I just apologized to a couple of dumpster diggers, garbage pickers, whatever. I went downstairs from my fourth floor luxury double-entry condo bearing two bags of human refuse (including uneaten, probably still good food -- I'm going out of town and who wants to come home to old food in the fridge) and a stinky bag of used cat litter. I heard them before I came around the corner of the white pickety fence aesthetically enclosing our unsightly green dumpster. I briefly hoped no one was peeing and made the turn to find a man standing at the side door, rooting around in my neighbors' trash.
"Excuse me," I said. Politely. "Excuse me." He looked up, irritated. He was, of course, ignoring me, wondering why I didn't return the courtesy. "I didn't want to..." I don't know what. I couldn't say "I didn't want to toss my stinky garbage on your head." Yet, neither could I, apparently, say, "I didn't want to disturb you." But I didn't.
His female partner, unseen on the other side of the dumpster, snorted. He, kindly, said, "Go ahead, just toss it in."
"I'm sorry," I said. Awkward.
I walked back to my building, punched in my security code, took the elevator upstairs, and grabbed my redeemable bottles and cans to take back down to them.
Of course, they were gone by the time I got back. Either they'd gotten anything valuable out and moved on, or, they figured I'd do what the sign said I'd do -- call the police. I set the about $3 worth of aluminum and plastic in a couple of bags outside the recycling bin. Someone will come by and collect it and cash it in. I wish I'd told them I was coming back, or asked them... something.
I hate living in this neighborhood because I do it so poorly.
Showing posts with label neighborhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neighborhood. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2009
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Super Hero: "Loitering Boy"
Spotted on way to work:
Two youths wandering aimlessly (and separately) about the McDonald's & Brooks' Pharmacy parking lot, each wearing a tshirt announcing "Inspired by Edward "Chip" Clancy."
Chip's our local mayor.
Two youths wandering aimlessly (and separately) about the McDonald's & Brooks' Pharmacy parking lot, each wearing a tshirt announcing "Inspired by Edward "Chip" Clancy."
Chip's our local mayor.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Extra Credit Movie Madness
You may be wondering what I learned today. So I will tell you.
The question: how long does it take to film one single-block chase scene for a Bruce Willis movie?
The answer: ALL DAY AND COUNTING!
I thought it was loud when I left for work this morning after about an hour of the tireless, polite, Hollywood crew repeatedly filming a motorcycle weaving through fake traffic
. . . (complete with fake cop cars) on the road below my windows.
I came home from the office TEN HOURS LATER to the same scene in repeated rotation, this time filmed by two helicopters.
Both flying right outside, I mean right outside my window.
Over and over again.
I feel for the extras who've been wearing these stupid clothes and walking on the same spot for nearly 12 hours.
I feel for the motorcycle stunt drivers. (Okay, so that's a reflection of my flowery blouse in the photo, but if you squint you can see the tough guy on his extrasuperspecial loud bike in the bottom of my shot.)
But mostly I feel for the fake drivers who've been moving their cars forward ("ROLLING!") and backward ("RESETTING!") over the same half a block all day.
I don't need to tell you the catties are traumatized.
Not so the people in my neighborhood, including this young man staked out on top of my dumpster, enjoying the view. I tossed in some cat poop on my way to the office this morning.
Tomorrow: filming includes a burnt-out city bus and prop trash in my parking lot on the other side of the building. I was relieved to find my (deeded, in my name) parking space unblocked and free for me to park when I arrived home.
That's a wrap!
(Except it's not. Poor little guy downstairs has just yelled "Rolling! Action" for what must have been the eleventy billionth time for today! I attended three multi-hour meetings and changed massive quantities of curriculum while these dudes shot one short scene. What monotony, movies! Who wants to finish writing my dissertation about the Indian versions for me now while I take a nap?)
Monday, June 02, 2008
Surround Sounds: Outtakes (or Sequel)
(See previous post for context.)
While neither of these is exclusive to morning (or evening - when sometimes the birds return), they do often join the cacophony of morning sounds. Though I just heard the latter right now: 5 p.m.
