Cold Spaghetti

We carved them on Saturday with my parents. Paul carved the awesome skull on the left, I painted the face on the right (it fell yesterday and got a little messy) and carved the heart. My Mom and Dad helped Will with the “light bright” pumpkin — Dad held the pegs while Will beat them into the pumpkin (along with PapPap’s fingers).
Will’s glowing face, above.

Paul’s awesome skull. We didn’t really have the right tools for this type of carving, but took out some of my craft knives instead. It took awhile. Paul was not interested in doing another pumpkin once this was done.
Initially, I was going to stick with painting the face and putting it on this pumpkin to make a pumpkin snow-man. Little known fact: I am very allergic to the innards of pumpkins and squash… if I dig out the insides with bare hands, they swell up and I break out in horrible hives that take weeks to fully heal. Really, it’s true! So I don’t dig out pumpkins. I did, however, want to try the scraping technique (I wanted to do a more involved pattern but we didn’t get a chance to do another pumpkin). The heart above was my playing around with the technique, which was fun! It’s tricky to get deep enough for the light to show through and not break through the shell. (Paul did a fantastic job!)

We had a few nights of blissful reprieve from the middle-aged fraternity party next door. Blissful, this whole notion of sleeping through the night (or, at least, in our case, only being awoken by our sleepwalking children — Will falling out of bed or Kate bonking herself against the crib as she throws herself around).

Then, Wednesday night (or, really, Thursday morning), we — as in Paul, Kate, and I… followed quickly by Will — woke up to the sound of loud music, drums, microphone, and amplified singing at 2:00am. Yes, you read that right. Band practice at 2a.m. — 6 feet from your sleeping neighbors. To fill out the picture, he had been playing loud music most (maybe every) night until about 10:30-11 (Wednesday night included) — and we were okay with it. We’re not being stringent to the law, we’re being pretty darn flexible (all things considered) and are just asking for the slightest bit of consideration during OBVIOUS sleep hours. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a serious pain when it’s cranked up during nap-time, but noise can also be nice and we can live with it every once in awhile. But daily? And at wee hours of the morning?!?!? How is this reasonable?

So we called the dispatch, who happened to have taken our calls before. Again, she heard the music over the phone and heartedly commiserated with us. The police came around 3am. This time, neighbor & co. (there were guests) answered the door, delivered a heated discussion, and (as we are to understand it from the police) rebuked: “my 5-year old sleeps through it.” An interesting observation, but the fact is that the said 5-year old is 40+ feet away from the instruments and amplifiers, through several walls and a floor, whereas we are at best 6-8 feet away, through one poorly insulated wall and another completely uninsulated wall. (There maybe other questions there, too, but I am trying very hard to not be incinerary. We really want to end this amicably.)

The lack of sleep, stress over the situation, and almost daily assaults have made us Zombie people. I’m WAY behind. We’ve stopped morning walks for want of more sleep, the kids are cranky (and I’m concerned their health defenses are wearing down and they will catch one of the bugs flying around — making them miss one of the fantastic events coming up), and we feel completely beat up. Maybe being Zombified is in with it being a few weeks to Halloween and all, but we are totally over it.

—

For the purposes of documentation, this is the local law:

It shall be unlawful between the hours of 9:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10:00 a.m. on the subsequent morning or between the hours of 10:30 p.m. on a Friday or Saturday and 10:00 a.m. the subsequent morning to operate or play in a dwelling occupying a parcel or lot of land or to operate or play anywhere on a parcel or lot of land contiguous or adjacent to another parcel or lot of land occupied by a neighboring dwelling any radio, television, phonograph, loudspeaker, sound-ampli-fication equipment orsimilar device which produces or reproduces sound in such a manner as to be plainly audible at a distance of one foot from any exterior wall of the neighboring dwelling or at a distance beyond the boundary between the parcels or lots, whichever is the lesser distance from the point where the sound is produced or reproduced. (emphasis added)

The fact that we can hear music (drums, amplifier, microphone… hello!?) INSIDE our house, across our house, and from the street in front of our house makes it pretty clear there are serious noise violations occurring. So I don’t think we’re being out of bounds here.

