Mumbling Madly

We have a rooster in our neighborhood, just down the block. He belongs to a family who lives in an unattractive ’snout house’ (the garage is right out in front, obscuring the front door on the side). The rooster and his matronly chicken wives stroll around freely on their property–’cage free’ I believe they call it. Occasionally, he’ll pause from picking at the dirt and let out a classic cock-a-doodle-doo. Then he’ll continue clucking and picking as if it’s completely normal for him to be ‘free as a bird’ in a grungy city neighborhood. Sometimes I’ll hear him while I”m working outside, and believe me, that sucker is LOUD. I’ll fantasize that I actually live in the country, and he is my rooster in my imaginary barn.

None of this is very novel at 5:45am in the morning. I wear earplugs but, alas, Josh does not. Tragically, he’s been waking up at 5:45am all summer long at the rooster’s cue. Part of this is we have our windows open, part of this is that Josh already has to get up pretty early and is tuned in to early morning rising, and part of it is that having an unnaturally loud rooster crowing in the morning is distracting. On weekends this is very hard for my husband: “I spent two years in Brazil living alongside roosters, I can’t believe I’m doing it here in Seattle.”

One time we walked past this house and saw the rooster in question sauntering around his driveway with what looked like a child bride–a very small chicken. Josh immediately launched in to a master plan to bring the rooster down. Perhaps we could borrow someone’s dog and, at an opportune moment, unleash it on the rooster. Or maybe a well placed pellet gun at far range could bring the cock down. I suggested Hobbes–but quickly realized this particularly rooster dwarfed my cat in size.

This morning Josh woke up and yelled, “I’m going to kill that rooster!” He got out of bed, put on shoes, and marched down the street to get the address of the offender. Then he promptly called animal control. Surprisingly, he filed a complaint without any hassle. On Animal Control’s website they go on and on about how neighbors have to work it out themselves. “Have you tried talking it out before bothering Animal Control?” the website suggests. “We are so busy with cock fights, killer pitbulls, and abandoned puppies we don’t seem to have ANY time for barking dogs.” Josh explained that there isn’t much to ‘talk out’ when your neighbor owns a rooster and that he wanted to make an anonymous complaint.

Shockingly, no one else has filed a complaint against these neighbors. Talks are underway about putting together a rooster campaign on the block. (”Tired of rising at 5:45am at the rooster’s crow? Call this number and file a complaint”). The folks down the street have 8-10 business days to respond to our lone complaint. If nothing changes we can file a second complaint. I’m sure if more people called in we’d have greater strength in numbers. In the meantime, I’m very impressed with Josh. My attitude had always been: “Well, the rooster may be loud, but at least he’s not some gang member blasting the bass while washing his car.” Few things erk my husband…and a rooster will do it every time.

Rain…merciless rain beats down while I type. I should have my glasses on. I went back to the eye doctor because the vain part of me wanted him to check out the blob on my eyeball. Well, it’s really UV sun damage from my stint in CO but it looks like someone dropped a booger on my eye. Turns out the only way to remove it is to numb the eyeball and scrape it off with an exacto knife. It would probably come back anyway, as blobs tend to do. Besides, until it covers the pupil there’s no reason other then cosmetic to remove it. Then the good doctor told me to start wearing my glasses more; If not, I’m gonna wear out my eyeballs by the time I’m 45 and start losing my vision. Damn.

It seems that everywhere I turn there is nothing but bad news in the world. Do I need to list the problems? No, I would imagine I don’t need to, anyone who is remotely connected to the internet, tv, or any other news media is well aware of the plethora of tragedies, disasters, and general malaise. In order to cope here’s what I’ve been doing:

