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Thursday, April 14, 2005
Clinging To The Ghetto By A Toenail
Last night I poodled around on the internet looking up recent local court cases having to do with persons resident in the yellow apartments across the street. Gotta keep track of their latest "hits".
Since I only know those folks by the nicknames they call each other, I used their address as a way to identify the parties whose criminal careers I wished to follow. That was all entirely as I expected and the search concluded in a hurry.
Then I clicked around on the Norfolk city site and found histories and profiles for each neighborhood.
Shock. Surprise. Astonishment. My address is not in Kensington as I have assumed. I officially reside in Colonial Place, the historic district...the high rent area. How far into the historic area am I? Not very. The line runs down the middle of 38th Street. Across the street, the yellow apartments, the house being built, the house in rehab, the red house waiting for demolition, all those places are the leading edge of Kensington.
Another previously unknown fact; Kensington is part of Park Place, the major rehab area in Norfolk right now. Park Place has several little sub-neighborhoods of which Kensington is just one.
The city poured millions into Park Place in the last five years and more is on the way. The elementary school and the library are brand new. Outright grants and low cost loans are available to anyone willing to undertake improvements. In every block on every street, homes and businesses are getting a face lift. A homeowners' association organized to buy properties no one wanted to improve. These all are in process of repair. Each week one or more show up in the real estate section of the Saturday paper...sold to**** by the Homeowners' Association for ****$.
I thought I lived in that section, but no. Crazy as my house is, I find that I really live in the rich people section...by half a street's width. Kind of makes me sad. Oddly, I have begun to enjoy thinking of myself as a tough old ghetto rat.
The Biker Chickhuahua
We finally visited Pet Smart in search of clothing for Pork Chop. The selection was not great, just a few faux bowling shirts, etc. I settled on a chihuahua-sized Harley Davidson biker jacket.
"WHY?" you ask.
"Well," I answer, "because that's all they had which fit her. Also, it looks funny. Plus, she likes it."
Today, a rainy one, was the kind of weather when native Virginians wear parkas and shiver, acting as if they faced Alaskan winter. I, of course, thought it was a pretty nice day and did not wear a jacket of any kind. Pork Chop, a frequent shiverer, welcomed the warm Harley duds. So it's all good.
After our shopping expedition during which I also bought a couple of Grandma rocking chairs for on the porch, Pork Chop went home with Lydia and the kids. I had to attend mediation class again, and Porky McChopchop does not appreciate being left alone for four and one half hours.
After class tonight, I stopped at the Netzer domicile to pick up my mutt. Dog and kids were rolling and frolicking on the bed in Sadie's room, kids in their pajamas. Oh, the shrieking and laughing. The baby chased Porky who burrowed under the covers. Happy, happy, joy, joy.
I broke up the party and dragged the D.O.G. home to her quiet, childless home on 38th Street. She has made a nest in an afghan on the sofa and is asleep after her hectic day of shopping and playing.
Lydia's working on a rap re. Pork Chop. So far it goes like this;
"Yo, yo, yo,
I'm Porky McC.,
And I'm a D.O.G."
OK, that's not a long enough rap, but every masterpiece begins somewhere.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Urban Wildlife
If this were out in the wild wilds somewhere...instead of the urban wildness of 38th Street... the noise occurring outside under my car would scare me badly. Dreadful screaching, caterwauling, yowling, wailing. Somewhat like a baby on steroids and filled with rage. Pork Chop reacts like a fire siren. Vaguely I ascribe the noise to sea gulls. This close to the ocean we have them everywhere all the time; in the grocery store parking lot, by the dumpster at McDonalds, carrying on in trees around my house like all the other birds...I'm used to that loud mewling. Gradually, though, I come to the conclusion that Pork Chop and I are being serenaded by cats, cats doing a bit of reproductive activity. Why do they need to make this much noise about it? And whatever happened to the tradition of cats doing this at night under the moon in a back alley? Don't they realize it's 9:00 A.M.?
Pork Chop bristles with indignation. Pork Chop yells, "You out there! Stop that cat squalling! I won't have it! I'll bite your ankle! I'm comin' out there. Don't you MAKE me come out there!..."