Support, suggestions, and ideas are appreciated. As is caffeine.

Tonight was the first class for Public Health and Nutrition in Complex Emergencies, the course I’m TA’ing. Paul dropped me off at Tidewater around 4, which gave me enough time to find out that the course was scheduled to meet in a different (much smaller) room, make notes to send students to what should be the classroom, and try to set up a video conference for our guest faculty, who we needed to beam in via Skype. Last year, I had to mess around with Skype for guest lecturers for around half of the classes. We generally worked it all out, but there was certainly some MacGyver action taking place in those last moments before each class.

I came prepared tonight: laptop, cell phone, power cords. I managed to get everything up and working… but no sound. This was a problem last year, too, and if I remembered right, took three technicians, a grand-standing supervisor, and a borrowed headset to make it work. Not willing to go this route and delay class, I busted into play B — using my laptop. But to connect to Tulane’s wireless, I had to follow their directions… which included disabling the firewall. (I know, I know, I can hear the blood-curling shrieks…) What can I say? I was desperate.

The good news: we got it working — sound, video, everything. Everyone was pleased and everything went smoothly and on-time.

The bad news: Paul is convinced that my trusty T-series is now the harbinger of a wide range of assorted infections and in need of a complete exorcism.

Rat farts.

We enjoyed a quiet, quiet, quiet night last night. Everyone slept in — until 9am!! We all were exhausted by the lack of sleep.

Paul and Kate are in the potentially losing battle against a bug. Will and I are tired, but don’t seem to be under any microbial influences, yet. So Paul didn’t juggle at the Children’s Event downtown as originally planned. Instead, I put him to work in the kids’ closet.

Before — just a sagging bar. One shelf. This is the largest closet of the three closets in the house (three total, anywhere — no linen closet, no coat closet, no utility closet — the study closet is tiny and the closet in our room isn’t deep enough for hangers to hang straight, everything is in at an angle). The kids have one drawer each for clothes and one bin for sock, undies and accessories… which cuts down on them having needless things that don’t use. But with it being the dual-season time of year, this becomes difficult. (Usually it means that we have bins from the upper closet storage on the floor for a few months… something I’m not willing to do right now.) So I decided we needed closet space for the kids’ stuff and craft/art/painting supplies (which are currently all over the house in various parts of every room, including the kitchen table).

Closet before:

Closet after. We need to find two more shelves for the bottom section, but we have to find a way to remove the pesky Shoe-Messing-Rugrat first.
My favorite part of the closet so far is that almost everything hanging up is a costume or costume accessory. (Will spent most of the day as Buzz Lightyear minus the boots — hence why they hang alone.) My second favorite part is that almost everything on Kate’s rack (and several on Will’s) were used things I picked up at the CCEX — including a new Talbot’s kids overall & shirt, a new Janie & Jack shirt and pants, and several adorable used jumper dresses and shirts. Great scores at the CCEX this year!

It’s 5:32am on a Saturday morning — and we’re awake. Why?

Because the next door concert started at 5:10am. Microphone (with feedback), amps, drums, singing, bass. You can hear it all over our house (not just in the back, where it is vibrating through the rooms) but also in the street, bouncing up and down the houses.

I turned up the kids’ white noise sounder, got Kate back down before she was up too much, and Paul went next door. (Third time this week.) The neighbor completely ignored it, again. So much for his initial promise of “it will never happen again.” (This is what he said after I showed up on his doorstep after midnight on a Thursday night with a blurry-eyed Kate in my arms.) Either he suffers from short-term memory loss, is a compulsive liar, or by “never happening again” he meant his apologizing.

We spoke to a friend of ours who is friends with a local Sheriff earlier in the week. Don’t know what has happened with all of that, but this morning we called the dispatcher (who could hear the music over the phone).

