Hanging in My Yard

Wednesday night everybody was out enjoying the fine weather. Junior and Danny and Oscar came over to play ball in the backyard while I nuked some pasta and changed from work/court skirt to jeans and a t-shirt. It looked like Junior and Danny figured out the same trick Dawn's big brother knows to open my gate despite the padlock, and they're only 10 years old. Maybe I should invest in a more substantive fence???

Danny was creeped out by the spiders lurking in the sunflower patch. At first he refused to retrieve the ball when it landed down there, but he got over himself in the end. Daya's balls had all landed in the yard, so I asked them to toss the two they weren't using back over the fence to her yard.

Junior was very solicitous of Daya. "Doesn't she want to come in?" he kept asking, as I was trying to snarf my noodles and slake my thirst from biking home from work.

"No, she's fine," I kept saying, but he didn't believe me. So I quit inhaling dinner and took a walk around to see her, and she was happy and jumping up and down. Her mom and Junior's mom were chatting on their porch, while their husbands were chatting over by somebody's car. I don't think they had the hood up, but the guys just have to be by their cars to chat, I guess.

Eventually the boys wanted to play soccer in the front yard where the grass is more even, so we went up there. Daya came in and we tried to get her to play but she didn't want to kick the ball. She sat on the step with me and we watched. Oscar joined us after a while. It made me laugh to see that my secret plan to become the block's auntie is working--the parents all take a break and chat with each other while I hang out with their kids.

An aside: Since I'm now actively trying to get better at Spanish, it was a little frustrating not to go chat with the moms, but hey, my Spanish is somewhere between 2 year-old Daya's and six-year-old Oscar's, so I guess I was in the right crowd after all.

The next morning Dawn and Julian (her big brother) came to get their dad's jack out of the basement. We all hung out on the back outside stairs for a while. They tell me their parents are a little freaked out by Big Picture. "They want us to study all the time, not to work," Julian said.

"Can you talk to my mom?" Dawn Asked. "She wants us to transfer."

All I can say is if they do transfer, it will be to our newly neighborhood high school, which has a lot of dropouts and crummy attendance. Big Picture has high attendance and a lot fewer dropouts, which means they have a much better chance of going to college at Big Picture, because they have a much better chance of finishing high school. But I'm not too worried that Dawn's parents will transfer them because I have yet to see them take a great deal of initiative about school. But we'll have a conversation at some point.

Neighborhood News Bites

A literal bite of birthday bouillabaisse: My next door neighbor celebrated her 21st birthday on Sunday with a dozen red roses from her hubby and a fantastic cauldron of seafood soup to share with the neighbors. Hubby is in the restaurant biz--he was at Mod, the upscale sushi place in Wicker Park, last I knew, but I don't know if he cooks or waits tables or what--so he got a line on seafood through a friend. Wow! I didn't know Mexicans made bouillabaisse, but that's pretty much what this was: a tomato-based broth with shrimp, clams, lobster and swordfish! Whew! It was a little spicy and had corn and squash in it, so that makes it a New World dish, not European, but still I think any French person would have called it at least a cousin to their seafood soup. I just called it "que rico!"

Bite 2 snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. A young friend of mine from church got picked up for biking while Latino last month and had his court appearance today. When he first told me about it he still had his arrest record, but today he only had his bond receipt which didn't even tell us what he'd been officially accused of. It didn't matter. The judge threw it out instantly--we spent less than half an hour in the courthouse at 51st and Wentworth. The arrest really freaked him and his parents out--he's a good kid, not in a gang, no trouble before. Plus, he's undocumented, so if it had gone to trial it could have really thrown him for a loop, like a deportation. The thing that kills me is, he himself didn't do anything wrong--he was walking down the street with an old friend of his he hadn't seen in years, and the friend is now a known gang member the police picked up while looking for suspects in a neighborhood shooting. Classic guilt by association. Then they throw it out so they don't look bad. Great.

Dawn's Birthday

Dawn turned 14 on Saturday. She got her birthday gift from me on Sunday afternoon. It was a fuchia-colored wheelie backpack from Sears (on sale, not that she knows that). I hate getting presents for teenage girls, because I never know what they really want. I was looking for a big stuffed animal like the dog she got me for my birthday (when you don't know what to give, give what they gave you???), but couldn't find one in my frantic last-minute shopping spree Friday night.

The backpack has some embroidery and also a row of charms across the middle--hearts and stars, etc. What I didn't realize until Aurora tried it out was there's a battery in there that makes them light up in sequence when you wheel the backpack! I started laughing. I hope that's not too kiddie for her. She seemed OK with it, though.

For her 8th-grade graduation I got her one of those topic books with pictures in them--I forget who publishes them, but they're kind of like Time-Life. Anyway, this one was about detection and police work, since Dawn thinks she might want to be a detective. That's the kind of present I can groove on a little more easily than a frou-frou backpack, but I don't want her to think I don't respect her girliness. She can be as girly as she wants to be.

