Building foundations

There are a great many proverbs about the necessity of a solid foundation to do any sort of work of consequence, and there is a lot of truth to that.  Without foundations, everything collapses.  And truth be told, I've been having a multitude of foundation issues.

The basics of human foundations is systems.  Systems and routines for the morning, getting going, doing quality work you want to get done, maintaining order, not getting bogged down in other people's minutae...and frankly put, at this point, I've got nothing.  My morning routine is shot, my meal routine is non-existant, my finances are a disaster, my social life is a farce, my creative work is non-existant, and my work schedule is unfulfilling and bogged down in everyone else's last-minute demands.

However, as a teacher, I am lucky in having a summer vacation.  I did not get summer school this year (application didn't get submitted correctly), which has turned out to be a blessing.  So, I'm going to do some foundation work.

In part of the case, that work is going to be literal foundation work.  The back wall of the apartment house is peeling off, and the rest of the foundation needs patching.  The mortar is crumbling away, and that's the reason the house has already shifted once about seven years ago.  And doing some inspection of things downstairs, the partial patching that was done in the back years ago seems to be holding. 

So my "summer job" (notably because amongst the financial wreckage is owing my landlord money) is going to be fixing and re-setting the back wall, along with patching the foundation.  I'd had a few "cosmetic" fixes in mind (new flooring in kitchen and hallway, where some of the sub-flooring seems to be loose, and also the main foyer hallway), but the foundation work is clearly the most critical.  Without the foundation in place, the entire house goes backwards into the creek.

In a similar fashion, much of my existance is headed creekward if I don't apply some fixes.  I'm 41, which is time enough to fix things, but nearing a critical point.  So I'll be identifying areas I'm working on, including:

• Creative
• Summer prep for school
• Financial
• Basic life areas (morning routines, cleaning, maintaining, etc)
• Relationships (ex and others)

As part of this shift, I'll be keeping track and blogging, since a great deal of personal change is accountability.  So the blog will be a little more active than it has been of late.

Alright - off to get ready for school, prepare for closing up the library for the summer (sort of - explanation of that later), and rehearsal this evening.  Long day ahead. 

The Flight of Driveway Guy

Driveway Guy's car blew a head gasket some time later (I heard all about it from Megan, who had to walk home five miles in the rain while he tried to finagle a tow), and the truck he'd been working on finally showed up in the driveway.

It was a compact truck, nothing like the jacked-up F-150 from before.  (This was the truck he parked on the back lawn and ran into the house, breaking the siding - on my list of summer projects.)  After a short period of time, he got a cap for it at well, though he was still sleeping in the cab.

He handed me a business card one day, with his cell phone number advertising his services as a "handyman".  "You need anything done, just let me know." 

I had hopes this was a sign for the positive - there was significantly less barf in the driveway, the handyman business seemed to be starting up, so I had hopes that maybe he was getting his life together.

The downside was, with the weather warming up, the usual crew of people hanging out with Driveway Guy was no longer limited to who could fit in his truck.  I started parking on the street after finding a beer can inside my car, which I distinctly remembered locking the night before. 

And then one day, driving home, I was passed by Driveway Guy heading the opposite direction at top speed and driving like his ass was on fire.  I pulled into the driveway, and looked down at the deep gouges in the driveway from where he'd clearly pulled out in a hurry.

He passed by the house slowly, but when he started to pull in, the door to Mary's apartment swung open, and Savannah, the younger daughter (16), came running out.  "I meant it, you goddamn fucking bastard!!!!!!!  I've got my phone RIGHT FUCKING HERE!!!!!"

A squeal of tires, and he was gone.

She looked at me, and I looked at her.  "Holy crap - what did he do?"

She glared at his tailgate as he sped down the road.  "Bastard stole my debit card and took out about 60 bucks.  Told him if I ever saw him here again I was pressing charges of breaking and entering and theft."

"That's serious."

"Yep.  And since he's still on probation...that's some serious jail time.  It's worth the 60 bucks to have him out of my sister's life.  I'm amazed you never called when he was smoking weed in the driveway."

I shrugged.  "If he'd been alone, I would have.  Megan was always with him."

She nodded.  "Well, he won't be coming back."

