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Thursday, May 5, 2005
You Never Know
It's one thing to laugh about people acting up in a TV comedy. The real thing isn't funny. Day before yesterday I was called from the Mediation Center to come in for a one-evening class. Later, on the way home from class, I remembered that I lacked supplies for Benny to make something the next morning. So I rushed into the ghetto grocery just before they closed, grabbed a box of brownie mix, and hurried into the only line still open.
A woman approached from my right side as though she intended to step into line in front of me. Not interested in arguing, I pulled back my shopping cart and said, "Go ahead." She carried an overfull shopping basket which she threw on the ground. She raised both arms over her head and yelled at me, "NO!!! YOU GO AHEAD OF ME! No one loves me. Nobody gives a damn about me. I have no one to go home to but my husband who is either drunk or stoned, I don't know which. I don't even want to go home. All evening I've been making up errands to do so I can stay out of the house where he can't hit me again. I had supper at McDonalds and then took a walk and went back to McDonalds and ate another supper just to be away from home longer."
While speaking, she waved her arms around, continually smacking one fist into the palm of the other hand. She danced on her toes from side to side like a boxer in the ring.
You could have heard a pin drop in the store. I and the other customers and the clerks froze in place during the start of this performance. She yelled and screamed and threw herself around so wildly that I worried she'd hit me with one of those simulated uppercuts. So I moved my cart up to fill the space I had created for her, turned my head away. The woman behind me came up so close she almost touched my back. I heard her barely murmuring, "Oh, dear, oh, my, oh my goodness....." Evidently she, too, thought she might catch a stray punch.
The excited woman kicked her shopping basket away from the checkout line. As the clerk rang up my brownie mix, the poor soul continued to rant and rave although not exactly screaming any more. Again and again she punched her hand, snarling half words pretty much to the effect that she'd like to punch her husband in the head for all the times he'd hit her in the head.
After paying, I turned to pick up my bag and took a good look at the woman. She was a frail little old wisp of humanity, white hair dyed black but the roots showed, no teeth, a nice outfit, and very, very crazy eyes.
Feeling guilty, I left without trying to do anything for her. Mostly I didn't know what to do. If she wanted help from police, the security guard would have called 911 for her. She was so physically agitated, jumping around and fake punching, that I didn't think she'd listen to me if I tried to talk to her. Probably she had been abused as she said, but she was also quite crazy. She seemed to me to need to do just what she was doing, yell, scream and physically demonstrate her distress to a big group of strangers.
Last week a speaker to my Family Mediation class recited statistics for the incidence of wife beaters in the general population and he added, "They look perfectly normal. Some of you men sitting here could very well be wife beaters...and some of you women, unless statistics lie, are beaten fairly often and you're angry enough to kill your husband if you thought you could get away with it." He told us that beaten women lie about it, cover it up, don't want anyone to know. Yeah, except for one super-angry little old lady at the ghetto grocery.
Sunday, May 1, 2005
Don't Take My Pork Chop Away
I spent much of last night in the waiting room of the local veterinary hospital's emergency department. Pork Chop had done something to make herself sick. She refused to eat or drink anything for 24 hours, slowly went down, down down. When I took her outside, she stood just off the sidewalk and threw up over and over. Then she collapsed,and I had to carry her back indoors.
The hospital emergency personel did a wonderful job with her. They gave her a shot to stop the vomiting and put her on IV's for 18 hours. Eventually she looked and acted like her old self except that at the hospital she refused to eat. Two veterinarians conferenced and decided that I should take her home and try to get her to eat in familiar surroundings. Sure enough. I no sooner let her in the door, than she charged into the kitchen and stood where her dish usually was, glaring at me with a look of, "Well? Where's the beef?"
Having to leave Porkee at the hospital last night was terrible. I realized how much she has worked her way into my heart. Lydia laughed at me while I moaned and groaned over Porkee's situation last night (You have to also realize that she drove us to the hospital and stayed with us the whole time, then took me home, and watched until I was safely indoors.), but you know, I don't care. Pork Chop has someohow managed to become important to me. I love that small scrap of dog. Just now she is sleeping on my lap...life as it should be. Thank God for a good doggie hospital. Thank God that Pork Chop is OK again.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Pork Chop
The other day Lydia took some pictures of Pork Chop. Taaaaa-Daaaa!!!!!!