She is interested in my lack of fashion sense. We were talking about makeup a while ago and I said I didn't like that white eyeshadow line some girls wear. Weeks later she asked me about that and about the simplicity of my fashion style. It's interesting to see how much attention they pay to you. I haven't thought about this much since I taught high school freshmen and sophomores at all-girls Catholic school. They really do watch everything about you. Well, at least she'll see one woman in her life who doesn't worry too much about clothes and makeup.

Chicago Fire

Last Wednesday folks from Su Casa plus some of Dawn's family and friends plus yours truly and my houseguest that evening all went to see the Chicago Fire play the Kansas City Wizards. It took some work to organize this expedition and not everyone we invited could make it, but it was worth the hassle.

The new Soldier Field is much nicer looking inside than out. It loses the spaceship feel and the seats just seem stadium-like. If every Fire game is that uncrowded, and field-level seats are 15 bucks (we got in free), it's a wonder to me the place isn't packed.

The Fire started out strong, scoring two goals within the first five minutes. Kansas City's defense looked decidedly less than magical. They must have gotten some tips from Harry Potter at halftime, though, because they came back strong in the second half and ultimately won 3-2.

At halftime, Dawn and her buddy Chrissy went to get drinks. Chrissy came back alone, and Dawn took so long to get back I got worried and went looking for her. I found her but then we got more snacks and by the time we came back to our seats her mother had gone looking for both of us. I found her in the women's restroom. We have odd conversations since my Spanish is terrible and her English is actually worse. We looked at each other and she said something I didn't fully grasp but was dead certain meant "you found Aurora?" so I just said "Si!" and then tried to explain in bad Spanish that we got something to eat. I refuse to attempt replicating mi Espanol in this forum--it's much too embarrassing.

In the second half, Dawn's brother Joey and his two best pals got seats up in the row closest to the field. It was fun watching their three little same-sized, brown-haired heads tracking the ball up and down. Afterwards they got autographs.

World's Greatest Mac N Cheese, Classic Cars...

and more, graced the party yesterday for two dear friends of mine who've decided to get hitched. This was also the excuse to pay Ms. Ribs across the street for a real catering gig, which I have felt honor-bound to do since last October. It just took this long to get it together.

The warmup started Saturday morning when one of the invited guests was kind enough to drive down from Evanston and chauffeur me to Moo and Oink at 71st and Stony Island to grab the grub. Twelve pounds of chicken, four pounds of greens, five pounds of cornmeal mix, two pounds of macaroni, half a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, and some aluminum foil trays came in under $30, if memory serves. If you haven't been, you really ought to go, just for the blues blaring out of car speakers in the demo derby parking lot!

Ms. Ribs started preparations Saturday night. Alas, yours truly collapsed on the sofa post-shopping and saved the house prep for Sunday morning. Dawn graciously pitched in after we went to St. Joe's together for the 9 a.m. Mass, going early to give ourselves time. It was Dawn's first-ever Mass in English. Afterwards, she straightened up my yard while I hid the chaos inside and did some real cleaning.

The party menu was classic Southern: fried chicken, greens (w/two of the biggest hamhocks I've ever seen--thanks Moo and Oink!), cornbread, macaroni and cheese. "It's the best macaroni and cheese I've ever had in my whole life!" exclaimed one guest. A baker's dozen of us ate ourselves silly and I still have enough to make it worth taking some over to the Port shelter, where their cook is on vacation this week.

The Classic Car convergence came later in the afternoon, with the arrival of my friend we'll call Alejandro Magno in his coche, which I like to refer to as Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. He circled the block while I dug out the key to the parking pad gate, so he got to hang with the folks in the pink house and their lime-greenn 70s machine (sorry, I forget what it is exactly, but it's big). Mr. & Mrs. Green Car cast admiring glances his way, though.

Later I lost the key to the gate, again, and had to call Dawn's big brother for help. Of course the key appeared just as he arrived on his bicycle. Hopefully it was worth the trip, since Alejandro M. gave him a guided tour of Chitty's engine. Chitty is a 50s Buick. Dawn's bro pointed out the early 90s Buick that's been camped on my parking pad since they moved. They have grand plans for it. I just hope it runs well enough someday to be parked on the street without fear the city will assume its abandoned and tow it!

The other white lady

...actually, I guess she's the third on Marshfield Avenue south of 47th. I met her at the CAPS meeting Monday night. She's a friend of a friend of mine, an art teacher and artist, who bought a red-brick building near the local grammar school and is fixing it up as a live/work space. She first spotted the place when she drove our mutual friend to a job interview at the school. The job didn't work out, but my new neighbor found herself a building.

She tells me the condos above the Family Dollar on Ashland Avenue are selling well-11 of 18 have already sold, many for as high as $180K in a building that still has a water tower sitting on top of it. With that rusty, probably leaking thing on the roof, the building might as well have a neon sign blinking "special assessment coming, special assessment coming." Who was fool enough to buy them, I wonder? You can still get a house for less than 180 around here if you try.

