Monday, October 14, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Saturday, October 5, 2013
neighbors, new to me
I saw a couple of UPS boxes next to the tree in front of my house one morning last week. When I went down to leave for work I saw that they were addressed to Marcos Santos at 1350 Palou. I was just starting to figure out what to do -- ring the bell at 1350 and then if no one answered, leave a note? -- when a guy I'd seen in passing a few times (but hadn't met) walked up and said, oh, how strange, those are for me. I looked at him and decided that he could very easily have been Marcos Santos. I said, Oh, that's odd, and we introduced ourselves. I didn't feel right asking him for ID so I just sort of watched him walk up to 1350 and go inside.
On Tuesday morning I met Inez, who lives two doors away, toward Keith, in the house with a formidable flagstone facade, set back from the street. She was wearing an oversized black T-shirt adorned with the words "California swing dancing" (in orange) and cropped black leggings, and she was carrying two leopard-patterned canvas gym bags to her car (a taupe-colored sedan). She told me she has lived in that house for 40 years, and that her grandmother bought it 50 years ago, after it was relocated from Daly City to make room for the BART station. She said her grandmother moved to Palou Ave. in 1948 from New Orleans and was not welcomed with open arms.
On Tuesday morning I met Inez, who lives two doors away, toward Keith, in the house with a formidable flagstone facade, set back from the street. She was wearing an oversized black T-shirt adorned with the words "California swing dancing" (in orange) and cropped black leggings, and she was carrying two leopard-patterned canvas gym bags to her car (a taupe-colored sedan). She told me she has lived in that house for 40 years, and that her grandmother bought it 50 years ago, after it was relocated from Daly City to make room for the BART station. She said her grandmother moved to Palou Ave. in 1948 from New Orleans and was not welcomed with open arms.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
doing some good; could be doing better
I am procrastinating, or dithering, or just relaxing. Hard to tell. I feel the kind of generalized anxiety underneath it all -- I could be doing something! But I can't decide what that might be. I could go down and fix the low fence around my lavender that people keep damaging, cut back the incredibly thorny rose bushes, and water. Yes, I could do all this, but I don't seem to want to expose myself to the neighborhood.
Yesterday I did my bit for the District 10 "clean sweep," coordinated by the Department of Public Works. I biked down to the meet-up spot -- Warm Water Cove, at the end of 24th St. When I got there I saw brooms being waved in the air -- a self-described flash mob of dancers. Then there were speeches by city VIPs, and finally some photo ops. I met -- or at least shook hands and posed for pictures with -- our District 10 supervisor, Malia Cohen. She was personable, perfectly coiffed, and carefully made up).
After all that, a really nice DPW guy named Mike drove our BRITE group (me, Ann, David, Jonathan, and Robert) back to Palou Ave. We helped plant 5 or 6 trees in front of the shamefully dilapidated public housing complex two blocks east of where I live. Well, I say "helped," but I don't know how helpful we really were. I guess it doesn't matter, really; we had a good time. It turns out that one of the DPW workers who was "supervising" us -- Eddie -- hangs out sometimes across the street at the Smith house -- he has a 5-year-old daughter with Jessica (Doug's niece). One of the other DPW guys, Bernard, raised 4 kids in that public housing complex, one of whom is in her freshman year at Columbia. Bernard also knows the Smiths. He told us the sad tale of his 2010 arrest for a late-night home invasion robbery that he had nothing to do with. He said that he and Jamie were both picked up a little while after the robbery and driven to the victim's house. The victim looked into the backseat of the police car and said yeah, those are the guys. Jamie worked out some kind of a plea bargain and spent some time in prison, but Bernard didn't want to plead guilty, so he sat in jail for 6 months before he was finally released (I said, "No bail?" and he said "No bail"). He seemed more incredulous than bitter.
Later, in the afternoon, Linda came by to take me, along with her friend Denise, to Pacifica for her reading. A happened to be out doing something in her yard when I came out and so I introduced her to Linda and also to Denise, whom I had just met.
Non sequitur: I took these photos a couple of Sundays ago at Mountain View:
Yesterday I did my bit for the District 10 "clean sweep," coordinated by the Department of Public Works. I biked down to the meet-up spot -- Warm Water Cove, at the end of 24th St. When I got there I saw brooms being waved in the air -- a self-described flash mob of dancers. Then there were speeches by city VIPs, and finally some photo ops. I met -- or at least shook hands and posed for pictures with -- our District 10 supervisor, Malia Cohen. She was personable, perfectly coiffed, and carefully made up).
After all that, a really nice DPW guy named Mike drove our BRITE group (me, Ann, David, Jonathan, and Robert) back to Palou Ave. We helped plant 5 or 6 trees in front of the shamefully dilapidated public housing complex two blocks east of where I live. Well, I say "helped," but I don't know how helpful we really were. I guess it doesn't matter, really; we had a good time. It turns out that one of the DPW workers who was "supervising" us -- Eddie -- hangs out sometimes across the street at the Smith house -- he has a 5-year-old daughter with Jessica (Doug's niece). One of the other DPW guys, Bernard, raised 4 kids in that public housing complex, one of whom is in her freshman year at Columbia. Bernard also knows the Smiths. He told us the sad tale of his 2010 arrest for a late-night home invasion robbery that he had nothing to do with. He said that he and Jamie were both picked up a little while after the robbery and driven to the victim's house. The victim looked into the backseat of the police car and said yeah, those are the guys. Jamie worked out some kind of a plea bargain and spent some time in prison, but Bernard didn't want to plead guilty, so he sat in jail for 6 months before he was finally released (I said, "No bail?" and he said "No bail"). He seemed more incredulous than bitter.
Later, in the afternoon, Linda came by to take me, along with her friend Denise, to Pacifica for her reading. A happened to be out doing something in her yard when I came out and so I introduced her to Linda and also to Denise, whom I had just met.
Non sequitur: I took these photos a couple of Sundays ago at Mountain View:
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