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Monday, January 17, 2005
Camping In
When camping out, of course, everyone knows that the procedure is to use old, unruinable stuff...or at least alternative household items. When camping out, the walls around one are temporary shelter, a canvas or nylon tent. There is no nonsense about windex, dusting, vacuuming, or, for that matter, the normal standards for personal grooming. Campers feel themselves well served when they eat something mostly edible at close to meal times, are warm enough to avoid frostbite, dry enough to avoid getting a cold, and have something to sleep on which defeats underlying pebbles and sticks. I am not camping out. I am camping IN. This house is not particularly houselike by anyone's standards except for one of those poor souls in the path of the recent tsunami.
How are my circumstances equivalent to indoor camping? Well...food; I only cook a whole meal once or twice a week. Other than that, I eat what seems good at the time. For example at breakfast today I had a cut up green pepper with cottage cheese laced with ranch dressing. Also I poured frozen crinkle-cut carrots into a container and microwaved them with a tablespoon of sour cream on top. It was all good and filling, but weird according to ordinary breakfast ideas. For lunch I might roll up thin-slices of deli ham or roast beef and eat them as finger food. For dinner, likely I would be watching TV or reading and might make popcorn...something like that...I also like frozen spinach microwaved with a top-dressing of soy sauce. Sometimes I microwave frozen corn with salsa or frozen broccoli with a slice of American cheese...or frozen peas with Ragu pasta sauce of some kind. No doubt crazy choices, but OK with me. What about shelter? Well, this place is nothing but an elaborate dog house. However, I keep it pretty orderly and I swiffer and vacuum regularly and it is comfortable and warm, there is plenty of hot water, there's a good bath tub, so it's OK with me although, like the food, pretty crazy. What about ordinary household items? Hm...dishes; I eat out of whatever was used to heat the food. I drink out of plastic cups.
All of this made the mail on Saturday very specia. There was a box with a crystal bowl from Tiffany's, crystal candlesticks by Lenox, and some sandlewood scented items that I can't identify. A dear friend had sent housewarming gifts. I put the crystal on the mantle in the dining room. It is quite beautiful. Even in a room where the roof leaks, the ceiling fan is mud spattered, cracks and distortions in the walls are painted over but very discernible, that crystal is pretty. The only way this differs from putting crystal items in a dog house is that I am more careful than the dog...here where I am camping in, those housewarming gifts provide exactly the visual surprise that would arise from the sight of a dog eating his Alpo from a crystal bowl and slurping his water from a crystal goblet. Surprising, yes, but nice.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
That Was Then and This Is Now
Yesterday Benny played and behaved magnificently. For a reward he got an ice cream cone. He got a star toward the fish he wants...(six stars for good behavior at violin events and he gets a fish). It was all too good to last. No little red headed, red blooded boy is that good two days in a row.
This afternoon the Suzuki classes performed at Chrysler Hall...woohoo, big stuff. They played in the mezzanine lobby prior to the symphony concert. Benny was the littlest violinist. Also he was the only child not dressed in black and white. Benny wore red corduroy overalls, which, with his spiked up orange hair made him the most-looked-at child there. No, Lydia didn't get it wrong. She was told that only "older" kids needed to wear black/white...and apparently all the other little kids stayed home. The teacher put Benny front and center. The concert began. I thought he was doing great. He looked so cute it was shocking. Then Lydia hissed to me that Benny was playing a made-up harmony for each of the pieces, inventing it as he went along. In a little intermission, Lydia told Benny that if he didn't shape up, she was going to just take him home. He cried and said he'd behave and play what the other kids played. The concert began again. Benny was playing even farther off course, over, under, and all around the tune. He was right out in left field. The teacher kept hissing at him to play the right notes, but he sawed on, happily oblivious. Then it was time for him to sit on the floor while older children played the hard pieces. He laid on the floor and waved his bow in the air. He chewed his bow. He poked all the kids around him with his bow.