1) You may remember my bitch about the crappy iced latte at McDonalds. Well, I found a cheap and high quality alternative: the double tall hot mocha at Costco for $1. I was initially wary, especially since I watched them procure it from a machine without any tamping, grinding, or messing with portafilters. Images of a really horrible burnt latte coming out of an ancient machine at the 7-11 off the freeway came to mind. I’m not even a mocha fan but, well, I was at Costco to get eyeglasses (another really awesome service) and the weather had taken a terrible plunge for the worst. It went from sunny, 80 degrees, pantingly hot temps all the way to raining, 60 degrees, soaking wet pant legs, cold in a matter of hours. This hurts one’s phyche. This means when one is baby-sitting little kids the ‘waste a ton of time’ outside option is out.Therefore, after spending three hours rolling around on the floor with a two-year-old and a 7 month old playing trains, coaching on how to crawl, and reading cardboard books I felt a mocha was deserved. The verdict: not too sweet, rich espresso taste, the whip cream tasted real and wasn’t sweetened. Delicious. (Incidentally, I went to a fancy pants eye frame shop on Fremont hoping to find hip but classy glasses. They came up short. Costco had some of the same frames for 50-60% less AND their hardware prices were much cheaper. Huge score).

2) There’s been a lot of grief aimed at homeowners in Seattle lately: our property taxes are going up, our utilities are going to sky rocket, we’re slowly losing our property values like the rest of the country. Top it off with a 20 cent plastic bag fee that is allegedly going into place January ‘09 (unless they can get it on the ballot–my feelings on this are mixed) and everyone is feeling kinda beat down. So, what little thing did I do to make myself feel like I was shaving down my costs? I downsized my garbage service. Upon further inspection I realized I was paying top dollar for the biggest garbage bin available–despite only dragging the can to the curb every other week. With my militant recycling and painstaking yard waste separation (unlike a lot of locals I actually put in food waste in addition to yard waste) we just don’t have a whole lot to throw out. Yay for minimizing my impact on the world and not filling up landfills! (OK, stop patting yourself on the back you bleeding heart liberal). Therefore, I bumped myself down a garbage can notch and am paying 1/2 of what I once was for garbage service. Depending on how it goes, I can bump down to the “baby bin” which something like 12 oz. We’ll see…we’ll see.

3) Watching the Olympics until way too late and not getting enough sleep. Maybe it’s to avoid the tragedies of our world today, maybe it’s the new flat screen, or maybe it’s because I’m caught up in all the little dramas…but I’ve never watched the Olympics this much in the past. At 11pm I find myself zoning in on male diving champions, transfixed by the newly added bmx biking, and getting all sucked in when Lolo tragically hits a hurdle and misses her chance at getting a medal. Look at how cute Michael Phelps is! Does he have a gf? I find myself googling this question along with millions of other women around the country. How could ice cold Russian-born, American gymnast Nastia Luikin (pronounced Nasty-uh by some announcers) score higher in gymnastics then the super adorable Shawn Johnson? But at least both of them are old enough to compete instead of being super sneaky and putting their best 14 year olds into the competition. Olympics drama keeps me up well into the night.

4) Walking around the Seward park peninsula (3 miles total) as often as I can on my home from work.

5) Eating copious amounts of tomatoes…tons and tons. All from my garden.

I cut my thumb open while cleaning up the kitchen. Not with a knife, not with a potato peeler…but with a spatula. A SPATULA.

Feeling crummy with two enormous swollen lymph nodes and a sore throat. My ears threaten to slip into infection, my energy lapses into nothingness, I wear no underwear all day under my pajamas. My cat tiptoes across the lawn. My husband has taken to wearing a blue and white sweatband on his right forearm–just cuz he likes it. The floor needs vacuuming, the tomatoes are surprised by the sudden rain, our inside temperature reaches 66 degrees. No way am I turning on the heat in August, I think, and when I sit outside I realize it is warmer there then in the living room. We watch the Olympics all weekend long–the swimmers are glorious in HD. Josh makes pancakes for the first time from my father’s recipe. They are delicious, the blueberries spurting. I make cookies as an apology for a bunch of drama that happened at the theater on Friday. I feel bad. On Saturday I woke up too early after a night of fretting, stewing, and worrying about being disliked. I woke up to rain and realized I had to get on a boat and ride into Lake Union for a video shoot in an hour (how fancy does that sound?!) 9am and I am barely talking. I can’t believe I am standing at the water’s edge in a wonderful Bolivian skirt dressed like an immigrant with a light panel aimed at my face. Despite the beginning of a very swollen lymph node I have a wonderful Saturday morning on the water. It is dark and cloudy during the ‘immigrant’ shooting and sunny as soon as we switch into our Freedom Dancer clothes. I stand in front of a flapping American flag while my friends hum, “Coming to America” and the camera starts rolling. I eat mounds of Trader Joe’s chocolate cat cookies. I wear the sparkly pink hot pants that Abby bought for my birthday–God I would have loved those pants ten years ago at the height of my Origami Girl fame. I am reading an anthology of the Best Comics of 2007 and loving it. I have a box of performance art props in my office waiting to be played with again. I slow down…I slow down all weekend long.

