Images of GL

I thought it might be nice to mix things up by adding some pictures of GL. These were all snapped during a 20 minute walk around the 'hood, so they may not necessarily be representative. 

Does anyone know what these things are? They were on the sidewalk when I went out to the bus this morning, and later today someone apparently moved them onto the grass. I don't know what they are are or where they came from.

This series of three houses is entertaining to me because they are all in a row. The first one (above) has an untended yard and a boarded window. I'm not sure if anyone lives there.

The second one (above) has the most pimped out yard of anyplace in the neighborhood all year round. They had an extensive nativity situation for Christmas-March.

The third and final house has had large furniture wrapped and on the porch since sometime before we moved in. I wish I knew why that was and what their plan for the furniture is.

This barbed wire apparently serves to keep people out of this factory. It's strange how it's so secure on this side, but the side just to the left of this is a wide open parking lot with about a 1/2 a block entrance. 

This is not necessarily ghetto-ish, but it is kind of cool. Yay for green energy!

This picture serves to illustrate the general state of disrepair of many houses in GL.

I wish I had a better version of the final picture in today's series. This man was wearing cowboys boots, a t-shirt, and gym shorts. He's holding a round wooden shield in his left hand and a wooden sword in his right hand. He was sparring with that metal helmet on a wooden pole. He practiced attacking the pole helmet from various angles, and the pole helmet failed to mount any type of offense or defense regardless of the angle. I couldn't get a better picture because, frankly, I was concerned about what this man might do if he saw me taking a picture of him.

I hope you have enjoyed today's tour of GL!

Incoherent Tears

Okay, so here's Gina's deal. Soon after we moved here Gina weasled a ride out of us. We were just getting back from somewhere, and she convinced us to take her to the bank. Fortunately that did not actually start a trend of that happening all the time. During that trip she shared some of her life story with us. According to her, she was some kind of big shot Church's Chicken manager. (And yes, I do believe "big shot Church's Chicken manager" is an oxymoron.) She was then in some kind of catastrophic accident. I think it was a car accident. She had a brain injury and needed numerous surgeries, and she never fully recovered.

My take: that is plausible. If I was doing a full assessment, I would need to rule out substance abuse, and I would want to screen for thought disorders. I want a copy of all recent neurological reports and labs. But, I'm not doing any of that. I'm just her neighbor.

That brings us to tonight. I was leaving the building to go for a walk, and I noticed that the front door was open. That door is locked, and sometimes neighbors will prop it open. I don't like that for two reasons: first, keeping the door locked maintains some kind of control over who comes in the building, and second,  people sit outside and smoke, so it can get really smoky inside when that door is open. I discovered that the door was actually held open by a rock shoved between the door and door frame. That means that one of our neighbors is smarter than I would have given any of them credit for. Well, I pulled the rock out and shut the door.

I was starting to walk away when I saw Gina. She asked me if I thought the rock got in there by itself, and I assured her that I didn't think that. I said that if she was the one who put it in there, I would put it back since she was there and hadn't left the area. (Plus, she wasn't smoking at that point. She seemed to just be standing aimlessly on the sidewalk.) She said that I didn't need to worry about it because she was going in, so I unlocked the door for her and stood there holding it for her to go in. Then she started talking to me more. It's difficult to track her statements during any extended conversations. She jumps from one topic to another and often does not provide enough context for me to really understand exactly what she is talking about.

This is all I know for sure...she made the following statements, and I made only minimal responses, mostly because I had no idea what she was talking about for most of it:
"You always lose the thing you need the most."
"At least I didn't lose my money. I paid the rest from my food and my mouth. (Her foot was broken when we moved in. I have no idea what was wrong with her mouth.) My son paid part of it, and I was like 'Ah lawd. He's helping.'"
"So blessed."
"...realized I hadn't heard my phone in awhile..."
"...just trying not to cry..."
"I was ready for him to straighten my toe, but I wasn't ready..."
"...15 flights of stairs..."
And, at that point Gina busted out crying and ran into the building. I just shouted after her "I hope you find your phone" because I surmised that she might have lost her cell phone. I haven't seen her since then.

