Still Got It

I arrived late at the hotel one night last week, and as I waited for the elevator, I made small talk with a fifty-something guy who was also waiting. He mentioned Dorney Park, which evoked fond memories.

"I remember that place!" I said happily. "You have reminded me of my long-lost youth!" We chatted for another minute until the elevator doors opened on the third floor and we both got off.

"So," he said, as we turned in opposite directions. "You have your own room, then?"

"Um, yes," I said, a bit startled, but also a bit awestruck because that sounded like it might have been a pick-up line. "And there are three kids in it."

"Heh-heh," he said, getting the message. "Have a nice night."

I told Mr. Peevie about this conversation later. "Do you think he was trying to pick me up?" I asked him.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Definitely."

"YES!" I Macauley Culkin-ed.

"I'm happy for you," Mr. Peevie said drily.

And he should be. I am a past-her-prime, overweight, mini-van driving softball mom with very few pick-up lines left in my future--so I will not pass up any chance I get to accept independent confirmation of my fading pulchritude.

Even if the pick-up line springs more from middle-aged lonely desperation than from any actual attractiveness on my part.

/ /

Gadget

Just a point of interest to my loyal readers--all four of you: Please note that I have added a subscription button to make it easier for you to keep up with The Green Room. My vice president of IT, Director J., helped me figure out how to add this functionality, and this blog thanks her.

I hope you will promptly sign up, and that you will ask all your friends to sign up--that is, if they are not overly sensitive about bodily functions and the occasional profanity. 

Before you know it, we will rule the world.

Nothing Ever Happens on My Block

Did you read this book in your erstwhile youth--Nothing Ever Happens on My Block? OMG. I LOVED that book. And then it sort of disappeared from my life, and I didn't think about it again until I had kids. In searching for information about the book, I came across this cute blog that highlights vintage children's books.

Meanwhile, in only-sort-of-unrelated news, The Crazy Lady on my block got taken away today by the entire police department and half the fire department of Chicago.

I was sitting on my couch, minding my own business, watching People's Court (I have a girl-crush on Marilyn Milian), when I noticed a squad car out in front of my next-door-neighbor's house. Not the neighbor with the jungle, the neighbor on the other side. So I peeked out the window from behind the sheers. There was not just one squad car, but three!

Two police officers were standing on the walk in front of The Crazy Lady's house--and BTW, I mean no disrespect to TCL, who suffers from schizophrenia or some other fairly serious mental illness--and as I peeped, another officer went tearing around the side of the house, down the gangway to the backyard.

Well, being the responsible homeowner that I am, I felt that it was exactly the right time to take out my trash. (I'm not proud of this impulse to gawk at another person's private demons being brought out into the light of day--but it's in me. I wasn't the only neighbor with this indecorous inclination. Other neighbors were not just peeking over back yard fences, but actually walking down the street to get a closer look.)

I went out the back door with my Hefty Bag, and as I crossed the deck, I could see two officers restraining TCL and trying to talk her into accompanying them to the squad car. She resisted them, hollering and flailing. Eventually, four officers carried her around the house and stuffed her as carefully as they could into the back of the squad car.

TCL was still yelling and flailing, and the officers called for back-up. Within minutes, three more police vehicles showed up, including a paddy wagon (are they still called that?) and an SUV. The officers unloaded TCL from the back of the squad car, and re-loaded her into the paddy wagon.

She was not pleased, and she started clawing at the wire mesh. I think she was starting to hurt herself, because within a few minutes the officers extracted her again, two of them peeling her fingers from the doors and two holding her legs to keep her from kicking. Once they got her extricated, they gently plopped her on the street, where she sat, hand- and ankle-cuffed, rocking and occasionally yelling at them not to touch her (they weren't) and that she needed to lock her doors. She was surrounded by officers, and once or twice she started butt-scootching along the pavement, but each time an officer stepped in front of her.

In a few minutes, the six police vehicles were joined by one more squad car, a fire truck, and an ambulance. The paramedics, wearing thick rubber gloves, loaded TCL onto a stretcher, covered her with blankets, strapped her in, and wheeled her off.

