THIS is the time of year when Washington is at its most beautiful. The skies are blue, the temperatures balmy and the cherry trees are in full blossom.
But when driving around it's advisable to look down, not up, otherwise your car might get involuntarily realigned.
Deep, jagged potholes have made commuting in the nation's capital a hazard. The holes come in all shapes and sizes. Some are small and perfectly formed, designer potholes for better-class districts, some are long and narrow and deep, as if made by an earthquake, some are just big holes.
You know you are approaching one of these mini-Grand Canyons when the vehicle in front lurches sideways as it takes evasive action. In the absence of repair squads, many residents fill the holes themselves. They use bricks or garbage, or in the case of a pothole in Kalorama neighbourhood, a mattress.
With the capital of the free world broke and suffering chronic breakdown, many residents have resorted to self-help in all sorts of other ways. Construction company owner Gerald Sigal went out and patched the potholes in his street himself. When the rubbish wasn't collected, he ferried it to the dump.
When he read that toilets in city schools were so backed up the children couldn't bear to use them, he mounted "Operation Spiffy John" and had then fixed by his own company.
"It's really sad to live in this wonderful city, this capital of the world, and nothing works", Mr Sigal said.
Washington DC is being forced to become a do-it-yourself city. When the office of the Anti-Defamation League was flooded recently with telephone calls from residents complaining about Nazi symbols daubed on newspaper stands and litter boxes, the callers were advised to paint over the swastikas themselves: the league would bail them out if they were arrested.
The Department of Public Works says it can no longer afford to fight graffiti as it cannot buy the cleaning supplies. The city can't run its education System either. The DC school superintendent announced this week the closure and sale of seven schools to raise money. But nine schools closed in 1993 for the same reason remain vacant.
The DC traffic department couldn't pay its bill to the Potomac Electric Power Company not long ago; 1,500 street lights went out and traffic signals went on the blink.
Only 40 of the city's 104 rubbish trucks are working. Four of the fire department's 16 ladder trucks are immobilised.
Police car crews sometimes have to pay for petrol and repairs themselves. The DC cops often only respond to the most serious type of crime. Shops on M Street in Georgetown, where the most exclusive city houses are located, have experienced a dozen armed robberies in as many weeks.
Critics of the city government say it suffers from a Soviet-type bureaucracy. One in nine adults in DC, a total of 40,000 people, works for Mayor Marion Barry. The current deficit is $379 million. The long-term debt amounts to $3 billion
But Washington cannot tax the residents of the wealthy suburbs, most of which are located in Virginia and Maryland. As the city falls apart, more and more of its better-off residents are fleeing to the other side of the city line, some 50,000 since 1990.
In four years average house prices have dropped from $200,000 to $135,000.
Mayor Barry has been pleading with President Clinton for a crisis meeting to discuss the plight of the town in which they both live, but since Mr Clinton became a foreign policy President he's not at home that often.
The mayor muddles along as best he can as things fall apart, raiding money by sending out droves of traffic wardens to issue parking tickets.
Washington is still a beautiful city, with some of the best coffee shops, museums, book stores, theatres, museums and parks in America. The seasons here are quite beautiful. Autumn is as pleasant as spring.
But it has its drawbacks. This month Mayor Barry thought of another money-making wheeze. He sent out "leaf-wardens" to fine any householder with unraked leaves piled up since autumn in the public spaces in front of their houses.
Better to shovel them into the nearest pothole, quick.