Shake and Bake

Shake: "the movement of my head whenever I think about this neighborhood"
Bake: "to cook with dry heat in an oven"

Baked goods first became relevant in GL when Lizzy gave Gina (crackhead neighbor who tried to befriend us from literally our first day in the apartment) some surplus brownies early in our tenure in GL. Since then Gina has occasionally brought us some very unappetizing baked goods. She typically brings them when Lizzy is home. Lizzy will throw them away, and I won't know anything about them until Gina asks me several days later if I enjoyed them. I'll praise them profusely until she leaves me alone. Unfortunately she can be overly persistent. On Sunday we saw Gina get dropped off by a 12 passenger van, and a few minutes later we had an interaction that went something like this:

• Gina knocks on the door. Usually I make Lizzy answer the door because she likes the crazy much more than I do, but I answered it.
• Gina: "Where's your buddy?" (Yes, I *always* refer to my wife as my "buddy.")
• Me: "She's right here."
• Gina: "Do you (speaking past me to Lizzy in the living room) want some cake?"
• Me: "No thanks. We already had cake earlier today at a baby shower." (This was mostly true.)
• Gina: "I made chocolate and that other kind...what's it called...pineapple upside down cake."
• Me: "No thanks. We already ate cake today."
• Gina: "Are you sure? I can give you some. I was up (blah blah blah) church retreat, and I made cake."
• Me: "No thanks, Gina. We don't want any more cake today."
• Gina: "Okay, well, let me know if you want some cake."
• Me: "Okay, thanks, Gina."

I prefer to engage all of the neighbors as little as possible. Lizzy enjoys the drama and interaction. She baked some delicious dessert Monday night that she planned to take to her class on Tuesday. Instead, she took some to Gina, which encourages Gina to bring us more baked goods in the future...and the cycle continues.

Children of Ghetto-Lite

Only one child lives in our building. His name is either Ryan or Rylin, and he is the child of Bad Mom. He's around 8 years old. (There used to be a Bad Dad, who was actually Bad Stepdad, but we haven't seen him around in a long time.) Ryan/Rylin has a bad attitude, which is not surprising given the abuse and neglect--literally--that he has received at the hands of Bad Parents. I interact with Ryan/Rylin very little. My relationship with him consists mainly of my annoyance whenever he pounds on the front door for Bad Mom to let him in the building.

There are many many other children in the immediate area. They tend to congregate in noisy packs. Tonight a group of them were outside and extra noisy. They decided to lure Ryan/Rylin outside by shouting his name around 8:45pm. When they got his attention, they proceeded to sit on the front step and shout "PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!" until Lizzy shouted at them "WAIT QUIETLY!" They apologized, and they remained quiet for about 45 seconds. She slammed the windows down, and they ran back across the street to the parking lot/yard where they congregate sometimes.

It's after 9pm now, and they are still outside. We can't hear them much now with the windows shut. I'm hoping for a quiet night from now on.

Malicious Mail Mongering

Every place I've lived before I've barely interacted with my neighbors. I would be satisfied with continuing that fine tradition, but our neighbors here don't allow that. There are only eight apartments in our building, which means that there should not be much drama, especially considering that they are all adults. This is not a dorm or a sorority house, even if the neighbors seem to think it is.

A few days ago Lizzy overheard a screaming match between the nosy old lady downstairs (NOLD) and Gina, our resident crackhead who tries to be friends with us. NOLD was convinced that Gina had stolen her mail. (Personally, if mail was indeed stolen, I would blame Amy since she has a documented history of stealing from neighbors after stealing my shoes.) I'm not sure how that fight ended.

