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Sunday, December 12, 2004
Want to Go to the Dogs?
Night before last those sporting spirits across the street had another pit bull fight. No secret. You could have heard it at your house if you had been outside. Unbelievable noise from dogs and spectators. How the police just don't ever hear this and interfere is a mystery known only to them. Police are past here at least once every hour of the day and night. As often as these dog fights occur, and as long as they last, you'd think it inevitable that police would simply notice and yell, "Come out with your dogs up!" I argued with myself about should I call the police. Against: I'm the only white person on the street; it seems like a black person should ring down the curtain on this stuff. Also, I do not want in any way to attract the attention of those characters over in the yellow apartments where they shoot one another recreationally. For: Although I do not like pit bulls, it is cruel to get them fighting because at the end of each fight, one dog has died a horrible death. So, I didn't call the police.
Now at the other end of this block, the house on the corner is for sale for a million and a half dollars. The people living there spent the summer and fall rehabbing it and now it's on the market for a huge price tag. Whoever buys that house will have come to pit bull fight land, to an area where natives shot the phone company guy who ran off from my house in mid-job, where grown men on kids' bikes door-to-door deliver drugs all night long from their emporium across the street, sitting in kitchen chairs out on the sidewalk between orders, cussing and yelling and occasionally fighting, yakking and taking orders on their cell phones, occasionally shooting and killing one of their business partners. Sound like an environment you would pay a million and a half dollars to inhabit?
Somebody will. The house right across the street from that one on the opposite corner...it went for almost a million. And it was only on the market for a week. The new people moved in on Wednesday. Beautiful, beautiful house in a very dynamic neighborhood. Somebody will quite likely spend a lot of money for the opportunity to go to the dogs in that location. Could be you. It hasn't sold yet.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Electronic Cheer
Here I sit typing and listening to the Westwind Emsemble Christmas CD...A Christmas Tribute to the Manheim Steamroller. This is electronic music, digitally recorded and singing to me via my computer. Music provided by the combustion of fossil fuels. No, I don't regret expending the irreplaceable. I love this music. You should buy the CD. It's at all the grocery stores...like other nutrients. Yum. Just delicious.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Discretionary Time and Money
Which is true, that old people are rich and have a lot of time on their hands or that they are pathetic and needy? During the last election it sounded to me as though seniors in the USA were all pretty much huddled under bridges protecting the artifacts they archived in stolen shopping carts. Now the Norfolk paper claims that seniors are the backbone of local economy, gambling, going on cruises, and shopping at all the area malls. A woman almost as shockingly decayed as I, was pictured with her lips planted on a slot machine, trying to kiss it into yielding more tokens. Jolly gangs of old people tottered around the pool on a cruise ship. (Norfolk is homeport to the biggest cruise lines.) Somebody's grandma had several shopping bags from high end local emporia. Rich old people with discretionary time and money! Come to think of it, the other day I did see a homeless person and he looked to be about 35, not an old person. What's wrong with old people having advantages? Maybe nothing. On the other hand the same paper told that Norfolk area schools are in dreadful shape, except for a privileged few. Seniors were solicited to spend at least 60 minutes/week at their nearest public school, doing things for which the teachers have insufficient time. Supposedly if every able-bodied senior in this area would do an hour per week of public service in the schools all the local school problems would be moot. Hm...do I see a hoard of old people descending on the schools? Not at all. Schools are too scary. Maybe not for me, though. Maybe I should do this.
Thursday, December 9, 2004
It All Gets Done Eventually
Do I actually like anything about this house? Yes. I love the bathtub. It is exactly right, although needing to be reglazed. It is a great big old clawfoot tub and I love it. Also, I like the fact that, although this is a small house and what there is, is in terrible condition, it is quite easily big enough for me, comfortably so, not crowded, about 1,700 sq. ft. I began to look at it differently when the plumber made me an offer for it. He said it's bigger than his house and he really likes it. The electrician said, "This is a darling house," which sounded odd coming from the mouth of an extremely large unkempt workman. I thought, "It is? This wreck is a darling house?" I like that the laundry is conveniently located and works efficiently now.
