trouble

There seems to be trouble on my blogspot. I keep sending stuff here that never appears.
A woman down the street was knifed in the stomach Friday night. This is the second time that woman has been attacked by a man wearing a hoodie and a mask, in the middle of the night. She's in the hospital. It seems that her son was dealing drugs out of her house and did some people really bad, so the suspect is one of them, wreaking vengeance on the mother since her son is long gone to another location. It's scary, but he attacks only her. They know who it is, but can't prove it, and by the time the sheriff gets here, he is, of course, gone. We don't need any more bad publicity, and Channel 6 seems to have it in for us. We're now really known as slums. They never show the wonderful places like where I live, but keep coming here and filming and showing all the garbage left by people who had to move because their houses were foreclosed on. The bankrupt landlords won't clean it up, and certainly the former residents won't--so there it sits, in all its glory, and Channel 6 in Marquette is very glad to come out and film it and show it to the public. The landlords bought the properties for a song ($15,000 for a duplex, for example), rented to anybody without a background or credit check, and just never maintained the properties, and thus got into foreclosure. One of the landlords owns two restaurants in Marquette, and it would seem that somehow that could be attached to pay for the cleanup. It's a real problem, and I hate being called a slum resident, because my landlords (the Ste. St. Marie Chippewa Indian Tribe) are very particular about whom they rent to, and take very good care of their properties. Channel 6 never shows that!

Muthah

Vocabulary--Theirs and Ours

I have decided that the thing that separates the generations is vocabulary. Marty and I were talking the other day, and he said that his step daughter and husband and their 13-year-old twin boys played a lot of "Catch Phrase" while they were here from New Mexico. He was astounded at what even the parents didn't know. Kids, especially, are amazed at those round black things that go round and round and make music. Now it's all IPods--and I don't know what that is.

Kids look on us mature (translate old) people as really dumb. It's hard to build communications with them because they stare blankly at us and don't understand what we're saying--and their vocabularies (if you want to call it that) change weekly. For 35 years my husband was a high school teacher, so I was pretty "hip" about what kids were talking about, wearing, and what music they were listening to. Now I've been without that source of information for 14 years, and it's really difficult. It's too bad, because we have so much to share with each other. I suggested yesterday that we do some more inter generational activities. We meet at the Salvation Army Rec Center, where kids abound in the evening. Even if all we did is watch movies together or play a few games of Uno, maybe we could build some relationships. We need them, and they don't know it, but they need us.

Muthah

Young vandals and bad parenting

We have been having some vandalism here on the base. Twelve-year-old kids who wait until their parents are asleep, and create havoc from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. They have slashed an above-ground swimming pool, a trampoline, and attacked a woman down the street twice. We have very little police protection, and after 45 minutes when the sheriff got here, of course the kids were gone, and the sheriff asked the lady if she put the slashes on her arms herself. Wow! There is nothing we can do--everybody knows who they are, but the parents don't give a damn, and they have to be caught in the act. Clint, my fav maintenance man, says he's going to spend the night here sometime and "beat the shit out of them." He will do it.

We seem to have lost good parenting skills. For parents to look the other way when their kids are doing stuff like that means that the parents just don't care. I'd have gotten quite a licking if I'd ever done anything like that! But in this case, the parents should have to answer for the destruction. They probably don't have any money anyhow. Oh, well, school starts soon.

But there are good kids here. One little boy came to the door yesterday seeking donations so he could go to the Lutheran camp. He's obviously Indian and cute as can be, with ebony shining hair. I said, "Didn't I already give you money for camp?" He said that was for the Salvation Army Bible Camp, and this is for the Lutheran Bible Camp--back-to-back camps. I wrote his step-dad a check for $10, because he didn't know what to do with a check made out to him, and he thanked me profusely. I have a sign on my front porch which says, "Neighborhood Witch" and he thought that was very funny.

Come to the Fair

I know I've been neglecting things here. I've been having Physical Therapy three times a week for the past month, and it's really helping. This is my 3d go-round with PT clinics, and the first time I've gotten help. I told my trainer today I'm going to sign up for a marathon (not) next year.

I am so much better that Marty took me to the Marquette Co. Fair yesterday. I think it's the first county fair I've been to since McHenry Co., IL, when Andy was 15 and won the talent contest. I touched a cow for the first time in years--maybe 20--and they're so sweet, and so dumb. Reminded me of when I was 9 and got up at 5 a.m. to milk three cows and get ready for the school bus. It was so neat, putting my head against those warm flanks in the winter. I hated the farm when I was growing up, but I'm glad I grew up on one. We Americans are so far from our food supply that it's pathetic. My co-secretary at the church years ago couldn't find the spinach in the grocery store. It was loose in a bin, and she said, "Spinach comes in plastic bags." Yeah, it grows that way.

I got introduced to Blue Bottom hogs. Never saw one before, but there were plenty Poland China and Landrace, which we used to raise. Pigs are the smartest animals on the farm. They don't poop where they eat or sleep, and you can potty train a pygmy one. I don't think my landlord would approve of my getting a pygmy pig, though.

The horses stuck their heads out and nibbled on my walker handlebars.

I ate half of a wonderful spit-cooked chicken and discovered elephant ears. I had my walker with a seat, but only sat down three times in three hours. I ache today, but I really worked out at the PT clinic at 9 this morning.

I see that Karl Rove is resigning. Rats, one-by-one, deserting a sinking ship. Now if Bush and Cheney would resign before we get chance to impeach them.......Won't happen, but the talk is there.

Muthah