Thanksgiving eve/ thanksgiving morning at la pew

So, it's weds. night, and I'm watching some show that talks about common fires that are started on Thanksgving day. They say that one common fire is started by people who deep fry turkeys. (I've never heard of or had a d.f. turkey)

So, I'm thinking that there are probably heaps of people in my bldg. who deep fry turkeys, and I'm thinking about how incompetent my neigbors are and for a few seconds I fear fire.

Thanksgiving morning

I'ts about 7:45 a.m. and I awaken to what initially sounds like my alarm clock. After a few minutes I realize it is the bldg's fire alarm again. We have had to "evacuate" many, many times. But most of the time if my white noise generator is on (I use this day and night due to severe noise pollution) I don't hear the fire alarm. I'm not happy. I consider calling office to see if it is a real fire, but they aren't in on a holiday.

I grab my tennis shoes a light coat, and run down the hallway toward the stairs. (I'm on the 3rd floor) I do smell smoke. I consider for a few seconds what I own of value and that would be, mainly, my journals.

As usual only about 6 people evacuated. There are 160 apts. And as usual I am extremely unimpressed with the Balto. city fire dept. When I first got down the stairs I went through the main lobby (where there is a deafening alarm) and then outside, for which I am not dressed. I am wearing very think cotton long underwear and my tennis shoes are untied. No time to tie them in a fire. Anyhow, I am the only one who bothered to go outside. There are 3 or 4 sitting in the lobby, casually. I don't mess with small talk or hellos. I came back inside and the firement arrived. They seemed very casual. They asked the people in the lobby (i didn't answer any of the questions and wonder why the fire dept. needs so much help from the physically and mentally disabled to fight their damn fire) a lot of questions and for a lot of help.

I do not feel that my life is in very good hands. The fireman asked:

-where is management?
-where is the maint. man?
how do I reach the maint. man?
which apt. is the fire in?

one turned to the other and said

"do you think we should tear the apt. door down?"

I said exactly one sentence that was geared to no one in particular as the fireman left the lobby. Only my 3 neighbors heard me, or so I thought.

I said: "We should not have to help them fight fires"

Oh yes we should my neighbor said angrily to me. A cop came from around the corner and yelled angrily in response to what I said, but geared his comment to my profoundly retarded neighbor.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? WE ARE TRYING TO SOLVE THIS CAUSING THE MINIMAL AMOUNT OF DAMAGE POSSIBLE. "

I can't remember what else he said but it really pissed me off that he's yelling at me, gearing it to this retarded man and implying that I had no right to voice an opinion.

More fireman arrive and cops arrive. They are so casual about this whole thing that after 20 minutes I ask:

"Are we allowed back in our apts?"

"I believe so." said the cop. Didn't sound like a convincing or well informed answer, so I take the steps instead of the elevator, and think it's really weird that so few people leave their apts.

The verdict to all this? Someone burned their sauerkraut. The whole thing leaves me sour. It takes me a long time to go back to sleep. I felt that most upset by the cop that yelled at me. And I thought: Yeah, what motive does he have for being nice on Thanksgiving day? He has to work!

"The La Pew Laundry Rooms"

You've seen me blog on this issue before. There are approximately 10 washers in the bldg. We were down to one that gets my clothes clean. The last 3 times I've washed clothes, a tshirt ended up covered with grease, one ended up torn, one ended up with blood stains, and the grand-daddy of experiences? Do you have a strong stomach or do you want to leave now and go turn on your favorite t.v. program instead of read this? you do have that option you know.................

My neighbor left his wet clothes in the one washer that "works" when I went to remove them I noticed that there were some kind of foreign objects left in the machine. AFter removing all of the clothing I took out the foreign objects? What were the foreign objects?

FECES! YES THAT'S RIGHT! FECES!

I'M AS SICK AS YOU ARE.

AND THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT CAR. NO I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THE OBJECTS WERE UNTIL MY FINGERS CAME IN CONTACT WITH IT...................AND WHERE DID I TAKE THAT CAR BUT STRAIGHT TO THE LAUNDROMAT. REPORT THE INCIDENT? REPORT THE NON WORKING WASHERS?!

THEY DON'T GIVE A RAT'S FECES ABOUT THOSE BROKEN WASHERS, NOR DO THEY GIVE A RAT'S FECES ABOUT ANY OTHER ASPECT OF OUR QUALITY OF LIFE.......................................

"Almost to the exact day, 11/95"

I never in a million years thought that this process of trying to create a normal life for myself would take years upon years upon years upon years, but sadly that's exactly the case.