TCL has been dealing with obvious mental illness since before we moved into the neighborhood, but she has also had periods of calmness and lucidity. Lately, however, her crazy had been escalating to the point where she was making threats to neighbors and generally acting in a threatening, unpredictable way. She tried to run over one neighbor with her car recently, and she has thrown rocks at children.

Last week when A. Peevie and M. Peevie were playing in the backyard, I went out to check on them. "Mom," A. Peevie said, "That lady is saying B-I-T-C-H over and over again. Really loud." He couldn't even bring himself to say the word in reporting it to me.

M. Peevie came over and told me the same story, and we had a little object lesson in mental illness. "She can't help it," I told them. "There's something in her brain that makes her act that way." I told them that if they felt uncomfortable, or if she directed any of her scary talk directly at them, they should come in the house for awhile.

So the neighbors reluctantly went to court yesterday, and hours later the entire fleet of emergency response vehicles showed up. TCL is currently being held for observation somewhere. It's all very sad and disturbing. The neighbors didn't want to make police reports or go to court to have TCL picked up; but they felt it was the responsible thing to do. Mental illness is absolutely horrifying, and I truly feel compassion for TCL and her husband.

But nothing ever happens on my block.

Urban Jungle

This is what my next-door neighbor's yard looks like.


This is the view from my deck. It's an urban jungle. The weeds covering the backyard are literally six feet tall. See the grape vines that seem to be covering a building? They are. They completely blanket the coach house and have crept over the fence and started making themselves at home on my garage. They are tightwalking across the phone wires from the coach house to the main house.

God only knows what animals are moving into his yard and building condos and having babies. Raccoons, possums, rats, squirrels, bears, lemurs, meerkats?

The owner used to live in the coach house and rent out the house that's attached to the deck on the right side of the photo; but both have been vacant for about two months. He made it impossible for the tenants to continue to live there. I heard both sides of the story, as well as the prior tenants' similar story; and I'm inclined to believe the tenants.

Their side: he didn't pay the water bill, and their water got shut off. Twice. (I know this is true because they asked to use my shower. It also happened to the prior tenants.) They paid his past-due water bills in order to get the water turned back on.

His side: He always told me what terrible tenants they were, but never gave me specifics. After they moved out, he told me he had to spend $3,000 to repair walls and doors and other things. They "trashed the place," he said. (I was in the home many times while they lived there, and every time the home was spotlessly clean and neat, with no visible damage anywhere.)

Anyway, back to the back yard. So I saw him--or rather, I heard him moving around behind the wall of grape leaves on his tiny coach house deck.

"Hey, JungleDude," I called through the vines. "Is that you?"

He popped his head through the labyrinth. "Hey, E. Peevie!" he said cheerfully. "Long time no see!"

"Yeah, Dude," I said. "What are you going to do about that jungle?" He assured me that he had a guy coming in at any moment to give him a quote on hacking down the nature preserve and doing regular maintenance. And, he said, he had a prospective renter coming by to look at the house.

"She's a teacher at the high school," he said. "And she's Caucasian!" he added happily.

I looked at him. I blinked.

"Whut?" he said defensively, "I'm allowed to like my own kind!" Then he non sequitured, "I like myself! I'm allowed to like myself."

I looked at him. I blinked.

"Hey, my best friend is Mexican!" he said. "But I'm also allowed to be happy to get a white renter."

"Well," I said, irritated. "It doesn't matter to me whether your renter is white or not."

"It's starting to matter to me," he said, officially breaking the law. "I'm just sayin'."

"Look," I should have said, but in the interests of keeping things neighborly, I didn't, "shut your racist trap about your Caucasian renter, and just get somebody out here to get this jungle under control!"

I find it ironic that he has no qualms about putting his offensive opinions about racial preferences and prejudices out there, and neither does he make any apologies for keeping his property in a nasty, unrentable condition. Like, he's so much better than those non-white people--but meanwhile, I'm living next door to an abandoned property.