I like that there are plenty of very comfortable places to lie down/sit down. It's a good house for someone always tired and never really well, a perfect sick-person house. I like that the stairs are broad with short lifts so they are not taxing to climb. I like that my driveway is big enough so I can turn the car around and go into the street nose first. That, by the way, is pretty much unique in this town. Many, many homes in the $500,000-$1,000,000 range have no driveway at all. I like the front porch which is quite big enough for furniture. Sometimes I have breakfast coffee out there while reading the paper. Mostly I appreciate near proximity to Lydia/Dan/the kids. So nice to be close enough that I can call Lydia and say, "After Benny's karate lesson would you stop here for a minute on your way home?" I like that the garage is so big, with storage space, and dry. Really it is disgraceful that I have this much house and this nice a house when so many are homeless. I'm learning to like the place and I am grateful for it.
Monday, December 6, 2004
Tree
I have a crazy excuse for a house, but my Christmas tree exceeds the outside dimensions of those semi's over on Hampton. There are only four ornaments on my tree, compliments of Lydia, four little gold bows. The rest is just tiny white lights. Last night I lit it at night for the first time. It is so beautiful that I am not going to junk it up with ornaments. I ran outside to see how it looks from the street...fabulous. And this street needs some fabulousness. Next door they have some holiday lights up but have not turned them on. Way down the street in the Colonial Place area, some houses have lights...over-the-top junky lights like National Lampoon Christmas. Across the street on an empty house a string of old lights around the porch keeps company with the American flag and a bit of faded plastic roping. Someone is rehabbing the place and I saw him one day come out on the porch, finger the American flag, take it out of its socket, reach for that tatty roping, then change his mind, put the rags of former occupants back and walk away. It all goes with the trash strewn weedy yard. Not fabulous at all. Then just a house away from that, the yellow apartments are getting a rehab in part. With two tenants out and gone, the owner has somebody over there who yesterday all day threw trash out the windowns and down onto the sidewalk and street. No, not fabulous. Worse than it has ever been during my shared tenancy of this environment. Then one house over from me on my side of the street, the owners have not cut their grass all summer and it is just hideous, a snarl of gigantic weeds and wind-blown junk. I don't know what's their problem. My yard person told me that they hired him to put together a new lawn mower and then told him that would be all. The new mower has never made its maiden voyage and that was in May. Oh, it's a long, long time from May to December and the weeds grew long back in September. Not fabulous. So, you can see that my tree is a major contribution to the beautification of 38th Street. Some people with pretty Christmas trees live in neighborhoods where those trees disappear in the overwhelming Christmasness visible everywhere. My tree is the only nice thing at all. It is the best tree on 38th Street.
Sunday, December 5, 2004
Exuberance or Misery or Whatever
Hard to say what I'm seeing across the street. Am I seeing a mighty overflow of energy with no sensible outlet? Are those people just wretched to the bone and desirous that the rest of us share their angst? Whatever, it's always something going on over there...loudly. Last night was loud for two reasons; one, a rental unit emptied as the inmates moved their possessions out into a UHaul and finally disappeared over the horizon. Two, the group of eight or so grown men who sit around on busted kitchen chairs and make noise all night every night, well, last night they tossed firecrackers into the street every fifteen or twenty minutes. They kept it up until those who were moving eventually weren't there any more.
The other day some brain dead individul said to me, "You know, I bet that if you waved at those people and called out nice greetings and were friendly, I bet they would be nice right back at you." I bet I'm not going to do any of that.
Now it is Sunday morning again and once more I am drop dead tired after being up almost all night hearing those morons carry on. What do they do besides throw fire crackers? Uh, yes, they have an extensive menu of weird noises made to just hear themselves make noise. One guy makes a noise like WOOF WOOF WOOF..... Another yells the F-word as loudly as a boiler factory blowing up...he does this about twenty times in a row, then shrugs and sits back down for a while. Another one has his own version of a Tarzan yell. Between noises, as the night passes on, they sit doing nothing, or suddenly for no apparent reason jump up and run down the sidewalk as if urgently needed somwhere, but turn before the end of the block and straggle slowly back to their seats. Sometimes they generate a little war over nothing, jumping up and down like monkeys and shouting into each others' faces, all bouncing around in a bunch, bobbing up and down and noise pouring out of their mouths. Once in a while they go too far and one actually gets mad. I saw a gun come out one night, aimed at a man's head. The potential shooter stood that way for a while as they all froze, then he shrugged and put the gun back into his pants pocket. One night there were two shots after one of those jumping and yelling sessions and the police and an ambulance came, women wailed and screamed...somebody REALLY got carried away. Mostly it's just noise. The thing is, that's how it is every night.