Maybe you can, I should say. My young female friend, "Dawn" says her dad just went to see how much of a mortgage he could get. After he got his number, he was told you can't buy a house around here any more for less than $200K. I find that very hard to believe.

Anyway, back to the newest white lady in the hood. She caught me on the street afterwards and introduced herself, asking, "Are you friends with -----------?" When I said yes, she said she was looking around in the meeting and I was the only person there who looked like I might be. I laughed to hear that. I guess you can spot a single white lefty female at 10 or 15 yards, anyway.

We were standing around yakking and trading numbers when a guy in a cowboy hat came up and started shaking hands and trying to butt in on our conversation despite his extremely limited English. At least he wasn't drunk. We gently but firmly shooed him away and finished our own chat.

I still have half the hamburger in the freezer since the block party. I'll have to invite the other white lady to my next BBQ.

Block Party

Saturday dawned gray and drizzly, not a promising combination for this summer's block party. People weren't the fastest movers at getting their cars off the street, either. Mr. Married next door was no help--he's moving out, and he and some buddy of his with a big blue truck kept backing down into the street, scattering the children on bicycles. I pointed this out and they blew me off with a polite smile. Sigh.

I did a little trash-picking but everything was wet and muddy so it was nasty work. Junior's little brother tried to help me out a little, but when I grabbed a soggy piece of plastic out of the gutter, he said, "That's disgusting!" Yep.

Eventually everybody got the hint and got their cars off the street. The girls from two or three houses down on the other side of the street were riding bikes, jumping rope and running races. I only remember the name of one girl and she might be moving to California Avenue. They took the sidewalk chalk from last year and used it up.

We did play some running bases for a little while, like last year.

I'd say the party really started to get going around 3 or so. The DJs showed up at like 2--they weren't expected until 5, but having the music going was OK.

A few friends of mine showed up to help out and see the sights. A big muchas gracias to all four of them for helping out! We grilled a bunch of burgers and turkey sausages and a swarm of little boys came and ate them. The kids were using my hose out front for water balloons and squirting each other, but with the grill in the back it was hard to see the party out front. Later we took chairs out front and sat a spell and watched the kids play.

Perhaps the best thing was that the folks in the pink house down the block had enough advance notice to get ice cream and give free cones out to the kids. They liked that. I saw Junior and D. on a bike with their ice cream cones--Junior steering and D. standing on the back wheel axle, eating something that looked like orange sherbet.

Around 5 or 6 p.m. more of the grownups came out. I sat with Junior's mom, who was reminiscing about growing up in Aguascalientes, Mexico, and how she would spend 2 hours getting her clothes and makeup ready to go out with a boy and hold hands and chat. We agreed it's a different world today.

At the very end of the night I had a beer with the folks on the first floor next door, a young couple in their 20s with a darling two-year-old girl. They want to speak better English, so they asked if they could come and practice, English for Spanish. Of course I said yes/si. They took me up on it last night and we all practiced Spanish and English ordinal numbers while eating ham, mushroom and pineapple pizza on my front step (they provided the pizza, I provided the drinks).

So, do I remember? primero segundo tercero quarto quinto sexto septimo octavo noveno decimo--I think I'm right, hey! If I'm wrong--check me.

Baptism Party

Well, it's time to discuss happier things. Last Saturday I went with Junior and his mom and dad and little brother to St. Joe's for the baptism of their mom's grand-nephew. There were six babies total getting soggy for Jesus that morning.

Junior's mom had a very nice digital camera along to take pictures. I meant to bring my little disposable but I forgot it. It was blazing hot outside, and through some miracle of divine intervention it was cooler in the church than it had been at daily Mass earlier in the week.

Our little angel did not cry during the proceedings. Unlike plenty of other Catholic churches, where the babes only suffer a sprinkle or two, Fr. Ed is a dunker--if he baptizes you, you get wet! Everyone took the babies out of their finery so Ed could plunk them in the font and use his super-sized plastic spout to give them a good drenching from behind (not in the face, of course). The infants all got three showers and got lifted up between each one. There was a three year old who got to stay in her dress and only one ride up over Ed's head. I guess that's his Saturday morning workout!

After the ceremony, which ended with everyone up around the altar for an Our Father--it's the first time I've ever been at a Catholic christening that wasn't a full Mass--all the immediate families got their pictures taken with Fr. Ed. Junior's mom managed to get Ed to stay still for a second photo with her in it next to her niece. I'll call her Judy because that's what it sounds like, but to my horror it's not how you spell it, so I screwed up the card. At the church everybody gave some relative a few bucks--I got a card and stuck a $10 in it, so I figured it was time to hand it in. Later, at the party back at their house, people showed up with gift bags, so I still don't know whether I did it right, but oh well.