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Guts
Day after day I accumulate scar after scar from experiences designed to turn me into a mediator. Training in the state of Virginia runs the asperant up a steep learning curve because this state more or less initiated the present day role of mediators. To mediate in Virginia, one must first be certified by the Supreme Court. The whole process drags on as a long and embarrassing death march because one must mediate under supervision. The supervisors weigh in early and often, yell, "No!" Then they explain what you should have said and why the things you did say were disastrously bad. Sigh. Today I was told that I have made great improvement, however, I'm just not so sure about that. For all the good I'm doing, I might as well quack like a duck. At the age of 61 and 1/2, new skills come slowly. I appreciate the relentless encouragement of the staff at the mediation center, but both they and I know that REALLY, my chances of becoming a good mediator are about equivalent of those of the proverbial snowball at the fourth of July picnic. One chuckle; a speaker today told us that to become a good mediator, one needs guts. That is;
G=great
U=urge
T=to
S=succeed
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Judgement Day
Somewhere between its covers, the Bible issues a stern warning, "Do not enjoy the troubles of others." This morning I had no problem heeding that dictum. Something happened that I have wished for, but I admit that the reality of it was not a pretty thing to see.
Eviction time finally arrived across the street. Several tenants have moved out before today but that left a lot of wrong-doers in situ. My first clue was the landlord in his truck followed by a Sheriff's Deputy in his official car. The Deputy carried a wad of paper...hm... landlord and Deputy went into the second building. Meanwhile the old wrecky red truck belonging to men who sometimes do grunt work for the landlord...it pulled up and the usual gang of toilers emerged. I called Lydia and told her what was happening and she exclaimed, "This must be the day." Looked more and more that way.
The landlord had not gone three steps from his truck when a crew of goons poured out of his buildings, beseiging him with words and pleading gestures. He shook his head NO. The sheriff went into a building and came back out immediately. Landlord dug around in the workbox part of his truck bed and got out a cutting tool. Both men went inside again. Landord came back out and motioned for his workers to accompany him. Guess the inmates thought that if they padlocked themselves in, they'd be safe from eviction, but not so.
The first thing out on the sidewalk was a dining room table which even from across the street, I identified as a very nice piece of furniture.
Here came matching chairs, a king-sized bed, sofas, boxes and bags of small items, plastic tubs of stuff.
Meanwhile clouds poured in from the west, chilly day out there, Virginia natives all wore parkas. Raindrops began to spot the sidewalk. The evicted ones stood sullenly and watched their lives dragged to the curb.
Finally an old falling-apart car pulled up curbside near the pile of ousted possessions. A massively fat woman waddled around from the driver's side to the back of her car, unlocked the trunk, then went to sit in her seat out of the weather. Slowly, drearily, evicted ones reached out for small items to carry and began to fill the waiting car. One woman walked over to the new house construction site and said sopmething to one of the crew working there. He scornfully motioned her away. She hung her head and padded fatly back to the junk mountain at curbside.
Those being evicted from that particular apartment amounted to three of the worst young troublemaking men and a group of superfat women. None of the men lifted a finger to move the process forward. They stood casually by, smoking and chatting as though the eviction happened to someone other than themselves.
One of the young men was an enormous individual who wears his jeans with crotch between his knees and his ankles. His hair hangs in thick dreadlocks, ordinarily held up off his forehead with a barrette.
He is "Nacho", according to greetings called out to him many times during his period of residence. He also is a convicted and violent sex offender according to the Virginia State registered sex offender web page. I don't know his real name, but I managed to identify him by both his nickname, his picture, and his address. Good to have him living somewhere else.
The first tenant to move a week ago was a family group including another registered sex offender, Anthony "Little Ant" 'Something'. Always happy to see fewer persons of his persuasion living across the street from me. Now today another one has moved.
Oh, the trouble those two engendered. Fights without end. Nacho, in particular, was the heartiest warrior in scraps with police. Whew.
Meanwhile the work goes on, clearing the curb, one car load of stuff at a time. The car isn't gone too long, so I suppose these individuals are smooshing in on someone less than five miles away. Any distance from here, though, is a good thing.
