This weekend we have a couple of fun things going on. First up is a show at Smith College with Bob McGrath and one of my favorite kids in the whole world – Maddy. Despite the fact that her mother is pumped about the idea of her daughter getting to perform in a show with Bob from Sesame Street, Maddy was not quite so psyched as of a couple of weeks ago. Her mom thinks it’s because she has to dress up in a not-so-flattering duck suit (if I am remembering this correctly). And Maddy confided in me that she hopes none of her schoolmates will be in the audience. I’m sure the opportunity to be on such a big stage in front of a big audience will turn her around. She’s quite the showperson.
Sunday is the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Holyoke – arguably the city’s biggest day of the year. The weather is supposed to be real nice and it’ll be a great photo subject. Plus, we’ll have Pat’s dog with us. How nice to be a dog owner for a day!
On Sunday, I spent a couple of hours with some other residents picking up trash in the city as part of earth day activities. It’s kind of a daunting task because there was so much more to do and it would take a month of Sundays to even make a dent in the problem. It felt good, though, minus the prickly thorns that jabbed at me and left scratches all over my arms. Those were a bitch. Afterwards I was inspired to do some raking and sweeping up of my property and pick up some trash near our corner. My tenant and her daughter were outside planting flowers at the same time, which was pleasant. We all get along quite well in our cute neighborhood. They put some of their potted plants up my side of the porch steps, which I found incredibly sweet.
A bit later on, they had gone inside and I was still sweeping, because I have a rather gargantuan sidewalk and live on a corner lot. I heard that familiar sound of plastic big wheel tires on pavement. I turned to see a small child riding a little plastic toy car that was even smaller than a big wheel, flying down our one-way street through an intersection — without stopping. The cross street is quite busy, and there are times when people fly through without obeying the stop sign. Also, this car was tiny and going incredibly fast, so it would have been easy for someone not to see it coming. This happened a few more times with a different kid on the little car each time. Then I heard my tenant around the corner chiding the children, but to no avail as a few minutes later the car came flying down the street again. My tenant came around the back to ask if I’d seen the kids. I talked about how I didn’t know what to do or if anything I would say would make a difference.
She walked back in the house and I saw the car gliding down the street towards the intersection again. I felt my mother rise up out of me as I walked to where the kids were standing to tell them to stop what they were doing right now. I was very angry and you could hear it in my voice. After I finished my spirited lecture, one of the kids said to the other, “Ok, don’t do it anymore,” and I walked away. There was a couple on the other side of the street working on their yardwork, too, and they had been watching the whole thing and hadn’t said a word, but watched as I explained how dangerous the intersection was to the kids. I could feel /see by their reaction (nodding heads) that they had agreed with me, but I was still upset that they, who were closer to the action, hadn’t said anything the first 3 or 4 times the kids came flying down the hill.
Later, Matt said that it could be a New England thing. People stay out of each other’s business. I’d like to think that I stay out of people’s business, but this kind of thing just bugs me on a human level. It doesn’t matter if they are your kids or not. You are allowed to yell at other people’s children when they are unsupervised and doing something quite dangerous. There is no law against human decency.
So I guess I’m that lady now….
Yesterday afternoon I caught the same kids darting out into traffic. I had to stop in the middle of the street so they could cross it.
It was recently pointed out that the house – perched on a corner with excellent visibility from the second floor – has a three-ward view of our city. This is a fact that I happily haven’t been able to get over.
I got my first rent check last week. It’s a strange feeling to look at a check of that size knowing that you’ll be getting one just like it every month (oh and then there is your other tenant who pays you later in the month so that check will be coming every month, too).
I seriously don’t know why more people I know don’t own multi-family homes. I mean, unless I start having tons of kids, this space up here on the second floor is plenty for me. I have to keep reminding myself that the hassles of being a landlord are yet to come. It may not always be like this. Still, I think I got a pretty sweet deal, what with some quiet, respecting tenants here already.