Dan said that he was going to go over and take Benny's bow away. Lydia said not to do that because he'd howl and cry and make everyone miserable. However, Lydia was seething. Afterward Benny did NOT get an ice cream cone. He was told that he would NOT get a star toward the desired fish. All the way home he got his ear chewed by his irate mother. By the time they let me out of the van, Benny was starting to look a teeny liitle bit sorry. But, hey, he DID look amazingly cute while he was being so bad.
One positive item...Benny actually ate today. Lydia said that at breakfast he tucked into the French toast like a starved wolf. After church, we stopped at Wendy's to get burgers to take home and have lunch with Dan. Benny requested both a cheeseburger and fries. Usually he eats a little bit of one or the other. As we pulled out into the street, Benny said, "May I have my cheeseburger?' Lydia answered that he could have it in just a minute when we got home. He howled sorrowfully, "But I'm so HUNGRY!!!!" Astonished, she pulled over and fished his burger out of the sack. He finished it before we got to the house where he ate all of his fries. This only happens when Benny's going into a growth spurt, so goodby to all his size six/seven clothes.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Lightly Snow
Today we all went to Benny's winter violin recital. He was second on the program. The tiniest little new Suzuki students all had white gauze tied to the tips of their bows. They stood solemnly in rows and waved their gauzy white bow tips to the beat as Benny played Lightly Snow (Row). Benny was magnificent. He played with long, confident bowings that could have been heard downtown. Then he went to stand with the big kids in the center of the back row. Very comical. He is a little boy and the row of heads sloped down toward him from both ends. When the children all sat down onstage while individuals played, Mrs. Stevens went to sit on the floor beside Benny's chair, took away his bow and violin, and held him onto his chair with one arm. The Benny Patrol. After a while the children went to sit with their parents until time for the finale. Lydia wrangled Benny into semi-civilized behavior as he proceded to enjoy the concert, singing happily along with each new soloist. At the following reception, Benny and several of his little friends descended on the table of treats like starved wolves, cramming in all the donuts, coffee cake, and cookies they could before their mothers caught them. I thought it was a sign of how much Benny loves his father that he took Dan a donut out of which he had bitten a chunk. None of the other little boys thought to take any goodies to dear old Dad. I made a break for liberty and waited out the remainder of the reception in the hallway. Lydia asked that I stand between the door to the reception and the door to the parking area so that I could catch Benny if he made a run for it. HA! Benny leave a social situation? Not much. He is the most social child I ever saw, loves these meet and greet situations...and, of course, the table of treats. Eventually we all wound up out in the van again and went to get Benny an ice cream cone because he had done such a good job. At my house, Benny had to run in and go potty before proceding toward home. I helped him get his belt off. On the way out the door, beltless, he had to hold up his pants with both hands. Benny might eat sweets early, often, and in quantity, but he is one skinny little violinist.
Monday, January 3, 2005
Cleaning Up Their Act
This morning I see that the longshoreman who lives with the ho's has the day off. He's sitting on his balcony holding a bottle in a brown sack. From time to time he takes a sip. Meanwhile his stable of female employees is busy out in the street cleaning up their ho-mobile. Whatever else they do with their lives, those women can certainly clean up a car. Big Shot on the balcony now and then pointed out some imperfection in their work.
About 10:00 A.M. the mailman came along. He has a short route here, does the whole thing in about 15 minutes. When he came down my side of the street I went out to get the mail and save him trying to stuff it all into the box. He wished me Happy New Year and then paused and added, "You know, sometimes I don't hardly believe things I see and hear in this neighborhood. I live in Virginia Beach and I'm a Sheriff's Deputy there. So imagine how I felt when those characters across the street tried to sell me crack just now." He walked away shaking his head.
On a more positive note, the yard guy showed up early this morning and got going on my fence. He used up all the leftover white paint in the garage doing a first coat. It looks wonderful. Tomorrow I have to get to Home Depot and buy the finish coat. The temperature outside is somewhere in the low 80's, perfect painting weather. I was going to eat lunch on the porch, but the sun was too hot! Imagine that on January 3.