How about the not rejoicing in others' trouble thing? Easy. I actually felt sorry for all those wretched characters although they have made life pretty scarey here since I moved in last November. The old people next to the Post Office live in terror of them. Mrs. Edna and her son, next to me, are ready to move away in order to not see the antics of those wrong-doers any more. All winter bad guys lived as haughty as Lords and Chieftains while law abiding citizens cowered. I will never forget my walk to the corner store as two freaks swore into my ears from behind and one freak ran backwards in front of me, spitting at me all the way. They had so much fun tormenting ordinary people. They scorned regular go-to-work types. They murdered, fought, assaulted, sold drugs, pimped and prostituted themselves. Now it's judgement day. This is not about paying the rent because all of those folks are section 8. The state directly pays the landlord. It's all about living outside the law, refusing to follow any rules whatsoever. Their last act in office was to fill all of the recycle tubs with kitchen trash and set the tubs at curbside. On Thursday when the city fianlly sent a truck to take back all those recycle tubs, I suspected that the party was nearly over for scofflaws of 38th Street. Watching the eviction take place today, I vicariously experienced fear on behalf of the evicted. I pitied them. I thought, "Oh, Lord. Have mercy on them. They aren't responsible because they're all as nutty as fruitcakes." Then a fight broke out which rages on as I type. There it went again, the roared curses and vulgarities and obscenities. The slapping, hair-pulling, hitting, wrestling, punching, etc., etc. A few of them are trying to move their stuff somewhere, but the rest remain at curbside. It ain't over, til it's over and that hasn't happened yet.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Don't Grow Up To Be The Person Against Whom You Used To Argue
While still young enough to argue points of view with those least likely to agree, I spent one entire evening duking it out verbally re. the relative merits of living life as a self-improvement project vs. living just as life occurs, being what you are. At that time I stoutly defended the second alternative.
Now here I am; old and crabby, retired, way too chubby, unhealthy, practically useless and what am I doing? I'm getting Supreme Court certification as a mediator. BECOMING certified.
For a person accustomed to consider myself all-wise in every respect, this is a hard way to go. I do it badly albeit with the greatest expenditure of energy and attention to business. Exhausting.
Today begins the Family Mediation training and I both anticipate and dread the process. Yes, I will make even more of a donkey of myself than heretofore. It's interesting to do, though.
Five Families Did It All
This A.M. Pork Chop and I did our large lap around civilization. Particularly admired the dogwoods, wisteria, and lilac. Just magnificent. Excellent dog-walking weather, seventy degrees. Local persons we passed all wore parkas. A block and a half from home, we came upon a fellow my age out planting ivy. Porky and I stopped to congratulate him on the beauty of his environs. He took off his hat, leaned up against the ivy wall, and gave us a short history of this community. He said that starting about 1970, Colonial Place looked like becoming a victim of white flight. Realtors, happy for the business, engaged in frantic block busting ventures. This chap told me that he/his wife/four other couples incorporated as a Community Preservation League. None of the members of the league were big shots or wealthy people. They were ordinary folks determined not to allow their neighborhood to turn into a slum. Over the ensuing years, they organized every single block in Colonial Place. They worked with the legislature and the city to obtain favorable legislation, grants, advice, whatever they needed to save Colonial Place as the pretty area it still is. He said that as a result C.P. is now a friendly mix of races, all proud property owners and maintainers. He said that the average property during that time period escalated to at least three times its original assessed value. Then he did a sell job on me, to get me into the Preservation League. I hedged. Seems like he has the job well in hand. He assured me that my house, no matter the adjacency of those yellow apartments, is a great investment. "Your property value will certainly double in five years at the most." My, my. On and on he enthusiastically chattered, pointing out each delightful feature of his and his neighbors' homes. "Look at the big nest in that tree. Do you know what is nesting there now? Well, it's a yellow crested heron from over on the boat canal. How about that? Have you ever heard anything so lovely as the song of that mocking bird? What a versatile performer it is. And do you notice how each house here is different from those around it? The variety makes this place easy on the eyes, doesn't it?....."
Bottom line; people who know what they want, have a chance of achieving their goals. I like to hear about those who set out against great odds, but who succeed in doing great things. Too many stories end with a shrug of, "Oh, well, what can you do?"