Watched a devastating documentary last night about the El Salvador gang, “18,” last night on PBS. While I certainly don’t pretend to understand every nuance and detail about the gang culture it was a tough film to swallow. From watching one gang member breaking down while calling his mother who is living and working in the states (”I don’t care that you don’t send me money, just come and get me”) to watching a father of three try and leave the gang only to find a way to be lured back in (”I’m nothing but a worthless crackhead and only the gang will take care of me”). Most of these gang members are orphaned by parents who have left the country to find work or slain in the bloody 12 year civil war. All the incentives to quit (like jail–which the gangs run) can’t compete with the love and trust these young man have for their gang–the only family they’ve really had.

Despite feeling deep sadness for these young men it also put an interesting spin on the immigration issue. Many of these fellows started up their gangs in the states. When they were deported they brought the gang ideals back with them to their home country. A gang set up in south central LA is going to be very different then a gang set up in El Salvador. (Much, much scarier in my opinion after watching the documentary). It also made Josh very certain that we need to tighten up our borders, set up some real guidelines and follow real immigration rules. “Those are scary dudes that I don’t want in my country,” was Josh’s attitude. But I felt much more compassion for these men. Many of them seemed bright, hopeful, and motivated. If they came to this country and actually had opportunity would they actually change? Would they value our rules? And what about some many of these boys’ parents who come to this country to make some money?

The weirdest part of the documentary is at the end where they find and interview one of the mothers whose son was incarcerated at the end of the film. She is working in LA as a house cleaner. She left him seven years ago with his abusive older brother and never returned. The film shows her driving around in her Dodge pick up with her cleaning supplies talking about how important her work is. She obviously hasn’t seen the documentary footage because she seems lost and oblivious to her son’s reported angry behavior and recent murder charge (a newspaper article from her home town confirming his arrest is in her scrapbook). Perhaps it’s because this is the same boy who called his mother from El Salvador earlier in the film pleading with her to come and get him, his face twisted in grief, but this woman comes off as a buffoon. As much as I wanted to sympathize with her plight it’s apparent that she has been swept away in the relative comfort and complacency of California. Wow.

It’s hard not to draw parallels with the local gangs and the gang culture of El Salvador. While many of the values are the same: you take care of each other, you protect one another by any means necessary, punishment is an 18 second beating from your peers, if one homeboy goes down it is an honor to be chosen to take down a member of the rival gang, etc. there isn’t the same sense of despair in our country. In 2004, the rate of intentional homicides in El Salvador per 100,000 citizens was 41, with 60% of the homicides committed were gang-related. Compare that to our relatively low number of 5.7 murders per 100,000 persons in 2006 and you realize how ‘developed’ we really are. Despite these hard numbers, the similarities are classic: lack of education, parental involvement, money, all point towards boosting gang enrollment.

Right now as I speak there are sirens screaming by my house. I tell myself that it’s the fire station six blocks away–an epicenter for siren sounds. There has been considerable unrest in my neighborhood…I tell myself that it’s always rough in the summer. Sun pushes people to do stupid things they might not do in the rain. Watching this documentary gave me an inside look at the process, the route, the path it takes to join a gang. While it didn’t necessarily make me feel safer, it made me thankful that I live in the US, where education is given to everyone, gang activity is generally looked down upon (not lauded), and opportunity is still possible for even the hardest up.