We went back to Judy's parents house afterwards, where the men had gathered to cook pig and goat in a huge cauldron out back on the concrete, next to the enviably large gas grill. Junior's dad, Senior, was in charge of the proceedings. I can say that the carnitas turned out great! We had nopales (cactus pads), too. Senior was telling me back in Mexico he used to eat nopales at every meal. I had nopales a few months ago for the first time. These were good, boiled or steamed with something spicy and maybe some vinegar--they were salty/spicy and a little sour, which I like. Underneath that they just taste like generic green vegetable--if I had my eyes closed I'd have guessed they were green beans or something.

They had two very young DJs who were OK but not great. I'll have to devote a whole separate post to the topic of dancing. Come again!

Bike Stolen!

Dag! I knew this day would come. Sometimes when I get home I put my bike in the yard while I go in the house. I always say I'm going to go straight to the basement and unbar the door, but the phone rings, or I put the groceries away, or whatever...and I forget the bike.

I've left it outside overnight three times since I moved. Every time I thought it was a miracle it was still there, but every time it was still there it got me a little lazier, a little less vigilant, a little more trusting....

Wham! I was doing yoga with my buddy now from up the street Friday around 8, when my neighbor next door (the first floor people with the two year old) rang the bell. "They got your bike! They're in the alley!" I didn't even have my keys on me. I ran back but they were gone. So I ran in the house to get my keys and Dawn (my buddy's name for here) wanted to go get on bikes and go look for them.

"People get shot over bikes down here," I said, but there was no stopping her. So we ran. I used her parents' cell phone to call 911, and then we jumped on a couple of their bikes and took off.

All we knew from the neighbors was that two young-ish African American men had jumped the back fence to get the bike.

"Should we ask Mexicans or black people? Or, that's racist, right?" Dawn asked me. I said we should tell everybody two guys took our bike and describe the bike in detail, since we didn't have enough to give a real description of the guys anyway. As it turned out, we didn't ask anyone, we just rode around east of Ashland (the direction the neighbors said they were going). No luck.

This morning I went to the station in Bridgeport to file a police report. At least the officer was nice. So now I'll be in the crime report at the next CAPS meeting. Yahoo...not.

Movin' Out

...no, not me. Worse, the great neighbors to the north. The Mrs. of North gave me the news when I got back from California.

"We wanted to let you know right away. We're selling the house and moving back to Mississippi," she told me over the fence. She was hanging laundry, I was poking at my sunflowers. She said they were having the house appraised and didn't have an asking price yet. "But if you know anybody who's looking for a house, let them know. We want you to have good neighbors."

"Thanks," I said.

So I turn to you, devoted readers, especially any of you who are Chicagoans. Drop me an email if you know anybody who wants to buy a house next door to chez moi. The roof still has some fire damage from the big blaze before I owned my home, but otherwise seems to be in OK shape. It's brick with a fake stone facade, gabled, has a garage.

La Marcha--Mas Noticias

Friday morning, Junior and Junior's little brother came by with their mom. They were going to La Marcha and they asked me to go with. I asked their buddy, who was helping me weed my sunflowers, if he wanted to go, but he said no. So I sent him home and went off with them.

La Marcha, in case you haven't heard, was a joint effort of the two big FM Spanish-language stations here to protest the founding of a Minuteman chapter in Chicago. In case you missed the Minuteman mania in Arizona back in April, here's what LA Weekly had to say about it: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/20/news-cooper.php

So, in short, the overhyped story of gun-toting vigilantes "securing the border" comes home to roost, with a group cofounded by a white suburban guy and a second generation Mexican-American woman. She's the one Hoy (the Tribune's Spanish newspaper) picked up to interview, and the interview so incensed two local radio DJs, El Chokolate and El Pistolero, that they put together a pro-immigrant, pro-immigration reform, pro-naturalization rally more or less in my hood. If you can read Spanish or you just wonder what El Chokolate himself looks like: http://www.radionotas.com/newdev/articledetails.asp?artid=6458

So I found out about it at church and then tried to read a piece about it in Hoy. I was planning to go Friday morning until my weeding buddy arrived and said he wasn't interested. But when my neighbors showed up and wanted me to go with them, I sent him home and we took off.

Highlights from the march: Tons of people! Organizers were hoping for 15,000 and maybe they got it. I'd put it at 10K at least based on some big anti-war marches I've been to in the past.

The sign I remember best was created by my teenage girl friend of the Nearly Evicted family: "The immigration judge said it won't hurt me if my dad is deported. :-( How is *that* possible?"

My rally Spanish served pretty well: "El pueblo unido jamas sera vencino" and "si se puede" were shouted full force. People sang the Mexican national anthem. I saw a number of folks from St. Joseph's and from Holy Cross/IHM. Some guy started his own cheer, "Give me a J... Give me an O..." Jose thought he was funny.

