmeal box, so I was surprised that Peggy drove a car and wore blue jeans and that her gray hair was short like a boy’s. I’d confused the religion of our sponsors with the Amish, and had supposed that we were going to stay on a farm equipped with a horse and buggy. I’d told Mari that she might get to wear a long dress and a bonnet like in Little House on the Prairie, and Julian that he’d learn to milk a cow. Peggy put us in a room that had been the childhood bedroom of her daughter,

Lisa, and where she hoped her grandchildren would sleep when they came. Bustling to and fro with sheets and towels, Peggy talked nonstop in a low, soothing voice, as if we were frightened animals. She explained that Lisa hadn’t been able to visit because she was very busy in Ellay, a city we never learned of in geography class. “She’s just gotten a part in a new soap. It’s not General Hospital, of course, but I hope it’ll take off.” “I see,” I said, clinging to soap as if it were a life raft in Peggy’s sea of words. What I understood was that Lisa’s job had to do with cleansing products for hospitals. I’m sure you recall, Gabo, which of the two of us got a perfect score on the English examination our final year at Buenos Aires University! So I was mortified that I had no idea what this kindhearted woman was telling me. “How interesting,” I said. I already knew that Americans were kind. All across this country, people were writing letters to the Argentine military

GETTY IMAGES; KATHLEEN WHEATON COURTESY PHOTO

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN: “I’ve published about 45 short stories since 1980, including in several Maryland literary magazines: Baltimore Review, Little Patuxent Review, Potomac Review and Maryland Literary Review. My collection, Aliens & Other Stories, was published by Washington Writers’ Publishing House, a small local press.”

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SHORT STORY JUDGES

CAROLINE BOCK COURTESY PHOTO; TARA CAMPBELL BY ANNA DEWITT; ALICE STEPHENS BY JAMES PROCHNIK

ADULT

junta on your behalf. And now here was Peggy, folding back the coverlet of her daughter’s canopied bed for a stranger. She’d set up cots for the children, but Mari and Julian demanded to sleep with me, in the bed that had a roof over it. I did not sleep. In the weeks since your arrest, I had the impression that I never slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I returned to the last moments I’d seen you, in our flat on Calle Bolivar. I was sitting on the end of our bed in my nightgown, watching you knot your necktie in the beveled mirror over the bureau. It was 2 o’clock in the morning, but you said it might be best if you wore a tie to be interviewed by the police. That was what the men who knocked on our door had said: that they’d like to interview you— as if they, too, were journalists. They were waiting in the front room for you to dress. They’d addressed me politely as Señora de Baum, and that had seemed a good sign, though I hadn’t been able to bring myself to offer them a cup of tea. “I’ll be back before you’re even awake, Sonia,” you said, and it seemed to me that I’d been awake ever since. Sometimes at night I scribbled in the little reporter’s notebook I’d taken from your desk. My plan was that when we got to a place of safety I’d write you a long letter about everything that had happened since we’d been separated. Daylight flooded Lisa’s room, intensifying the pink color of the walls, the fluffy carpet, the curtains. Mari sat up and demanded to know where her bonnet and the cows were, and soon Julian was also clamoring for a bonnet and cows. It was not yet 7 o’clock. I waved my arms and turned them into mice. This had become a regular game since your arrest, and they obediently crept over the cream-colored carpet to the kitchen.

CAROLINE BOCK is the author of Carry Her Home, winner of the 2018 Fiction Prize from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and the young adult novels LIE and Before My Eyes. Bock also co-edited This Is What America Looks Like: Poetry & Fiction from DC, Maryland and Virginia from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House, published in February 2021. Bock is working on a novel set in 2050. She earned an MFA in fiction in 2011 from The City College of New York and lives in Potomac. TARA CAMPBELL is a Washington, D.C.-based writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction editor at Barrelhouse, a nonprofit focused on literacy. She earned an MFA from American University in 2019, and has received several awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Her work has been published in Booth, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Masters Review, Wigleaf and Strange Horizons. She’s the author of a novel, TreeVolution, and four collections: Circe’s Bicycle, Midnight at the Organporium, Political AF: A Rage Collection and Cabinet of Wrath: A Doll Collection. ALICE STEPHENS lives in Silver Spring and is the author of the novel Famous Adopted People from Unnamed Press. Her work has appeared in Literary Hub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Margins, Banana Writers and other publications. She is the editor of Bloom, and writes book reviews and a column, “Alice in Wordland,” for the Washington Independent Review of Books.

Adult Short Story Runners-Up

Stories and essays can be read on BethesdaMagazine.com and bethesda.org.

Second Place: Matthew Kelly, Rockville Third Place: A. Jo Procter, Chevy Chase Honorable Mention: Cliff Gale, Brookeville Honorable Mention: Nancy Hanlon, Silver Spring Honorable Mention: Briana Maley, Takoma Park

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SHORT STORY WINNER

HIGH SCHOOL

The Birds

JILLIAN VORDICK LIVES IN: Bethesda AGE: 18 SCHOOL: Graduated in June from Walter Johnson High School, and will be attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

WHAT INSPIRED THIS STORY: “I like using nature motifs and metaphors, so the idea of using birds was something I wanted to stick with from pretty early on. Eventually I became attached to the circling imagery and knew I needed to come up with a main character who had a desire to break free, and the story quickly grew from there.”

BY JILLIAN VORDICK

THE BIRDS ARRIVE IN September. Every year, without fail, millions of wings fill the skies of small towns in southern Florida, heading down toward the Everglades. For Sam, the migration is the only hope her town has ever given her. Every year she watches as the birds fly overhead toward their new homes for the winter. She imagines what it would feel like to be one of them. Even as a senior in high school, the birds are still a wonder, the way they were when Sam was learning how to walk. She longs for their movement—or at least she used to. “HEY, MA,” SAM CALLED from the front porch as the sound of her mother’s brakes pulled her out of the sky. “You doing all right?” Her mother, Joanne, fell out of her Honda Civic and crawled across the pavement to stop her lipstick before it rolled into the sewer. She stuffed the lipstick into her overflowing purse and watched as receipts and bills flew out and

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were carried away into the red Florida sunset by the wind. She was drunk, a little from this morning before work, a little from last night, and a lot from ever since Sam was born. “Your mama is doing just fine. Why don’t you go inside and worry about yourself for once? Fix your hair up and change out of those horrible sweatpants.” The porch yawned as Sam walked across and down the steps. She left the safety of the awning and was met with the humid, foggy, thick orange sunset glow of her forgotten street. The night sky would soon arrive. A downed trash can was rolling in her neighbors’ front yard next to a swing held up by tire rubber. Beyond the rows of identical onestory houses covered with crumbling stucco sat the Sunshine Casino Hotel, where her mother had just finished a day of work as a janitor. The sun, though, never shined in the bathrooms and under the slot machines where Joanne spent her days before coming home to a bottle

GETTY IMAGES; JILLIAN VORDICK COURTESY PHOTO

FAVORITE AUTHOR: “While I have different favorite authors for different genres, I’d have to pick Jon Krakauer for my overall favorite. As a rock climber myself, I like reading outdoor literature and stories of the power of nature.”

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SHORT STORY JUDGES

COURTESY PHOTOS

HIGH SCHOOL

of Miller Lite—the only light she would get all day. As she liked to put it, she worked an “ugly, ugly job.” Sam, however, respected her mother’s work. She liked that her mother cleaned and fixed things; she longed to do the same, for her mother’s cleaning and fixing stopped when she clocked out for the day. “Ma, seriously, you need help. You don’t look too good. I see the bruises. I’m not a child.” Joanne snapped up. She patted down her unruly, anciently straightened hair, red as Sam’s, and re-tucked her Casino Worker polo into her khakis. Through the dense Florida air, she gave Sam one of her stares that reached for miles. The warm evening welcomed Joanne’s heated tone. “Sam. Go inside, and worry about your damn self for once. I have everything under control. I always do.” The porch screamed this time as Sam stepped on its weak spot on the way to the door. She pulled sharply on the handle and the door wouldn’t budge. She kicked. She pushed. She kicked harder, and by the time the door opened her bun had come undone from the top of her head. Jesus Christ. She climbed the staircase to her room and stepped over a pile of overdue homework on the ground and arrived at the window. I swear to God. The window, thanks to a newly replaced hinge, not God, opened smoothly. Sam climbed out and sat on the slightly slanted rooftop of their house. She watched as a group of birds circled the casino. They were marbled godwits, coming from North Dakota to the Everglades for the winter. Long bills, fat bodies and skinny legs; Sam could always easily identify them. This year though, Sam spotted a tiny baby bird in the mix. It quickly flapped its wings

MONICA HOGAN studied creative writing at Wayne State University in Detroit, Hunter College in Manhattan, and The Writer’s Center in Bethesda. She has written for the Washington Independent Review of Books and wrote author interviews for the now-defunct Gazette of Montgomery County. Her personal essay “Just off Mack Avenue, on the Detroit Side” was published in The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook from Belt Publishing. She wrote for B2B magazines in New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Rockville. She lives in Rockville. GARINÈ ISASSI is a recovering journalist and the author of the humorous novel Start with the Backbeat. She and her family live in Gaithersburg, where she works in marketing communications, is the workshops chair for the Gaithersburg Book Festival, and is a Washington Writers Conference committee member. DANIELLE STONEHIRSCH lives in Silver Spring and works in D.C. at First Book, a literacy nonprofit that provides books to kids in need around the country. Her short stories have been published in Tin House, Washington City Paper, Bethesda Magazine and more. She is working on her first novel.

High School Short Story Runners-Up Stories and essays can be read on BethesdaMagazine.com and bethesda.org.

Second Place: Rashmi Kanipakala, Thomas S. Wootton High School Third Place: Esme Pickel, Richard Montgomery High School Honorable Mention: Samantha Mouyard, Walter Johnson High School Honorable Mention: Avana Wang, Thomas S. Wootton High School

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ESSAY CONTEST WINNER

ADULT

SARAH WANG LIVES IN: Potomac AGE: 43 WHAT SHE DOES: Works as an attorney for a D.C. firm.

FAVORITE PLACE TO WRITE: “Anywhere with a little background noise and people nearby.” FAVORITE AUTHOR: “I love Hanya Yanagihara and Jhumpa Lahiri’s beautiful language. I’ve also discovered Kiley Reid and Avni Doshi during quarantine, and love how they write about complex relationships. And my 12-year-old daughter, Lila, writes the best essays. She makes me laugh out loud every time.” WHAT INSPIRED THIS ESSAY: “Parenting during quarantine has been no joke. I’ve thought a lot about how we all wish things were different for our kids right now, and how those fleeting moments of clarity and humor can help us get through a day.”

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Learning the Ropes BY SARAH WANG

A FEW YEARS AGO, I took my two elementary school-age kids to a ropes course. My son and daughter were what the pediatrician described as “cautious.” They loved rules and a sticker chart. They didn’t do daredevil stunts on the playground, or sneak the iPad into their rooms, or need the occasional stitch or X-ray. As a newish parent, this seemingly delightful behavior made me…nervous. How would they learn grit without pushing their limits? Weren’t they supposed to be wrestling and talking back and generally being naughty? I saw the ropes course as the perfect learning opportunity. Dangling 30 feet over the forest floor with nothing but a rope, a helmet and their wits, they would dig deep and find their inner tough guys. Instead, my son excitedly asked me to explain what was in the waiver that I signed. Both kids delighted in the warning video and training session that took place firmly planted on the ground. They both cautiously followed every

course regulation while clipping in to the ropes and moving between platforms. There were no close calls, no moments of internal courage or bravery; just lots of rules-following and the occasional waving for a picture. Before heading home, we stopped for a snack at the picnic tables beside the ropes course. We sat down next to a noisy birthday party. The table was filled with a dozen or so second graders, tired and sweaty from climbing, and hopped up on sugar and the thrill of being around distracted parents. We were just finishing up when we noticed a commotion at the next table. Two little girls screamed while the other kids scrambled over each other to run away. I glanced over and locked eyes with a chubby, ruddy-cheeked blond-haired boy waving his arm in the air, gripping the head of a large black snake in his hand. “IT’S A P OISON OUS COBR A! AGHHHH,” he yelled, laughing and waving around a fat, nearly 3-foot-long

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COURTESY PHOTOS

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN: The Washington Post and sarahwangwriter. com.

GETTY IMAGES; SARAH WANG COURTESY PHOTO

HOW SHE GOT HER START: “Writing for my elementary school newspaper.”

ESSAY CONTEST JUDGES

ADULT & HIGH SCHOOL

COURTESY PHOTOS

SAMUEL ASHWORTH is a novelist, journalist and teacher. He is a regular contributor of feature pieces to national publications, and his journalism, fiction and criticism have appeared in Eater, The Washington Post Magazine, Longreads, Elemental, Hazlitt and many others. He wrote the semiregular “Dispatches from the Swamp” column for The Rumpus, and is an assistant fiction editor at Barrelhouse magazine. He teaches creative writing at George Washington University, is a graduate of the MFA program at George Mason University, and lives in Tenleytown in D.C.

black snake like a miniature Southern preacher, handling a serpent and speaking in tongues to demand his friends’ attention. The adults were paralyzed. One pulled out her phone: “Wait, it’s not poisonous, it’s just a garter snake, I think, or garden snake, oh my God!” A man reluctantly ran after the boy while yelling at him to put the snake down. “Or throw it? I don’t know!” he yelled. My kids and I hightailed it back to our car. “First of all,” my son said in his most authoritative voice as we pulled onto the highway, “it’s GARTER snake, not garden snake. Second, that was not a cobra. It was a black rat snake, native to Maryland and not venomous. There are no cobras in Maryland.” “Shyeah,” said my daughter. My kids chatted the whole way home. I drove silently, thinking how relieved I was that the snake wasn’t venomous. I thought about how the snake boy was wild and brave, and how my kids were cautious, and how the world needed them all. n

KYOKO MORI is the author of three nonfiction books (The Dream of Water, Polite Lies, and Yarn) and four novels (Shizuko’s Daughter; One Bird; Barn Cat; and Stone Field, True Arrow). Her essays and stories have appeared in The Best American Essays, Harvard Review, The American Scholar, Colorado Review, Conjunctions and others. She teaches nonfiction writing in the MFA program at George Mason University and the low-residency MFA program at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mori lives in Washington, D.C., with her cats, Miles and Jackson. KATHLEEN SEILER NEARY lives in Kensington and is an associate editor at Bethesda Magazine. She has been a writer and editor for more than 20 years. She has worked for magazines, including George, American Photo and Ladies’ Home Journal, and her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Parenting and other publications.

Adult Essay Runners-Up Stories and essays can be read on BethesdaMagazine.com and bethesda.org.

Second Place: Cynthia Mamalian, Potomac Third Place: Tina Xia, Bethesda Honorable Mention: Sarah Birnbach, Rockville Honorable Mention: Rebekah Richards, Washington, D.C.

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ESSAY CONTEST WINNER

HIGH SCHOOL

Judaism for Me

LEO KALB BOURKE LIVES IN: Rockville AGE: 18 SCHOOL: Graduated in June from Walter Johnson High School, and will attend Pomona College in Claremont, California. “I’m excited to study economics, history, politics—and anything and everything else that catches my interest.”

HOW HE GOT THE IDEA FOR THIS ESSAY: “When the lockdown hit last year, I suddenly had the time to seriously reflect on my life so far and how I came to be where I am. Judaism, I soon realized, has shaped me— whether I like it or not. And what better way to grapple with that than write about it?”

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GROWING UP AS A member of an observant Jewish family in a largely non-Jewish neighborhood, I was regularly pressed to explain the grip my family’s Judaism had on my life, and spent time decoding our kosher diet or observance of Shabbat. By second grade, I knew the ways I was different from everyone else: the only kid in my class unable to go to Friday night sleepovers or play in the Saturday morning neighborhood soccer league. But as I grew older, that raw selfawareness fermented into a deep frustration. I began to see my family’s religious practices as oppressive, and did not feel spiritually nourished by Judaism’s institutional structure. In ninth grade, feeling restlessly resentful of Judaism’s rules, I stopped attending synagogue. My family saw this as unacceptable. To them, to reject Judaism’s laws was to reject Judaism itself. They loudly voiced their disapproval and disappointment. But not my grandmother. One evening three years ago, after my grandmother returned from a Rosh Hashana service that I’d refused to

attend, she called me into the kitchen. “You know,” she said quietly, slicing the carrots for her tzimmes, “I had trouble with religion, too.” She grew up in an observant household, but as a teenager and then as an adult she began to abandon Judaism’s religious structure, and instead found meaning in its intellectual tradition—its literature and commentary, both of which would inform her later work as a writer. As we talked, I began to consider how I could form my own ties to Judaism. But how could I truly find my own meaning in a system that, growing up, was so clearly defined for me? What does it mean to repudiate a tradition yet be fundamentally formed by it? I found my answers as I probed my political conscience. Like my grandmother, I realized that stripping away the veneer of religious law that had previously characterized my relationship with Judaism allowed me to fully engage with the core values beneath. This has led me to embrace the secular values of the Diaspora—strive for justice, advocate

GETTY IMAGES; LEO KALB BOURKE COURTESY PHOTO

FAVORITE PLACE TO WRITE: “My desk, after the sun has set. I enjoy the feeling of being alone in the darkness. It frees me to be more honest in my writing.”