And he didn't.  Megan started seeing another guy a few months later, and I saw her in the foyer doing laundry.  She looked a lot healthier - no bags under the eyes, smiling - and I told her.

"Yeah, everyone was kinda worried about me.  But thanks."

I keep scanning the local paper to see if he shows up in the court rundown, but nothing so far.  Fingers crossed it stays that way.

Trusting Driveway Guy to Repair My Car

So Driveway Guy's previous occupation (other than meth dealer) was auto mechanic.  He worked at a local shop for a few months prior to actually moving in to the driveway, and he briefly mentioned to me at one point that if I ever needed work done on my Civic, he was a former certified Honda mechanic, and that he'd be more than happy to do what needed to get done.

About a month after that, as I was driving the inner loop to get off at St. Paul, I pressed on the brake, and the pedal went straight to the floor.  I used the emergency brake to get the rest of the way to school, got some brake fluid at a nearby auto shop, and limped the rest of the way home.

I rolled the car in, and tapped on Driveway Guy's window.  "I might have a job for you," I said.  "What do you know about brakes?"

He smiled.  "My specialty."

He had me re-fill the reservoir, and then pump the brakes.  He looked around at the underneath, and came up smiling.  "Yeah, the lines to the back brakes are split.  Easy fix - I can do it for you for about 140 bucks - huge savings on a shop."

I nodded.  "How fast can you do it?  I need my car to drive back and forth to work."

He paused.  "It's Friday.  I should be able to get the parts and have it ready for you by Monday.  I can even fix it right here in the driveway."

"Sounds like a deal," I said.  I was a little short of cash at the time, and a cheap repair sounded ideal. 

My next door neighbor thought I was nuts for entrusting my car to Driveway Guy, and told me so in no uncertain terms.  I told him I was broke, and if he could do it quick and cheap I was all for it.

"It's back brakes anyway," my neighbor said.  "You don't need them.  You want quick and cheap, just tie off the lines and do them right before your inspection."

That idea made me nervous, but so did the complete absence of Driveway Guy for the weekend.  He pulled in on Sunday, and I knocked on the car door.

"Oooooh...dude, right.  Ummmm...the lines are at a friend's house, and I had a really busy kinda day...so I didn't get a chance to get them.  I'll have them for you tomorrow."

I asked him if it would help if I stopped by a parts store and picked up the lines, and he said no, he's got them and it's ok.

In the meantime, however, I still had to get to work.  I quickly made a phone call to my ex/estranged/yeahitscomplicated wife, and asked if I could borrow her car for a few days.

She paused.  "Ummm...you can have it until Wednesday night.  I really really need it back then."

I also promised to run errands, and do whatever she needed done until then, since she'd be without a car.

Driveway guy was watching TV on his laptop when I came back down, and I told him I had a car until Wednesday.  "Can you get it done by then?"

He nodded.  "Sure, sure...absolutely.  Like I said, I can get the parts from my friend tomorrow, and I'll have it done for you most likely tomorrow."

This continued on for the next three days.  I'd get home from school, and Driveway Guy would have various laments, from needing to work on his own truck to the friend with the parts disappearing in a drug haze.  I spoke with a teacher at school about the situation, and he laughed at me for trusting Driveway Guy in the first place with my car.

Finally, I broke down and called a shop to find out what the cost of getting the brake lines replaced would be.

"About 85 bucks a line," the guy said, "assuming we don't find anything else wrong."

I returned the car to my ex, and finally gave Driveway Guy an ultimatum.  "Look," I told him, "You said you could do it quick, and it's been four days.  I had to give my ex her car back, and I'm having to take tomorrow off because I have no way to get to work.  By the end of the day tomorrow, I either need my car fixed or my key back so I can take it to a shop."

He nodded.  "Got it - I'm off to go get the parts now."

Late that night, I hear his car screech in to the driveway, and Driveway Guy and his girlfriend cursing at each other over something he was supposed to do for her, which apparently didn't get done.  There was shouting that continued on into the house, and door slamming.  I finally drifted off to sleep.

The next morning I woke up, and looked out the window to see my car up on jacks, but no sign of Driveway Guy.  I did some reading and catch-up work while waiting to see if Driveway Guy showed up, or thinking how to negotiate getting my car off the jacks with a tow truck driver.

