Trash Picking Skills Come in Handy

One point of contention I have with the husband is his voracious trash picking habit. While I sometimes admire the fruits of his labor, more often than not I am unhappy to have more crap in our house, especially when it is crap someone else threw away. Admittedly we have gotten some good books, cds, furniture, scrap wood, picture frames and other useful items from his keen eyed view of the trash, but as a general rule I don't like the concept.

Today, however, I change my tune.

We spent this weekend rearranging the desk configuration due to a duality of events - the arrival of a new printer that didn't quite fit the same as the old, and the demise of a beloved shelf that fell in the middle of the night, smashing some fragile objects and scattering the rest around the room. It was a mess.

After gazing longingly into the box where we put all the stuff from the shelf, we decided not to hang a new shelf and instead make space for a painting, also saving the future strife of picking up the pieces of another broken shelf.

We scattered the items in the box to other shelves, threw some of them away, and bought a couple of plastic drawers to hold the rest. The result was a complete rearrangement of all the crap that sits around the desk - a lot of tschoschkees, bill paying accoutrement, a wide variety of paper and stationery, paper clips, pushpins, sticky pads, batteries, tape and the like.

Part of this was a stack of empty bubble envelopes, folders, and unused USPS envelopes, the kind that are free for when you use their overnight service which went straight into recycling. Much to my horror, I have just discovered that I also used one of those envelopes to hold the store of postage stamps. Apparently, that envelope got mixed in and thrown away, as it is rent paying time and the envelope of stamps is nowhere to be found.

So now, I anxiously await the return of the husband who is using his keen trashing picking skills to search through the garbage bins to see if he can find the bag of recycling where I think the stamps may have gone. While the financial loss of our packet of Liberty stamps stings, there is a memento in there - some leftover stamps that had the image of our son when he was around 11, a gift from my mom that were so sweet we rarely used them.

We'll see if all this trash picking over the years pays off toward the collective good.

UPDATE: Just as I was about to post this, he arrived back, empty handed. He did find our trash bag with the empty USPS envelopes, but no stamps. I rummaged around again in the drawers and removed all the contents when I saw the corner of an envelope sticking out - the stamps had been stuck underneath the drawer, hiding. False alarm. Thankfully, the husband did not come home with any new treasures from the garbage.

The Wrong Noise

Our noisy restaurant neighbor has been working to fix their loudness, but DEP arrived this evening to measure and the noise in the window still exceeds allowable limits. Turns out they indeed had fixed the noise, but what we are hearing is a DIFFERENT restaurant with a competing noise machine. Now we have to start all over with 311 by making a NEW complaint naming the other restaurant and get yet another team of DEP agents come over to measure. Why? Because 311 needs to stay in business. Stupid? Yes.

Buzzing

I consider the buzzer in my building something of an IQ test, one which is failed by 100% of all visitors, which means that either everybody is stupid, or the test is too difficult. You can decide which.

For reasons unknown, the landlord neglected to include my apartment (and my neighbor) on the list of buzzers. We live in the last 2 apartments, number-wise, so maybe the paper they were printing on was too short, or it went to page 2 and they didn't notice, or whatever, we aren't there.

The buzzer system, a keypad like the kind on a phone, is logical. Apartment 1 corresponds to punching in the sequence 001. Apartment 15 is buzzer 015. It doesn't seem a stretch then that someone could look at my apartment number and figure out how to decode and dial it. But that isn't the case. 100% of the people who arrive, do not attempt to figure it out. Instead, they assume they have the wrong apartment number. They always believe in the list and it is always a surprise when they find out that the list is wrong. Once, after a particularly heated discussion with a deliveryman on the phone, I had to come downstairs for my food because he refused to follow my directions of which numbers to dial "because it's not listed."

So what does one do? I put my buzzer number on a neat and attractive p-touch sticker and affixed it to the glass that covers the list. Problem solved? Ha! You would be wrong again batman.

Over the course of the next two nights strangers and police were buzzing my buzzer in the middle of the night. to get in. Somehow the sticker stood out to them, yelling "CHOOSE ME" and so they did. The buzzer ringing used to happen rather frequently 10 years ago when the neighbors were more active (ie drunk), losing their keys and whatnot, but it could be ignored, it was a buzzer. But this new keypad system rings on my PHONE, and I don't know until I answer it whether it is an actual phone call or someone buzzing me. So then I am awake. And if you read this blog regularly, or you know me in real life, then you know that waking me up is like awakening the devil from his happy place - you just don't want to do it.