Looking For The Promised Land
Out little tribal group is on the hunt for a new church. The church which Lydia attended until I moved here fell short of the Lydia standard for houses of worship. In what respect did it fall short, do you ask? Several respects; 1)the child care situation went from bad to worse, and 2)Lydia felt like one of only two people actively dedicated to institutional improvement, and 3)the new pastor confused sermon time with a chance to kick back and tell long, droopy tales of how it was when he grew up in the hills of Kentucky, and 4) when Lydia decided to take a bit of a Sabbatical to give herself time to see how she really felt, that church previously unable to act in any way, immediately changed the locks, threw out all of the curriculum materials she had developed, and denied her access to Benny's riding toys still in the Sunday School area. I said, "Forget it. We'll buy new toys," but you can see the situation and imagine the feelings. Lydia decided that we should sniff around all the other local churches and then when fall arrives, make a decision, and start over in a new location. So, OK.
We've been visiting churches from Sunday to Sunday. The first was an enormous all-black church where the service lasted almost three hours and I was so exhausted afterward I needed until Wednesday to get on my feet again. My WORD! that church was a work-out. Up dancing and rocking and rolling one minute, laughing until I cried the next minute at the antics of the church comedian (no, I'm not kidding), crying over the extreme emotion engendered by the pastor's message a few minutes later, at all times bombarded by ultra-loud inspirational music...whew! Black people may be the super race...just going to church takes enough energy to run a small city for a month. I'm not strong enough to attend that church. The kids loved it. Little Sadie danced in the aisle and everyone nearby helped her, laughed and had a good time. Benny beamed from ear to ear, clapped and swayed and just got into it. Lydia was kind of grim about the decibel level. So it was interesting, and a VERY good and happy place, but not for us.
Then we went to the nearest church, a gigantic fortress of Lutheranism. Lydia's main complaint was the music...it had some kind of stuttering, meandering, arythmic sameness from beginning to end of the festivities. I noticed that the congregation consisted of my peers and eight children...yes, that is EIGHT children. How do I know? Well, all the kids had to go forward to assist with the service for a few minutes and Benny made eight. Beautiful, beautiful building. Mean cranky people sitting next to us. At time for communion, I kept Benny with me in the pew. When others in our pew returned from receiving the bread and wine, I stood to allow them access to their seats. The first woman looked at me, did a doubletake and recoiled as though for the first time noticing an actual stranger in her vicinity. She dramatically pulled back, and went all the way around the back of the sanctuary to get to her seat from the other side. Those behind her followed like ducks in a row. Benny and I sat down. One crabby old guy at the end of the line apparently decided he wanted the short cut after all. Once Benny and I were back down in our seats, old guy entered the pew, walked firmly toward us and ...here's the nutty part...lifted his foot high and put it down onto Benny's leg, snarling, "GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!!" I jumped up, "Get your foot off that little boy!" He literally knocked me aside so that I fell onto my side against the pew, crammed himself past me and went to his former seat. OK. That was all I wished to know about that particular church...well, that and the fact that the sermon was the most anemic, no-content amalgum of meaningless chiches I have ever heard. The funny part is that since we went to that church the day has not passed without someone claiming to be a greeter who calls here and asks my impressions and if there's anything they can do for me. Yeah. Quit calling.
So then we visited an immense, gorgeous, historic Presbyterian church so bursting with congregants that I doubted we'd find a seat in the vast sanctuary. Crammed to explosion with young families. FANTASTIC music. Lovely service. One of those sermons which, after it's over, you can't remember having heard..kind of fungible sound coming out of the man's mouth. One sound was so very much like all the others that it added up to nothing. But it was short, I'll give him that. We were warmly welcomed by all in our vicinity. The soloist turned out to be one of Benny's ex-teachers and she, too, rushed to greet us. Very nice. Maybe the pastor lost his notes on the way up to the pulpit.
Then we visited a stupendous cathedral, home of the oldest Christian congregation in the USA, descendants of worshippers in the Jamestown colony.
