Jefferson City’s a Smokin’ Place . . . for Three More Days

I try not to spend too much time dwelling on the down side of life, but I hope you won’t mind me venting again, because this time I’m writing about the trouble I’ve had, well, venting.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were lovely, gorgeous spring days. Temps in the sixties and seventies, oh my! And gloriously sunny as well. The crocuses are blooming now, the snakey-snakes are out getting their first tastes of 2010 (I think for them it must taste a lot like box elder bugs!)—and our first few daffodils opened up.

Ahhhhhhhh, springtime! Hooray! It’s time to throw open the windows and breathe in some fresh air. And to air out the house in general. Get all that stale wintertime Nyquil-and-Kleenex air out of the house!

It just feels good to have fresh air on these warm days.

And the cats love to sit in the windows, sniffing the air with genuine excitement, keeping tabs on the birds as they sing and swoop from tree to tree and the squirrels as they fritz around in the yard.

But for each of those three days, our paradise was ruined by evil, permeating, acrid smoke. Because, believe it or not, the City of Jefferson still allows the burning of yard waste inside city limits. Yes.




By golly, you could live right next door to the Governor’s Mansion and light up a big ol’ pile and have that smoke drift over the whole area. Your smoky smoldering pile could contain sticks and leaves, poison ivy (if you're ignorant, and I don’t count on much intelligence in my particular neighborhood), bark, mulch, and (come on, you know it happens) other “miscellaneous items” that people will slip in there.

You know that outright trash, treated lumber, plastics, and whatever also ends up in many burn piles. And that means toxic fumes, smoldering all day. Including dioxin.

And so we had to shut the windows for all three days in a row. The first two days, there was a pile of yard waste that smoldered continuously over both days and during one entire night. It was an enormous pile.

Wednesday, another burn pile right along the Expressway smelled an awful lot like the house fire that occurred on the same block a few years ago. Which means it smelled horrible and acrid. It made my lungs want to shrivel up. I suspect that a lot more than just dried plant material ended up in that fire.

I was relieved Wednesday afternoon when the winds kicked up and ushered in a storm system overnight.

The local city council struggled with the yard-burning issue a few years ago, but enough burn-barrel-lovers raised such a “stink” that the council ending up striking a compromise, permitting yard-waste burning during late fall and winter, and forbidding it in spring and summer. Basically.

November 2 through March 15. It generally robs us of our last precious few warm days of the season, and it spoils the first beautiful days after the long winter.




I guess I should be amazed and happy that progress was made at all, so that now, opening burning is only permitted during part of the year that Persephone is trapped in the Underworld.

I mean, I’m genuinely impressed that Jeff City finally this year—2010!—implemented a curbside recycling program, despite the protests of those who see only problems with the idea. (“Small moves, Ellie. Small moves.”)

A friend of mine once told me, flat-out, that he strongly believes that the very best part of living in our civilization, at this moment in history, is the organized community trash pickup. “Think of it!” he urged. “You just take all your trash, set it out by the curb, and for a surprisingly low price, someone comes and just . . . hauls it away! You don’t even need to think about it anymore! You don’t ever see it again! It’s just . . . gone!”

The city of Columbia, just to the north, has curbside solid waste pickup, curbside recycling, and curbside yard waste pickup. It’s pretty impressive. Maybe someday Jeff City will look across the river far enough to see that citywide yard waste collection is actually possible and, like trash and recycling collection, makes for a better quality of life for everyone.

. . . Meanwhile, I feel like I was deprived of our first three gorgeous springtime days.

Sunshine: Keep It Coming, but Come On.

I think February is probably my least-favorite month around here. The “fun” parts of winter, like Christmas, New Year’s, and those lovely magical snowfalls, are long past, and what we’re left with is crumpled brown grass, brittle gray trees, grit and grime anywhere within view of a road, and yet still plenty of freezing weather. Nothing has greened up yet.

But it’s more than just these proto-springtime blues.