I think we are much more understanding at night. In the morning, particularly at 5am, we’re not so much. At this point, benefit of the doubt has flown out the window. As far as we can tell, all he has shown his neighbors is that he’s an arrogant jerk who couldn’t care less about anyone else.

UPDATE: 5:44am. Will, tired and cranky, is now awake.

Continued update: Kate woke at 5:50am. The music stopped a little after 6am.

The police arrived at 6:45am. They were very, very nice and quite understanding. They went to the door and were irritated that no one answered it after repeated rings and knocks (despite them seeing someone peer out the window at them) and clearly saw the equipment set up inside. We apologized for having to contact them and said that we had tried to settle things ourselves through talking and trying to ask for consideration, explaining that because it kept happening in spite of the promise of it “not happening again,” we felt as if we were being put in a confrontational situation. They encouraged us to keep notes, video, and sound measurements and to keep calling.

Later in the morning, I saw Said Neighbor. I said that we’d try to talk to him at 5 this morning. “Was it really 5 in the morning?” he answered. “5:10am. It woke the kids.” “Jeez, wow,” he uncomfortably offered, “it’s not good, waking the kids.” “No, it’s not,” I agreed. He gave another promise about it not happening again, I confirmed that this is exactly what we hope, too. Later, his daughter (who must have shown up this morning) came out and we spoke to her a bit (she is very sweet and I think was looking for a playmate.) And that was it.

This is a seriously sucking situation. Aside from the late-night (and now early morning) music sessions, he is a great neighbor. He’s fixed more in, on and around the house than the builder and owner — and did so very quickly. He’s generally nice, obviously easy-going. It makes all of this mess even more irritating and odd.

The control of water. It’s the story of many households, but especially poignant when you add the context that you’re trying to control water in the city of New Orleans.
But that is actually a little dramatic. We’re just trying to improve the runoff around the house. The strip of city property between the sidewalk and street in front of our house has been sinking for a long time. As it dips, it washes away everything we try and plant there, as well as plenty of dirt. Not good.
So, Paul is building up a concrete curb, complete with drainage system, that will be almost level to the sidewalk (if we did it level, folks wouldn’t be able to open car doors) so it’s going to be a more graduated system. To withstand the inevitable poor parking job that puts a tire up on the curb, Paul is putting in many hundreds of pounds of concrete — at driveway required depth. Just like we did with the front steps and walk, he’s using the old bricks we dug up from the sides of the house, power washing them, and will mortar them in on top of the concrete. He is also using rebar to help hold the curb in place.
The kids have been helping. Will, in particular, has been chomping at the bit to help with this. And Kate… well, Kate does not like being left out of any event. When I try to take her inside so that I can make dinner (so as not to be eaten alive by mosquitoes), she is Very Unhappy.
The evenings are finally getting cooler (temps in the low 80s/high 70s) so the neighborhood is starting to emerge again. More lingering talks on front porches and visits with pets.

To keep Will occupied, Paul gave him two tasks: to keep the bucket full of water for mixing, and to hammer as many stakes as he wanted into the ground. Will LOVED both.

This is my favorite picture. I took this right after he told me he needed to “look at what he was doing” and “concentrate.”

It is my nature to always want to believe the best in people because ultimately, I believe that people are good and want to be good to themselves and each other. Just sometimes, folks are raised jerks, or have had a lot of pain, or too much privilege, or just don’t think… and they do dumb stuff.

So how much benefit of the doubt does one give before it’s too much?

Say, for example, you lived in a house that was situated 6 feet away from your neighbor’s house with the walls in parallel. And this nice neighbor happened to be a family with two small children. The kind of small that would indicate an early bedtime, definitely one that came before 9pm. If this were you, would you then think it was appropriate to crank up your amplifier — which sits next to the wall 6 feet away from your neighbor’s bedrooms — at 11pm and play until after midnight?