So I took the sticker down, and continue to argue with the delivery guys about my existence. Today, I received 2 phone calls while I was at work, from both UPS and Fedex who were standing in front of my building (about an hour apart from each other), telling me they have an incorrect apartment number because it's not listed. Sigh.

Lonely Lonely Lonely Lonely.... Time

It is a very rare day that you find yourself alone on a subway station platform for more than a few seconds in the city that never sleeps. This subway station was very sleepy and it was at least 5 minutes before someone joined me waiting for the train.

And, here is a song that would have been good company on the lonely platform.

Update on the Bad Noise & Light

The update is more of a lack of an update. While I appreciate that the restaurant has paid some attention to the heinous noise, there has been no improvement. The DEP comes tomorrow to measure the loudness. I am worried that it won't be considered loud enough to make it stop.


There is also no change in the creepy roof light, but I honestly haven't been persistent enough with phone calls. Now that my boss is on vacation I ought to have time to complain about anything and everything that crosses my mind.

I tried to photograph the bright light, which is a hard thing to do, especially with the window gate in the way. But you can see how much brighter one window is than the other right next to it. It's just plain odd.
Thank you for caring.

Can't Stop the Cuteness

I haven't had time or patience to be writing blog entries, but there is always time for cute kitties, even though one has a crazed look in her eye.

The Lights The Noise The Shame of it All

This week will be forever known as the week Jill did battle with the neighboring buildings. It might get ugly folks, so if they find me at the bottom of the East River wearing cement shoes, you will know why.

First, there is the sound of a helicopter hovering outside my rear window. Helicopters? you say incredulously, I hear you. How can there be helicopters hovering, and why would they do that? Exactly my thoughts. Upon closer inspection it turns out there are no helicopters, but instead a brand spanking new contraption on the roof of the neighboring building (the roof is lower than our windows) that just sounds like a helicopter. It is owned by a 24 hour restaurant and polluter in the ground floor, who pushes all their nasty offal into the skies above. In our case, the skies above consist of my back window.

Now, this battle is just beginning and it isn't going terribly badly, yet. I (and several of my neighbors who also are shocked at the loudness) have complained to DEP, and are awaiting their return calls within 5 to 7 days.

Last weekend, a man who identified himself as manager of the restaurant told me they were trying to fix it. A few days later when I went back, I was told they don't have "managers" only an owner who wasn't in. Hmmmm.

Later on I did get the owner on the phone who sounded very sincere about rectifying the problem, as I wasn't the only one complaining. I imagine the people who live in the building can feel the shake. Turns out just as I was on the phone, the repairmen were there. Luckily, the husband was home to confirm it, and tried to communicate with the workers, but there was a severe language barrier. After they left, the noise seems much better, and the husband had also connected with the restaurant owner.

But by midnight the noise was back. Today, the restaurant owner said he would continue to get someone out to fix it, but it's a long weekend and... well... we're living with this for now.


Problem #2 - The Ultra Bright Window

Outside of the same rear window, there are several roofs. One has the contraption. Another has a window installed on that little mini building-thing-a-majig that houses the steps to the roof. I don't know what you call that little room. In the window of this presumably public space, there is a light as bright as any UFO you have ever seen. The fluorescence of this light is enough to blind a blind person. It is ten times brighter than any surrounding lights. Creepy? Yes. Do I hear the word "greenhouse?" Yes.

This window doesn't look like it's at the right angle to annoy, but in fact, from my son's loft bed, it shines straight into his big brown eye.

So I called the management company listed in their lobby. Who, you might be asking, owns this particular building with a weird light? You might think it's nobody you know. You would be wrong. It is owned by these horrible folk who evicted an entire apartment building worth of tenants to turn it into their own private mansion, which we are certain will revert to expensive condos as soon as they think nobody is paying attention, which will be NEVER.

I phoned them up, left several messages for the "repair" department without a call back, but finally got through to one of the random extensions I started calling. The woman who picked up was not horrible, and seemed baffled by my description of the bright light. I told her I was giving her warning before I reported it to any other agency (because if they are doing what I think they are doing I am happy to let them do it as long as they turn the damn light off at night). We'll see what happens.