I recently read a scathing review about my neighborhood on a local blog and it ruined my night. After thinking about it for a little while I posted the following (which I know is out of context but you can still get the gist): I found this post to be depressing, sad, frustrating, and largely unhelpful. (The blogger’s) heart is still ‘very much in the south valley?’ Really? How? By reminding me that the cops don’t come when called? That I can’t walk after dark by myself? Thanks…thanks I needed that. Look, once you leave Rainier Beach for the relative ’safety’ of another neighborhood I think you lose your right to criticize.

One of my students, a two-year-old, is accidentally locked in his mom’s mini-van with the windows rolled up. It is 80 degrees outside and probably twice that hot inside the car. It was his first day of class. His older sister is four and took Creative Movement with me. This is the studio in Madrona located along side the gorgeous Lake Washington. Half the joy of teaching at this studio is the view, the water lapping up against the concrete wall as I walk to the old boat house that’s been converted into a studio.

The van is parked facing the water and people are passing by and offering to help. The mother is frantically in control, her voice a thin tense line as she shouts at her son to press the unlock button. She desperately tries to coach him while waiting for her husband to bring keys to her vehicle. A small crowd gathers. The four-year-old sister spots me and runs up to the bench where I had innocently sat down to have some lunch–an ideal spot looking out over the water. I realize I need to take the other child off the mother’s hands and keep her calm in time of crisis. We sit side by side on the park bench, her feet dangling, someone has given her an apple. An old man dragging a plastic raft has stopped and suggested we call the police. It’s been 15 minutes since the accidental locking of the car. The little boy is now sweating. He’s holding a small stuffed animal, strapped firmly in his car seat, a look of blank wonder on his face. It is a game? Is he in trouble? He can’t push the lock down, his fingers are too weak.

A man in his forties, a young Madrona Mom, an adult student on her way to Open Ballet, this is just a small sampling of the small crowd. Some tap on the window at the little boy, others try and calm the mother, finally someone pulls out a cellphone and calls the police. “He’s sweating,” the dispatcher is told. A police car doesn’t come fast enough; another five minutes past by. The old man with the inflatable raft takes a sweatshirt and lines the passenger door with it. Then he expertly punches the window until the glass shatters with a resounding pop. The little boy inside the car screams and the mother dives in. She pulls him out of his car seat and runs, runs to the concrete wall that protects Lake Washington from the parking lot. She jumps in, with her clothes on, the water shallow reaching her waist. Her son is placed on the concrete lip and she begins splashing him with murky lake water to cool him off. People gather around with bottles of water, hands dip into the lake, voices are fast and firm. The little boy howls, his sister looks at me with big eyes. I had been sharing my almonds with her–nervous that she might have a nut allergy, (don’t all kids have one?) even though she claimed not to. “Why is he crying?” she asked. “Sometimes when you’re finally safe you can allow yourself to feel scared,” I explained. We had been engaged in several deep conversations about accidents, locking the car, the police, how strangers can help you in times of need. In her lap she held a second apple, “This one I’m saving for my brother.”