Some mornings, though not all, the chirps of the menagerie - birds outside and catties in - and the ding and roar of the train, are joined by the unnaturally loud voices of a few neighbors whom I only assume sleep in the train station parking garage or its cheery walkway. These are neighbors not prone to rational conversations, but then who is? Sometimes they sing. Often they shout. They like certain words I don't often say myself. Often they repeat themselves. They, too, wake with the sun.
One other common morning sound is the distinct clatter of little wheels and metal frames bumping along asphalt, methodically rolling down the block outside my long bank of high windows. The sound frightens and fascinates Buddy. More than once its particular clangs and rhythm seem to have been the trigger for an early morning grand mal seizure (bringing its own horrific sounds of wheezing, thumping, and my distressed voice, "it's okay, baby"). Sometimes he'll run and hide from it, sometimes he'll jump into the window to see, then jump back down to get away.
Its sound is always the same. You have to hear it, echoing in between the midrise loft buildings down a quiet dawn street. But its source alternates, unexpectedly. Some mornings I'll look out and down on a big grocery chain employee, working a long row of connected metal carts through the neighborhood and back to their corporate home. Most mornings I look down on a single cart, or maybe a pair, pushed by a single or pair of neighbors, full of cans and bottles or blankets and personal items, moving from nowhere to nowhere (or from park bench to dumpster?), rattling up the street at morning's first light.
While neither of these is exclusive to morning (or evening - when sometimes the birds return), they do often join the cacophony of morning sounds. Though I just heard the latter right now: 5 p.m.
Some mornings, though not all, the chirps of the menagerie - birds outside and catties in - and the ding and roar of the train, are joined by the unnaturally loud voices of a few neighbors whom I only assume sleep in the train station parking garage or its cheery walkway. These are neighbors not prone to rational conversations, but then who is? Sometimes they sing. Often they shout. They like certain words I don't often say myself. Often they repeat themselves. They, too, wake with the sun.
One other common morning sound is the distinct clatter of little wheels and metal frames bumping along asphalt, methodically rolling down the block outside my long bank of high windows. The sound frightens and fascinates Buddy. More than once its particular clangs and rhythm seem to have been the trigger for an early morning grand mal seizure (bringing its own horrific sounds of wheezing, thumping, and my distressed voice, "it's okay, baby"). Sometimes he'll run and hide from it, sometimes he'll jump into the window to see, then jump back down to get away.
Its sound is always the same. You have to hear it, echoing in between the midrise loft buildings down a quiet dawn street. But its source alternates, unexpectedly. Some mornings I'll look out and down on a big grocery chain employee, working a long row of connected metal carts through the neighborhood and back to their corporate home. Most mornings I look down on a single cart, or maybe a pair, pushed by a single or pair of neighbors, full of cans and bottles or blankets and personal items, moving from nowhere to nowhere (or from park bench to dumpster?), rattling up the street at morning's first light.
Surround Sounds
Setting aside the 4:30 sunrise and my tall curtainless bedroom windows, the way I know it's morning is by the morning sounds.
First are the birds. Some unknown, unseen breed hangs and tweets together in the beauty- and pollenful trees lining the parking lot just around the corner from my newly sunbeamed bed. Sun comes up, the little birds squeal with - what? With surprise, gratitude, annoyance, plan-making? How do they get anything done with all of them squawking at once? The birds we can see, if we open our eyes and don't turn away for one more hour of sunlit sleep, are the big grey and white breed. These chatty, flirty gulls swoop around outside my corner unit taunting the baby as he chirps back at them from his impotent perches inside, sometimes following them from one room's window sills to another as he cries in his baby voice ("I want to play!") and they laugh at him. Why the flocks of seagulls visit us every morning, I don't know, but they come just around dawn and stay until just after the arrival of the next morning sound.
First train of the day is the 5:53, so I would never need to set an alarm if I wanted to get up by 6:00. Our trains announce their arrival with a bell, not a horn blast, an almost pleasant series of dings and then the squeal of brakes and the white noise of an idling train engine. They come and go, the bells and engines, on the half-to-quarter hour, for the next couple of hours.