If he's going to discriminate, shouldn't he at least make an attempt, at least superficially, to appear to be a better neighbor than the people that he's trying to keep out? I suppose perhaps his brain is so clogged up with rationalizing and other-bashing that he doesn't have the mental energy to appreciate the irony.

But I do. I appreciate irony. And for that, JungleDude, I thank you.

Jury Duty Drama

Jury duty has been filled with drama--just like on Law and Order!

Every day there is crying, yelling, confronting, accusing, and lots of objecting, sustaining and over-ruling. I can't wait to give you all the specific details--in fact, it's killing me to be discreet.

But I can tell you this much: It's a wrongful death civil lawsuit. When the MIL of the deceased looked at a photo of her daughter and her dead SIL, she wept. She wept again when she told how she heard about the accident.

The lawyers object all over each other. "Will you let me finish my question?!" the attorney for the plaintiff hollered recently, when opposing counsel objected prematurely. They are constantly objecting, and I am learning all the acceptable reasons for objections: lack of foundation, asked and answered, argumentative, no basis for impeachment, beyond the scope, calls for speculation, hearsay, form the question, and leading. I think we've heard them all.

"Let him finish his question," the judge said mildly. He finished the question; opposing counsel reiterated his objection, and the judge immediately and hilariously sustained.

"Your honor, can you instruct the jury to disregard the highly inflammatory line of questioning from the plaintiff's counsel?" said defense.

"Disregard the last sentence," instructed the judge. "I'm not saying it's inflammatory; just disregard it."

The attorneys demanded sidebar after sidebar, to shut down a particular line of questioning; to decide whether a witness is being fairly represented; to debate a point of evidence. Sometimes we can hear them yelling in the judge's chambers while we sit in awkward silence in the jury box, with the witness still on the stand and the plaintiff listening from his side of the courtroom.

We have even heard testimony from beyond the grave. A man who had been directly involved in the accidental death had given a sworn deposition a few months before his own death. The plaintiff's attorney had hired an actor to read the witness' answers from his deposition, while the attorneys read their own questions. It was a little strange and creepy.

The last witness for the plaintiff was the plaintiff herself, the widow of the allegedly wrongfully dead guy. At times during her testimony, there were tears rolling down the face of the juror sitting in front of me, and I don't think she was alone. Sympathy won't win their case--but it sure doesn't hurt.

When the widow was asked to read from page 86 of deposition testimony, we waited and waited while she looked for the page in question. Finally, confused, she handed the document to the judge. "It's not there," she told him.

The judge took the document and paged through to the end, and held the document up in the air toward the attorney. "This document ends at page 63!" he said. There were audible snorts from the jurors--who are theoretically supposed to suppress their emotions and reactions.

The first witness for the defense was an expert who essentially testified that [large company] could not have done anything different in order to prevent the accident. The plaintiff's attorney, IMHO, ripped his testimony apart. If the guy had a tail, it would have been between his legs as he stepped down from the stand.

Of course, it ain't over 'til it's over. After four full days of plaintiff-side witnesses, we've only heard one witness for the defense. The other jurors and I are guarding our objectivity fiercely until the last syllable of testimony has been uttered and the last molecule of evidence has been presented.

Because we are the Best. Jury. Ever.

Update, Plus South Dakota Tales

Mr. Peevie asked me to point you to the update at the bottom of this post.

And I thought I'd also take this opportunity to show you a few photos from my trip to South Dakota. Here are the five kids atop a smallish Badlands formation (l-r: A. Peevie, Samwise, C. Peevie, M. Peevie, and E-Dude):


And here is my beauteous angel, M. Peevie, totally owning the Badlands:


Here's how A. Peevie spent approximately 50 percent of his time in the car. I don't know if you can tell or not, but that's Manny the Manatee in his lap. It's probably the first time a manatee, stuffed or otherwise, has been within 1000 miles of the Badlands.