We had an ugly surprise last week. After we’d had snow, and it had melted some, then refroze, then started to melt again (repeat for days), we discovered water dripping through the window frames on our sunporch. It was coming from the ceiling and the soffits. It was soaking through the plaster and stucco. It soaked the wooden windows. It got on the floor. It ruined the exterior paint, which we’d had done the year before the roof. We will lose thousands of dollars repairing these damages.




This had happened before, a few years ago, but the reason we were surprised last week is that we thought we had had this problem fixed. A friend had suggested a handyman who could assess and possibly fix our situation, and by the time he left our house two years ago, I thought the roof was okay. We were planning this spring to launch into the thousands of dollars of repairs and repainting.

But obviously it wasn't fixed. There’s no quick fix when an entire section of shingles have to be torn off, the incorrect padding removed, and ice-and-water shield (which should have been used in the first place) put on, then the whole section reshingled. This is why it’s leaking again.




The company that put on our roof in 2006 totally ripped us off. The roof isn’t even four years old yet, but we’ve been “repairing it” ever since they left. (Don’t ask. It’s a long story. Just a tip: Make sure such folks actually sign their guarantee before they begin work.)

The discovery of the renewed leak of course put us in a sour mood, and the long, overcast, rainy spell we just had only made things worse—the leak, and our attitudes. It was simply pouring there for a while, outside and inside, literally and figuratively.




So I made the mistake of posting a sour comment about this time of year on Facebook for all my Facebook-friends to see, and in return I received flowery, “inspirational,” Pollyanna-ish comments from a few of my friends. “Oh but don’t you know, this is when spring is just about to arrive! The sap is rising, the plants are preparing for growth, and the male goldfinches are starting to acquire their brilliant yellows!”

Yeah, yeah, I know all that. (Graduate degree in natural sciences, remember?)

But their candy-ass happiness angered me. In part, I blame Facebook and our mutual laziness as friends: Facebook gives you the impression that you are connecting with one another, but that connection is actually very superficial, and here’s a case in point. We’re out of touch with each other; we don’t talk anymore as friends do.

The people who responded to me have absolutely no idea about what’s going on with our roof, or about the whole suite of unhappy things on my mind, ranging from financial concerns to friends struggling with serious illnesses, and much more. None of these things go onto Facebook, or even this blog, for that matter. (Okay, today is an exception.) Like most people, I suspect, I don't broadcast about my various demons.

In other words, these friends really don’t know my underlying issues. I’m sure if they knew how I was really doing, they would have responded differently. (At least I hope they would. One of them is studying to become a doctor, for heaven’s sake.) My response was to retract; I blocked their posts.

Indeed, the two chums who countered me with gushing optimism don’t even live in Missouri, so they weren’t here to see the soggy ground, the mud, the clouds for days. They don’t see or remember what it’s like when the snow is reduced to icy, gritty mounds, the whole winter’s accumulation of soiled, damp litter revealed along the curbs. It’s just ugly, and when it’s not sunny for days, and then you’re looking at thousands of dollars sunk into that damned roof—well?




But I still wondered about my downright angry response to their optimism—why should I spurn the sunshine and lightness that I crave?

Then it hit me: I wasn’t at all craving their response, which amounted to “lighten up, you grumpy Gus! :-) :-) :-)”

No one who is depressed wants to be told to “cheer up and look on the bright side!” Their flood of happy-dappiness seemed unreal, silly, forced. Such light-hearted cheerfulness is truly beyond the ken of someone in my position, emotionally. The contrast only accentuated the great distance I was feeling from “happy.” At those times, it seems like years since I’ve felt that happy. (Maybe I’ve never felt “that happy.”) —See what I mean?

And I felt like I was being argued with. I think that’s what bothered me most.

I realized that what I really wanted was to be understood, heard, empathized with. I wanted someone to take my side. I wanted to hear something like: “Yeah, Julie, this has seriously been a long winter, and I’m sick of these gray, cold, rainy days, too. But if we can hold out for just a few more weeks, we’ll be seeing undeniable signs of spring, and that will make a huge difference! Until then, hang in there, my friend!”

