We All Say, Good Riddance!

My across the hall neighbor gives me the creeps. I avoid him at all costs and will deliberately hide out in my apartment if I hear him in the hall. Even if that means I'll be late places. But sometimes I get caught and talking to him is unavoidable. On those miserable occasions, this is how our conversation generally goes:

Him: Hi! Been a long time. How YOU doing? (leer)

Me: Fine, thanks.

Him: You're looking good! (leer verging on licking chops)

Me: Er. Thanks. Funny thing, I'm actually trying to set the land record for getting inside my apartment. Would love to chat, but can't. Sorry. Bye-eee!

This conversation, while uncomfortable, is actually pretty weird in person because he has some odd form of turrets that causes him to burst out with loud noises periodically. So our conversation is actually like this:

Him: Hi! Been a BOP! long time. ACK! How YOU doing? AAAAT!

Me: Fine, thanks.

Him: You're lo-AAACK-looking good!

Me: Er. Thanks. You're a smarmy dude and secretly I call you Snap-Crackle-Pop so why don't you just leave me alone? Mmmkay? Thanks. Bye.

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike him because he's got this turret-ish problem, I dislike him because he's SO DISGUSTING. I feel like I need to take a shower in turpentine after talking to him. ICK.

So I was SUPER happy to come home today and see that movers were inside his apartment boxing everything up. The movers, on the other hand, were NOT SUPER happy to be boxing up his stuff.

As is my habit, ducked into my apartment and I curled up with a book. I was promptly lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of packing tape screeching and newspaper crumpling, underscored with a loud and cacophonous dialog between the Greek movers. It was a very peaceful nap. But even as I was coming out of this most restful of naps, I could tell that the poor movers were at the end of their rope with my frustrating and icky neighbor. This is what I heard:

Him: You gotta ACK gotta pack my BAP lamp. Don't forget to pack my lamp. BAH!

Greek Mover: De lamp? Ok, packing de lamp.

Crumple, crumple, crumple. Tumble of boxes. Tape screeching. Greek Chorus.

Him: Hey, where's my ACK lamp?

Greek Mover: We pack de lamp.

Him: WHAT!!? The lamp! BAP The Lamp! Where's my lamp? ACK

Greek Mover: YOU'RE FREAKING ME OUT!!

Greek Chorus, freaking out.

Greek Mover: You told us to packa de lamp!! We PACKA DE LAMP!

Him: Oh. ACH ok. It's packed. BAP Good. This is the box? Ok. Make sure you guys pack my other AHT lamp.

At this point I was tempted to open my door, grab some popcorn and watch the Greeks kill my annoying neighbor. It would have been SO SATISFYING.

Shoot Out at the Black & Decker Corral

Many of you have asked, and I'm happy to report that my iron has indeed made its way back home. Not without a little muscle, though, I must tell you.

It was almost like High Noon. I strode down my long long hallway at noon (well, noon-45, but pretty close), my Silver BCBG Wedge heels glinting like spurs. There, at the end of the hall, stood the ringleader of the notorious Small Appliance Robbers. Quicker than lightening I drew my accusational finger and fired it at her.

"Hey! Didn't you borrow my iron?" I shot.

"Oh, that was you?" she sputtered, clutching her stomach. "Yes, I did."

"Can I get that back? It's been almost three weeks."

Visibly cowering (I'm not exaggerating that satisfying detail) she fumbled for her keys to get me my iron right that very minute. Clearly she could tell that I meant business. And she was right. I did mean business! Hijacking my small appliances is very serious business.

But right then the elevator (that she had called) arrived, and I needed to go get my church on. No time to babysit her while she returned my iron, and I certainly wasn't going to waste MY OWN time taking it back to my apartment myself. So I told her to trot it on down the hall and leave it where my flyer had clearly indicated she should.

Despite her failure to be trustworthy before, I didn't worry about her not following through. This time, I knew where she lived, and if my iron wasn't on my doorstep when I returned, no amount of holy post-church glow would keep me from getting some whoop-ass all up in there.

Super Fun Time Pool

To celebrate Labor Day this year, we kept up the bi-annual (does that mean twice a year, or once every two years? anyway, we went two years ago) tradition and went to the Super Fun Time Pool!