Would you add live drumming to the mix, say, around 11:30?

And would you do all of this on a weeknight?

It would be one thing if it’s a once-in-awhile party. It would be another thing if, when there was a party planned, neighbors were politely informed of the ensuing event. But when it’s a Sunday night and the music and drums are so loud that it you have to take breakable items off of furniture because they are vibrating so much you are afraid that they may fall off an edge and break — that’s a whole different experience.

We make excuses, think of hopeful solutions. “They’re drunk/stoned/both. They don’t realize how loud it is.” “It’ll stop soon, it has to.” “Maybe the next song won’t have as much bass.” “Maybe they’ll turn down the amp on the drum kit or put on headphones.” We turn up the sounders and white noise makers we already have blasting in each room.

We did the talking thing and were assured it would never happen again. Even got a classy apology phone call. So how do we understand the continued assault? I know we seem all uptight and about some things we probably are more responsible than we need be. But we’re not anti-party (this is New Orleans!) We’re glad to have musicians around (we miss Mitch’s band practices — almost all of which were on weeknight evenings). We’re not anti-loud anything… we just want to try to get and keep our kids asleep and manage to get some sleep ourselves. And if something is going to happen on a school/work night, or go until the wee hours on a weekend… we’d like some notice and consideration. Is this unreasonable?

Any suggestion is appreciated.

Cleaning up all that crepe myrtle (aka: crappy myrtles) mess in the front yard. Kate wanted to help Will (you can see him trying to explain to her exactly what he felt she should be doing):So Kate decided to help Daddy instead. She was actually quite helpful in picking up leaves and putting them in the trash bag.

Will was really dedicated to hole-digging. Paul has been wanting to build up the curb and lay down a foundation for sod. He mentioned the project to Will (who heard words like “dig” “big hole” and “concrete”) and The Little Man talks (almost) about nothing else.Kate was content to stick with bagging.

After a whirlwind visit to D.C., a week helping my Mom, and then a blissful weekend in Tampa with friends (more on that later), we are HOME.

And bounced right back into life. Kids, lunches, school, meetings. I had a productive day of recovery-agency-related focus groups, learned a lot, and enjoyed it. Paul spent the day in a work snafu. After a great visit to school seeing the faces of many people we love, we made plans for dinner out. We took our friend and babysitter-extraordinare, Michelle, to Frankie and Johnny’s and were able to bring along the consultant who hired me for the focus groups. In other words, it was a good New Orleans day. After that blissful weekend on the beach, we need a few more of these NOLA-moments to remind us of how and why we love this city.

Our number-one NOLA moment for the day: Kate reaching over to pick up Michelle’s oyster po-boy and before we could say boo — taking a HUGE bite. Twice. And then proceeding to grab oysters off the plate and shove them into her little mouth. That’s our NOLA girl!

The Saga of the House Next Door began long before we bought this house. For us, it began as an empty lot (there had once been a house — around 1900 or so — but it burned down years and years ago). The bank that foreclosed on this house mistakenly thought the lot was included in the foreclosure. When they listed the property for sale, the lot was included. Potential buyers tried to purchase the house and lot, and when a host of title problems exposed the reality, they walked. The bank was forced to relisted the house, but with the stigma of rumors of “title problems” it sat. Then we came along.

Long story short… we bought the house. During closing, the attorney (who had overseen the initial problems involving the lot) told us that the title problems were so far-reaching that the lot was going to be under our care for a long, long time. A little lagniappe to our home purchase. A place where we could maybe put up a swing set or park the car, since we were going to be assumed as the ones responsible for taking care of it. We were fine with this arraignment. In fact, we hoped to buy the lot one day… a beautiful grassy expanse with a twisted live oak and a beautiful willow tree of amazing size and grandeur. It made the hefty buy-in on the empty box with no kitchen and no bathrooms a bit more worth the price.