Stay tuned for more fun from The Top Floor chronicles.

Norwegian Saw Playing

It's a little dark, but look closely, the woman sitting down is expertly playing a saw. An actual saw, not an instrument shaped to look like a saw, but the kind you would cut a piece of wood with. She played it with impressive ease, to perfection. This duo from Norway are called Thingama*jigsaw and play songs mostly about death. There is a better photo of Martha with her saw here.

When Travis Stands in for Ray Liotta

Some place many stops on the L train into Brooklyn.

Everybody Loves a Parade

There are four things that can make me smile with little effort: puppies, kittens, spontaneous dancing and unknown musicians who are great and who I can witness playing in a small personal space.

Many of these things came to life this weekend. But no puppies.

My kittens are always charming.

The Dance Parade was a blast of color, music and dance moves from around the world.

And I was privileged to be invited to a studio in Brooklyn where three bands played that were the type of music I would never otherwise get to hear: a duo from Paris crooning love songs (I think, it was in French so they could have been singing about death for all I know, but it sounded like love to me); a duo from Norway who did sing about death, but in English, so we were certain - with the added bonus of incredible SAW playing; and a guy called Sport Murphy who sang folk songs from the heart.

And to top it off, I made delicious Hostess-like Cupcakes.

Urban Housing & George F. Pelham

While trying to find an alternate resource to the incorrect dates that the Department of Buildings designates as the construction date of my apartment building, I found an interesting website from the Office of Metropolitan History that shows indeed that it was built in 1904, a date that makes so much more sense.





A more interesting note is the architect, George F. Pelham, who was one of the largest housing developers at the turn of the century. According to this website, he utilized something called the "dumbbell" design of tenements in a new way, which I thought so presciently referred to landlords, but in fact refers to the design where there is an airshaft so that apartment buildings comply with the 1879 housing code whereby every room has to have ventilation (ie a window).

George Pelham built a series of nine connected buildings on East 14th Street that was "an experiment in in large-scale housing development for immigrants." Many buildings in the city have a similar look to these Pelham buildings on East 14th Street, including mine.

What I like about the Pelham buildings that I have found, is that they include the level of architectural detail that contributed to New York's unique look. Even though he was building places for immigrants to live, he still included exterior artwork that is quickly disappearing. Every new building completed recently has zero detail on the outside, these soulless boxes with fake brick facades (that we know fall down pretty quickly) and no attention to any kind of style. They are as though designed by children.

Look at these photos of Pelham's 81 Irving Place.

Pelham was also a significant architect in Morningside Heights, (long with 2 other firms) another neighborhood with lovely buildings designed for the working classes. He also built Hudson View Gardens in Washington Heights, another development for the middle class that has retained its architectural integrity over the years.

Opera on the M8

According to the NY Times one of the M8 bus drivers is also an opera singer. I have examined this photo and have never seen this man though I would be THRILLED if I had a singing bus driver, unless of course I was trying to have a phone conversation or blast my boom box.

However, when I enlarge the photo of the woman with the big smile, I can see in the background the Clown that I often see at the M8 bus stop on Ave A.

Living Large

There aren't many things that I worry about outwardly. If I worry at all, it becomes apparent in subtle ways such as unexplainable mood swings and snide remarks that bring me close to fist fights with both strangers and loved ones. Or, in short bursts such as "I don't have enough garlic for this stir fry and it's gonna suck." Or, "these shoes are awful and everyone will laugh at me."

But the one thing that I worry about rather incessantly is the stability of my home. There is a loose thread of that throughout this blog, but while I complain about the landlord, scream like a banshee at the narcissists on the roof and spend weeks tiling a wall, the root of the issue is the actual stability of the floor below my feet and the roof over my head.

It doesn't make a lot of sense, but most worrying doesn't. It's about prescience and KNOWING that you are right and logic doesn't necessarily come into the picture.

The building where I live is old, but not that old (it's registered as 1930's but there is physical evidence pointing to an earlier date), and nothing has fallen down so far. There was one big fire about 25 years ago that did superficial damage. The building has been sold a few times in the last 10 years so theoretically someone inspected it on behalf of the new owners to make sure they weren't buying a lawsuit.