In the past, folks were apt to call this pool the Ghetto Pool. But I'm veto-ing that. There are too many things that are labeled ghetto around here. Ghetto Safeway, ... um ... ok that's the only one I can think of at the moment. But Maria calls anything within the Silver Spring city limits ghetto. Ghetto Movie Theater, Ghetto Shopping Mall, Ghetto Street Sign. She's a little obsessed. She'd probably call a Gingerbread Village populated by Mr. Rogers and the Lollipop Kids a ghetto.

The point is, that this pool is anything BUT ghetto. It's super fun! When you're there, you'll have a super fun time! Therefore, it's way more descriptive to call this pool the Super Fun Time Pool! (My logic is irrefutable).

Do ghetto pools have AWESOME MUSHROOM SHOWERS? That's right, they don't!



Do ghetto pools have WAY TWISTY WATER SLIDES? Of course not. I went down this slide many times, sometimes with my hands in the air, sometimes not. I'm a wild woman. Also, you will notice the awesome pool toys floating there. I didn't want to play with the snake (uh, DISGUSTING!) I DID want to play with the alligator. But I was shy.



What's this? MOOOORE WAY TWISTY WATER SLIDES?!? So non-ghetto.




The undisputed non-ghetto delight of the Super Fun Time Pool is the Lazy River! Flow on Lazy River of Peace and Zen-like Relaxation, Flow on!

There is a secret Super Fun Time Recipe for Relaxation. It's amazing. Ok, I will tell you.

Take 1 hot summer day, add one Lazy River, and gently fold in Adult Swim time. Bake for 15 minutes.

Results should look like this:



Whoops, looks like an extra helping of LAZY made this batch not rise. Oh well, still VERY RELAXING! And very non-ghetto. And very Super Fun Time!

(can you blame me? Sitting in pilates boat-pose for 15 minutes is hard work, even when buoyed by water and a tube. What do you think? I have abs of steel? Hardly. More like abs of aluminum foil.)

Goodbye Super Fun Time Pool (previously known erroneously as The Ghetto Pool)! I will grace your hallowed water slides once again on Memorial Day.

Flame Roasted Coffeehouse

Several months ago my friend Anna asked me if I had been to the Mayorga Coffee Roasters Coffeehouse, because she'd recently gone for lunch, and she really liked it. I had not. Now, you have to realize something about Anna. If there is anything lovely or of good report, Anna will approve of it. If there is anything shady or unseemly, Anna will gently imply that it might not be a good idea. If I'm ever concerned that my feelings on a particular topic might be out of whack, I can always run it by Anna and know that I'll be pointed in the right direction. I call her The Great Validater. So anyway, the point is, when Anna recommends something, I just do it.

On Monday, I was so worn out from being not very busy I took a sick day (some of which I slept away, thus proving to myself that if I wasn't sick and tired I was at least tired). The reason I mention it, is because it isn't very often I find myself with an entire Monday afternoon stretching out before me. That, my friends, is a luxurious feeling, and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to try out Mayorga's. So I stuck a book in my purse and headed off.

It was everything Anna said it would be. First of all, it was incredibly spacious. I'm so used to cramped places, it felt almost scandalously roomy. They had heavy linen curtains. They had soft lighting. They had abundant comfortable seating. They played world music. They had a tasty sandwich menu. And a prodigious drink menu. They didn't care if you stayed all day. There were freelancer types scattered about typing on their laptops, reading the newspaper, stacking manila folders onto wooden chairs, and rummaging in their battered leather satchels. In short, it was entirely cozy!

I settled in. And fully expected to spend the afternoon reading and nursing a Diet Coke on one of the leather couches.

I'd been there about an hour and a half, and had just about decided that I should chuck it all and become a barrista, when my senses started to pick up on a "commotion." I looked up lazily to see if I could see the problem when a man came running out from one of the back rooms.

"Fire! Fire!" he yelled.