The march ended in the Swap-O-Rama parking lot near 43rd, where speakers blasted music and the words of everyone from radio stars to little kids whose parents may yet be deported. The icie vendors were making a killing. Somewhere along the way in the midst of the march, someone actually had their chip/ice cream stand set up in the thick of the crowd. They got business, too.

I still have yet to see a news article with a guess at the crowd in it. And I'm not holding my breath for an English-language story that explains the purpose of the march in any detail. The Chicago Tribune's Saturday paper carried a small photo in the lower right-hand corner of the metro page, which on Saturday doesn't even get a section to itself. I don't know if the Sun-Times even carried anything. Hoy's weekend edition is mostly wire services and is clearly prepared in advance. The Trib carried a decent enough story last week about the Minuteman dustup and the radio stations--one of the DJs had her on the radio and debated her.

In a way, it's nice to know El Pistolero and El Chokolate aren't any better than scraggly anti-war protestors at grabbing the English-language dailies' ear in this town.

Update: At least one March organizer said 50,000 turned out. I never heard a police estimate. Usually I split the difference between the organizers and the cops and figure that's accurate--usually they're pretty far apart. But it's a good bet they really got their 15,000 and probably more.

Plus, I forgot my favorite cheer from that day: "Bush! Eschuca! Estamos en la lucha!" (Bush! Listen! We are in the struggle!) The thing that was hilarious to me was I couldn't figure out what they were saying at first because they were pronouncing Bush with a long u "Boosh-eschuca!" and I could not for the life of me figure it out. Another day I'll have to write a post about the joys of trying to learn Spanish....

Peacemaking, Local and Global

OK, guys, I started this last week and thought it was even more scattered than usual, but here it is anyway.

Between George Bush talking about Iraq on Monday (June 27), the Senate voting on foreign appropriations on Tuesday, and a shooting two blocks from my house on Tuesday afternoon, I've had a lot of food for thought about peacemaking this week.

Last Thursday around 5:30, the CAPS office sponsored a rally/vigil in the parking lot at the northwest corner of 50th and Hermitage, where a 20 something named Pierre (yes, his real name) took two shots point-blank, one to the head, and died two days earlier. The killing was in revenge for a stabbing that took place earlier that day east of Ashland Avenue, I was told.

Frankly, and sadly, because the young man who got killed was African-American and lived a few blocks away from where his brains spilled all over the pavement, nobody would have done a damn thing about it if the local CAPS liaison hadn't decided the gangbangers need to be put on notice. I think that doesn't make any difference to the gangbangers, but since I gather this police district has been suffering from lack of leadership until very recently, I want the new commander and the old footsoldiers put on notice that they have to respect this neighborhood--neither ignoring requests for help nor assuming every kid on the street is a gangbanger. The only reason I put my shoulder to the wheel on this was to get my face and as many faces of neighbors as possible in front of the commander's very eyes and let him know we're watching him.

The reaction I got from neighbors while passing out flyers for the event was very interesting. A couple of people suggested the young man got what was coming to him for being a gangbanger. A middle-aged man said he doesn't even like to come out in front of his house, it's too dangerous, so he mostly stays inside. Another guy asked me to give some info to the cops about a concern of his because he works nights and his wife watches their four kids, so making a CAPS meeting is hard. A few people thanked me.

The next day, I only recognized two or three other people from my block itself at the rally. Many more came from the 4900 block of Hermitage--we have a good contact there. I was also impressed to note that people came up from south of 51st--I met a lady from 52nd and Paulina. They were people who knew the young man or knew what was going on. It's hard to build connections across 51st--I find it even harder to cross 51st than to cross Ashland.

During the aftermath of the shooting, I started musing about what it would take to do real peacemaking in this neighborhood. Why can't we get some UN conflict resolution going on down here? Of course an underlying question is why can't we get some real economic development going on down here so these guys could quit selling drugs to make fast money? What if we had real economic development in my neighborhood and in Colombia (yeah, the amendment to cut money for the useless Plan Colombia just failed but at least my rep voted the right way) --so the farmers there and the broke young men here could find themselves something else to do? I shouldn't blog, my thoughts are too badly phrased. But you get the idea.

If you want to know more about the Colombian situation, how the fighting may spill into Ecuador, and (if you scroll down), what some activists decided they learned from the unsuccessful fight in the House to cut money for the war on drugs in Colombia, check out this blog, which is smarter than I am: http://ciponline.org/colombia/blog/

"Prejudiced" Pendulum Swings

I've been meaning to write for days about Mr. Worrisome, who swung from telling me I'm prejudiced to professing his affections for me before I left town. It got worse when I came back, because I didn't tell him I was going away and the house was very quiet (and badly taken care of compared to other trips, oops), so he thought I was dead and called the cops. I've heard about this from several neighbors, all of whom were more or less convinced I just went out of town. Now I know who to tell next time to get the word to him so I don't have to tell him myself.