BY LEO KALB BOURKE

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High School Essay Runners-Up Stories and essays can be read on BethesdaMagazine.com and bethesda.org.

for the powerless, remember our past— and fight for the underserved among us. That’s why, as soon as I was old enough, I began working in progressive politics. And it’s why I’ve studied the history of Jewish progressivism. Learning about Black-Jewish solidarity during the civil rights movement and Jewish efforts to protect refugees worldwide has freed me to form a new relationship with Judaism, one that fuels my advocacy work while keeping me connected to the tradition that remains important to the people I love most. My Jewish identity is not the one I was raised with, but it is mine. While I’ve abandoned institutional Judaism, I haven’t escaped its gravitational pull. I still feel deeply Jewish, and its structure ultimately enabled me to form a new relationship with that tradition. What has changed is how I explain Judaism to myself. I have now found a meaning in Judaism that finally holds truth for me. n

Second Place: Grace McGuire, Walt Whitman High School Third Place: Armaan Salchak, Thomas S. Wootton High School Honorable Mention: Jaylen Panjehshahi, Quince Orchard High School Honorable Mention: Hannah Stearns, Thomas S. Wootton High School Honorable Mention: Alexander Toti, Montgomery Blair High School

Contest Information Bethesda Magazine and the Bethesda Urban Partnership work together to honor local writers through the short story and essay contests. Short stories are limited to 4,000 words, and authors must be residents of Montgomery County or Upper Northwest D.C. (20015 and 20016 ZIP codes). Essays are limited to 500 words and writers in the adult contest must live in Washington, D.C., or select counties of Maryland (Montgomery, Prince George’s, Howard and Frederick) or Virginia (Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William); high school writers must be residents of or attend a school in Montgomery County or Washington, D.C. Keep an eye out this winter for next year’s contest details at BethesdaMagazine.com and at bethesda.org.

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Light Housework (continued from page 143)

Peggy had set out bowls and spoons and showed me the carton of milk in the refrigerator. But I could find neither chocolate powder nor matches to light the stove and boil the milk, so I poured plain cold milk into each bowl. “Mama, this will give us a stomachache,” Mari said. “It’s special American milk, and it won’t,” I said, hoping that was true. Peggy had also set out American cornflakes, which I’d never consented to buy in Argentina because of the absurd price. I shook a small portion into their cupped hands, and the children savored them one by one, like potato chips. I told them that if they finished their milk without fussing we’d go to the park that we could see through the window over the kitchen sink. Mari worried that we’d get lost in America, but I pointed out that if we could see the park from the window, we’d be able to see Peggy’s house from the park. Outside, the air was warm and moist. Velvety grass rolled all the way down to the sidewalk. I took the notebook from my skirt pocket and wrote: America is entirely carpeted, indoors and out. The trees are healthy and robust, like the citizens. The children ran shouting toward a set of swings—they hadn’t been allowed to play outside for so long—and I felt like shouting myself, after our months in hiding. I pushed them on the swings and we sang songs until I was dizzy. I sat down on a bench and looked at my watch. It was a quarter to 8. I had not thought about you for half an hour. The children climbed to the top of a slide, and I called to them to be careful. A plump young woman carrying a red-haired baby in a pouch sat down on the other end of the bench with a groan. She had a pretty face and blue eyes. 150

She’s the fair, fleshy type you’d watch out of the corner of your eye, strolling along Calle Florida on a Sunday afternoon. “You’re great with those kids,” the woman said. I put the notebook away. “Thank you.” Mari waved from the top of the slide. “Hello, hello, hello!” she shouted, showing off exactly half the total English she knew. “She’s jealous of my attention,” I said. “They seem very fond of you.” “Yes, I believe they are.” “And your English is excellent.” “You are kind, but no.” “I haven’t seen you at the park before.” “We are staying at the house of Peggy Coffin.” I pointed to the one I hoped was hers, in a row of identical brick houses surrounding the park. “Really! I’ve never met Lisa’s kids, but those blond curls are exactly like hers used to be, though she must dye her hair now. She’s too famous anymore for her high school friends. She’s great on the soap, but so skinny I want to kill her. I gained 30 pounds with this guy.” She stroked the baby’s silky head. “I see,” I said. “How interesting.” “You’ll be going back to Ellay soon? I suppose the kids’ll be starting school.” “The kids will go to school,” I said, proud that I’d picked up the slang expression for children. “But I won’t go to Ellay. I will look for a job in Washington, D.C.” “Now, that is interesting! Because my maternity leave is up next month and I’m desperately seeking day care. I’d have to get references and all that, but why don’t you come by and we can chat over coffee? I got zero sleep last night.” I’m only inventing what this plump woman said to me, Gabo—it was so long ago. What I understood then was that, like me, she was bone tired; also like me, she had an ex-friend whom she wanted to kill. When our former classmate, Pilar, told me it was too dangerous to hide me and the children in her home, I’d wished her dead. “I would enjoy a cup of coffee,” I said. “Oh, that’s fabulous. I’m just around

the corner. What’s your name?” “I am Sonia.” “Great—you can call me Beth.” I already knew that Americans didn’t kiss when introduced, and that it was important not to stand too close to the other person during a conversation. I walked over to the slide and told the children that the lady with the baby had invited us to visit her. “No!” they cried together. “She’s a yanqui de mierda,” said Mari, who’d begun reading shortly after your arrest—including the graffiti she saw out the windows of the Number 60 bus. “Yanqui de mierda,” Julian shouted. “You mustn’t say that in America because it will hurt people’s feelings.” “Yanqui de mierda,” Julian repeated in his tenderest, 3-year-old way. “She’ll give you Nesquik,” I said. They hesitated, suspicious. Poor things, how many lies I’d told them since you’d been taken away. That Papi was on a trip but would be back soon. That if they stood very quiet in a closet until the pounding and shouting went away, they would get a present. That sleeping outside was fun, and a little rain never hurt anyone. That we were flying to the land of Disney World, and we would go on the rides every day. In protest, Mari’s legs went limp as macaroni in the middle of the street. “Stand up and walk nicely,” I whispered fiercely. “In America, it’s not illegal to run over children.” We followed Beth down the sidewalk and through a gate into her garden. We went around to the back door and into her kitchen. Our shoes stuck to the linoleum. The cupboard doors were standing open, dirty plates were piled everywhere. “Do you guys like graham crackers?” Beth held out a box to the children. “They look delicious,” I said. “Say thank you.” Mari and Julian did, beautifully. They’d practiced on the plane. They could make the “th” sound. They wolfed the crackers and then got down on the filthy floor and began playing with the baby’s toys, which

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were scattered everywhere. “It’s adorable how you’ve taught them Spanish. I’d want you to do the same with Jason.” “Hola, Jason,” I said. “Hola, mi amor.” “Would you like to hold him?” Beth lifted Jason out of the pouch and handed him to me. He was heavy and his diaper was wet, but she didn’t ask for him back. “I don’t know that I could match what Lisa’s paying you—I’m not a TV star. But I’m willing to negotiate.” At that moment, finally, I understood. Darling Gabo, I planned to write later, the funniest thing happened to me today, on my first morning in America. “Come on, I’ll show you around.” In a daze, I followed Beth through the house, up the stairs to the bedrooms, then down, down to the laundry room. Peggy had also shown me all the rooms of her home, but they were spare, clean and orderly. In this house, there was much to be ashamed of—mounds of clothes on the rug, unmade beds, a smell of baby poo, but Beth didn’t act ashamed. We returned to the kitchen, where Mari and Julian were quarreling—in whispers, as they’d learned to do—over the baby’s toys. I was still carrying Jason. I buried my nose in his baby-shampooed hair. Beth showed me the dishwasher. “In my country, only rich people have these devices,” I said. You’ll remember, Gabo, our argument over getting one—you said that was what we paid Aparecida for. Before going into hiding, I paid her six months’ wages, then warned her to go home to Rio Negro to avoid being interrogated. “Oh, of course,” Beth said with a sympathetic smile for my country and its shortage of rich people. “But didn’t you learn to use Lisa’s dishwasher? I’d expect you to do light housework, since I have just the one child.” “Light housework,” I repeated. I liked the phrase; it sounded so carefree, so American. I thought of Peggy’s lightfilled house, her pale, fluffy carpets. I realized I was smiling. In my mind I was cataloging the details of this place to put into my letter. The sticky floors,

the stink, the disorder. I would describe Beth’s soft, round bottom moving before me up the stairs. I wanted to pinch it, hard, for assuming I’m a servant because I spoke Spanish to my blond children. How she would have shrieked, this yanqui de mierda. Jason began to cry, and I jiggled him up and down in my arms. But the baby’s sobs also shook me. This silly misunderstanding would never make you laugh aloud. You would never get my letter. You were in a secret prison, being tortured. Maybe dead. I might be in America for the rest of my life. Julian tugged on my skirt. “Mama, Mama, Mama. You said we would have Nesquik here.” Beth turned around. “Wait—did he just call you Mama?” “He did.” I was still smiling. My mouth felt warped. “Oh, my God. These aren’t Lisa’s kids—Peggy’s grandkids?” “They are my children. I am Sonia Mendez de Baum. They are Mari and Julian Baum. Their father is Gabriel Baum. He is a disappeared journalist in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The American Friends Service Committee have given us refuge in Peggy’s house.” “Oh, Lord.” Beth plopped down at the greasy table and gazed at me. Her look of anguish gave me much pleasure. “Earth, just swallow me up.” Now, I thought, we have one more thing in common: I, too, wish I were under the ground. Then I would be with you, Gabo. Beth offered to drive us to Peggy’s, but I said no, I was sure we could find her house. After a few wrong turns and frustrated tears, we did find it. We stayed there a week, until an apartment was found for us in a nearby village with the beautiful name of Silver Spring. But between getting the children registered for school and locating a suitable job for me (at that time, the cosmetics counter at Saks Fifth Avenue hired attractive young refugees from the Soviet Union and Iran as well as from various South American dictatorships, and I made lifelong friends

there), we did not return to the park. I never saw Beth again. At least once a year I visit Peggy, who is very old now. We have tea and cookies in her living room. Every year the pale carpet is more stained and the dust on the furniture is thicker. Fearing to offend, I’ve never offered to vacuum and dust the room for her, but now I see that I should have. This year she told me that after her daughter’s recent visit, it had been decided that she should be moved to an institution for elderly Quakers in Orange County, California. “It looks quite nice in the pictures,” Peggy said in her softvoiced, optimistic way. Still talking, she went out of the room to fetch something she’d found while organizing her possessions. She came back with the reporter’s notebook. “This was wedged between the headboard and the wall in Lisa’s room,” she said. “The writing looks to be Spanish, so I wondered if it could be yours.” When I finally managed to speak, I told her it was. You used to buy those narrow spiral notebooks by the dozen at that stationer’s shop on Avenida de Mayo, up the street from the Presidential Palace. Shock was the brand name—the English word “shock”—you and I laughed and wondered how the paper company came up with that. Now, sitting on Peggy’s dusty sofa, I was shocked to be holding this object you’d touched so many years ago. So that makes four things in America that have been touched by you, counting me and the children, of course. I apologize, Gabo, for taking so long to write this letter. I plan to mail it to our old address on Calle Bolivar, where the current residents of the flat might be curious about what befell its former occupants. The little notebook describes only my first day here, but I think they’d be interested to know what I believe you somehow also know: that my subsequent days have been more or less a version of that one, and that Mari and Julian have grown up and—like real Americans—are more or less happy. All my love, Sonia n

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in their own words THE BIRDS (continued from page 145)

to keep up with the older, larger birds. Up and down and up and down and up and down they went. The leader of the pack dove down toward the streets and then rounded the corner of the hotel and shot upward past the setting sun, above the earth and into the night. The pattern went on and Sam started to lose feeling in her feet as the temperature dropped, but she didn’t move. She wasn’t ready to go until the birds had said their goodbyes. But they just kept circling, oscillating up and down and around and around like a child running around the hem of her mother’s dress. They would do this for days, making bigger and bigger circles until one day they would shoot off in a straight line toward the Everglades and

not come back until the spring. Sam’s life, she felt, was stuck in circling. Joanne had raised Sam to be calm and intelligent. She, in between the drinking and the smoking and the gambling, had raised her daughter to survive. She hadn’t necessarily been absent in Sam’s childhood, but she had only been present enough to make Sam understand that she would one day be on her own. She’d been the kind of mom who’d offer middle-school-age Sam a ride to the mall but not come back until two days later. The sun had been down for hours and Sam’s feet had barely come back up to room temperature when she decided she needed a glass of water. She crept down to the kitchen and grabbed a dirty glass off the counter. She filled the glass with dish soap and scrubbed until her own skin started to crack off. She went to rinse it out and the water wouldn’t come on. Jesus Christ. God, come on. Damn it. God was no help, so Joanne was the only

solution. Sam cracked open her mother’s bedroom door and saw her sitting upright on the edge of her bed in the darkness. She felt for the light switch on the bumpy wall and flicked it up. The room exploded with the kind of light in gas station bathrooms. It was uncomfortably yellow, but it couldn’t hide the black and purple and blue spots on Joanne’s back and arms. “What in the hell are you doing up in the middle of the night, child? And what makes you think you can just come in here? I got us a house with two damn rooms in it, didn’t I?” Joanne had pulled her shirt back over her head before she even finished her first sentence. “I was gonna grab a glass of water but the faucet is dry. I saw those bills fall out of your bag earlier…” Sam paused. She realized her mother couldn’t care less about the unpaid water bill at 3 o’clock in the morning. “Ma, I know what Justin is doing to you. I know you like him a lot

INDEPENDENT LIVING // ASSISTED LIVING // MEMORY SUPPORT // LONG-TERM CARE // REHABILITATION // HOME CARE

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Social Calendar

Every day is a new adventure at Ingleside at King Farm. In the morning, enjoy an outdoor yoga class and pick up a quick take-home treat from the coffee shop. At noon, it’s lunch al fresco with friends, followed by a local speaker discussing current events. On your afternoon walk, the sound of music and laughter draws you to the courtyard for an unexpected happy hour. And tonight, it’s dinner with neighbors in Le Bistro--a new summertime menu has just been unveiled. What will tomorrow bring? Call us to find out and schedule an in-person tour!

LIVING AT ITS BEST. MODERN. INSPIRED. ALWAYS ENGAGING.

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and he’s the first boyfriend you’ve had in a while but…” “You came in here not only to tell me to pay my bills but to tell me who I can date? Sam, get back upstairs before I knock you up there myself.” Circles. They went back and forth like this a lot, circles and circles of this. Joanne was a good-looking, young, single mother in a dead town full of badlooking, motherless men. They would scope her out, take her in, and swallow her. Sam would pull her out, put her back together, and make her whole again just for another boyfriend to eat her alive moments later. The circles drove Sam crazy. There were circles with her mother and circles at school; she was a smart kid but couldn’t turn in her work on time. Teachers would offer help, and for a while there would be A’s and maybe a B, and then Joanne would spend the night with a drunken truck driver. Sam would stress and then it would only be

D’s and F’s. Damn circle of life, I guess. Christmas rolled around and Joanne invited Justin for supper. There was half of a honey-baked ham sitting in the center of the table and a few servings of green beans in the microwave when he knocked. He pulled on the door handle, and pulled, and pulled. He twisted and grunted, and despite his proud efforts was defeated. Sam ran over and opened it for him. “Christ, that’s quite the warm welcome, ain’t it!” Justin shuffled into the kitchen and slid his oil-stained hands around Joanne’s waist. He had just come from the auto shop and made no effort to hide it. He dug a hole into her back with his body and nestled in perfectly, pinning her against the counter. He leaned forward, placed his head on her upper back, and moved his hands up from her waist to her breasts and started breathing heavily. Sam just stood. She stood in the doorway, still holding the broken handle,

mouth open, saliva and rage brewing. She watched as Justin sucked Joanne’s dignity and pride out of her veins and spit it out on her own kitchen floor. She watched as his sweat dripped onto the newly washed plates on the counter. I’ll need to clean those again. She felt herself begin to bubble, and she knew the boiling point was near. She slammed the door shut. Justin let go and turned around. “Well sorry, little lady. Don’t mind me, I’m just getting my appetizer in.” He smiled at Sam and she saw that he had no teeth. His eyes said nothing, and neither did Sam. They sat down for dinner, and still, Sam was silent, which was unusual for her. Joanne barely spat out a sentence. “How was work?” “How was work? Damn, lady, you must be tired or bored or high or somethin’. Since when do we talk about work ’n’ s---? Since you asked though, it was good. Lots of brake issues. Always gotta be something wrong with the brakes.

TAX UPDATE—WHY THE PANDEMIC WILL COST YOUR FAMILY MORE MONEY Between a pandemic and a hard place: COVID-19’s effects on federal and state budgets have left massive shortfalls in federal and state budgets. As governments have been left holding the proverbial bag on COVID relief efforts, they now face the challenge of paying for state largess. Current budgetary considerations at the federal level have left many individuals wondering what their tax bill will look like in 2021. Long standing estate taxes are now being re-considered to lower effective exemptions and increase taxation on assets. Under proposals currently under consideration in Congress, wealthy individuals face a potential 61% combined estate tax rate on transfers to their heirs. Under the American Families Plan, President Joseph Biden seeks to raise top tax rates for capital gains and eliminate the long-standing tax benefit for appreciated assets known as the “step-up in basis.” Additional revenue raising plans such as eliminating other estate tax planning techniques, and hiring more IRS revenue agents are also under consideration. For individuals considering their estates, this might be the last opportunity to utilize established techniques for passing intergenerational wealth. Timing of gifting and implementation of planning is critical for those seeking to maximize their gifting under the current regime for planning. For individuals who have already begun the planning process, current plans should be reconsidered in light of the proposed changes. Opportunities may exist to maximize gifting strategies, implement charitable planning, or purchase tax free life insurance which may not exist next year. Our experienced estate attorneys can guide you through the planning process and assist in the implementation of your plans.