I wish I had a photo of the Wagon Wheel Bar, in Interior, South Dakota, population 67 according to the sign at the edge of "town." We went there for "dinner" on our first day in the Badlands. To get there, you drive into town on Highway 77, and turn right at the gas station/"mini-mart." You'll know you're headed in the right direction because the sign on the corner points toward the "Business District." Pass the town jail (photo credit: Murrax on Wikipedia), which Dr. Paradigm Shift insists is not currently used as such because "the ACLU would be all over it," but which I think is totally where they throw the obnoxious drunk guy on Saturday night.

Anyway, as we walked into the Wagon Wheel, our feet stuck to the tacky floor and the smell of cigarette smoke immediately saturated our hair and clothing. But we were starving, and the bartender/waitress was smiling and helpful, so we ordered burgers and chicken fingers and home-made pizza, and beer for the grown-ups, and sat down at two small, slightly sticky tables.

The kids asked for money for the jukebox and started playing Johnny Cash songs, plus a little U2, Bon Jovi, and Toby Keith. There were no Killers songs on the playlist, unfortunately, or I'm sure we would have heard Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf, which is absurdly inappropriate for an 8-year-old to sing along with, or perhaps Human.

Anyway, while we ate, a cowboy walked into the bar, followed by his large dog. The dog walked up to us, smelled us, and then strolled over to his water dish and got a drink. Apparently, he's a regular.

Then, a bunch of Native American pool players stopped by the bar for their evening sport. They were wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots, and flannel shirts with the sleeves cut off. They sat around the table talking and laughing and sipping chardonnay from long-stem wine glasses. No lie. It seemed a bit incongruous, but maybe that's just me.

It's Killing Me

It's killing me.

Right before my birthday I went out of town to visit my family in PA, leaving Mr. Peevie in charge of kids, school, homework, baseball, ballet, laundry, meals, and birthday parties, plus his regular day job which actually pays the bills. He had a lot on his plate, and so I said to him, with unprecedented maturity and consideration, "Honey, don't worry about my birthday. I know you'll be handling a lot of things while I'm gone, and I don't want my birthday to add to your stress."

I'd love to get a present, of course (I told him), but it can wait until you're less stressed.

Apparently, he's still stressed, because: no present yet. Three weeks later. It's killing me.

I know that I am the most materialistic, shallow person on the planet, and I'm not proud of it. But a gift, to me, is love. It doesn't have to be big; it doesn't have to be expensive. It just has to be TIVO.

Oh, I'm just kidding. I can be happy with something other than TIVO.

I did ask him once, maybe twice, in the last two weeks or so if he thought I might be getting a birthday present. He said yes. He knows me well enough after 25 years of virtually unmitigated marital bliss to not kid about such a thing.

Virtually unmitigated. One time, early in our marriage, Mr. P came home from work carrying a mysterious package. "Ooo," I said, "What's that?" "I bought you a present," he said cheerfully, handing it to me. I was excited to open it, as I always am when I receive a gift. It was an album of music by an artist that I had never heard of in a genre that I didn't particularly enjoy. My balloon of happiness deflated rapidly, and I not-very-graciously said, "Oh. Thanks."

Mr. Peevie didn't notice. He opened the album and headed to the turn-table. (I do realize that my younger readers will have to get out their History of Electronics textbooks to understand some of my archaic terminology.) "I've been wanting this for awhile," he said.

"Really," I said. "Well, then, why did you say it was a present for me?"

"Um, because I thought you might enjoy it too?" he said, with the beginnings of fear in his voice.

"Let's take this opportunity to reach an understanding here," I said. "I love gifts. When you say to me, 'I brought you a present,' I feel happy and loved because you spent time thinking about me and about what I would enjoy." I paused for soulful effect.

"But when you give me a gift which is really a gift for you," I continued, "I feel cheated and tricked instead of loved." I know what you're thinking: boy, is this woman high-maintenance. And perhaps I am.

OK, there's no 'perhaps' about it. I will own that I am, indeed, high-maintenance. But I would argue that in this case, I was being the opposite of high-maintenance. I was communicating clearly and honestly, and asking merely for gift-giving integrity, which, if I recall correctly, was included in our vows, right after "love, honor and obey."