The cats don't care.
They rave on and on in their frenzy of springtime reproductive enthusiasm. Yeesh. Cats.
Now, dogs....
I don't usually have trouble with neighbor dogs owing to the local leash law. Dogs are not allowed to run free. I have worried about the likelihood of a pitbull on a leash passing Pork Chop and me on the sidewalk and deciding to take some weight off Pork Chop the fastest way. Hasn't happened yet, quite, not exactly.
Yesterday while out doing our trip around the neighborhood, Pork Chop and I noticed a big dog a fair distance up the sidewalk, dog with a collar not attached to a leash and a human. Just running around having a great time. We saw the dog. The dog saw us. Oh, dear. It bounded toward us. I scooped up Pork Chop who barked bravely, but her little heart beat a thousand times/minute.
I thought, "Here's where I get chewed by a dog that really wants to eat Pork Chop." Yikes. The dog was almost upon us. Terrified, I yelled in my most teacherly teacher voice, "NO!!! YOU GO HOME!!!"
The dog stopped and considered, turning it's head this and that way, "She can't stop me. She's only a little old lady and I'm a pit bull. She's holding a nice sized snack for a dog like me. I want that snack." Dog came forward.
I yelled,"NO!! Go HOME!!"
Dog reconsidered.
I stomped my foot and roared in the loudest voice I can muster, "NO!! NO!! YOU. GO. HOME."
The dog turned and ran away. Amazing. Thankful moment. Your ordinary pit bull is not so easily diverted from its intended victim.
Thundering Herd Of Progress
News flash! The yellow apartments are for sale. Workmen toiled there every day last week, cleaning, planting, painting, fixing. All spiffed up, now, complete with curb appeal. The natives, of course, are as third world as ever. Their landlord told me that he has had all he can tolerate. Inmates received notice and are due for eviction in a week and a half. How about that?
News flash 2! In one of the empty lots a back hoe dug place for a foundation. Yesterday that foundation poured out of a cement truck.
News flash 3! My side of this block got new sidewalk. Sadly, the mean and pompous job foreman refused to allow Benny to write his name in wet cement. "Absolutely not," he growled. "We're trying to beautify Norfolk."
"I don't think so," responded I. "If you were really trying to make Norfolk prettier, you'd leave town." Yes, childish of me, but there stood Benny hopefully waiting with a little stick in his hand. He just wanted to write his name, for crying out loud.
Then I reminded the foreman that the last time sidewalk was poured, he allowed neighborhood children to draw naked women in the wet cement in front of my house. He had no reply for that patent truth. Just stuck to his original NO.
Next I accused him of reverse racism, picking on little innocent Benny because he's white. The NO lived on.
Finally, I said, "If that little boy was YOUR grandson, you'd let him write his name in the cement."
He thought about that and sighed, "OK, OK, just wait to do it until we leave. Then I can say I didn't let you do it."
HA!
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Super Hyper Morbid Obesity
I'm about 'fed' up with fat...intentional pun. How long can a person watch TV without seeing something about fat? My word. Last night relentless fat, fat, fat bombarded the screen. The lowest point took the shape of a pile of fresh, bloody, newly excised fat out of someone's body on a plastic surgery program. OY! I mean OY!!!!! I nearly wore out the clicker trying to avoid fat.
Just before I went to sleep, Discovery Channel took a 350 pound woman through a year of her life. The show began with bariatric surgery. The rest of it dealt with her recovery and subsequent diet/exercise program. Apparently the threshold for monster fatness begins at 100 pounds overweight. Now, the subject of this program was a fairly tall woman. I watched her carefully and concluded that I look as fat as she does. Also, my health is as bad as hers was. Exactly like that. Can hardly get anything done for needing to sit and catch my breath. So, I'm probably hyper super morbidly obese, too, although I weigh a couple of hundred pounds less than she did. I'm short enough that less fat produces the bad result.
Am I sufficiently shocked to start dieting? No, no. Nothing crazy like that. However, I might consider lifestyle modification. After surgery, her stomach only held 1/2 cup of anything before feeling miserably full. In a month of eating small amounts, she lost the first 70 pounds and began to breathe better. She could walk to the mailbox, for example.