Sunday, January 2, 2005
Happy, (Yawn), New Year
For a big holiday, New Years was pretty quiet on 38th Street. As far as I could tell from my sofa by the living room window, this was the tally;
1) At some point on New Years Eve after midnight, police closed off the street between my house and the corner, brought in numerous police vehicles, and scooped up armsful of celebrants assembled in front of the yellow crack house apartments.
2) The fireworks went on all night out in the street; I'm talking about all night. I saw them thrown from the sidewalk, from doorways, and from apartment balconies. To add a little spice, once in a while guns were shot off by the happy, dancing, wildly jumping around partyers (sp?).
3) Somebody three blocks away set their house on fire while too drunk to pay attention. Lotta firetrucks and an ambulance went by.
4) On New Years Day A.M. a person came by on his way BACK to the party store. He was seriously drunk going to the store but falling-down-staggering-all-over-the-sidewalk drunk on his return trip.
5) A festivity over on the next street got too hot sometime yesterday and three people ended up shot and on their way to the hospital. Lotta noise about that.
6) New residents of the downstairs west apartment across the street turn out to be three hookers and a longshoreman who deals drugs after coming home from the shipyard. Last night the hookers set up shop in a car across the street handling, or whatever you call it, three customers at once. Those car windows steamed up quite a bit although it was a warm night. Reminded me of that cornpone remark some southern politician made prior to the last election that things "was gettin' as hot as three rats havin' sex in a wool sock". One of the hookers in the back seat, aired out the place and provided a little variety for spectators by opening her window and performing oral sex on a customer at windowside. Oh, yes. Not making it up.
7) Meanwhile, two houses down from me, the people are out of town, but during the cold snap over Christmas their water pipe from the street froze and burst. It has been soaking into lawns and sidewalk and all over the place. Yesterday and last night the city sent out department of sanitation trucks four times to try to dry the place out. By midnight someone finally got the incredibly brilliant idea of turning off the water to that house. Where do they find the rocket scientists who work for this city? The crew which got the good idea later celebrated their intelligence by going across the street to watch the interesting hooker car in action.
So that was it. My first New Years Day weekend on 38th Street. Pretty quiet. I've seen it livelier.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
My Cold Remedy
When you hear the words "staple items", you think of flour, sugar, salt, etc. Right. But Campbell's Chicken Soup is another of those items which you always need. I don't mean the kind like Chicken Stars or Chicken Goldfish, or Chicken Double Noodle.
You just need to keep on hand about half a dozen little cans of the regular Chicken Noodle kind. This is for the same reason you never want to run out of Puffs Plus Tissue...or aspirin...or anhistamine. You need these things because if you are a grandparent, every time a little preschool scholar pops into your house, along with the baby who is teething, you will get the sniffle that the children have. Only, since you are old and falling apart, you will become very sick and need to go to bed for a few days. So, next time you visit the store, stock up because winter is just underway. When you feel miserable and know you should eat but don't want to, that little can of Campbell's Chicken Soup is just the ticket, along with a chaser of aspirin/antihistamine and a side order of tissue. Oh, and you also need an ongoing supply of diet Coke. All these things are staple items, if not major food groups.
