When I was little, I wanted to live in a tree.

That still sounds like a pretty good option.  Mainly, I'm wondering if this is the only way to avoid aggressively crazy neighbors.  Before it was the harpy woman; now it's the pushy dog lady.  Always it's the long-term renters who've been around for the better part of a decade. 

Dog Lady seemed all right to begin with.  I mean, she had a dog.  I love dogs.  She offered to let us play with it any time we want.  Fun, great.  What I didn't realize was that by saying I like dogs I was agreeing to a verbal contract to somehow be responsible for the dog when she's not around.  She gave us a set of her keys.  Naively, I assumed she was just asking us to be good neighbors and keep an eye on her place, keep a set of keys in case anything ever happened.  Then the phone calls started.  The day I was waiting for the cable guy to show up and install service, Dog Lady called me and asked if I had her dog.  I said no, and she got all huffy saying, "I thought you were going to take him."  Well, I explained that the cable man had just arrived and I didn't think it would be a good idea to have the dog running around while he's trying to install things.  That seemed to calm her.  I later felt guilty (why??) and played with the dog in the afternoon.  After that it turned into a game of surprise, here's my dog! 

Whenever my roommate or I got home and were standing there unlocking our door, her dog would be barking and going nuts.  (It's one of those little white yippy dogs.)  So Dog Lady yells out, "Who's that? Is that Omi?"  And she would open her door, which is across from ours, and send the dog out.  She coaxes it saying, "Go on, Baby, go see the girls."  Then she shuts her door and yells for us to send him back when we're done.  The dog is so badly trained, he bolts into our apartment and jumps on the couch. 

Now it's gotten to the point where both my roommate and I park on the street as often as possible so it doesn't look like we're home.  We have done speed tests to see how quickly we can unlock the front door.  We keep the drapes drawn and pretty much hide out when we're here.  I make sure to be out when she pops home for lunch every day.  I'm not proud of this.  I know I should confront this woman, but we've only been here about a month and a half and I didn't want to cause trouble right off the bat like we did with the harpy neighbor.  But I know I need to give her her keys back and tell her I can't worry about her dog. 

. . . Or do I?  Yesterday something interesting happened.  I was working at the dining room table and Dog Lady arrived back early for lunch.  Damn, I thought.  I was in the middle of doing laundry and now she was going to know I was home.  But then something amazing happened.  I heard the building manager outside (let's call her Rose) and Dog Lady said to her, "Rose, I think your son wants me out of the building."  Dog Lady was spitting nails she was so mad.  Rose's son is our landlord.  Rose said something I couldn't make out.  Then Dog Lady (whose nasal voice carries like a smoke alarm) said that the landlord had sent her an email saying he was going to take action with an attorney.  Something about her not paying rent on time!  Then Rose said something about the "young people" being able to do it, and Dog Lady replied, "Well, I told him I can only do what I can do."  Then I heard a door slam and the dog was barking his head off and the gardeners were working so that was the end of that. 

So maybe she won't be our neighbor much longer?  I know that's a pretty terrible thing to hope for.  I don't wish her ill or anything but having the issue resolve itself would be fantastic.  (Yes, I am a coward.)

In the Waiting Room

In Worcester, Massachusetts,
I went with Aunt Consuelo
to keep her dentist's appointment
and sat and waited for her
in the dentist's waiting room.
It was winter. It got dark
early. The waiting room
was full of grown-up people,
arctics and overcoats,
lamps and magazines.
My aunt was inside
what seemed like a long time
and while I waited I read
the National Geographic
(I could read) and carefully
studied the photographs:
the inside of a volcano,
black, and full of ashes;
then it was spilling over
in rivulets of fire.
Osa and Martin Johnson
dressed in riding breeches,
laced boots, and pith helmets.
A dead man slung on a pole
--"Long Pig," the caption said.
Babies with pointed heads
wound round and round with string;
black, naked women with necks
wound round and round with wire
like the necks of light bulbs.
Their breasts were horrifying.
I read it right straight through.
I was too shy to stop.
And then I looked at the cover:
the yellow margins, the date.
Suddenly, from inside,
came an oh! of pain
--Aunt Consuelo's voice--
not very loud or long.
I wasn't at all surprised;
even then I knew she was
a foolish, timid woman.
I might have been embarrassed,
but wasn't. What took me
completely by surprise
was that it was me:
my voice, in my mouth.
Without thinking at all
I was my foolish aunt,
I--we--were falling, falling,
our eyes glued to the cover
of the National Geographic,
February, 1918.