OK, slash that. There was no 'obey' in our vows. But I'm sure gift-giving integrity was in there, in spirit if not in so many words.

I said, hey, Mr. Peevie, it is perfectly appropriate for you to buy yourself some music! If you had come home and said, hey, look, I bought myself a CD, isn't it great!, I would have been happy for you, I said, and not at all disappointed for myself. Where he went wrong was in saying, for some inexplicable reason, that it was a gift for me.

Mr. Peevie is a very quick learner. He never made the same mistake again; and in fact, over the years has become the master gift-giver. He understands me and loves me, and I can tell that it gives him pleasure to show me love by giving me gifts. He puts himself into the gifts he gives, and I adore being on the receiving end of that.

Which is why this situation--no birthday gift--Is. Killing. Me.

It's killing me not to ask about it. It's killing me, wondering if maybe he forgot.

Doesn't he love me anymore?

Why can't I just let it go?

Have you ever known anyone so shamelessly shallow?

UPDATE: Mr. Peevie came through. When I returned from the Badlands, there on the dining room table were two wrapped gifts: a Jason Mraz CD, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, including my new favorite song, Lucky; and a large, very promising wrapped box containing a Williams-Sonoma pizza pan and cookie sheet. He loves me, he really loves me!

Resign, Already

Scandal and speculation continue to roil the Illinois political scene in the wake of Governor Blagojevich's arrest and the release of a 76-page affidavit detailing shocking charges of blatant corruption.

The last line of the 12-page Department of Justice press release announcing the arrest reminds us that "The defendants are presumed innocent and are entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Good luck finding 12 people in Illinois who can meet that requirement.

The top issue of concern for our state at this moment is the filling of the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama on November 16. Technically, the governor is still the governor, and still has the power to appoint someone to fill that seat. He would not try to pull that fast one, would he? I don't know; if he really is a sociopath like some people say, then he'd be able to rationalize anything.

Yesterday, Jesse Jackson Jr. adamantly denied any knowledge of Blagojevich's "pay to play" shenanigans. He wanted--and still wants--the Senate job, he says; but he didn't pursue it in an unethical way.

I can't find a transcript of Jackson's speech yesterday--but I think I heard him say that if Blago offered him the appointment even now, he would take it. I could be wrong. I hope I am--because no one, not even Mother Teresa, should accept an appointment from our disgraced governor at this point. Well, she wasn't an Illinois resident, and she's dead, but even if she were, and wasn't, she shouldn't. If you know what I mean.

(Make your voice heard about the next Illinois senator by voting in the poll to the right!)

"At the end of the day, the top priority for our office is to serve the people," the governor said yesterday. The best way for Governor Blago to serve the people of Illinois is to resign. He should fight the charges if he wants, and continue to maintain his innocence--but his resignation would allow our state to move forward. Even if we lived on the Planet Oh Yeah, Sure and he were innocent, he could not possibly argue that it is in the best interest of the State of Illinois for him to remain as governor with all of this scandal and suspicion swirling around him.

Here, I'll even write his resignation statement for him:

I am not a crook. I did not break the law. I did not compromise the integrity of the process of appointing a Senator. The charges are based on parts of conversations taken out of context. I am committed to the well-being and welfare of this great State, and I would never put self-interest ahead of the public good.

However, in order to allow our state government to function as effectively as possible in these economically challenging times, and in order to restore the people's confidence in the government and leadership of this state, I am stepping down from the office of governor. This is in no way an admission of guilt, but rather a clear indication that I am willing to set aside my own self-interest for the public good.

Yeah, I don't think it's going to happen, either.

Oh, and BTW, a lot of folks are getting hot about all the F-bombs the governor dropped in those taped conversations. That doesn't bother me. Sometimes you just gotta blow off some steam in the privacy of your own home, away from the kids, by tossing off a few "swears", as my kids call them. I totally get that.

But the content of those taped conversations? I'd say the governor has got a lot of 'splainin' to do.

Help Me Win!

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