I may just be willing to restrict myself to 1/2 cup-sized complete meals. Eat whatever I would usually eat in 1/2 cup amounts per meal. Also, I am willing to double the number of times/day I take Pork Chop for a walk. Further, I consent to weeding the flowers each day. Finally, I will drink water...at least a little of it.
Why couldn't I exist on 1/2 cup-sized meals? Pork Chop's diet meals are 1/4 cup total mass. She's mad about it, though. And sad. Last night all night her little tummy growled. Uh, wait a minute. We do not have parity. Pork Chop weighs about 6 pounds and eats 1/4 cup-sized meals. Given that ratio, I would have to eat meals weighing, what...er...running the numbers, here...6+ POUNDS?!??!?!?!?! Suddenly I do not support Pork Chop's right to whine. My goodness. The dog is gorging. Swinishly gorging.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
This morning after walking Pork Chop, I decided to stay out for a while and weed the flowers. A truck pulled up across the street and several men popped out with surveyor's equipment. Pork Chop barked. One man came over to meet her...a chihuahua lover. I asked, "What are you people doing?" He told me that the green house sits on three lots. The green house is being gutted and totally rebuilt from the inside out. When complete, it will be sold. New houses will soon appear on the other two lots. The red brick house belongs to the city...unpaid taxes. After demolishing the red house, the city can sell the lot to the man already building next door. Three new houses and one rehabbed house, right across from me. Wow.
As we talked, another man approached. He introduced himself as the new owner of the gray apartment building on the other side of the yellow apartments. He said that he has totally redone his building to sell as four high-end condos. As a matter of fact he sold one already.
I laughed and said, "What crazy person agreed to pay top dollar for a chance to live next to the yellow apartments?"
He looked surprised and asked, "What do you mean?"
I wondered, "Have you spent any time here, or did someone else do all the work for you?"
He replied that someone else did the work. As a matter of fact, someone acted for him to buy the property. He drove past and eye-balled the place before closing...that was his only visit prior to this morning. He said, "It's quite a pretty street, I think."
So I told him about the yellow apartments. As I spoke, inmates began to emerge for the day. Soon they were screaming, fighting, cursing, doing their thing. The poor guy. He visibly wilted, put his head into his hands and groaned, "Oh, God. What will I do?"
Then he kind of stiffened up and said,"I tell you what. I moved here from Russia to have a better life for me and my family. No way do I let morons rob me. I will beat this, you will see." He strode away looking determined. Well, good for him, but I don't know...he's up against a challenge.
This afternoon police visited us twice. Their first trip happened while residents across the street noisily slapped each other around. A policeman driving by, stopped in the middle of the street, jumped out of his car, and broke up the fight.
Later I was out weeding again and heard a huge disturbance, mega-decibel cursing, etc. It wasn't interesting enough to make me stop weeding and go see, but I finally decided to go inside because the yelling scared even that spirited chihuahua, Pork Chop. She shivered like a leaf in the wind.
As I came around the house and started up the stairs, sirens wailed in the distance. Whoosh! Before I reached my door, six police cars zoomed up and stopped alongside the curb in front of my house.
Behind them came a plain car filled to bursting with more policemen. Also, a bicycle policeman arrived.
I put Pork Chop in the house and came back out to watch the war from ringside on my porch.
All the police wore helmets and those special vests. They waded right into a fighting, struggling mob. One of the fighters disappeared momentarily and came back out with his rottweiler.
Oh, my, the screaming. Every porch and balcony filled to capacity. Every mouth spewed obscenity and abuse. Earsplitting noise. Police, surrounded by crazies, struggled furiously. One shorter policeman briefly went down under a pile of attackers. I wondered if the police were going to lose this one and asked myself if it would do any good to call the station for re-inforcements since it looked like the entire force was already on hand.