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in their own words When you think about it though, it’s not the worst problem to have; just means you can’t ever stop.” Sam was jealous of the cars with the broken brakes. She felt her brakes worked so well that she couldn’t even start, let alone worry about stopping. “Excuse me. I’m going up to my room.” Sam put her plate in the sink and started to walk away, but then turned around and began washing it. Since the water bill had been paid and service resumed, she had been furiously cleaning everything in the house, just in case. After putting the plate on the drying rack, she made a show out of wiping the oil stains off the counter, and then ran upstairs. She climbed out of her window and found her spot on the roof. She tried to close her eyes to block out the sounds of falling chairs and bodies slamming against the wall from downstairs. There were screams, and a plate shattered, and so did Sam’s heart, little by little as the hits

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got louder. The darkness behind her eyelids did her no good. She had no choice but to stare at the ugly casino. At first, she pictured the head bird leading the pack up and down and up and down in those circles around the casino, but this wasn’t what Sam wanted; it wasn’t what she needed. So she began to picture the birds peeling off, one by one, heading south into the sun. She pictured them breaking free from the up and down circle and deciding to complete their journey to the Everglades. Finally, she closed her eyes and heard the sounds of the swamp and could no longer hear her mother’s screams from downstairs. One day in late spring when the birds had already returned to their northern homes, Joanne didn’t come home after work. It’s fine, she’s just spending the night at Justin’s. The following morning, she still hadn’t pulled into the driveway or flung open the front door. Well, she probably went straight to work from his house. That night, and the following morning, and the following night and morning, Joanne still did not come home. She didn’t drop her lipstick or her papers or curse at the door handle or microwave a TV dinner for herself or pop a pimple in the mirror or scold Sam. After a police officer arrived at the door and informed Sam that Joanne had been found in a ditch, stabbed and beaten after refusing to give Sam’s savings to Justin, Sam knew that Joanne would never do any of those things again. She would never hug Sam, never give those random tidbits of motherly advice about tampons and boys, never tell Sam to fix her hair, never do anything ever again. Sam took to cleaning. She cleaned the kitchen and the dishes and the table, and fixed the holes in the dining room wall where her mother’s body had been so unjustly shoved by her boyfriend-turnedmurderer. She cleaned the phone that she had used to call the officer a week after the incident to ensure that Justin would never walk free again. She cleaned the car after getting it back from the station. She cleaned up her life until it shined like freshly oiled rusty metal. On a quiet Tuesday the following Sep-

tember, after a scorching summer, Sam found herself on the roof, watching the birds. The leader of the pack looked livelier than in previous years. It led the triangular formation in the widest, most energetic loop that any pack had ever flown. The group soared hundreds of feet into the sky above the ugly hotel and then plummeted back to earth. They had a journey, a destination, a desire, and yet they were still circling. Sam sighed. She wanted them to break free from the pattern. Go, birds, go. Sam began to cry as she thought about the days and months and years of her life spent living in circles. GO, DAMMIT. She wanted to slam herself into the wall where her mother had been so violently destroyed; where her mother’s circle had begun to look complete. She wanted more than anything in the entire world for the head bird to break its pack free from the circle and begin the end of their journey to the swamp where they would live a warm, peaceful winter life. She wanted them to make the first move, but they were stuck, so it was up to her. She went inside, grabbed the singular box of her belongings and got into her mother’s car. She drove out of her tired neighborhood and past the Sunoco where her mom would buy tequila and a Snickers, past the Winn-Dixie, past the Collier County Branch Library where Joanne would send Sam to do her homework, past El Taquito and Lozano’s Mexican. Sam drove past her memories and her childhood and didn’t stop to take a breath until she had reached Highway 29. She was forging ahead, south toward the Everglades. The road was empty and lined with swampy forests on either side. She watched the birds in her rearview mirror as they continued to fly in their circle—except for one. Sam spotted a tiny baby bird, and again, its wings struggled to keep up with the grown, seasoned wings of its pack. It suffered as it tried to fly in circles, and eventually, it tore off going south. Sam smiled as her friend followed her to the Everglades Parkway. The bird’s migration from north to south was soon going to end, and Sam’s had just begun. Her circle had been broken. n

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BANNER TEAM 301.365.9090 Info@BannerTeam.com • BannerTeam.com AWARDS AND HONORS

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French country custom home offering unparalleled finishes. Sited on a .62 acre lot, features include reclaimed wood beamed ceilings, walnut hardwood floors, and stunning chef’s kitchen with two oversized islands. Open floor plan excellent for entertaining. Additional highlights include a main level office, finished third level, and theater. Huge flagstone patio for outdoor entertaining with pond. Garage for four cars. Contact Wendy Banner 301.365.9090

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A full-service Realtor® in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia — nothing is too small or too big. Teresa attributes her success not only to her passion for homes, but also to her intuition regarding the psychology of buying and selling. Her business has grown successfully and consistently thanks to the repeat business of happy clients and their introductions to friends, family and neighbors. This track record is only possible because Teresa delivers both results and an enjoyable experience. For listing information and/or to sell/buy your home, call 240.286.7493 or visit www.longandfoster.com/teresaburton.

Teresa Burton Helping Clients Find and Sell Homes for Over 20 Years 240.286.7493 teresa.burton@lnf.com • A Top Producer 2019 & 2020 • Licensed in Maryland, DC and Virginia • Relocation Specialist Top Agent Network Park Potomac Office 301.469.4700

What makes you different than other real estate agents? For me, it’s all about the people and places we call “Home.” While we act as advisors on the important nuts and bolts of each transaction, including marketing, staging, showings, contracts, paperwork and contingencies, home purchases and sales are personal. With years of experience buying and selling homes, I bring my steady hand, strong negotiating skills developed as a California lawyer, along with empathy, patience and care, to ensure the best possible outcome for each client. Success for my clients is my “why.” How would your clients describe you? “Susan’s negotiating skills are second to none.” “Susan is hardworking, detail oriented and highly professional.” “Susan surpassed all of our expectations for an agent.” “Susan gave us excellent guidance, unflagging availability and deep knowledge about a wide range of homes. Susan is approachable, personable, endlessly patient and incredibly generous with her time.”

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The finest craftsmanship and high end materials abound in this extraordinary residence, built in 2016. The incredible open floor plan and outdoor spaces are perfect for family living and entertaining and the interior is flooded with natural light. Many custom features including high ceilings, crown moldings, wood floors, fabulous designer touches and an elevator to all four levels. Ideally located close to Fleming Park and Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro as well as I-270 and I-495 for an easy commute to MD, DC and VA.

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The Michelle Yu Team consists of strong, independent women who share a passion for real estate and unwavering dedication to their clients. When a team member handles the sale of your home, they bring with them a select group of industry leaders including the services of a professional interior design stager, award-winning photographers, graphic designer ready to handle all of your marketing needs. and an in-house licensed Transaction Coordinator with a public relations and marketing background to make your listing stand out and ensure the listing process is as seamless as possible.º “Let MY Team Fulfill Your Dreams” Park Potomac Office 301.469.4700

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interior design. architecture. home sales.

COURTESY PHOTO

home

During the pandemic, a Chevy Chase, D.C., couple bought a vacation home in Cambridge, Maryland, and added a swimming pool. For more, turn to page 164.

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home | HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS 2

WILD THINGS

Animal prints are migrating from the fashion runway to interior design. Get the look with these bold home goods. BY CAROLYN WEBER

1. MADE IN THE SHADE

2. SNAKE CHARMING

3. SEEING SPOTS

Designer Aerin Lauder’s new collection of light-filtering Roman shades features a tailored look in a modern Woodblock Giraffe print fabric in four neutral hues. The product is made to order with specific window measurements and customer selections. For pricing, call The Shade Store in Bethesda (301-841-6829, theshadestore.com).

A textural looking wall covering makes a chic backdrop in any room. Subtle, yet striking, this snakeskin-pattern wallpaper would add a dash of drama to a powder room, a bar area, or an accent wall in a home office. Boa, from Thibaut’s Faux Resource collection, is available in six colors, including navy (pictured), and is priced at $70 for a single roll through the Sherwin-Williams store in Bethesda (301-654-7955, sherwin-williams.com).

Accessories are the easiest way to try a new-to-you design trend without much commitment. The Sasha vase from Made Goods is constructed of panels of Dalmatian print hair-on-hide stitched together to create a fun piece. It comes in two sizes—12 inches high ($285) and 16 inches high ($335)—at Urban Country Designs in Bethesda (301-654-0500, urbancountrydesigns.com).

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COURTESY PHOTOS

4. FLOOR FUN

5. WILDEST DREAMS

6. STYLISH SAFARI

Reinvigorate a frumpy foyer or a boring basement with an all-over animal patterned rug like the King Cheetah carpet from Stanton Carpet’s Kilimanjaro collection. This wild floor covering, made of stain resistant polypropylene, is available in eight colors. It sells for $8.55 per square foot, installed, with a premium pad, at Carpet & Vacuum Expo in Potomac (301-299-2900, carpetandvac.com).

This zebra- and tiger-inspired design by Schumacher is printed on luxury linens from Matouk. The 500-thread-count Egyptian cotton percale has scalloped edges and comes in three colors—sand, silver and hazy blue. The Quincy bedding collection includes pillow shams, sheets and a duvet cover, all sold separately and ranging from $88 to $688 at Bloomingdale’s in Chevy Chase (240-744-3700, bloomingdales.com).

Create an adventurous playroom for a young animal lover with this wildlifethemed spotted chair, designed in partnership with the Jane Goodall Institute. The sleek molded-rubberwood seat is supported by steel tube legs, measures 14 inches wide by 27 inches high, and is available for $79 at Crate and Barrel in Upper Northwest D.C’s Spring Valley neighborhood (202-364-6100, crateandbarrel.com).

Carolyn Weber lives in Silver Spring and frequently writes about architecture and home design. BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021

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Michelle and Steve Dolge, who live in Chevy Chase, D.C., bought this property in Cambridge, Maryland, last year as a vacation home.

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home

IN JUNE 2020, Chevy Chase, D.C., resident Michelle Dolge traveled to Cambridge, Maryland, to help a friend prepare her second home for a pandemic-modified “beach week” visit by their teenage daughters and the girls’ friends. During her visit to the Eastern Shore town, Michelle recalled a house there that had caught her eye when she was browsing online real estate listings during the early weeks of the pandemic. The two women drove past the property so she could check it out. “I fell in love instantly,” Michelle says of the grand 1896 Victorian on the Choptank River. “I called my husband on the way home, and within three days we owned it.” Michelle and her husband, Steve, have always worked together, meeting and marrying while on staff at WTOP radio in the District in the 1990s, and later owning and operating a CrossFit gym that they sold last fall. They have spent most of the last year dedicated to their latest team venture—the renovation of the 4,000-square-foot house called River Lure. Although their second home, designated as a historic property, underwent a major renovation a decade ago, the Dolges have given it an overall refresh with some repairs and cosmetic updates. “Steve’s gone from a CrossFit coach to a woodworker and painter,” Michelle says with a laugh. They plan to rent the house when they’re not using it and decided to add a swimming pool in the spacious side yard overlooking the river to increase the property’s value and provide fun for their two grown children, ages 19 and 21. Old houses are full of surprises, and Michelle’s research revealed that the man who built the house was a schooner captain and oysterman who operated a wharf on his property. After the town’s historic commission approved their plans, the Dolges installed the pool, digging up a yard full of buried oyster shells. During the past year, the couple fell in love with Cambridge’s natural beauty, historic charm, diversity and friendly

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people. “There are a lot of hip young adults pumping life into the town,” Michelle says. “Along with the weekenders from the Bethesda area, there’s a contingent of Capitol Hill people. People want an escape, and this is an affordable place.”

LAST YEAR, EVERYONE WANTED to get away—from urban areas, from other people, from the pandemic. With COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions dragging on, second-home sales surged as residents of Montgomery County and elsewhere retreated to the beach, the bay, the mountains, or any place where they felt safe and had space to breathe. At first, the pandemic created uncertainty in the real estate market, and agents were anxious. “Our market was strong before COVID, but in March 2020 things stopped,” says real estate agent Leslie Kopp of Long & Foster in Bethany Beach, Delaware, a popular vacation spot for county residents. “It felt very similar to the time just after 9/11.” Russell Bounds of Railey Realty in McHenry, Maryland, had a similar experience trying to sell homes near Deep Creek Lake. “My partners and I were worried because it got really quiet,” he says. It turned out to be the calm before the storm because phones were ringing off the hook by May with buyers eager to purchase vacation homes. Historically low interest rates, coupled with repercussions from the pandemic, created the perfect conditions for a real estate boom. After months at home, people took stock of their lives and reevaluated their living situations. Some were financially able to pursue plans that had been on the back burner before the pandemic. Liberated by remote working and schooling, some families were able to spend long stretches of time out of town. “So many of our part-time residents left the D.C. area to quarantine in Cambridge,” says real estate agent Mary Losty of Compass, who lives in the town. She’s

seen a shift in the second-home market demographics, with a growing number of young families joining the typical middle-aged buyers who have an eye on retirement. According to Losty, millennials are discovering her town, with its plentiful outdoor activities and affordable housing stock. “They were never tied to the office like baby boomers were,” she says. “They’re looking for a lifestyle that allows them to walk their dogs at lunchtime and go kayaking after work.” With flying not considered a safe option, buyers were looking for places within easy driving distance, no more than a few hours away. The Deep Creek Lake area was one of them. They flocked to the northwest Maryland region for summer water sports, skiing at Wisp Resort in the winter, and proximity to six state parks for hiking year-round. “People can leave the D.C. suburbs and get to their second home in a four-seasons resort in three hours,” Bounds says. Listings in the area, which range from large lake houses to condos near the ski resort, are drawing multiple offers in record time and above asking price. The median sale price in Oakland, the home of Deep Creek Lake State Park, rose from $179,000 in the first quarter of 2019 to $336,500 in the first quarter of 2021, according to Bright MLS, a real estate listing service. “It’s an exceptionally good time for sellers,” Bounds says. “And it’s good for buyers who can get across the finish line, but they may have to be aggressive.” There’s no end in sight for the beach boom, either. “I’ve never seen demand so high and inventory so low,” says Kopp, who has been selling real estate on the Delaware shore for more than 30 years. In the first quarter of 2021, properties in communities from Ocean City, Maryland, to Bethany Beach and Rehoboth Beach in Delaware were averaging less than eight days on the market, a considerable drop from the first quarter of 2019, when the average number of days was nearly 50, according to Bright MLS.

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COURTESY PHOTO

Steve and Michelle Dolge at their new Cambridge home, which they plan to rent out when they’re not staying there

“You’d think that since people are getting vaccinated and things are opening up, they might not be as motivated,” Kopp says. “But they’re snapping up whatever they can afford.” The new-home construction business at the beach is also strong. Marnie Oursler, president of Marnie Custom Homes, has been building high-end houses in Bethany Beach for 15 years and says she’s busier than ever. “The ability to work from anywhere has altered the buyer’s mindset,” she says. “Once employers realized that it was sustainable, it really helped our market.” Oursler’s clients, 80% of whom are from Montgomery County, are eager to get their projects going, and the push has changed her usual September-to-May construction schedule. “Typically, we don’t start houses in the spring, but the pandemic changed that,” she says. “Now,

people are willing to rent for the summer while their homes are built.” Those buyers say they intend to spend more time at the beach, and Oursler has seen changes to the standard wish lists. “We are doing a lot of designated offices,” she says. In some cases, clients want two home offices, and plan to use one as a flex space for participating in Zoom calls and doing homework. There are more requests for home gyms and secondary TV rooms where kids can watch their own shows and enjoy their gaming devices. “We design for multigenerational living and think of ways for extended families to stay together comfortably,” she says. In second homes, space planning for large groups is important. “We talk about the social aspect, and how a floor plan will work on a crowded July weekend as well as in the off-season,” Oursler

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home

says. Some staples of her homes include kitchens with two islands, bunk rooms for kids, and lots of outdoor living spaces and amenities such as decks, screened porches, built-in grills, firepits, and even in-deck pools.

MOTIVATED BY THE DESIRE for an out-of-town retreat during the pandemic lockdown, Silver Spring couple Teresa and Keegin Teare decided to pull the trigger on buying the beach place they’d always talked about. “That was the springboard for our longtime goal of buying a second property,” Teresa says. “The pandemic made us realize that life is too short to wait on these dreams.” They chose Ocean City because Teresa vacationed there when she was young and her extended family still gathers there. Her aunt has owned a condominium on 128th Street for years “and we would go every summer,” she says. 168

Her sister now owns a condo in the same building, so it became a family compound. The couple and their three children, who are 16, 14, and 10, wanted to join the party. The Teares made an offer on a nearby condo last summer but were outbid. The market was still competitive in December when they found a three-bedroom, two-bathroom perch in the quiet north end of town, a block from the ocean and priced within their budget. They loved that it is close enough for the kids to go to the beach alone, without having to cross a major roadway. It’s also within walking distance of a large public park with lots of green space, paths, crabbing and kayak rentals. There were four other offers, but the Teares prevailed. The low maintenance unit was just what they had in mind—newly decorated, fully furnished and move-in ready. They’re staying there as much as possible

Katey and Chris Brown of Bethesda are having their second home in Deep Creek Lake (above and right) renovated with features geared toward entertaining and outdoor living. The property includes 269 feet of lakefront.