That’s what I wanted to hear.




. . . Meanwhile, I have to admit—those daffodils are pretty relentless.

On the Street Where We Live

I think I’ve mentioned that our neighborhood is, um, “transitional.” We’re in a historic neighborhood close to the center of town, and you know what that means: nonresident landlords who purchase properties on speculation, renting cheap, putting the least they can into maintenance. As the properties deteriorate, the landlords rent more and more cheaply, and the quality of our neighbors has declined along with the neighborhood in general.

Since moving here, I’ve learned the phrase “demolition by neglect,” which means that by the time the landlord wants to raze the formerly quaint old building, it’s in such sad shape that it’s not worth saving, that they can actually make more money off the property by paving it and charging for surface parking than they can for renting the decrepit old house. By the time the landlord tears down the building, most people are glad to see it go. This process is so painful to watch.

One of the hardest things to take was when the last true oldtimer on our street passed away. When Dorothy died, her nephew and other survivors sold her property to one of these landlords.

And ever since he’s bought the house, he’s had a string of dysfunctional, immature, helpless, loud, LOUD, messy, destructive tenants. We’ve seen drug sales over there, and oh-so-much-more. I can’t begin to guess the number of times we’ve called the police about things going on over there.

The tenants occupying the home currently are on their way to being evicted; the court date is June 11, and I hear we have ten days beyond that before they are booted out. I understand they haven’t paid their rent since March.

I don’t think any of them in that house work. They are up all night, playing their car stereo, complete with subwoofers, as loudly as possible. All night long. I’m so sick of Pink Floyd and heavy metal. We call the police with noise complaints, the police come and talk to them; then the police leave, and the tenants scream at us (“Bitches! Fag bitches!”), then spike the noise level at odd intervals, slam their car doors and hoods. Just to keep us awake.

And that’s just one house on our street. In the eight years that we’ve lived here, we’ve had our cars vandalized more than once, we’ve had guns fired across our property, we’ve been flipped off, screamed at, and we’ve had a flower bed trampled.

We’ve seen neighbors have bonfires of trash in their front yard, into which they’ve thrown Coke cans filled with gasoline. We constantly hear rap cars going “boom-boom” down the street, crappy cars, rattling doors and fenders with each low pulse; police cars and ambulances are always responding to calls within a block of our house. Once a week it seems the cops or the EMTs are here for something.

Last fall, we had one slum building—an old house that had been broken into a six-plex ca. the 1970s—burn down. It was just three houses from ours. It was arson, from angry, drunken, squatter non-tenants who were angry they were being made to leave—and we were incredibly happy when we heard the building was a total loss. No more habitat for low-life humanity on that particular little patch of land.

On the bright side, we have an active neighborhood association, composed of the owners of many local businesses as well as others interested in the neighborhood, including some resident landowners. And the neighborhood association is making progress.

It’s going to take a lot of work here in our ’hood to make it into a place where we’re truly comfortable, and there are all kinds of things that will help. Carrots for some, sticks for others. Political work, legal work, social work, economic work, sweat work.

Anyway. I wanted to provide this background so that I can tell you more soon, because there have been some developments that have been blowing my mind and opening my heart.

Bong Bong Bong Bong Bong Bong Bong

Hah! Now I’m virtually assured that people Googling on marijuana paraphernalia (“bongs”) will locate my site and be sorely disappointed to find that this post’s subject is . . . church music. But I’m ready for the annoyed comments. In fact, I think it will be funny.

But let me back up a bit. This is a very bongy town. And by that, I mean ding-dongy: There’s always a bell ringing someplace. From our house we can hear bells from the Cole County Courthouse, St. Peter Catholic Church, and Central United Church of Christ. And then there are the dingers of the Presbyterians, which are not, strictly speaking, bells but a carillon system that plays out of loudspeakers.

Let me back up a little bit more. (Sorry this is so disorganized. Call up some editor and complain.) See, not long after Grandma passed away, I found myself sitting alone in the backyard of her house (our house now), looking at her flowerbeds, hearing the birds chirp, and feeling, quite sharply, the passage of time.