Night before last some goon with the most broken-down pick-up truck on this planet, stopped and unloaded his whole trash collection onto the sidewalk in front of them, CRASH, SLAM, KAPLOWIE!!! He did that around 3:00 A.M. They just watched him, didn't seem to care that their viewing place had turned into Fort Trash. They actually had to stand up to see out to the street over the wall of junk. THE NOISE it made!
And the question arises, is this behavior an outlet for energy which has nowhere else to go? Is it a case of miserable people making everyone within earshot as miserable as they are? Is it just plain insanity? Don't know. I do know that once again it is Sunday morning when I am going to help with the little kids at church and I am so tired I can hardly hold up my head. Doesn't seem right. "If you would just begin to greet those people and wave hello and so on, I bet they'd respond positively." That was said by somebody who lives on the other side of town. Here's what I would like to do and can't for lack of the necessary abilities: I would like to walk over there when they get rocking and rolling and pick up one of them, sit down, lay him over my lap and say, "You want to make noise at night? I'm going to help you. When I get done, you will be making the noise of your wildest dreams," and then bust his butt like he hasn't felt since Momma quit trying. Then grab another one and so on until they get the idea that if they are going to yell, they better be in pain already because if not, I'm going to fix that. No, I can't. They are grown men and I am a little old lady, but it's an attractive prospect, is it not? You don't think so? What I have to say to you is, living on 38th Street is not for the weak. I bet you couldn't do it. I'm doing it, but I'm tired.
Running Away From The Bad Element
This morning after things quieted down, the sun came out and the UHaul returned. I looked out to see my nice neighbor, the one who goes to early church, up, dressed, and ready to leave, but stopped to talk with one of those who are moving.
Nosy me. I went out on my porch and called, "Hey! What's up with the UHaul?"
The woman replied, "Ah'm movin'."
I asked, "Why"
She answered, "Gotta get mah kids away from the bad element."
I wondered, "What exactly do you mean?"
She averred, "People ovuh thayuh," pointing across the street to the yellow apartment building, "they always shootin' one anothuh and sellin' drugs fo' a livin' and we scared to be thayuh any mo'."
I questioned, "You don't feel safe?"
She rolled her eyes and yelled, "HELL, NO! They all like crazy in thayuh, bang-bang! Nevah know if a bullet gonna come through the wall. Mah kids afraid to get up in they bed. Sleepin' on the flo' so maybe bullets go ovuh they haid."
I said, "Gracious! Did anyone in there ever get hurt?"
She says, "Oh, honey! All the time. Las' August two of them shot each othuh and they one he didn' make it. Then they shootin' at each othuh in they apahtment and some get it sometimes. It goin' on ALL the time. A couple week ago one guy got it right out front."
I interrupted, "I believe I heard that one. So where are you moving?"
She said, "When ah wuz comin' up ah lived on the othuh side of Colley and it wuz white and black togethuh and real nice. Now it all black and you kin' fo'git it. This side of Colley getting mo' white and it comin' up but slow, not fas' enough fo' me and mah kids. Ah only stay heah long as ah did because of mah fathuh. He have Altzheimers and ah thought it be good fo' him to stay where he know what what. Now he gon' and we got us a house ovuh on Valentine Street. It almost all white ovuh thayuh." This from a black woman. She added, "It gettin' empty out. Upstairs lady gon'. She haid kid, too, and they lef' out last week. Now we gon'. Half the building empty. Nobody lef' but crazy drug sellin' freaks an' they mean ole dogs. You jus' leave all them people alone. They dangerous."
Aha!!! I knew that nut who told me to be nice to them was totally wrong.
Clearly this person does not give a darn about PCness. She simply wants to keeping herself and her children safe and identifies a mixed-race neighborhood as one less likely to tolerate violence. That strong, energetic young black woman moved out because this place is not safe. Falling apart old white me, I moved in. I'm crazy, right?
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Inspection
Don't ever get anything in an old house inspected by the city inspector who comes around to OK work for which a permit was obtained. In addition to the items on his agenda for inspection, he invariably sniffs out code violations having to do with other things in the house. Today....at last....the city inpector showed up to check out the gas line to my dryer.
