Fireworks... finally

My belated (thanks to some computer issues) video montage of Boston's July 4th fireworks spectacular. I was lucky enough to have seen them from high up in the Hancock Building.





(Sorry for the crappy video quality.. compression and all...)

Parking rules n' regs

In my apartment's parking lot, everyone who has a car has their assigned spot. And guests aren't really supposed to park in the lot. (We have more parking spots than cars, so people's vehicles tend to be scattered in a non-uniform manner, leaving us with a few extra spaces near the back fence.) But when they park in someone's spot, and that person comes home, the accepted protocol is to honk your horn as loud and as long as possible. Even if it's the middle of the night.

So it's not a surprise that I drew a crowd with my loud honking after my annoying commute home after a long day of work. People hung out on porches and stared. Eventually some nice ladies from one of the neighboring buildings started ringing doorbells of the building that the offender was most likely visiting - nice to know that neighbors still help each other out.

Turns out that the offending visitor belonged to the asshole downstairs. Who was on his porch sans shirt while his fat belly hanging over his shorts, watching me honk and honk and honk and honk.

(Yes, I realize what I said yesterday. But I'm getting to the point where I don't know how much longer I can live around them anymore (and from what I understand, I'm not the only one who feels this way).)

Busy night skies

What's with all of the helicopters buzzing around my house tonight? One of them was even close enough for me to see that it was blue and white. (Life Flight? One of the local TV stations?)

Reflections on violence II

Every time a siren can be heard I see my neighbors outside looking around more, instead of ignoring them like we usually* do. There are more parents outside with kids, gripping their hands as the sirens blare. Their body language indicates that they're wondering if something violent has occurred even closer to home.


*We live in proximity of a police station, so sirens aren't terribly unusual.

Reflections on violence

What a wonderful thing to come back to after a trip to NY to visit the family - there was a shooting near my house on Monday.

In a park that I often drive or walk by. A park that tends to be filled with children – on the playground, playing baseball, shooting hoops, etc.

I realize that I live in a city and that shit happens.

But it just seems kind of ballsy and brazen to shoot someone during the daytime in a park filled with people. JP isn’t perfect, but the areas between the Green Street and Stony Brook T stops tends to be a quieter, feel a little safer… until Monday.

Winter wonderland in JP

Well, I'm definitely awake now

Sometime around 7:35am I stepped out of the shower and heard a horrible CRASH!!! followed by a dozen car alarms going off - I thought a tree had fallen in the parking lot. Then came the deluge. I had no idea it was even raining out. (Of course I'd been awake all of 7 minutes.)

I had to scramble around (in a towel, no less) and close all the windows that were open because my thermostat is on steroids. Roommate2.0 had already left for work, and I was running late, so you can imagine how frantic I was.

Rooommate2.0's window sill, wall, and dormant AC unit were soaking, so I was forced to shut the window and lay down a towel. My bedroom window had a small window fan in it (on HIGH, to help circulate cool air into the house), which was now dripping wet while still plugged in to the outlet. Electrocution is not cool, but I managed to shut it off and unplug it without zapping myself. Then I had to set on the edge of the bathtub to drip dry.

I made it (safely) to work in the 'burbs where a nearby parking lot had morphed into a little lake.

Flashing lights

Can anyone explain the line of cars parked on the shoulder of West Roxbury Parkway (right past the golf course in Brookline) with their hazard lights blinking? There didn't seem to be anyone actually sitting in the cars in question.

The neighborhood superstar

Should I be pissed that one of my teenage neighbors and his friends think they're rap stars or DJ's or something and like to let everyone in the apartment complex know by hanging out on a porch playing music so loud that I heard it over my vacuum cleaner? Or should I just be happy that he's not out dealing drugs, underage drinking, or something like that?

I fear that I'm beginning to sound like a crotchety old person at age 28, but when I come home from a long day at work I don't wish to hear someone rehearse for their American Idol audition. (Especially when I'm probably being way kinder about their lack of talents than Simon Cowell would be.)

Nature's dandruff?

Arborway rotary

Snow piled up on Arborway over Washington St.

Arnold Arboretum

Plant icicles outside of office building

MBTA appears confused

The MBTA seems to have some (outdated) Orange Line cars that still show the Green E Line going to Arborway. That must confuse the hell out of the tourists and new students.

Not so neighborly

I think one of the neighbors is watching porn and it's REALLY LOUD. That's the only thing that could explain the moaning with bad music in the background.

Since when is the allure of pornography the way it sounds?


And while I'm venting, someone needs to tell the kids in this building that the hallways and staircases are not a playground. And being indoors means using your indoor voices. (Writing that last sentence made me feel way older than I actually am.)

Urban Pets: Man vs. Mouse

Saturday, July 21, 2007. Not your typical night in the Slacker household.

Roommate2.0* has been sealing off holes, openings of any kind really, in the kitchen, as we lose battle after battle in the war against the mouse. The thing is making us feel like we're in a f----ing cartoon. We patch an entry point, it finds another. We set out trap after trap. It prances right over the them. Arrogant little bastard.

Roommate2.0 thought he'd finally isolated all points of access, when we began to hear noises coming from... the oven. As I type, Roommate2.0 is dismantling the top of the stove, looking for access points beneath the range cover. See, when he turned on the oven, the mouse poked its nose out of an area next to one of the burners, taunting him. It's as if the thing was daring him to turn the gas burners on.

I think it has just become his archenemy.

As grossed out as I am by the thought of Roommate2.0 playing rodent executioner with the weapon of choice being one of our appliances, I am more grossed out seeing that disease-bearing critter in my kitchen. Not basement, not garage. Kitchen. I'm tired of obsessively cleaning and bleaching the counter because the mouse might have scampered across it while we were at work, dragging germs and who knows what else across the surface where we prepare sustenance for our tired, stressed out selves every night.

I'm sure what I've typed here will offend some people. I can live with that. I invite them to come over and catch the darn thing and bring it home to live in their kitchen.


*previous Roommate (Roommate1.0?) bought a condo in Lynn

Urban pets: The raccoon contingent

Picture it, Jamaica Plain, 2007, in a slightly post-gentrification apartment complex. Children are playing, adults sitting on their porches, and three to four raccoons are chowing down on some cat food.

Yes, that's right, raccoons. Big, fat city raccoons indeed. There they were, sating themselves with the cat food that a neighbor leaves out for our cadre of kitties*, unafraid of the nearby parking lot basketball game or cars maneuvering around the asphalt.




*the best fed stray cats in Boston

Brookline police confront divine problem

Police confronting a man outside the Trader Joe's in Brookline (parking lot side) on Sunday afternoon. Seems his signs and loud praising of Jesus was weirding out the customers. The customers complained to the staff, who in turn called the authorities.




I'm all for religious freedom, but this guy did seem a little pushy (from the part I witnessed anyway).



I realize the angle of the photos is kind of odd, but the presence of police officers kept me from getting any pictures of they guy's signs ("Praise Jesus" and etc...), as well as his manner of dress (black cassock-like thing, HUGE cross around his neck).