So really I shouldn't worry. But worry I do.

What I see is what I don't see. I've never seen anybody inspect the decorative elements (what are those called - finials?) on the top of the exterior front wall that have been there for over 70 years and it doesn't seem farfetched that they could fall, bringing more bricks and possibly the entire front of the building with them (though reasonably, I am pretty sure this building wasn't built with facing, but with actual bricks).

Every time a bus or a truck drives by, the apartment shakes and rattles, so much so that people who live in houses comment on it nervously when they are visiting. When people walk on the roof, the walls shake so much that once, knick knacks were knocked from their shelves. When we took out a damaged wall in the bathroom down to the brick, there were holes in the brick so that you could peek through and see outside. When they gut renovated the apartment downstairs we found that there was no subfloor. Between my floor and their ceiling was about 8 inches of air (since the renovation I think they stuffed it with poisonous insulation-yet another worry). My iron bathtub sits on rotting wood, only 3 of the 4 legs actually touching the floor, and water leaks down continually.
Is that enough? I think so.
When the facade fell off a building on 14th Street & 7th Ave (photo above, thank you Elizabeth), it just adds to the list of why my worrying is logical. People had to evacuate without taking their belongings. Which leads me to the other thing I worry about. What would I take in an emergency? Once, I lost 2 photo albums from the middle 1980's due to neglect while resting them on a curb while loading the car, and then accidentally driving off without them. I think about those 2 albums nearly every day with a knot in my stomach.
How would I ever be able to take what I needed? I have a plan, but it is inadequate because I would have to rescue the cats and frogs first. Then I would have to take valuables such as the computer (which is kind of big--another reason to change to a laptop), cd's with saved information, jewelry (not that there's much of that), and photo albums. It turns out that I accumulate about one photo album a year. And after nearly 20 years of marriage that is a lot of photo albums. I could never carry more than about 5. Do I take the baby pictures? The wedding album? Which great vacations do I sacrifice? The video tapes are small, I might be able to fit those in a backpack. And the cameras. And clothes. And shoes.

I couldn't afford to buy all new clothes and shoes, but if I didn't then I would be back to yet the previous worry: "These shoes are awful, people will laugh at me." You see, this circular reasoning can lead me down the path to hell and darkness.

So this, my friends, is why I don't sleep.

Mean Kitty

Since I'm in a kitty mood, I'm going to post this amusing kitty video. I don't know why it's so appealing, but 20 million people have watched this.

Meet Axolotl

Kittens don't stay tiny for very long, so we hope to get the most out of these next couple of months. With so much cuteness it's hard to concentrate on anything else. The good news is that our older cat, Jezebel, has fallen in love with the kitten, whose name seems to have stuck on Axolotl. They roll around on the floor pretty much all day long, except when they are sleeping or eating. They race back and forth, without making a sound except for the rumble of feet on the floor.

No more words, a picture is worth a thousand words. Or several pictures are worth several thousand words.

Benefit for Vicky & Matt

The backstory behind this event is a very long one about rent strikes, broken windows, getting evicted from their apartment on East 11th Street, and then the judge finding for them and letting them back in.

You can hear the whole story if you come to a benefit this Saturday, May 9th, to help Victoria & Matt raise the $8000 they need to pay their rent/back rent/lawyers fees by May 15 so they can actually get back into their apartment.

Who are Victoria & Matt? They have lived in the East Village for a million years and are very involved in community theater, carpentry, art and gardening. If you live here and don't know them, you've probably seen them around and just didn't know you knew them.

And, Miles (their son) made this cool flyer . Please pay it forward.

Cult of Rage

I have been trying to find a video of the original airing in 1988 of Mike Taibbi's "Cult of Rage" 3 part series that broke the story on how Missing Foundation were cult and satanic leaders in the East Village. I've never found it, but instead I did find a promo for the show, which aired during Star Wars. Some Star Wars fan found it desirable to post all the commercials that aired during the show, with some excellent clips of Pete Missing and his infamous bullhorn, and also with his clothes on fire (I didn't remember that part). There is one very very short clip at 1:15 of Mark Ashwill throwing a chair.

While the whole thing is pretty funny to watch, the Cult of Rage promo starts at 1:02.