I blinked. "Fire? Fire?" I scoffed. Who yells "Fire! Fire!?" What are we, in a movie? But sure enough, a couple of seconds later some thick smoke started billowing out from the back room. Frantically, the freelancers started stuffing their leather satchels with their scattered papers and hightailed it out of there. The barristas started running around in circles; I presumed they were looking for fire extinguishers. I, myself sat there and watched the show. This is the second time I've been in a fire this year, so I can afford to have a nonchalant attitude about it, I suppose. But I didn't see what good my running around would do. So I continued to sit until I could actually smell the smoke strongly, at which point I decided that this wasn't going to be resolved quickly. So I got up, walked across the room to throw away my trash and walked outside.

I was more put out that I had to get up and leave, than the fact that I was in danger of smoke inhalation. And I was, of course, disappointed that I'd barely found such an excellent coffee shop only to see it go up in flames a mere 2 hours later. But considering the spate of odd and shocking things that have been happening in the last week, my overwhelming thought as I walked away from the heavily smoking building was "Of course."

In The Ghetto

So you know how you can start to lose your credibility on a certain topic if bad things keep happening to disprove you? Like for example, if you keep insisting that you don't live in the ghetto, but then someone gets stabbed with a screwdriver a block away from your house? Like it or not, that kind of stuff just riddles your best defense.

In consequence of the screwdriver incident, I spent much of my Friday evening at a party trying to play down the ghetto card, and play up the "it's an up and coming neighborhood" card. I think I just about had everyone convinced. Which is good, because despite all appearances, I really don't think I live in the ghetto. It's just a neighborhood with some color. Vibrant, vibrant color.

It was important to really press the point because my friend Maria was planning on staying the night at my place (we were making an early start for the beach in the morning). I didn't want her to feel that coming to Silver Spring would be a life threatening experience. I really had my work cut out for me, because she already thinks I'm surrounded by crack-hos and gunslingers.

But to be fair, there is a precedent for her poor opinion. One time a bunch of us went to the movies at the theater down the street. When we came out of the theater and started walking back toward my house (and the parking lot where everyone had parked) we started to see a lot of police activity. Lights flashing, cops sitting in their cruisers, people milling around, and yards and yards of Caution Do Not Cross tape. When we got to the corner, what to our wondering eyes should appear? But a truck squashed underneath a tree. An ENTIRE TREE had fallen smack dab onto a moving truck and killed the driver. Talk about BAD LUCK.

Double bad luck, I'd say. Bad luck for the driver, but also bad luck for me. One wacko accident, and suddenly the entire neighborhood is never safe again. (I doubt the continual police presence in the downtown area has anything to do with the impression of safety that people are likely to get). To add insult to injury, I'm pretty sure Maria's car was behind the police tape and had some stray twigs and stuff on it. Now every time she parks at my place she's never sure what shape her car is going to be in when she comes back. I sort of feel her pain - there's a reason I pay through the nose to park in a covered garage.

So, you can imagine my disappointment at the waste of all of my hard work convincing people of Silver Spring's safety when I arrived home (with Maria in tow) to see those oh-so-familiar Police lights and caution tape strung around MY FRONT DOOR.

It appears that this time someone was shot on the front steps of MY VERY BUILDING!

This is the first time a shooting has occurred within zero feet of my residence (that I know of). I should probably be freaking out about it. In fact, I should probably be in line at the gun store to get myself one of those pearl handled purse pistols. But I have a long standing policy of not getting my feathers ruffled by things that ruffle other people's feathers. Thus I remain happily unruffled.

(However, I was not quite so sanguine about rampant crime and the consequential need for law enforcement when I was woken up at 6AM to the sound of a legion of squad cars running laps around my block for twenty minutes. With their sirens blaring. For TWENTY MINUTES. I was wishing I had a gun then, I'll tell you. I would have been doing some early morning shooting practice and the target would have been anything flashing.)

And call me stubborn, but I still don't think I live in the ghetto. I blame Maria, really. I mean, if she'd stop wearing that black cloak and carrying a scythe every time she came to Silver Spring we wouldn't be having these problems! I'm sure of it.

A Pressing Concern

My iron was abducted ... I mean borrowed almost TWO WEEKS ago. I was on the phone getting some juicy details about wedding shower presents ... so I didn't pay very much attention to what the person was saying about where she lived and how long she wanted to borrow it. Basically all I could make out between talking about fuzzy handcuffs and lingerie were the words "borrow" and "iron".