Anyway, the night I got home, my doorbell rang within 30 minutes of my arrival. Guess who? Mr. Worrisome launched into a long explanation of how upset he was, thinking I was dead, and let slip, twice, "I'm in love with you."

I'm thinking, "OK, two weeks ago I was prejudiced. Now you're in love with me. Great. Could we just be neighbors?"

The other night he made some noise like, "If I bought you a car, would you drive it?"

"No," I said, "and you're not buying me a car and I wouldn't accept it if you did."

Sheesh.

Water Balloon Fight

Yes, even though it didn't break 80 degrees today, we still had the long-awaited water balloon fight. It was the North End vs the South End of the Block in a Titanic Tsumami del Agua....my water bill is feeling the pain, I'm sure.

The leader of the pack from the south end of the block, whom I will call Izzy, went to the store and got 150 water balloons after we used up the couple dozen regular red party balloons I scrounged up at the Dominick's on Ashland. Fortunately, the South Enders only filled up about 30 of them, which took forever, and prompted my North End buddies to holler "Scaredy Cats! Scaredy Cats! Hurry up already!" about 500 times in the waiting. We North Enders, having shot our meager water balloon supply, were armed with a garden hose and a Super Soaker. General D. from across the street wisely suggested we lock the front gate, thus adopting the classic siege strategy...I began thinking of Masada, the Alamo, the Warsaw Ghetto, and other less-than-victorious military moments in siege history. Can anybody think of a situation where the beseiged outlasted the surrounding enemy??? I was drawing a blank. Does Sarajevo count?

Anyway, I think we'd have to call our situation a draw. Izzy was disappointed we locked the gate--he and his three or four pals would run up, hide behind the lone large tree and fire. When they got bored or wanted to get wet, they'd come out and take better aim.

Between rounds one and two, everyone came in the yard and played with the sprinkler and the garden nozzle, even Izzy's big sister and his littlest sister, who liked the "mist" setting on the garden nozzle. We all enjoyed that, and some of us pretended to take showers on the "shower" setting, the next favorite. I imagine Mr. Married and Mr. Worrisome both got an eyeful (though I took pains to wear my baggiest t-shirt, least interesting shorts and a grandma-worthy bathing suit underneath...I swear I need a burka on my block, and it pains me to say so).

Next posting, look forward to an account of the pro-immigrant, pro-amnesty, pro-legalization march down Ashland Avenue this morning, probably the largest demo my hood has seen since the last meatpackers' strike in the 30s and also, like some of the big anti-war demos I've attended, a shockingly large gathering of people that probably didn't make much news. I'd guess the crowd at between 5,000 and 10,000, yet as usual, it was mostly Spanish-language media in evidence. I'm sure the march made headline in all the local SPanish media: TV, radio, print (heck, it was two big radio station that cosponsored the march to being with, in response to a newspaper article), but I'll be very interested to see how much play, if any, it gets in the English-language media here or elsewhere. Stay tuned.

The Heat is On

It's hot. Over ninety every day for the last two weeks or more. No rain until last night. Everybody has windows open, fans going. I'm the only one I hear with a central a/c unit whining all the time. Most folks are lucky if they can afford a room unit--there's a few of them that have sprouted in the windows, including next door at Mr. Married's and across the street.

Last night three little boys from the south end of the block asked if they could use my spigot during the day to fill up water balloons. It broke my heart to tell them no, but I did, adding that we can do it on Friday since I have the day off. I don't want kids in my yard unsupervised when I'm not home, but I hate having my a/c and my spigot going to waste all day. Hmmm....

Vacation

Hey, Tattler fans--

Sorry there's been a long silence. Here's your virtual postcard from sunny Chico, California, where it is unseasonably cold, like below 90 degrees. Chico is the third leg of my two-week California vacation.

First stop was Burlingame, California, south of San Francisco, for a day and a half with my dear friends the BGs (you know who you are). We saw harp seals, anemones and starfish in coastal tidepools near Pacifica, had a fabulous lunch at Herbivore in the Mission, and stayed up late commiserating over the state of the world.

Next stop, Davis, where my sister and her husband received graduate degrees from the university: a master's in linguistics and a doctorate in ecology, respectively. They gave a joint speech at graduation that managed to be honest, thoughtful and funny all at the same time. Bravo! A group of nine family and friends took the ferry to San Francisco the next day. We got off the boat, found a restaurant, sat in the sun (it was warm and sunny by the bay, really!), ate inordinate amounts of crab, shrimp, lobster and oysters (especially oysters!), then got back on the boat and went home.

Now I'm in the final leg visiting friends who profess at CalState Chico. We've picnicked and biked in Bidwell Park and we'll be dining and sampling at the Sierra Nevada Brewery tonight.

All this is a welcome break from the usual tales that have filled this blog, but look for more news from the 'hood next week!

CAPS victory?