Well, this morning I was leaving for work, and NOLD was smoking on the front steps. I just wanted to get to the bus stop and away from NOLD. In general, I do whatever I can to avoid the neighbors. NOLD was not letting me off that easily. Our conversation went something like this:

• NOLD: "Did you take a sign off the door?"
• Me: "What door?"
• NOLD: "This door." (Gestures to front door)
• Me: "No." (Showing no interest in the topic, eating toast, and trying to get to bus stop)
• NOLD: "I had a sign here. Neighbors have been tampering with my mail."
• Me: "Well, it wasn't us."
• NOLD: "Oh, I know it wasn't you. I know who it was. It was three different apartments." (So, I'm supposed to believe that essentially half of the people in the building are stealing her mail and/or tampering with her mail or mailbox? Even if I did, I wouldn't miss the bus to work for it!)
• Me (walking away): "Okay, well, see you later."
• NOLD: "Okay, have a good day."

Okay, so, I know that I showed essentially no interest in this topic. I was as brief as I could be without being totally rude to her. BUT, I feel confident that next time I see her, she will try to engage me about this topic again. Either that, or someone in the building will either piss her off or do something she finds gossip-worthy.

Ground work

We've been living in what I call Ghetto-Lite for the past 9 months. It's a little bit shady here, and a lot of weird things have happened, including suspect baked goods, stolen shoes, and calls to CPS. Tonight was another interesting night that prompted me to start documenting our adventures in Ghetto-Lite.

I was reading in bed and Lizzy was working on homework in the living room when we heard a crash and a scream. We looked out of the window, and it appeared that a car had hit a moped and fled the scene. There were two women that had been on the moped--one was standing up (Standing Woman=SW), and the other was laying in the road (Road Woman=RW). The weirdest thing was that SW was screaming at everyone around that they were fine, so don't call the cops. "DON'T CALL THE COPS! WE'RE FINE! WE'RE FINE! DON'T CALL THE COPS!" RW was definitely not fine. (Question: What are they doing wrong if they don't want the cops called when one is clearly injured?) I called the cops. By that point they had already received other calls, and the police were on the way. SW forced RW to her feet and walked/dragged her to the sidewalk.

Half of the neighborhood ran outside to help/watch, and I believe the other half was staring out of their windows like us. As the first police car began to arrive, RW was screaming that she could not feel anything. (Question: How did she half-walk if she can't feel anything? Or, did SW further injure RW by forcing her to the sidewalk in a bungled attempt to avoid the fuzz?) Hopefully she is not actually paralyzed or otherwise seriously injured. After the first police car came, an ambulance came, which blocked much of our view and muffled much of the noise. Luckily, we are on the second floor, so we could still see some of the action.

Two guys picked up the moped and moved it out of the street. Another guy noticed a backpack in the street. It seemed like one or more of these guys knew the women involved. Things seemed to be settling down some. They were putting RW on a stretcher, and everyone was sort of milling around. Then Lizzy noticed a guy sprinting away from the area, and it appeared that he had the backpack. Lizzy wasn't the only one who noticed that, and a police car followed him and quickly caught up with him. The idiot ran straight down the sidewalk in the direction that the car was already half-facing. He probably could have evaded them if he had a) walked away nonchalantly, b) ran through yards, or c) ran up the street in the opposite direction because no police car would have been able to pursue him easily. Apparently none of that occurred to him. As it was, I think they arrested him. (Question: What was in the backpack? Our vote: Drugs.)

Nothing else particularly noteworthy occurred, although one police car and a tow truck (for the moped) remain outside. Most of the neighborhood folk have returned to whatever they do at 10:10pm. Lizzy will probably be researching this incident online tomorrow to learn more details. But as of now, this was yet another weird occurrence in Ghetto-Lite.

UPDATE 4/21/12: From a newspaper article I learned that the "women" involved were actually 14 and 15 years old. They actually hit the car, rather than vice versa. The one that went to the hospital was released after a few hours, so she clearly was not paralyzed. The article made no mention of the infamous backpack.