He finally arrived, his car sounding much louder that in had before.  "Yeah, did a little bit of a speed run over dirt roads last night - Megan's not happy with me over it.  But I'll get your car fixed today."

All told, it took him about an hour once he had the parts.  He beamed at me when I came back down after the car was off the jacks.

"Rotated the tires for ya, too."  (Side note - tires needed replacement due to massive misalignment when I finally got rid of the car due to massive failure of, well, just about everything, four months later.)

"Great," I said.  "Will be nice to be able to stop the car again."

"So," he said, "that will be $140 for labor, and another hundred for parts..."

I raised my eyebrow.  "No, you never mentioned $140 being labor only."

He shrugged.  "Price it out at a shop."

"I did.  Yesterday."

We looked at each other for a moment, and then he nodded.  "$140, then."

I handed him the cash, and he handed me my key.  "Thanks," I said.

"Anytime.  You need anything else done on it, just let me know."

I tested out the car, and it seemed to work pretty well.  But when it developed a starter issue a few weeks later, I delicately asked the girlfriend's mother about how to handle Driveway Guy when he saw it on the tow truck.

"Fuck him - don't worry about it.  I was pissed you encouraged him by letting him fix it at all."

I nodded.  "Works for me."

He did give me a questioning look when the car wasn't in the driveway for a week (due more to waiting until payday to pick it up rather than the shop taking forever), but I ignored him.  It seemed the easiest way to handle it.

Though as it worked out, Driveway Guy was having issues of his own at that point, and it would only be a matter of a couple of months before...The Flight of Driveway Guy.

I believe you have my parking space...that is MY parking space...

People do get very possessive about their parking spaces, but here at my building they are all a little nuts about it.

Wendy parks in the front yard - there's no other way to say it.  Since I've been here, she's parked her big, red SUV right in front of the door.  It's one of the many issues I've had with the place, having to dance around the car to get to mine, the pulling in with blaring music that shakes the house...many issues.

(Wendy's placement of her car was also one of the reasons the Feng Shui person I'd talked to originally told me to move.  Apparently a big red SUV blocks the positive chi from entering the apartment space.  Who knew?)

Josh (when he had his car) and Dan (when he was here) would also park in the front yard over the path from the sidewalk, leaving three cars to chew up the front yard (which Wendy would constantly bitch about, but her car was fine).

So I just parked my car in my spot by the public path, which was okay, aside from my objections to having to dance around the big SUV in a regular way.

Today, as I was doing some yard cleaning, I had a revelation.  With Josh's car gone, and Dan's car gone with him to wherever he went to, the only cars regularly in the driveway were mine and the SUV.  Which was driven by Josh more than anything, since Wendy's been a very rare presence here in the past year or so.
So I foot measured Dan's old spot near the front of the driveway, and I found that my car fit without going over the pathway or the end of the driveway.  I then dragged back the markers for the end of the driveway, and waited for Kaitlyn to come back to explain my plan to her first.

I asked her if she'd heard of the concept of "chi" and energy flow, but it made sense to her after I'd explained it.  I told her that the car blocked positive energy into the apartment building, with the suggestion that with Wendy, it had been an intentional act.

Landon, their three year old, then dashed out of the house and into the yard.  I pointed out that it was also a danger to Landon, since Josh wasn't the most careful driver in the world, and Landon had recently become a runner in that crazy way only 3 year olds can be.  "Good point," she said.

Josh was driving down the road, and pulling into the driveway.  "Wait," I said.  "You'll feel the shift as soon as he pulls in."

He pulled in, and she looked at me with wide eyes.  "You felt it, didn't you?"

She nodded.  Josh looked at me from the driver's seat, confused.  "What?"

I pointed.  "Try parking in my spot."

He looked even more confused, but turned the car around and backed into my spot by the path.  He got out of the car, and looked at me.  He started twitching and looking at the bare spot in front of the house.

I could feel an actual shift in the house with his car in the driveway.  Call it crazy hippie stuff if you want, but it made a difference.

Not ten minutes later, I get a text from Wendy.  "That has been my parking spot for 11 years and I am not giving it up."

We chatted by text for a bit, and she told me that the plan is for both the boys to have their own cars in a month or two, and that she would be spending more time at home when that happened.  So it was a massive inconvenience to change the parking situation.