Gradually, though, policemen emerged from the melee, each man dragging someone with him. The men being dragged fought all the way into the police cars. Each one had to be cuffed first and that process required police to act together. One policeman, still somehow hanging onto his bad guy, threw himself bodily onto the bad guy the other policeman was trying to cuff...to hold him still enough to get the cuffs on. When the first fellow was cuffed and stuffed, then two policemen took down the bad guy the second policeman still managed to grip. It was all much, much better than any cop show or movie I have ever seen. There would be no point in a weak little guy applying for a job with the Norfolk police!
The crowd on the sidewalk organized itself into a line of marchers, circled the police cars, yelling all together, "Free mah boy! Free mah boy!" Sort of a protest march. A woman jumped up into the face of a policeman, screaching, "BUT THEY AIN' DID NOTHING!" He ignored her.
Eventually, having harvested a goodly crop, police took off their helmets, put their hats back on, climbed into their cars and began to leave.
The plain car full of extra policemen sat right in front of my porch. As men climbed back into this car, I asked one, "What complaint brought you here?"
He laughed, "The guy who manages 7-11 on the corner calls us when a fight gets so loud it scares away customers. Nothing special this time, just drugs and alcohol, buncha people drunk, stoned and out of control."
Since that ended the excitement, I came indoors, but screaming erupted again. This time a van from the Norfolk pound pulled up. A woman got out, one woman. She had a long stick with a chain on the end and held a muzzle in her other hand. I remembered the rottweiler which had been introduced into the war a little while ago. Yep. Sure enough. This brave woman, walked through the crowd around the door to the second building, went inside, and soon emerged with the dog, muzzled and held at the end of the stick. Oh, the wailing and screaming, but no one interfered with her. Hard to understand. Maybe all the serious warriors are down at the police station.
No sooner did she leave than a tow truck backed up to the 'ho'mobile. A ho rushed out, shrieked and raved, jumped up and down, pleading and shouting abuse at the driver. He said, "Hey, don't tell ME about it. I got a call from the city this vehicle goes to the impound yard." He hopped into the truck and goodbye 'ho'mobile. Oh, the howling, screaming, ranting and raving!
Whew!! Seems like we had an unusually strong authority presence this afternoon. I don't suppose there's any chance the owner of the gray building had anything to do with it. If so, I congratulate him on a fine effort.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
What's A Good Easter?
Having been wished a blessed Easter, a happy Easter, a nice Easter, a good Easter, etc.,I ask you, what form would such a day take? It took what happened today, except for one thing.
First Lydia and Benny called during breakfast coffee time to tell about Benny's vast haul of presents from the Easter Bunny. Benny asked what the bunny had brought me and when I told him that the bunny only brings treats and presents for little children, he grieved on my behalf.
Then I dressed and took Pork Chop for a nice long walk aound the neighborhood before the other natives woke up. I enjoyed such a profusion of spring flowers on trees/bushes/shrubs, in flower beds, and volunteering in grass not recently cut. Coming home a new way, I passed a garden comprising about half a city block. A gentleman worked in his huge space, crawling along grabbing up weeds kind of like a grazing cow. While weeding, he talked on his cell phone...multi-tasking. Quite a few vegetables already up flourished along with spring flowers, a wonderful, inspiring garden.
Now I drank another cup of coffee while reading the paper and found a heartwarming article. Some little church over in Portsmouth has been feeding the poor for the last 20 years. Each Monday/Wednesday/Friday congregants gather to work their butts off collecting, packaging, and distributing food in their church warehouse. Over the last year, they have helped to feed 50,000 families. Sadly...and amazingly, only a few people do all of that good work. The ones in the picture looked old and tired. This noble project began long ago when the pastor noticed elderly neighbors of the church sorting through garbage in alleys... hungry, looking for something to eat. The project has grown until now most of the groceries, bakeries, and restaurants in Hampton Roads save leftovers for these kind souls to give to the needy. Naturally I felt guilty and wondered if I shouldn't volunteer to help. All that bagging, boxing, carrying, delivering, three days/week, year after year...my word! What a Herculean task. There are good people in this world. It's not all bad. I'm thankful to know about those folks, even if they make me feel like tomorrow I'd better get on the phone and ask if they could use my help, such as it is. You know, I have to stop reading the paper. I already got talked into volunteering at school and at the community mediation center. This volunteering runs counter to the idea of retirement.
