Staying Up Late, Doing What I Told Myself I Wouldn't Do. (Sigh).
I walk my dogs daily. Two dogs, twice a day. I've gotten to know my surrounding streets intimately. I know the houses, I know the people and I know their lawns. This is the way of the dog walker.
Nearly every house has a name. The houses of people whose names I know are named after those people. For example, the house where Clay and Sarah live is known as--you guessed it--Clay and Sarah's house. Simple. Generally, the houses close to your own are the ones that you associate with peoples' names. As you move farther out, the houses end up taking on different names, names that have absolutely no association with any person's real name at all. The Rent-A-Cop lives on a far corner, in the Rent-A-Cop house. The Crack House is on the opposite side of the block. It's not so much of a crack house as it is a loud party house with varied guests who keep irregular hours. We call it The Crack House, though. The Skateboard House has a back yard that abuts The Crack House. Once, when the band that uses the garage at The Skateboard House for a practice space was making too much noise, the Crack House crackhead lit off a few rounds at the Skateboard House. That was unusual. The Police came. The Crack House crackhead switched houses for about 6 months after that. He went to the County House, which is not in our neighborhood.
There are some houses that don't have names. Those houses are blank spaces in neighborhood house-lore. They're like missing letters in a crossword puzzle. Sometimes those houses are overshadowed by their dwellers' personalities or neuroses. When referring to the spaces where those homes are, I'll refer to the occupant and his/her defining neurosis or personality trait . For example, Danny and Gail live next door to the Lady Who Cares Way Too Much About Her Lawn. That's how we describe her. That's her title. England had Lady Diana, Princess of Wales and 33rd Street has Lady Who Cares Way Too Much About Her Lawn. And she does care way, way too much about her lawn. She sprays toxic...stuff on it, scoops kitty litter over the cat turds, and puts full gallon bottles of water on her lawn to scare cats away from it. The thing is, her lawn sucks. I'll be blunt. If she were a dandelion farmer, she'd be doing a damn fine job. I really don't think she's a dandelion farmer, though. Not on purpose, anyhow.
Another character, The Crazy Cat Lady, used to live next door to the Skateboard House. One time, Artillio, the grandson of our next-door neighbor, The Reverend, told me, "Morgan. There's a lady down the street. She got a hundred cats." I didn't believe him. He looked at me stone faced and nodded his head. He was dead serious. After walking past the woman's house a few times, I began to realize that Artillio wasn't making this up. She had ferals running in and out of her house. Cats on the roof, cats on the doorstep, cats under the house, in the bushes, coming out of her chimney. After talking to her a few times, and learning that the white cats were Portuguese Watch Cats, I realized that she was a little crazy. It made sense. I've always sort of thought that a person's sanity is inversely proportional to the number of cats they own. Fewer cats, more sanity. More cats, less sanity. This woman had quite a few cats. Cats in the attic, even.
Houses with dogs, where the owner's name is not known, are automatically the dog's house. Over on 31st, there's Emma's house. Emma is an ancient, curly-coated, mop-headed mutt with a friendly, pipe-smoking owner who wears a cowboy hat. The owner drives a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that says "Don't Believe The Liberal Media." I don't engage him in political discussions, but I do talk to him about other stuff. I've been talking to him for five years, and I still don't know his name. Nice guy. He's lucky that Emma lets him live in her house.
Now, there's a house mid-block, across the street from me, with a story. That's the Chihuahua House. That's an interesting case. A family with a Chihuahua once owned it. Their Chihuahua would run loose over peoples' lawns, leaving little Stimpy-sized logs that you might mistake for cat shit if you hadn't actually seen the offending dog doing its offensive business. The Chihuahua Family ended up getting more than a few stern lectures from cheesed-off neighbors. They finally sold the house to two middle-aged guys who play loud 60s music. (Ugh...baby boomers move in, play their Grateful Dead really loud, and there goes the fucking neighborhood). The guys have been relatively low-key. The house is still the Chihuahua House in my mind. The two baby boomers haven't really done much in the way of re-mythologizing the home. I just can't bring myself to call it "the old baby boomer guy house." It's still got the Chihuahua juju.