Roadwork begins at 6:59. If I'm still in bed then, I can close my eyes, lie very still, and imagine myself in a long metal tube, but the MRI sounds are not slicing and photographing my brain, they're tearing up the street so that tomorrow they can pave it again so that tomorrow they can tear up the street so that tomorrow. . . .
Just before dawn, the promise of morning is often heralded by the pitter-patter of dainty, too-long-nails galloping through the house in a fit of alien-invasion-of-cat. This is Georgie, our night runner. Buddy sometimes joins the chase, forgetting she doesn't like to play with him, but more often, he waits for her to re-settle on the bed huffing and puffing from exertion and purring her little broken-voice-box, angst-equals-love purr. With Georgie at as-close-to-peace as she will get, Buddy then hops down, crunches what's left of his dinner in the next room, and then joyfully announces the coming of day with a monologue or two in the form of a Siamese ring tone. Then he jumps up into the window sill, chirps at the gulls, jumps back down to the floor or bed (one choice louder than the next), to make sure I've heard: morning has broken. Then jumps back up to the window to enjoy the show until the gulls head back to the beach, the trains arrive, and I've decided to accept the gift of a brand new day.
First are the birds. Some unknown, unseen breed hangs and tweets together in the beauty- and pollenful trees lining the parking lot just around the corner from my newly sunbeamed bed. Sun comes up, the little birds squeal with - what? With surprise, gratitude, annoyance, plan-making? How do they get anything done with all of them squawking at once? The birds we can see, if we open our eyes and don't turn away for one more hour of sunlit sleep, are the big grey and white breed. These chatty, flirty gulls swoop around outside my corner unit taunting the baby as he chirps back at them from his impotent perches inside, sometimes following them from one room's window sills to another as he cries in his baby voice ("I want to play!") and they laugh at him. Why the flocks of seagulls visit us every morning, I don't know, but they come just around dawn and stay until just after the arrival of the next morning sound.
First train of the day is the 5:53, so I would never need to set an alarm if I wanted to get up by 6:00. Our trains announce their arrival with a bell, not a horn blast, an almost pleasant series of dings and then the squeal of brakes and the white noise of an idling train engine. They come and go, the bells and engines, on the half-to-quarter hour, for the next couple of hours.
Roadwork begins at 6:59. If I'm still in bed then, I can close my eyes, lie very still, and imagine myself in a long metal tube, but the MRI sounds are not slicing and photographing my brain, they're tearing up the street so that tomorrow they can pave it again so that tomorrow they can tear up the street so that tomorrow. . . .
Just before dawn, the promise of morning is often heralded by the pitter-patter of dainty, too-long-nails galloping through the house in a fit of alien-invasion-of-cat. This is Georgie, our night runner. Buddy sometimes joins the chase, forgetting she doesn't like to play with him, but more often, he waits for her to re-settle on the bed huffing and puffing from exertion and purring her little broken-voice-box, angst-equals-love purr. With Georgie at as-close-to-peace as she will get, Buddy then hops down, crunches what's left of his dinner in the next room, and then joyfully announces the coming of day with a monologue or two in the form of a Siamese ring tone. Then he jumps up into the window sill, chirps at the gulls, jumps back down to the floor or bed (one choice louder than the next), to make sure I've heard: morning has broken. Then jumps back up to the window to enjoy the show until the gulls head back to the beach, the trains arrive, and I've decided to accept the gift of a brand new day.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Vote early, vote often
I'm a qualified optimist. I like to vote.
I like the symbolism of taking action in situations which seem otherwise to be paralyzed by rhetoric, posturing and non-productive competition.
I like the elderly poll-workers who take my name, give me my ballot, show me where to go and what to do.
I like the elderly citizens who lean over the minimal divider while I'm in my "booth" and ask me to read them the small print on the ballot. "Do I just pick one?" I look at the column and instructions at the top. I like the fact that I sort of have to move it back and forth myself a couple of times, squinting and imagining that it might be time for me to get reading glasses. Because I've always liked the look of pince-nez half-glasses. "Choose no more than 25," I answer. "Okay, thanks," the octogenarian says as she and I then both try to figure out what we're voting for and if there are in fact even 25 names to choose from in this local political committee list.