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and renting it to family and friends when they’re not using it. “My sister’s kids are the same age as ours, so they can all play at the beach and ride bikes together,” Teresa says. “It’s so fun for all of us to be there together.”

they were thrilled to find a rare empty lot near the town center, on the east side of Route 1. They bought it in July 2020. Jen, who is into home design, found Oursler while researching builders and loved her aesthetic. “She has a vision, and her homes offer a design element that the others don’t,” Jen says. She recognized Oursler from her TV show, Big Beach Builds, which ran for two seasons in 2017 and 2018 on DIY Network. The Burnsteins’ 3,000-square-foot

COURTESY PHOTOS

IN NEARBY BETHANY BEACH, Jen and Mike Burnstein are building a new house. The couple, whose primary residence is in Gaithersburg’s Crown Farm neighborhood, have owned a home in Beth-

any since 2008, but wanted to be closer to the ocean and the boardwalk. “We’d always poked around, looking at different houses,” Jen says, “but it wasn’t until last summer, after dealing with COVID and not knowing when we could travel again, [that] we felt the time was right.” The Burnsteins were not interested in a renovation or demolition, which are common in Bethany because many of the older homes are not equipped for yearround living or up to current codes. So

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home house is under construction and will have a New England vibe with a gambrel roof, synthetic cedar shingles, and board and batten siding. Oursler’s plans are designed specifically for beach living, and this house will include many of her signature elements. The ground level will have a garage, outdoor shower, secondary laundry room for washing towels and bathing suits, built-in storage cubbies, and a closet for chairs, umbrellas and coolers. “Everything you need for going to or coming from the beach is down there,” Oursler says. Including these elements on the ground level helps to enforce the cardinal rule of beach house owners—no sand comes into the main living spaces. Jen characterizes the interior design scheme as modern coastal with pops of bright colors, wood ceiling beams and plenty of shiplap on the walls. “We are big art people, so I’m sure there will be

lots of fun art around the house,” she says. The home will be three stories tall, with the kitchen, living and dining rooms on the second floor and the bedrooms up top. Ninety-five percent of the homes Oursler builds have elevators, which are convenient for hauling luggage and groceries, and allow homeowners to age in place. The Burnsteins are opting to build the framing for a shaft now, but won’t install an elevator unless it becomes necessary. “This house is a good investment,” says Mike, who would consider retiring there in the future. For now, the couple’s plan is to enjoy their new vacation home with their 25-year-old son, extended family and friends. They also envision staying in Bethany more than in the past because Mike, a vice president for an IT company, can work remotely now. “I had worked in an office my whole career,” he says. “I don’t think I am ever going back.”

LIKE MANY PEOPLE WHO buy homes near Deep Creek Lake, Katey and Chris Brown were first exposed to the area as renters. The couple, who moved from Chicago to Bethesda four years ago with their three boys, now 17, 15 and 13, stayed in a townhouse overlooking the lake during their first winter in Maryland. They liked the snow activities and thought it would be a great place to visit in the summer, too. They were used to spending time at lakes in the Upper Midwest, and Chris has fond memories of summers at his uncle’s lake house in Wisconsin. “We love the year-round aspect of it, and the ability to keep our kids active and outdoors in every season,” Katey says. The Browns started house hunting in the summer of 2019, saw dozens of options, and even lost out on one. That fall, they found a rare gem in a 1.76-

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Nestled in the Potomac Highlands is a private, resort-like community on the Potomac River in the shadow of Shepherdstown - an hour from Metropolitan D.C. Shepherds Cove’s 19 private five-acre homesites provide the economies of utilities hook-ups, low taxes and no ‘impact fees,’ walking trails, private marina, and more. . . all with the convenience and natural beauty of The Highlands. You will fall in love with the natural beauty, friendly locals, fresh food, and clean environment. Purposely choosing a quality community is the opportunity to make an economic and lifestyle investment for yourself and your family. And it’s important to know that the Shepherdstown area holds an infinite array of things to see and do. . . from live theatre, wineries and fine dining to watersports and mountain hiking. . . and so much more in-between.

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For those seeking an Eastern Shore escape Discover the oasis of waterfront luxury, leisure, and charm that is Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the trusted hands of Trey Rider. Trey’s 18 years of real estate and mortgage experience have given him the knowledge and insight to help guide customers through all their real estate needs. An Eastern Shore native, Trey will navigate the waters of your Chesapeake Bay retreat with ease and expertise—and meet you on the river or the greens after.

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home acre property with 269 feet of lakefront. They got the house after making an allcash offer with no contingencies, and even writing a letter to the seller. The 50-year-old chalet-style house measures 5,300 square feet and needs significant upgrades. They never considered tearing it down because they loved its rustic charm and saw an opportunity. “It was going to be more of a dream home than just a redo,” Katey says. The couple hired Jim Rill of Rill Architects in Bethesda, and had been planning the renovation and meeting with a local contractor in early 2020 before the pandemic hit. During the ensuing months, the Browns realized they wanted to spend as much time as possible at the lake, so they pressed pause on the remodel. Staying at the lake house proved a nice reprieve for the family, which spent weeks at a time enjoying swimming, boating, waterski-

ing and each other. “We loved being up there, away from it all,” Katey says. “If anything, those four months gave us more time to think about things we wanted to fix.” The remodel finally started in October, with the most important projects scheduled first—upgrading electrical, fixing the roof, and expanding the boys’ bedrooms. The architect’s design takes advantage of the existing expanses of glass and adds a sliding window wall in the living area to capture the lake views and dramatic natural setting. With an emphasis on entertaining and outdoor living, the Browns plan to upgrade the patio and add a screened porch and a firepit. The open concept of the vacation house plan is all about having spaces to gather. There will be a spacious kitchen with a big island and enough room for multiple families to congregate around a large table in the dining room. “It’s kind

of like The Big Chill, but with kids,” Rill says with a laugh. In anticipation of hosting a large number of visitors, the Browns have doubled the capacity of the hot water heater, installed two sets of washer/dryers, and added a secondary refrigerator to keep stocked with drinks. There will be a large mudroom with ample storage for ski equipment, life jackets and other items. The Browns plan to take full advantage of remote working and were hoping to decamp to the lake starting in early July, when the renovation was expected to be completed. “If there is a silver lining to the pandemic,” Katey says, “it’s that it brought our family much closer together.” n Carolyn Weber lives in Silver Spring and frequently writes about architecture and home design.

23788 EBB POINT ROAD, BOZMAN | $1,795,000 Situated on a private 2.23+/- acre waterfront lot w/ scenic vistas of Broad Creek. Custom home featuring cathedral and vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors, skylights, & distinctive finishes such as the copper ceiling and driftwood mantle over the gas fireplace in the dining room. The formal living room w/ stacked stone fireplace & floor-to-ceiling windows take full advantage of the water view. Library/media room, river room with brick flooring, recreation room, and office. 1st floor primary suite w/ cathedral beamed ceiling & floor to ceiling windows w/ water view, gorgeous bath w/ custom tile work, heated floors and walk-in closet. Exterior of the home features a waterside deck with waterfall and pond, storage shed and outbuilding. Private pier with boat lift and approximately 3’+/-MLW.

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chuck@chuckmangold.com BENSON " MANGOLD | 31 GOLDSBOROUGH STREET EASTON, MD 21601 | 410-822-6665

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Make the Right Move Expertise | Service | Success The Sondra & Pam team provide a personal and professional real estate experience, working with buyers and sellers to meet their goals. Specializing in Bethesda, MD since 2003, they have a proven record of success and are fully equipped to guide you throughout your journey. Sondra Mulheron & Pam Schiattareggia Realtor® MD | DC S: 301.785.9536 P: 301.802.7796 O: 301.304.8444 sondra.pam@compass.com Compass is a licensed real estate brokerage that abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is not guaranteed. All measurements and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Compass is licensed as Compass Real Estate in DC and as Compass in Virginia and Maryland. 7200 Wisconsin Ave, Suite 500, Bethesda, MD 20814 | 301.304.8444

Who You Work With Matters. “Kimberly is absolutely top-notch! We initially crossed paths with her at an open house, and were so impressed with her knowledge, demeanor and approach that we knew immediately we wanted to work with her. She was extremely responsive, thorough, patient and helpful in navigating the many intricacies of showing and selling our first home while buying our current one. End of day, we sold our first home of 12 years, and are now happily settling into what we believe is our ‘forever’ home, thanks to Kimberly. We unequivocally and wholeheartedly recommend her to anyone looking for a true partner and advocate in the home buying/selling process!” - Client | Buyer & Seller

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Compass is a licensed real estate brokerage that abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is not guaranteed. Compass is licensed as Compass Real Estate in DC and as Compass in Virginia and Maryland. 5471 Wisconsin Ave Suite 300 Chevy Chase, MD 20815 | 301.298.1001

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Erich Cabe Team of Compass Realtor® MD | DC M: 347.836.6029 O: 301.298.1001 kimberly.bowen@compass.com

6/14/21 4:01 PM

A Dedicated Team That Delivers Exceptional Results Team Koki of Compass prides itself on providing clients with a first-class real estate experience. Whether breaking down comparable sales and absorption rates for a seller in order to get their initial list price just right, or leading a first-time buyer through their home purchase, Team Koki always puts the unique needs of each individual client first. “We have had the pleasure of working with Koki and his team to buy a house, secure tenants for a rental property and most recently to sell a house. Within three days of listing our house we had multiple offers to choose from. Koki’s expertise in real estate helped us negotiate a great deal and secure a contract in a matter of days. Koki and his team provide all clients with clear and efficient communications and top notch customer service. We look forward to the opportunity to work with Koki again in the future.” - Happy Client

Koki Adasi Senior Vice President 240.994.3941 O. 301.298.1001

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Margie Halem Group Margie Halem is ranked among the top 1% of real estate agents nationwide by The Wall Street Journal and is consistently recognized for her exceptional service. While Margie has earned numerous designations and awards over the years, she prides herself on her personal connections with clients. Whether you are buying or selling real estate in the DC metro area, Margie Halem and her team can assist you with every detail Discover what sets us apart — and why our clients return to us again and again!”

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We have the real estate experience, marketing prowess, and in-depth local knowledge to help you buy or sell your dream home. Compass is a licensed real estate brokerage that abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is not guaranteed. All measurements and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Compass is licensed as Compass Real Estate in DC and as Compass in Virginia and Maryland. 7200 Wisconsin Ave, Suite 500, Bethesda, MD 20814 | 301.304.8444

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Matt Murton, Kristy Deal, & Jonica Gibson are the Smart Living Experts of Compass. We are proud members of the nation’s most technology-driven brokerage, Compass. Our impeccable track records as Top Producers, experience, relationships within the brokerage community, and unwavering commitment to our clients’ best interests have made us among the top producing teams in the area as recognized by Bethesda Magazine. Smart Clients deserve Smart Agents! Matt Murton, Founder M: 301.461.4201 O: 301.304.8444 matt@smartlivingexperts.com Licensed in MD, DC, & VA Compass is a licensed real estate brokerage that abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is not guaranteed. Compass is licensed as Compass Real Estate in DC and as Compass in Virginia and Maryland. 7200 Wisconsin Ave, Suite 100 Bethesda, MD 20814 | 301.304.8444

Meet Annabel Burch-Murton Annabel has been consistently recognized both locally and nationally as one of the best agents in the Metro area. Her referral-based business has been built on her unwavering commitment to meet and exceed the expectations of her clients. She is known for her strength as a client advocate and negotiator and is particularly skilled in navigating the complicated process of helping her clients Sell and Buy at the same time. Especially in this unprecedented market we are in, you can have complete confidence in placing your Real Estate transactions in her experienced and capable hands. Visit JustAnnabel.com to see what clients are saying about her or contact her at 202.285.7166 or Annabel@BurchMurton.com.

O: 301.304.8444 Compass is a licensed real estate brokerage that abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is not guaranteed. Compass is licensed as Compass Real Estate in DC and as Compass in Virginia and Maryland. 7200 Wisconsin Ave, Suite 100 Bethesda, MD 20814 | 301.304.8444

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home | BY THE NUMBERS

Data provided by

APRIL’S MOST EXPENSIVE

at A peek rea’s f the a some o pensive x most e sold n rece tly s house

HOME SALES SALE PRICE: SALE PRICE:

$5.5 million LIST PRICE: $6 MILLION

Address: 6 Burning Tree Court, Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 10 Listing Agency: TTR Sotheby’s International Bedrooms: 5 Full/Half Baths: 5/1

$3.8 million LIST PRICE: $3.9 MILLION

Address: 5501 York Lane, Bethesda 20814 Days on Market: 24 Listing Agency: Compass Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 8/0

SALE PRICE:

$3.7 million LIST PRICE: $3.8 MILLION

Address: 6707 Radnor Road, Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 332 Listing Agency: Compass Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 7/2

SALE PRICE:

$4.7 million LIST PRICE: $3.9 MILLION

Address: 9 Darby Court, Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 2 Listing Agency: Compass Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 6/3

SALE PRICE:

$3.6 million LIST PRICE: $3.5 MILLION

Address: 5110 Cammack Drive, Bethesda 20816 Days on Market: 3 Listing Agency: Compass Bedrooms: 8 Full/Half Baths: 5/1

SALE PRICE:

$3.6 million LIST PRICE: $3.8 MILLION

$4.5 million LIST PRICE: $4.3 MILLION

Address: 7125 Arrowood Road, Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 1 Listing Agency: TTR Sotheby’s International Bedrooms: 5 Full/Half Baths: 5/3

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SALE PRICE:

$3.5 million LIST PRICE: $4 MILLION

Address: 11013 Cripplegate Road, Potomac 20854 Days on Market: 161 Listing Agency: Washington Fine Properties Bedrooms: 4 Full/Half Baths: 4/2

COURTESY PHOTOS

SALE PRICE:

Address: 9606 Falls Road, Potomac 20854 Days on Market: 43 Listing Agency: Long & Foster Real Estate Bedrooms: 9 Full/Half Baths: 10/1

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home | BY THE NUMBERS

SALE PRICE:

$3.3 million LIST PRICE: $3.3 MILLION

Address: 5103 Westport Road, Chevy Chase 20815 Days on Market: 0 Listing Agency: Long & Foster Real Estate Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 5/2

SALE PRICE:

$3.2 million LIST PRICE: $3.3 MILLION

Address: 11720 Centurion Way, Potomac 20854 Days on Market: 139 Listing Agency: Compass Bedrooms: 7 Full/Half Baths: 6/3

SALE PRICE:

$3.1 million LIST PRICE: $3 MILLION

Address: 10 Stanmore Court, Potomac 20854 Days on Market: 140 Listing Agency: Washington Fine Properties Bedrooms: 5 Full/Half Baths: 6/2

Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 5/2

SALE PRICE:

$2.8 million LIST PRICE: $2.6 MILLION

SALE PRICE:

$3.1 million LIST PRICE: $2.9 MILLION

Address: 8404 Rapley Ridge Lane, Potomac 20854 Days on Market: 2 Listing Agency: Long & Foster Real Estate Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 5/3

SALE PRICE:

Address: 11230 Huntover Drive, North Bethesda 20852 Days on Market: 31 Listing Agency: Allied Realty Bedrooms: 5 Full/Half Baths: 5/1

SALE PRICE:

$2.7 million LIST PRICE: $2.7 MILLION

$3.1 million

Address: 8007 Aberdeen Road, Bethesda 20814 Days on Market: 162 Listing Agency: Compass Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 6/1

LIST PRICE: $3.2 MILLION

Address: 7609 Honeywell Lane, Bethesda 20814 Days on Market: 61 Listing Agency: Redfin

DEB LEVY

The Face of Home Lending I began my career with the then Chase Bank of Maryland and Chase Personal Financial Services in 1985 while attending The University of Maryland at night. It’s exciting to see Chase expanding our banking services to the Washington, DC area. As a native Washingtonian, my family and I are personally invested in this community and see it as a wonderful place to live. Buying a home or refinancing can seem overwhelming. So much has changed since I started in the industry. Technology has made the process simpler and streamlined. However, remaining the same is the customer experience; the personal understanding, listening and advising our clients for their important home financing decisions. Our lending specialties include the professionally employed, selfemployed borrowers, low-to-moderate income program, vacation home financing, condominium and co-op lending and first-time homebuyer programs, too. —Deb Levy, Senior Home Lending Advisor, Chase

If you are thinking about a mortgage, let me show you the next step. I’ll guide you every step of the way, from application through closing. All home lending products are subject to credit and property approval. Rates, program terms and conditions are subject to change without notice. Not all products are available in all states or for all amounts. Other restrictions and limitations apply. Home lending products offered by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. ©2021 JPMorgan Chase & Co.

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DEB LEVY | NMLS ID 481255 1401 New York Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20005 | 301.332.7758 2021 A Top Vote Getter

Readers’ Pick Top Vote Getter Best Mortgage Broker

homeloan.chase.com/deb.levy

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

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SALE PRICE:

$2.6 million LIST PRICE: $2.7 MILLION

Address: 3203 Farmington Drive, Chevy Chase 20815 Days on Market: 157 Listing Agency: RLAH Real Estate Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 7/1

SALE PRICE:

$2.6 million LIST PRICE: $2.6 MILLION

Address: 8907 Burdette Road, Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 12 Listing Agency: RE/MAX Realty Services Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 5/1

SALE PRICE:

$2.6 million LIST PRICE: $2.6 MILLION

Address: 7008 Braeburn Court, Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 61 Listing Agency: Long & Foster Real Estate Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 6/2

SALE PRICE:

$2.5 million LIST PRICE: $2.6 MILLION

Address: 9112 Charred Oak Drive, Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 123 Listing Agency: TRR Sotheby’s International Realty Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 6/2

SALE PRICE:

$2.5 million LIST PRICE: $2.5 MILLION

Address: 9315 Rapley Preserve Drive, Potomac 20854 Days on Market: 2 Listing Agency: Long & Foster Real Estate

Bedrooms: 5 Full/Half Baths: 5/2

SALE PRICE:

$2.5 million LIST PRICE: $2.6 MILLION

Address: 10839 Pleasant Hill Drive, Potomac 20854 Days on Market: 48 Listing Agency: Washington Fine Properties Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 6/1

SALE PRICE:

$2.5 million LIST PRICE: $2.5 MILLION

Address: 8918 Harvest Square Court, Potomac 20854 Days on Market: 34 Listing Agency: Long and Foster Real Estate Bedrooms: 8 Full/Half Baths: 5/1 Note: Some sale and list prices have been rounded.