Optional but nice are your cable TV subscription and a little pile of grocery store books which is resupplied each week. When sneezing, coughing, and blowing your nose, you need distraction from the prevalence of mucous in your life. These are the times when you will happily turn to TV shows that would otherwise not appeal to a stone moron...things like Gomer Pyle reruns, reality shows about people who trade families for a couple of weeks and get into big fights, old western movies, ghetto movies starring foul-mouthed rappers making fools of themselves, shows where people are fixing up rooms in each others' houses, etc. You stare dully at the screen through runny eyes, mouth hanging open so you can breathe, blurring through dumb show after dumb show. It's soothing. When your eyes aren't quite so dim, you can turn to that nice little pile of new grocery store books. Grocery store books are those super fat paperback volumes available in the ...duh...grocery store. They involve situations entirely foreign to your life...sensational stuff. Grandma joins the CIA and they send her to do dangerous stunts in a Balkan country where no one speaks her language. She prevails, leaving behind her a trail of dead and injured persons who wished in vain to interfere with her mission. There's a whole series like that. Then there's another series all about deep sea adventures where the action is so hectic you can count on a life threatening situation every other page. There's a series about an Indian detective and his fellow inmates on the reservation in the American southwest. There's one about a coroner who describes in pitiless detail the autopsies she performs and the condition of corpses arriving at her place of business. There a series about a black psychiatrist who works with local and federal police groups to apprehend extra sicko criminals. There's a series of stories revolving around legal problems in small towm Mississppi and other spots in the backward south. There are so many series about CIA-like operatives rushing around the world from glamor spot to glamor spot taking advantage of IQ deprived women and killing someone on each page...I couldn't begin to remember them all. Anyway, all of these books are a fine distraction from the fact that you can't go five minutes without blowing your nose. So...cable TV, grocery store books, aspirin, antihistamine, diet Coke, Puffs Plus tissue, and Campbell's Chicken Soup. Keep these staples on hand because if you didn't get a cold yet this winter, your grandchildren will surely give you one soon. Properly supplied, you can ALMOST enjoy poor health.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Stay Off the Streets!
A "live" reporter out on the street just said, "If you don't absolutely have to go out today, stay home. This is dangerous, Jim Bob." Around her is no sign of snow, none at all, zero, zip. This warning comes because the merest whiff of white, not enough to measure, just a hint of snow until the sun comes up to melt it, stingy frosting lies on top of the grass in my yard. Across the bottom of the TV screen a list of closings scrolls endlessly...all the schools and universities, service groups like Meals on Wheels. If there's any evidence of winter, apparently, old people have to go hungry. All over Hampton Roads, bridges and tunnels closed due to a high volume of traffic accidents. Winter in the south. In southern Virginia if a bird sneezes on a cold day, everyone rejoices. Snow day!
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Ghetto Christmas Parade
This morning I went out onto the porch to get the paper and found warm temps and neighbor grandkids on the sidewalk chasing each other with Supersoakers, kids in shorts and t-shirts. My yard guy was down the street where residents do not ever cut their grass. He said the other day that he might cut those yards at Christmas "for Jesus". Hm...looks like he meant it. So I got the paper, came in, made coffee and sat down on the sofa to read. Suddenly I heard a rumpus outside. Now, this is not new. Across the street those drug freaks rumpus early and often. I heard but did not look up. Then it got louder. And louder. And began to sound like chanting. That got me off the sofa and out on the porch. Was some kind of urban protest underway? The whole neighborhood soon emerged onto porches or sidewalk looking in the direction of this mightily increasing noise. Gracious sakes! Here came a parade. The street was full of teenagers carrying signs and yelling their heads off. The line of bodies stretched for at least a block. I couldn't make out what they said and my bad eyes couldn't figure out the signs at a distance but soon I saw the lettering, "WELCOME, JESUS, PRINCE OF PEACE!"
As the parade roared by I figured out what they chanted. It was, "WE LOVE YOU, JESUS!--Prince of Peace, Prince of Peace--WE LOVE YOU, JESUS!--Prince of Peace---etc./etc...." Most observers beamed at them and waved. They waved and smiled back and stomped noisily on, up to the corner, turned, and marched on. I could hear until they again turned and went two streets down, probably onto 36th Street. Apparently they zigzagged through Kensington neighborhood.
How about that? In this drug and poverty infested place, that many teenagers willingly advertised that they love Jesus in a sort of Christmas parade. Meanwhile the neighborhood yard guy in his raggedy clothes and using his old rusty equipment, did lawns "for Jesus", knowing he would not get paid, a Christmas gift to God. Across the street, residents of those drug houses looked on silently.
Friday, December 17, 2004
A Good Bad Situation
Here I am sick, sick, sick again. So sick so often.