Of course, she also said that in January, and that hasn't happened.  She also told the landlord that she was moving at the end of June, and I have no faith in that either.

So my solution to the issue is going to be stained-glass style window film.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001MYLEKS/ref=gno_cart_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I'm going to completely cover the kitchen window, and the lower parts of the living room windows.  I'm considering just covering the windows entirely.  This way, I don't have to look at the front yard at all (or across the street, which has their own issues), but can simply enjoy the stained-glass effect of the clematis.

Cutting off the outside world with faux-stained glass seems extreme.  On the other hand, the view out the front windows is nothing to write home about, even without discussing the disaster that is the front yard.  And adding to that the cars and the continued digging up of the yard...

So I'm ordering the full window treatments.  It's only been a couple of hours, and the big jeep is already back in the chi-grinding front spot.  Blocking it all out is going to be the only way I'm going to make it through the summer, I think.

Driveway Guy

So I've realized in all of the neighbor posts and Facebook statuses I've written, I've completely neglected the subject of Driveway Guy.  Mostly because it seems that the drama from downstairs is more than enough, and is the more ongoing and episodic, whereas Driveway Guy was more a constant than anything else.

Driveway Guy was Josh, the boyfriend of one of the girls who lives in the back apartment.  One day he just started showing up, and parking his truck in back of the house.  Big guy - about three hundred pounds, and significantly older than she was (she's 23, he's 33).  Scraggely hair and beard, and his smile was missing a few teeth.  Parking the truck in the back was happening because he was sneaking in through the window, since the mom didn't approve of him.

After a time, he started parking in the driveway in his truck, and sleeping in it overnight.  He'd run it for warmth, which was an issue because it was right outside my bedroom window, and he often had company in the truck overnight.  Seemed...very odd.

Especially after he traded the truck for a Honda Accord, and continued sleeping in it, and she started sleeping in it with him.  Both of them stunk, the motor ran all night, people going in and out of it, loud conversations...

I talked with Emily, the next door neighbor about him (lots of ways to describe him, finally settling on Driveway Guy), and discovered he'd been part of the huge meth bust in Leroy a few years back, getting a reduced sentence for turning in others.  (The bust was over 50 kilograms, and the top guy in Leroy refused to turn on members of the Rochester Hell's Angels, and got about 20 years for his trouble.  Probably wise.)

Apparently they'd been dating for a while before he went to jail (and before it was LEGAL for them to date each other, but that's another story...), and his parents had kicked him out of the house for some reason (he claimed over spending money), and he was now living in his car in the driveway doing...nothing.

Well, not nothing.  Wretching horribly, leaving piles of vomit by the door of my car, smoking a lot, and dealing...something.  I never saw what they actually dealt, and I did watch the couple of times they smoked in the car, to see if the pipe was brass (pot) or glass (meth).  As long as it was brass, I really didn't worry too much.

I did have my laptop stolen out of my car when I'd left it there for a half hour or so, and when I called the police about it, they asked if I'd moved there recently, since they'd never heard of me before.  (Big ol' sign that says MOVE NOW in smarter people.  Fortunately for your amusement, I'm not.)  They initially tried to blame it on Josh, the downstairs teenager, but I told them I didn't think he was that stupid (see previous post about being proven wrong), and thought it was either Driveway Guy or one of his customers, and I suggested they check in with him.

I gave a brief thumbnail of Driveway Guy to one of my students, and she told me I needed to move to the 'hood, since I'd at least have a shorter commute. 

So - that's the basic intro to Driveway Guy (also known as Driveway Josh, to differentiate him from Downstairs Josh.)  More stories to come, including Trusting Driveway Guy to Fix my Car, and the Flight of Driveway Guy.

Early crazy neighbor stories from another life

This is one of those stories I can’t believe I haven’t written down yet, but I’ve told several times to friends, always to some good laughs.  I have a long history of interesting neighbors, tracing back to my first Vermont apartment in Fair Haven.

(To sum up Fair Haven - I visited Middlebury, and ran into my old advisor, the legendary environmental writer John Elder.  On learning I was working at Castleton, he waxed on about the beauty of the area, and asked where I was living.  On hearing the response of "Downtown Fair Haven", he paused, bit his lower lip, and said, "Ummm...interesting choice...")