Is it sickening that I keep talking about this great house? I have to keep tabs on that.
I was banging around some blogs today and found a link (at Tommy Devine) to a hip hop video filmed in Holyoke. For Springfield dwellers, here’s a more humorous Springfield rap.
I was banging around some blogs today and found a link (at Tommy Devine) to a hip hop video filmed in Holyoke. For Springfield dwellers, here’s a more humorous Springfield rap.
A high-speed car chase woke me up from a deep sleep at around 12:50 a.m. According to a tv news report this morning, the chase started on 391 and ended when the person in the car that was being chased rammed into a fence on the corner of Hampshire and Oak Streets. The suspect, who escaped from the car and ran away, was later apprehended. What I saw from behind the glass of my front door were cop cars speeding by every minute and at one point I spied a cop on foot right across the street. I was somewhat frightened out of my mind, really. This is the most urban of areas I have lived in, so I’m not jaded yet. I think it may take a little while. Reacting to my fright after the excitement had died down, my partner-in-crime said accusingly, “And you wanted to live on [name of particularly unsafe] Street.”
Oh well, at least I’m not asking the gas station across the street to start selling $3 lattes.
this is what i have been doing to keep busy lately (in no specific order)
1. Friday’s Holyoke Giants game. Those games pretty much rule the universe, especially when the second-to-last place Giants play the last-place Lowell All-Americans and nearly lose, only to come back in the ninth and tenth innings. Yeah, so the Giants aren’t so good this year. Those games are still so much fun.
2. The Green River Festival. More north of route niners than you can shake a vegan potluck flier at. (what???) More on that here.
3. Planning vacation to the jersey shore. Hell yeah.
4. Getting a bobblehead in the mail (photos to follow at some point)
5. working a lot
6. walking around the neighborhood and loving it (all except for that night the jerk’s next door decided to have a loud party and keep me up past 3:00 a.m.
7. Getting two strange bug bites on my arms. Both were in almost
exactly the same spot. They were not mosquito bites. They are still
red, although the itching finally went away as of a few hours ago.
8. This afternoon I scrubbed my tub and now I am doing laundry.
So, I dusted off the bicycle, pumped up its tires and took it out for a spin again for the first time in, well, a couple of years. It’s not that I’ve been lazy, it’s just that my old apartment was at the top of a steep, heavily-traveled hill. So, it was always fun – though a bit nerve-wracking because it was somewhat narrow and cars could kind of creep up on you – to go downhill, but coming back was quite a different story. There were parts of the ‘hood that had some nice, relatively flat streets. The problem was that we were so close to the river that the neighborhood would just kind of end. The other problem was that most of the riverfront was residential or industrial so you couldn’t really enjoy it as the majestic natural landmark that it is. At least not while on your bike.
But this neighborhood. How to describe it? The street we live on now is similarly heavily traveled, perhaps more so, but beyond it, on the sidestreets, there are many wonders to behold. Take the first side street off our block and you enter a sweet quintessentially residential neighborhood. We’re talking well-cared-for houses of small to medium size, with nicely maintained lawns.
Cross our busy street and you have to go up a hill, but it’s more gradual than the old street, so I don’t mind as much. Here is where the houses are a little bit bigger, but still residential. On one corner there is the tiny mom and pop convenience store on the corner (haven’t gotten in there yet, but I will). There are a lot of multi-families, too. The most refreshing aspect, and one of the reasons I chose Holyoke, is the mixing of cultures on the streets. Many of the houses on one nearby street were passed down from generation to generation (I know this because I tried to buy a house on that street) so there are the old-timers, too.
Crossing the busy street to get to the Holyoke Giants game yesterday sealed the deal for me. Alone, I donned my red Giants hat. I made my way over and watched about seven innings of the Concord game before casually making my way back home. There is nothing better than the feeling that I’m only minutes away from a community of people who care about this city.
daily life, holiday, holyoke, photography, western mass | kristen March 29, 2008 | 
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