Right after closing, we visited Our New Home to find a man mowing the lot next door. A developer. The lot’s new owner. Damn.

So construction on the house next door started at the same time as our moving in. We endured some pretty ridiculous abuses over the year it took for the place to get built. Noise at insane hours. Workers pleading with us to move our car in front of the lot to hold space for their equipment — then showing up hours before their scheduled return (read: at 6:45am) and banging on windows and outside walls of the house for us to move it. Borrowing our water & hose (without asking) and not even being careful in the process, destroying plants in the front garden. Tearing up the grass on the side and front of the house with bobcats. Illegally building the ground up so that the house sits a little higher and not putting in the requisite drain system, which instantly began eroding away our foundation (at the time of purchase, our home inspector said our home was the “most level he had ever seen in the city — unheard of at less than 6/10 of an inch” — but more on this later). Spraying both our freshly sanded and painted fence and brand new brick stairs and walkway with specks of concrete. This list of abuses could go on for a few hours. But we took it all in with general fortitude. We were friendly and helpful to the workers and went out of our way to help (translated for Spanish-speaking labor, offered help with reserving street space, gave drinking water, and more). Some of the workers repaid in-kind (like the foreman of the project letting Will drive the Bobcat).

So the house got built. Poorly and with many corners cut (some that were, frankly, shocking), but still — it was built. It was a good lesson in New Orleans construction as apparently, this particular builder has a reputation for quality work… which is sort of like saying a slice of Wonder bread is a quality product. But all that aside, the house was done. Finally.

Two weeks before Katrina the buyers moved in, a loving and friendly family with three children. The youngest was born the very week they moved in (we attended his naming ceremony) and the daughter possessed an incredible artistic talent that left me speechless and hoping that she could rub off some of her passion to my kids, since the whole reason I had kids in the first place was to do art projects. (One day, she shared a charted drawing she’d done that showed ways to be a good friend along with picture diagrams. I was blown away; she might as well have come in with her recently completely translation of Ulysses into Swahili, I was that impressed.) While well intended, they weren’t quite aware of some overall housing issues (like the drainage problem, which still hadn’t been addressed — although by this time we’d built a levee system on the side of the house in an attempt to better protect our foundation).

Then Katrina came. The nice family didn’t come back. But after a year (during which we took a lead role in maintaining the home and pool — including some yard care, mosquito tablets, and other necessary measures, since they weren’t happening) they rented the house. The renters turned out to be a dream: a fun family of three girls that we adore. On days we forgot to take out our trash cans, they took it out for us (and vice versa); we shared recipes and dinners — they even cooked the cabbage I caught on St. Patrick’s Day when I declared my inability to produce something edible from it. The girls came over almost everyday, bringing great energy and enthusiasm. They helped with our kids (particularly the oldest, who has incredible skill with kids and even volunteered for Abeona House for a few weeks) and were a source of entertainment for Paul and I. (We learned that even when completely still, you can actually hear noise blasting out of 9-year old girls. It’s an incredible phenomena.) A few short months ago, the family moved back to their home (taken in by The Flood) and the house next door went on the market.

In a competitive housing market with a huge over-stock of high-priced homes, we thought the house would remain on the market for awhile. Low and behold — it sold! And last weekend, while we were away, we got a new neighbor. I did go and say hello (with cookies and phone numbers) and although I was flying on meds, managed to have a pleasant conversation. So we have a nice new neighbor. One who seems to have fine taste and be a really impressive drummer (despite the choice of midnight on weeknights to practice). We figure that these were symptoms of what was undoubtedly a very busy and stressful few weeks of closing, packing and moving. A big plus: the drain was finally fixed. (At least on our side.) Additional improvements seem to be on the way, so we are excited. With another musician on the block, maybe we can resurrect the pre-Katrina jam sessions that used to spill out on the sidewalk, the kids dancing around in the jerky way, adults hanging back to take it all in. In short, the Saga may be ending and a turn-around may really have reached us, too.