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home | BY THE NUMBERS

REAL ESTATE TRENDS BY ZIP CODE

APRIL 2020

APRIL 2021

20015 (Upper NW D.C.) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

15 $1.4 Mil. 24 9 5 12

16 $1.5 Mil. 4 14 1 15

20016 (Upper NW D.C.) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

17 $1.6 Mil. 17 8 7 15

22 $2.3 Mil. 23 9 7 22

20814 (Bethesda) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

20 $1.1 Mil. 20 9 6 7

30 $1.4 Mil. 13 22 3 19

20815 (Chevy Chase) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

25 $1.4 Mil. 30 9 11 21

33 $1.5 Mil. 32 18 10 26

20816 (Bethesda) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

20 $1.3 Mil. 12 11 5 13

18 $1.5 Mil. 7 15 1 16

32 $1.1 Mil. 21 11 16 15

49 $1.7 Mil. 18 30 9 39

20817 (Bethesda) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

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APRIL 2020

APRIL 2021

APRIL 2020

APRIL 2021

20832 (Olney)

20855 (Rockville)

Number of Homes Sold 21 14 Average Sold Price $685,561 $693,864 Average Days on Market 10 11 Above Asking Price 6 12 Below Asking Price 8 2 Sold Over $1 Million 2 1

Number of Homes Sold 14 23 Average Sold Price $587,107 $728,440 Average Days on Market 17 6 Above Asking Price 7 19 Below Asking Price 4 2 Sold Over $1 Million 0 1

20850 (Rockville)

20877 (Gaithersburg)

Number of Homes Sold 22 19 Average Sold Price $694,240 $704,228 Average Days on Market 29 9 Above Asking Price 9 14 Below Asking Price 9 2 Sold Over $1 Million 3 1

Number of Homes Sold 15 17 Average Sold Price $456,416 $504,176 Average Days on Market 41 9 Above Asking Price 9 15 Below Asking Price 3 1 Sold Over $1 Million 0 0

20851 (Rockville)

20878 (Gaithersburg/North Potomac)

Number of Homes Sold 8 14 Average Sold Price $421,397 $486,267 Average Days on Market 9 6 3 10 Above Asking Price Below Asking Price 3 1 Sold Over $1 Million 0 0

Number of Homes Sold 26 34 Average Sold Price $684,500 $823,497 Average Days on Market 21 6 8 27 Above Asking Price Below Asking Price 11 4 Sold Over $1 Million 1 6

20852 (North Bethesda/Rockville)

20879 (Gaithersburg)

Number of Homes Sold 21 Average Sold Price $708,863 Average Days on Market 24 Above Asking Price 10 Below Asking Price 9 Sold Over $1 Million 2

Number of Homes Sold 14 11 Average Sold Price $506,464 $520,525 Average Days on Market 11 5 Above Asking Price 9 10 Below Asking Price 2 0 Sold Over $1 Million 0 0

19 $1 Mil. 8 17 1 7

20853 (Rockville)

20882 (Gaithersburg)

Number of Homes Sold 27 23 Average Sold Price $613,651 $631,774 Average Days on Market 15 6 Above Asking Price 14 18 Below Asking Price 8 4 Sold Over $1 Million 1 0

Number of Homes Sold 15 23 Average Sold Price $628,306 $722,352 Average Days on Market 79 15 Above Asking Price 2 20 Below Asking Price 6 3 Sold Over $1 Million 0 2

20854 (Potomac)

20886 (Gaithersburg)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

48 $1 Mil. 30 12 28 20

55 $1.4 Mil. 30 33 15 35

Number of Homes Sold 9 11 Average Sold Price $480,277 $573,627 Average Days on Market 50 5 Above Asking Price 4 9 Below Asking Price 4 1 Sold Over $1 Million 0 0

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APRIL 2020

APRIL 2021

APRIL 2020

APRIL 2021

APRIL 2020

APRIL 2021

20895 (Kensington)

20901 (Silver Spring)

20903 (Silver Spring)

Number of Homes Sold 28 37 Average Sold Price $705,835 $889,957 Average Days on Market 20 11 Above Asking Price 14 23 Below Asking Price 9 4 Sold Over $1 Million 3 12

Number of Homes Sold 29 37 Average Sold Price $530,155 $607,570 Average Days on Market 10 6 Above Asking Price 19 31 Below Asking Price 6 1 Sold Over $1 Million 0 0

Number of Homes Sold 4 8 Average Sold Price $488,750 $519,062 Average Days on Market 6 12 Above Asking Price 3 6 Below Asking Price 0 0 Sold Over $1 Million 0 0

20896 (Garrett Park)

20902 (Silver Spring)

20910 (Silver Spring)

Number of Homes Sold 1 3 Average Sold Price $910,000 $883,666 Average Days on Market 1 6 Above Asking Price 0 3 0 0 Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million 0 1

Number of Homes Sold 26 40 Average Sold Price $478,204 $538,931 Average Days on Market 17 23 Above Asking Price 14 29 10 6 Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million 0 2

Number of Homes Sold 14 20 Average Sold Price $755,428 $842,795 Average Days on Market 18 34 Above Asking Price 7 16 4 4 Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million 2 5

Information courtesy of Bright MLS, as of May 19, 2021. The Bright MLS real estate service area spans 40,000 square miles throughout the mid-Atlantic region, including Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. As a leading Multiple Listing Service (MLS), Bright serves approximately 85,000 real estate professionals who in turn serve more than 20 million consumers. For more information, visit brightmls.com. Note: This information includes single-family homes sold from April 1, 2021, to April 30, 2021, as of May 19, 2021, excluding sales where sellers have withheld permission to advertise or promote. Information should be independently verified. Reports reference data provided by ShowingTime, a showing management and market stats technology provider to the residential real estate industry. Some sale and list prices have been rounded.

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4825 DERUSSEY PKWY, CHEVY CHASE $1,860,000

CAROLYN SAPPENFIELD 240.353.7601 CAROLYNHOMES.COM

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THE MATHER Future Site Location: 7929 Westpark Drive, Tysons, VA 22102 703-348-3752 | Info@TheMatherTysons.com www.TheMatherTysons.com

BIO

Mather is a unique not-for-profit organization headquartered in Evanston, Illinois, that is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year. Dedicated to creating Ways to Age Well,SM the organization maintains a constant focus on mission and strategic planning for the future, with an ongoing emphasis on impact, significance and sustainability.

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The Mather, projected to open in 2023, is a forward-thinking Life Plan Community for those 62+ where you can let go of worries and embrace opportunities. It’s smack dab in the middle of it all, bordering a three-acre urban park and within walking distance of Tysons rail service, retail and restaurants. The Mather’s apartment homes start from 800 square feet up to 3,300 square feet, featuring expansive views, luxury finishes and innovative smarthome technology. Entrance fees start at $639,800. The Mather will feature 38,000+ square feet of amenities, including multiple restaurants, fitness center, indoor pool, library, art studio, meeting spaces and more! Life Plan Communities are lifestyle communities in which people can pursue new passions and priorities, with a plan in place that supports aging well. Renderings and information shown here are subject to change without notice. BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021 185

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ARROWWOOD 5410 McGrath Blvd., North Bethesda, MD 20852 www.arrowwoodapts.com | leasing@arrowwoodapts.com 240-752-9192

BIO

LCOR is a build-to-core, transit-oriented, multi-family development platform focused in major east coast urban markets. Over its 40-year history, the development firm has applied its comprehensive expertise and fully integrated investment management and development strategy to more than 300 largescale mixed-use projects. For more, please visit www.lcor.com. Welcome home to Arrowwood, your retreat from ordinary living. This mid-rise apartment community located within The Quad at Pike District offers spa-like interiors sure to elevate your mood and a host of amenities designed to keep you grounded. Spacious oneand two- bedroom floor plans offer the perfect place to stretch out and relax after a long day, while the community’s amenity-rich environment allows you to enjoy the things you love without ever having to leave your home. 10,000 square feet of amenity space features an exquisitely designed clubhouse, a 24-hour flexible lounge area (ideal for working), a sprawling active courtyard with tranquil water features, plenty of seating and outdoor grilling stations, a meditative courtyard, and a state-of-the-art fitness center. Discover everything you’re looking for around The Pike – only at Arrowwood. 186

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CRAFTMARK HOMES Model: 104 Bleeker Place, Gaithersburg, MD 20878 Eric Yakuchev: eyakuchev@craftmarkhomes.com | (703) 989-6662 www.craftmarkhomes.com/communities/crown

BIO

Craftmark Homes has been your local hometown builder for 30 years now, delivering more than 8,000 new homes throughout the DMV area. Guided by our founder’s passion for superior quality, better living environments, and award-winning customer service, we’ve created a long-term legacy of building a lifetime of luxury.

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Make your move to the only elevator townhomes available at Crown East, an amenity-rich neighborhood in Montgomery County, MD. Featuring Craftmark’s award-winning, grand 24’ Bellevue floor plan — the closest design to a single-family home, without the costs or maintenance. From a gourmet kitchen with Bosch® Appliances and a 13’ island to a luxury owner’s suite with an infinity closet and spa-like bath, this home has everything you desire. Craftmark is also the only Energy Star Certified builder in Crown. We create healthier living spaces with lower utility bills, because our dedication to smarter construction stretches beyond your move-in date. Experience an elevated lifestyle with exciting on-site amenities at your fingertips. Enjoy walkable dining and retail at Downtown Crown and RIO, large outdoor swimming pool, a convenient community Metro shuttle, and more! Schedule your appointment today and learn more about our summer - spring '22 move-ins! CraftmarkHomes.com/Crown 3-4 Level 24’ Grand Towns From the Mid $800s BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021 187

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8001 WOODMONT 8001 Woodmont Ave, Bethesda, MD 20814 8001woodmont.com 833-788-5667

BIO

JBG SMITH is a S&P 400 company that owns, operates, invests in, and develops a dynamic portfolio of high-growth mixed-use properties in and around Washington, DC. Berkshire Residential Investments is a people-focused investment management company known for its vertically integrated organization and experience in U.S. residential real estate. PROJECT

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Relish a community designed with all of life's details and desires in mind. Situated in downtown Bethesda, 8001 Woodmont features contemporary, spacious apartment homes and plush on-site amenities. Enrich your lifestyle in a distinctly designed building at the center of the Woodmont Triangle's renaissance. This flourishing neighborhood boasts the most unique residences in Bethesda, a vital, upscale community hub where neighbors come together for the finest in modern living and convenience.

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GROSVENOR PLACE 10296 Grosvenor Place, North Bethesda, MD 20852 301-453-5089 www.livegrosvenorplace.com

BIO

Since its founding in 1992, award-winning Madison Homes has grown into one of the most respected residential builders and developers of infill developments in the Washington, D.C. market. We specialize in the creation of luxury single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums, offering a wide variety of architectural styles and locations. PROJECT

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The Townes at Grosvenor Place is an amazing place to live in North Bethesda. Classic townhomes with four stories full of luxurious features and elegant finishes, including 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, a designer kitchen with stainless steel appliances, wide-plank hardwood floors, 9' ceilings on all levels, a private office, 2-car garage, available elevators, and a loft that walks out onto an expansive rooftop terrace. Central to all the best restaurants and shopping, Rock Creek Park, and Strathmore Music & Arts Center, The Townes at Grosvenor Place is also only minutes away from the Metro's Red-Line, Rte. 355, I-270, and I-495—connecting you to Bethesda, D.C. and beyond.

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WINDSOR BETHESDA 7770 Norfolk Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814 www.windsorbethesda.com 833-498-5495

BIO

With over 60 years of experience, Windsor Communities has built a solid reputation of providing the best in apartment home living. We manage over 38,000 residential units nationwide, with locations in 15 states. Our wide selection of luxury apartment homes are catered to meet your every need and our professional management team takes pride in providing the very best in service. Located at the corner of Norfolk & Fairmont Avenues, Windsor Bethesda finds its home in Bethesda's sought after Woodmont Triangle. Known for its vibrant energy and eclectic style, Woodmont Triangle is Bethesda's epicenter of gourmet dining, art galleries, entertainment and boutique shopping. Local favorites such as Woodmont Grill, Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza, Medium Rare and Jetties are right outside your door. Known for its impeccable full-service concierge, Windsor Bethesda is one of the nation's highest-ranking communities for resident satisfaction. Our unbeatable amenities package starts with the Skydeck, a sprawling rooftop terrace complete with outdoor living rooms, a swimming pool and breathtaking views of the city below. Other highlights include a private fitness center, spacious resident lounge with a double-sided fireplace, reserved parking garage, pet spa and two on-site restaurants. 190

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fitness. wellness. medicine.

PHOTO BY LINDSEY MAX

health

Ofosu Jones-Quartey, who lives in Rockville, teaches mindfulness meditation classes. For more, turn the page.

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IN THE MOMENT A Rockville meditation teacher focuses on being kind to ourselves BY DANA GERBER | PHOTO BY LINDSEY MAX

WHETHER OFOSU JONES-QUARTEY is encouraging conscious breathing, playing therapeutic sounds or leading emotional check-ins, his guiding philosophy remains the same when he teaches mindfulness meditation classes. “Be present with kindness,” he says. “Just to notice what’s happening in your own mind and body, and to notice that with a kind and caring attitude.” Jones-Quartey, 40, was introduced to meditation by his mother, a Buddhist and meditation practitioner, when he was 6. But it wasn’t until 1999, when he was a sophomore majoring in law and society at American University in Washington, D.C., that he decided to pivot toward the practice of spirituality. “My then-girlfriend, now-wife, was pregnant with our first child,” says Jones-Quartey, who grew up in Silver Spring. “I felt that I would be a better father if I was taking the time to look within and understand myself more.” After reading books on meditation, Jones-Quartey studied Vipassana, which he says is similar to mindfulness meditation, for several years beginning in 2002 with teacher Bhante Buddharakkhita, a Buddhist monk he met at a monastery in West Virginia. “The way that I was practicing before having a teacher, I was being pretty hard on myself and feeling like I needed to have a perfect mind or have perfect meditations,” he says. “Working with the teacher and ultimately working with yourself over time will get you to realize that kindness towards yourself is really the most important thing.” Since 2004, Jones-Quartey has worked at Insight Meditation Community of Washington as a co-leader of its family program. He teaches for D.C.-based Minds Incorporated, which 192

brings mindfulness into classrooms, and records meditations on the Balance meditation app. He also has co-written a mindfulness-based positive psychology curriculum for the Ryan Bartel Foundation in Waterford, Virginia, which aims to prevent youth suicide. Jones-Quartey describes his teachings as secular. Jones-Quartey, who lives in Rockville and teaches all ages, says that introducing mindfulness practices to young people can help them navigate adolescence. “The three words that I love most are ‘you are enough,’ ” he says. “When you can introduce that concept to young people, I think that creates an opportunity to counterbalance the innate difficulties that come with growing up.” During classes, he uses singing bowls that create “healing tones” and produce “sound baths” when multiple bowls are played for an extended time. He also incorporates songs that he says encourage kindness, such as “Who Am I?” by Nina Simone. Among Jones-Quartey’s other mindfulness strategies is suggesting his students pay attention to sensory experiences, like the feeling of their feet on the ground. “[I’m] giving them the alternatives and tools that they can use to still be mindful while they’re doing their everyday activities,” he says. Having struggled in the past with anxiety and depression, Jones-Quartey says meditation has provided a refuge. “It’s the difference between being out in the middle of the ocean without a life raft… and being out in the middle of the ocean with a life raft,” he says. “At the very least, these practices helped me stay afloat, and at their best they carry me to the places where I really want to be.” n

IN HIS OWN WORDS... COUNTDOWN “A great practice that’s great for beginners or advanced people alike is the five-four-three-two-one practice: five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. That’s something you can do at any time, and that is a mindfulness practice bringing you into the present moment.”

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YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND

BE POSITIVE

THE BRIGHT SIDE

“I like for people to take a moment and just check in with how they’re feeling, mentally, emotionally and physically… and then, based on how you’re feeling in that moment, consider what you would say to a best friend or a loved one who was feeling the same way—what words of support or encouragement or gratitude might you share with someone who was feeling exactly how you’re feeling right now.”

“Because we have negativity bias as a survival mechanism, it’s just easier for us to see the negative things about ourselves, easier for us to think the negative things about ourselves, easier for us to say negative things about ourselves, and in the extreme examples, easier for us to do negative things to ourselves. So the biggest hurdle is getting people to see that they don’t have to believe everything they think.”

“When you’re faced with uncertainty and unprecedented circumstances, you can either view it as problematic, or you can view it as a kind of challenge or puzzle that you can work with and solve. And when you have a perspective that everything is workable… then circumstances become less insurmountable and they become opportunities.”

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Group Effort For 90 days, a bunch of men from Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Kensington gave up junk food and alcohol, took cold showers and committed to praying for an hour each day. It wasn’t easy, but the impact on their health and spirituality made the journey worth it. BY MIKE UNGER | PHOTOS BY ERICK GIBSON

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Some of the Exodus 90 participants at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, from left: Bob McCarthy, Chris Grant, Ed Tarbutton, Gabe Petruccelli, Jorge Garayta, Al Kish, Jason Osborn, Rob Liotta, Al Del Grosso, Chris Glaser and Grant Bonavia

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Jorge Garayta— pictured with his wife, Caren—calls joining Exodus 90 one of the best decisions he’s ever made.