This church, too, is close to home. Incredible carvings and stained glass art. The music was absolutely right. Child care was superlative. The children's service which Benny attended let out prior to communion and the leader brought all children down to sit with their parents. It was a long, long line of cute little people and after their arrival, the place whispered and bustled with the presence of wiggly little kids...a good thing, in my mind. Excellent, thought provoking sermon. Best thing....on our way out, I noticed a woman carrying her little Yorkshire Terrier. I said, "Hey! I love it. How do you get to bring your dog, because my chihuahua would like to go to church with me, too?" The woman said that her dog is a 'service dog' which I took to mean that he'd been educated to perfom some sort of exotic Episcopal Church canine accolyte function. She explained, however, that service dogs help the handicapped and she is brain injured. OK, now I know how to procede. I'm going to find a doctor who will say that I need a dog with me at all times, too. If I can't get a doctor to declare me brain injured, I will be gravely surprised. Pork Chop would absolutely like to go to church. Another good thing; seated across the aisle from us was the family of a very intelligent child similar to Benny in that he is a handful in karate class. Both he and Benny behaved in the children's service...says something good about that service, wouldn't you think?
And so it goes from Sunday to Sunday, we wend our way through the wilderness from church to church. We began in the high end houses of worship, but who knows where our odyssey will end? Might we finally choose the little hip hurrah church on the corner by my house? Could be a great place. They sponsored the neighborhood Christmas parade of teenagers yelling, "Welcome, Jesus, Prince of Peace!" Also, they send a mob of teenagers throughout the area every two weeks armed with garbage sacks, picking up stray trash. What's not to love about that? Lydia and I have a running argument re. their out-front sign. It says Pentecoastal Church. Yes, you noticed the coAstal. I say that is an example of a creative religious pun; they're a Pentecostal church here on the coast. She says they can't spell their own religion. I think we may have to go there one Sunday.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Howling At The Moon
I knew it!!!! Last night listening to local wildlife howling in the darkness, I knew this had to be the full of the moon. Howling front and back.
Across the street, yellow apartments gave of their plenty, many a lunatic out making hideous noise all night long. I wondered that no one called the police because the yelling and fighting were so angry.
Then around midnight, the back yard lit up. Neighbors two houses away built a metal outdoor fireplace. I got up to see what caused the noise, and there they were literally dancing around the fire roaring and screaming, drunk out of their tiny minds. It was loudest at 2:19 A.M. Shocking, idiotic, outrageous noise. No I wasn't afraid of them because they were two fences away and they were in no way interested in others. They just had much too much of a good time. Drunk as they were, I wondered about their safety with that fire...all the dancing and staggering, someone could have landed on the hot seat.
At one point I got up to check the sky and sure enough, the moon appeared full. I just checked an online moon phase calendar. Yep. April 24 is the day.
When You Feel Fat, Put Your Dog On A Diet
I feel and am wretchedly fat. Just all sick and wrong. Fat is so inconvenient. Inside my head I'm not fat. However, if I undertake some fairly physical activity, the fat is there and soon sinks me into a chair.
In common with most fat people I constantly struggle with guilt about the whole fat thing. I mean, how can an intelligent person not manage to control this? What is so hard about NO? I wake up each day determined to strive for thinness and then along about 11:00 A.M. feel the need for something tasty and there goes the diet. Solidarity with Winnie-the Pooh, about sums it up.
So anyway, I've found a palliative for my shame and gloom and feelings of failure. I put my fat chihuahua on a diet and am doing well. That dog is thinning down and will outlive me for sure. What this means is that I need a giant to take over my care and feeding like I have done for this little dog. If someone too big to be intimidated would enforce my diet, I'd be fine. I'd be thin by the Fourth of July. So, it's not my fault I'm fat. Simply, I am one of those people who need to be on a dog diet in dog circumstances and it is not my fault I'm human. I'm proud of the good job I'm doing with pork Chop's diet. Any giant who would like to undertake managing my food intake is welcomed to apply for the post of Joanna's diet administrator. Absent applicants, I'll just continue to be fat. You know, I've been wondering if there are places for people like me...way out in the boondocks somewhere out of reach of stores and friends sneaking Cheetos into one's room, boot-camp type fat farms where your family abandons you and then they come back in a few months and don't recognize you because you are half the size you were...? The kind of place where a fat person could cry and plead and try to bribe the guards without result, where the only nutrients were a recurring dosage of thin gruel. I might agree to that kind of rehab.
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