Difficult times prompt me to pause for friends, happy hour, improvising at the theater, sun drenched walks around the lake, sunburn, petting Hobbes, writing, watching So You Think You Can Dance (which featured a Bollywood piece for the first time tonight!), playing with other people’s babies, hanging clothes to dry outside, watering my garden deeply, driving miles and miles, sleeping very little, wanting to hide under the bed with my cat while the fireworks go off every night, teaching new students, inspiring new parents, speaking in my ‘calm voice,’ bracing myself, making strawberry ice cream from scratch, receiving bath products in the mail for my birthday, smelling like lilac all night long, crying, making egg salad sandwiches for cold lunch, watching my cat dance for tuna, wanting travel so I live vicariously through HD TV, wanting the summer to never end, never slip by, wanting it to stay light out until 10:30pm for the rest of my life, making iced espresso every morning with non-fat half and half, eating lot’s of whole grains, crafting mojitos (all sticky with lime juice), sitting on my front porch late at night looking at the dingy houses nearby, wondering how long I’ll be around, drifting in and out of several books: the sexy Outlander, the obnoxious Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius, and the latest issue of the Utne reader, having an equally fascinating and absurd conversation about B’s hair falling out from chemo (’if it wasn’t pulled back right now it would all come out in my hand’), smelling the water from my front door, wondering if I missed the boat on my shade garden bulbs…wondering about all my mistakes, all my misconceptions, learning some hard news, grasping at the complexities, wondering if there’s something greater out there, wondering if maybe tonight I will sleep.

I don’t complain about hot weather. This past winter was so cold I could it feel it in my extremities, my fingers and toes numb for days, my nose a blue nub, the winter was so cold I felt it all the way up into my scars (specifically the one behind my right ear). What is it about healed skin that stays so sensitive for years?

The past few days have been laced with heat, my body in a state of perpetual thaw. With joy I deeply water my garden, sitting up-right in pots, neatly stacked against the fence and our neighbor’s garage made out of cement blocks. The cement emits a heavy heat against my peppers, which cheerfully rise toward the sky. All but the sad little habanero plants are doing well. Abandoned in a smaller pot for days while the weather remained frigid, the habanero was attacked by bugs before being properly transplanted. Now, they languish under the heat in an attempt to catch up with their pepper kin.

I teach two classes in a stiflingly hot studio room. The kids are sweaty, excited, thrilled to be dancing. One mother is so pregnant that I’m shocked she is mobile. Her little girl stands in the center of the parachute, eyes bright, hands clasping at the wafting fabric. The parachute emits a pleasant breeze and I quickly figure out how to turn the fan on.

I come home and paint my toenails bright red.

Little boy poops in his pants. Last week, I ignored it because, well, at 2 he’s capable of people sized poo. He’s got a diaper on and it seemed well contained. He didn’t seem to mind and we played with blocks and trucks and I made his stuffed animals fall off of towers endlessly. The whole house smelled. I opened the windows. His Mom came home and I realized that the baby had pooped in addition so now we really had a mess. I apologized. She was gracious.

So, anyway, the little boy poops his pants an hour before Mom comes home and I’m thinking: I’ve got to do this. Who cares? It’s just poop, like cleaning out a litter box or stepping in dog doo. Whatever. I’m being paid well, I should just suck it up. “Did you poo your pants, buddy?” I asked, real cheerful like I poop my pants all the time and we’re just hanging out. “Yes,” he says, shortly. I sigh, “Well come on.” I take his sister and put her on the bed, in the middle, propping her up on a really floppy pillow. It’s amazing to me how portable infants are, simply incredible. It’s as if I accesorized the comforter with a stuffed animal or something. She isn’t very mobile but I am worried she might suffocate herself in the folds of this super pillow–especially since she’s teething and she immediately stuffs the corner of the pillow in her mouth. I pledge to keep an eye on her.

“Hey buddy, come into the changing room,” I yell, wanting to get this over with. The baby is drooling up a storm; I find a bib that says, “I love my daddy” and put it on her. I go into the living room and see that the little boy is hiding behind a rocking chair. “What are you doing? Don’t you want me to change you?” He shakes his head, sheepishly. “You sure?” I say. He nods and refuses to leave his hiding place. “Are you embarrassed?” I say, not even certain he knows the word. “Yes, I embarrassed,” the little guy is truly serious. He does not want his baby-sitter near his diaper. “OK, but that means you’re going to have to sit in your poo for a while,” I say. The boy nods knowingly, “Sit in my poo.”

And so he did. And I was relieved. The two of us had reached an agreement: I wasn’t terribly excited about changing a boy of his age’s diaper and he wasn’t interested in letting me. Done.