IT ALL SEEMED like too much of a sacrifice

for Jorge Garayta. No snacking between meals. No television—sports included. Giving up booze. Taking cold showers. And toughest of all for the sweet-toothed 43-year-old, cutting desserts from his diet. “I will take down a pint of Americone Dream from Ben & Jerry’s, the one with Stephen Colbert’s face on it,” he says. “I don’t just dip into it; I would eat the entire thing.” So the father of six politely declined a friend’s invitation to join Exodus 90, an intense threemonth spiritual exercise that 32 of his fellow male parishioners at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Kensington began on Jan. 4. Instead, he decided he’d try to change a few things on his own. He committed to eating healthier and praying every day. It didn’t work. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—find time for the daily prayers. He still rushed to put his kids to bed so he could raid the freezer, plop down on the couch and watch TV. In mid-January, he confessed his failings to his priest, who urged him to formally join the program. Two weeks before Exodus 90 ended on Easter

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Sunday in April, Garayta looked back on his decision to get involved as one of the best he’s ever made. “Like a lot of guys in this thing, I’m terrified for Day 91,” he said. “I keep saying there’s no way I’m going back. I don’t want to go back to a bowl of ice cream, I don’t want to go back to 30 pounds heavier. My wife is telling me, ‘Hey, you look good.’ She has been pulling the spiritual weight in our family more so than I have for sure until these last 72 days or so. This has gotten me up to her level. It’s been transformational for me.” Exodus 90 is a national program designed to return Catholic men “to the fundamentals of the faith.” Participants download an app that includes a checklist for the asceticisms—simply defined as acts of self-denial—and daily scripture readings. It was brought to Holy Redeemer for the first time this year by Robert Liotta. Three years ago, one of Liotta’s friends asked him to participate at a different church. “When you look at the list of asceticisms, it seems insurmountable,” the Kensington resident says. “I said, ‘No way.’ ” But last year he relented and joined his friend at the other parish. “When things are all going

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awry, I’m prone to anger or yelling, and I’m like, why am I losing my temper?” says Liotta, who has six children between the ages of 3 and 12. “There’s always one or two episodes where the kids just drive me crazy. I wanted to figure out, what is the deep root cause of that?” By doing Exodus 90—committing to self-sacrifice, fraternity and an hour of daily prayer—Liotta and many of his fellow participants say they’ve become healthier spiritually, mentally and physically. It wasn’t easy, but it was one of the most fulfilling journeys of their lives.

COMPLACENCY, CHRIS GRANT SAYS, had

crept into his life. The 58-year-old Silver Spring resident owns an information technology staffing business, and despite keeping busy with that and his three children, he felt like he was drifting. He’d sit on the couch planning to watch one episode of Seinfeld, and then, before he knew it, he’d watched three and dozed off. “We don’t realize complacency has set in until we’re fighting a huge uphill battle,” he says. “It’s like a Terps basketball game. [Coach] Mark

Turgeon’s team gets behind by 18; it’s exhausting to fight your way back. By the time you get back, it’s hard to get the lead and hold on to it because you’re exhausted. You’ve got to work harder. That happened to me.” Grant, whose license plates read “TERPSNUT,” wasn’t thrilled when he found out that avoiding television was one of the 14 asceticisms required in Exodus 90. Among the others: a commitment to regular, intense exercise; getting at least seven hours of sleep a night; abstaining from soda or sweet drinks; listening only to music that lifts the soul; only using the computer for work, school or essential tasks (like paying bills); and using mobile devices only for essential communications. It’s a daunting list. “Like doing Lent on steroids,” Liotta says. Several of the men admit to slipping up: having a drink at a small get-together, munching on potato chips, sneaking in at least a tepid shower. “The cold showers are very hard, especially in the dead of winter,” says Gabriel Petruccelli of Darnestown. “It certainly wakes you up. You learn to take a shower in two minutes, like my father did in the military.”

About 15 to 20 of the men doing Exodus 90 would meet at Holy Redeemer before sunrise.

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Jorge and Caren Garayta at home in Kensington with five of their kids

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As the group leader, Liotta, 46, occasionally relaxed the rules. The guys were allowed to watch the Super Bowl and Maryland basketball in the NCAA Tournament, as long as they were with their families. “When the Terps were in the Big Ten Tournament, [in the past] that was something that I would have said, ‘Caren, get the kids to bed, I need everybody out,’ and I’d be like a monster,” says Garayta, a Kensington resident. “Not that watching sports is evil—it’s certainly not. It’s just the way that I was turning it into the main and only focal point at that particular time is just not the right way to do it.” For Petruccelli, a 42-year-old orthopedic surgeon who’s been married for seven years, the discipline required to complete the program brought a clarity to his life that was missing. “I’ve enjoyed moments that I otherwise wouldn’t have looked at as being a moment,” he says. “I was driving my son to school and I was looking in the back seat. His eyes were moving with the trees, and the sun was beating down on him. I was just looking at him at the age of 5½ and thinking how amazing it was just to be in that moment with him. Three months ago I would have just looked in my rearview mirror and kept driving.”

After a few weeks of avoiding dessert, some were pleasantly surprised to discover that they no longer craved it. Bob McCarthy found himself wandering through the frozen foods aisle in Safeway one day, but instead of reaching into the freezer to grab a carton of ice cream, he took a picture of one through the glass. “I didn’t even care,” says McCarthy, 43, who lives in Kensington. “Ever since then, I’ve had ice cream just twice, and I’ve only had a couple bites. I wasn’t ravenous like before.” Weight loss was a specific goal for some, but the primary motivation for most was strengthening their relationships with their families and God. In Garayta’s case, that’s what happened, says Caren, his wife of 19 years. When Garayta started the program, his family wasn’t sure how it would affect their home life. She and the kids know that he can get “hangry” (hungry and angry). They braced themselves for life with a grumpy dad and husband. But that man never materialized, she says, and now she has to fight him for time on the Peloton. “There was an inner peace that I had never seen with Jorge,” Caren says. “He has a lot on his plate: six kids, full-time job, athletic director of the school. That can cause a lot of stress and

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DR. STACIA M. KRANTZ Fallsgrove Center for Dentistry 14955 Shady Grove Road, Suite 200 Rockville, MD 20850 301-610-9909 www.fallsgrovedentistry.com Dental School: University of Minnesota School of Dentistry Expertise: Dr. Krantz prides herself in treating her patients like family. Caring, compassionate, personalized treatment with over 20 years of experience in comprehensive family dentistry.

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anxiety, but I could truly see him letting go and trusting in God.” In the midst of the program, Caren found out that she was pregnant. “I didn’t know how he was going to respond,” she says. “When I told him, it was an overwhelming joy that he had that this was going to happen for our family. If he had not done Exodus 90, I think it would have been a little more stressful and anxiety inducing.” Sadly, Caren suffered a miscarriage, and she says the spiritual direction that Jorge provided during that difficult time made a world of difference to her.

FOR 90 DAYS, EVERY Wednesday morning 15 to 20 men wearing masks would walk blear y-eyed into Holy Redeemer before sunrise to say the rosary. Chairs were spaced 6 feet apart because of COVID-19; the other men joined via Zoom. “I never would have envisioned being so excited to get up at a quarter to 5 to go hang out in a church basement with a whole bunch of guys,” McCarthy says. “I started to look forward to Wednesday morning at 5 a.m. like I used to look forward to Friday nights.” They opened up about the challenges they faced within and outside of the parameters of the program. One admitted to struggling with his wife and contemplating divorce. There were up to 45 participants; only three dropped out. Most credit the fraternity and the support they received from friends for helping them get through the tougher times. “As you go through this process together with other guys who are your peers, you start to understand that most of us are probably struggling with the same things,” says Francis Rienzo, 54, of Kensington. Each man had at least one “anchor” he was urged to text daily to discuss his struggles and get encouragement. “I needed accountability from the outside,” Grant says. “When you tell someone you’re going to train for a marathon, they

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HORMONE THERAPY

better see you out running on the street.” As Day 91 approached, many found themselves feeling nervous. On April 2, Good Friday, Grant sent a message to the participants. “I was lukewarm in my faith all these years, so God gave me a cold shower to wake me up to the warmth of His embrace,” Grant wrote. “In some reflection the other day, I wrote that last year when considering Exodus 90, I was afraid of what I would have to give up to do the program, this year, I was afraid of what I would lose if I didn’t do Exodus 90.” When Petruccelli started Exodus 90, he’d naturally reach for his phone during downtime at work. “Instagram and Facebook were always there,” he says. “I found myself tapping on these icons without even thinking about it. Now, here we are 90 days later. What used to come so natural, now I’m afraid to tap it because I’m afraid of what it will do to me.” Liotta, a captain in the medical corps of the U.S. Navy, kept his phone on vibrate. That was a small sacrifice, but when he first told his wife, Julie, about the program, she was apprehensive about the bigger commitments. “I was kind of like, aw, it’s just one more thing to do,” she says. “But it felt like it added a sense of purpose and focus and joy. It takes away all of those things you kind of escape to, so at home he was emotionally more present to everybody. It really solidified his role as the leader of our family. Not by telling people what to do; it was just setting a powerful example of sacrifice and love. You can’t help but want to follow that.” They’ve continued their daily reflections. Julie often tells him about something she’s struggling with so he can pray about it. Sometimes she shares a story from her day. “She had to go get birthday presents for our twins. Our son Michael went with her,” Liotta says. “She told me Michael was so happy in the car with her. …She said she had never seen him so lit up. They were going around getting the presents and buying the birth-

day candles, and Michael came up to her with two butterfly nets. He’s like, ‘Mom, I didn’t tell you that I brought my money and I want to buy these for the twins for their birthdays.’ If we didn’t go through the whole day, she may not have told me that story. It was a simple thing, but it was really beautiful.” The men wanted their Wednesday morning meetings to continue, so on April 19, most of the group began a 21-day program called Oasis. The asceticisms are far less stringent—they can have alcohol as long as they give thanks beforehand, warm showers are permitted after reciting a prayer—but the core principles remain. They stress that they’ll probably return to some of their old habits at some point, but hopefully not with the singlemindedness they did before. “We’re not puritans, but we also demonstrated that it starts to take away from some of the more important parts of your life, and you need to work on controlling that,” Petruccelli says. “I think what I’ve gotten the most out of this is everything in moderation—except happiness—in life.” Garayta woke up on Easter morning and started rifling through his kids’ Easter baskets, shoveling jelly beans into his mouth “like a junkie.” Later, his parents came over with a Carvel ice cream cake to celebrate the end of the program. They wanted to leave what hadn’t been eaten, but Garayta told them to bring it home. He started craving the cake the next night, so he let himself into his parents’ house (they’re neighbors) and went searching for it. “They’re both asleep. I’m looking through the freezer and I couldn’t find it,” he says. “Then I looked over and [saw that] my dad had destroyed what was left of it. I was so mad. That was God being like, OK, pump the brakes, dude. So Monday I got back on it.” n Mike Unger is a writer and editor who grew up in Montgomery County and lives in Baltimore.

designed specifically for your body

No two women are alike

and compounding pharmacists understand this fact Bio-identical Hormone Replacement Therapy is most often prescribed to ease the symptoms of menopause, but it also can be used to treat a variety of conditions that women of all ages may experience.

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Dentists SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

dentist

FRONT ROW (L-R): ZIAD E. BATROUNI, DDS MALINI B. IYER, DMD, MD GLENN A. NATHAN, DDS LISA S. COHEN, DDS SCOTT S. KIM, DMD, MD BACK ROW (L-R): BRADLEY S. FREY, DDS MARK S. HOFFRICHTER, DDS MARY CARTER ROBINSON, DDS BRIAN T. ROBINSON, DDS, MD MITCHELL A. STARK, DDS STEVEN R. KISHTER, MD, DDS NOT PICTURED: SARAH Z. NAGHIBI, DMD, MD ZACHARY J. ZONES, DDS 202

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Malini Iyer, DMD, MD & Steven R. Kishter, MD, DDS MARYLAND ORAL SURGERY ASSOCIATES BETHESDA MOSA’s award-winning doctors offer the full scope of Oral and Maxillofacial surgery and continually rank among the highest quality. With eight locations throughout Maryland, patients can schedule appointments at their convenience. Honors & Achievements Top Dentists in Bethesda Magazine as well as Frederick, Northern Virginia, Washingtonian and What’s Up Annapolis/West County magazines. We had been the official Oral Surgeons for University of Maryland athletic teams for going on 20 years. Specialties include dental implants, “teethin-a-day,” bone grafting, wisdom teeth, extractions and cosmetics. Wildwood Medical Building 10401 Old Georgetown Road,, Suite 206 Bethesda, MD 20814 Plus, locations in Annapolis, College Park, Crofton, Frederick, Laurel, Rockville and Silver Spring 1-844-459-MOSA bethesda@mosa4os.com www.mosa4os.com

Q: What is unique about your

practice? A: Maryland Oral Surgery Associates (MOSA), the state’s oldest and largest Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery practice, was established in 1969 in Greenbelt, MD. Since then, MOSA has expanded from two full-time surgeons to 13 surgeons. MOSA now has eight locations – covering six Maryland counties and has successfully performed nearly a million procedures over the past 52 years. Q: How do you employ new technology to help your patients? A: Our up-to-date surgical technology includes CT scanning to create computergenerated implant placements, “Teethin-a-Day” procedures and, soon to be introduced, Robotic Implant Surgery. These techniques lead to shorter surgical time, decreased pain/swelling and more predictable surgical outcomes. We utilize IV sedation and general anesthesia monitoring, which matches that used in hospital operating rooms. Q: What is the one thing your

patients should know about you? A: All of us at MOSA care deeply about the health and safety of our patients. We have employed the highest levels of precautions to ensure an excellent surgical outcome for all patients. We use highly effective suction devices to vacuum the minimal aerosol spray produced during oral surgery procedures. Medical grade ionizing HEPA filters are continuously running throughout the surgical and non-surgical areas. All instruments are sterilized in daily tested, hospital-grade autoclaves. Dr. Malini Iyer is the senior surgeon at our Bethesda location. She is a double degree (MD/ DDS), Board Certified surgeon with 10 years of private practice experience.

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DR. JILL BRUNO ORTHODONTICS Affiliations & Awards American Association of Orthodontics American Dental Association DC Dental Society Washingtonian Top Dentist Bethesda Magazine Top Dentist, 2020 Top 1% Diamond+ Invisalign Provider The Barlow Building 5454 Wisconsin Ave, Suite 1260 Chevy Chase, MD 20815 301-656-3310 Info@brunosmiles.com www.brunosmiles.com

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Q: What makes you different than other orthodontists? A: A visit to our office is often described as "a walk in the clouds," articulated quite literally from the serene and heavenly quality of our space. Adults, teenagers and children feel comfortable here, whether their treatment involves braces, Invisalign or something in between. My goal is to provide an exceptional experience from the moment a patient walks through the door. Dr. Bruno is proud to be a Diamond+ Invisalign provider which means she is in the top 1% of the providers in the world. Our Adult Treatment Suite is one of the only orthodontic offices in the area offering this dedicated space. Emphasis is placed on individualized adult treatment plans using the latest technology for accelerated orthodontics resulting in decreased treatment time.

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Q: How do you employ new technology to help your patients? A: We're proud to introduce virtual consults and virtual appointments through Dental Monitoring, Zoom conferences, and Invisalign Virtual Care. These systems allow our patients to easily start orthodontic treatment and stay on track with it, too. Q: What is unique about your practice? A: Besides offering customized treatment plans for patients of all ages, we specialize in thoughtful early treatment plans for children including those with sensory, dietary or speech issues. My team and I really enjoy getting to know each patient and the family and love creating relationships that last multiple generations. HILARY SCHWAB

Jill Bruno, DDS, MSEd

PROFILES

Dentists

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Despina M. Markogiannakis, DDS SMILES OF CHEVY CHASE 5454 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 835 Chevy Chase, MD 20815 301-652-0656 @smilesofchevychase smilesofchevychase.com

Affiliations & Awards:

Bethesda Magazine, Top Dentist, 2020 Washingtonian magazine, Top Dentist, 2021 American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry American Academy of Facial Esthetics American Dental Association American Dental Education Association District of Columbia Dental Society Greater Washington Academy of Dental Studies

COURTESY PHOTO

Q: What is unique about your practice? A: My extended training in advanced general dentistry and implants allows me to create beautiful smiles that reflect the complex relationship between oral and systemic health. Through the pandemic, we have created the safest environment by adding a sterile air system and chairside aerosol evacuator units breaking down any virus or bacteria to the 0.3 micron. Staying at the forefront of digital dentistry also enables me to complete smile makeovers and fullmouth reconstructions seamlessly while guiding patients through the process. Personal and individualized care, combined with our relaxing office environment, fosters a warm, welcoming atmosphere for even the most anxious patient. Q: What is one thing your patients should know about you? A: My vision is Inspiring Smiles through a unique patient-centered experience, providing the highest quality of comprehensive care where treatment plans are individualized to meet each patient's needs. I am a perfectionist who is caring, compassionate and always motivated to be better. I value clear communication with patients to explain a diagnosis and treatment plan, both short- and long-term, to promote oral health. I also love giving back to the community. With our "One for One for Ten" initiative, patients, simply by tending to their oral health, are giving back, too. For each patient, we donate a complete oral health kit to a person in need and 10 percent of the cost of the visit to charity. We began this in 2021 with the first of our special causes, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2021 205

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Fallsgrove Center for Dentistry

Q: What makes your practice

unique? A: Fallsgrove Center for Dentistry has proudly been providing high quality, STACIA M. KRANTZ, DDS, MAGD personalized dental care to this TODD C. WASSERMAN, DDS, FAGD community for more than 30 years—many MICHELLE L. SNYDER, DDS members of our staff and patients have been with us for three-plus decades! We Getting to know our patients and building believe our convenient and comprehensive trusting relationships is a priority which affords multidiscipline team approach truly sets us the insight to diagnose and recommend the best our practice apart. Often, our entire individualized treatment. team—restorative dentist, periodontist and orthodontist— examines a patient during the same appointment to ensure 14955 Shady Grove Road, Suite 200 Rockville, MD 20850 thoroughness. We discuss, as a group, 301-610-9909 the patient’s and our concerns and info@fallsgrovedentistry.com recommend treatment accordingly. Our www.fallsgrovedentistry.com ability to communicate effectively with each other, and the patient, is especially valuable during more complex treatment. Q: How are our dentists leaders in the community? A: Our dentists have been recognized as leaders in their field and have served 206

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as board members and past presidents of multiple dental organizations in the DMV area, with a focus on continuing education and giving back to our community. We have been recognized by the Washingtonian, Bethesda Magazine and Consumer Checkbook. Q: What can you expect from our team? A: We pride ourselves in offering the latest dental technology, procedures and dental treatment plans to provide stunning results, and consistently strive to exceed our patients’ expectations. Our dentists are devoted to providing patients with superior results while reducing apprehension associated with receiving oral care. Our highly trained and personable hygiene team work alongside our dentists to educate the patient regarding excellent oral care maintenance throughout their lifetime.