New Yorker Summit

A full day of talking and more talking by people on a stage, it might have been boring but in fact nearly every panel was interesting, kind of like the magazine live. They do Sesame Street Live on Ice, so why not New Yorker Live at NYU?

If you were so unlucky not to have been there, I will give you a VERY BRIEF summary of what they said. While there were no new headlines (that is if you keep up with current events; I think they were afraid of giving away next week's articles), they repeated some pretty important and interesting bits, with all the men in dark suits and white shirts, it was hard to tell them apart without their name badges.

So read this and I have now saved you $350 and a day at Skirball (I love saying Skirball, much fun).

Gladwell: The market crash was not due to stupidity or lack of regulation, but to overconfidence of those in charge.

Taleb: Economists and cab drivers can predict the future with the same degree of accuracy. Bernanke should be removed, you don't give a new plane to the guy who crashed the old plane. Debt is bad.

Kuttner: Depression averted, long stagnation to come. Predicts unemployment will increase by another 1 million.

Steiner: The US has lost $11 billion in household wealth.

Klein: We've been on a hopeacoaster (a hope roller coaster). People need to stop wearing their Obama t-shirts; it's weird. The crisis will now shift from Wall Street to Washington as it becomes a Debt Crisis. The spell of Reaganomics has been broken and collective solutions are now possible.

Canada - Treat new teachers like lawyers, pay them high, work them hard and fire them if they don't succeed.

Sachs: People don't care any more or less about poverty than they ever did, it's not cyclical, they never care. We keep throwing military solutions at problems caused by poverty and wonder why they don't work. Case in point: Somalia piracy is due to extreme neglect and poverty. We abandoned all collective solutions and let Wall Street run the show.

Duflo: Poverty solutions come in fads ie building schools, dams, microfinancing, but nobody ever recounts successes and failures to build on them, they just move on to the next fad.

Reicher: Stimulus will certainly move us forward on the environment (consensus from everybody who took the stage)

Hitt: EPA will regulate pollution. They took the first step with the endangerment finding, and now they can start regulating without Congressional or any other approvals.

Woolsey: Former CIA director is now an environmentalist. 2% of electricity is produced from oil. Oil is a transportation issue. The rest is a coal issue. Quoted Thomas Friedman: "We have a policy to fill 'er up with dictators."

Dean: Obama's health care plan is the best he's seen. Against mandates.

Edwards: Obama's health care is on target. Hissed at Dean when he said she was right about mandates but he didn't support it because it's politically unfeasible.

Pickering: Wants Obama to move forward with the torture commission, not to prosecute but to learn lessons. Play chess, not checkers. Also, he's fluent in Swahili, among others.

Kilcullen: $10.2 billion has been spent on the Pakistani army since 2001. Three years ago we started bombing the Taliban in Pakistan with drones. We've killed 14 high level targets and 700 civilians. And they are now 60 miles from the capital. What is wrong with this picture? We throw military solutions at problems steeped in poverty and it never works. Obama has not radically changed Foreign Policy, but a friendlier face is important.

Hersh: We should be very afraid of what is happening in Pakistan. Watch out for his upcoming story, he will tell us why.

Want more detail and actual information? They blogged about it in depth here.

Winston, Zoso or ... We'll See

Our new kitten has arrived. He had been named Winston Churchill, which I don't think we will stick with. I have only one imperative which is that the name must have a Z or X in it. It's my tradition. Right now we are calling him Zoso, but we'll see what name winds up sticking.

He is nervous, being separated from his mom and siblings, hiding under things and running away when approached. Jezebel, our other cat, is hiding in our room. The meeting has yet to happen.

We've taken Diane's advice and didn't bring the new kitten in, just dropped him off without Jezebel seeing where he came from, as though he just wandered in, and we are trying not to pay attention to him until Jezebel discovers him herself. We hope she will adopt him, and possibly exchange the beenie baby skunk for her new, real life brother.

This skunk, named Stinky, has been her baby since she was a kitten. Every night, without fail, she brings picks up Stinky in her mouth and brings it into our loft bed with a high pitched whiny sound, and then every day, when we aren't home, she brings Stinky down into the living room. Every day for nearly three years this has been her habit.

Fluish

Tiny Things of the Rainforest

And many giant trees