Well, Monday night's CAPS meeting appeared to be the beginning of a turn for the better. Our longtime facilitator did not show, so three other women took over facilitating: the Young One, Red, and LSC Lady. The Young One's name will be submitted to the district for review as the potential new facilitator. About 20 people showed up--better attendance than we've had for a while.

They called on each table individually to talk about whatever concerns or issues had brought them to the meeting. It was a long meeting, but the opening especially was well facilitated and lots of people said what they wanted to say, pretty concisely. We have a new third watch sergeant who was OK but didn't impress me much when he was asked about search warrants. I blew it--Ms. Ribs was expecting me to get her and I ran late, so I forgot and went straight there. Someone else mentioned that the cops had raided a house on her block and it was not at all clear whether they had the right to do so.

Quite a few people stuck around afterwards to talk to the officers. Even though the meeting ran long, it was nowhere near as frustrating as some of the past meetings I've attended, because at least I felt like the majority of people were getting their say in. The cops are still not incredibly helpful--much better at talking about dealing with parking problems and citations than about more serious problems--but the local officer who is coming to the meetings now is making some strides in talking with people.

So, perhaps that's one step forward. I'm a bit nervous about the two steps back that are likely to follow....

NeighborWorks Day

Last Saturday, Neighborhood Housing Services held its annual NeighborWorks Day, where local residents pair up with NHS and our corporate partners (in this case, State Farm Insurance) to do a service project on a particular block. This year, we put in a garden on two vacant lots on the southwest corner of 48th and Bishop.

As it turns out, a local storeowner also runs a landscaping business, and he and his crew ramped up the project considerably. The basic plan was to put in planters in the shape of a tree, paint them and paint the posts in the back, and put down some mulch and gravel paths. Lime Green Landscaping (yep, that's a promo) added more plants, trees and even rolled sod! It looks great over there--a total transformation. If I can get some photos of before and after, I'll post them.

This park was an especailly significant project because a kid got killed over there two years ago at the end of a community cleanup event on the lots. Incredible that a kid could get shot over a bicycle at the tag end of an event that was supposed to help the community. So people were determined not to let the lots stay nasty and to do something to remember the young man, Rene Guillen.

We got a lot of media coverage: Channel 2, 7, Univision, the Tribune (although I don't know if they actually ran anything in the Trib based on a quick online clip search). The really good part is a fence will be put up around the park sometime in the next month. That corner had been a big gang hangout, so we hope all this new nice stuff will encourage other people to use the space and act as a deterrent to the rougher crowd. We'll see.

8th-grade Prom

Well, I survived the 8th-grade prom yesterday, and I didn't have to break up any fights between my buddy and her nemesis. I just took lots of pictures and danced about as well as the middle-aged Mexican ladies. Senora School Lady invited me to join the circle on the floor--she even spoke in English to invite me. I was very honored and appreciated it a lot. We had a little circle going where the ladies would take turns going out in the middle of the circle and do something cute in the center and dance back, stepping and shaking hips. When it was my turn I did the little 60s underwater snorkel thing and they all laughed appreciatively. Mexicans are much less intimidating dancers than Puerto Ricans, though the ladies did not bother having me come out when we did the circle with partners. (Thanks to an old boyfriend who taught me to swing dance a little, and thanks to my Puerto Rican students who taught me un pocito de la salsa, I actually could have managed it w/o disgracing myself, but they didn't know that.)

The fashion was quite a sight--everything from classic gowns and wraps to an oversize button-down shirt dress. Three girls wore pants or pantsuits, including my buddy, who had a black jumpsuit with a little flounce over the bell-bottom pant legs that kind of faked a dress. I thought she looked great. Her highlights came out just like she wanted them to--very subtle. She did a criss-cross part that looked fantastic. School Lady's daughter came in pants and a shirt but she looked great in it, even if it was a little less formal than a formal. (I think they just really don't have money to spare for this stuff, or maybe they have more sense than all the poor people I've ever known who blew money on fancy clothes, haircuts, cars, spiffy electronics, etc.)

The guys mostly wore dress shirts and dress pants. No tuxes, to the relief of all my interested coworkers. Some guys came in very casual clothes--I'm not sure if they got to jeans, but definitely to chinos. One guy was in Western formal wear, including a cowboy hat. He got voted prom king. The prom queen was as big as a house and in a dress that was way too tight and skimpy--I wouldn't have let my daughter out of the house in it. Being a mean white girl, I thought it was a joke at first, but clearly she is a nice person and people like her, so I was quickly persuaded it was a sincere recognition of her popularity and not cruel.

Actually, despite the animosity between my bud and her nemesis, I don't find the same kind of cruelty present among these kids as I've seen on the playground jungles of middle-class suburbia. The sneaky shit isn't for them. They'll slice each other up, and there's plenty of gossip, but that mean, sarcastic irony shit isn't really their bag. And the kids are nicer to grownups, I think. They really were friendly to me--some girls I'd never met before went out of their way to make conversation.