In 11/95 (the letter is posted on my blog somewhere or another) I was living with an elderly man in Randallstown named Aaron with mental illness and I feared he might kill me. I reached out to a church whose members had never even met me before. They were the Unitarian Church of Baltimore city, and I told them that I needed emergency housing.

One of the members put me up for about 3 months. (I did pay rent.)

Now, 13 years later, I'll again be turning to a group of strangers (different group) to see if I can get out of La Pew..........................................

About a month before I bought the car, I began to fear owning a car at my residence, as I fear it would be vandalized. That fear did come to pass. It's been vandalized more than once. I'll call it light vandalism, but it has lowered the resale value of the car. I can no longer park the car in my assigned parking space overnight. Our bldg. has these "worthless" safety meetings once every 2 months which I occasionally go to. The tenants go and chatter through the meetings not really hearing each other. I mentioned that cars were being vandalized and that I'm terrified to come home after dark, or leave the house after dark. The leader said: "that parking lot is getting deadlier and deadlier every day. They need more lights out there."

(Management isn't going to put more lighting out there as they have never listened to any of our safety concerns")

Perhaps many in my bldg. have resigned themselves that they are too poor to move and they are stuck there for life. But living this way is destroying my health, and I will not ACCEPT la pew as my destiny..................................

"when your home makes you sicker and sicker"

In a situation like this, I have to keep shifting my priorities almost minute by minute. Sometimes my priority was on getting a car, sometimes it's on job hunting, sometimes it's on seeking a safe home. And of course by setting up that donation site on my website I was in theory working on all things at once. (no, i never made a penny)

At the moment I feel that my priority should be on getting out of my apt. Yes, I do need to keep paying my rent, unfortunately, but my intuition is such that I am getting more and more seriously ill, the apt. situation is aging me rapidly and literally killing me. I am going to stay in a hotel for one night tonight to get away from the noise and crime and get some mental clarity and maybe some sleep?

I have placed an ad on craigs list to see if any one (don't worry, I'll use good judgement) wants to do a road trip of sorts someone who hates balto as much as I................................

The latest on the car is that it worked for 24 hours. Now the check engine light is on 24/7 again. The car will make me worry constantly, yet, I can't stress enough that it is a worlds better life than public transit!

Approximately day 14 and beyond ownership of "new chevy"

So, I go to pick up the chevy from my mechanic, but I have the funny feeling that the car won't have been repaired properly. He , "Nate" is supposed to repair the ignition (he didn't), check the engine light that is on all the time (he hasn't noticed), the abs light, and the battery light that are both on intermittently. He hadn't noticed either.

So, when I pick up the car, I leave the lot, and I notice that the key is still getting stick in the ignition. He says: well, I repaired the exhaust. I''m thinking: "huh?" I had no idea that was even an issue" but I'm glad that I didn't have to pay for it, as that was under warranty. The long and the short of it is that by having a new key made off of the "vin" I ended up not needing any kind of major ignition work.

Well, next morning when I go back to the dealer, they imply that I'm some crazy lady that must be seeing things and that if all these lights were really coming on, then Nate would have noticed it. "This isn't a bumper to bumper warranty lady"

However, 2 of the persons working there implied that it was. And the paperwork that I received implied that it was. A couple if my friends implied that I should go with my gut and stand up for myself. That's tough. Especially since I'm so sick, and consumed with my health and the sh.....going on at la pew.

I realized on Tues. that I only had 3 days left on warranty..........................I headed out to Pulaski Hwy. (and nearly got killed on the hwy. maybe i'll tell you about that sometime) because I was forced to use the mechanic that my dealer has a contract with. Quite frankly I didn't know what kind of stunt the dealer would pull. But I have great news. I went with my gut and it turned out that my car needed a tune up and an alternator. So I saved about 250 dollars!

Had I waited until after warranty period, I might have not had the money.

All together I drove 47 miles got horribly lost and even ended up on 95 north with no cell phone......................I won't be using that mechanic again because it's too long of a drive.

I never used to find driving terrifying but roads and highways are terrifying now. I asked myself what's different than from 10 years ago.

Well for one thing, statistically the number of drivers on the road has exponentially increased. People are doing more than double the posted speed limit. 99% of drivers feel that I have no god given right to make a left turn and that I should make my left turn blindly so that they don't get slowed down from their destination point. This is just an example. If human character is a direct reflection of how drivers are treating each other on the roads, then most people really are scum. Well, after the age of 9 years old that is!.........................................That's why I work like nannying brings me so much joy, kids are just a different animal all together!