The apartment was the back “L” of an old house on Main Street – a two bedroom I’d rented in anticipation of my girlfriend moving out to Vermont when I got settled.  She, however, elected to stay in San Francisco for another year, so I had a big drafty apartment with cranky heaters (the one in the second bedroom I never turned on – had a nasty habit of going BANGBANGBANG rather than lighting, and I didn’t trust gas that much), and not much to decorate the place with.

I had two sets of neighbors.  The downstairs neighbors, Jim and Lucy(I think – don’t really remember), were a lovely couple I knew from the college where I worked.  He worked in IT, and she was a student.  Both of them were about 6’2”, and both of them probably weighed about 300 pounds each.  Very warm-hearted, good friends with a lot of the music and theatre people I worked with, and a joy.

The upstairs neighbor was the landlord’s kid.  He was in his early 20’s like the rest of us, but hadn’t been quite right since he fell off a ladder and hit his head a few years prior.  He’d been a decent sort prior, I’d been told, but became a raging asshole as a result of the brain rattle.  He still worked occasionally as a house painter, but mostly did nothing besides drink and throw loud parties at odd weekdays.

Parties included loud country music and line-dancing.  Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart” was a wild favorite at the time, and they would blast it at 2 am while doing the “Achy Breaky” dance.  In boots.  Over and over and over, as I stared at the ceiling, willing them to stop in my mind.

Complaining to the landlord did no good.  He shook his head, lamented the issue of his poor injured son, and reminded both myself and the other neighbors we had signed year-long leases.  (I have never signed a long-term lease since.)

Occasionally the front neighbors would go up and bang on the door if it got really loud (the one time I complained it only resulted in the dancing getting louder), but mostly it was counting the months left on the lease. 

One May night, he threw an especially loud party, with the sounds of probably 30 people dancing and singing the “Achy Breaky” at the top of their lungs, or at least as best they could drunk out of their minds.  I’d drifted off briefly, the party noise being mostly background at this point I’d gotten used to, but this woke me up.  “Goddammit,” I muttered, looking at the clock.  Just after 2am.  Dammit.

Then suddenly – complete silence upstairs.  Total.  No music, no dancing, no voices.  Nothing.

Now I snapped awake, and sat up.  I could hear the refrigerator in the kitchen.  The hiss of the pilot light in the gas heater in the living room.  I had never heard this quiet before.

A slow, thumping walk down the outside stairs.  Then a pounding knock at my front door.

I stayed in my bed, and pulled the sheets up.  Nothing good can come of this, I thought.

The knock pounded again. 

I got up slowly, walked to the door, and opened it.

Standing there backlit in the moonlight, was Lucy – all 6’2”, 300 pounds of her – dressed in an open flannel bathrobe with nothing on underneath, flapping in the light breeze, holding a shotgun across her chest.

“Ummmm…..”

She smiled.  “Just wanted to let you know we won’t be hearing that crap for a while.”

My mind raced.  Shots?  No, I hadn’t heard…at least I don’t think… “Oh?”

She nodded, and showed me the shotgun, split and now clearly unloaded.  “Told them I was only bringing this up unloaded once.  And maybe they should just pipe the fuck down during Finals Week.”

 She smiled, and kissed my cheek.  “You have a good night.”  And with that, she walked down the path and back to her own apartment.

I sat at the kitchen table, trying a couple of shots of vodka first, then finally making coffee and staring at the clock until I knew the convenience store on the way to work opened.  I drove there, picked up the paper, continued on to work, and went over the classifieds for Apartments as soon as I walked into my office.

By the end of the day I’d called three apartments that seemed promising, and by the end of the week I’d signed on to an apartment on Lake St. Catherine (another two bedroom).  Oddly enough, my landlord had no issues with my breaking the lease at this point, and overpaid my security deposit by $100 without even an inspection of the place before I left.

“Thank you for all your…patience,” he said.  And with a handshake, that was it.

End of the calm

So this happened:

I went to Maine for four days over the weekend to help my grandmother celebrate her 90th birthday and visit family I hadn't seen for a while.  I brought Sam and Dante with me (Jess was possibly heading out of town and couldn't watch Dante), and we had a blast visiting family and hanging out with the cousins.