Later Lydia and the kids and I went to church. As the usher handed me an order of service, he said, "Lots of luck." The church was filled to bursting. Another usher, however, finally found three seats for us at the very front.
Choir, soloist, brass, pipe organ and kettle drum performed an all-Handel service, music to raise the dead. The teacher for last summer's Space Camp at Community Music School turned out to be the soprano soloist. The change in her style astonished us. After service, she smiled and told Benny that today was an example of her adult voice. The brief message could be summarized as, "Don't keep the Gospel in the bank. Spread it around where it will do some good." A little girl threw up and ran down the aisle toward the front exits behind the pulpit. She spewed vomit as she went. Then during a choral offering, 6 ushers with wet towels cleaned up the mess...all of which provided comic relief to the seriousness of the service...thus preserving the cosmic balance...yin and yang in a Protestant church. Steeple bells clanged wildly overhead as we came out on the heels of a glorious organ voluntary.
Then we went to a fast food joint because I actually slept in this morning instead of getting up to make 'green eggs and ham' as planned. The eggs would have been easy, but that ham was in the freezer and I forgot to take it out last night...and then slept in this A.M. So we went to Taco Bell...and it was good...particularly the part about not having to cook.
Now here I sit with my fat little, warm little chuhuahua sleeping on my lap, thinking that it's about time for my nap, too.
That Bible verse, "God has given us all things necessary to life and to Godliness," certainly applies to me. I have so much more than I need, such an easy life. Oh, boy. I hope I can fight off this attack of conscience. I sure don't want to go over to Portsmouth to feed the poor. While Kensington, where I live, is a ghetto, surrounded by nice, respectable neighborhoods, the whole city of Portsmouth is poor, crime-ridden, drug infested. I don't even remember how to get across the bridge. Rats. I wish I hadn't read that article.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
You Stole Me Mah Soup...
I was on my porch shaking a throw rug when an altercation broke out across the street. It went instantly from zero to bitch. Women roaring and screaming just about incomprehensibly at one another. Very fast more women got into the fight.
By the time I finished with my rug and had time to assess the situation, it was and still is a war over there. No doubt this will be one the police have to finish. The original accuser is a frequent fight starter. She yells highly flammable things at her fellow inmates until the rumble turns physical; then she shrieks she's going to call the police. Last time she did this I had to laugh.
The person at whom she screamed, responded, "Girl, you gonna call they po-po-po-po-po? You call they po-po. That abou' aow yow goo'fo'."
Po-po-po-po-po? Where'd did she get a goofy line like that in reference to the police force? Funny stuff except that so often conflict over there turns tragic because of the weapons used.
Anyway, across the street right now a classic yellow apartment drama is in progress and the script reads, in part, like this...
Woman 1: Whaa do yow' haf to be aow up in mah hou' stealin' mah foo'?
Woman 2: Who you callin' stealin? You LAH!
Woman 1: I callin'YOW stealin'. You a thief! You stole mah soup! You stole mah TURKEY. You stole me mah TOMATO.
Woman 2: They MAH tomato.
Woman 1: It ain' you SOUP. It ain' yo turkey. You a thief!! An it ain' no way yo tomato. It came out mah hou', so it mah tomato. What yow DOIN' all up in mah hou' stealin' mah foo'?
And on and on with about ten women all together blurting out super loud rapid-fire rants of noise. My, my.
One time when I talked to a policeman about the yellow apartment problem, he said, "Don't be too, nervous, Ma'am. When they get going, it's almost always against each other. Or it's about someone having to do with the drug business. Individuals from time to time may stray off the block and get into it with an innocent bystander to whatever he's up to. Most of the time, though, they prey on one another." Which explains why I felt safe standing on my porch watching this most recent carry-on over soup, turkey, and a tomato.
The Fool Of The Moon
It is my experience as a 39-year teacher in public school, that the full of the moon reliably does SOMETHING to some people. Today must have been a challenge to teachers all across America as children in the full of the moon experienced their last day before Easter Break...now known as Spring Break to appease those who do not celebrate Easter other than to diminish it for others. So there schools were at the mercy of the moon, struggling through a hard, hard day of combined excitement over vacation and insanity caused by the moon.