I wrote this on 11/3 "The latest at La Pew

Remember the maintenance men who regularly stole from me from 6/05 to about 7/08? One left and was replace by another who then got fired. Now that one who got fired struck me as pretty scary as well. I was afraid to have him in my apt.

That one that was fired was replaced by another was who I wasn't afraid to have in my apt. But I just found out that he was also fired because he has a long criminal history. So as far as I can tell if you want to increase your chances of getting hired as a custondian or maintenance man here at La Pew I advise you to heef up your criminal record/resume.

11/7 update

Twisted update/irony

O.K. folks, I have a very sad and scary update. Sad and scary for me that is. 1 p.m. afternoon after we are all basking in Obama's win and I see the old maintenance man in the yard! WHAT THE FU--?! YES! THEY HIRED BACK THE ONE THAT STOLE THE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF STUFF FROM ME! so I am back in major crisis again, having to hide my belongings around the house, and such. And I have just discovered (but I don't know who did it) that another book of new stamps has been stolen from my apt.) So, I've got to up my housing search again.....................................................

"My thoughts on President Elect Obama/(Putting the way i feel (my health) aside)

I'm going to draw from my notes from the last few days here.......................

First of all I am absolutely elated! As I do an overview of my adult life here is the way I see it:

I waited and worked, 28 years to get out of poverty and still waiting,

11.5 years of waiting and list applying to get into section 8 housing,

and 8 years of waiting, multiple list applying and 2 lawyers to win social security disability.

For the most part, I feel that my hard work effects little to no change in my life.......................

but that was not the case on November 4 for me and millions of Americans because on November 4th

I cast my vote at 2 p.m. and 9 hours later

I GOT THE BIGGEST CHANGE OF MY LIFE

BARACK OBAMA

A BEAUTIFUL HUMAN BEING

AN INCREDIBLE POLITICIAN

AN INCREDIBLE FATHER

HUSBAND

ROLE MODEL FOR HUMANS AND ESPECIALLY AFRICAN AMERICANS

AND REAL HOPE FOR MIDDLE LOWER CLASS, LOWER CLASS AND THE POOR

ISN'T IT EXCITING TO SEE THE WHOLE WORLD SO HAPPY FOR US?!

"I rarely, rarely talk about my health on this blog"

Because I'm just not comfortable doing so most of the time. By most accounts, I probably should not go back to work. But I will. I simply have no choice. I have a car to pay for. I want to be productive. I have a whole array of terrifying symptoms. I've been tracking my symptoms daily in writing for almost 15 years. I told my dr. I wanted to show him the list, he didn't ask me to see it, so he still doesn't know about the whole thing. One of the symptoms right now, is that I look like I have chicken pox (but I don't because I've had it before)

I went to minute clinic (in the cvs pharmacy) the other day and the nurse said something very weird......................

I described the spots: And I asked her if she wanted me to take off my sweater; she said:

"Don't show me anything "indecent!"

I just sat there for about 10 seconds having no idea what to do. Then I pulled up my sweater and showed her my stomach. She said: "Have you changed laundry detergent lately?" "No" I said. I told her that I can barely stay awake and that my lungs are inflamed my throat is sore (my joints are always very painful, and weakness is very common for me)

She said, "Probably you have lyme disease"

E-"I've had lyme in the past, but my doc said that my lyme went away"

Nurse "It looks like it's come back, you know, I have lyme"

"I don't want to take a throat culture. What do you want to do"

E "What do you think I should do"

Nurse "You should have your dr. test your blood"

E "So be it, I'll have him do that on Tuesday"

"Spectacularly Beautiful Baltimore, A feast for the eyes to see"

what did elana just say! yes you heard me right! BALTIMORE IS GORGEOUS THIS TIME OF YEAR! I can't get enough of it. Even just driving on Northern Parkway I don't even want to blink for fear of missing a leaf. I know every year doesn't get this beautiful, and most years I miss this since I haven't had a car for 2.5 years. Now, I don't like to be cold, but I have always appreciated autumn and can remember sucking up the beauty of the leaves on the walk to Deer Park Junior High School as a child. In the 2 weeks that I've had the car I've made about 4 trips to parks that I could not make when I didn't have the car. I still have some mechanical concerns about the car, but it is running..............................

If you are in the Northeast, are your eyes enjoying the palettes? I'm thinking about people who for one reason or another move to California and talk about how they miss the change of seasons.