The music had a lot of variety: R&B (which provoked that nasty grinding, but the moms didn't mind, so I'm getting over myself about it), Tex-Mex country line dancing, that hot Latin pop/dance club stuff (I forget what it's called, but stuff like the ubiquitous "Gasolina"), Mexican polka-esque, really hyper with the accordion, so really quite a mix. And the kids really seemed to have fun--lots of pictures, lots of dancing, not too much boy/girl stuff but some, some friendly some more than friendly, lots of girls dancing with other girls, lots of boys hanging to the side but better able to hold their own when forced than your average 8th-grade white boy, that's for sure.

I even managed to snag a couple shots of my buddy's brother, who hates getting his picture taken. Hope they come out.

"A Light in the Attic" meets shots in the dark

Last night when I got home from work I took a stroll down to the south end of the block and saw some of my favorite girls in the hood. The Daughters of School Lady are four girls who are very polite and very intelligent. Their mom works at the local grammar school and goes to every Local School Council meeting without fail.

I met the girls at the block party last summer and it was love at first sight. But their mom was understandably suspicious. I gathered from the youngest daughter, Miss Nosy (for all her questions, which I love, even "how come you are not married?" and "how old are you?" which I don't answer in front of her mom because I fear she would think I was encouraging impolite behavior), that her mom was worried I might want to kidnap one of them and raise her as my own. "My mom thinks you want to steal me," I believe Miss Nosy said.

"I don't want to steal you," I replied. "I might borrow you once in a while, if your mom said OK." But clearly in this case I would have to win Mom's trust first, and the language barrier makes that pretty tough. However, the ice melted a bit the first time she saw me at an LSC meeting. I think it melted more last October when I bought five bucks' worth of school raffle tickets from School Lady, and more yet when I won the raffle and gave School Lady's daughters the prize--it was like a doll and a mirror set, very girly, not my style at all but entirely appropriate for the Daughters of School Lady.

So now I go down the block and hang on the sidewalk or the stoop with them. Sometimes we play volleyball in the vacant lot (which needs cleaning out). Senora School Lady comes and joins us while we talk. She understands English but doesn't speak it. I am understanding more Spanish but still find it difficult to eke out more than a sentence, sometimes only a few works, in a given moment. So la senora listens to me talk to her daughters in English and gets a big laugh out of things that come up, especially when Miss Nosy makes inquiries, like "Why don't you have a car?"

"Because I have my bike," I tell her. Then we talk about bike accidents and laugh about the time Nosy crashed into a tree or the time I ran into a dog leash on the bike path and fell over. La Senora laughed very hard when her daughter tried to pry my age out of me and failed. She then shushed her.

Miss Nosy is seven. Her ten year old sister is my favorite of all four of them. Her birthday was last week, the day before mine. She is very quiet but if you are patient she will get up her nerve and start talking, then not quit. She likes to draw. Last night she started reciting poems from Shel Silverstein's "A Light in the Attic," so she is now christened Miss Poetry. Her real name is gorgeous but I will not give it here.

When little Miss Nosy came back with "A Light in the Attic," Miss Poetry opened it right up and began reading her favorites in the fading twilight. "Can you see?" I asked.

"Sort of," she said. Her mom went up on the steps and switched on the porch light. We all sat down, the girls and their mother across the top step on the stoop, me on the step below Miss Poetry's feet. Miss Poetry must have read half the book. Her favorite is "Prayer of the Selfish Child" which she read and recited from memory because she loves it so much:
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I die before I wake
I pray the Lord my toys to break
so the other kids' won't play with them

(I think that is correct, thanks Shel!)

Miss Poetry only stumbled once, while trying to read "quadruple gainer" in a poem about a girl diving, only to find in midair that the pool was dry! She is helping her little sister learn to read, too. She would read a poem, then give the book to her sister to try. Sometimes they would read together, sometimes Poetry read first and waited for little Nosy to repeat it after her.

I kept trying to leave (feebly, and more because it was dark than because I wanted to go), but the girls kept saying stay, stay. Their dad came out with their little puppy for a while--he put the dog on the fencepost, and he's so small he fit!

We heard firecrackers in the distance. It's always hard to tell whether it's firecrackers or shots. There was an ambulance down on the block south of 51st earlier in the evening. "Something's happening," Miss Poetry told me. School Lady had eyes and ears out on the fireworks while her daughters read.

After we said goodnight, I went back up the street to my house and realized I had locked myself out! One of the neighbors has my keys, so I walked back down the block and no one was in their house. They live next door to the Nearly Evicteds, so I went to their house. Their daughter was getting highlights for the 8th grade prom (it's tonight). I helped her little brother with his math homework and we all watched Cartoon Network until 10, when someone got home next door.

I stepped out and called to the neighbor, who was coming in with her groceries and some friends. We were standing on her front steps when we heard a burst of automatic gunfire coming from the north, pretty far off by the sound. "That's not good," she said. It's not even official summer yet.