MICHAEL VENTURA

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

PROFILES

Dentists

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Karen Benitez, DDS CHEVY CHASE PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY 8401 Connecticut Ave., Suite 650 Chevy Chase, MD 20815 301-272-1246 hello@chevychasekids.dentist www.chevychasekids.dentist

Affiliations & Awards: Bethesda Magazine, Top Dentist, 2020 American Dental Association American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry American Board of Pediatric Dentistry Maryland Pediatric Dental Association American Academy of Physiological Medicine & Dentistry Alpha Omega Academy of Applied Myofunctional Sciences Myofunctional Research Company The Breathe Institute/Baby Breathe Tongue-tied Academy Q: What is unique about your practice? A: Our entire office was specifically designed to build the most

comfortable, fun atmosphere to meet our young patients' needs. Our space is alive with colors and toys, and even a separate nook just for kids. Our interactive-wall toys, costume sunglasses and movies help our littles gain confidence that they are involved in the entire experience — we understand good vibes! We encourage our patients to touch, feel and engage with us, making their dental experience comfortable for even the most nervous kiddos. Come experience the magic of Chevy Chase Pediatric Dentistry, where we "tickle teeth," use "power washes," spit into "magic straws," make silly faces and wear fun masks. Our enthusiasm to share this experience with our families cannot be curbed!

Q: What is one thing your patients should know about

your practice?

HILARY SCHWAB

A: Systemic health is a continuum of oral health, and we

implement research-supported dentistry, providing conservative and predictable outcomes. Our advanced cavity management includes SDF/SMART therapies, the Hall Technique, White Zirconia Crowns and Lesion Sterilization and Tissue Repair and patients with MTHFR gene mutation, in which traditional treatment approaches are modified, making it critical to understand non-invasive treatment alternatives. Tethered tissues and feeding/airway management are essential to your child's health. I collaborate with myofunctional and feeding therapists to provide laser releases and maintain airway-centric philosophies to guide proper development. We care for each patient as though they are family. Our core philosophy centers on considering your child's unique needs. We welcome you to pop in for a visit soon!

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LEFT TO RIGHT: DR. HILARI DUNN, DR. BRAD LEVINE, DR. MARK TAFF, DR. JANICE GROSSMAN Awards & Honors Best Dentistry Group/Practice, Best of Bethesda Readers' Poll, Bethesda Magazine, 2017 7811 Montrose Road, Suite 300 Potomac, MD 20854 301-530-3717 taffandlevine@comcast.net www.taffandlevine

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Q: What brings you the most

satisfaction in your work? A: Voted “Best Dentistry Group/Practice” in 2017 in Bethesda Magazine's Best of Bethesda Readers’ Poll is very gratifying, as it lets us know we are serving our patients in a most exemplary fashion. We constantly strive to “wow” patients and make the experience in our office like no other. We are committed to creating an environment with state-of-the-art, full-service dental care, in a relaxing atmosphere, surrounded by caring doctors and staff. In our new Potomac office, we have created a 21st-century modern workspace. With HD TVs in every operatory, we are better able to explain and show oral issues that need attention, and our in-house CAT Scan allows for more accurate diagnostics when problems arise. Our goal is to deliver first-class dentistry in a conservative fashion to all who seek the best. It’s an incredible feeling to see a patient who thought this kind of

JULY/AUGUST 2021 | BETHESDAMAGAZINE.COM

dentistry was out of their reach, transform into a person with a vibrant and youthful smile! It is very satisfying to know we have built a multi-generational practice spanning over 40 years that is consistently recognized in the community. Our new VIP Membership Plan gives our existing and new patients a way to reduce the cost of most dental procedures without compromising the needed treatment they deserve. Let us give you something to smile and brag about! We are confident you will be as proud to be a part of our dental practice as we are to serve you.

MICHAEL VENTURA

Taff & Levine DDS, PA

PROFILES

Dentists

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Heather Sholander, DMD, MS & Madeleine Goodman, DMD HARMONY PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY & ORTHODONTICS

LISA HELFERT

Dr. Goodman is an orthodontist and president-elect of the Middle Atlantic Society of Orthodontists. Dr. Heather is a pediatric dentist and a Diplomat of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry. They have been practicing together in the area for over 10 years. 4818 Del Ray Ave. Bethesda, MD 20814 301-664-4220 smile@harmonybethesda.com www.harmonybethesda.com

Q: What makes you stand out as

dentists? A: Teamwork: Over the years we’ve developed a shared philosophy that treating the patient as a whole is more beneficial than the traditional specialty approach. It takes a team to help a child grow to his or her full potential. This includes not only a collaborative orthopediatric approach but also working with other specialists like speech therapists and pediatricians and, most importantly, the child’s family. We strive to create an environment where we get to know each family individually and focus on their specific needs. Q: What is unique about your practice? A: Supporting others: Harmony has partnered with a wonderful non-profit called City Blossoms that develops kidfocused green spaces that supply food, community and the opportunity to learn through creativity and play. For every

new patient, we support this cause by donating plants to help these gardens grow because we believe that health starts from the ground up! Q: How do you employ new technology to help your patients? A: Innovative techniques: We are both board-certified specialists who strive to create a standard of care by integrating technology, research and experience. It is a running joke in Dr. Goodman’s house that Facebook is where you go to look at teeth and Dr. Heather’s kids think research articles are a normal Saturday morning read. We have incorporated state-ofthe-art technology into our practice such as a digital scanner (no more yucky impressions) and a dental laser which allows us to fill most cavities without anesthesia!

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Dentists SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Jason A. Cohen, DDS 5530 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 560 Chevy Chase, MD 20815 301-656-1201 | drcohen@cosmeticdds.com www.cosmeticdds.com

oriented." "Artistic." "Talented." These are some of the descriptions of our practice in the thanks we get from people. Our philosophy has always been to Treat Your Family Like Family and we do that from start to finish—on the phone, in our office, and throughout your treatment. We live our mantra every day and patients appreciate it. Q: How do you employ new technology to help your patients? A: To make your dental processes as comfortable and accurate as possible, we use digital radiography, photography and scanning with computer-assisted technology. It gives you the most up to date, safest and most relaxing dental experience, and it helps get you the best results for your time with us.

LISA HELFERT

Q: How would your patients describe you? A: "Conscientious." "Caring and compassionate." "Detail-

Dr. Leonard Merlo MONTGOMERY ORAL & FACIAL SURGERY & DENTAL IMPLANT CENTER WASHINGTON ORAL & FACIAL SURGERY & DENTAL IMPLANT CENTER

Honors Top Dentist, Bethesda Magazine, 2020; Top Dentist, Washingtonian, 2019 Q: What is the one thing that your patients should know about you? A: For over 23 years we’ve been providing patients with excellent, state-of-the-art surgical services—from wisdom tooth removal to complex bone grafting/jaw reconstruction to full-mouth "teeth-in-a-day" with in-office anesthesia. We also offer a variety of surgical and non-surgical procedures to enhance facial appearance. I’m proud to be a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and board-certified in both OMFS (oral and maxillofacial surgery) and dental anesthesiology. I believe that everyone is entitled to quality care—not just those with unlimited income— and my practice is committed to treating every patient with respect and compassion. 210

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LISA HELFERT

Offices in Rockville, MD and Washington, DC 301-468-0020 202-223-3391 info@montgomeryoralsurgery.com montgomeryoralsurgery.com

PROFILES

Dentists

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Derek Blank, DDS DC PEDIATRIC SMILES ORTHO SUITE FROM LEFT: SARAH FORD, SYDNEY COLES, MEREDITH SELLERS, DR. DEREK BLANK, ELSY ESTRADA, ANED MOLLINEDO, SHAE COLEMAN NOT PICTURED: ALLISON LEDESMA, ZAZZI LOPEZ, ANN BROWN, JAMIE THORPE, AND ROXY CASTRO (CATCHING WAVES AT SURF CAMP)

STUDIO EIGHTY EIGHT

Awards & Honors "Best Pediatric Dentist", Bethesda Magazine, Readers' Poll, 2021; "Top Dentist," Washingtonian, 2021; Diplomate, American Board of Pediatric Dentistry 5640 Shields Drive, Bethesda, MD 20817 301-363-9026 www.dcpediatricsmiles.com

Q: What is unique about your

practice? A: At DC Pediatric Smiles, your child’s dental visit is as fun as a trip to the beach. Step into our office and you’ll be immersed in the bright, clean, beach house vibe of coastal California. Our team is committed to providing children with a comfortable and approachable introduction to dentistry in the safest environment possible. Our motto is simple: Laugh. Grow. Smile. Families love the positive, encouraging experience we provide kids of all ages. We also understand that convenience is key for busy parents. We offer online, mobile-friendly forms, contactless reception, curbside check-in and ample free surface parking. Q: How would your patients describe you? A: I think patients would say I’m fun, energetic, patient and approachable. As a father of three young kids, I understand the importance of connecting with all my

patients to ensure their first impression of the dentist is positive. Coming into the dental setting understandably can be intimidating and scary for kids (and parents too). Our team is talented at easing any fear through their laidback, calm and confident approach to care. That’s how we’ve been crushing sugar bugs since 2017. Q: What makes you different from other dentists? A: The inclusive nature of our practice. I founded DC Pediatric Smiles on the principles of celebrating diversity and service to the greater community. In particular, patients with autism and children with unique medical needs find a comforting home at DC Pediatric Smiles. We are so fortunate to be located in such a dynamic, diverse region of the country. Our team strives to provide fun, kidfriendly dentistry in a positive setting to all families to build healthy, happy smiles for a lifetime.

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Dentists SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Ariel Abramson, DDS MODERN DENTISTRY, PLLC 4200 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20016 202-506-5506 Info@moderndentistrydc.com www.ModernDentistryDC.com

appointments go well means giving the patient a great experience, too. I love when a patient who has always been fearful of the dentist has a great experience and is excited to return. Q: What's unique about your practice? A: We really focus on the patient experience. Our team takes great care to get to know patients to better cater to their individual needs. We want patients to feel like family. Many have been with our practice for over a decade, and it’s a joy to grow with them. Q: How do you employ new technology to help patients? A: We strive to live up to our name. One of the more recent technologies is 3D printing. We now routinely print patient models and surgical guides for implants. We even used 3D printing to create a safer mask during the pandemic.

MICHAEL VENTURA

Q: How would your patients describe you? A: Professional—yet fun and relatable. For me, having

Cheryl Callahan, DDS CHERYL CALLAHAN, DDS & ASSOCIATES 15225 Shady Grove Road, Suite 301 Rockville, MD 20850 301-284-8775 info@cherylcallahandds.com www.cherylcallahandds.com Q: What made you decide to become a dentist? A: I started in emergency medicine as a registered nurse. I saw the

connection between oral and bodily health. It's important people understand how the health of their mouth affects their body—and vice versa. I want patients to be informed advocates for their health and to make educated decisions. Dentistry lets me blend art, science and technology, and create healthy and beautiful smiles that can change people's lives. Q: How do you employ new technology to help

patients?

same-day crowns, soft tissue laser, digital x-rays and intraoral photography. We're constantly evaluating materials, procedures and equipment, too, so we can adopt proven options for diagnostics, treatment planning, patient experience and results. 212

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HILARY SCHWAB

A: New technologies include the Itero 3D digital scanner, Cerec

PROFILES

Dentists

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

PHOTO COURTESY

Drs. Ensor, Johnson & Lewis

Q: What makes you different from

other dentists? A: We truly treat our patient families as if they were our own. In many ways, a child is a special type of patient. They SHAILJA ENSOR, DDS; TIMOTHY respond better to increased attention and JOHNSON, DMD; LAUREN LEWIS, DDS; JESSICA WEBER, DDS; JENNIFER understanding—especially our youngest MATELIS, DDS; SHEYDA MAGHSOUDI, patients seeing the dentist for the very first time. DDS Both our office and team are incredibly Honors & Affiliations inviting, warm and friendly. We value Bethesda Magazine Best of Bethesda Readers' long-term relationships we build with our patients as we care for them from infancy Poll Winner, 2016-2018 & “A Top through adulthood. We get to know each Vote Getter,” 2019-2021; Member of American Dental Association, American as an individual, not just a set of teeth, Association of Orthodontists, American and that's important for everyone on the EJL team. Academy of Pediatric Dentistry; Best We provide comprehensive care for & Top Dentist, Washingtonian magazine, your entire family all in one practice. 2015-2017, 2021 Pediatric dentists, Drs. Shailja Ensor, Lauren Lewis and Sheyda Maghsoudi, 11810 Parklawn Drive create a fun and nurturing environment. Rockville, MD 20852 Dr. Timothy Johnson provides the gentlest 301-881-6170 and latest orthodontic techniques, info@ejldental.com including Invisalign, to create beautiful www.ejldental.com

and healthy smiles. Drs. Jessica Weber and Jennifer Matelis focus on delivering exceptional dental care for adult patients. The EJL experience is caring, convenient and fun—we love to see our families smile! Q: What brings you the most

satisfaction in your work? A: Continuing a tradition that began over 50 years ago, we care for patients we first treated as children, who now bring their own kids. Our specialized, highly trained doctors have also been recognized as leading providers for the special needs community. It's rewarding to maintain a thriving practice and enthusiastically welcome new patients to our family centered environment, so please come see us soon!

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Jay Samuels, D.D.S COSMETIC | IMPLANT | FAMILY DENTISTRY Awards & Honors A Top Vote-Getter “Best General Dentist," Bethesda Magazine Best of Bethesda Readers’ Poll, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 Top Dentist, Washingtonian, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019

Q: What's unique about your practice? A: In our current health climate, we take the utmost precautions to provide individualized care in safe, clean and caring surroundings. Using the latest screening tools and technology, we provide general and specialized dental care—from hygiene therapy and restorative smile enhancements to Invisalign, implants and sleep apnea. We combine the art and science of dentistry—with a smile. There's a direct link between oral health issues and heart disease, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer’s and other diseases. We're constantly training in state-of-the-art oral health care to promote overall health and help our patients achieve healthy smiles—for a lifetime. We're proud to be again named A Top Vote Getter in the 2021 Bethesda Magazine Best of Bethesda Readers’ Poll for "Best General Dentist," as well as Top Dentist in Washingtonian.

TONY J. LEWIS

11140 Rockville Pike, Suite 510, North Bethesda, MD 20852 301-881-4200 | contact@drjsamuels.com | www.drjsamuels.com

Khalid Choudhary, DDS, MS Joan Howanitz, DDS, MS NORTH BETHESDA PERIODONTAL GROUP 11921 Rockville Pike, Suite 407 Rockville, MD 20852 240-483-0775 contact@northbethesdaperio.com www.northbethesdaperio.com

A: We strongly believe in a team approach to care for our patients. Our surgeons work closely with referring restorative doctors, dental specialists and lab technicians to provide optimal treatment and care. We play on each other’s strengths and always are patient-focused to deliver the optimum treatment and care. Q: What is unique about your practice? A: Our practice utilizes the latest technologies such as periodontal lasers, 3D printing, metal-free Ceramic implants, Zygoma implants, 3D cone beam and intra-oral scanners. We also perform minimally invasive procedures such as Pinhole or Vista technique for gum grafts; and fully guided dental implant placement for increased accuracy, safety, comfort and recovery. 214

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STEPHANIE WILLIAMS

Q: What makes you different from other dentists?

dine. weddings. history. pets. travel.

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Key lime pie and tres leches cake are served in jars at the recently opened Colada Shop, a fast-casual, Cuban-style cafe in Potomac. For more, turn to page 218.

