Adventures in Urban Parenting #3

Steve and I are trying to give ourselves a date a week sans the Bug and this week's trip was to the Kennedy Center to see the opera Don Giovanni. We were given an opera series as a wedding present, but this particular show snuck up on us -- we noticed it on our calendar only at the beginning of this week. So we hustled and got Elizabeth and Catherine to watch Ben for the night and we got dressed up to go. Steve and I arrived just as the curtain was going up, so the usher hurried us down the aisle with a flashlight to our row. There were two empty seats right on the end, so we sat there, rather than annoy everyone by making them stand up to get to our proper seats in the center.

It was a really good first half (though I kinda hate the character of Don Giovanni -- he's a jerk) and after intermission Steve and I went back to our actual seats. We scootched by the correct occupants who had claimed our former seats to get to the center of the row. . . where we found two people sitting. We went through the usual machinations: "Are you in seats 115 and 116? Are you sure you're in row T?" and then I looked at our tickets.

They were for November 16.

I had written the wrong day down on the calendar.

We left -- which was a blessing since we were pretty tired anyway -- and will go back for the second half in a few weeks. Which is actually kind of ideal. We get two dates out of one, and only need babysitters for a few hours at a time. Perfect!

Adventures in Urban Parenting #2

I have kindly refrained from giving you the sleep updates lately-- partially because any time I write something up here, everything backfires and the whole routine gets thrown off. Regardless, things have gotten back on track after the disruption of the travel to Iowa, and Ben is back to sleeping well at night. This week Steve and I were just getting a bit more sleep ourselves when we woke up at 1 AM due to the extremely loud car radio playing in front of our house. After 15 minutes, we realized this wasn't simply a person parking loudly, but someone who had camped in front of our house and was sitting in their car.

We walked down the stairs and peered out. We couldn't tell if it was a woman or a man in the car, and since the light was on and it was clear that the person wasn't planning on moving, we decided not to confront them but just to call the police. While on the phone with the police, our next-door-neighbor Sharee, wearing her nighttime sweats, walked out of her house and asked politely if the person would mind turning down the radio. Well, it turns out it was a woman in the car, and it turns out she did mind.

Which she made very clear, very loudly, with many colorful curse words which I will not repeat here. But the gist of her rant as she got out of the car to yell at us was this (and I'd type it all in caps to get across the sense of just how loud and obnoxious she was, but that would just be loud and obnoxious to read): "I can't get a parking spot in front of my house and I get a ticket every day and I've lived her all my life and my parents are both lawyers and my father is a professor at Howard and I've lived here all my life but I can't park in front of my own house, so you can all suffer. All you renters. I own my house. And I can't park in front of it and I get tickets all the time and so go ahead and call the police because I'm sitting here and you can all suffer and my parents are lawyers and my father is a professor at Howard and I get a ticket every day. . ." Repeat ad infinitum. . . or at least until the police came.

The police were there within two minutes, which was gratifying. We had five cars with their lights blinking parked in front of our house. I peered out between the blinds of our second floor window feeling like the neighborhood gossip and reported the action to Steve. He had gotten back into bed, but he didn't really need me to report since the woman was so loud he could hear everything. Which was all the same things she'd said to us with fewer "Suck my #$(*&%(*&" exclamations thrown in.

The police officers said things like: "Stop yelling" and "Have you been drinking?" and "No, I don't want to see all the tickets you've gotten" and "Can you hear how crazy you sound?" and "So your father is a cop and a lawyer and a professor at Howard? Pick one." and "Well, it's good that your mother is a lawyer so you won't have to pay for one."

That last comment was delivered after she failed to walk a straight line and they arrested her for DUI. All told it took 5 cop cars, 45 minutes, and an amazing amount of noise.

And, most importantly, I'm very happy to say that the Bug slept through it all.

Adventures in Urban Parenting

On Saturday afternoon, Steve and I were sitting in our living room when we saw through the window a woman (slightly older, overweight, a little worse for the wear) on our porch. When she saw me through the window she said: "Can you come to the door for a second?" And I did, and she asked me if I knew where "Margaret" lived and I said I didn't think there was a Margaret on the block, but what address was she looking for, and she said 3504 Park Place, and I told her that it would be south of us somewhere and she said thanks, and walked off as I said "Good luck."

Steve was standing behind me at the door, and when she was almost to the corner, he said "Is she carrying our box? Yes, the postman just delivered a box -- he showed it to me through the window -- and she's carrying it."

I called after her: "Is that our box?" and she shrugged, barely looked over her shoulder and said no.

Steve said it was our box, so I -- barefoot -- started walking down the street after her, trying to close the gap between us. When I got to within 10 feet or so, I started talking to her again: "That's our box." And she snapped that it wasn't. I asked her to tell me what address was on it, and she said, "I TOLD you the address, it's 3504 Park Place." Then the postman rounded the corner and I asked him if he had delivered us a box and if that was it, and he said yes, and promptly starts chasing her down the street. So the two of them are jogging along -- neither of them in the best shape -- and the postman gives up and gets in his car to go find a police officer. I figure at this point, that while I am not so athletic, THIS is a woman I can catch.

So I start running after her, she's running along saying it's her box, I'm yelling that it's mine (all in bare feet, while holding my poor chest which is in some nursing bra and NOT enjoying this process -- even as I was doing it, the whole thing felt rather amusing) and then I yelled, as she turned the corner, "I have a two week old son and that's his food!"

She slipped into an alley, and by the time I got there she was in a back yard with the fence closed behind her. She said, "This is my back yard, do NOT come in." I stopped and said calmly, "I won't come in, I'll respect your property, but that's my box." As soon as she wasn't being chased anymore, she relaxed, and walked back to the fence to talk to me. She said again that it was her box, and I said, "Just show me the address, and I'll believe you, and I'll apologize." She pulled out the box from under her arm to look at the address and then made a great show of surprise: "Oh, I am SORRY. I apologize from the depth of my heart. I am so sorry" and handed me the box.

I smiled, as if I hadn't just been yelling and chasing this woman down the street, and said, "thank you, you have a great day" and walked away. . .

(It was, as it happened, a box of great clothes and blankets, from Steve's Aunt Linda and Uncle Denny. . . hopefully none of our other friends and family have sent boxes that have gone awry -- but if you know of a package we should have received, let us know!)