On Sunday afternoon at my brother's house doing the family Christmas, my phone rang with a Rochester number I didn't recognize.  I ignored it, as Sam was in the middle of opening presents at the time.

Checking the phone later, I realized it was Josh, the older teenager from downstairs.  He's been a lot squirrelly lately - his mom has been making noise about wanting to move out and buy a house and that Josh and his kids are the only reason she hasn't yet, maybe he should get off his lazy ass and get a goddamn JOB already since he didn't finish the GED, and no, she is NOT buying him a replacement for his car that broke down in Maryland and he sold for bus money to get back to NY.

Based on this, I could figure out whatever he wanted wasn't something I could fix in Maine.  But I texted him anyway, in case it was actually something urgent.

"I just wanted to know if I could use your firepit to burn a bunch of cardboard in the back yard."

Long-time readers of the blog will understand that the whole burning-in-the-backyard is a bit of a sore spot between us.  Or rather, a major sore spot that caused me to give the landlord notice not that long ago (go read my previous post if you want that background).  So I hesitated.

In that hesitation, I remembered my resolve to let go...remember it is a rental...yet not give explicit permission should he actually burn down the back yard.  So I gave what I felt was a good answer.

"I'm in Maine right now."

"O" was the text back.

Perfect, I thought.  He can do with that info what he will.  And I will check The Batavian for news about fire calls in the meantime.

I told my sister about the text exchange, and she raised an eyebrow at me.  "Ummmm...these are the crazy neighbors you tell stories about, right?  Do you REALLY want him to know you're out of state right now?"

I hadn't really thought about that.  "What's he going to do?"  Though I did have images in my mind of the door forced open for the rest of my time in Maine, racking my mind to see what could possibly hawked or sold, and wondering if the cat would get out if it happened.

Upon arriving home on Monday night at 10pm, I was so relieved to see the door closed and locked that I just brought in the stuff that immediately needed to be brought in, and passed out.  It was only the following morning (okay, afternoon - I felt a cold/flu coming on the whole trip back) that I looked at the door and saw the attempt.

Clearly, he hadn't gotten in.  My laptop was still on the table in plain sight, the school laptop still in the bag by the chair, and my power drill still in the hallway where I've been tripping over it for a week before I left.  (Really do need to move that...)  The screwdriver marks only go part-way up the latch, so clearly a fail.

I texted the landlord about the break-in attempt, and he called me right back.  Seems someone jiggled his side door handle Sunday night, and his girlfriend's son had been sitting on the stairs and happened to hear it. No one was there when the kid went to check.  He also wasn't going to call the police over it, but with my story as well he was now calling a friend of his on the force and most likely the friend would be over to look at my door as well.

The officer did come by and look at the door.  He was shocked someone would have come up my staircase to break in, and said that he'd look at the downstairs apartment door to see if there were any signs of a break-in attempt.  (There weren't.)  Asked if anyone knew I was gone for the weekend, and I told him the downstairs neighbor - a name not unfamiliar to the police in town.  He told me to keep an eye out for suspicious people, and that was about it.

At the suggestion of a friend, I went out this morning and bought a door guard to prevent another such attempt.  So now my door looks like this:

A great improvement, I think.  Actually even looks nice.  :)

It occurred to me later on what the connection was between my break-in attempt and the door rattle at my landlord's - that door leads to where my landlord keeps the keys to all the apartments.  So the little bastard was trying to sneak in and get the keys to my apartment, and went away when he found the door locked.  No idea if this was before or after trying to pry my door open with the screwdriver, but it really doesn't matter.

A part of me thinks I should be really worried about this - break-in attempt is pretty ballsy, and he's pretty desperate.  But I'm not that worried - this was low-hanging fruit, and I should never have told him about being out of state.  He's not going to put any actual effort into something like this, and I'm pretty sure he knows I know - I asked him if he'd seen anyone near my apartment and I got a quick denial of his having been here AT ALL this weekend...well, except when he texted me about the fire pit thing, but EVEN THEN he wasn't really here...

So I'm going to work on trying to catch up the neighbor stories here on the blog - I realize there are TONS I haven't written yet, and I have a suspicion things are going to get interesting around here again.  We'll see.