Rumbles in the Bronx

It's been forever.

Well, I guess it's been a month. I've been thinking about the reality of blogging, and my unsuitability for it. It requires a certain talent for current-ness, for keeping up, for "freshness." Me, I'm all about the old, the outdated, the slow. It takes me a long time to chew on last week's news. It takes me a long time to do just about everything.

But city (keeping up) and country (slow) are still on my mind, still the extreme realities of life. These days, we're thinking about our life in the Bronx, about whether or not/how long we'll stay. It's weird to be a gentrifyer, and difficult in many ways; the double challenge of "should we" (participate in pricing out people who've lived here a long time) and "do we want to" (confront the daily challenges of living in a poor, under-serviced, crime-ridden neighborhood) is where we find ourselves.

The latest: you already know that my car was stolen from the block last summer (at least I got to write off the $400 tow-yard cost on my Schedule A this year as a theft loss). J. has had a number of things stolen from his truck as well. My flower pots have been vandalized, and recently someone (who?? why??) tossed our plastic lawn chairs off the roof. There are currently angry/hysterical warning signs throughout the building posted by one of our neighbors, whose bicycle was stolen from the basement. But the biggie: the other night, someone went around puncturing tires on the block, including all four of mine.

J. and I were out on the street pumping up the tires the next morning, not yet aware that they'd been punctured (the holes were super-tiny), hoping that possibly the vandals just let the air out, for pranks. A guy who works in the neighborhood stopped to chat and asked us what happened. His take was basically this: "Well, you got two ways of looking at it. Since it was a whole bunch of cars, at least you can think, 'It wasn't just me,' and you don't have to feel like you've been targeted or anything, like it's personal. And at least it's just kids playing pranks, you know. Once I had both my mirrors stolen, and when I found out it was a bunch of people lost their mirrors, I felt better. Even though it cost me 500 bucks to replace them. A few years back, one of the tire repair shops was paying kids to slash tires in the neighborhood; that guy's been closed down, though. So consider yourselves lucky, you know. It could always be worse."

Well, seeing as the tires were indeed punctured, we're thinking that old scam may have been revived; and we're not feeling so lucky. How long will my new tires last? Maybe my mirrors are next?

I feel lucky that J. was with me to help pump up the tires and get the car to Maria's Tire Shop. I feel lucky that someone stopped to try and encourage me that I'm lucky. I feel lucky that the car is still running (and that it was recovered by the police last summer). And I feel lucky for my three days in the country after all that, which was good rest & recovery time (it's amazing how porch and sky can heal the soul).

The window boxes are out on the fire escape, I planted bok choy, gai laan, and Japanese mustard seeds. Trying snapdragons for the first time, too. Not sure if I'll put in the time for roof or stoop or backyard plants here; doesn't feel safe.