I said to myself: three days
and you'll be seven years old.
I was saying it to stop
the sensation of falling off
the round, turning world.
into cold, blue-black space.
But I felt: you are an I,
you are an Elizabeth,
you are one of them.
Why should you be one, too?
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was.
I gave a sidelong glance
--I couldn't look any higher--
at shadowy gray knees,
trousers and skirts and boots
and different pairs of hands
lying under the lamps.
I knew that nothing stranger
had ever happened, that nothing
stranger could ever happen.

Why should I be my aunt,
or me, or anyone?
What similarities--
boots, hands, the family voice
I felt in my throat, or even
the National Geographic
and those awful hanging breasts--
held us all together
or made us all just one?
How--I didn't know any
word for it--how "unlikely". . .
How had I come to be here,
like them, and overhear
a cry of pain that could have
got loud and worse but hadn't?

The waiting room was bright
and too hot. It was sliding
beneath a big black wave,
another, and another.

Then I was back in it.
The War was on. Outside,
in Worcester, Massachusetts,
were night and slush and cold,
and it was still the fifth
of February, 1918.

-Elizabeth Bishop

Tradition or laziness?

Ever notice how advertisers get a little lax around the holidays and rerun the same ads year after year?  I can think of three commercials off the top of my head that have been repeated for maybe five to ten years.  Penny pinching?  Do they think if they play them enough it's tradition?  Are these really classics and I'm just a Scrooge?  You decide.

Exhibit A, the fainting M&M:



Exhibit B, the carol of the kisses:



And finally, this kid must be in college by now:



Winter-Time

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Loaded for Bhaer

I was watching the 1949 version of Little Women this weekend, and I suddenly realized that every adaptation of the book- nay, even the very book itself- infuriates me.  The problem is Jo.  She's a great character whom a lot of girls look up to: a headstrong, outspoken writer who struggles against society's expectations of her to get married and stay home and knit.  Clearly she is a representation of the author, Louisa May Alcott.

In case you are unfamiliar with the plot, Jo is best friends with "Laurie" Lawrence.  His character is developed as charming, handsome, fun, and basically the peas to Jo's carrots.  Laurie loves Jo, and Alcott seems to be setting them up as the perfect match through most of the book.  But in the second half, it becomes more and more clear that Jo does not feel the same about Laurie, until she finally rejects his marriage proposal and breaks his heart.  She goes off to New York, hoping that it will give him time to get over her, and it's there that she meets the wretched Professor Bhaer.

Guess what.  She ends up marrying old Bhaer.  Oh, Louisa.  We don't care about the Professor!  He's middle-aged and always poorly cast in movies.  He and Jo have a teacher-student relationship, and it's incredibly boring.  She's fascinated by his thoughts on philosophy.  She ends up darning his socks.  In the movie, she sews a button on his coat for him.  What happened to the unconventional young woman who rejected traditional domestic roles?  Alcott herself ended up never marrying.  Why not the same for her heroine who was so adamant in her rejection of Laurie that she probably would never marry?

Look, even if she had to marry old Square Bhaer, could we at least have gotten a more interesting, better developed sense of character?  In a book that is 47 chapters long, Bhaersy only enters in number 34.  Compare that to Laurie, who appears from chapter three onward, and you've got a lot to compensate for.

A Complaint

There is a change—and I am poor;

Your love hath been, nor long ago,

A fountain at my fond heart's door,

Whose only business was to flow;

And flow it did; not taking heed

Of its own bounty, or my need.

What happy moments did I count!

Blest was I then all bliss above!

Now, for that consecrated fount

Of murmuring, sparkling, living love,

What have I? shall I dare to tell?

A comfortless and hidden well.

A well of love—it may be deep—

I trust it is,—and never dry:

What matter? if the waters sleep

In silence and obscurity.

—Such change, and at the very door

Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.

-William Wordsworth