While here, he said, "Excuse me. I really have to ask to see the basement. I don't like what I see about this furnace." My heart sank. I heard him down there growling to himself like a dog that has found a tasty bone. He was practically smacking his lips as he came up the stairs. "Well!" he barked. "The gas company is going to be here shortly to red tag that gas line because it involves an improper vent from your furnace. Have to shut off that gas entirely. Who did the work and where's the receipt?"
I yelped, "Oh, my goodness!! That's terrible. I'll be like someone living under a bridge. Why do you have to shut off the gas in December?"
He said, "No help for it, ma'am. Not up to code."
I started to cry and said, "You mean that unless the gas company shuts off the gas, I might blow up or start a fire or something?"
He said, "No, no. It's just not up to code."
I said, "Well, in that case why can't it wait until summer?"
He changed gears and said, "Now don't you get all worried about this. You don't have to fight with any of these people. I do all the fighting for you. I'll make them get out here and fix that in a hurry and it won't cost you a thing."
"Why not?" I wanted to know. "The company that installed the furnace was not the company that did the vent. That vent was there when I moved in."
"Ha!" he chortled. "The furnace installers will do it right and do it for free because they did not get a permit to install the furnace. That means they are in trouble, in danger of being denied the right to do business here. It wouldn't actually go that far, of course, but I have that power and I can hold it over their heads. For the price of a furnace vent, no one is going to endanger his entire business. When they installed that furnace, they knew they were doing something not up to code and shady by not also installing the right vent for that kind of furnace. I'm not going to give them an inch. You just find me your copy of the bill they presented at the conclusion of the work. I'll make them fix the vent. Call me when you find the bill," and he was out the door on the run, off to wreck havoc in the life of some other home owner.
A Whatever Tree
Tired. Coughed all day. Sat around yet again waiting for repair persons and their auxiliary ilk. The one positive thing...I set up my new and immense Christmas tree. This did not happen by magic. I am black and blue from that Christmas tree. My ceiling is 10 feet high, but I still couldn't squeeze in the fourth tree section, had to scrimp by on three. Standing with one foot on a chair back and the other foot on a ricketty ladder, I groaned and heaved those tree pieces into place with sweat running into my eyes and teeth gritted. Now I must bend and shape 2,400 branches, then test the ready-strung lights. Those might be good little jobs to get me through tomorrow's unevitable travail re. fising and safely inspecting this refried house. So, then I'll have a simply stupendous Christmas tree. What about decorations? By now I want to decorate it with plastic rats. VERY grim, humorless, and coughing perilously toward the throw-up until I rot point. PLASTIC RATS!!!! The year of the plastic rat Christmas tree.
Do I have any plastic rats? No, but that is not an insurmountable obstacle. I can far more clearly see myself shopping until I drop in pursuit of plastic rats than in potpouri-scented death traps for the allergic...joints like Michaels or A.C. Moore's...places bursting with red and green cheer. I'm not cheery and I am coughing and I think that plastic rats are just about 100% the right decor for this tree this year. If you have in the last couple of days passed through a store purveying the needful, call me.
Friday, November 26, 2004
Fresh From The Dump
An employee wore a shirt that read, "I work at THE DUMP." Right. That's where I got my new chair. We toiled over the landscape from this store to that, trying out couches, chairs...stuff for in the "new" 94-year-old house. Finally, toward the end of the afternoon, here we were at THE DUMP. The big local furniture emporium unloads its unsellables there. It was large but business was brisk. Benny had a great time. He tested chairs and sofas for squishiness. He ran up, down, and across mountains of carpet rolls. Yahoo! Meanwhile poor, precious little baby Sadie mostly slept through the fuss. She saw the doctor this A.M. and has a virus..not feeling well at all. Dan and Lydia carried Sadie and checked out dressers for in the kids' bedrooms. Furniture. Furniture. Furniture.
After a while it all looks the same...ugly. Then Lydia spotted "the chair plus ottoman" which got us out the door having bought something. So, it's true. I did get furniture at the dump today. It was delivered right away...such unsouthern efficiency. Now there it is inviting me to squash down into the cushions, turn on the TV, and take a nap. Lydia weaselled me into buying the brown sofa which is now my favorite furniture. She talked me into this chair, too. I'll probably love it.
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