There's more to this. My energy is waning, though. More on the houses in my neighborhood later. Hope you enjoyed the tour.
Nearly every house has a name. The houses of people whose names I know are named after those people. For example, the house where Clay and Sarah live is known as--you guessed it--Clay and Sarah's house. Simple. Generally, the houses close to your own are the ones that you associate with peoples' names. As you move farther out, the houses end up taking on different names, names that have absolutely no association with any person's real name at all. The Rent-A-Cop lives on a far corner, in the Rent-A-Cop house. The Crack House is on the opposite side of the block. It's not so much of a crack house as it is a loud party house with varied guests who keep irregular hours. We call it The Crack House, though. The Skateboard House has a back yard that abuts The Crack House. Once, when the band that uses the garage at The Skateboard House for a practice space was making too much noise, the Crack House crackhead lit off a few rounds at the Skateboard House. That was unusual. The Police came. The Crack House crackhead switched houses for about 6 months after that. He went to the County House, which is not in our neighborhood.
There are some houses that don't have names. Those houses are blank spaces in neighborhood house-lore. They're like missing letters in a crossword puzzle. Sometimes those houses are overshadowed by their dwellers' personalities or neuroses. When referring to the spaces where those homes are, I'll refer to the occupant and his/her defining neurosis or personality trait . For example, Danny and Gail live next door to the Lady Who Cares Way Too Much About Her Lawn. That's how we describe her. That's her title. England had Lady Diana, Princess of Wales and 33rd Street has Lady Who Cares Way Too Much About Her Lawn. And she does care way, way too much about her lawn. She sprays toxic...stuff on it, scoops kitty litter over the cat turds, and puts full gallon bottles of water on her lawn to scare cats away from it. The thing is, her lawn sucks. I'll be blunt. If she were a dandelion farmer, she'd be doing a damn fine job. I really don't think she's a dandelion farmer, though. Not on purpose, anyhow.
Another character, The Crazy Cat Lady, used to live next door to the Skateboard House. One time, Artillio, the grandson of our next-door neighbor, The Reverend, told me, "Morgan. There's a lady down the street. She got a hundred cats." I didn't believe him. He looked at me stone faced and nodded his head. He was dead serious. After walking past the woman's house a few times, I began to realize that Artillio wasn't making this up. She had ferals running in and out of her house. Cats on the roof, cats on the doorstep, cats under the house, in the bushes, coming out of her chimney. After talking to her a few times, and learning that the white cats were Portuguese Watch Cats, I realized that she was a little crazy. It made sense. I've always sort of thought that a person's sanity is inversely proportional to the number of cats they own. Fewer cats, more sanity. More cats, less sanity. This woman had quite a few cats. Cats in the attic, even.
Houses with dogs, where the owner's name is not known, are automatically the dog's house. Over on 31st, there's Emma's house. Emma is an ancient, curly-coated, mop-headed mutt with a friendly, pipe-smoking owner who wears a cowboy hat. The owner drives a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that says "Don't Believe The Liberal Media." I don't engage him in political discussions, but I do talk to him about other stuff. I've been talking to him for five years, and I still don't know his name. Nice guy. He's lucky that Emma lets him live in her house.
Now, there's a house mid-block, across the street from me, with a story. That's the Chihuahua House. That's an interesting case. A family with a Chihuahua once owned it. Their Chihuahua would run loose over peoples' lawns, leaving little Stimpy-sized logs that you might mistake for cat shit if you hadn't actually seen the offending dog doing its offensive business. The Chihuahua Family ended up getting more than a few stern lectures from cheesed-off neighbors. They finally sold the house to two middle-aged guys who play loud 60s music. (Ugh...baby boomers move in, play their Grateful Dead really loud, and there goes the fucking neighborhood). The guys have been relatively low-key. The house is still the Chihuahua House in my mind. The two baby boomers haven't really done much in the way of re-mythologizing the home. I just can't bring myself to call it "the old baby boomer guy house." It's still got the Chihuahua juju.
There's more to this. My energy is waning, though. More on the houses in my neighborhood later. Hope you enjoyed the tour.
1 Comments:
Feed me more. Reading this was fantastic! I am glad I chose your blog as my bedtime one.
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