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Dishwasher
There's a kid over there in the front room of Dumaine playing one of those first person shooter games on that COMPAQ computer that onced vexed me day after day, crashing repeatedly until I just gave up and took it as a loss, writing it off as Compaq rubbish with a flaky FEDERAL warranty. The next year Compaq suffered huge losses, FEDERAL was being sued, and the store where I bought the computer went into bankruptcy and shut down, and I had by then received a 300 dollar replacement system from an online auction that has worked like a charm for a couple years now. So I felt pretty well vindicated.
I'm not even sure of names as this point, some of this new bunch I don't really know that well and the energy involved to start from scratch explaining why I want the front door closed when the AC is on, etc., blah, blah, and I'm only here for a few hours today and I want everyone to chill (no volume on games, no loud talking, let me rest).
At one point a loud kid said to a less loud kid, "stop that cussing..." something something...,"Mr. Jim." And I glanced over, heavy lidded, and glassy-eyed to tell the truth, thinking I don't care if you cuss if you can do it quietly. And the glass picture in front of the less loud kid explodes with blood which then drips down the inside of the screen, game over.
I saw the kitten creep from under the dance hall three days ago, briefly. Shelton, I haven't seen at all for weeks now, and wonder what is up with him. It is as if they--Shelton and that kitten--are living by the survivalist credo of the ground soldier--limit your exposure.
Took in the French Quarter Fest for a few hours Friday nite, had two Bloody Marys, rice and greens with chicken livers sauteed in sweet hot pepper sauce, and a bump on the one hitter which got me thinking about how far I was from the car and how derivative the music currently was and since I had earlier been wowed by local jazz virtuoso, Irvin Mayfield, I left out of there and drove off to the suburbs where I bought some discount t-shirts and mosquito repellant at the Walmart. It takes a lot of courage to leave the house sometimes because the number of cultures through which one can travel around here can be dizzying.
I think I had a pretty good buzz on laying down last night at Rocheblave with a cool breeze blowing across my mosquito repellant skin, some classical music on the radio, and a bit of confidence about the next morning's task which was to start building a small side deck (or landing), with stairs descending down the left and right side. I'd been studying this one on a DIY building site on the Web, so unlike so many of the tasks I have attempted for the first time, this one I had a little schooling about, which judging by today's apparent lack of mistakes, has proven useful.
And then I tried to follow the guy who had just stolen my neighbor's dishwasher and was pushing it on a handcart down the middle of the street, but by the time I put my shoes on and got in the car he had utterly disappeared. I headed off to Dumaine to make that call which was going to make a long night (the police don't respond to calls like they did in the hey day of reformation a few years past), and see a couple of cops parked at the local grocery. One is engaged with a teenager in a fancy car who is playing a new CD the cop really likes. The other is getting ready to make a pay phone call and this one I ask to speak to after he is finished. Several minutes later me and him head off to the crime scene, from which he soon departs, saying, "I may know who this is." I go in and lay down, contemplating the warm dregs of a sixteen ounce budweiser beside me.
About twenty minutes later the cop honks so I go out and see he has a creep in his back seat but it turns out it's just some kid he caught in his net while looking for the thief. He's gotta take the kid to lockup so he can't really help me anymore and has no suggestions for what to do about the neighbor's wide open door behind the locked security gate. I go back to bed and am up every hour throughout the night to spy greater thievery. Sometime before dawn the door had been shut, possibly by wind.
Saturday afternoon the homeowner was very upset when she heard my words of greeting and disclosure and interrupted my stream of verbal conciousness, which I had prefaced by saying--'"just let me get rid of this whole story (which I had been holding for her for fourteen hours)," by suggesting better ways I could have dealt with the situation. She wanted me to just scare the thief away with the old "I've called the cops" routine but with all due respect to that nifty idea, I'm thinking after all the neighborhood breakins recently (my house spared, but is someone over there right now?) I want a little good old fashioned vengeance, that is, someone in jail for the grievous disrespect that has lately been shown to my most immediate neighbors, five in all. So that's why I followed the guy, unsuccessfully.
I finally met her husband though, nice guy; like her, a sculptor, and before he tried to steal away from my verbal bombast I made him give me the phone number where they staying. Because I'm taking her advice for next time, goddamn right I'll call and lay it on you, "scared 'em, TV's in the middle of the street, later." The cop by the way had no problem whatsoever with my attempt to find the thief's hideout, nor did he seem to think anything was out of order with my illegal lodging at Rocheblave.
Sunday I have completed a four by five foot landing, three feet off the ground, no stairs or railing yet. I had some beers and whatnot to celebrate.