Whom does the moon affect, how, and and how much? Yes, this is merely my personal observation of a phenomenon that occurred at least once/month for 10 months out of each of those 39 years, however... As I saw it, in the full of the moon, real crazies had their best day of the month, performed like normal people having a good day. Normal people were very little, if at all different. The true lunatics on this day are those usually on the edge between crazy and normal, the people who all their lives need to rein themselves in or get branded as pretty far off. Something about the full of the moon releases them to be an extreme version of whatever is their greatest weakness. If they tend to talk too much, they can't be shut up on the day of the full moon; chatter, chatter, chatter. If they are clumsy, their day is a mine field of booboos and disasters. If they're silly, they make fools of themselves all day. If they're mean, they do awful things without any evidence of an interfering conscience. If they tend to be reckless, they make terrible bets, they drive like Genghis Khan, they dive without checking to see if the pool has any water. If they badly manage anger, they rage and storm about every little slight to their feelings.
Generally, you have to watch out for the person who is usually OK, but has to work to seem that way.
What brings me to this lecture? The inhabitants of the yellow apartments, our local hotbed of social pathology. Today for what can only be a full moon reason, one of the worst women over there armed herself with wheelbarrow, garbage bags, shovel, and rake and spent the entire day cleaning up the land around both buildings. This effort produced, besides the usual garbage, a mountain of 48 huge full sacks of trash waiting by the curb. At least that's what I can count from my porch. The lady was having her best day.
On the other hand as the high school bus pulled up, out poured 7 of the large, teenaged boys who live across the street and who really don't attend school all that often. No doubt they went to school today because they needed a wider audience for their behavior than just us home folks. These boys are not totally crazy. They are somewhat defective, but mostly mean and bad. Let me just say that as they piled out of the bus, I ran indoors and locked the door behind me. The vast stupid roar of senseless rage was enough to get me in the house without the accompanying spectacle of those boys beating each other up. Gracious sakes, what a sight. This is a busy time on 38th Street, a popular rush hour cross-town route. Made no difference to the bad boys in the full of the moon. Traffic stopped while they threw each other around, threw each other to the ground, beat on each other with fists, fell and rolled around kicking and pummelling each other, 7 great big man-sized bodies all over the street. They flung each other up against cars, ran up and over cars chasing one another, punched and kicked cars in their idiotic tantrum. It did not stop until the usual period at the end of such sentences...the police arrived.
Now, I do NOT think there's anything occult or paranormal about this full mooon stuff. Someday, I am betting, there will be a scientific discovery to explain what we do not now understand. However, I do entirely believe and accept that this day is noticeably different. While I was still teaching, we veteran teachers always knew which day was the full of the moon without checking the calendar.It was just so much the same each time and so unlike all the other days.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Big, Scary Chihuahua
Yesterday as Pork Chop and I did our daily reconaissance of the neighborhood, I spied the mailman coming our way. I shortened the leash so that Pork Chop wouldn't be able to reach him. Not good enough. He stopped several houses away from us and stood watching our approach. So, I called to him, "Would you feel better if I picked her up?" He was relieved, "Ma'am, that little dawg, this whole street HER territory and I gonna let her have it."
One day last week as we were coming in the home stretch, a young lady came up from behind us. I had not heard her and so was not prepared for Pork Chop's furious rush. With a growly snarly roar of small dog noise, she charged at the girl's ankles. I quickly picked Pork Chop up and smacked her, but that little dog was still cussing under her breath all the way back into the house, "I almost had'er, I coulda took her out, I coulda been a contendah."
The other day we saw a man working in his yard a few houses from mine and across the street. This is a neighbor whom I had not as yet met. He called out in a friendly way and began to cross the street, a smile on his face, "Well, neighbuh! I ain' mechoo yet." About then Pork Chop decided he was close enough and started yelling at him. He kind of jumped back, took a good look at her, and returned to his side of the street from which safe haven he called, "I gonna lechoo have all that side-uh-the street. No way I gonna mess me wif no chihuahua. No way. That one ver' big little chihuahua." So true, so true.
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