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Hot Dawg THERE IS ONE REASON more compelling than utter deliciousness to get a cast-iron grilled hot dog made with dry-aged Roseda Black Angus Farm beef from the mobile Catalyst Hot Dogs stand and that’s to hear its owner, Silver Spring resident Chris Van Jura, pronounce “hot dawwwg” in his native New Jersey accent. Van Jura, 39, considers selling Jersey dogs his true calling. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in theater from Western Connecticut State University in

2005. After college, he worked at a deli in Lodi, New Jersey, for four years to support himself between auditions and acting gigs. “What I was doing there is what I do now—over-the-counter banter,” he says with a laugh. He went on to work for various restaurants, rising through the ranks to upper management. A job as a general manager for Fiola Mare in D.C. brought him to the area in 2017. When COVID hit, he had just started a new job at Via Sophia in D.C. He got furloughed twice. “Like millions of hospitality professionals, I spent 10 months of 2020 not

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Chris Van Jura (opposite and below) opened Catalyst Hot Dogs, a mobile stand, in December.

knowing what would happen. Without that, though, I wouldn’t have stepped up to do what I always wanted to do—open a hot dog truck,” Van Jura says. In May 2020, Van Jura drove by a Silver Spring parking lot where a hot dog trailer was for sale. He started a GoFundMe and raised $25,000 in seven weeks, opening Catalyst Hot Dogs in December. Depictions of floorboards, footlights and a curtain are painted on the trailer’s side, and the

window is Van Jura’s stage, where he engages customers with animated repartee, showmanship and charm as he prepares their orders. The name Catalyst is a tribute to Van Jura’s oldest brother, Michael, who died in 2012. “At the viewing, a friend of [Michael’s] told me that [Michael] was going to open his own bagel shop called The Catalyst, so I knew that had to be my stand’s name,” Van Jura says. The menu is simple: grilled all-beef or

vegan dogs on Martin’s potato rolls, Herr’s potato chips and cold drinks. It’s the high quality of Van Jura’s ingredients and his gregariousness that set this stand apart. Even a $3 plain dog with mustard or ketchup is a labor of love to him. Specialty dogs ($6) include All the Way (chili, mustard, onions), Classic (chili and cheese), Lincoln Logs (butterflied hot dog with a smear of cream cheese) and The Capital Dog (onions and Capital City mambo sauce). Van Jura makes his own Texas-style chili (also with Roseda beef) and bright yellow cabbage-based relish at a commissary kitchen in Gaithersburg. Recent areas where the Catalyst stand has popped up include Rockville’s King Farm neighborhood, Silver Spring’s Indian Spring neighborhood and the Home Depot in Silver Spring. Catalyst Hot Dogs, 202-567-1838, catalysthotdogs.com, on Instagram @catalyst_hotdogs

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Colada Cool THE COOL VIBE OF Colada Shop—a D.C.-based, fast-casual, Cuban-style cafe that opened in Potomac’s Cabin John Village in April—is evident even before walking in the door. On the sky-blue brick backdrop of the cafe’s facade, Dominican artist Kilia Llano’s boldly hued mural of a smiling woman carrying plantains on her head catches the eye. Salsa music sets a festive mood as you enter, and affable employees stand at the ready to take orders for such offerings as pastelitos (flaky pastries with sweet and savory filling, such as guava or ground beef), empanadas, tostones (fried mashed plantains) or key lime pie layered in a screw-top jar so you can save some for a treat at home later. The conviviality of Colada Shop is built into its name—a colada is a four-shot serving of espresso topped with espumita 218

(sugar foam) that comes with four little cups so it can be divvied up and shared. Colada Shop’s CEO and founder, 32-yearold Daniella Senior, says the cafe is meant to be a social gathering space different from “the sea of coffee shops serving the same scone or muffin” she had seen in travels all over the U.S. “I wanted a place that represented Latin culture in a positive light,” she says. “Coffee culture had evolved to very large coffees with your name on it that you grab and go—the opposite of what I grew up with [in the Dominican Republic]. We wanted an environment that makes you slow down and forget your hectic life for a minute.” Senior envisioned a place to cater to people’s needs all day, whether to have a morning coffee, hold a meeting, do some work, enjoy a Cubano sandwich or a rice bowl for lunch or sip cocktails in the evening. This is the fourth location of Colada

Shop and the first in Montgomery County. “We were getting a lot of requests to open in Potomac, so I started paying attention,” Senior says. “The landlord reached out about the former Le Pain Quotidien space and I saw the environment on the plaza—

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COMINGS GOINGS Chef Mike Friedman, who lives in Olney and owns acclaimed D.C. restaurants The Red Hen and All-Purpose Pizza, will open two restaurants at 4747 Bethesda Ave. in 2022: Aventino, a 120-seat full-service restaurant serving Roman-style dishes, and a 20-seat outpost of All-Purpose Pizza. A Scandinavian-influenced restaurant called Café Sophie will open in the Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg this summer. Thai Chef Street Food, a D.C.-based restaurant, plans to open in Rockville Town Center in late summer. Another D.C.-based concept, Shouk—a kosher, plantbased, Middle Eastern fast-casual restaurant—is opening two Montgomery County locations in the fall, one in Rockville and one in Bethesda. Bethesda Bagels will open in Rockville’s Fallsgrove Village Center in the fall. It will be the local chainlet’s third Montgomery County outpost.

Clockwise from opposite left: Colada Shop’s Cuban sandwich with plantain chips and mint limeade shaken tea; the cafe in Potomac’s Cabin John Village features a fun vibe; pastelitos, flaky pastries with sweet or savory filling; and a Cuban Jungle cocktail.

the openness, the ability to have a lot of outdoor seating.” The 2,600-square-foot cafe, which seats 100 inside and 65 outside, is airy and appealing. Plants hang from the ceiling and small succulents adorn each table. Another colorful Llano mural graces a back wall. The menu offers breakfast items, salads, sandwiches, pastries, snacks, desserts, coffee drinks and cocktails. Dishes served exclusively at the Potomac location include

plantain latkes with house-cured salmon and cilantro dill crema; plantain nachos; and tostones stuffed with ropa vieja (braised beef). Senior says the shop will host occasional events with live music, including a Pina Colada Festival from July 8 to 18. Colada Shop, 7993 Tuckerman Lane (Cabin John Village), Potomac, 240-332-8870, coladashop.com

The French pastry shop Patisserie Manuel in Bethesda’s Westfield Montgomery mall closed in March. The Grilled Oyster Co. closed at Cabin John Village in Potomac in April, with plans to relocate to the Kentlands in Gaithersburg at the end of the year. The Bethesda pizza joint and pinball arcade VÜK closed in May. So did the Silver Spring location of Olazzo restaurant after a 15-year run. The original Olazzo, in Bethesda, remains open. At the end of May, the coffee shop and record store Bump ‘n Grind closed its East West Highway location in Silver Spring. Nando’s Peri-Peri, a South African fast-casual chain specializing in roast chicken, will relocate its Bethesda Row outpost to a yet-to-be-disclosed Bethesda location in January 2022. n

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etc. WEDDINGS

BY DANA GERBER

THE COUPLE: Megan Cloherty, 40, grew up in Bethesda and graduated from Walter Johnson High School. She is an investigative reporter at WTOP. Joel Bliven, 40, grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and works as a strategy analyst for the National Guard Bureau in Arlington. They live in Silver Spring. HOW THEY MET: After they matched on the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel in July 2018, Joel proposed going on a date. “He goes like, ‘4:30, Georgetown, are you in or you out?’ And I was like, ‘I’m in,’ ” Megan says. They went to J. Paul’s (now closed), the Sovereign

220

and the Rosewood hotel rooftop bar. Megan extended the date by enticing Joel with frosés (slushy drinks made with rosé wine) at the Rooftop at The Graham. She was smitten over their seven-hour first date. “He was just a different person than I’d met before in D.C.,” she says. “It was less about the ‘Who do you know, what do you do’ kind of achievement and more about, ‘What do you want to do in life? What are your dreams?’ ”

THE PROPOSAL: After talking about marriage and designing a ring together, Joel popped the question when they went to Megan’s parents’ beach house

in Rehoboth last October. “Because we’re a little bit older and this was Joel’s second marriage, it was more like, seize the day,” Megan says. “We could wait, but how much longer, and why?” The pair trekked to an observation deck overlooking a serene pond just before sunset. He dropped to one knee, but she wasn’t paying attention. Finally, she turned around. “If I remember correctly, she replied with, ‘Oh, this is happening?’ ” Joel says. He told her how important she is to him and how he looks forward to building a life together. “She gave the appropriate response, and after that it was pictures and champagne,” he says.

PHOTO BY KATE ANN PHOTOGRAPHY

A Silver Spring couple held an intimate ceremony at Washington National Cathedral, where the bride’s parents had wed 40 years earlier

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Megan with her parents, Jack and Barbara Cloherty, who got married at the cathedral in 1980

wed three months later, on Jan. 2, 2021, with nine guests present. “Neither one of us really planned on getting married as quickly as we did,” Megan says. “There was so much uncertainty [because of the pandemic], there was no point in waiting.” They got married at Washington National Cathedral, where Megan’s parents had tied the knot 40 years earlier. “It was a dream of mine to get married there, and I never thought that would happen,” Megan says. “I think just because of COVID [the cathedral] became available.” Before the ceremony, she took a shot of Tennessee whiskey with 222

her sister, Nora, the maid of honor. Megan says her favorite moment was when she, Joel, and Joel’s daughters from his previous marriage—Bailey, 12, and Lily, 10, who were junior bridesmaids—went to the Children’s Chapel. “[We] just did a family prayer together, the four of us, talking about committing to them before I committed to their dad,” Megan says.

THE DRESS: Despite previously insisting she didn’t “want to be a princess,” Megan opted for a Justin Alexander dove-gray dress with an A-line skirt, a plunging V-neck and an elegant train. “There was something

about the winter wedding and the light gray,” she says. To match the metallic color scheme, her sister wore gold, and Megan carried a bouquet of silvery winter greens. Joel’s daughters wore emerald-green dresses—the same color Megan’s mom’s bridesmaids had worn.

SHUTTERBUGS: Spending almost half of their budget on photography and videography, the couple streamed the ceremony on Zoom for family and friends who couldn’t attend in person— including Joel’s parents—and delayed the ceremony 15 minutes when Zoom wasn’t working. They had a wedding video made too.

PHOTOS BY KATE ANN PHOTOGRAPHY

THE CEREMONY: Megan and Joel

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THE RECEPTION: The couple planned a dinner for after the ceremony but scrapped the idea when Megan’s 2-year-old nephew, who was going to be one of the ring bearers, contracted COVID a week before the wedding. Instead, the newlyweds and their guests went to the Bishop’s Garden on the cathedral’s grounds on the unusually warm winter day. They had cake (a layer of funfetti and vanilla for Megan and a layer of chocolate with dulce de leche and chocolate ganache for Joel), champagne toasts and the couple’s first dance, to “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton—an homage to Joel’s Southern roots. That

night they stayed at D.C.’s Tabard Inn, where they’d gone on many dates and had held their makeshift rehearsal dinner. When friends and family can gather, the newlyweds—who gave silk face masks as favors—hope to host a big party. “The cool thing about breaking with tradition is it really opens up what’s accepted,” Megan says.

THE HONEYMOON: The couple went on a mini-moon to Middleburg, Virginia, for a few nights after the wedding, where they stayed at the historic Red Fox Inn & Tavern and visited a winery. When travel is more feasible, they’re planning a bigger trip; Joel is pitching Portugal.

“I didn’t want to have something else to plan and then cancel,” Megan says. “I almost didn’t let myself think about it, and now it feels like we can finally start to plan.”

VENDORS: Cake/dessert, Buttercream Bakeshop; dress/alterations, Say Yes for Less; flowers, Bloom Fresh Flowers; hair, Bmore Bobby Pins; makeup, I Do Makeup Artistry; officiant, Patricia Alexander, St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church; photographer, Kate Ann Photography; ring, King’s Jewelry; seeded eucalyptus garland for table, The Garland Guy on Etsy; videographer, Storytellez. n

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etc. BY ROSE HOROWITCH

MUST LOVE CATS Fostering felines was a great way to ease pandemic woes ODIE, A FOUR-POUND tuxedo cat with white paws that looked like socks, seemed to think he was a dog. When I sat at my home desk for college classes on Zoom, he would spring onto my knees, standing on his hind legs so he could lick my face, much like a dog would. Odie was fascinated by his image on camera and stuck his small nose near the screen to sniff for another cat. My classmates were first confused, then delighted as a wall of white whiskers covered the screen. After carefully inspecting his own reflection, Odie would curl up to sleep on the warm laptop charger. While others rushed out to get a puppy during the pandemic, my family fostered cats. The five of us—plus a 50-pound dog—were quarantining in a four-bedroom apartment in Bethesda. My two older sisters and I were finishing our college semesters online and my parents had switched to working from home, so every room became a makeshift office. Though we didn’t have room to foster a puppy, I still thought we needed another pet. I contacted Lucky Dog Animal Rescue, a local nonprofit that finds homes for dogs and cats living in highkill shelters. Foster homes care for dogs 230

Tad, one of the author’s foster cats

or cats until they get adopted, a process that can take from less than a week to more than a month. The process helps the animals get used to people and allows the organization to rescue animals even if it doesn’t have anyone ready to adopt them, according to its website. My parents, two noted cat haters, took some convincing to let me foster. My dad spends nearly all of his spare time taking care of our 14-year-old labradoodle, Trixie. He feared a cat would scratch her nose or steer our time and affection away from her. My mom was more direct. “I don’t trust cats,” she said. “They slink around. Why do you want a pet that doesn’t like you?” It’s a common misconception that adult cats are mean, says Ashley Roberts, Lucky Dog’s program manager for adoptions, fosters and transports. “I think it’s a really big surprise when people rescue this cat and expect them to be feral and expect them to bite them, and then they’re just like, I just want you to pet me and give me lots of food,” Roberts says. Our first foster, 1-year-old Zara, acted just as Roberts described. Zara had jadegreen eyes and tawny fur, and came to us with her ribs jutting out. She had been living on the street and had just weaned a litter. Zara slept most of the day and ate faster than I could fill her dish. She would brush against my legs and loudly meow until I gave her more kibble.

We were most concerned about how she would interact with Trixie. Roberts says people tend to buy into the “fight like cats and dogs” cliché, expecting that the two species cannot get along. But with proper integration and breaks, dogs and cats can bond, she says. Luckily for us, Trixie spends most of her days snoozing in a fleece bed on the dining room floor. Because of her age, she refuses to stand unless someone dangles food over her. Trixie has a fearsome bark, but quivers uncontrollably anytime she sees a housefly. When Zara first came downstairs from my bedroom, the two were wary of each other. Trixie slowly walked over to sniff Zara’s nose. Soon Zara and Trixie curled up for a nap together. Odie, our final foster, was Trixie’s favorite. I would thumb the tags on Trixie’s collar so Odie would move toward the chiming sound. When inspecting each new foster, Trixie was the happiest I’d seen her and her whole body would wiggle with the force of her tail-wagging. Each of the four cats had distinctive personalities. Flicka weighed just 2 pounds but sneezed with fantastic strength. And then there was Tad, the mischievous and intrepid cat with leopard spots. Only a few months old, he would climb up lamps and onto their shades or scuttle along the underside of my mattress like the insect Gregor in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. I begged my parents to keep each cat but knew I couldn’t adopt them because I was returning to Yale in early February. As each one left for its forever home, I slipped its favorite toy into the carrier— a bouncy ball with a bell inside for Zara and a small plush mouse with a woven turquoise tail for Odie. I missed our foster cats when I arrived back on campus and started Zoom classes. But when I found one of the plush mouse toys that Odie had apparently hidden in my backpack, I couldn’t help but smile as I remembered the camera-loving cat who thought he was a dog. n

COURTESY PHOTO

PETS

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etc. FLASHBACK

BY MARK WALSTON

THE MILLIONAIRE’S FARM

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ALICE KRESSE/FARM IMAGE COURTESY OF MONTGOMERY HISTORY

How a grocery store magnate created an agrarian showcase in Bethesda BY THE 1920s, Bethesda had gained a reputation as a desirable suburban address for the well-to-do of Washington, D.C. Bankers, politicians, real estate developers and corporate heads built stylish brick and stone Colonial Revival mansions with rolling acres of manicured lawns on the hills overlooking Rockville Pike. But in 1928, a multimillionaire—one of Bethesda’s first—would momentarily stop the spread of the large estates by returning part of Bethesda to its agrarian roots. What John C. Letts created on a 100-acre parcel along today’s Oakmont Avenue, west of Old Georgetown Road, was an agricultural wonderland, a showplace he called “Ayrlawn Farm” that by all accounts was a striking display of farming innovation. Letts was the grocery king of Washington, and the founder in 1909 of the Sanitary Grocery Co., a chain based on the premise of offering better prices in more sanitary conditions. The clean white tiles and gleaming showcases of Letts’ stores were a stark departure from the small mom-and-pop groceries that had dominated the area for half a century.

In 1927, Letts expanded his reach, buying the local stores of the national Piggly Wiggly chain, which offered the nation’s first completely self-service grocery stores with shopping carts. His purchase of those stores brought the total number of his stores to 362. One year later, Letts sold his empire to the Safeway grocery store chain, which would retain the Sanitary name until 1941. Following his retirement in 1928, Letts turned to farming in Bethesda. Not interested in increasing his fortune, he was looking to create a tidy and thoroughly modern setting for his numerous hogs, 1,000 laying hens and herd of 150 prize Jersey cows—some of which cost thousands of dollars. Letts directed his construction foremen to use white tile on barn walls and enamel paint on the floors, doors and other surfaces so they would be perfectly smooth and slick. Abe Morrison, one of Letts’ contractors, recalled him saying, “I don’t want to tear the tongue off those cattle on rough concrete.” The tiled walls in the dairy barns, enamel paint, slate roofs and copper guttering that distinguished the buildings in a landscaped setting made Ayrlawn a popular tourist attraction, visited by schoolchildren and diplomats alike who came to marvel at the farm known for its cleanliness and progressive practices. Dairying took center stage at Ayrlawn, with cows in state-of-the-art milking barns producing more than 90

gallons each day. The farm sold some of the cows’ production as raw milk—Letts boasted of its high fat content. The rest was processed in the farm’s pasteurization facility, then stored in bottles and delivered to homes around the area. Letts died in the late 1930s and his son-in-law continued to run the farm for some years before it was sold in 1946 to developers who carved most of the property into 400 house lots. Soon, hundreds of suburban homes surrounded what remained of the old farm buildings. In 1962, some of those structures would be incorporated into the construction of Ayrlawn Elementary School; the silo was converted into an incinerator, and the pasteurization facility transformed into a school library. One of the barns, which had housed Letts’ prize Jersey bulls, would be moved down the street and adapted for use as a home. When the school closed in 1982, the school system maintained ownership, but the building was repurposed for other uses. The YMCA would eventually operate a child care facility and program center in the still-existing building. The surrounding acreage became Ayrlawn Local Park, with ballfields, tennis courts and playground equipment on the land where Letts’ Jersey cattle once roamed. n Author and historian Mark Walston (markwalston@comcast.net) was raised in Bethesda and lives in Olney.

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For our story on vacation homes (“The Great Escape,” page 164), Steve and Michelle Dolge took photos of their new property in Cambridge, Maryland—an 1896 Victorian on the Choptank River—using an iPhone camera timer. The Chevy Chase, D.C., couple have spent most of the last year renovating the 4,000-square-foot house called River Lure. “It was 7 a.m. on a Sunday, no one was here to help us take pictures, and we had to be in D.C. by 9,” Michelle says. “We leaned in to look at how to set up the shot, laughing at how ridiculous it was—and bam, we snapped this instead.” n

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Bethesda Magazine: July/August 2021 Digital Edition

Articles inside

‘She’s Still My Mom’

Back to the Nest

Staying Strong