I (wrongly, as it turns out) assumed it wouldn't be a big deal. It was an iron, after all ... who wants to keep an iron? I thought to myself, "Why not try to be neighborly. 'Can I borrow a cup of sugar' and all that. It's not like you use your iron everyday." And so I loaned it out. Fully expecting to get it back within a day or two.

Two weeks later, amigos, the deadline on neighborliness has expired. I've gone through all of my knitwear, and I need my iron back.

You know the saying, Desperate Times call for Desperate Measures, or in this case Wrinkled Times call for Subtle Hints in the Form of a Clever Missing Person Flyer. My neighbors all recieved a copy of this flyer under their door tonight.


I could have been more scathing in it - but I didn't want to scare off the non-iron-stealers in the building. I still have to ride the elevator with these people. I'll save my ire for the guilty party. To that end I'm in my apartment right now practicing my "stern and disappointed expression" in the mirror while I deliver a particularly fierce version of the Neither a Borrower Nor a Lender Be speech. I have to say, I look like a total badass. Albeit a pretty wrinkly badass.

Take Your Toolbox Out of Your Car, Just in Case

I have to drive this route almost everyday if I want to get anywhere valuable.



Seems pleasant enough, right? Let's look at it more realistically:



Welcome to Bonifant Street. The Evil Super Villian of Silver Spring. If you venture down it, be prepared for nothing to make sense anymore. Goodbye Farfegnugen. Forget what you learned in Driver's Ed. It will only confuse and anger you. On Bonifant, your only goal is to get out of there as soon as you can, and in one piece.

As the Evil Super Villian of Silver Spring, Bonifant's main power is a crippling Mind Suck. I've seen it a million times. A car turns purposefully onto Bonifant, only to slow confusedly to a stop. The driver then looks around frantically like, "WTF am I going to do NOW?" Then one of two things will happen. They'll either double park. I call it "double parking", but usually that term entails making some effort toward getting near the first row of parked cars. Here it's more like stopping in the middle of the lane, turning the car off, getting out, and then stumbling around in the middle of the street. The second option is for them to roll down the window, hold out their hand to stop any traffic, and make a U-turn. This is best done with a cell phone pinned to the ear. As an Evil Super Villian, Bonifant is indeed powerful.

To me it seems like a pretty straightforward street. No funny signs or one ways or anything. Just drive straight, avoid a couple of potholes, and that's about all there is to it. So I'm not quite sure what the problem is, but my excellent sleuthing skills have caused me to deduce that the global moronification has something to do with a lack of parking. (FYI, I'm pretty much a genius at figuring out what other people's problems are.)

I've often thought about posting about the ridiculous driving and parking behavior on Bonifant, but poor driving is so common here that it really didn't seem worth it.

Until, Edward Banya decided to take the problems on Bonifant into his own hands. His own civilly disobedient, hand tool wielding hands.

Apparently, Banya grew tired of waiting for someone to pull out of their parking space. So he got out of his car and proceeded to help them out by stabbing them repeatedly with a screwdriver in the hand and torso. (No word on if the screwdriver was a Phillips or Flathead). The other driver wasn't seriously injured, but that didn't stop the ENTIRE Silver Spring Police force from coming and closing the street down for four hours. [When I walked by 2 hours after the incident, there were still 10 police cars and a whole lotta standing around. Of course I rushed home to write out a big fat tax check to support their efforts.]

Now, I don't want to be seen as condoning violence. That's not me at all. In a Fight or Flight scenario all you're going to be seeing of me is my receding silhouette running away from you as fast as I can. But some part of me is giving Banya a high five. Who among us hasn't wanted to throttle an idiot driver? I certainly have. And parkers on Bonifant Street have achieved an extra special level of DUMB.

Frankly, something had to be done about it. I'm not really sure it needed to involve hand tools. But perhaps it did.

Perhaps it did.

Still Scratching My Head

Waiting patiently for the bus this morning, the oddest thing happened.

A homeless guy strutted up to the trash can on the corner, and very deliberately placed a baby's bottle full of what I could only assume was pee on the top of the trash can.

Not in it. On top of it. As if he were placing it on the mantle next to his Emmys.