I like the feeling I get when I put my ballot in the box. Like I've really done something, not just talked about it. (But I don't like thinking about whether or not I really believe that.)
Every time I've voted at my local precinct, in the community room of a multi-storied senior housing project in my neighborhood, I've thought about how easy it would be to return later in the day and vote again. (When I checked out this morning, the gentleman almost checked off my next-door neighbor's name after I gave him my address. "Valerie?" he verified. "No," I corrected, "Catherine," and leaned over to point to where I was on the list, taking in as many of my neighbors' official party status as I could in a quick glance. I'm a "U," unenrolled, so I can vote in either primary. I like that my state lets me do that, since I'm at my core opposed to a (two) party-system. I like guessing or being surprised when I find out which party, if any, an acquaintance affiliates with. And I like that I can respect and even love them whether they're an "R," "D," or "U." I like the fact that I know my being a "U" doesn't mean I'm wishy-washy or can't make decisions, but that it's an actual value-based stand in itself. But I don't like thinking about it too much, lest it become a stumbling block to me.)
A high school Sunday School student of mine this week told me "George Washington warned against it." I didn't have a Sunday School lesson prepared for this week because I thought my teaching partner had it covered, but he didn't show up. So we talked about how our faith and Scriptural/kingdom values should inform our voting. I like going to a church where the answers to that question are not (assumed to be) deceptively simple.
There are a lot of things to be skeptical, frustrated, or otherwise bothered about in our political process. But I like voting.
I can't wait to vote again on the way home tonight.
(Just kiddin'.)
I like the symbolism of taking action in situations which seem otherwise to be paralyzed by rhetoric, posturing and non-productive competition.
I like the elderly poll-workers who take my name, give me my ballot, show me where to go and what to do.
I like the elderly citizens who lean over the minimal divider while I'm in my "booth" and ask me to read them the small print on the ballot. "Do I just pick one?" I look at the column and instructions at the top. I like the fact that I sort of have to move it back and forth myself a couple of times, squinting and imagining that it might be time for me to get reading glasses. Because I've always liked the look of pince-nez half-glasses. "Choose no more than 25," I answer. "Okay, thanks," the octogenarian says as she and I then both try to figure out what we're voting for and if there are in fact even 25 names to choose from in this local political committee list.
I like the feeling I get when I put my ballot in the box. Like I've really done something, not just talked about it. (But I don't like thinking about whether or not I really believe that.)
Every time I've voted at my local precinct, in the community room of a multi-storied senior housing project in my neighborhood, I've thought about how easy it would be to return later in the day and vote again. (When I checked out this morning, the gentleman almost checked off my next-door neighbor's name after I gave him my address. "Valerie?" he verified. "No," I corrected, "Catherine," and leaned over to point to where I was on the list, taking in as many of my neighbors' official party status as I could in a quick glance. I'm a "U," unenrolled, so I can vote in either primary. I like that my state lets me do that, since I'm at my core opposed to a (two) party-system. I like guessing or being surprised when I find out which party, if any, an acquaintance affiliates with. And I like that I can respect and even love them whether they're an "R," "D," or "U." I like the fact that I know my being a "U" doesn't mean I'm wishy-washy or can't make decisions, but that it's an actual value-based stand in itself. But I don't like thinking about it too much, lest it become a stumbling block to me.)
A high school Sunday School student of mine this week told me "George Washington warned against it." I didn't have a Sunday School lesson prepared for this week because I thought my teaching partner had it covered, but he didn't show up. So we talked about how our faith and Scriptural/kingdom values should inform our voting. I like going to a church where the answers to that question are not (assumed to be) deceptively simple.
There are a lot of things to be skeptical, frustrated, or otherwise bothered about in our political process. But I like voting.
I can't wait to vote again on the way home tonight.
(Just kiddin'.)
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