On Wednesday Lydia/Benny/Sadie were here all afternoon. Poor little Benny was sick, with a cold so I was trying to take his mind off his trouble. I had everything ready and laid out in a way to make it handy for him to make gingerbread cookies. He is such an in-the-game little boy that although he was completely wretched, he eagerly did all the steps and made the cookies. Then I gave him a popsicle and he sat down. I had part of his Christmas present here unwrapped, a Nintendo Gamecube with two wireless controllers and three games. Lydia rigged it up for him and he got comfortable on a squishy chair and played enthusiastically. He loved it, said at going home time, "Mom, let's take it with us." She, of course, told him it's for when he's at Ahno's house. Anyway, I was busy with Lydia and the kids on Wednesday and didn't have time to think about myself, but when they left at about 6:00 P.M., suddenly I was sick. Soon I was coughing and throwing up and on and on and on that went all night and through Thursday until after midnight last night when it began to taper off. Now I'm sore and weak. Even hurts to breathe. Oh, boy. What a life. I was sitting here feeling pathetic when it occurred to me that there may be a way to avoid some of this chronic sickness...I need to find something to do that I CAN do and that someone needs and expects me to do, depends on me. Something that keeps me from thinking about myself for part of each day. Here I sit in my crazy but comfortable house...with nothing that I have to do. If I feel like doing something, I can. If I don't feel like doing something, I don't need to. I'm a spectator of my own life. Don't need to lift a finger. As I type, the yard guy is out there edging every last smidgen of turf that touches a sidewalk. He even weeds! I don't need to do anything. Because I was so sick yesterday, I just left all the mess from cookie-making. Nobody cared or minded. This morning I started the cleanup because I felt like it. Had I still been too sick to function, that would not have been a problem. I could leave that stuff in the sink until the Fourth of July for all anyone minds about it. I think that whether I feel like working or not, I'd better find something to do. Much more of this life of luxury and I could be dead very soon.
I saw on the news the other day a report about that fellow in West Virginia who won the super lottery and got $349,000,000 a couple of years ago. He's in terrible shape. His wife cried and said she wished he had not been a winner because the money was killing him. Since he had no need to work and be responsible, he had turned into a drunk. He's been picked up drunk and disorderly numerous times. Before the big win, he was a highly respectable character. Now he looks like a derelict, disheveled and unshaven, messy clothes, hair too long and all crazy, eyes rheumy, unfocused. Having all the time in the world to think about himself, life has got him down in spite of his advantages. He needs to be working. Today there's no work for him to do and he's falling apart. Lesson in that. I think I'd better get something to do. With all the time in the world to think about myself, I'm likely to cough up a lung. On Wednesday I was just fine until the kids went home and there was nothing to keep me from thinking about the yucky gluck going down the back of my throat. Soon I was off again on another nightmare of throwing up and coughing and crying and gagging out of control. There has to be something I can do and I'd better get busy finding it. Maybe I could read to blind people. Must look into that.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Brutal Cold
Coming as I do from a place closer than this to the North Pole, I feel we now are kind of in the middle of May weatherwise. Temps hover in daytime 60'/70's. Nights go into the 50's. Flowers everywhere look great. An excellent example is at the Abyssinian Baptist Church around the corner and about a block away. Big, huge, beautiful, bountiful begonias just bloom on. Like it was August! Imagine lushly blooming begonias on December 14. Yesterday was warm and beautiful, People everywhere ran around in shorts and sandals. The guy next door, engaged in their family's perpetual carwash, wore light summer stuff. I saw a new yellow dandelion out on the driveway area which is going to be paved whenever that paving guy actually arrives as promised. New iris stalks are up about 10" high. The yellow rose in front of my porch has grown two inches/day and is now a foot above the porch rail and headed for the roof. Sounds like the month of May in Michigan, right? Nope. Not according to local folks. The guy on channel WAVY last night intoned, "I warn you that tomorrow is going to be BRUTAL!!! Be sure to bring any pets inside. Temps may drop as low as 47 degrees by midnight." I liked that about bringing pets inside. The other day on my way to the ghetto grocery store, I passed a woman on the sidewalk wearing a heavy parka and beside her a little dachshund toiled along under a dog coat heavy enough to get him through night at the South Pole.
Brutal cold. MMMmm!
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