And then the bells rang. It was St. Peter’s. They must have some really old bells—yeah, real bells—and they always do the “Westminster Chimes” melody, which uses four pitches: a first (tonic), a second, a third, and a fifth. The fifth is the lowest tone. You know this tune—it’s the same thing Big Ben uses in London.

And I started thinking about how long those bells must have chimed in this town. I reflected on how my grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides heard those and other bells and regulated their lives by the chimes.

Bells ringing: time to get up.
Bells ringing: time to be at work.
Bells ringing: time to break for lunch.
Bells ringing: time to knock off for the day and get some dinner.

Such bells served an important public service. I sat there on the bench and dialed back to a time I never knew, a time when there weren’t three clocks in every room, before you had a cell phone, a wrist watch, and a clock on the dashboard, all telling you the time.

A time when a pocket watch was a piece of fine jewelry, each adult allotted maybe one, and a clock on the mantel a valuable heirloom. Not everyone had watches, and these clock towers kept the whole town regulated.

It was an interesting thing, to listen to the bells with that perspective.

But here is something funny and quirky about the St. Peter’s bells: the low note is flat. Waaaay flat. Like almost a half step. And it sounds reeeeeaaalllly lame. And it should! A flatted fifth (diminished fifth, a.k.a. an augmented fourth) played against the tonic creates a huge dissonance (like a C and an F# played together).

It sounds so dissonant that early music theorists referred to this interval (a tritone—the span of three whole tones) as the “devil’s interval,” “the devil in music.”

So of course, I find myself chuckling when I hear that flat bell, and I think of how medieval (Catholic) composers and music theorists eschewed this “scary,” “evil,” and “diabolical” interval. There’s some debate about whether or not musicians were actually excommunicated for performing this interval.

I just think it’s funny when I hear that flat bell: “Bong, bong, bong, buuuung . . .” The Catholic devil’s tritone wafting over the heart of the city makes me think of how the overly religious types have moved on over the centuries to find their devils elsewhere, like in households where same-gender couples are living in “Til death do us part” committed relationships and wanting the same legal recognitions, rights, and responsibilities as those in heterosexual unions. And when they finally accept that as normal, like the flatted fifth, they’ll just move on to some other devil or scapegoat.

The Neighbors' Log in My Eye

In Matthew 7:1-5, Jesus tells us not to be hypocritical about the specks in our brothers' eyes, since we all have "logs" in our own. Yeah, you know the passage. (By the way: fundamentalists, how the hell do you take that literally? OMG: you have to interpret it! It's a metaphor!) . . . But today I'm in a bitched-off mood. It's overcast, but it's not really raining much, so I will probably have to go out and water a little. (Weatherman! Why do you lead me on so?)

I was supremely irked yesterday afternoon about something, and under the advice of a friend, I took a little walk to clear my mind, which turned into a litter-collecting expedition, which didn't get far, as my bag filled up after I'd walked past, oh, two or three properties. And that's just from the sidewalk area.

Why don't the people in our neighborhood pick up the trash around their houses? Why do I always look out my window and see our neighbors' yards always decorated with trash? Those people have the pleasure of looking out of their windows at our flowers, our attractive yard. Sometimes they even tell me so. Even when the house next door to us was owned by its occupants, those people left soda and beer cans all over their side yard. Am I the only person who sees this stuff? Am I the only one with a functioning back and fingers? (I'll bet if there was a ten-dollar bill lying there, they'd manage to stoop down and pick up.)

It's so frustrating sometimes. I do know that I'm a perfectionist in probably too many ways, but come on. I also realize that in this neighborhood, I suppose I should simply be grateful that we don't currently have neighbors selling drugs or shooting guns across our property (which has indeed been the case in the past). But still.

I guess it's evidence of the verity of that old adage, always spoken with eyes rolling upward: Poor people, poor ways. But okay, my "ways" aren't all that poor, yet my checking account still says I am a poor person anyway. Something's not right.