Brimming with pride he turned on a dime, and without a word strutted right back across the street. It was obvious he'd just one-upped someone, somewhere. I could almost hear him thinking, "Awwww YEAH! Take that you summana bitches! I'll SEE your bag of poo, and raise you a baby bottle full of pee. That's right. A baby bottle. FULL. of. PEE! Yeaaaaaah- Boyeeeee!"

Incidents like this remind me how much I love my neighborhood. What? Move and leave all this? Not in a million.

PotterPalooza!

Tonight the Borders down the street from me hosted the second largest (after Borders in NYC) Harry Potter All Hallows Ball. Unable to resist a festival, I grabbed a sugarquill, a fresh roll of parchment, and went down to see the madness for myself.

Borders magically transformed itself into Flourish & Blotts by hanging a bedsheet above the door with the words "Florish & Blotts" painted on it. (If it's that easy, I'm hanging a bedsheet above my door that says "Buckingham Palace"). Perhaps the magic is in the stunning lavender "red" carpet leading into the store. Presumably all of this purple pomp is for the Wizarding Dignitaries that would be arriving to attend the All Hallows Ball. Folks like Merlin, and you know, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (pretty sure her schedule is wide open).

Other transformations were Ben & Jerry's into Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, McGinty's Pub into The Leaky Cauldron, and Marimekko into Madam Malkins Robes for All Occasions. Whole Foods was on hand distributing Butterbeer, which this young pirate(?) declared, "Not very good."


I took his word for it, and didn't wait in line. But I was still curious so I butt in to take a picture. You know, for journalistic purposes.


A little way down the street, the Ball was in full swing with this songster and his young Harry Helper who was rockin the jingle bells.


The street was crawling with Witches, Wizards, Muggles, Dumbledores, wand and glow stick distributors, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Nameds. Here are but a few:





To look at these guys, you'd never guess that there were hundreds of people in capes parading by them all night. They are just that cool.


I'll be getting my book next week, and will probably fall off of the face of the planet for the few days it will take me to read it. We'll all discuss it then.

People Wonder Why I Don't Entertain More

Since moving into my building almost three years ago I've seen some crazy things. I really, really like my apartment. Its got a great view, is fairly spacious, and since utilities are included in my rent I feel free to take ridiculously long showers and fall asleep with my light on. So I deal with the healthy portion of crazy that I'm liable to encounter once I go out of my front door. And, believe me, there's a whole lotta crazy going on out there. But crazy as my neighbors may be, I've never seen quite as much near-nudity as I've seen this week. I chalk it up to the opening of our pool. Or maybe the steamy heat is to blame. I'm not sure.

Join me on a single elevator ride that's destined to go down in the annals of You Think I'm Lying, But I Swear on Britney Spears' Shaved Head That This is All True. (oh why does my elevator attract such horrible behavior?):

• Waiting for the elevator with a fellow in dirty white belly shirt and severely sagged white basketball shorts, resulting in a full view of not very clean tightey whiteys. I don't want to say "racing stripes" out loud ... but well ... yeah.
  
• When it arrived the doors opened to reveal a guy zipping up his pants. I was glad that I hadn't been in the elevator while they were unzipped. But it certainly didn't make me feel very good about getting in after him.
• Stopping at pool level we picked up a guy going back up to his apartment after swimming. Unfortunately he was using a pair of cut-offs as a swimming suit, and they sagged a liiiiiitle too low for decency.
• Finally exiting the elevator on the 16th floor I see my heavy-set Latino neighbor taking his trash to the trash chute in only a tee-shirt and briefs.
• At this point my eyes had been assaulted to such an extent that they spontaneously combusted, and I fumbled down the hall crying and swearing to forgo the elevator from now on. If I ever need to leave my island of sanity again I'll just repel down the side of the building instead. Much safer that way.

Don't get me wrong, I think my neighbors are pretty nice. Sure, they're crazy exhibitionists, but at least they are NICE crazy exhibitionists. I should look at this as a perk. There are clubs in Northeast DC where ladies are spending hard earned dollars on this kind of thing. Here, it's all part of the service: 1 BR, spacious, great view, utilities and peep shows included. Apply today!